Editing Estorium (section)

==History==
Estorium was a predominantly [[human]] empire that stretched across much of the southern continent. Seven hundred years ago, their empire was devastated by a surprise attack by the mind flayer empire of the underdark. Unable to achieve victory against the mind flayers' powerful psionic powers, Estorium's mages studied the mind flayers and ultimately created living psionic constructs called [[shardmind]]s. With the help of the shardminds, they were eventually able to turn the tide and defeat the mind flayers. Unfortunately, their own once-grand empire lay in ruins; it was estimated that perhaps only ten percent of the population survived. The mages knew that the mind flayers would someday return, and so they placed the shardminds into hibernation until such a time as they were needed once more. They also created artifacts that could grant psionic abilities to the surface races, who lacked such powers. Most of the survivors then sailed north, across the sea, and settled in the towns and cities untouched by the war.

For several hundred years, the ruins of Estorium remained largely untouched and were reclaimed by the wilds. All but the most dedicated of adventurers avoided Estorium; most who ventured within were never seen again. Those who did return confirmed sightings of aberrations such as grell, large natural beasts, and a few scattered reports of wyverns. There were also rumors that some cities had become inhabited by orium dragons.

In the year [[Calendar#Year 2959|2959]], the wizard [[Tephra]] opened a portal to the Far Realm within the ruins of Estorium's former capital of [[Derenath]]. As a result of the actions undertaken by various adventurers to close this portal, the Estorian sorceress Vyrellis was freed from imprisonment. Seeing an opportunity to finally rule Estorium, she sought out and freed countless other Estorian mages from the timeless magical prisons their brethren had locked them within; after securing pledges of loyalty to her as their queen, she claimed much of Estorium for herself. She relinquished only the western reaches, granting them to [[Leardon Sunflare]] in exchange for mutual aid in defeating Tephra and offical recognition of her own claim.

Vyrellis invited spellcasters of all varieties and from all across Syra to become citizens of Estorium, promising support in whatever forms of magical research they sought to undertake.