Seratollia

Seratollia was one of the two great elven kingdoms during the Age of Wonders, alongside Alliandea. Seratollia was the eastern of the two kingdoms, located east of Aegea. Seratollia was not a city built within the forest so much as a city that had grown from it.

Great trees rose through the heart of the city, their immense trunks forming living columns for towers that climbed hundreds of feet into the canopy. Bridges of pale stone and polished crystal curved between the branches, sometimes spanning impossible distances without visible supports. Delicate walkways seemed to float among the leaves, held aloft by magic so old and pervasive that no one thought to question it. At night, the city shimmered with its own light: softly glowing runes traced the roads, silver-blue radiance flowed through channels carved into the stone, and thousands of tiny lights drifted through the branches like stars caught beneath the canopy.

The buildings of Seratollia were works of both architecture and magic. Slender towers rose from living trees without harming them, their walls formed from seamless white stone, translucent crystal, and enchanted wood. Great windows curved outward like petals, catching the sunlight and scattering it into shifting colors across the streets below. Some structures appeared almost impossibly delicate, their arches and spires so thin that they seemed incapable of supporting their own weight, yet they had stood for centuries through storms, wars, and the upheavals of the Fall of the Age of Wonders.

The elves had little need to distinguish between the natural and the artificial. Gardens grew across rooftops and terraces, while vines deliberately shaped themselves around balconies and columns. Water flowed through elevated channels from one level of the city to another, sometimes climbing upward against gravity before cascading into pools far below. Trees were incorporated into homes, halls, plazas, and towers, with entire chambers carved into living trunks and illuminated by the warm glow of enchanted leaves.

At the heart of the city stood the greatest structures of Seratollia: immense elven towers rising above the canopy, connected by sweeping bridges and terraces. From their highest levels, the city would have appeared less like a settlement imposed upon the forest and more like a second, artificial canopy growing alongside the natural one.

Magic was woven into nearly every aspect of life. Doors opened at a gesture. Lamps brightened as someone approached. Water appeared where it was needed, tools moved without hands, and ancient enchantments maintained structures that would otherwise have required constant labor. Roads were designed as much for beauty as for travel, curving naturally around trees and gardens rather than imposing rigid lines upon them.

Seratollia represented the height of elven civilization during the Age of Wonders: a place where architecture, nature, magic, and technology were not competing ideals but parts of the same philosophy. Its greatest achievement was not that the elves had conquered the forest, but that they had learned to make something magnificent within it without destroying what was already there.

The Drow War

During the Age of Wonders, Ulanthar became involved in Correries' experiments on elves. Correries was attempting to create a "master race," and Ulanthar eventually discovered how to make the experiments successful. The result was the creation of the drow, elves who were evil to the core.

The drow waged war against the other elves, and much of this conflict was centered around Seratollia. The war was a major reason the elves played little role in much of the later Under the Bus campaign.

Following the upheaval surrounding the Fall of the Age of Wonders and the separation of Demmazon's realm, Seratollia remained comparatively intact. This made the territory a valuable possession amid the devastation that had affected much of the world.

The good elves eventually withdrew from Seratollia, leaving the territory to the Dark Elves. This was not simply a military defeat in which the elves were driven from their homeland. The elves deliberately chose to abandon the territory rather than continue a costly war for it. They believed they could have continued fighting, and potentially won, but at a considerable cost. Instead, they chose to withdraw and preserve their people rather than sacrifice them for the territory.

The Dark Elves regarded themselves as the winners of the war for Seratollia and defended the territory fiercely. By the end of the Under the Bus campaign, they continued to hold the forests around Seratollia, including defending them against incursions by the forces of Filtiarn.

Later History

The campaign does not establish what happened to Seratollia immediately after the end of Under the Bus. The subsequent history jumps approximately 10,000 years, so the intervening history of Seratollia is presently unknown.