The Sundering
The sundering divides the years.
Prior to the sundering, the Satrapy held dominion over all. The Eastwall posed no barrier. The Greenwood was crossed with roads maintained by the Satraps and held no great terrors. Recorded history goes back nearly 3000 years before the sundering, with, so the tales tell, of unbroken lines of Satraps ruling wisely from far beyond the Greenwood on the shores of the Sea of Fordune.
The stories tell of a sickly green star that fell to engulf the satraps. Almost assuredly apocryphal, what is known is that the plague showed up just a few months later. The plague ravaged Vara, killing an estimated quarter of the population. Following the plague came the foot-long locusts. Then came the hungry years.
With the population devastated, mining and forestry ground to a halt due to manpower shortages. At first, the merchants who braved the wood sold their wares at tremendous markups. The satrap's agents attempted to enforce price controls, but the black market spiraled out of control, undermining their authority. The plague struck several more times, and the last agent of the Satrapy delivered tidings of a food convoy setting out from the Plains of Roal to bring much needed succor to Vara.
The food never arrived. Desperation forced people to attempt the Eastwall. The Greenwood came to be a source of fear, with only the hardiest souls venturing in at night. The Prefecture of Vara was sundered from civilization, and the date of the last agent was fixed as 0 AS.
No one, be they agent of the Satrapy, merchant, or bandit king, claims to have emerged from the Greenwood in nearly 300 years