Before moving on it must be noted that not all of the Landians within the valley of the Carotarks were in agreement with the actions of the Leader of Den. Two key dissenters have been noted to me by the Last Landian. At the time, the greater of these two would have been the Clan of Lelden. Much like, Calelden and Falden, Lelden could trace her lineage back to the Den and so held sway over a sizeable clan within the Carotarks. While Lelden and her people had initially supported Leaders of Den in their efforts to reassert control over the clans, as negotiations soured and turned to war, Lelden grew outspoken in her opposition to this path of violence. While initially tolerated, and no doubt viewed as quaint by the Leaders of Den, this would change as the war began to turn against the First Clan. Leldon and her people would find themselves facing prosecution and eventually gathered up in silent raids, many to never be seen again.

The leader of the second group of dissenters would be the warrior Lehn. Lehn held no opposition to the violent bend that the Leaders of Den had taken.  While the Last Landian was able to relay little of his ancestor from before the First War, he was confident that of all the Landians of that age, Lehn had adapted best to the martial ways of war.  Lehn gained distinction in the opening battles against the Soldier-Farmers of Kariou and it was Lehn and his disciples that eventually broke the resistance of Kariou.  Such was the victory that Lehn was granted the boon to create his own Clan on the ruins of Kariou and thus guard the pass into the Carotarks.  It was a victory and legacy that even the Last Landian seems to carry heavily despite being well removed from the acts of that time.

I must stop to note something now: Den, Kariou, Calelden, , Falden, Lelden, and Lehn. Six of the seven Landian clans of legend have all now been noted, their origins laid out. Already Kariou was no more and soon that dwindling would continue, only briefly reversed by the founding of Sundallasar in the First Cycle.

Lehn’s dissension would only begin once the forces of Calelden and Falden had entered the Carotarks. For it was now that Lehn could see that the Leaders of Den intended to fight unto the very death of not just their clan but those that had supported them. Knowing that they were beaten and hoping to force that realization upon his superior, the great warrior called upon all his soldiers to no longer to take up arms. Without the support of Soldiers of Lehn to hold the front while the remaining Warrior-Mages worked their arts, Den’s armies would swiftly crumble. An outcome it seemed Lehn hoped would end the fighting.

It is sad to say that this act, to stop the kinslaying that he Lehn was so adept at, and force a peace failed.  Instead, Lehn and the clan that had grown out of his followers found themselves facing the same prosecution and incarceration at that of Lelden. While none were willing to attempt to capture Lehn himself it is known that his daughter, the Child of Lehn, was taken.

There are yet two more things that must be noted here and perhaps unsurprisingly they are linked. The first was that even before Lehn’s decision to lay down arms, the leaders of Den were faced with the need for more pawns to send into battle and so had turned to something dark. The Valleys of the Carotark, ancient as they were, were populated with all sorts of powerful Fey. Starting with the most minor ones, the Warrior-Mages of Den began to search and find ways to turn these Fey into willing servants.

The Last Landian has always been adamant that it must be understand what a abomination this would have been to the very way that Landians thought, and thus a testament to the desperation and corruption the quest for Power had brought upon the Landians of Den. Landians are creatures of knowing, of learning the world and putting its context to memory. They were not deceivers, and so this warping of Fey created monstrosities that to this day are the source of many of the monsters of Illithiust. Yet, Den’s desperation and arrogance won out and the armies of Calelden and Falden began to face fewer their kin and instead a growing number of beasts.

A question has to be asked of how Landians, with their minds bent towards knowing and not deceit, could construct such a lie and create such monstrosities. The answer lies in those Landians of Lelden and Lehn that had been captured. The Warrior-Mages of Den broke the minds of these captives, used those broken minds to bring false stories into being, to warp the very fabric of the story of Illithiust in ways that the mages in Calelden and Falden would not understand and be unable to counter. The greater the storyteller the broken mind contained the greater Fey it could corrupt. This must be remembered for shortly it would turn the whole fate of Illithiust.

Seeing the effectiveness of their monstrous creations, the Warrior-Mages of Den turned to deviling mightier and mightier Fey and so in their arrogance turned to the Fey of the Carotark itself. The Fey of the Carotark was the oldest in Illithiust, brought into being when the Seven Sisters had still graced the world and the Landians themselves were young. Long had it offered counsel to the Line of Den, counsel that had been ignored as the years went on until the ancient Fey separated itself from home of the Landians. Not even the Last Landian could fathom how the Leaders of Den lured the Fey of the Carotark back but they did and soon they would corrupt it.

To do so they would need a powerful storyteller, a mighty mage, and so we remember the daughter of Lehn, the Child. For as mighty as her father had been with the blade, she was in the Great Arts and long had this sparked great joy and pride in Lehn. The Child was broken and sacrificed, Carotark was corrupted and while it would be some time before it would be labelled with its new name, the First Dragon was born…