I. The First Entry into the Realm

Kender tradition holds that Aurelthrym was discovered “accidentally on purpose,” which is to say we meant to explore something, just not necessarily that. A scouting group found a peculiar Whispering Arc—one of those enormous crescent things built out of that unbreakable bone-glass stuff. One of the crystal nodes started glowing (which no one touched intentionally, of course)
(This is a lie. Someone touched it intentionally)

A moment later the air split open like warm bread and—whoosh!—we tripped through into the world now known as Aurelthrym.

There were no people.
No settlements.
No footprints except our own.

But the cold wasn’t the bad kind. It was peaceful. Playful. Like the whole world had been waiting for someone to play in it.. so we did.

Naturally, we decided to stay.
And that’s how the first settlement started. Also how we learned snow can, in fact, be used to build indoor forts.