So when exactly was the Law/Chaos war?

I don't want to argue this too strongly, since I want for The Gates of Firestorm Peak and its associated mythos to be Greyhawk canon, and there is actually an argument for it. But Oerth wasn't considered to be the "default setting" for the AD&D game back in 1996, when that module was published. That wouldn't happen until after Wizards of the Coast bought out the company and pro-Greyhawk voices (in particular, Lisa Stevens [who now owns Paizo], Roger E. Moore, and Harold Johnson) got a louder voice. It really stopped being the default setting in 1985, when Gary Gygax left TSR, was officially changed to the Forgotten Realms in 1987, and wasn't anything by the mid-nineties. After WotC bought the company, you start seeing things like Greyhawk gods and races being mentioned in otherwise core adventures and supplements. The Shattered Circle mentions the Suloise, and Bastion of Faith is about Heironeous.

The difference in these two eras is pretty striking, actually. Bruce Cordell's College of Magic was published in 1997, after the buy-out but they were still publishing stuff written at TSR. In that book, the primary god of good is Immotion, goddess of magic and purity, and the main god of evil is Dargeshaad. Neither of them are Greyhawk deities. Bastion of Faith was published in 1999, and though this was supposed to be in the same continuity/series/city as College of Magic and both were written by Bruce Cordell, suddenly it's Greyhawk-specific, with generic Immotion replaced with Heironeous and generic Dargeshaad replaced with Hextor. We know that Hextor was originally intended to be Dargeshaad because in Reverse Dungeon (2000), co-written by Bruce Cordell, the villain Kahabros, who was a servant of Hextor in Bastion of Faith, is said to be a servant of Dargeshaad in Reverse Dungeon.

The setting for The Gates of Firestorm Peak is given in the module as "the Shirelands, at the southern foothills of the Mountains of Frost," which isn't known to be part of Oerth's geography (there's a Land of the Frost Barbarians on Oerth, so you could speculate that the Mountains of Frost are actually the Griff Mountains that run through that land, and the Shirelands would therefore be the Duchy of Tenh, but it'd only be speculation). The Gates of Firestorm Peak actually takes place in the "Cordelloverse," an implied setting that unifies everything Bruce Cordell wrote for second edition (and, to a lesser extent, third and fourth edition). Some of what Cordell wrote is Greyhawk-specific: Return to White Plume Mountain, Return to the Tomb of Horrors, Bastion of Faith, The Shattered Circle. Much of it isn't, and uses non-Greyhawk deities and place names: A Guide to the Ethereal Plane, The Illithiad, The Gates of Firestorm Peak, College of Wizardry, Night of the Shark.

Now, as I said, there are plenty of shared names and crossovers between all these things. The Lost Realm of Olefin is mentioned as the site of the largest city in the Elder Elf empire in The Gates of Firestorm Peak. The now-sunken island chain of Olefin is on the map in Night of the Shark (which doesn't obviously match up with any Greyhawk map). The Illithiad features a presentation from the Olefin Temporal Society, in which a chronomancer accidentally travels to the Far Realm and back. This thread on Canonfire discusses Gates of Firestorm Peak, the Realm of Olefin, and the problems and benefits of setting both in Greyhawk (I post as "rasgon" there).

As I said, there's an argument for linking all of Bruce Cordell's 2e works for Greyhawk, because some of it is obviously Greyhawk and all of it is interconnected. Dargeshaad gets a brief mention in Return to the Tomb of Horrors, the Far Realm is mentioned in The Illithiad and A Guide to the Ethereal Plane, and the Elder Elves are mentioned in Night of the Shark and Sea of Blood. But it involves ignoring the fact that many of these works are plainly not set in Greyhawk, using names of generic gods and places that aren't part of that campaign.

That's true with third edition things too, incidentally. Like, Complete Arcane and Complete Divine both make heavy use of Greyhawk as the default setting with things like Greyhawk gods in Complete Divine and the Suel arcanomach and Duchy of Urnst in Complete Arcane. But Complete Adventurer doesn't use Greyhawk at all, and Races of Destiny invents a few new human gods that don't fit easily with Greyhawk's pantheons. So "default setting" can be hit or miss in both 2nd and 3rd edition.

That said, I think the Elder Elves are ultimately a good addition to the Greyhawk campaign. I'd place them in what is now known as the Sinking Isle and on the mainland, and probably put Firestorm Peak in the Duchy of Tenh (though it could be anywhere, and might make more sense closer to the coast). They definitely precede the war between dark elves and light. We know Kiaransalee was a mortal elf before the fall of Lolth in -30,000 DR, the queen of an entire world, so there must have been a fairly advanced elven civilization during that era. Perhaps the Elder Elves lived some time between then and -18,000 DR. Your theory that the corruption of the Vast Gate led to their worship of the Elder Elemental Eye might have merit, if you assume that elven history on Oerth parallels elven history on Toril that precisely.

The Great Embarkation by Erik Mona is generally considered to be quasi-canon because it was written for the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer but cut before publication. Regardless, it's a fairly interesting story of a war between the elves soon after their arrival on Oerth and the older, reptilian and bestial races that preceded them as masters of the continent. This would have been during the time of the Elder Elves, because Sea of Blood credits the Elder Elves with creation of the sea elves, which is also what "The Great Embarkation" discusses. If this happened during an ice age, it might help explain why the amphibious and reptilian races lost, and would allow us to make the ice age be the time when the reptilian and amphibian domination of the continent ended and the rule of mammals began. After cleansing the Flanaess of the bestial races, the Elder Elves might have turned inward to more esoteric magical exploration, dabbling in chronomancy and planar travel before destroying their civilization with the Vast Gate.

If Father Llymic caused the ice age, however, then perhaps there were two ice ages (the first caused by the Battle of Pesh and the second caused by Father Llymic at the end of the Elder Elf era). That's an interesting possibility I hadn't considered before. The elven wrecking of kuo-toa and quaggoth civilization might have been at some point between those two eras, during a temporary warm spell.

The Elder Elves were the ancestors of the "nomadic high elves" who spread the elven race throughout the worlds, so they must have died out prior to -24,500 DR, when elves first arrived on Toril from the plane of Faerie. The Complete Book of Elves said that the nomadic high elves migrated after the Elfwar between light and dark elves, but this doesn't work with the Forgotten Realms timeline; instead, I might argue that the Elfwar in question was actually the war against the squamous races before the height of the Elder Elf civilization. The gates created by the Elder Elves might have actually been the method through which the "nomadic high elves" spread to Toril and elsewhere; if so, then -24,500 DR (that's -25,870 Lady's Edict, or -23,720 CY in Oerth's common calendar) might be very close to the date of the Vast Gate disaster.

If the Vast Gate cataclysm destroyed several Elder Elf colonies simultaneously, or if it happened in the Feywild rather than on Oerth, it could be blamed for the destruction of Tintageer around -24,500 DR which for all I know fits very well with the Firestorm Peak backstory. Perhaps the Elder Elves created gates leading from Tintageer to Oerth, or vice versa, among many other destinations, and a few centuries later a secret sect in the Mountains of Frost created the Vast Gate that destroyed their entire civilization, forcing refugees to flee to Toril.

There was a very comprehensive one on the Wizards of the Coast message boards a while back. I think it's gone, now, but I have it saved. I could post from it here to get the thread started.

I really like the idea of a good-aligned Far Realm race, actually. The plane is supposed to be beyond alignment, but effectively most of the creatures from it end up as some flavor of evil. The idea of a truly alien form of good that has nothing to do with the upper planes is refreshing.

I checked them out. It seems pretty cool.

It looks like the Plane of Doors is pretty close conceptually to the Infinite Staircase, though the hallways part makes me also think of the Plane of Mirrors. The Xxyth seem like they would fit best as Far Realm creatures.

I have a PDF copy of Denizens of Avadnu, but not the "complete" version.

Before. They were creations of the sarrukh, according to Serpent Kingdoms, whose first kingdom rose in approximately -35,000 DR and whose last kingdom fell -33,500 DR. Well within the era of the dinosaurs, who seemed to have mostly gone extinct in -31,000 DR.

This is unclear. Here are the various clues and hints that I'm aware of, though.

The current lich-queen is Vlaakith CLVII, so there were 157 queens named Vlaakith including Vlaakith I (the successor to Gith) and the Lich-Queen of the "present day" of A Guide to the Astral Plane, Dungeon #100, and similar works. Of all the queens, Vlaakith CLVII has reigned the longest, for "well over a thousand years."

Dragon #355 gave us some information about the previously undetailed Vlaakith CLVI, the current Vlaakith's immediate predecessor. Like her (presumed) daughter, Vlaakith CLVI had also succumbed to the lure of lichcraft. In the sixth century of her rule, the warlock Xinfyrit led an attempted coup rather than allowing his monarch to devour his soul. Xinfyrit and his followers were defeated, their souls imprisoned, and their bodies were left to drift in the Astral Plane. Xinfyrit's corpse drifted near a color pool leading to the Negative Energy Plane (or conceivably a Prime world dominated by negative energy) which, combined with Astral winds, transformed him into the first of the devourers. Xinfyrit and his legion of devourer apprentices assaulted Tu'narath once again, and Vlaakith CLVI died, Vlaakith CLVII assuming the throne in her place.

So that accounts for 1,600+ years of githyanki history. Let's call it 2,000 years even, adding a century or two to both Vlaakith CLVII's reign and her mom's. Beyond that, it gets more speculative.

The githyanki "starting age" is 21-28 for rogues and sorcerers (going by Dungeon #100 here), so I'm assuming they typically start breeding at around that age. Most githyanki queens seem to be wizards, so I'll use the wizard starting age (24-44) instead. Their average lifespan is 200 years (ranging from 154 to 230), but they can live an unlimited amount of time as long as they remain on the Astral Plane. Still, none of the queens have reigned longer than 1000 years or so, and likely most of them had a considerably shorter reign than the lich-queens. Mechalich suggested that githyanki have a practical age limit despite the timelessness of the Astral due to their mortal brains filling up with too many memories, driving them senile - he has it so that they basically die or have to be retired (technically you could just stack them up in an out-of-the-way room somewhere, since they don't have to eat, drink, or breathe) around 200 years of age anyway, which is probably contrary to the spirit of making the Astral timeless, but helps explain why someone living there would bother becoming a lich. There are other possibilities: maybe she suffered from some wound or curse that required her to become a lich or die, or maybe she thought it was a necessary precursor to divinity. It makes sense that you'd need to be undead or a fiend to gain power from devouring souls; there's a soul eater prestige class in the Book of Vile Darkness, but humanoids don't qualify. Well, whatever. I'll move on.

Vlaakith I took the throne "years after the githyanki claimed the Astral Plane as their home" and continued to rule somewhere between a few months and a thousand years. Her oldest daughter would have likely been 30-75 years younger than her, since 75 years is middle-aged for githyanki. Of course, Vlaakith I lacked the thousands of years of evolution that modern githyanki have benefited from, so she might have had something closer to a human lifespan.

Okay, then. Assuming no maximum age for githyanki who remain in the Astral, Gith's rebellion was 157,000 years ago at the absolute most. That assumes that every living queen reigned for about 1,000 years, Vlaakith CLVI reigned for somewhat less, and Vlaakith CLVII reigned for somewhat longer. That's much too long, I think, to fit with the dates on the rest of this timeline we're developing.

If you assume, instead, that most githyanki queens only live to be around 200, that makes it so that the liches live considerably longer than the others. It seems safe to assume few githyanki are going to breed after middle age, when they would risk aging while stepping into the stream of Time to do the nasty. Assuming most queens breed around the age of 30 to satisfy their responsibilities to the royal lineage and then avoid any planes where time passes thereafter, Vlaakith I might have reigned for 150 years or so and every other queen is only going to ascend to the throne at venerable age after the death of her ancient mother and reign about 30 years before following the last queen into the hereafter. That's about 6,770 years in total. Less than that, to account for cases where a succession of sisters rule for less than 30 years, but I'm going to assume most sisters are about the same age. This, I think, is much too short, but it's probably the absolute minimum if the various queens are going to have time to reach puberty, bear a daughter, and reign a bit before passing on the throne.

So, a compromise. Githyanki queens do typically live longer than their racial maximums would allow on other planes, which is fine, but they don't approach the age of ancient lich-queen. Both assumptions seem true to the spirit of the thing. How do they die? Oh, accidents, assassinations, deaths in battle, weird Astral diseases, senility, or whatever else. Say 200 years on average, or 33,000 years. This would place the events, in our timeline, close to the time of the Battle of Pesh. Placing the illithid empire in the alien epoch when obyriths and Wind Dukes warred makes a certain amount of sense, but placing it afterward, during the earliest part of the present era, might make sense too.

So, a range of about 6,700 years to about 157,000 years ago, from minimum to maximum, with perhaps a preference for around 33,000 years, if our only evidence was the reigns of the githyanki queens. But what other clues do we have?

The Illithiad: "Past all knowledge of present worlds, before the crowning of Ra, when the Outer Planes were yet in flux, and while the elemental planes remained untarnished by counter-contamination, the illithids held an ancient empire." This is ascribed to an in-character text, The Planetreader's Primer. If accurate, that'd place the illithid empire very far back indeed, probably before the Chaos Wars even begin, before the vaati and obyriths began mixing the Inner Planes, and before the obyriths and ancient baatorians. I think that's too far, though, and because it's a quote from a book supposedly published in Sigil, we can assume it's just myth.

A Guide to the Astral Plane offers another in-character text, "a tome of ancient lore" known as A Glimpse Through the Mists. It warns us that it's occasionally suspect and reliant on legend, but "probably more accurate than not." "In a time before most of the prime worlds known today were born, when the gate-towns of the Outlands all went by different names, when beings that could recall days before the creation of then-bejeweled Sigil still existed, the illithids held an ancient empire." The Guide reports later on, outside the in-character portion, that Gith lived "unimaginably far in the past."

In the 77th year of the Eighth King's Age in Athas (that's 13,938 years before the death of the sorcerer-king Kalak of Tyr, which is roughly the present day, or perhaps a decade ago; 13,938 Athasian years is equivalent to 14,310 Torilian years) is the first use of psionics by the races of Athas. The adventure Black Spine suggests a psionic bomb used by the githzerai against the githyanki on Athas was responsible for the development of psionics by the Athasians. "But no one knows for sure." If this is true, though, the githzerai and githyanki would have had to have already rebelled by then.

Over twelve millennia ago (circa -11,000 DR), refugees from the illithid world of Glyth founded the city of Oryndoll on Toril. Gray Richardson assumed that the event that forced these illithids to migrate was Gith's rebellion. To support this, he mentions a theory in A Guide to the Astral Plane (page 46) that Gith may have taken her name from the world from which she originated, and notes the similarity between the names Gith and Glyth. If so, this would be a very specific date, if we ignore the possibility of githyanki and githzerai on Athas 2,000 years before that.

The 4th edition accessory Underdark names the illithid empire Nihilath and says it existed "throughout the first era of mortal history... while the drow still huddled in dark corners and the dwarves dug gold from shallow pits... before the Underdark's geography stabilized... the later great subterranean settlements of the drow, dwarves, and fomorians came into being only when parts of the Underdark stabilized." This is before the drow or dwarves had founded any cities in the depths, yet after the Crown Wars. That places Gith's rebellion sometime between the Descent of the Drow in -10,000 DR and the founding of Guallidurth in -9,600 DR.

The Astromundi Cluster for Spelljammer has a unique origin for illithids that future sources explicitly deny (The Illithiad is particularly dismissive). It suggests that humans are cursed by "dark forces" and start developing mutations before being banished to the Underdark thousands of years ago. They emerge about 1,600 years ago as illithids, and begin a war that climaxes with the shattering of the world into asteroid-sized chunks. More likely, the mutant humans were conquered by illithids from elsewhere and converted into more of their kind through the usual method of illithid reproduction.

Lords of Madness turns all this on its head and states, flat-out, that Gith's rebellion was only 2,000 years before the present day. The illithids arrived from the distant future, conquered the homeworld of the gith races and, after centuries of servitude, the gith rebelled 2,000 years ago. However, as noted above, the last two githyanki queens account for around 2,000 years just between themselves; allowing the previous queens time to reach maturity before giving birth to their successors requires at least another 4,700 years. There were definitely illithids in Oryndoll around 12,000 years ago, so I think the Lords of Madness date has to be ignored. Some have suggested adding a zero and setting Gith's rebellion at 20,000 years ago, which is pretty reasonable.

Lords of Madness does dismiss the extremely ancient dates implied by The Planetreader's Primer (in The Illithiad) by stating that sages confused the extremely far future of the actual illithid empire with the extremely distant past, partially by mistaking The Sargonne Prophecies for a past history instead of a future one. Well, okay, I won't rely on The Illithiad or A Guide to the Astral Plane, which are both pretty vague anyway.

Dawn of the Overmind gives us an idea of how long the illithid empire lasted. "In the millennia of their ascendance, they crafted a suitable seat for their empire. A thousand years of engineering produced the disc known as Penumbra." So at least 2,000-3,000 years between the arrival of the illithids in this timeline and the collapse of their empire after the rebellion of Gith. Penumbra was definitely created in the past, not the far future, since present-day PCs visit it in the course of the adventure.

Okay. That was much more work than I needed to do, but I think I've covered all the available evidence. To sum up:

Gith's rebellion was somewhere between 6,700 years to about 157,000 years ago. The illithids arrived (apparently from the distant future) possibly some 2,000-3,000 years before that.

So there are a bunch of possible dates. The most relevant ones are:

-31,634 DR: Arbitrary date assuming an average of 200 years per githyanki queen, except for the last two. Completely arbitrary, so can't be considered binding.

-18,624 DR: The Lords of Madness date times ten. Pretty arbitrary.

-12,939 DR: Possible battle on Athas between githyanki and githzerai. Unconfirmed.

-11,000 DR: Illithid refugees from Glyth colonize Oryndoll. Conceivably, they're fleeing Gith's rebellion.

-10,000 DR to -9,600 DR: Date range for Gith's rebellion using 4e core assumptions. It's 4e core, so I wouldn't consider it canon for Planescape or the Forgotten Realms, but they're numbers.

-8,080 DR: At the end of the Mindstalker Wars on Toril, illithids enslave the duergar.

circa -1,627 DR: The height of the gith empire of Zarum on Oerth. This is supposed to have been enslaved by illithids until Gith's rebellion freed it, in the Chainmail/Sundered Empire setting.

-631 DR: Vlaakith CLVI assumes her crown (presuming a 700 year reign).

-624 DR: Gith's rebellion according to Lords of Madness (assuming 2,000 years before 595 CY, based on the publishing date of 2005 and equating that to 1375 DR). Basically impossible. The date might be the result of the authors of Lords of Madness mistakenly counting the Zarum date from the Chainmail setting back before the present day, rather than before the Demon Wars about 1,000 years ago.

68 DR: Death of Vlaakith CLVI at the hands of the first of devourers, Xinfyrit (assuming 1,300 years before 128 Hashkar, which equates to 1368 DR). Ascension of Vlaakith CLVII.

You may not have the same nasty habit I have of trying to fit every square peg into Planescape's round holes. I read about the Void and immediately thought, "Oh, that sounds like the Far Realm." Just with a different creation myth to explain it.

Bruce Cordell described the origin of the sahuagin in his trilogy of sahuagin-themed adventures (Evil Tide, Night of the Shark, and Sea of Blood). They're actually descended from the anguiliians, a race of eel-people described in The Sea Devils and Stormwrack. A faction of the Elder Elves (known as the Adherents of Vitality, they were investigating the sea because they intended to create the race of sea elves) used a powerful spell to imprison the anguiliian deity during a complex ceremony that was intended to incarnate the demigod in mortal form. Without their god, the anguiliian civilization collapsed. A few of the survivors were drawn to Sekolah, who transformed them into the first of the sahuagin. Another faction of the Adherents was almost definitely responsible for the creation of the malenti. Because the Elder Elves were involved, this was all probably prior to -24,500 DR.

The kuo-toa are undoubtedly older. The Forgotten Realms setting says the kuo-toa were created by the amphibian Creator Race, the batrachi, who rose to greatness after the fall of the sarrukh in -33,500 DR. The batrachi empires fell in -31,000 DR with the Tearfall that they inadvertently caused. So the creation of the kuo-toa (along with bullywugs, dopplegangers, kopru, locathah, sivs, tako, and others) must have been some point between those dates.

I tend to think of most of the aquatic and amphibious races as aboleth creations, personally. The Forgotten Realms uses the batrachi, but:

1. It's possible the batrachi (like the sarrukh and aeree) didn't exist on every world.
2. It's possible the batrachi just took aboleth creations and altered them, rather than creating the races out of whole cloth.

Could be! As far as I know.

Immediately after the fall of the Batrachi. The Aeree empires lasted from -31,000 DR (just after the Tearfall) to -30,000 DR. The dragons destroyed their empires circa -30,000.

Yeah, I dunno. Maybe they were around, but not dominant. Maybe time travel. Maybe they weren't around. Whatever.

I'm not sure what you mean. How do you picture them changing between the Precambrian and Cambrian epochs?

My guess was some kind of increase in the power of negative and positive energy drew several of the former paraelemental planes toward them.

That makes sense. Life and Death don't fully form until the arrival of mortal life.

We've been looking a little harder at elven history in this thread on the Piazza, and I made a list of the various canonical "Elfwars":

Eberron: The drow are enslaved by the giants of Xen'drik in -80,000 YK. The drow become independent after giant civilization collapses in -39,000 YK.

Planescape: The Seldarine leaves the realm of Alfheim in Ysgard and conquers Arvandor, realm of the giant pantheon. The giants flee to Ysgard (Planes of Chaos, The Book of Chaos, page 39).

Threnody: The King of Threnody exiles his queen, Kiaransalee, for the crime of dabbling in necromancy, naming her "drow." Centuries later, Kiaransalee returned with an army of undead; by the time her vengeance was complete, Threnody was a dead world, and Kiaransalee fled to the Abyss to escape the wrath of the Seldarine. This happened before the banishment of Araushnee. (Demihuman Deities, 23)

Planescape: The goddess Araushnee (henceforth known as Lolth) is banished from the Seldarine in -30,000 DR (Torilian time; see Lost Empires of Faerun, page 51). The realm of Svartalfheim in Ysgard is possibly founded at this time, after Eilistraee (whom On Hallowed Ground says rules Svartalfheim) also leaves the company of the Seldarine in penance for nearly slaying Corellon Larethian during the war with the Anti-Seldarine (Demihuman Deities, 13).

The Elder Elves: The Elder Elves, "legendary ancestors of the nomadic high elves," open bridges to a few hundred other worlds. Dissatisfied with this paltry number, they create the Vast Gate, the greatest gate of all, empowered by the Dragon's Tear comet. Three times in 81 years, the Vast Gate opens to worlds of delight. The final time the Vast Gate opens, it opens to the Far Realm, and a terrible Far Realm entity goes through. The entity slaughters the elves and returns to its own plane. Over the years, the Vast Gate opens to the Far Realm every 27 years, allowing Far Realm influences to seep into the mortal world (The Gates of Firestorm Peak, pages 4-5). One of the entities that entered through the Vast Gate, Father Llymic, is said to have been responsible for the last great ice age (Elder Evils, 33). The implication is that the Elder Elves existed on whatever world the PCs live on (the 3e default is said to be Oerth). I don't see any evidence that the opening of the Vast Gate is what led to the destruction of Elder Elf civilization, however.

Elvish homeworld: The unnamed elven homeworld (possibly "Faerie"/the Feywild) suffered an Elfwar between drow and other elves some time after the war between the gods (which Forgotten Realms sources place at -30,000 DR). Nomadic high elves flee to various worlds (apparently the same nomadic high elves mentioned in The Gates of Firestorm Peak). (The Complete Book of Elves, page 11)

Toril: Elven survivors of a war on the world of Faerie enter a portal to Toril in -24,500 DR. The Crown Wars between -12,000 DR and -9,000 DR result in the banishment of the drow in -10,000 DR.

Oerth: A drow attack on the light-elves occurred via a harsh pass in the Crystalmist Mountains.The drow deceived the snow elves, who didn't know about the war yet, into allowing them through. (Dragon #155)

Pyrespace: As detailed in Polyhedron #92, the elves of the world of Perianth banished the drow to their planet's Spider Moon "ages ago."

I found interesting information about creatures that may be related with the elder elves.
The first are the Sie from the Birthright setting, which lived on Aebrynis before it was separated from the Shadow World. They had incredible innate magic talents, wielding arcane and priestly magic by simple gathering of magical energies, rather than prayers or memorization. When the proto-Aebrynis was split into two worlds the Sie where separated into the faeries(seelie) of the shadow world and elves(sidhe) of Aebrynis. The last surviving Sie became the queen of faeries (she has many names: Titania, Maeve, Mab).
The other are the LeShay of the epic level handbook, who are powerful elf-like faeries who may have destroyed the previous multiverse. I think that in 4e Fr they are identical with the sylvan creator race, and they gated the first (green)elves to Toril.

I get the impression from The Gates of Firestorm Peak and the sahuagin trilogy that the elder elves are simply the elves that preceded the Elfwar, after which the nomadic high elves traveling to the various worlds of the Material Plane. The Epic Level Handbook says "as elves are to humans, so the leShay are to the elves" which makes them seem like another kind of being altogether. They might well be the same or related to Birthright's Sie.

4th edition Forgotten Realms does indeed identify the leShay with the fey creator race (in Dragon #376, for example).

Major update.

Reading through 4th edition's Demonomicon and Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, the time of the Battle of Pesh is actually pretty clear. It's actually around -35,000 DR, at the very end of the Epoch of Shadow, which is when the primordials were imprisoned and the Dawn War ended. Demonomicon explicitly connects the Battle of Pesh to the end of the Dawn War, so this is when it should be. The Tearfall, millennia later, is when the batrachi summon an already-imprisoned primordial. So the Dawn War is long over by then.

Also, the novel Dawn of Night by Paul S. Kemp includes a character, "young for a githvyrik," who was around shortly after Gith's rebellion and is said to be 10,000 years old. Assuming this is a rough estimate, that still means that the rebellion must've happened roughly 10,000 years ago. I think associating it with the illithid refugees settling Oryndoll 12,000 years ago is a good compromise. 4th edition's Underdark says the drow had already descended (barely) at the time of the illithid empire's fall but whatever, that's stupid. Better to sync the event with something concrete.

So here's a revised timeline:

*Waves of possibility collide in the Ethereal Plane, forming solid ether and demiplanes. Eventually the Prime Material Plane forms, so long ago that years are insufficient to measure it (A Guide to the Ethereal Plane, 9).

*According to myth, Chaos is the first force to form. Law arises to combat it (FC2, 4).

*The conflict between Law and Chaos boils over from the Inner Planes to the still-forming Outer and Material Planes (FC1, 106).

*The obyriths push a shard of pure evil from a dying universe into the current multiverse (Demonomicon, 7).

*Good wrestles with Evil, and Law with Chaos, and Neutrality lies between. None of the five forces can gain an advantage, so they create minions to serve them. Evil creates the baernaloths, while Good, Neutrality, Law, and Chaos create their own servitors to fight for them (Hellbound: The Dark of the War, page . The champions of Law include Asmodeus (FC2, 4). Asmodeus is initially known as Ahriman, and his twin is known as Jazirian (Guide to Hell, 2). Jazirian and Ahriman create the Outlands, the Unity of Rings, the Rule of Threes, and the Center of All precepts (GtH, 2). The powers of creation (Jazirian and Asmodeus?) create Mechanus and create three mediators to ensure it remains balanced (PSMC, 69).

*Eons later, Tharizdun encounters the shard of evil and is corrupted into madness. The obyriths encourage Tharizdun to plant the shard of evil in the Astral Plane. Tharizdun does so, creating the Abyss from primal chaos. The obyriths enter the Abyss from their own realm as it is consumed and destroyed (Demonomicon, 7). The leShay possibly flee the dying universe of the obyriths at this time (Epic Level Handbook, 202). Tharizdun and the obyriths go to war, as the shard of evil makes Tharizdun far more powerful than they had anticipated. The war is a stalemate (Demonomicon, 7).

*Some of the primordials, pure beings of the elemental planes, are corrupted by the evil of the shard, becoming the Princes of Elemental Evil. The shard is eventually claimed by the obyrith Obox-ob. A war over the shard causes the shard to be lost in the Grand Abyss (Demonomicon, .

*Calling himself the Elder Elemental Eye and posing as a primordial, Tharizdun marshals the Princes of Elemental Evil and other primordials in a war against the gods, which becomes known as the Dawn War. Tharizdun is imprisoned by the combined might of the gods. The Dawn War continues (Demonomicon, . Asmodeus is one of the guardians of Tharizdun's prison(Demonomicon, 9).

*Servants of Asmodeus discover method of transforming petitioners into tanar'ri and baatezu (Hellbound: The Dark of the War, 13). The obyriths imitate Asmodeus's technique and transform mortal souls into the first tanar'ri. Fiends on both sides of the conflict begin corrupting mortals in order to gain new souls to transform into more of their kind, fueling the Dawn War (Hellbound: The Dark of the War, 14). Demogorgon is the first of the tanar'ri, created by the Queen of Chaos from mortal fears. Other primal tanar'ri created include Miska the Wolf-Spider (Dragon #357, 21).

*During an eclipse on the plains of Pazunia, the Queen of Chaos cows most of her rivals under her banner, defeating Obox-ob and giving the title of Prince of Demons to Miska the Wolf-Spider. With an alliance between the Queen of Chaos and the Princes of Elemental Evil, the Dawn War reaches a new height. (FC1, 106, and Demonomicon, .

*Fiends discover Sigil and attempt to use it as a launching pad in the Dawn War. The Lady of Pain flays those who get out of line, preserving her city's status as neutral ground (Hellbound: The Dark of the War, 14)

*The first Battle of the Field of Nettles between tanar'ri under Miska's command and devils under the command of Asmodeus (Hellbound: The Dark of the War, 14; extrapolated with information from FC1 and FC2).

*Asmodeus signs the Pact Primeval with the other powers of Law, establishing his right to claim lawful evil souls (FC2, 5).

*At its height, the Wind Duke empire controls all the inner planes, as well as countless mortal worlds. The empire of the obyriths also expands to countless mortal worlds (FC1, 106; Also Dungeon #129, 40)

*Battle of Pesh on Oerth ("In the shadow of White Plume Mountain"). Miska the Wolf-Spider is imprisoned in Pandemonium. In the aftermath, the obyriths are overthrown by the tanar'ri and eladrins, and the tanar'ri become the rulers of the Abyss (FC1, 106).

*Most of the primordials allied with the forces of Chaos are imprisoned by the gods and the Dawn War comes to an end. On Toril, the Shadow Epoch gives way to the Days of Thunder (Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, 42).

*In the aftermath of the Dawn War, Asmodeus is counciled by Pazuzu. He seeks out the shard of pure evil and creates his ruby rod from a sliver of it. Armed with his shard and his infernal army, hardened by the Dawn War, he conquers the plane of Baator and establishes himself as king (Demonomicon, 9). Conflict with the demons over the shard of evil inspires the Blood War (Demonomicon, 9).

*Days of Thunder. Beginning approximately 36,370 years ago, the sarrukh begin their rise to civilization (Serpent Kingdoms, 186).

*Demogorgon creates the khaasta. After thousands of years of servitude, he sets them free. Many fall into the service of Sess'innek (Serpent Kingdoms, 38).

*35,470 years ago: Fall of the sarrukh empire of Okath on Toril. Sess'innek sends a demonic invasion into the Material Plane in retribution for sarrukh attempts at enslaving the khaasta (Serpent Kingdoms, 38 and 186).

*32,370 years ago: The Tearfall on Toril. Fighting a losing war against the giants created by Annam, the batrachi summon a primordial, Asgoroth the World Shaper, from her imprisonment. She hurls an "ice moon" to the surface of the world, creating the Sea of Fallen Stars and ushering in an ice age. The world of Abeir-Toril is divided into two worlds, Abeir and Toril, and Abeir is given to the primordials so that Toril will no longer be theatened. (Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, 41)

*31,370 years ago: The Godswar between the Seldarine and Anti-Seldarine comes to an end when the goddess Araushnee is unmasked as the instigator. Araushnee is transformed into the demoness Lolth and banished to the Abyss. She enslaves Kiaransalee and drives Ghaunadaur to the Paraelemental Plane of Ooze. (Demihuman Deities, 26; Lost Empires of Faerun, 51)

*12,000 years ago: Illithids flee to the city of Oryndoll from Glyth (3e Underdark, 169). Gith's rebellion possibly immediately prior to this, since the illithids are clearly terrified of something. "Immediately after arriving, they burrow underground as far as they could." During the illithid empire's height, Sigil said to be "bejeweled." (A Guide to the Astral Plane, 44).

*The Proclaimation of Two Skies divides the githyanki and githzerai races (PSMC, 48; AGttAP, 46; see also the Planescape: Torment video game).

*A "psionic devastator" used by the githzerai against their githyanki enemies may have awakened psychic potential in Athas's races (Black Spine, Adventure Book Two, page 4).

*11,370 years ago: The Descent of the Drow (Lost Empires of Faerun, 52).

*10,000 years ago: Shekelor dies on his return to Pandemonium (ITC, 23) Vhostym, young for a githvyrik, is born. He is alive shortly after Gith's rebellion (Dawn of Night by Paul S. Kemp, page 5). I'm going to be generous and consider 2,000 years "shortly," or else assume that Vhostym is more like 12,000 years old. It's possible that this means that Gith's rebellion was closer to 10,000 years ago than 12,000, but I think it fits better with the settlement of Oryndoll above, and is close enough to it.

*The present day (in this timeline): 1370 DR on Toril, or 590 CY on Oerth, or 130 in the reign of Factol Hashkar in Sigil. Tales From the Infinite Staircase/Of Duty & Deity. The Faction War begins.

I don't either, mostly, but I thought I'd put it together here. I kind of regretted it immediately afterwards.

All of it, though I wrote a thing connecting it to the 333 Gems of Tharizdun, and also the Black Diamond that corrupted the Queen of Air and Darkness, and the Crystal of Ebon Flame, the Heart of Darkness that the General of Gehenna used to purify the yugoloth race, and Asmodeus's ruby rod (which 4e already connects to it). There's this theme of evil gemstones connected to Tharizdun throughout 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edition.

Yeah, true, and I think some of the air-related evil archomentals sided with the Wind Dukes at first, too. Which doesn't mean they weren't corrupted in the same way, and the idea that the evil archomentals are connected to Tharizdun in some way goes back as far as 2e.

Yeah, although that's pretty recent canon, dating back just to the Monster Manual IV in 3e. I do think it makes more sense, but I'm not that worried about it. In fourth edition, note that the primordials still don't know Tharizdun's real goals. They think he's one of them (when he very much isn't), so effectively there's no change.

They state that they believe they're his progeny, or that Tharizdun claims it, but I think the implication is that they're wrong, and this is just Tharizdun deceiving them in order to manipulate them. As the god of entropy, I doubt he's capable of having offspring. It'd be contrary to his essential nature.

For example, what the PSMCIII said was, "The Princes of Elemental Evil are said to have a relationship with the mysterious being known only as the Elder Elemental God. Supposedly, some of the princes are that being's offspring, making them queer siblings to say the least." And Dragon #347 says, "The evil god known as the Elder Elemental Eye claims to have sired most of the Elemental Princes of Evil, making them strange siblings indeed." Both sound pretty skeptical to me. And MMIV says, "The Elemental Princes believe that the being known as the Elemental Eye is their forebear... Unknown to them, the Elder Elemental Eye is actually a front for the god Tharizdun... The ever-greedy Princes of Elemental Evil, too young to remember that ancient war, allowed their ambitions to blind them to Tharizdun's deception." Since we know that Tharizdun is deceiving them about who he is, assuming he's misled them about their paternity sounds pretty likely.

It's possible that there was once a separate entity known as the Elder Elemental Eye who truly was the parent of the Elemental Princes of Evil, but Tharizdun destroyed that entity and took its place. Or the Eye may have been a hoax all along. Regardless, he is not the being that they think their father is.

Yes, that's what I meant. The MMIV is comparatively recent. But if they're too young to remember his imprisonment, I don't know how they'd know if they were related to him for certain.

What I quoted above was basically the entirety of the pre-4e canon on the subject, so I think the MMIV is the only place that either implies or states the Elemental Princes of Evil never knew the Elder Elemental God before his imprisonment. It might be easier for him to fool them if they don't remember who their forebear was, but it also might be easier to fool them if he were free at the time, so I'm pretty agnostic on the issue. They could've stumbled upon the Demiplane of Imprisonment and listened to his whispers and dreams long after his incarceration, or he might have shown up disguised as the Elder Eye and told them lies while rallying them to war.

My biggest problem with the 4e canon is that pre-4e implies the war between Law and Chaos was something that was pretty much always going on since those forces first existed, before the Outer Planes were even fully formed, while the 4e Demonomicon makes it sound as if Tharizdun personally started the war. I'd make that softer; there was always conflict between the two forces because they conflict by nature, but the much later "Dawn War" between the elemental princes and gods might have been to some extent Tharizdun's idea. And the Dawn War isn't exactly the same as the Law-Chaos War, and wasn't precisely about either law and chaos, or good and evil. I dunno. The idea of a god-primordial war is kind of a nasty kludge, I admit, but it's not entirely incompatible with everything else. I think it's best to think of it as a comparatively local thing, like the Titanomachy or the war between the Aesir and Jotuns.

A slug with tentacles reminds me of a ciliated paramecium. That it appears as a giant may simply be a factor of the size of current-day viewers, viewing a god which was once several times the size of an average, single-celled worshiper.

An intelligent bacterium, of course, is going to be some sort of combination of an archaic mortal species and some kind of elemental, psionic, or outsider spirit, taking the earliest possible opportunity to seize a living form.

Interestingly, depending on how one interprets mitotic reproduction, the originals of these worshipers could still be alive somewhere in the seas of the worlds they first inhabited: mortal, not undead, not elvish, not construct, real flesh and blood, but unaging, or able to renew through division. Or they exist as colony minds inhabiting a fine dispersion of their surviving descendants, riding in the blood and guts of newer creatures.