Each clan on Aristagon has a similar story, differing in almost all points with one exception. All elves believe that they “came from above,” which is, essentially, the truth. The Sartan, on first arriving in the World of Sky, settled the mensch in the High Realms while they worked to build the Kicksey-winsey and waited for the signal from the other worlds. This signal was, of course, a long time coming. The Sartan were forced to resettle the mensch—whose populations were growing rapidly—to the Mid and Low realms. In order to bring water to the mensch (until the Kicksey-winsey could be made to work), they built the Everwell.
The Sartan constructed three huge towers at Fendi, Gonster, and Templar. These rune-covered towers, working through Sartan magic, collect rainwater, store it, and parcel it out on a controlled basis. Once every month, the three towers open their floodgates and send three rivers of water cascading down channels cut into the coralite, channels that have been magically sealed to keep the water from seeping away into the porous material.
The rivers converge at a central point, forming the shape of a Y, and plummet in a magnificent fall down into the Everwell —an underground cavern lined with rock brought from the Ancient Earth. A fountain called “Wal’eed” gushes from the center, providing water to all who need it.
This system was designed to be temporary, was intended to provide water to a small populace. But the mensch populations grew, and the Sartan population dwindled. The water supply— once so plentiful no one thought of conserving it—was now counted almost drop by drop.
Following the War of the Firmament,* the Paxar elves, reinforced by the Kenkari, emerged as strongest of the clans. They claimed the Everwell, set guards over the Wal’eed fountain, and built their king’s palace around the site.
*A battle fought when the Paxar attempted to settle what later became known as the Valley of the Dragons. It was during this battle that Krenka-Anris discovered how to capture souls and use them to enhance elven magic. The Paxar allied with the Kenkari to defeat the dragons. Those dragons that survived flew to human lands, where they found a welcome. Human magic, which deals with living things and natural properties, can enchant dragons. Elven magic, which deals with mechanics, cannot.
The Paxar continued to share water with the other elven clans and even the humans, who had once lived on Aristagon, but who had moved to Volkaran and Ulyndia. The Paxar never cut the water off, never charged for it. Paxar rule was benevolent and well-intentioned, if patronizing. But the threat to disrupt vital water supplies was omnipresent.
The hot-blooded Tribus clan considered it demeaning and humiliating to be forced to beg—as they considered it—for water. They were not pleased at having to share water with humans, either. This dispute eventually resulted in the Brother-blood, a war between the Tribus and the Paxar elves that lasted three years and resulted in the Tribus clan taking over Paxaria.
The final blow came to the Paxar when the Kenkari, self-proclaimed neutrals in the conflict, secretly threw the support of the elven souls, held in the Cathedral of the Albedo, to the Tribus. (The Kenkari have always denied that they did this. They insist that they remained neutral, but no one, particularly the Paxar, believes them.)
The Tribus razed the Paxar king’s palace and built a larger one on the site of the Everwell. Known as the Imperanon, it is almost a small city within itself. It includes the Palace, the Sanctuary Parks, used exclusively by the royal family, the Cathedral of the Albedo, and, below ground, the Halls of the Unseen.
Once a month, the towers built by the Sartan sent forth life-giving water. But now the Tribus controlled it. Other elven clans were forced to pay a tax, supposedly for upkeep and maintenance costs. The humans were denied water altogether. Tribus coffers were getting rich. Other elven clans, angered at the tax, sought their own supplies of water and found them, down below, in Drevlin.
The other clans, particularly the Tretar, who invented the famous dragonships, began to prosper. Tribus might have withered on its own vine, but, fortunately for them, desperate humans began to attack the dragonships, steal the water. Faced with this threat, the various elven clans forgot old differences, banded together, and formed the Tribus empire, whose heart is the Imperanon.