Silvergleam was a Silurite region in the Elvish Empire, roughly corresponding to the area of the western Humanolabô. The name emerged together with the adoption of deep mining and mithral-smithing, and disappeared after the area's political makeup and population largely disappeared.

Historical Overview

Mining and metallurgy were arts characteristic of the “Silvergleam” Region, an expanse of cultivated hillocks and small lakes and streams, along with densely wooded slopes in the south, in the elven realm of Silur - stretching from the northern coast to the Cazz mountains.

The major houses in the region were of high elven majority, along with a few minor wood and dark elven houses. There was also a sizable moon elven population, nearly completely structured in small autonomous tribes, most of which were subjects of one or the other house.

Economic activities of the citizenry included husbandry, cultivation of slope-growing crops, and pisciculture and ocean fishing. Elite noble families however did not however indulge in these trades, or in base mercantilism, instead often focusing their learning on more artistic crafts, such as music, magic, painting, architecture, and clerical service.

Starting in 4’700, deep mines in the mountains began hitting useful ores of iron, silver, and mithral, in no small part thanks to the support and expertise of (mostly dwarven) engineers from nearby Daggerford; the access to new metals turned the craft of metallurgy from a crude working of working copper, bronze, and iron into household tokens, into an affair more suitable to noble tastes.

The house nobility gained a liking for intricate, magically fueled works of magic. Three houses chose to send six of their heirs to learn metallurgy with the elven and dwarven smiths of the Daggerford clans, kicking off the trend. These individuals returned and set up workshops in temples of Callobar Hallonas, where they worked metals and used magic and taught new smiths in their art.

Thus was born the custom of smithing in Silvergleam, and the region’s name as well.

Around 4’500 the rites of training had consolidated, and few promising individuals of the highest houses became specialists of mithral, a notoriously difficult metal to forge, especially because of its resistance to magical manipulation (aside from variously sized hammers and anvils, the elven smith’s primary tool). These earned themselves the title of Master Mithral-Smith.

Conflict reached Silvergleam in 4’180, initially only in the form of disputes between the younger house nobilities of the high elves and the Black Spider-leaning drow houses. These disputes were acted out in formal, rarely deadly duel fights, a tradition which was seeing a massive comeback. Accordingly, the craft of highest-quality armor and weaponry began to take priority, and the Master Mithral-Smiths spearheaded the houses’ efforts, often personally working on their house warriors’ dueling equipment.

When outright war came in 4’158, the light elves were woefully unprepared, and suffered serious losses. They received some help from the Daggerford forge clans and mercenary companies, but they struggled to defend their lands and raise militias to fight the drow. The war was waged at moderate intensity skirmishing, mostly consisting of raiding and defending settlements, for several decades; the light elven houses struggled to form broad alliances, the drow pressure being insufficient to overcome party interests, political conflicts, and the potential gains of working against fellow light elves. Sometimes, there was even fighting between the light elves.

The drow militias were decisively beaten by 4’120, having long lost any support from Black Spider remnants, lost much of their population to the exodus into the Caverealm, and facing light elven armies from other imperial houses coming to support Silvergleam. The local houses however, under a deal of patronage with Mystraleth, often forbade outsider forces to enter their territory or fight the drow, preferring to do it themselves; there were horrible scenes, light elves rounding up hundreds of drow and executing them or enslaving them to menial work in their own lands.

The situation worsened considerably by the turn of the century, when civil war between the light elves erupted on Silur. Various Silvergleam houses were ripped into one or the other conflict, and they also turned against one another for personal gain, or to serve their more powerful outside allies. In all this fighting, the forge clan leaders from Daggerford began seeking their own pieces of the pie, establishing vassal states and protected mines or manufactories in Silvergleam, sometimes going to war with light elven houses.

By the end of the millenium, Silvergleam was a devastated land, with few high elven houses left. A Mystraleth-Daggerford alliance controlled most of the western mines, while the rest of the territory had fallen to small feudal-style isolated settlements, and enclaves of wood elven house-controlled land.