A Brief History
Historians generally regard the events below as critical and age-defining. Dates prior to about 150 AF on Rues — and everywhere in the world prior to about 1000 AF — are approximate.
Dates
Throughout history and in different parts of the world, dates have been reckoned in a variety of ways. Those familiar with history will know of the Shrouded Age, the Age of Piety, the Age of Discovery, the Age of Breaking and numerous other named ages. However modern experts regard the Desuetude as the defining event of the modern era. Thus, most dates are recorded as the number of years since that event in the Age of Works. Dates prior to the Desuetude are recorded as the number of years before that event and called the Age of Faith.
Quick Tip
To get the year in the world of Numina, take the real year and subtract 1900.
Before the Age of Works
The oldest thing history remembers is a world that did not choose. Lives had a beginning and an end set out in advance by a grand orderly plan, and the hand on that plan was Fate, whose realm was the Shade. When Fate was sundered, the living became the Purposed: their births and deaths still ran through the cycle overseen by Gwennara and Severrin, but what happened in between was theirs. The Shade was left a lawless frontier, and the balance between Death, Magic and Purpose was left broken. That imbalance is the era the timeline below opens on.
The other power of the age was the churches. Each was a sprawling organization devoted to the exaltation of a single Genesori, and several grew into powers that rivaled nations politically or militarily. The Genesori themselves acted rarely and heavily: their direct intervention invariably led to upheaval and destruction, and the last time one of them touched the world was the final blow of the War of the Heavens, when Garioch reached his fist to the world and struck the last army with force enough to push the continent of Rues entirely through it.
That blow ended a war and broke a world. Rues was isolated behind a barrier, and the Lattice — the network of Thresholds that let a traveler cross Aeledd in a step — went with it. Nations that had been a day apart became unreachable. Some, like Dovenost, had already held themselves aloof and simply carried on; others spent centuries learning to live as islands. The isolation is why exact dating is impossible before about 1000 AF, and why the dates on Rues and the dates everywhere else drifted apart.
The centuries that followed are known mostly through Rues, because Rues is where Fortune’s Bend stood. The Night of Guardian’s Glory, when the renegade Zenith Ravvin made his bid for divinity and was stopped, and the Awakening of the Ten, and finally the Great Rebalancing, which set Death, Magic and Purpose back into balance and protected them from Corruption — these were told and retold across Aeledd until it became a romantic ideal, and it is not uncommon for people to know more of the history of Rues than of their own nation. Threshold travel was rediscovered not long after, and the nations of Aeledd began to find one another again.
The Age of Works
The age is named for the revelation that opened it. Passed from the Genesori through their Zeniths and the heads of their churches, the Desuetude Pronouncement held that a world shaped in the image of the Genesori stunted the Purpose and free will given to the Purposed. The great churches were dismantled, and worship was redirected into service of the pieces of creation each Genesori holds. What rose in their place were the Convocations: bodies that define themselves by what they are for rather than whom they pray to, and take their patrons accordingly.
The century after the Pronouncement is the one the nations of Aeledd remember as their own. Spyndelmere seated a regent on the Compass Rose who carried Nira’s mark. Rues crowned an Empress of the Mercurian Empire and entered a golden age. Merrigor let Valaq go back to the forest and named Lasaldi seventh city in its place. T’barris found a Diamondback skin and raised a king on the strength of it. Aluvair was swept twice in as many years by floods, and Konnigstrava, already a kingdom in ruins, was wracked by pestilence.
Then Valarmore fell. The Jewel on the Sea, founded by Elysande and famed for its Atheneum, was destroyed by an invasion out of the northwest, and the land it stood on is now called Vargoth. Twelve years later the Vargoth Empire proclaimed itself a nation and asked for diplomatic relations, and in the same year the Skyways went dark: Eltiel fell suddenly and without explanation, and mists closed over what had been there. The Five Duchies hold the Howling Gate against what comes next.
Fortune’s Bend, meanwhile, had appeared again — as it always does, under a new name and in a new place, at the crossing point between the worlds of the living and the dead. The Farthest Star conference was called there to decide what to do about the Vargoth, and the Vargoth attacked it. That is where the campaign begins, and where the timeline below stops.
Historical Timeline
Before the Age of Works
Age of Works
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0 AW
The Desuetude Pronouncement
Large churches are disbanded in favor of good-works based convocations. Read more
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62 AW
Nira's mark revealed in Spyndelmere
Regent Berkeley Evers reveals Nira's mark and takes his seat on the Compass Rose. Read more
- 81 AW
- 108 AW
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110–120 AW
Heroes of Old Fortune's Bend appear
New heroes begin appearing throughout the world, gathering at Fortune's Bend. Read more
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111 AW
A Diamondback skin is found in T'barris
The discovery leads to the elevation of King Y'vain Pelle. Read more
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112 AW
Valarmore is destroyed
The Vargoth invasion claims the city of Valarmore. Read more
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113 AW
Eviar Leonate elected Crown Prince of Ophrailes
Eviar Leonate is elected Crown Prince of Ophrailes. Read more
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114 AW
Pestilence wracks Konnigstrava
Disease sweeps the already-struggling kingdom. Read more
- 116–117 AW
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123 AW
The Farthest Star conference is attacked
Called at Fortune's Bend to discuss the Vargoth threat, the conference is attacked by the Vargoth. The current campaign begins. Read more
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124 AW
The Vargoth Empire proclaims itself a nation
The Vargoth seek diplomatic relations with the other nations of Aeledd. Read more
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124 AW
Eltiel falls and the Skyways are lost
Eltiel falls suddenly without explanation and mists blanket what was once the Skyways. Read more
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0 AW