Alter Aeon The Great Library

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Note - as with any topic, researchers should question the reliability
and veracity of these texts.  The library's aim is to preserve
documents, not verify accuracy.

AABN:  13791
Title: a book entitled "Races of Men: The Quelese"

The origin of their race is ancient, and their former glory always spoken
of with reverence: the Quelese. Ages ago the Dragon Emperor of Suboria sent
forth a colony vessel to the mainland. The stalwart Suborian humans
established a colony near the Inner Sea, now called the salt flats. They
began to build a provincial outpost in the style of their ancestors.

Legends say that a band of murlocks, perhaps the earliest account of the
U'ra tribe, came marauding along the coast. The Suborians sent out a war
party to meet them. The murlocks avoided the men, and ransacked their
poorly defended village. When they finally did meet, the humans scattered
the murlocks. Returning home victorious, they found their colony in ashes.

Sorrowed, they wandered the wilderness. They were unable to return to
Suboria and, without their women, they could not re-establish a colony.

In their wanderings they came across a village of High Elves. The elves,
too, had sent out a war party to confront the murlocks. They weakened the
marauders greatly (which is why the humans were able to defeat them, it is
said), but at the cost of many lives. Only a few elf men remained. The
Suborians were welcomed into their village. Many took wives among the
widows of the elves. From these unions a new race sprang forth - the
Quelese.

Stronger than elves and more agile than humans, they inherited the best of
their parent races. They combined the energy and ambition of humans with
the long lives and wisdom of elves. They excelled in all manner of arts,
from metalworking to magecraft. The city they built, Q'thelas, became the
seat of a mighty Kingdom, with far-flung colonies from the edge of the
modern Kingdom of Avalon to the eastern coast of the mainland.

They developed many cunning arts. Living machines they built, tireless
sentries and soldiers powered by elemental magic. They forged
goblin-cleavers: edged weapons with handles of holly and masterwork blades
of mithril, set with starstones in their hilts. They wove gems into armor,
creating nearly indestructible diamondweave garments and prismatic armor
that absorbed spells. They mastered the art of hardening copper, while
maintaining its maleability. With advanced alchemy, they developed
metallurgical arts and mage-craft beyond all imagining.

During the Great Wars, Q'thelas was destroyed. Many of the Quelese
scattered, but the main body of the survivors migrated to their outermost
colony on the island of Q'Inag. There they built a mighty city that would
become seat to another Kingdom, the Naginag Combine.

Today, the Quelese bloodlines have dwindled as they mingled with other
races of men. Many believe the tall, pointy-eared, blonde-haired,
blue-eyed, slender folk that live in the Naginag Combine to be the
archetype of the Quelese race. However, those of the purest Quelese
bloodlines have the black hair and dark eyes of their Suborian ancestors.