Faerie history
Giants: The Old Adversary
All of the fae cultures have legends about a huge war waged against giants, but the particulars of the battle vary widely. All have stories of how the druids brought the scattered fae peoples together. The greatest crafters and mages forged two great spears - one made of mithril and white yew, the Spear of Dawn. The other has a head of dark adamant and a shaft of black mahogany, the Spear of Dusk. The Druids chose two leaders, one to gather forces on the surface and attack the great citadel of the giants, the other take half of the forces and speed through the secret holes of the earth, flanking the enemy. All pledged to follow these leaders into battle, and together they were successful. The great adversary, the giant king was defeated, and thus, the dual office of the High King was born.
High Kings
The identities of first high kings are matter of much heated discussion among the ollaves. Most races claim that one of their gods or heroes was one of the first High Kings. The Great Druids seem amused by the whole debate; as is their fashion, say little on the subject.
Seelie and unseelie have their own ways of choosing a High King. This joint office is only open to the kings of Faerie and their heirs, but the Druids must approve all of the contestants. The Druids have been known to winnow out the contestants from hundreds to merely a handful. Representatives of the Great Druids attend the contests.
High Kings retain their own lands.
In springtime the seelie kings meet in a great contest of arms and strategy in a mountain vale on Tir-nan-Og. It is an occasion of great feasting and pageantry. One set of games is merely physical; the other involves luck and strategy. The winners of these pageants are taken to a sacred oak where the Druids have placed the Spear of Light. Only a small opening can be seen in the bole of the tree. The contestant that pulls out the spear becomes the new Seelie High King.
The unseelie meet in a secret place, and their dark rites are secret too. All that is known is that many of the nobles who venture there do not return.
The High Kings hold their office until they choose to retire, or death takes them. Most retire, as they grow old and infirm - usually when they pass on their kingdoms to their children. It is unseemly for a High King not to be recognized as a king by his people.
Finvarra of the sidhe is the current High King of Seelie. Balor, the last High King of the Unseelie hid or destroyed the Spear of Dusk. Since that time there has been no Unseelie High King. Although some of the kings of Rolgulka have claimed the title, the Great Druids have not recognized them.
The Faerie Civil War
Several decades before the humans arrived, the appointed Seelie High King died just before the office was to pass to him. While the Druids kept silent on the issue of the succession, Balor, the Unseelie High King, kept the throne.
And kept it.
And kept it.
And kept it.
Each spring, the seelie nobles would gather and contest their right to be high king, but none could draw the spear from the oak. There was no seelie High King for many, many years.
Balor withdrew from Tir Nan Og and proclaimed that Faerie itself mandated an Unseelie Era. He drew up a great citadel in unclaimed lands on the far side of Faerie from his sidhe kin and gathered dark minions to his side. He disbanded the Glimmerglas and created his own Unseelie knights, the Fists of Balor, to serve him. The Unseelie high king began demanding tribute and sent his servants out into Faerie to gather its riches.
The years rolled on and his power grew, as Balor's wealth was exceeded only by his greed. Soon the sidhe began to speak out, as did the elves and many of the sylva, but the dwarves grew wealthy as Balor purchased more and more weapons and the rolgulka became his lieutenants - the mighty orcs were the core of Balor's growing army. For the first time Faerie grew via conquest - an empire was forming.
Then came Finvarra. Few fae would claim their Seelie ties as the years passed and the springtime contests for high king became a joke - Unseelie began coming to the events in large numbers to heckle the feckless contestants. More and more of the Seelie nobles avoided the farce, some who did particularly well in previous years tended to have "accidents" between matches. But Finvarra held his head high, and though he was but a boy the crowd was hushed when the great oak was spilt asunder by bolt of lighting, revealing the spear to his hand.
Balor and many of the Unseelie cried foul at the choice, pointing to the great oak's destruction, but Balor's excesses and the rise of a seelie claimant led to a civil war. The sidhe were first to join, soon followed by the ljosalfar, who for the first time in many centuries raised sword against the dekkalfar, their brothers.
It was a brutal war - thousands upon thousands were slaughtered. Some Seelie supported Balor, since he was their king, but many began to defect. The Druids were slow to react; in fact, the struggle almost tore them apart. They tried to remain neutral and broker a peace, but it just got out of hand.
For a while the dwarves still supported Balor, but eventually they could no longer. The dwarves' "betrayal" of the Unseelie was the event that turned the tide of the war for Finvarra. For a long time before this action the dwarven kings were not sending all of the weapons they could to Balor, some smiths even booby-trapped siege engines and magic weapons given to the Unseelie. (It's not good to be a dekkalfar's enemy, much less try to use dwarven-forged weapons against the might of the dwarven jarls.)
Finally, in the penultimate hour, even the rolgulka defected to Finvarra's banner. Those that fought with Balor at the last were destroyed and driven into the wastelands (now the eastern part of the Themes). All of the formorians that could be found were killed. It was a time of unthinking bloodlust and madness for the seelie. Balor, though grievously wounded by the Elf King Aegil, escaped into his citadel and his body was never found.
