Modern Era

1st World (Age of Fire)

As the ice receded and the climate stabilized, the populations of Aereth started moving, searching for better farmlands and hunting. The people that had been trapped on the continents of Eirares and Iaphios drifted west to Vendia. This brought many more Murians to the western lands and into regular contact with the older races (dragons, Gwerin, Dwarrow, Sedayin, and Wyr). it is expected that there were disagreements and conflict which will be added with actual dates as they are established.

1 – 1999 CE (Rings Waxing)

Note: As the next Turn after the end of the Great Ice began, delegates from almost all nations on Aereth met. Their goal was to create a universal calendar and settle on a “common language”.

It was decided that the new calendar would start with year 1 and run through year 4999, the length of 1 Turn. They designate this era, the 1st World, Common Era (CE), Age of Fire.

Hammering out which of the many languages would become the Common Language (aka Trade Tongue, Trader’s Language) was more difficult. Since the Gwerin were universally considered the eldest of the races with a spoken language, their trade dialect known as Eldian was selected to be the “world language”. Eldian is also known as Commyn or Comyn.

Hint: Eldian is known as English on Earth.

20 CE: Wyr and Ddraig Meeting

Approximately 2000 years ago, as the Great Ice retreated to the polar climes, a single Wyr clan made their way to Bassilith, where they encountered Menrath, the Jade Empress of Siege Perilous. In return for a service they performed for her, the nature of which is unknown, they were offered lands to settle.

Stormsinger House settled on the rough and rugged mountainous peninsula that lays between Bassilith and the mainland of Vendia. At low tide, a portion of the peninsula connects to a spit of land that juts out from Bassilith. From that point on, the Wyr became the Guardians of the Passes between Bassilith and the mainland.

This was a small, almost unnoticed even, yet it settled one of the twelve Guardian Lines (Watchers Over the Waves) of the Wyr on Caer Draenár and sealed an alliance between the Wyr and the dragons of Aereth.

500 CE

By this time, in the eastern lands of the continent of Vendia, two distinct warring nations has evolved, Bredia and Oscaria.

503 CE: Nordheim Settled

The Vanir settle in the north of Catria, establishing the Sea Kingdom, Nordheim.

550 CE

Oscaria’s culture and military were highly influenced by a legion of Rome’s military that became trapped on Aereth. This made them a formidable enemy for Bredia and allowed them to Bredia’s determined attempts to push them out of the region. However, with each clash between the two nations, the Bredians learned more of Oscaria’s military tactics, strengths, and weaknesses. Meanwhile, Oscaria continued to believe that they could never be defeated by what appeared to be the Bredian’s loose tribal organization.

600 CE: Battle of Vales

In the late 500s, the Oscarians began mounting a determined effort to overrun Bredia and claim the port of Valesia. They needed a natural, deep harbor, and Valesia was the best one along the eastern seaboard. Led by Titus Mallius Marius, Oscaria’s forces began a military push toward the region dominated by the port. Just outside the walls of the port, Marius comes up against a massive Bredian military force. Talorc of Vales, self-acclaimed warlord of the Bredians, was prepared to meet the might of Oscaria.

The battle was short and brutal. At the end of three days, Marius was dead, and the Oscarians in retreat with a large Bredian force in pursuit. When the dust had settled, the only Oscarians that remained were the common people who were soon integrated into Bredian society. Talorc of Vales declared himself the King of Vales for the region where Valesia was located and was supported by the people since he was credited with ending the Oscarian threat.

Talorc did spare Marius’s widow, Brea. He married her within a week of taking Oscaria’s capital.

607: House Talorc Established

On the first birthday of his son, Cano, Talorc decreed the establishment of House Talorc, and he took the name Taran, becoming Taran Talorc.

1020 CE: Founding of Caer Draenár

It will come from the heart of the Mountain, black and red. Black as Nightsteel and Red as blood. You have to see…you have to be ready. You have to find a way for our people. Your life has no other meaning.

This prophecy spoken by a dying seer haunted the steps of Kiaris of Nighteyes Wings for most of her youth. When she grew older, she began to have dreams, nightmares about the Amber Islands burning, about a Shadow escaping from Mt. Cachár and about a grey Fox laughing in the Mists. It was only when she met Eomarc of Snowseeker Clan that she found someone who understood, who partially suffered from the same dreams. Kiaris and Eomarc were both shocked when they found a third person plagued by the same nightmare: Seiryu of Greystorm House, a traveling Wyr from far-away Xia, who had spent several years on the Island.

Realizing that they had one thing in common: they all were of Guardian Lines: the Nightsingers (Kiaris), The Spirits of Frost (Eomarc) and The Watchers over the Storm (Seiryu), they concluded rightly that those dreams had to mean something, and they set out to do the one thing that seemed probably: founding a safe haven for their people, away from the known settlements and far away from the Amber Islands. This quest was hampered by the problem that a large Wyr populace would need a wellspring, similar to the Cave of the Golden Rose.

Eomarc, the Fox Wyr of the group, finally realized that the laughing Grey Fox in their dreams was the Grey King, a legend of old. Together they followed and thus found the Seat of the Grey King and, to their surprise, another Wyr Clan, the Watchers Over the Waves, living nearby.

The four clans held a council and thus decided on the Founding of Caer Draenár, though that founding came at the price of some discord. Seiryu, being born and raised in the City of Skulls, found that the Watchers Over the Waves did not trust him. The founding of Caer Draenár was only possible through his withdrawal from the quest. An agreement was made that he would not become part of their new founding but would always be considered a friend and ally of Caer Draenár and allowed to return there though never to share in the leadership of the settlement.

While Seiryu was never seen again in Caer Draenár, it is more than likely that he eliminated more than a few enemies who planned on harming the Wyr.

1100 CE: Fall of Cal’dyra on Iaphios

1106 CE: Darkening of Amber Islands

1170 CE: Siege of Midsummer

After the defeat of the Oscaria, most of their people integrated with the people of Bredia (now Vales). However, a pocket resistance remained and gathered members and momentum. Small uprisings were dealt with harshly by the Valesian Legions. However, in 1170, the Oscarians managed to mount a substantial fighting force based in a town called Tarsia that lay to the northeast of Valesia.

The King of Vales learned of the revolutionaries’ location and who had been sheltering them. In a fit of rage, he ordered his legions to march on the city of Tarsia, burn it to the ground, and bring the inhabitants, especially the Oscarian revolutionaries, back to the Valesian prisons.

After languishing for weeks in the prisons of Valesia, the military and civilians from Tarsia are brought to a large enclosure outside the gates of Valesia. The King, having read about the old gladiator battles in the texts confiscated from the original Oscarians, ordered that the civilian captives be armed and set to battle his own legions. The end result was swift and brutal, yet the assembled Valesians loved it. Next, the Oscarian revolutionaries were armed and set to battle the legions. This lasted longer, but the end result was the same.

The children of Tarsia, up through the age of fourteen, were spared so that they could remember what the penalty for defying the Kingdom was. The younger ones were sold into slavery, and the older teens were sent to the naica mines.

Tarsia would cease to exist beyond being a rallying cry for those foolish enough to go against the Kingdom, and another institution was born, the Valesian Games. The Games were loosely modeled on what could be gleaned from the ancient Oscarian scrolls. They were used for executions and as punishment for uprisings of any kind. They were also used for fairly bloodless entertainment as well. Events such as demonstrations of the might and power of Vales’ legions, horse races, beast battles, and voluntary fighting matches for substantial purses are all held. A sumptuous coliseum was built on the flatland where the massacre of the Tarsians occurred and was eventually enclosed within the walls of the expanding port city of Valesia.

1121 CE: Fall of Amber Islands

1123 CE: Founding of Aquitaine

1200 CE: League of Six Nations Forms

To provide for the mutual protection of Vendia’s lands, Tynar-Dazûr authors the Alliance of Nations. The small neutral nation of Helvetia is established and construction on the Haven fortress is started. This will become the meeting place and seat of the Six.

Member Nations: Tynar-Dazûr, Aquitaine, Nordheim, Bassilith (Ddraig, Gwerin), Sask.

1220 CE: Wyr Civil War

Approximately 800 years ago, a shadow fell on the Amber Islands as a Dark Presence emerged from the ice of the North. Led by a dark general named Guramar, Shadowborn creatures attacked the Amber Islands, tearing through the various settlements. A bitter war broke out, and the Wyr were pressed to hold their own. In desperation, they turned to the one source of strength they knew well: The Cave of the Golden Rose. As in times past, the cave fulfilled its promise, making those who drank from the well powerful beyond their normal limits, making them strong against the shadow. Within a decade, the Wyr won their war and killed Guramar.

As always, there was a price: at first, a few Wyr became unstable, then a rift opened between several groups when one of their greatest War-Leaders, Khadair, disposed of the Council of Elders. Thus the Wyr civil war began, a bloody, horrible struggle that lasted for another decade, Khadair on one side, one of his best friends becoming his greatest opponent: Nighthunter. The fighting became so bad that the Mountain itself shook, and the Cave of the Golden Rose began to awaken. When both sides realized what happened, they raced to the cave, only to realize that they all were facing the Wrath of the Golden Rose. Seeing what he had set in motion, Khadair decided he’d be the one to end it, sitting down in the stone chair on the Mountain, and ordering his closest follower to execute him there, paying the price of the Rose.

While this averted the worst consequences, the Golden Rose still took most of the core Amber Isles and made them impassable for the time being. The Wyr fled from the core islands to the outer islands, where many of them would remain. Many of those who drank from the Well of the Golden Rose were either unstable or downright mad, these Islands are known to the world as the Islands of Madman, and a very dangerous place to go.

Those Wyr still stable enough or young enough to have inherited the Gift of the Golden Rose without drinking from the Well themselves, made it to the mainland and from there to Caer Draenár, which truly became a refuge for the survivors.

Today Caer Draenár holds seven Guardian Lines, who all sit on the council. There is now a thriving populace of all kinds of Wyr Clans living there.

1500 CE: The Howlers

To the south of the continent of Vendia lay the vast archipelago known as the Howling Islands. The islands appear to be a tropical paradise. However, they are infested with wyverns. Beginning around the year 1500, the often disenfranchised Grayborn began making their way south and settling there. In time other people joined them, eventually giving rise to the Howlers, a culture made up of numerous biped races.

1550 CE: League of Seven Nations

In the year 1550, the Kingdom of Vales is admitted to the League of Six Nations, prompting changing the alliance to the League of Seven Nations.

Member Nations: Tynar-Dazûr, Aquitaine, Nordheim, Bassilith (Ddraig, Gwerin), Sask, Kingdom of Vales.

2000 – 2999 CE (Rings Regnant)

Note: Rings are at their zenith.

2020 CE: RPG Begins

The game begins during the 4th Moon (April on Earth). It has been twenty years since the Rings of Aereth reached their zenith, i.e., are Regnant.