Ages of Atherys

A'therys has existed, according to the best representations of myth through the current mathematical calendar, for roughly 8100 years. This page will attempt to explain each of the eras that A’therys has seen in that time, and some notable occurrences from those times.

## Age of Struggle

Before the First Calling, the gods existed as ephemeral spirits of their portfolios. In this time, the gods were all a part of the same mesh of existence, inseparable in the creation of things. The gods grew restless in this metaphysical existence, however, and their struggling opened a wide enough pocket in the mesh for a plane of existence to form. The first god to descend was Yeor, the "oldest" and most powerful of the gods, who is generally credited by mortals with the shaping of A'therys and the creation of humankind. The precise ending date of the age is unknown, and largely irrelevant, as the gods came into the world at different times across the age.

## The Winnowing

After the creation of A’therys, the gods took physical forms with which they could interact with each other and the world. Yeor was most immediately followed by the other powerful gods, who would eventually rule nations of their own, before the spirits and lesser gods came. During this relatively brief time of even greater chaos, hundreds of those unknown lesser gods were elevated from spirit-hood and destroyed or assimilated. The gods themselves created and destroyed endlessly, creating armies of disfigured creatures to do their bidding and wage endless wars in their name. This destructive period of A'therian history seems to have lasted for approximately 700 years, by all estimates. At what seemed like the final hour of the nascent universe, about to be rocked apart by immortal beings using it as their plaything, the cosmic force of Order, Llyrrh, appeared from whence the rest of the gods had come.

## The First Calling

It is here that Llyrrh first calls upon the gods, telling them that they must pay for their crimes against Order and dispersing the sole lesser god who opposes her. None could comprehend her presence at the time, or had known her to exist before, but defiance was not an option most of the gods considered after a demonstration of her power.

## The Age of Balance

After the First Calling, the gods of A’therys divided themselves across the world. Some chose to enforce their portfolios by themselves, or amongst other gods; the most well-known of today created nations of followers to further themselves. It is unknown how the mortals of today were created, but the act is typically attributed to Yeor sometime during the early Winnowing. In any case, the mortals were assimilated into particular gods’ nascent cultures, and those who refused were taken in by force or destroyed. Scholars from varying nations generally agree that these independent mortal-ruled nation states were all but removed by approximately AB 2350. The Age of Balance continued for many millennia, as the gods generally held to the Order enforced by Llyrrh. There was but a single recorded incidence of Llyrrh’s presence in this time, around when the priesthood of Von the Timekeeper is said to have disappeared in AB 3070. Otherwise, this age continued without change, and undoubtedly would have if not for the advent of the Mortal Heroes.

## The Second Calling

At a time scholars place around 7085 years after the First Calling, a group of mortals began plotting the destruction of Golgorai-Asthas, the Tyrant-God of Rust. Their actions against him immediately resulted in the Second Calling of Llyrrh, this time to relieve the gods of their duties and to punish the humans themselves.

## The Age of Uncertainty

In the aftermath of the Second Calling, each nation took the departure of their god very differently. Some, such as Vrovona, had a line of succession already established, and barely a day was wasted before the Paragon stepped into his agreed role. Others, however, such as Ar-Selukk, were thrown into chaos that lasted for decades. Soon enough, however, the nations came to some level of stability in the absence of their gods, and today an age of relative security has fallen over A’therys. Approximately fifty years after the Second Calling in 7087, the Daggerlander Calendar was adopted from the Daggerlanders, to keep an accurate and universal dating system for the new, unified A’therys. This new calendar system has been in place for over two centuries now, leaving it approximately two hundred and sixty years since the Second Calling.

*Originally written by OccidentalAnvil for the more official A'therys wiki*