Little remains of the history of our former home. What history we have inherited is thanks to the few scholars who, in the final days of Encara, gathered what little they could carry—volumes deemed of greatest value, accounts hurriedly transcribed, and the scattered recollections of those who bore witness to our world's end. Some of the Felaari lorekeepers survived, their traditions of ancestral memory carried with them across the planes. Yet even that once-unbroken chain has begun to fray. The magic that enabled their lineage of recollection was bound to the leylines of Encara, and here, in this new world of Thaedros, it fades. I have spoken with the eldest of the lorekeepers, and they lament the slow erosion of their people's most sacred inheritance. What once passed unerringly from mind to mind is now a thing of uncertainty, requiring ink and parchment to hold that which memory no longer guarantees.
Thus, we must act while recollection still holds, while the last of those who lived in that age yet draw breath, before our past is lost forever. In the safety of our new home, it is tempting to look only forward, to concern ourselves with the now and the next, to build a future where the wounds of the past do not trouble us. But to turn our backs on our history is to invite its errors to return to us in new forms. It is my belief, and the belief of those who have contributed to this work, that we must remember not merely for the sake of knowledge, but for the wisdom it grants us.
We must remember Encara as it was before the war, before the great sundering of nations. We must understand the greed and desperation that drove empires to expand beyond their means, the ambition that led mages to unlock forces they could not control. We must acknowledge our hubris, our sins, the follies that led us to destruction, so that we do not guide Thaedros down the same ruinous path. It is easy to look upon the Imperium's aggression and assign them the role of villain, but the truth is not so simple. The Kaldjari sought survival, as did we all. It is only in hindsight that we see how desperate ambition blinded us all, how each step toward war made peace less possible. And in the end, what did it avail us?
The works gathered here come from many hands. The journals of scholars and soldiers, the records of rulers and the desperate scrawlings of those caught in the storm. Many of these accounts conflict with one another, as is always the case with history. A soldier's memory of a battle will never match the reports of those who commanded it. The decisions of a king may seem wise in a letter but foolish to the peasants who suffered their consequences. It is my hope that, through careful preservation and study, we might weave together something resembling truth.
Let none mistake this effort as mere nostalgia. We must remember Encara not because it is lost to us, but because what happened there may one day happen again. If we allow ourselves to forget the cradle of our civilization and the doom to which it fell, then doubtless will our children, our grandchildren, or some distant generation of our people commit this world to the same dark end. Our ancestors built wonders beyond imagining, and yet none of that availed them when the Multitude came. The choices we make now will shape the destiny of Thaedros. If we are to have a future worth the suffering that brought us here, then we must know where we came from, and we must carry those lessons forward into the world we now call home.
This is a record of our final years on Encara. A warning, a lesson, and a testament to all that was lost. It is not a complete history, nor will it ever be. But it is what we have, and what we must preserve—for those who come after us, and for the world we hope to build.
-Magister Gerrod Kalvordan
Vice Dean of Historical Preservation
New Yldanian University
Twelfth of Simald, in the year One-hundred and Twenty-five, post diaspora