The Great Ages of Desh

## The Bone Age: ~20,000 BB

The Keepers first begin to make contact with the sentient kin of Te Ao. They are looking for sources of power - and worship gives them influence.

Trasgu and Giants, Gillmen and the Elder Wyrms are the oldest peoples.

Little survives from the Bone Age. Most Trasgu sites have been overrun by the younger races, though in caves and sad secret places, middens, decorated skulls, strange paintings that outline large goblinoid hands and beautiful dried flower arrangements can still be found if you know where to look.

In the Gloaming, explorers can see Bone Age Giant relics, untouched by civilization and the passage of aeons. The great barrier that kept the Guests confined also kept most kin out; bitter cold and gravitational anomalies did the rest. Bone towers, large altars adorned with skulls, ancient rock paintings and immense totems carved by the Ggantija dot the landscape of the southern tundra. Giants' cities have been built, fallen to earthquakes and been rebuilt time and time again.

Spitzbergen is covered in intricate sagas of molten glass and lava, carved by Dragons with claw and fire breath. Many of these artworks are fantastically, almost geologically ancient and built to outlast entire species.

The Gillmen know their sunken cities like few others. Only the bravest of Ningalu have witnessed even the uppermost spires of Gillie territory. They can attest that it vast, delicately grown as if from coral or spun like glassy webs - but there is no true sunlight in the trenches, only geothermal heat. Instead, in the furthest depths, the Gillmen have learned to generate their own lighting and magic, mostly for the benefit of Ningalu visitors.

## The Stone Age: ~10,000 BB

Desh, Dwarves, Humans, Fey, Plantae, Dragons and Ningalu arise around this time. The Native Gods also arise at this time, born from Te Ao, perhaps an organic response to the machinations of the Keepers and Guests. It only takes a few thousand years for Desh to build their first big city, Varanasi, out of mud brick.

It is postulated that the Desh, Dwarves and Humans arose from Trasgu and Giant ancestors. Or they could have been engineered by the Keepers themselves. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Ningalu know that they are descended from the Gillmen, bred to act as intermediaries with the world on the surface. Trasgu history is more fragmented, though traces of old stories linger on. Fey and Plantae appear to have achieved sentience spontaneously, through the interaction of magic with the world itself. Fey aren't interested in their origins, preferring to live in the moment. Kingdom Plantae keeps its own records, but prioritises very different stories from those of other kin.

The Guests begin to find ways to circumvent their earthly confinement and seek out worshippers. Keepers begin to grow corrupt or bored.

Technology starts in earnest here, with flint and the most basic cantrips of Divine magic. Many kin discover the beneficial feedback loop of propitiating Gods to power their own Divine magic. The first practice of Art begins, grows into volatile cultural offshoots and frequently collapses into catastrophe. Sha the Teller is born from the first genocides and the first magic-induced tragedies.

Seeking a more practical means to power, early Craft grows in popularity. Trades aren't yet specialised, but agriculture catches on among many kin, and populations begin to settle down. New Gods are needed for a new way of living. The Asra pantheon arises in the northern hemisphere, among the Trasgu: the Deva pantheon forms at the same time among the Deva in the south. These pantheons are believed by worshippers to be at war with one another: however, some gods across the pantheon feel remarkably similar in flavour. Some Asra are Keepers in a new guise: others are Native to Te Ao, popping up to fill a niche.

Humans are slow to take up worship, but once they get into agriculture and technology they gravitate to the Asra as well as a host of random deities. It's like they want to collect the whole set of gods! Humans are more dextrous, taller and have a slight edge over the Trasgu - they seem more adaptable to change. They also breed faster than Dwarves, Desh and most other races, and they have a wanderlust that takes them all across the Northern Continent and into the Hot Lands. Humans and Fae either interbreed or psychically interfere with each other in a way that creates the first Halflings - a new type of Kin.

The Dwarves decide to reject polytheism and focus their entire society on a race-specific, single god: Elo. Elo is effectively God made in the image of Dwarf. Because the Dwarves live in a hard, arid climate, their deity is stoic and implacable. The Y'd, as the Dwarves re-brand themselves, are fully aware of the transactional nature of their relationship with their god. They have a passionate relationship with Craft and approach Divinity more as Craft than as Art.

Ningalu and Plantae technology is Craft based but with a much greater emphasis on organically grown structures, domestication or magical domination over local fauna and flora. Ningalu coral settlements are truly impressive, and they corral massive stocks of fish as well as taming sea birds and breeding specialised riding creatures, the Tritons and Leviathans. Plantae have a narrow range because they don't do well outside of a tropical climate, but they influence every part of their biome; no creature that visits their Kingdom is untouched.

## The Age of Bargains: 2000 BB

This Age begins with a cataclysm, again.

The craft of the Y'd turns out to be a terrible hubris. The Y'd do something large - they build something or break something, to reach their God or control it or make it manifest. Nobody knows what happened because the Y'd homeland was the site of a magical cataclysm on the scale of early attempts at Art. The Dwarves scatter into three great tribes. Each tribe takes away a different lesson from their terrible mistake, and a different interpretation of their divinity. Despite it all, they remain monotheistic... Mostly.

Whatever the Y'd did opens a way for the Guests to make some serious mischief and manifest in cruel new ways, ether out of the deep places of the earth, in the minds of kin or through their actions - and sometimes, when evil deeds are done, to walk forth on the surface of Te Ao for a time. The Keepers are at a loss.

Trasgu are being routed by the technological advances of the humans (who are beginning to ethnically differentiate), and many are desperate for Divine intervention, or a Faustian bargain. Various Guests, and various evil-aligned Native forces wanting to be born as Gods, begin courting these Trasgu. The Alfen, those who make bargains for their families, are physically transformed to compete against the humans: and Elves and Gobelin take shape as separate strains of kin, each walking their own path. It's rumoured that some of the uncorrupted Asra blessed champions of their own; if so, they go unnoticed by most.

Human civilization takes a massive knock in the wake of the Y'd cataclysm, but these kin prove incredibly resilient. Their records vanish, and yet the humans just start over and make new stories. As humans band together to rebuild and finally claim their own kingdoms, they meet Elves and start interacting and trading with these beautiful and charming folk. Humans totally buy the lie that Elves are ancient, derived from the Fey and possibly descended from divinity itself. Elves also wield huge amounts of magic, and can control Art in a way that has never felt possible before.

## The Age of Science: 300 BB

This is where we live.

Metaphysics and the concept of Arcane Abstraction grow in two distinct cultures. The Dwarven diaspora, particularly its Y'd and Gopniki tribes, look for new ways to understand their divinity, their place in the world, and how to innovate without destroying themselves. Humans find themselves wildly outpaced by Elves in matters of Art, so they look to first principles, ways to marry Art with Craft. And so a new strain of Practitioner - the Scientist - begins to take shape.

Elven society splits into factions and warring city-states, each themed with a different magical specialisation and each powered by the support of its own Faustian bargain. Most Elves are sensible enough to realise that a magical 'hot war' will result in mutually assured destruction, so they form and finance powerful crime syndicates, the Cartels, to do all the dirty work, and operate through human mercenary and freelance guilds, called the Houses, when they need to do a bit of subcontracting. The Houses in turn report back to various human kingdoms as an unofficial intelligence network, mostly gathering magical secrets to sell to curious human intellectuals. Humans discover that Elves appear to be functionally immortal, but that this comes with conditions that the Elves themselves keep very secret. Humans attempt the first lich transformations and life extension ceremonies, with varying degrees of success. Pomeranius is the most mentally stable. Interestingly, he was a historian specialising in ancient goblin prehistory before he turned.

Dividiacus, a rogue Elf and the first Druid, founds the Oaken Order and names himself Vergobret (first branch). He takes a group of elven fanatics to Old Albion, where he meets and cons a group of Halflings into serving his new, soggy nation. Dividiacus begins to see visions of a better land. A bigger land, full of volatile magic, sunshine and promise, that he can make all his own. And he and his Britton allies begin the biggest magic work of the Scientific Age.

The Y'd launch into what they call the Haskala - a flowering of cultural and scientific achievement. In human terms it is the Rinascimento or Renaissance: after the cataclysms and dark superstition of the Age of Bargains, it is time to go about things in a rational way. Politics and commerce proliferate, including a banking system that extends to many countries. The Banco even survives the Blight.

## Meanwhile in Desh!

Desh was not affected by the Y'd cataclysm in the same way, so here is how their Great Ages play out while all that drama ^ goes on.

The First Age, the Age of Wonders: 8000-3000 BB

The Desh build their first big city, Varanasi, out of mud brick. Deva worship proliferates. Magical battles with the local Trasgu population over religion decimate Varanasi: the Desh narrowly beat the Trasgu and make them subservient. The Desh Empire forms in earnest in 7000 BB, centred around Aasha, their new capital - an incredible feat of both Art and engineering, and one of the few great, magically stable wonders of the world to last till the Age of Science.

Great temples are built with Art, Craft and goblin labour: they have upper and lower levels and fragile narrow turrets (most of which no longer survive outside the Heath). Vibrant drapery and adobe houses in the early First Age gradually evolve into a mature Classical Desh style, with Cyclopean stonework and dazzling white walls in distinctive square style above ground, expanding underground into spiral or hub and spoke chambers around a central skylight. Lots of cultivation and mindful husbandry to provide shady canopies. Quite a bit of trade with travelling humans from the north, the Iberiyans and Ros (nomadic tribes in the West), and Kingdom Plantae. Clothing evokes a mix of Roman and Classical Indian dress, lots of boobs, gold bracelets, anklets and drapery. A few fanciful attempts at unpowered flight and a prototype dirigble. The Desh Empire lazily thinks about conquering what is now Vestfal, and sponsors the creation of several magical artifacts.

The Second Age: 3000-450 BB

Isolationism and a war on both fronts. Far to the South, the Giants are especially restless and repeatedly cross the southern mountains. Nobody knows why. The Desh militarise their powered flight technology and use their airships and ballistae to defeat the Giants. Then the Dragons get involved. After a series of Dragon attacks on armoured dirigibles, the Desh settle an uneasy armistice with the Dragons, who also become their only real trading partners at this point. ALL powered flight is banned on pain of fiery, dragony holocaust.

Then in 2000 BB the Y'd make a mess. In the wake of the Y'd cataclysm, the Desh Empire falls back on its own resources. Some Dwarven refugees flood south: the Desh repel them and they are forced to live in the Hot Lands or to coexist with equatorial human or Elven settlements. This costs the Desh valuable resources.

The Desh begin to strike bargains with their goblin servants, to ensure the Empire's stability and avoid a slave revolt. The goblins get more rights and autonomy, and enter into serious magical bargains to seal the deal. Instead of Asra v Deva, the pantheons integrate, with some statues of gods featuring aspects or faces from both cultures. Attempts to propitiate evil deities result in lots of elaborate executions, but people still form secret cults.

Buildings are more practical and extend deeper underground in a stepped-pyramid shape. The built environment features much bigger and more interesting roads and causeways, because flying is no longer an option. Dress tends to be modest and practical, with lots of white and plain coloured tunics and salwar kameez. Goblins begin wearing the toga as a symbol of their new status. There is a brief enthusiasm for brooches, hats and slippers or sandals, in colours and styles that celebrate a citizen's religious affinity, to help relieve an otherwise boring dress code.

The Third Age: 450-0 BB

The Desh discover two commodities that are unique to them: tea, and silk. They are sick of isolationism, keen to make contact with humans and Elves - they hear Elves like luxuries. The Desh Empire begins seriously investing in a Navy for the first time. They are not sailors, so they make friendships with Ningalu to help operate and crew their vessels. Desh build handsome, white stone lighthouses along their coastline, some of which still stand.

The Imperial Court becomes decadent and divided over a 400-year period. The nobility wear innumerable layers of rich silk and are covered in Byzantine gold finery recalling the First Age. The poor are more destitute than they have ever been; amulets become popular accessories, and the food gets very spicy. Wild and whacky cults get really popular, including Ningalu deities like the Great Wave, and fanciful reinterpretations of pre-Asra goblin rituals. It's a weird time.

Money is coming into the Court, but the Empire's lands can't expand without a serious push, and the economy is stagnating. Various Desh interests try to colonise different ocean archipelagos with the help of either Ningalu or human allies. They don't always encounter terra nullius. Some Desh families lose a lot of money this way: however, it sets a powerful precedent for later colonisation efforts by the much more charming Elves. One Desh architect decides that the best way to make a colony is simply to create an artificial landmass with magic - a feat not accomplished since the foundations for the holy city of Aasha were laid in the First Age.

Just as the Court appears to have come together under the rule of a charming young Maharaja: Court scholars warn of terrible signs in the sky. Diviners and astronomers report the moon is tearing itself asunder. The Court evacuates to parts unknown. The Moon tears apart, unleashing a tsunami on the land. To make matters worse, this triggers an apocalyptic shift in the balance of the Barrier that holds all the Guests and evil divinities of the world at bay. And with that, comes the combined Elven and Human fleet, smashing a new harbour in the middle of the Desh heartland and triggering another huge flood.

Somewhere in the Elven or human population, there is a pathogen. If the Desh had their full infrastructure they might have contained it. With their empire flooded and their royals missing - it is a charnel house. Any remaining Desh are executed or flee to the Heath. Their ancient and impressive civilization is now a swamp-lined crater, a mess of stubby ruins and a mix of songs, poems and half remembered myths, passed down by their former goblin servants. Nobody even knows how many years elapse between the fall of the Desh Empire and the rise of modern Ladinh. People estimate "about two hundred years" and hope that's accurate.