The elves that would eventually make up the Aesthar Magocracy  were once nothing more than forest dwelling tribals. Then the Loar empire came and conquered them brutally. Their arms, armor and magic by far more advanced than anything the elves could have conceived of. After Conquest many slaves and chattel were taken back to the capitol, even as the magical and religious traditions of the elves were crushed under heel, because they were dangerous and the elves magic judged abhorrent. Thus began the long bondage of the elven peoples, as everything they once were was destroyed and molded to be a subservient race to the empire.

The elves themselves were prized dancers, courtesans, mundane tinkers and engineers. Their lithe and somewhat fragile bodies used not for brute labor but for exercises in grace, dexterity and controlled movement. This left them highly prized slaves, despite the fact that magic use was banned for them totally, owing to their origins.

Then the Flux came Devastating the Empire. The few magistrates and lords that had not gone to battle the southern rebels quickly tried to take the rest of the province that was once the Elves' homeland. Elves once used as creatures of grace were now conscripted to be slave soldiers for bevy or minor lords and ladies deadset to "Recreate the glory of Loar." Elves died by the score their blood staining the earth and their laments drowning out the sky. It could have gone like this even to this day, if not for a hedge magus breaking the taboo of letting elves near magic. Aeleris the Grand, a servant and slave to a now forgotten hedge mage, was allowed near tomes of mystical lore.  The would be Magus out of both curiosity and a desire for power, read the tomes and digested them, far faster than would be possible for a human. But Elves are not humans, they have centuries of experience and perspective to draw on, and using that the locus of magic clicked, and with it a chance for change. Slowly Aeleris taught others, and slowly, ever so slowly knowledge of magic, and a desire to use it, spread.

To the Human lord, who had for generations sued elves like chattel and fodder, the rebellion seemed as sudden as a storm and far more violent. Human were cast down and slaughtered, their towers destroyed and armies, those that were not elven, crushed utterly. in the aftermath, the elves made their own land, for the elves, by the elves. The Aesthar Magocracy. Granted, things were hard after the humans were removed, but at least now the elves would taste the fruit of their labors and work for themselves.