Timeline of Aetolia

THE TIMELINE OF SAPIENCE

The following is a summary of the events that comprise Aetolia, the Midnight Age. Owing to less-than-stellar notekeeping and the nature of sporadic volunteer work, this timeline's completion or 100% factual accuracy is never guaranteed. Every effort has been made to maintain the game's history to the best of our volunteers' abilities.

FIRST EPOCH - AGE OF CREATION - FIRST IMMORTAL EPOCH

• Varian creates Severn and Lanos. (HELP CREATION)
• Varian creates Haern, Lleis, and Dhar. (HELP CREATION)
• The Triad begin the Cycle and create the souls of life.
• The Ankyreans are created in the proto-realm of Varian's Divinity.
• The material world accretes from the elements and is given shape by the quartet of elemental gods - Mebrene, Slyphe, Galleus and Ivoln.
• Mortalkind are given bodies to live in the material world.
• The first of the mortal races are created to serve the Ankyreans.
• During this period, many of the racial origin stories take place.
• The people of this time were sentient, but swayed easily by the power of the Gods.
• Dhar and Ivoln merge to form Dhaivol, formalizing the Ritual of Union (Ivolnite undeath) at the same time.

SECOND EPOCH - AGE OF PROVIDENCE - SECOND IMMORTAL EPOCH

• Bloodloch is dug and founded by the Dowaf, precursor to the Dwarves, who are among the most developed of the mortal races.
• Spinesreach is built by the Ankyreans as a bastion and storehouse of knowledge.
• Stormcaller Crag is constructed. [PROJECT 530, Stormcaller Research Society]
• The sprawling underwater city of Kelsys is built, overseen directly by Lady Slyphe.
• As favoured children of a Goddess, the Kelki are granted insight and power beyond other mortals, making Kelsys a bastion of advanced technology.
• The Consortium is formed to research the great secrets of the world.
• Following experiments with the leylines, the Ankyreans discover, and alert, the Dreikathi. [Public News 5196]
• A great war breaks out as Ankyreans and Dreikathi clash, both in the material world and in the ley.
• This precipitates the mysterious destructive event later called the Disturbance.
• The great war ends with the collapse of the leyline transit and the destruction of the Court of the Consortium.
• The Yggdrasil is planted in an attempt to mend some of the effects of the Disturbance.
• Fearful of further disturbances, Varian conceals knowledge of the leylines from His children. [Public News 5195]
• The great war signifies the breakdown of the social order between Ankyrean and rellyw, and the end of the Second Immortal Epoch.

THIRD EPOCH - AGE OF DESPAIR - FIRST MORTAL EPOCH

• The Gods are confused and scattered, and most of the Ankyreans are dead.
• The remaining Ankyrean tribes begin subjugating the 'lesser races' and forming their own small empires.
• The Endorone cult forms among the subjugated Dwarves, studying the power of life essence and deriving techniques to use to fight the Ankyreans.
• A splinter sect within the Endorone beseeches Lady Chakrasul for aid, and She teaches them the forbidden magic of Chaos and corruptive Necromancy.
• In Hlugnic (high Dwarven), 'endoron' means 'mage'. Other races begin using the modified form, 'Indoron', as shorthand for 'despair'.
• They conquer Bloodloch in a vicious civil war and drive out the unloyal Dwarves, then collapse under internal stresses as the Chakrasulian cult displaces the original Endoron and embraces their role as bringers of despair.
• The Indoron move on the rest of Sapience, intending to conquer it.
• A man named Idar Karif unites several scattered settlements as the armies of the Light and builds his Castle of Illumination. He then pitches his armies against those of the Indoron. [Tiyen Indoron: Rescribed]
• The self-christened forces of Light harry the Indoron from the southeast, whittling down their forces as their once-green recruits become veterans in facing the dark magi.
• The Indoron retreat into Bloodloch and the surrounding lands, fighting running battles against enemy regiments.
• Idar Karif marries Catiana, a lady of mysterious origins, and the crusade against the Indoron becomes more brutal. Soon enough, Idar becomes paranoid of his own closest circle, casting them from his Castle.
• Internal schisms form within the armies of the Light, as Lady Catarina's presence drives Idar and his men into their own extremes of mad devotion. At its height, Idar Karif murders every person living in the Castle of Illumination and casts himself from the parapets to his death.
• Lady Catarina is revealed to be an invocation of Lady Chakrasul as she takes the Castle of Illumination for Herself, rechristening it Tiyen Indoron and removing it from mortal knowledge and sight.
• Fuelled by the sacrifice of Idar Karif's men, a black rain of corruption falls over the south, tainting land and mortals both and swaying them towards corruption. [The rise and fall of the Indorani]
• The Dark Empire rises from the now-fertile ground, beneath the black banner of the thirteen-pointed star.
• With the now-few Indoron at their head and armies of Indorani led by the brutal Yetrent, they push back the unified forces of Light with Goddess-given powers.
• The Dun Fortress and Azdun are founded.
• The Wars of Power begin as the Dark Empire mandates the construction of the landmarks and the forces of Light discover how to manipulate them.
• The Ankyrean Order is formed in Spinesreach to combat the Dark Empire.
• The Syssin are founded to support their less numerous Ankyrean masters. [(HELP SYSSIN)]
• The Gods are petitioned for support, and grant it, putting Their blessing behind the Ankyrean armies.
• The consolidation of power marks the end of the First Mortal Epoch as the war between the Indoron and Ankyreans comes to a stalemate.

FOURTH EPOCH - AGE OF CONFLICT - SECOND MORTAL EPOCH

• The Illuminai forms in the wake of the Indoron and begins fighting them.
• The precursors to the Priests are founded. [(HELP PRIESTS), (HELP LUMINARIES), (HELP DARU)]
• A temple is built on the site of the future city of Shallam, that which would become Enorian.
• The temple itself is razed by the Indoron, and Shallam is built atop it at a later date.
• Guided by a conclave of the Ankyrean Order and the united Gods, a circle of seven Spirit-channelers ambush and annihilate Yetrent's physical form, trapping him as a wretched spirit.
• With the fall of Yetrent, the core of the Dark Empire's magical forces collapse, and eventually Bloodloch itself is besieged.
• Imal, Yetrent's second and current leader of the Indorani, evacuates a portion of his followers and enacts the collapse of the caverns to fend off the forces of Light and deny them a total victory.
• This is the fall of Bloodloch, and by extension the fall of the Dark Empire.
• Pockets of Dark Empire loyalists survive in areas like Azdun and the Dun Fortress.
• Llazuth and her Black Keep are hidden away beyond the veil to preserve the secrets of the Empire. [(HELP DARK EMPIRE)]
• A small group of mortals led by an Ankyrean called Azaeru, calling themselves the Naldareth, seek succour in Kelsys, using dire warnings of a prophesied threat to gain entry and influence.
• This group is capable of elemental channeling - Azaeru is in fact a renegade of the Order, responsible for teaching rellyw to channel. [The Naldareth and the Children]
• Inscribing Azaeru's apocalyptic visions onto the walls of the Silver Spire, they preached of a coming destructive force that the woefully under-prepared city could not hope to stand against.
• Panicked and afraid, and unable to contact their Matron, the Kelki allow the Naldareth to install themselves in the Silver Spire.
• The Kelki are trained in making use of the elements and form the core of the Naldareth guild, led by the Eye of Eternity and his followers.
• The mystics rise up in the Misty Isles and begin tapping into the leylines for their magic.
• Ashtan is founded as a haven for scholars and mortal magicians, and is cloaked from the Indoron by illusions.
• The Nazetu arrive from the Western Isles, lay siege to Ashtan, and end up scattering in the retreat.
• The First Child is revealed to be a summoning of the Indorani as they assault the Silver Spire, dashing themselves against the newly-built defenses of Kelsys and being repulsed.
• The city takes extensive damage, and the Naldareth depart for a more defensible area (Shallam), shrouding Kelsys in a protective veil called the Lutha Kelma to hide them from the Second Child.
• The Ankyreans notice the mystics, and through observing them rediscover the leylines.
• The orrery and leyspike in Spinesreach are built. ["The planar orrery and the ghost of Vusbati"]
• Lycanthropy is derived from magical techniques pioneered by the mystics.
• The first Atabahi flee Spinesreach and hide in Three Rock, founding the Rout. [ATABAHI 428]
• Yrtez and the Conclave of Magic create the vampires and flee, sparking the Ankyrean civil war. [(HELP SECONDWAR)]
• Azaeru, first of the Naldareth, dies in an experimental accident, succeeded by a nameless and arrogant acolyte.
• Alaihandra, a mortal Naldareth, prophecies the Grand Artifice and is ignored by the current Eye of Eternity. She safeguards five memories to survive until the Midnight Age.
• Riven by civil war, the Ankyrean Order begins to collapse.
• The fall of the Ankyreans is gradual and takes many years.
• During this period, the stories of the Seluno brothers take place. [(HELP PALADINS), (HELP INFERNALS), (HELP SENTINELS)]
• Nominally in response to the pleas of Qeddwyn, but in fact in order to once again conceal knowledge of the leylines, Severn enacts the Grand Artifice. [(HELP GRANDARTIFICE), "My Offer of Guidance"]