From: tuff@ellis.uchicago.edu (Geoff Tuffli)
Subject: ARTICLE: Timeline, focus on Ohs Empire, overview
Reply-To: tuff@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 23:37:10 GMT

Shaav/Nerassh'tan/Lakar	  tuff@ellis.uchicago.edu    [ O H S  E M P I R E ]

Taeis Historical File (May 20, 1992)
_____________________________________________________________________________

0	Founding of the Ohs Empire by Taeis Dubogula, Warchief of the
	tribal group that would later be known as the House of
	the Dragon. Beginning of the First Dragon Dynasty.

221	Beginning of invasion against the Kingdom of Sarkjen, the predecessor
	of the Eastern Kingdoms.

240	Sarkjen's king is assassinated by one his rivals, and without a
	strong king, the nation falls at last to the Ohs Empire.

300 c.	The Empire, prospering from the spoils of the war with Sarkjen,
	begins to expand rapidly onto the fertile plains to the south.
	The Milannorim tribes who occupy the area resist.

427	The current Dragon Emperor dies in battle pushing the Milannorim back
	through the one pass of any size in the Southern Wall. The Milannorim
	resettle in the forestlands south of the mountain range, but suffer
	severe casualties from the rout and the first winters in their exile.

	The House Lord of the Unicorn takes possession of the throne, ending
	the First Dragon Dynasty and beginning the First Unicorn Dynasty.

623	The Unicorn Empress dies when she and her heir are burned alive on
	a boat during the Celebration of Fes'isshai.

	The House Lady of the Preothai takes possession of the throne, ending
	the First Unicorn Dynasty and beginning the First Preothai Dynasty.

	The next 780 years see a the first Golden Age of the Empire, as the
	Preothai for the most part prove to be exceptionally stable rulers.

1200 c.	The area of the former Kingdom of Sarkjen, split up into four regions
	for administrative purposes, achieves considerably local autonomy.

1398	The Preothai Emperor, long friends with a Lady of the House of the
	Dragon, chooses her as his successor, giving as reason her undisputed
	political brilliance.

1402	The Preothai Emperor dies of old age.

	The new Dragon Empress takes possession of the throne, ending the
	First Preothai Dynasty and beginning the Second Dragon Dynasty.

1433	The first empress of the Second Dragon Dynasty forms the bulk of
	the Empire's forces along the river marking the western boundary
	of the Empire. A period of intense guerilla warefare against the
	Empire by the Paeni Clans begins, which will last 329 years before
	the clans are forced to accept nominal domination by the Empire.

1586	The Dragon Emperor announces his intent to invade Iniel in order
	to incorporate it in the Empire. He sends 45,000 soldiers into the
	swamps of the Inielese. Several villages are destroyed utterly,
	but the Matriarch remains in hiding, and the Inielese initiate a
	series of devestating hit-and-run raids that force the vastly
	numerically superior Imperial army to retreat.

1594	The Dragon Emperor dies, and his successor, Seina Dubogula, a woman
	well-known for the shrewd military tactics that enabled her to
	inflict considerable damage upon the Paeni, ordered nearly
	650,000 troops into Iniel, determined to avenge the "dishonor"
	(read: humiliation) done to the previous Emperor.

1595	Tarnil Seina Dubogula is ripped to pieces by a demon while resting
	in her pavilion in full armor in the middle of her reserves about
	20 miles into Iniel. The Imperial army retreats, demoralized by the
	death of the Dragon Empress. Her sister Meia Dubogula succeeds her.

1625	Meia Dubogula, Dragon Empress of the Ohs Empire, secretly orders
	the poisoning of one of the major rivers leading into Iniel in the
	hopes of achieving revenge for the death of her sister. The Inielese
	suffer terrible losses before realizing the source of the poison
	that is killing them and their major source of food, fish.

1626	89 demons appear in Tarn Ohs, capitol of the Empire, and begin to
	ravage the city. Meia Dubogula holds out in the Palace with the
	Guard and several detachments of hundasi and mavraki defending her
	against the demons for three nights. Finally, the city in all but
	ruins and the Guard reduced to a fraction of its former size, Meia
	Dubogula falls on her sword, commiting suicide.

	The House Lord of the Unicorn takes the throne, ending the Second
	Dragon Dynasty and beginning the Second Unicorn Dynasty. A calm
	and cautious man by nature, he begins rebuilding the Empire while
	struggling to prevent the Eastern Provinces from breaking away and
	continuing to subdue the tenacious Paeni Clans.

1678	The Eastern Provinces finally manage to break away, immediately
	splitting up into four seperate kingdoms despite a short-lived
	attempt to unify the kingdoms as they were before they were absorbed
	by the Ohs Empire.

1762	The Paeni Clans are finally forced to accept nominal domination by
	the Empire, though in fact this means little more than Imperial
	Representitives at every major clan with the power to step in at
	any time if the clanchief displeases them, and this it is painfully
	obvious that there are still some things that the Paeni will not
	stand for, even if it would mean their utter destruction.

2000 c. The Second Unicorn Dynasty, successful beyond anything in the
	Empire's history since the First Preothai Dynasty, rules over a
	period of immense prosperity, creating what comes to be called
	the "Second Golden Age" of the Empire.

2200 c. The prosperity brought by the Second Unicorn Dynasty, including the
	final acceptance by the Inielese to send an ambassador to Tarn Ohs,
	takes its toll, and the increasingly decadent pleasures of the
	dynasty take their perfect incarnation in the form of the Unicorn
	Emperor, Parek Xund. who ascends to the throne in 2201.

	The Eastern Kingdoms, emboldened by the decay setting into the Empire,
	begin to encroach on the upper plateaus of the mountain range
	seperating the, with the Empire. The Tarnil Parek Xund does nothing,
	and continues in his revels as the grumbling among many noble
	factions steadily increases, and internecine warefare rises to
	a height never before experienced in the history of the Empire.

2223	Parek Xund uses his own considerable talents with the peculiar
	version of sorcery practiced by the House of the Unicorn to forcibly
	seduce and corrupt the youngest daughter of the House Lord of the
	Dragon. Enraged, Guret Dubogula, House Lord of the Dragon, demands
	the excecution of the Emperor. Several factions in the House of the
	Preothai announce their support, ostensibly because of the seduction,
	but in fact because they see Parek Xund as potentially threatening
	the Empire itself.

	Parek Xund denounces Guret Dubogula, and in his throne room, has
	Guret Dubogula's youngest daughter kill her own father, which she
	does willingly.

	Guret Dubogula's heir, a cousin of his named Jeina Dubogula, calls
	upon the Great Houses of the Empire to battle against those forces
	still loyal to Parek Xund or to the title of Emperor itself. Her
	call is heard by the House of the Preothai, who send a portion of
	their army to assist Jeina Dubogula's forces. The House of the Uma
	defends the Emperor, and the House of the Kapati sit on the fence,
	seemingly content to play one side off of the other.

2224	The Empire dissolves into civil war, with the House of the Dragon
	and the House of the Preothai on on side, and the House of the Uma,
	the House of the Unicorn, and the Imperial forces themselves on the
	other.

2226	Parek Xund is killed by Jeina Dubogula in a pitched battle ninety
	miles from Tarn Ohs. Jeina Dubogula is killed by a stray arrow shot
	not five minutes after killing Parek Xund, and the battle dissolves
	into a mutual massacre as the two forces collapse into dissarray,
	both of their leaders dead.

2228	While the House of the Dragon marches on Xund Ohs, the heriditary
	home of the House of the Unicorn, the Kapati House Lord has himself
	proclaimed Emperor. The House of the Dragon, intent on crushing the
	House of the Unicorn, ignores the proclamation.

2230 c.	It soon becomes clear that the Mutheis Kapati, the so-called Kapati
	Emperor, does not, in fact, control the Empire, and thus the "First
	Kapati Dynasty" ends a mere 2 years after its inception.

	The Empire itself dissolves into a bloodbath as each of the Great
	Houses struggle to regain ascendency. The initial alliance between
	the House of the Dragon and the House of the Preothai lasts until
	nearly 2280.

2279	The Pretocea Empire invades the the continent. The House of the Uma,
	long the masters of the sea of the Empire, manage to beat off the
	islanders from their own lands due to superior numbers and little
	else, as the islanders prove to be superior even to the vaunted Uma
	maritime forces.

	The Pretocea Empire turns away from the land controlled by the House
	of the Uma, and attack the western half of the penninsula long
	inhabited by the House of the Preothai. The House of the Preothai,
	weakened by the role it had played in supporting the House of the
	Dragon in its bid for ascendency, is unable to hold onto its ancestoral
	homeland and is forced to flee southwards with less than a bare
	third of their people and forces intact.

2322	The new House Lord of the House of the Dragon assumes power, the
	latest in a long line of House Lords and Ladies since the breakup
	of the Empire. Uthehi Dubogula gathers the remnants of the House of
	the Preothai and the House of the Dragon, and, with some last minute
	assistance from the House of the Kapati, manages to storm the
	fortifications of Marn Ohs, the center of the House of the Uma's power.

2324	In a bloody war of attrition, Uthehi Dubogula ruthlessly exterminated
	almost half of the House of the Uma until the House is forced to
	capitulate. The House of the Unicorn, long since nearly obliterated,
	relunctantly bows to the new Emperor, Tarnil Uthehi Dubogula.

	Uthehi Dubogula ascends the throne in Tarn Ohs and begins the Third
	Dragon Dynasty.

2345	Uthehi Dubogula manages to reassert the Empire's control over the
	Paeni Clans, though he is forced to settle for a fraction of the
	control over the clans originally possessed by the Empire.

2356	The Dragon Emperor, now almost 60 years old, gathers the slowly
	recovering Imperial forces and reconquers the Eastern Kingdoms in
	the space of barely a year. He does this by agreeing to permitting
	the king's heirs to take power as "kings", subject to none save
	himself. The former kings fade into obscurity, though one commits
	suicide instead.

2506	The Dragon Empress declares war on Petrocea and marches on the
	territories it holds on the penninsula. After a series of inconclusive
	battles, she manages to cut off the reserves of a large segment of
	the Petrocean forces, resulting in a strategic windfall for the
	Empire.

2509	After 3 years of war, the Petrocea Empire withdraws, leaving in ruins
	behind it the ancestoral lands of the House of the Preothai.

2641	The Dragon Emperor dies in his sleep without a declared heir, only
	five years into his reign.

	The House Lord of the House of the Uma ascends the throne, marking
	an end to the Third Dragon Dynasty and the beginning of the First
	Uma Dynasty.

2917	The Emperor persuades an ancient vampire to give the Imperial Family
	the gift of vampirism, a ploy to achieve immortality. The vampire
	consents, and is immediately thereafter killed by agents of the
	Uma Tarnil.

3000 c. The Imperial Family, resident as it is in Tarn Ohs, a city that is
	near no sea, and consisting of vampires, becomes culturally and
	socially isolated from the main part of the House of the Uma. The
	House Lady of the Uma. The Imperial Family is ostrasized from its
	relatives, who refuse to speak to the Imperial branch of the House.

3021	Present Day. The Empire is growing restless under the vampire Tarnil,
	as the presence of a vampire on the throne denies any possibility of
	the cycle of dynasties continuing. Stirrings beyond the Southern
	Wall indicate that the Milannorim, long-since embittered by being
	driven off of their land, gather in the foothills as rumors of a
	prophesied Chief-of-All-Tribes begin to run like wildfire through the
	tribes. The Eastern Kingdoms, having regained their autonomy in all
	but name, serve as a rallying point for much of the dissatisfaction of
	the nobles in the Great Houses with the vampire Emperor. Reports of
	sightings of dragons in the foothills of the mountains east of the
	lands of the Preothai have begun to occur with such frequency that
	even the most skeptical can no longer doubt their authenticity.





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