The Greytides
The people of Elthos and Salthos understand that the world has experienced three cataclysmic events called . They involved the emergence of all manner of terrible beings from dark and forgotten places of the world, and from , which swept across the surface, or at least across Elthos. The Greytides are told of most often in the form of oral history and tales. There is very little written evidence of the Greytides and, while expecting extensive written records to survive that long would be wishful thinking at the best of times, the Greytides are so closely linked to magic that few indeed would wish for writing; writings about magic bring ill fortune and are banned by imperial law.
Demons are often referred to in the stories, although they are shaky about specifying quite what a demon is, being everything from great winged monsters to humanlike creatures, shapeless masses or even just incorporeal shadows. More relatable for the storytellers are warped and twisted beasts, various humanoids and, for that matter, humans. These are threats which are easier to describe, because they need only ask a warrior who has spent long enough in engaged with the creatures of the Terror - if they believe them. The name Greytide stems from the grey murk and shadow which spread over the world along with the advancing horde.
The First Greytide
The First Greytide, in the 700s BF, is a matter of myth and conjecture, with scant shreds of evidence. It certainly wrought immense damage on Elthos, but had no appreciable impact on Salthos. A few places in Elthos survived intact. People who fled into the vast swamps called the , now held by House Ehrhart, survived. The people of Gilvic, a region in southern , home to , also apparently survived. The entire , and the much smaller , seem to have come through the Greytide intact, and if not intact, then at least the only Elthosian polities that definitely pre-date the First Greytide. Some ancient island settlements in the Encircled Sea survived, most notably in the , now home to Houses Mardas and . Other places crumbled before the onslaught. People must certainly have survived in Elthos, because they were present to repopulate it.
Tales of how the Greytide was defeated are utterly speculative. Some say that the Greytide simply subsided. Others state that the hosts of Westelth embarked on a Great March. A few maintain that the gods themselves entered the fray. The stories are myriad and ultimately inconsistent. The people of Salthos received a number of Elthosian refugees early on, but there were only so many ships, and they did not make return trips. Salthosian accounts indicate that Elthos spent years shrouded in grey.
The Second Greytide
After the First Greytide, people in some places made preparations for another such invasion. This included the foundation of , home of House Albalaski, in particular its citadel, the Icespire, and , home of House Karalis, amid myriad lesser fortresses. When the Second Greytide struck in the late 200s BF, over half a millennium after the first, it was again immensely destructive, but people fought back. Wayguard has no paper records of what happened, but words carved into a monument by the Underway gate depicting warriors state: "Here by the great artifice of the Karazil was the Greytide repulsed." It is a point of great pride in House Karalis that their home was saved, though nobody today knows what "great artifice" means. The stories are consistent on one point: the attack on Wayguard came from the Underway.
Vilslev and the Icespire withstood the attack. Nothing is written of what happened, but the stories all point to mages who directly challenged the demonic magic. Detail beyond that goes into wild speculation and conjecture, though a favourite in Lonin is a story of great storms being brought down upon the invaders.
were founded during the Second Greytide, with their stated mission to oppose the Grey Below. The traditions and stories of various lesser fortresses which survived sometimes attribute it to the arrival of Custodians.
The stories of how the Second Greytide ended are at least slightly more consistent: it was defeated by strength of arms or magic. Some of the stories refer mostly to the people of Elthos, sometimes Salthos too. A few speak of dwarves marching from across ; the people of Wayguard certainly believe that Worldspine dwarves arrived to reinforce the fortress. There are some stories that the warriors of the fantastical Cornucopian Realms arrived in all their splendour and cast back the demons.
The Third Greytide
The Third Greytide went differently. People were forewarned. Before it even happened, a man named emerged in eastern Elthos and swiftly established the . Some - though probably not adherents of the Cult of Valon, which often maintains that he made a simple promise, of security, and people heeded it - may debate whether it was by political acumen, charisma, strength of will, or simple force that he consolidated power. In a still greater feat, he convinced people from across Elthos that another Greytide was imminent. He founded the vast city of , with its outer walls encompassing enough ground to shelter a very great many people - by some accounts, many millions were housed within the city, although the prospect of feeding that many people is so daunting that most assume the number was much smaller.
The Third Greytide struck in 21 AF - two decades after Sanctuary was first established - and lasted for two years. Unlike the first and second, the tide moved with alarming purpose towards Sanctuary. In Lonin, it bypassed any stronger fortresses and the people sheltered within. The demons conducted a haphazard attack on Wayguard then withdrew into the Underway, although as before, the tide still emerged from underground elsewhere.
One anomaly is noted in Salthos during the Third Greytide, in southern . Pillars of light, extending into the sky as far as the eye could see, were occasionally spotted far, far to the south, presumably somewhere in the great jungle of . Records indicate that some time in 22 AF, multiple such pillars of light manifested over Nome and the town at its heart. They vanished again some moments later. People hurried south and found nothing but blasted ruin - even mighty stone buildings had melted, and the ground was in places fused into glass.
Many maintain that the size of the Third Greytide eclipsed the first two, though others point out that there are no reliable accounts of the first and scarcely more of the second. Whatever the case, the demonic host assembled beyond Sanctuary and broke time and again against the city walls, held at bay by the concentrated might of warriors and mages from across Elthos, foremost among them Valon and his Companions. Two years into the siege, Valon traversed the . The siege persisted for a matter of weeks afterwards, with the Greytide's assaults becoming increasingly vicious, until, one day, a great, blinding light down from the heavens. The demons vanished amid that light, and Sanctuary's defenders were swift to destroy what remained of the tide. At that time, mages in Elthos and Salthos lost the ability to use their powers.