History

Historical Timeline The turn from the days of adventurers and legends passed during the Era of Rising, since then years have been measured by After Rising (A.R.). Year 0 started on the day Rthymna the Red Dragon was slain, a dragon who had kept a tyrannical rule over vast countrysides and was eventually killed after three hundred years of war.

1. Era of Rising
2. Era of Discovery
3. Era of the Purge
4. The Dark Era
5. The Space Era
6. The Borderless Era

Era of Rising (0-720 A.R.)

The Era of Rising began when the smaller races began to band together to overthrow powerful beings that held control over their lives. Rthymna's death being the morale boost to set things into motion. Dragon cults and beholder minions waned away as people lost need to serve these creatures

By 134 A.R. the dragons foresaw the world's changing pattern and began to take humanoid forms and become hermits or members of society. Some began a war that would last four hundred years, known as the War of the World. This was the dragons who refused to become a member of the new society and give up their positions as near-god creatures. They recruited other monsters of a like mindset, demons and beholders being among the most prominent.

While the army was almost enough it served to backfire. The aggressive tactic gained fame across the world within just a few short years and all sentient races began to see the need to band together simply for survival. This was the first time such relations ever held up, drow and elves fought together beside warforged and kobolds.

Another flaw to the tactic was the lack of enough elder dragons, who had resigned to hand the reigns of the world to the younger races. Three elder dragons even fought back against the draconic armies which spurred the humanoids on even further. The world was falling into a horrible state and if not ended soon the war could destroy the world for both parties.

387 A.R. the basic gun was invented. While giving the weak a weapon to stand with it proved to little effect until a year later the first cannon was constructed. It was simple to use and cheap to make in comparison to enchantments. The only problem was transporting such a large weapon to take down enemies.

Three years later enter Kert, the gnoll. Kert had studied psionics with his new found access to their works that was never before accessible to the gnolls. He was familiar with the theory of an airship as well and with two partners in study they put forth the theory that using a psicrystal to command the elemental sealed to a ship they could allow the ship to be flown by anyone, and more importantly control more then one elemental at a time.

After succeeding in using a psicrystal, a much easier to command creature with powerful concentration abilities, they invented the crystal chain. By using one crystal to control two others in perfect sync the ship could use two elemental rings to fly bigger ships with heavier loads.

This allowed the humanoid armies to emplace several cannons on an airship and load it and produce many of these to create a fleet since the captain no longer had to be as mentally powerful as a telepath. Taking the cannons to the sky humanoid races were able to stand up to some of the bigger dragons without extensive training and specialized slayers that had become rare during the war after so many losses.

564 A.R., the war ends in favor of the humanoids when elder silver dragon "Kol" becomes the legendary assault fortress. Mounting armor, elemental rings, psicrystals, cannons, and a full crew on the two mile long dragon they were able to fly a fully functional fortress to wherever was necessary with collaborative effort. Kol won the war within a year and survived. After the bulk of the war was over and any further action was just cleaning up he decided to leave the races to their own devices and ended his twilight years peacefully as he could deep within humanoid territory where he could rest in peace.

590 A.R. the rebuilding goes quickly with the combined efforts of all the races and scientific progress is made with more in-depth discovery of physics and chemistry. By 650 A.R. the gun is the favored weapon of choice for soldiers and the world is being redivided with new boundaries and new country names.

The time of peace passes over during 667 as the rebuilding process has begun remilitarization. While nationality has become more and more important racism still presses heavily on society. Elven politicians and wizards quickly take control and within a few hundred years will be heavily established thanks to their longer life spans.

Drow have begun to adapt to light and now from brith are exposed so they will be forced to evolve and adapt to the new days ahead. In the reformation of boundaries only one remains true to its old land, the Shetou Empire. While accepting some of the newer races from the alliances made in the war they have been someone reclusive toward the rest. Taking gnolls, dragonborn, and trolls as their newest members and shunning the elven races entirely, able to foresee their plans of domination.

715 A.R. marks the closing of the era, as the new nations have finished their rise and established boundaries. Rebuilding has been completed and whatever was not claimed by the sentient races has been taken once more by the earth.

 

Era of Discovery (720 A.R. - 870 A.R.)

The era of discovery was a period of scientific revolution and industrialization. During these years nations rose from collections of loose tribes to organized masses. War is beginning to become about supplies and countries failing to join the technology boom are being quickly left behind as little more then third world countries.

During 725 the factories began to rise allowing for rapid production, taking firearms into account as one of the most produced things the world quickly changed. Wars were fought with bullets instead of blades and magic could barely keep up with the demand for easier ways to kill enemies in hordes.

The Ethi gun came into existence during 727 as an attempt for magic to keep up with the arms race. It overtook the bolt action guns of the times quickly because it loaded a specialized wand a wizard could craft, thus giving it fifty rounds before needing to reload. Fifty fireballs was a good weapon, but it was expensive to make each wand it would load, then scientists of the day took a crack at magic, seeing if they could industrialize that as well.

During 732 the first automatic ballistic firearm was built, tested, and put to the factories. Overtaking the cost and effectiveness of Ethi weaponry almost instantly magical research was almost halted while efforts shifted to physics again.

Psionics became rapidly popular for weaponization within people, those able to manifest the abilities were often made into special operatives within military branches. Thanks to the effects of trickle-down the general public was able to eventually gain access to drugs that enhanced psionic ability and allowed those without the ability to manifest and eventually learn. For awhile during this period of time Psionics were a commonplace way to make life easier.

On the civilian side of things, communication was rapidly becoming more possible. Radio, television, and phones were coming around by 739 and with this ability to communicate law enforcement was able to truly provide safety for citizens. This truly marked the death of the adventurous age. Schools were becoming legally standard and towering offices were beginning to fuel corporations.

In 760 researchers finally returned to magic as a viable means of power, but now with civilian needs in mind. Current electrical power kept the world running, but it took too much to produce, or at least could be made more efficient.

In just a few short years magic had become a standard enhancement to power sources, a few enchantments that became common enough that almost any power source held them was all took to power a city using just a small plant.

With this boom of energy technology began to hike upward, even giving birth to the first steps in naval ships. Using a combination of psi crystal controlled elemental binds, electrical power, and combustion engines the "Abolisher" was built.

The Abolisher was a ship a mile and a half long and three quarters of a mile wide, armed with weapons for submarine warfare even though it could not submerge. The real purpose of this ship was not to sail across the sea and battle, but to take the battle to the creatures of the sea who had been undisturbed for the most part. 764, the Abolisher sinks when destroyed by an aboleth. Re-establishing the fear of the ocean waters, people quickly focused themselves to the sky as the next frontier instead.

By 780 the first floating city had been constructed, while only two miles square it was a major achievement, and used primarily as a science facility, it was powered almost entirely by heavily enchanted earth made to levitate. The goal was to stay clear of volatile subjects such as elemental binds, and electrical power was less stable then magical enchantments.

With this success magic returned to the forefront of technologies desires, ethi weaponry being revisited it was during 785 that researchers learned how to cast magic from an artificial object. No longer needing highly trained wizards to come and do each wand they were able to quickly and cheaply mass produce wands to load into ethi weapons.

Teenagers rose in society as their own group of importance, a targetable audience. However, they wanted an easy way to get what they wanted. Pandem magic became popular again for its quick track to success, but the catastrophes that resulted quickly led to it becoming illegal without a special license.

Eventually, with the successful weaponization of arcane, attention was turned to the other branches. Pandem was too risky and Incarnum magic was nearly impossible to weaponize without extreme expense. The ancient Tao magic of the Shetou Empire wasn't researchable, as it seemed to defy scientific logic and the secrets took extreme dedication to master, a dedication no researcher had and no master would care to have researched.

798 sees the rise of a new breed of soldier. Using ancient tactics they fight using magic and blade instead of guns. This was particularly present in Shetou Empire special operatives, blades being a much quieter kill. These experts repopularized the skilled warrior, with proper glyphic enchantments they were able to create kinetic deflection shields specifically geared toward bullets. A hail of small bullets just didn't have the power or mass behind it to break the shields, thus evening the battlefield.

Era of the Purge (Templa Arda) (871 A.R. - 1116 A.R.)

During 871 the Elven council declares a purge to be held across the globe. An effort to remove all threats to the new civilized way of life, in particular the removal of threatening wild life that still remains. This resulted in the Abolisher II, an submersible airship armed with a large variety of weaponry. It was used specifically to fight large creatures in the water such as Aboleths similar to the ones that sunk the original Abolisher.

With open game declared on all hostile wilderness, hunting became a favored past time for people. With government-invested weapons companies offering direct sale to the people it created an almost cost free solution to the Purge. It would be two and a half centuries before the purge ended, but it was a relatively smooth process.

The only major problem during the purge was a black dragon by the name of Tyrwnmalkai who felt it wrong to enact the mass extinction of several species, some of which it once knew. Leading a group of hippies in protest, and then later in violent revolt in Texas and France. Texas took casualties but with few deaths, being one of the strongest naturally armed areas of the world for the purge era, their culture loved the guns of hunting, they were able to put down the riots fairly swiftly after the Elven council declared this to be an act of war.

France became the headquarters of Tyrwnmalkai after it surrendered to his demands, eventually the dragon took true form during a rampage spreading into Germany though was quickly put down by the drow air force squad known as "Flayer", the dragons hide wasn't missile resistant.

Throughout the era the common enemy of nature proved to be a good uniter as no real wars arose between standing countries. During 1110 there was heavy investigation for any remaining hostile wildlife as it seemed to have all but disappeared.

Throughout the Era the intense collaboration between nations resulted in another technological boom. Satellites were put into orbit allowing swift global communication and near the end of the era a space station was constructed on the orbiting moon that featured an observation platform to further gaze into the stars.

May 1116 the Abolisher is decomissioned and a ceremony is held to declare over 1834 species officially extinct. Thus ending the Era of the Purge.

The Dark Era (1117 A.R. - 1428 A.R.)

No one is really sure when the Dark Era should truly begin, so it is marked at 1117 to avoid a missing era. For all anyone knows it started that year, long after, or even centuries before. The Dark Era is a time of fear and revolution, the world was changing and no one knew where it was going.

With the assassination of Tamenwyn, the highest elven council member, in 1276 elven society quickly became paranoid of an uprising. Security, and particularly their armed forces, were significantly bolstered during the initial panic. With no statement or suspects available they had no idea who was out to perform such a task. No one knew if it had been political, personal, or even accidental.

It wasn't until three years later that three more members of the council were suddenly assassinated simultaneously in four different countries (two halves of Minister Nemaya were found in different locations and his schedule did not point to either location) that a statement was finally given.

Shetou's new leadership, drow matriarch Quaintana denounces the elven council in a broadcast while standing in front of four shetou special operatives holding personal belongings of the dead elves to prove a point. Displaying her distaste at the elven oligarchy she threatened war if they did not submit to the Shetou who were now noticeably drow dominant.

The elven ruled countries united against Quaintana under their own empire officially named Alnae. With their combined armed forces they felt their victory was assured and settled into a smug comfort as they launched responses to drow skirmishes.

They soon discovered the problem was finding the drow strike teams before and after they hit, council members would be killed on diplomatic missions or even just in their own homes. If any security was lowered for an instant, there would be swift punishment. The council became locked into the Alnae military fortress, while responses were made against Shetou forces in various places around the world.

The council eventually called for severe retaliation when they became frustrated at the lack of results. After spies reported the whereabous of Quaintana in a major city they decied to bomb the entire city to kill her and end her war against them in a swift move.

A problem arose when they killed over two million innocent civilians along with the armed forces, giving Shetou much more sympathy then it originally had and starting discontentment within Alnae's own people. The other issue became appearent when it turned out Quaintana had avoided death, now an even stronger icon of opposition after the death of so many innocents. In particular, Shetou played host to many of the races Alnae excluded from their social heirarchy's upper branches. Racial boundries already tense, Quaintana exploited this to turn many against Alnae with promises of equality.

In 1324 Quaintana was killed by an unknown killer that Alnae admitted to hiring. Trying to quickly put down the newly risen Shetou with the death of it's leader the Alnae council tried to break apart the drow houses that had appeared during her reign. With hopes of disorganization among their ranks and that they would turn against each other for power Alnae's dominance seemed assured.

Within three days of Quaintana's death, three major houses reacted by sending elite Shetou operatives from each of their respective houses in a joint effort to break into the Alnae military fortress and kill the remaining council members. While the operation failed, five council members were killed in their escape and the fortress was destroyed.

Despite the lack of total success the people were rallied behind the effort. The three houses rapid retaliation had been faster then any government had ever proven capable of for the last five hundred years, even as three seperate bodies the Shetou was able to act as a whole in times of need.

The Space Era (1429 A.R. - 1689 A.R.)

The Dark Era never came to an official end, but new developments marked the start of new times. With the war effort between Shetou and Alnae escalating the rush for better technology continued. Alnae accomplished long range space travel in 1429, their first move was to attempt to colonize the moon. While it was intended to be a project to house the council in a new fortress away from Shetou assassins they neglected to remember that Shetou assassins were...assassins. The facility was still under construction when half of Alnae's construction team were eliminated, more importantly the ship they used to ferry resources and people between the facility and the rest of Thenica was stolen and crashed into a large body of water deep in Shetou's home country.

Despite operations and an outright invasion attempt Shetou still managed to steal the technology, though the ship was destroyed by Alnae air raids Shetou still managed to create their own ship of similar design. Soon both empires fired off into the darkness of space in a rush to colonize new places. Around 1592 the discovery of inter-system species were made. After ten years of heated argument and warfare both empires were admitted into the galactic politics of the other races, though they spent little effort to move beyond their own system and integrate into the galaxy.

It was during this time that the two empires reworked their political systems to what their modern creation, the war still runs tense but they've lowered efforts to kill each other in favor of trying to expand faster then each other to craft a bigger empire to restart the war from a very one sided footing.

The Borderless Era(1690 A.R. - Present)

In the modern age the galaxy, and the Sol System, is a great opening for exploration and discovery. Thousands of planets have yet to be colonized or even discovered. Planar travel has been perfected enough that every system is expanded nine times over as it jumps between planes, the sol system alone hosts 184 planets and their moons between all the planes available in the cosmos. While not all of those can be inhabited, it is still a staggering number to be explored all within one of the galaxy's many systems.

Shetou and Alnae continue a mad rush to expand the power of their empires while diminishing the other's and put an end to the war that has spanned centuries. They also attempt to seek more standing in galactic politics through these expansions, pushing their people to expand economically and culturally. As they rush to expand their populace to fill the many places they colonize the ruling class of Alnae feels it's power at risk, for elves do not reproduce nearly as fast as many of the races they host in their empire.

This gives line to many half elves, both dark and light, along with clone children. The clone elves were the only way to continue their populations expansion and keep pure elves around, particularly due to the assassinations from the opposing empire. Both elves and drow are becoming a smaller minority despite how much of the power they control.