The Setting

The Karrnath's Realm, Eastern reaches of the Glittering Empire.

Far from having faded away over time, the kingdom carved by Loktar Ironshield has endured -- as has Loktar -- in one form or another over the millennia.

Driven east, first by highly organized halfling raiders, and then by the terribly cold winters that followed his routing in the mid 10th century, Loktar's remaining dwarves fell back to their fortresses along the Black Peaks, only to find them swarming with orcs and goblins.







Rather than fight head-on, which was what cost him most of the Glittering Lands to begin with, Loktar took his queue from the halflings, and staged surprise raids, first cutting off orcish villages from their neighbors, and then picking off the survivors one by one, reestablishing the area as a base camp, and beginning anew.
Loktar soon saw that his numbers would not last. Rather than slaughtering the orcs, he began to spare them, enslaving them, and found them all too eager to fight other orcish clans. The slave-troops took particular delight in raids on the goblin settlements....


"Masks of the Dreaming Night" takes place primarily in the ruined elven kingdom of Alfheim.

The following alterations have been worked into the Gazetteer 5 timeline:


3000 BC Andahar’s Engine causes Demon’s Excoriation. Backlash taints the planetary source of magic, driving wizards insane, who then remake the world in their madness. Elves separate from Men, finding seclusion in the forests of Vulcania.
2800 BC Seeds of madness begin appearing in elves. Illsundal takes those still unaffected and begins the Long March to the north.
2100 BC Group of elves, sickening, settle in Glantri, unable to continue.
2100 BC Illsundal’s migration reaches the Sylvan Realm
1800 BC Illsundal’s research yields the first Tree of Life, securing his Immortality.
1700 BC Lesser Rain of Fire: Either seeking a cure to their rotting disease, driven by its resulting madness, or at the behest of the demons whispering from the other side of the Seal, elves tamper with the dimensional seal laid over the ley line nexus along the southern fringes of Northern Grondheim
1100 BC Falling of the East and Western stars: Gateseeds crash in the Colossus Mounts and Sundsvall Barrens on Alphatia
1000 BC Alphatians make Landfall through their Gate, unknowingly bringing thousands more ethereal demons through with them before they close and seal the Gateway.
800 BC Mealiden calls for evacuation of the Sylvan Realm. Clans take cuttings from the Tree of Life. Feadiel clan remains behind to secure the Rainbow Bridge against Moorkroft’s forces. Weatherchange ceremonies begin, as elves replant the cuttings, infusing the lands with the magic inherent in the Tree of Life.
700 BC Canolbarth raised. Mealiden acclaimed king of the Elves of Alfheim
500 BC Nithian Empire falls, is purged from mortal memory
350 BC Mealiden abdicates, Alevar of Grunalf becomes king
250 BC Mealiden achieves Immortality in the Sphere of Energy
0 AC First emperor of Thyatis crowned
100 AC Celedryl is crowned king of Alfheim
550 AC Illodius, first lieutenant of Moorkroft, invades Alfheim with an army of demons and beast men. 
560 AC White Witches descend on Alfheim on their pillars of light. Tide of battle turns in elves’ favor. Witches begin unraveling and reweaving the forest’s magic into a barrier.

600 AC Sylvan Realm goes dark.
675 AC Alfheim goes silent. A few hundred yards from the borders, all but a few pockets of the forest is turned to stone. Razor-thin sheets of a glossy, black stone stretch at seemingly random intervals between trees, creating an impossible labyrinth of dizzying, warped reflections. None who dare to explore the maze return.

998 AC: Events of Thorn's Chronicle take place.



Darklands of Skothar

Original Mystara World Map by Kal, modified with modified versions of Thorf's legend hexes

The Sylvan Realm, c. 1900 BC

(based on the map from Bruce Heard's CM7: The Tree of Life)

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