Eons of Creation

This timeline uses the common calendar of the Aves Belief (AB) and places its year 1 at the start of the fifth age during the Sol Cycle, known to the sol races as the Age of Discovery. This is the first year following the destruction of the moon, the exile of the human empire, and the breaking apart of the old world into the new.

Most of the dates in this section will take place far before the Aves Belief, the Age of Discovery, or the Sol races in general. However the core story and timeline take place during this time so all events will be represented in minus years going up to million years ago (mya) and billion years ago (bya).

## Primordial Past

**Date: Unknown**

Little is accurately known about the earliest eons of the world. During the Sol scientific revolution it would be discovered that the world is a little under 3.2 billion years old. Composing of two massive grand cycles of roughly 1.6 billion years that mirror each other and are responsible for sending the world into long periods of darkness and light. These periods would become known as *Balancings*.

Even less is know about the first grand cycle other than it was a far darker, hotter, and wetter world. The first signs of life appeared 2.65 bya as light-based simple organisms. More advanced multi-cell life started thriving 1.76 bya, having to find ways to evolve in what is thought to be the longest lasting period of darkness during the Balancing at the end of the first grand cycle.

## First Light

-**1.6 bya:** The start of the current grand cycle known as the *First Light of Cygnus*, according to the Aves Belief, this is the first and only time the celestial goddess Cygnus descends from the cosmos to nurture life and shape nature. This also marks the earliest known appearance of spellstones and rune words, thought to be left behind by Cygnus.

* **-440 mya:** The first fish and advanced sea life begin to appear.
* **-405 mya:** The first plant life on land.
* **-265 mya:** The first forests develop as reptiles begin to dominate the ever growing landscape.
* **-225 mya:** The first birds take to the skies and plants begin to flower and bloom.
* **-30 mya:** Early versions of many modern day animals and monsters begin to manifest. Including the hound and catacoon.

## Elemental Age

* **-10 mya:** The first semi-cognitive life, the elemental beings known as the Nori, start to shape the world. The four elemental aspects of the nori quickly claim territories and endlessly contest one another. Growing powerful from the untouched resources of the world the aspects become titanic elemental behemoths, able to raise the floor of the oceans and freeze the world.
* **-5 mya:** The elemental aspects unhappiness with one another shape the surface world, until finally the aspect of fire (Pe'Nori) clashes with the aspect of water (Ke'Nori), setting the world ablaze. As tidal waves swept away the carefully crafted shorelines, great wild fires sent all the lesser species fleeing from the chaos. The air grew still as the ground quaked. After the disaster the nori wouldn't be seen on the surface world again for millions of years.
* **-1.5 mya:** Following the fall of the nori, several lesser races who had been watching and surviving such as the krahki, chertu, giants, and dragons, all quickly filled the shattered ruins of the nori kingdoms.

## Primordial Age

* **-500,000 AB:** The chertu, the monstrous demon-like race, build an dark empire that envelopes half of the great continent. Inheriting the fire aspects domain, they use the flames to enslave other races and even their own kind. Using this slave labor to build monolithic shrines.
* **-450,000 AB:** Unknown to the other races, an empire twice as large and populated dwell under the surface of the great ocean to the east. The crab-like krahki, ever patient, conduct devastating raids on the shore under the cover of darkness. Leading to widespread stories of great winged monsters devouring settlements.
* **-370,000 AB:** Using the fear of the nomadic races, the dragons spread stories of titanic winged drakes who breath the power of the lost elementals. Being hardly two-feet in length and able to do little more than manipulate the less intelligent, they create a domain of fear, tricking most the world into the belief that they are the messengers of these great dragons who didn't actually exist.
* **-350,000 AB:** The chertu dark empire continues to take over the continent, turning the world into a dark shell of itself. The dragons and the giants join forces forming the Stoneclaw, eventually forming a codependent relationship of brain and brawn. During war it would be rare to see a giant without a dragon on their shoulder, whispering strategy and insight into their ear.
* **-345,000 AB:** The chertu begin exploring the ocean and discover the underwater mega empire of the krahki. Becoming overly confident during their reign, the chertu attack the empire with an overconfident army that were unprepared for the krahki. The resulting onslaught turns the shores black with their blood.
* **-300,000 AB:** By this point the reclusive giants and dragons have hidden away in the forests and mountains, the chertu showing weakness by their defeat are destroyed by slave revolts in their overcrowded cities. The krahki mindlessly disappear into the black ocean.

## Primal Age

* **-95,000 AB:** As the primitive civilizations crumble into decay and the stragglers hide away in caves, the surface world becomes a hollow landscape. At the start of this advent (50,000 years) of balancing towards light, the gods Deneb and Lith descended from the cosmos for the first time since the previous grand cycle. Deneb, tired of watching his work be destroyed by Lith's firstborn, creates the primal spirits, manifesting the elemental powers of the elemental spectrum into six spiritual guardians meant to guide and protect the worlds creations. Lith, sinks deep below the world to finish his masterpieces, the Fifteen Gargoliths. Together they rise to the cosmos, each with a plan now set in motion.
* **-90,000 AB:** The six primal spirits: Erida, Tempe, Aeo, Lyrea, Aquilla, and Haetho; Foster the world seeds and all the life they produces, they regulate and calm the elements that have been in turmoil for millions of years, and soon diverse life propagates across the continent. Each primal being drawn to the central point of the spectral light that maintains them, they begin to build great monumental world structures, each embodying the law of nature and order each primal was created to represent.
* **-80,000 AB:** The first conflicts between the primals and lesser races occurs. New races like the insectoid oraxi, undead draug, reptilian rootwalla, and goblin all burst from dark corners of the world. Lacking in organization but making it up in numbers, they become locked in a two-thousand year long battle for dominance of the surface world. Though constantly at war, this gives these races plenty of time to build vast empires in far reaches of the world, always favoring the wild and dark places of the world.
* **-78,000 AB:** Though vast in numbers the primal spirits were far too powerful to be overthrown. The smaller races retreated to their reclusive empires, with many of them eventually growing less savage under the light of the three.
* **-48,000 AB:** After a period of peace and dominance a dispute between Erida and Aquilla causes four of the six primals to descend into a brutal civil war. Attacking each others domain, and the creatures they were meant to protect, this war would be a slow one as the primal spirits exist only to enforce their laws and have no sense of diplomacy.
* **-35,000 AB:** Following the cataclysmic war between all six primal spirits, most of the world's lesser races spend their time watching in awe and cowering in fear. One thing begins to become clear through the witnessing of these titanic events, there was a power associated to the light of the sols and the beautiful gems the primals seemed to covet. The lesser races begin to secretly collect these gems, calling them solstones, and hoarding them underground.
* **-33,000 AB:** At the start of a new advent on the white dawn, a blazing white pulse of light shoots into the center of the continent as light runs through the cracks and fissures of the world out towards the sea. The world seems to stretch and then relax as across the world, as though hit by a massive hammer, the godlike titanic structures of the world's old empires collapse. The primals feel their power wane tremendously, though still powerful, they are but a reflection of their previous self. They maliciously guarded their homelands.
* **-23,000 AB:** Following nearly 80,000 years of misguided protection under the primal spirits, the lesser races of the world began to progress culturally and technologically, discovering the secrets to light and the cycles of their world. This is an era that many of the later underground races of the world consider their golden age and represents the glory which they feel was taken from them from Deneb and his surface worshipers.
* **-22,500 AB:** The first nori in millions of years return to the world as elemental energy becomes more available after the loss of power experienced by the primals. In the shadows of the arctic the chertu also quietly return, while the krahki scuttle away to the ruined empire of their ancestors under the waves. Goblins and draug roam the wilds for prey, while giants and dragons make pilgrimages to the furthest places of the great continent. Of all the primordial races during this period, all empires paled in comparison to the kingdoms of the oraxi and rootwalla.
* **-22,000 AB:** The hiveminded oraxi following in the wake of the primals, spread out in insane numbers, utilizing their tireless workforce. Using the bodies of the living to produce their precious amber, they religiously embalm and display their dead, often building great constructs out of them. Favoring the dry climates they soon spread throughout most of the southern dunes.
* **-21,000 AB:** Meanwhile across the great continent, the young rootwalla meet the giants and dragons in the jungles of the world. Fascinated by the wisdom of the dragons they submit themselves to these messengers of the gods, worshiping them as god kings. Historians debate what race to tribute this empire too as it was comprised of hundred of thousands of rootwalla but always ruled by a giant and their dragon.
* **-18,000 AB:** When these two great empires finally meet for the first time there was an unexpected effort towards peace and cooperation from both sides. With records from the time indicating the dragons were the voice of diplomacy. For the first time the world was covered in settlements, yet strangely over the next millennia many of the races would revert to a more primitive and aggressive state.
* **-15,000 AB:** Following a series of mad or weak leaders the First Dynasty of the oraxi fell to rebels as their great cities are harvest for their amber. Their great river farms are destroyed along with their trade routes, ending the food supply needed for much of the connect world.
* **-13,000 AB:** Discontent with their power, the chertu again rise up in the shadows and launch their attack across the world in what would become known as the Rune Wars. Forming a secret coalition with the primal spirits they slaughter the other races in the hundreds of thousands. The chertu also for the first time use the magic of runes, ancient powered glyphs found on the living or on the bones of the dead.
* **-12,700 AB:** Desperate for help against the chertu and this rune power, the giants and dragons develop the magical use of light using their long horded solstones. Causalities rise as both sides become armed with new and unexplored types of magic.
* **-12,200 AB:** After centuries of strife both sides come to a stalemate after turning half a continent into a desolate waste. Rune words, either through espionage or even escaped wild life, spread throughout the wild as the chertu lose control of the ancient secret. Meanwhile seeing no true ending to their conflict the giants and dragons use solstones to build massive fortifications and secretly begin developing a weapon.
* **-11,800 AB:** Tired of endless war, the Stoneclaw shaman rally together and using their best solcrafters to finish the construct of the Blackstone, a extremely powerful artifact made of of the most powerful solstones or ruby and amethyst. After an attack that destroyed several villages the Shaman set it off in their anger. The resulting explosion swallowed a quarter of the continent in a sphere of black light. When the light fades, most of the surface has fallen into a colossal crater. The surface of everything within the blast is now black glass and all living things in the area have vanished. Across the world the living connected in lineage to those killed in the blast also strangely vanish. The world, now mostly empty from the endless fighting of the primordial powers, slowly closes the crater like a jaw. Hiding the black glass world from the new lands of the surface.
* **-10,000 AB:** Severely weakened by the events of the Blackstone explosion, the last few surviving races of the surface swear off the light and go deep into the world hoping to find lost generations of survivors. With them they bring a deep hatred of the primals, their creator (Deneb), and any race that worships the light.
* **-3,200 AB:** With the fall of the old comes the rise of the new. Without the oppressive predatory forces of the bloodthirsty old races of primals, the little creatures of rock and wood were able to rise from the ashes and begin to form their own cultures and societies. This moment would be known as *The Awakening* and would mark the cognitive revolution for the Sol races and is the start of their recorded history.