Creator race

The five creator races (or Iquar'Tel'Quessir in the language of the elves) dominated Faerûn during the Days of Thunder. All are considered native to Abeir-Toril, as are their descendants and creations. Most historians agree that the creator races were the sarrukh (creators of the yuan-ti, naga, lizardfolk, and scalykind), the batrachi (known as amphibioids, and the creators of the bullywugs, doppelgangers, kopru, kuo-toa, locathah, sivs, tako and other shapeshifting, amphibious, or piscine races), the aearee (known as avians, and creators of the aarakocra, kenku, and other birdlike humanoids), the fey (known as sylvans, and creators of korreds, sprites, and pixies) and humans. Other sages incorrectly leave out the aearee but include dragons in the list. Elves and dwarves are not counted as creator races because they, as well as some human ethnic groups, were immigrants to Abeir-Toril from other worlds.

Although five creator races existed in Faerûn, only four forged empires in the earliest days of recorded history (known today as the Days of Thunder), and only three contributed to the creation of the items known as the Nether Scrolls.

The sarrukh, batrachi, and aearee each dominated Faerûn in turn, creating or producing as offspring a plethora of lesser races, and recording the magic of the more primitive races around them. The fey never dominated the continent; they chose instead to rule Faerie, an otherworldly realm loosely connected to Faerûn. Humans, the last of the Iqua-Tel'Quessir, did not rise to rule Faerûn until after the Time of Dragons and the elven and dwarven empires.

Except for the humans, the fate of the creator races is largely unrecorded. A few sarrukh lurk in ancient ruins and southern jungles, but most of their kindred departed for other planes millennia ago. The batrachi may be extinct, although a few scholars believe they fled to Limbo, where they became known as slaadi. The aearee flew westward to Anchorome, and nothing is known of their fate. The fey still rule Faerie, although the ties between their realm and Faerûn are growing faint. Humans continue to thrive, as do crossbreeds with partial ancestry, such as the yuan-ti.

Contrary Evidence
It should be noted that other sources refer to only three creator races - an amphibian, an avian and a reptilian. The creator races reputedly possessed civilizations rivaling or surpassing anything on Toril today. This period is known as the Days of Thunder in elven oral tradition and is said to have taken place eons before man walked the earth, ages before the elves were civilized enough to record history.

According to the same lore, the undefined age which followed was known as the Time of Dragons, following catastrophic changes which altered the world's climate and the shape of the continents, and marked the end of the Iqua'Tel'Quessir. By the same accounts, many of the roots of modern civilization begin around this point, particularly the elven, eventually resulting in the First Flowering (the era from -24,000 DR to -12,000 DR).

The implications here are that humans were very definitely not one of the creator races, despite their current domination of Toril. While there is no mention of the Fey in these accounts to link them to the Iqua'Tel'Quessir, there is nothing to say that they were not present on Toril during the Days of Thunder. Speculatively, the Fey may not have been included in this differing list of the creator races due to their being rather distinct from the other three - perhaps due to a lack of characterizing empires, or of tinkering with other races.

Other veiled comments talk of a race of giants before the coming of the lizard folk. However, it is unclear whether or not this reference to lizard folk refers to the sarrukh creator race, or rather to their degenerate progeny. On the one hand, given that it seems that the coming of the lizard folk is a significant event worthy of mentioning, it would imply that these folk would have had a high impact on the history of the area, namely Mulhorand and this area is believed to be the site of first sarrukh realm.

One of the islands of the Pirate Isles in the Sea of Fallen Stars is ringed by impassable cliffs carved with giant humanoid figures. Travelers have reported stories of caves which lead into the interior of the island filled with jungle and unseasonal climes and populated by savage elves and dragons. One possible implication of this is that these caves actually can pierce time and take the traveler back to a time before elven civilization developed, possibly to The Time of Dragons or beyond into the very Days of Thunder. If this were true, then the original creators of the carvings in the cliffs around the island could have been a race of giants with a high civilization in the past. However, on the other hand this theory of a creator race of giants goes very much against mainstream history as accepted by most sages and is basically speculation and hearsay.

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