For nearly five thousand years, the landmass of Eldoria was sealed away from the wider world of Eldyrin by a catastrophe of its own making. Its rulers fabricated nine false gods to wrest power from the true pantheon, and the spiritual energy of millions, redirected toward deities who did not exist, caused the continents to seal themselves behind impassable fog. This is the world in which Vallombrosa sits.
The World Before
Eldoria was one region of the wider world of Eldyrin, home to diverse nations: the militaristic Vurgorim, the fairy kingdom of Jovirim, the merchant republic of Thornehold, the Sylvan elf territories of Sulkwood, the Druid Freeholds, the half-orc territories of Yaephegor, and a scatter of island nations. Gods walked in mortal affairs, and clerics drew real power from real sources.
The Tribunal of Cloudstone
In the year 1 BN, the rulers of every major Eldorian power gathered at Cloudstone in Thornehold to address the gods' influence over mortal affairs. Rather than negotiate with the divine, they fabricated nine gods from whole cloth — the Church of the Wheel, later the Church of the Nine — and collectively suppressed all mention of the true pantheon. Their cynical logic: if people stopped praying to the real gods, those gods would lose their hold. What no one foresaw was that millions redirecting their faith to invented deities caused the true gods to withdraw entirely. The seas turned impassable, and Eldoria sealed itself away from the world.
The Age of the Church
For nearly five millennia, Eldoria lived in isolation under the Church of the Nine. The fabricated religion became the dominant power; the true gods, dismissed as "the Defeated Gods," were reduced to heresy. The Church was not without function — it curbed warfare, established law, and built lasting institutions. And the true gods never wholly vanished; they channeled what power they could through the gaps in the false theology, and waited.
The Final Crisis
Several threats converged at once. Vecna, a wizard of terrible ambition, sought to use the Tome of Undeath to draw Orcus onto the material plane. Against him stood the Last Wrongs — a band of adventurers including a half-elf druid secretly heir to Jovirim, a tiefling cleric, a sylvan elf sorceress, a half-orc paladin, and a goliath barbarian. Vecna was destroyed by heroes from Faerûn who crossed into the sealed continents. In the aftermath, High Inquisitor Thalia Mordaine militarized the Church to consolidate power, intending to harness the Manifestation of the Nine — an entity of pure, concentrated false-divine power born of thousands of years of belief — as the engine of her theocracy.
The Great Reunion
The Last Wrongs defeated the Manifestation of the Nine at Eacromar, and the Church's authority collapsed. Clerics noticed their prayers felt different — fuller, more resonant. The impassable seas thinned and lifted, and ships from Faerûn and the wider Eldyrin sailed through for the first time in five thousand years. The Great Reunion that followed was a decade of first contact, cultural shock, and theological upheaval. The true pantheon was restored alongside the Church's surviving institutions, and Eldoria was changed for good.
Relevance to Venturia
The Vallombrosa campaign takes place in this post-Reunion world, on the island of Maeve within Eldoria. The Last Wrongs were the heroes of an earlier age — and the restored pantheon is the theological ground on which today's clerics, warlocks, and divine magic stand. The Reunion's central tension, manufactured belief against genuine truth, echoes through Venturia still.