Timeline of The Realm
The following is a patchy timeline of the entire history of The Realm, in centuries, from the cosmological beginnings of the Infinite Past up to the Common Era and The Newcomers' Age. Click on any century to see notes on historic events. Many of these events were developed in game days and summer camp. This timeline is simply presented as a skeleton to hang many, many more stories on.
THE INFINITE PAST
There is nothing.
Now there is Thing.
Now Thing dreams.
Thing dreams an other. Now we know The Dark.
Thing dreams another. Now we Silence.
Thing dreams several more. Now we know Stillness.
The Several sleep in company with Thing.
All shiver uncovered.
The Several dream The Weavers. Now the Weavers weave.
Stillness is broken.
The weaving kicks up Dust.
The Weavers finish The Cloth. The sleepers stop shivering beneath their silent work.
Cold is broken.
Dust settles on The Cloth.
Note: Dust is known as Mist to the Goblin people or Sh'ne. Sh'ne revere Mist beyond all as a primal substance beyond Thing's, The Weavers' or The Several's ultimate control.
The Weavers beat Dust from The Cloth. Now their beating creates a rhythm.
Silence is broken.
From Dust is Air. From Dust is Water. From Dust is Earth.
The Rhythm of the Weavers creates a first Reckoning of things that have come to be. Now this Reckoning smites Eternity: it is the Wound of Time.
The Infinite is Broken.
Yet the Rhythm soothes the sleepers beneath The Cloth for a long, long time.
THE ARCHAIC ERA
The Sorcerors of Igal divine the beginning of time as far back as this date.
Thing and the Several sleep.
The Weavers beat the ever settling Dust. Their work never ceases. The Wound of Time grows.
Long-entranced by the Rhythm of the Weavers, Thing dreams Light.
From Light, now Dust catches Fire. The Cloth bursts into flame. Darkness is splattered with stars above The Cloth.
Darkness is broken.
The Cloth burns with life. All destinies are woven into its weft and warp. Soon The Cloth of Life will burn completely away. It is burning fast.
Though it will be brief, the burning is spectacular.
First to erupt from the burning of weft and warp are The Great Forests: Easðe, Oesðe, Nearða and Suerða.
New things erupt in The Forests and live in them. These things are noisy.
...very noisy.
They will be short-lived as The Several begin to murmur in their sleep.
In smoking Suerða things first begin to speak.
The Sorcerors of Igal teach that this smoke of Suerða, this speech, is Fire itself dreaming. This doctrine of secondary creation is known as the Heresy of Faerie.
THE EARLY MYTHIC ERA
The First Mystery appears.
The Coming of the Faerie Courts from warm Searða constitutes the First Mystery. They are the Siddi, The Seelie Court and The Unseelie Court of Faerie. They live in harmony and celebration for a blessed five hundred years.
Their singing makes the sleepers toss and turn.
The Faerie or Siddi Civilization is flourishing.
4882 B.E. The Several awaken. They are angry and make themselves known in Faerie. They wish to sleep. They wish again for Silence, for Darkness, for Stillness. They tear into the noisy fabric of life. The Siddi first call them The Sorrows. One among the Sorrows tears through the cloth and into the world. This is called the First Great Horror. It's name is now forgotten.
4932 B.E. The Seelie and Unseelie Courts break apart. The Seelie Court become known as "The Elves" or Sidi.
4932 B.E. The Unseelie Court are chased from the mountains by The Horror and become the first "Goblins" or Sh’ne. They embrace the beautiful and wild Fens of the Great Sahn. They renounce the life of The Courts and the Horror they associate with courtly life. They seek wildness in all ways. The Sidi begin to consider the Sh'ne feral and dangerous, but their fear and mistrust does not overrule their respect and the two courts remain in good (if separate) relations.
The Graces appear in the time of The Horror. They rekindle Fire in the hearts of the Three Courts of Beings: the Sidi, Madzi and Sh’ne.
4777 B.E. The Madzi (or Dwarves) arrive from cold Nuerðe, the Graces among them. Their appearance is forever known as The Second Mystery. The Madzi arrive on Shehelemet and slam their Hammers into the stone of the mountain calling the Horror unto them.
Sidi, Madzi and Sh'ne fight against The Horror. They succeed. The Horror, defeated, is driven from The Cloth.
The Sidi and Madzi take residence on Shehelemet and help create a magnificent city. The civilization of Shehelemet begins. The word refers to both the mountain and the great city.
Humans, or Hidzi, The Third Mystery, have not yet arrived.
The civilization of the Courts of Grace in Shehelemet is flourishing.
Magonsaete the Terrible appears and is destroyed by the Courts of Grace lead by the Dwarves of Hwiccéa.
By 4000 B.E. the Elves have come to live in four different courts. These courts will eventually come to be known as The High Court, The Deep Court, The Forest Court and The Sea Court. They live in relative harmony.
The civilization of The Three Courts, also known as The Courts of Grace, centered in Shehelemet, is flourishing.
The Strife of Colossus begins.
3033 B.E. The Colossus appears as a mysterious gift of armor to the King of Dwarves from an unknown source. The armor awakens and slays the Dwarven king Gokhallric XIII driving the Dwarves from Shehelemet. The Dwarves call the awakening of Colossus The Second Great Horror.
3033 B.E. The Sahn, homeland of the Sh'ne is invaded by several families of the Madzi who were displaced from Shehelemet. This begins The Ugly War and it ends with the Sh’ne receding from the Sahn.
3030 B.E. Also having been driven from Shehelemet, those who will come to be known as The High Elves create a new and magnificent city elsewhere. This is the city of Caer Sidi, or City of The Forever-Forsaken Elves. The High Elves renounce Shehelemet as gulboeden or forever-defiled.
In love with The Realm, the Colossus leaves Shehelemet, but it is a jealous love. The Colossus disappears.
2999 B.E. Those who will come to be known as The Deep Court of Elves return to Shehelemet and create a bracing and healing magic. The High Court of Elves stay in Caer Sidi.
Those who will come to be known as the Forest Court and Sea Court, like the High Court of Elves, never return to Shehelemet.
The Dwarves return to Shehelemet.
2899 B.E. Many families of the Madzi return to the mountain after the Colossus disappears. This is the Kingdom of Rhakmadz, and the Rhakmadzi live uneasily near the Deep Elven Court in Shehelemet.
Strife between the Deep and High Elven Courts begins to grow and is amplified after the formation of The Kingdom of Rhakmadz. Deep and High Elf now live as far away in spirit as in geography.
THE LATE MYTHIC ERA
The first Humans (Hidzi) appear in gracile grey ships from distant Oesða - The Third Mystery.
In the next hundred years the city of Shehelemet is sacked and left in ruin, the Dwarves and Goblins disappear and most of Humanity is slaughtered. The High Elven Empire of Caer Sidi replaces the civilization of Shehelemet. This is known as the Sylvan Age or Imperial Age of Elves.
2660 B.E. The Coming of the Hidzi. The Hidzi traded first with The Sea Elves and High Elves. The coastal Elven clans welcomed them and became arbiters of trade between these copper-seeking Hidzi seafarers and the autochthonous Elven clans further inland. As Elven nobles enriched themselves, particularly those of the High Elven Clan, the coastland of Faerie was despoiled and its greatest mountain, Shehelemet, plundered.
Deep Elves launched a resistance to the destructive High Elven trade joined by their Goblin allies and their Wood Elven kin. IN 2624 B.E. The Forest was engulfed in a relentless and bloody conflict that became ever after known in the sorrowful dirges of the Sidi as the War of 10,000Arrows.
Hidzi also reinforced negative Elven attitudes towards their ancient Goblin siblings.
2625 B.E. Dwarves tear into the earth and grow rich satiating Humanity's lust for precious metal; metal claimed by both Dwarf and Elf. Strife grows between Rakhmadz and Caer Sidi and explodes in The First Elvish War.
The Dwarves are eventually burned out of the mountain by The High Elves and recede.
2625 B.E. The Goblins reappear as The Federated Bands of the Sh’ne Sahn and when The War of 10,000 Arrows erupts they drive the Dwarves from the Sahn before being driven out themselves by an alliance of Elves and Hidzi. A true hate between The Three Courts of Beings begins.
2624 B.E. The War of 10,000 Arrows, an inter-elven conflict primarily between the Deep and High Courts, ends with the beginning of The Reign of The High Elven Empire of Caer Sidi.
The Hidzi live in a subjected coastal area after the Elvish Wars and deliquesce. Some learn magic from the Elves-but still no sigil awakens to them.
The Goblins recede a second time. The cause of their leaving is unknown to scholars.
The High Elven Empire of Caer Sidi flourishes for 639 years. Cruel, capricious and copper-loving it holds all Elvendome in its despotic grasp. All Sidi, who once hunted freely in the great primeval forest, are now its subjects. The Forest had been the domain of Elven clans and their related Goblin friends since the beginning of time.
Caer Sidi keeps ties with the magical sylvan beasts of the Forest and the Mountain that remain aloof from other civilizations. Though their sorcery remains intimately tied to things wild and sylvan, Caer Sidi becomes as grasping and as expansive as the worst of humanity, under the will of an Emperor who dominates the lands surrounding the Mountain and even realms beyond the Eastern Sea. Caer Sidi shows little sympathy for human, dwarf or goblin. They are spectacular, magical and winsome, but fearsome, unforgiving and strongly motivated by vengeance. Mercy is a word whose meaning is forgotten before the word is dropped from their language.
In this 100 years Caer Sidi is destroyed, most or all Hidzi are slain or driven from The Realm and The Elves recede forever.
The 2nd Elvish War, a decimating conflict that culminates in the complete desolation of the mountain of Shehelemet and the flight of the Elves. All four elven courts recede never to return.
Most or maybe all Hidzi are slain or chased out of The Realm after the catastrophic 2nd Elvish War. The Deep Elven alliance is behind the slaughter of the Hidzi.
The Alacrani Civilization forms in arid lands far to the south and separate from The Realm when the sigil of Luuth appears in the dreams of their prophets. Luuth is the only sigil known to have appeared to Hidzi beyond The Realm.
THE EARLY ELDER ERA
The Hidzi return to The Realm summoned by The Erwydd u Ddaeár.
The Long Wyddic Peace begins.The wise ones of Aelaredadd recount how the early clans of humanity lived in harmony and in alignment with the calling of the Erwydd u Ddaeár (Hart of a Thousand Antlers), the first earth-sigil awakened to humankind.
The High Throne of Dumnonia is flourishing.
1433 B.E. The Dumnoni Family ascends The High Throne and the Age of Great Magic begins. The Wyddans build Dumnonia, the greatest city ever seen in The Realm, greater even than Caer Sidi. The High Throne of Dumnonia derives a mythical importance from this era.
1402 B.E. The Iztani (one of the tribes of the Alacrani) ascend the Alacrani Throne and conquer all the lands of the arid south.
THE LATER ELDER ERA
The Second Great Horror. In these 100 years the Wyddans split into the Houses of Hart and Drake and the Dwarves reappear.
The Dwarves re-enter the annals of the Hidzi. They do not tell of the interim history between being burned out of Shehelemet, being driven from the Sahn and re-entering the known lands of The Realm. They take up residence in a multitude of hills and mountains.
The Second Great Horror Erupts. Dumnonia is destroyed. The Wyddans quiet the Horror, but it takes a horrible sacrifice from the family of Mabon that none of the Wyddic families can ever forget. The Alereddad recedes. The Houses of Hart and Drake are formed under new sigils. The House of Hart remains in the Delta of their Homeland.
The family of Gwibdwyll forms the House of Drake and moves to the northern coastal mountains and fjordlands seeking the winged ones. The Gwibdwyll or Draakii share land with the Dwarves, but live in separate enclaves and remain on friendly terms with their Haartii neighbors in the Delta.
THE COMMON ERA
Note on the reckoning of years:
B.E. denotes the reckoning of years used by most contemporary people in The Realm, meaning "before empire."
R.Y. or Realm Year is used by Elder Houses to refer to the contemporary era after the Iztani invasion.
E.H. or Era of History is used only by The Newcomers. E.H. reckoning begins with the coming of the Ghoddic tribes 99 years after R.Y. reckoning which begins with the coming of the Iztani.
The Iztani arrive in the Realm and the Elder Wars of Empire begin. The Draaki retreat. A syncretized culture of Iztani and Haartii traditions begins to form in spite of the war.
The first Newcomers arrive.
R.Y. 1 The Empire arrives, seizes the Wyddic Delta and drives the Haartii under their swords and far into the mountains with a surprising ease that changes the House of Hart forever. The Elder Wars begin.
R. Y. 3 The Haartii militarize to match the might of The Empire. The Bracelet of Knights forms under the remnants of the Dumnonii.
R.Y. 12 The Draakii slowly retreat to the deep and alien forests beyond the mountains. The Aergwyll Society forms.
R.Y. 99 ( or E.H.1) Ghoddic Tribes are invited from The Dying Lands east of the sea to fight with The House of Hart against The Empire. These warriors are later granted land and a kingdom and become the House of Arko.
The Ghoddic tribes settle in The Realm and found the House of Arko.
R.Y. 102 By this year The Iztani have colonized the entire southern peninsula of the Realm but are never able to completely break the Wyddic resistance north of the Delta. A syncretized culture of Iztani and Haartii traditions begins to form in spite of the wars.
The House of Hart mounts a formidable and fierce resistance to empire that transforms them into a mirror image of their conquerors. They invite the Dwarves and Ghoddic Tribes to join in their fight in exchange for land and goodwill.
The House of Drake provide material support and magical support from their enclaves while the House of Hart remains on the frontline of battle with their Arkan and Dwarves Allies.
Hill Dwarves befriend many Ghoddic families in the fight against the Iztani Empire.
The Empire recedes. The Khodéic tribes arrive.
R.Y. 272 After almost 300 years of war the Empire Retreats for unknown reasons leaving some Iztani mercenaries in a hostile land: The House of A’qulla forms when the sigil of Kel’eth the Plumed appears to the descendants of the mercenaries.
R.Y. 273 The Dumnonii seek to restore the High Throne. The city of Icénia is built. The Dumnonii wish to restore the Wyddic Days of Peace and Glory under their rightful rulership. The Bracelet of Knights works as the hand of the Dumnonii. Not all Haartii houses share the philosophy of the Dumnoni clan, but not all families possess the power and esteem of the great Dumnonii.
R.Y. 274 ( or E.H. 175) Hart Grants the Ghoddic people a Kingdom at Beorfort: The House of Arko forms. The Arkan seat of power is shared between the fortress enclaves of Beorfort and Heorot. The Arkans prosper!
R.Y. 284 By this time the Houses of Hart and Drake have been fully sundered. The Aergwyll Society meets with The House of A’quila and helps them transform under the eorth-sigil of Kel’eth the Plumed. They found The Paládanic Sanctuary of A’quila.
R.Y. 290 ( or E.H. 191) The Khode Arrive and after a spell of famine set to war with Arkans and Haartii for land. This is remembered now as The Boar War. Hart and Arko fight a Khode-Goblin alliance. Some Arkans stay out. The Paladins seek peace but only sunder themselves further from the Haartii. The Bracelet and the Paladins become bitter enemies.
R.Y. 290 The Sh’ne Sahn reenter the annals of the Hidzi when they are befriended by the Khodé. The Hidzi Khodé and Sh’ne cultures syncretize over time.
Tensions between Houses begin to grow as Hidzi populations soar after the War of Empire and land becomes scarce outside of The Wild.
R.Y. 301 (or E.H. 202) The House of Sangliér forms after The Boar War.
R.Y. 311 The Paladins claim an alternate High Throne from the throne of Hart, They call this the Throne of Justice at Ranrak’il. They pledge to protect all common people from some of the more grasping families of the House of Hart. Some Haartii families lend their aid in secret, including the great figure of Ayleesh, Mouth of the Airigid who was a close personal friend of fhe first potent and formidable captain of the Paladins, Justiciar Ranraki. Her name lives in legend among the Paladins.
R.Y. 420 The Arkans claim the High Throne at Beorfort. Some of their Bearskin priests are shot dead by a Haartii border patrol. The Houses skirmish and relations sour.
R.Y. 421 The House of Sanglier declares all High Thrones a myth and vows to topple any simple chair claimed to be such a thing.
R.Y. 488 The Ikkerik arrive and enflame all tensions.
The Ikkerik hákarla, or invaders, arrive under their war chief Tiburon I. They conquer the Grey Shores swiftly. These shores are renamed the Iron Shores.
The Six Esteemed Houses of The Realm are fully formed and begin vying for positions of authority over the scarcity of land. All lay claim to The High Throne by might or right. It is a cynical and dangerous time of political opportunism and military adventure.
R.Y. 533 The Colossus returns to fulfill some unforeseen prophecy.
R.Y. 570 (or E.H. 471) The House of Hákkarl forms.
R.Y. 590 The House Alacrán arrives in The Realm fully formed, having been chased from Iztan by the Lich Queen. They possess no ships or lore of sailing. Their arrival is an enigma.
R.Y. 599 Across the Sea the Lich Queen ascends the Throne of Iztan. She vows to return to The Realm and attempt to extinguish the newly formed House of Alacrán, protectors of the indigenous Alacrani ways.