The one true and rightful ruler of Arduin, King Tarafass Dawnstar of the Royal House of the Rising Sun, closed the borders of his kingdom, and forbade entry of non-Elves. He knew the findings of the College of Sages in Falohyr and what they portended for his realm. He called up his silver mailed cavalry, his bronze sheathed and rock steady spearmen, his silent archers clothed in forest green, and his personal guard, the famed Golden Knights of the Dawn. When asked why, he answered, “Because men are men, and ever their hearts shall covet the power about us”.

The predicted ultimatum arrived, borne by a dust covered messenger from the kingdom of Morvaen, their eastern Human neighbor. It demanded that the people of Arduin become as one with the people of Morvaen so that together they could rule all the nexus lands. King Tarafass sent the messenger flying home with the reply “Arduin has been Elven since even before the dark years, and Elven it stands or dies. Take us if you can!”

The first battle was joined in a pass in the Brass Mountains called “The Trumpet’s Throat”. The Morvaenian pikemen led the storm of the small keep that guarded the pass, and of survivors there were none. Rushing through the pass, the army of Morvaen spilled out onto the Plains of Paranon leaving destruction in their wake.

As the invading horde poured into the beautiful Forest of Flame, there was no thought of anything but victory in the minds of the three generals who lead them until Arduin’s first line of defense made itself known. The archers who waited that fateful day were as invisible as the very air about the wondrous trees that they called their home. Invisible, that is, until their green, glowing, raining arrow sleeted into the ranks of the invaders. Stunned but not beaten were the veteran pikemen of Morvaen, retreating and then reforming, gathering their arbalesters about them.

The Morvaenian generals deployed their wild mountain tribesmen allies to face the rain of whistling green death. Nearly annihilated, the barbarians were able to close in and to bring their axes to striking distance. Outnumbered, the tribesmen fell to the last man, but it gained time for the pikemen to regroup and overrun, outfight, and finally route the Elven archers. The few who managed to escape returned again and again to send a shaft through an eye here, a whistling death to a heart there, in a continual harassment and vengeance that lasted the long night through.

With dawn, the invaders left the forest that would henceforth bear the name “The Weeping Woods”. Tired, battered, and angry with their lost thousands within the trees, they were shaken to their souls to hear the brazen wail of the great Elf horn. Before them stood the bronze Elven spearmen and the remaining archers in green. As their cries of dismay whirled in their generals’ ears, the great horn again sounded, and with mighty shouts, the Elven host charged down upon them!