The Hendriki tribe of Heortland was formed during the reign of Lokamayadon, when all righteous Orlanthi were suppressed. The Hendriki would not have anyone dominate them or their religion, so they retreated from the advancing forces of the Bright Empire and settled the chaos-plagued lands right outside of Larnste's Footprint. They claimed that chaos had spread in the lands of the Council, so that it was no worse than these lands, where chaos at least showed its true face. While they were not the first humans to settle here, they were the first within history. They built their fortified cities and steads, and set up a continual guard on the mouth of the Footprint, to ward off the emanations from Foulblood Forest.
However, Lokamayadon would not rest before all Heortlings would follow his way to Orlanth rather than the old ways, and so he summoned his allies from the lands of the Evil Emperor and sent them south, against the Kingdom of Night and its allies. The Heortlings were subjected, and their cities taken. Those who wouldn't submit were slaughtered, or fled into the high valleys, below the eyries of the Wind Children of the Storm Mountains. There they held out against the Iron Vrok's minions until the Liberator came from the West. As Arkat landed his fleet in the Kingdom of Night, the Hendriki (warned by their wind children allies) left their mountain hideouts and ousted the Sun worshippers from their land, fought the chaos spawn Gbaji's minions had summoned back into the Stone Woods, and joined forces with the newcomers for the battle of the Traveling Stone. By doing so they thwarted a deadly ambush on Arkat's troops, and for this they were highly honoured. As Arkat moved on with his crusade against Gbaji, he re-installed the Only Old One to power over Kethaela, but he gave rule over Heortland to the king of the Hendriki tribe.
Arkat had come to Kethaela as Humaktsson, but with him came old allies from Seshnela, Malkioni knights and wizards, who enjoyed the hospitality of the Hendriki while their leader spent a year in negotiation with the trolls of Dagori Inkarth and the Obsidian Castle. Bonds of friendship, and even marriage, were created. However, both Arkat's old-time allies and the Hendriki were dismayed when Arkat returned changed from the trolls - he had given his humanity for the doubtful benefit of the troll's native resistance to Chaos. Many of his followers deserted Arkat's cause upon this, including the Hero Harmast Barefoot who had undertaken the Lightbringers' Quest to bring the Liberator to the Heortlings.
When Harmast went on his second Lightbringers' Quest to right his mistake from the first one, many of the Westerners accompanied him on his way west, the most stalwart continued their crusade against Gbaji and followed Arkat against the Bright Empire regardless of his shape. Many were killed in the ensuing battles. The few remaining ones were absorbed by the Hendriki, forming their own obscure subcult of Orlanth, Orlanth the Wizard.
After Arkat and his allies had conquered Dorastor, and slain Gbaji, the survivors returned to their homelands, or followed their leaders into new lands to settle. Talor the Laughing Warrior led a sizeable band of Heortling warriors back to his homeland in Akem, where Harmast had found him beyond the Gate of Banir. With them went most of the surviving knights.Others followed Arkat across Kartolin Pass into Ralios, among these the man called Aeol, Harmast's former Knowing Companion. He returned to his people years later, bringing with him a sword which since served the champion of the Hendriki.
The kingdom of Heortland - including most of Dragon Pass, modern Heortland, and even further Peloria - was mostly subjected to Arkat's troll allies. The Hendriki tribe paid only token tribute to the Only Old One, who in his wisdom left the Hendriki mostly to their own devices. Their cities soon grew to resemble the other cities in and around the Kingdom of Night, attracting guildspeople from all over Kethaela.
Other Heortlings suffered under the troll regime, and when the Sun Dome warriors from Peloria brought their temple cities into their lands, they welcomed them, and gladly accepted their aid against their troll lords.
When the Jrusteli of Nochet began to teach the secrets of Draconic Speech they had stolen from the hero-cult of Drolgard, soon all of Dragon Pass erupted in wild experimentation with the new ability, and as a consequence in violence and disorder. The Hendriki kings lost whatever influence they had on the lands north of the Haunted Lands and the Troll Woods, but in return they kept the excesses of draconism in check in their lands. Even after the Empire of the Wyrm's Friends had been formed, the Hendriki remained friendly, but apart, allowing draconic practices but keeping their traditional ways, designed to hold off the threat from the Foulblood Forest.
However, they were unprepared for a second infiltration: that of the Jrusteli missionaries. For a couple of years, these western foreigners roamed the land and gathered knowledge and insights. Finally they even built a city right outside of the Hendriki lands, Lylket, on the shore of the Mirrorsea Bay right south of the Shadow Plateau and the Obsidian Castle.
During the following years the Jrusteli kept invading the ceremonies
and myths of Heortland, and in the south, on the Leftarm Isles, Locsil,
another city grew to be an abomination. The people there worshipped a god
they had made themselves, Zistor, which had led an invasion into the Only
Old One's Kingdom of Night, and established the Jrusteli in power over
much of Kethaela.