Age of Silence

The Age of Light was the first age after The Awakening. Taking place about 3.2 billion years after the forming of the planet,  **700 AB** to **1,400 AB** on the Aves Belief Calendar OR between the year **3,850** to **4,650** on the core timeline.

Surface world population near end of the age: 280 million

## Themes

#### Chronicle

The Dark Age, The Quiet Death, The Fall of Belief, The Rising Darkness, Industrial Age

#### Flavor

*Dungeon Punk ranging from: Planescape to Eberron to Ravnica. Fantasy circa 1899 AD*

#### Storytelling

Core central themes to use in campaign building or storytelling. The ideas that I believe are key to what I want each Age to explore and reflect to the audience.

* The dreary cycle of old tyrannies being replaced by new. Tyranny can happen anywhere.
* The madness and insanity caused by and of a never ending hunt. Whether that be a hunt to stop a plague, ascension, or progeny.
* The conflicts between 'happy' ignorance and 'unhappy' intellectual curiosity; What can be defined as truly living?
* Fire, death, what beauty means in a horrible world.
* The right to make choices, even bad, destructive choices.
* Is emotion the only hallmark of being human?
* The terrible consequences of playing god and the true meaning of responsibility.
* Love makes us strongest, prejudice and bigotry are bad, and everybody has to die eventually.
* Don't overlook the children; the world will be in their hands sooner than you think.
* Isolation. How one can be alone even in a never-ending sea of people.
* Independence, and the dangers of relying on flawed people to take care of you.
* Everyone has hidden depths and performs acts of evil in their lifetime regardless of how good they might truly be.
* At what point does having a good reason stop being an excuse for doing terrible things.

*(Animal Farm, Bloodborne, Brave New World, Dark Souls, Clockwork Orange, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Frankenstein, Harry Potter, Interview With A Vampire, A Series of Unfortunate Events)*

#### Aesthetics

*Baroque, Neoclassic, Romanticism, Realism, Imperssionism*

## Key Events

* Unknowingly, the child survivor from Deneb's Rest would bring a silent killer to Dirigidale and eventually every major city in the world. It would be two-hundred years before the disease would mutate into the Pox Echo.
* Tensions rise as prophecies made during the previous balance encourage the dominating religion of the era, the Birds of Cygnus, to crusade against those they deemed "pagans".
* In the year 905 A.B. (4055 SOL), the disease known as the Pox Echo began to mutate claiming the lives of millions. This horrible disease would quickly deteriorate the mind rendering the victim into a mostly catatonic state that tries to endlessly repeat the last action of its victim until the body eventually gives out. By the end of the age, it had killed over half the world's population. The roden and no'qi populations are especially vulnerable to the disease and are almost entirely wiped out.
* Most large cities, including Dirigidale, are abandoned to the ever-moving dead.
* Though weakened by the plague the Birds of Cygnus utilize this fear of the plague to take it upon themselves to "hunt the stained" blaming this disease on the use of solomancy, lithomancy, and cleromancy. In the most severe cases common folk were executed for appearing to be to "repetitive" with their actions or even twitching in front of a crusader.
* These crusades give the Birds of Cygnus significant power during a time when everyone is reeling from the pox. Eventually the last remnants of the kingdoms of the last age are entirely ran by monarchies under the Birds control. Outside these kingdoms were several Separatists city states trying to survive and resist the harsh decrees of the church. Eventually things reached a boiling point and civil war erupted across the globe.
* Out of fear and desperation that the Pox Echo would wipe out every last living thing on the surface world, fifteen floating cities were launched, each meant to be representative of an ideal of the races who launched them
* *The events of The Wanderer's Library take place.*
* A roden researcher is found dead, another victim of the Pox Echo. But not before he had a chance to save his son and write over and over again his formula for a vaccine known as 'Panacea', bringing an end to a disease that had ravaged the world for nearly four centuries.
* Before the next balance the Birds of Cygnus are exposed as the Primals and a great war takes place that would see the destruction of Aeo and Lyrea.
* The dark lords rise from the Great Below.

## Timeline

This timeline uses the common calendar of the Aves Belief (AB) and places its year 1 at the start of the fifth age, the Age of Discovery (3,200 years after the start of recorded history). 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.

*Circa 700 AB to 1400 AB*

* **700 A.B. (***3780-3850 SOL***)** *Dawn of the Age of Silence'*
	+ **Rise of the Kero:** The Kero Gogo tribes rise to prominent power below the surface of the world, going on to become the earliest lith races to send expedition parties to the surface for reasons other than war. While the world was distracted with the human child at Deneb’s Rest, over the next century the kero gogo acted as guides to the surface for several lith clans seeking sanctuary from the cruelty of the ruling powers.
* **715 A.B. (***3865 SOL***)**
	+ **Renaissance:** The start of the Enlightenment of Dirigidale.
* **718 A.B. (***3868 SOL***)**
	+ **Fall of Lauran:** Home to several cathedrals this fortified holy city was sacked by the wild dwarves of the Stillfallow Island and their explosive artillery that rendered the great barrier around the city that had protected it for centuries, useless.
	+ **First World's Fair:** To celebrate the anniversary of their emancipation from the water primal Aquilla, the roden people of the world gather in Dirigidale hosting the first World’s Fair. In an attempt to outdo each one another, two great innovators, a roden and a dwarf, compete for the world’s attention with their new inventions. The dwarf, a blacksmith by trade, brought the first print-press, allowing books and information to be mass-produced for the masses. The roden brought a different way to express information with what he called “pools”, by utilizing sapphire spellstones and pools of water located along the leylines you could submerge yourself into the water and connect yourself to other pools of knowledge throughout the world. In the end the roden inventor was declared the winner, leading to conflict between the roden and dwarf and the start of a trade-war fueled by competing ideas of progress.
* **720 A.B. (***3870 SOL***)**
	+ War between the noble factions of Cazimor, mostly involving the conflict between and within the dwarven kingdoms of Cazimor and Stillfallow and the elite of the Roden and Astrada. When the King of Stoutrock dies, leaving the kingdom to his grandson rather than his sons, it would create a power struggle that would affect all of Cazimor for nearly a century.
* **727 A.B. (***3877 SOL***)**
	+ **Invan the Free:** A great Astradi leader rises up and begins to expose the underground slave trade their people have been silently enduring by the Dragons and Hollow Elf slavers.
* **753 A.B. (***3903 SOL***)**
	+ **The Wanderers:** The base of operations known as the Library that is used by the Wanderers is fully operational. At first it is made up of three wings focusing on the security, containment, and the protection of the creatures, relics, and forbidden knowledge they came across. Following the overall disaster of the War of 720 the Library does their best to remain out of the affairs of nations and city-states, focusing on the increasing activity of the underground lith races and containing the things that bump in the night.
* **758 A.B. (***3908 SOL***)**
	+ **The Hollow Exchange:** Half a dozen massive sinkholes open up throughout the world exposing massive pits encircled with great stone platforms connecting the depths of the Hollow to the isolated wilds of the surface world. Establishing outpost around these pits, soon sol and lith races began interacting with each other on a massive scale. Exchanging strange animals, plants, food, abilities, and disease.
* **765 A.B. (***3915 SOL***)**
	+ **Forgotten Slaves:** Within a decade of the pits opening up, the slave trade that had secretly shackled the Astrada people began to spread its influence and began enslaving other surface races. Unique in their ability to remove their victims from the timeline and the memories of others, these dark slavers began amassing huge labor forces to help excavate the remaining gargoliths, leaving ghost towns in their wake.
* **767 A.B. (***3917 SOL***)**
	+ **The Many Ways:** The ‘Many Ways’ or plurality of worlds is discovered by Wanderer researchers. Entirely by accident they discovered that any book brought to the Library from another world will transport its reader to the time and place the book was first written. Giving a small group of travelers a one way trip through history.
* **781 A.B. (***3931 SOL***)**
	+ **Reformation:** A great Ursadar cleric of the Aves Belief, unaware of the truth behind the religious organization takes it upon himself to denounce the church publicly, revealing with significant evidence its many transgressions against the common folk. The cleric is declared a heretic and soon he and his followers leave the major cities of the Aves Belief to establish their own sect.
* **799 A.B. (***3949 SOL***)**
	+ **Heretics:** Within two decades the church attacked these new settlements of the ursadar and imprisoned the cleric and his family, starting a new era of oppression between the church and those they deemed heretics. Eventually in a misguided attempt to seize on this lack of trust with the church, the dwarven King of Deepbrow Mountains marries his mistress, defying the Aves Belief, only to burn her as a witch and a heretic a year later and declaring himself the Holy Emperor of the Aves Belief.
* **822 A.B. (***3972 SOL***)**
	+ **Pieces-of-Eight:** Following the Hollow Slave Revolts of the early 800s, the astrada had fully freed themselves and sent their former captors fleeing into the underground darkness. Now in full control of the underground silver bellows they began mass producing and minting their own currency known as ‘pieces-of-eight’. Soon these small silver tokens became the first world currency outside of spellshards.
* **835 A.B. (***3985 SOL***)**
	+ **Queen Dela:** Following the death of the King Bron IV of Deepbrow, his daughter Dela Bron Elden, becomes the first female leader of the dwarves. Queen Dela quickly restores her people’s faith in the gods and each other while declaring holy war against the Aves Belief and restoring the Brothers’ Law to her people, uniting the dwarven kingdoms under one ruler for the first time in over two-thousand years.
* **837 A.B. (***3987 SOL***)**
	+ **Celestial Navigation:** A group of researchers and adventurers are marooned following an airship accident and are forced to spend several decades isolated on a small island. Using this time to track and map the stars using the vast shipwrecked cargo of astromancy supplies bound for Dirigidale, by the time they are finally found their measurements are so accurate it reveals more than triple the amount of known stars. Navigation by sea or air is forever changed.
* **845 A.B. (***3995 SOL***)**
	+ **Captain Tavo Denda:** For the first time, sol races adventurer into the depths of the Hollow, eventually charting and mapping much of the hostile underground world. One of these adventurers, Tavo Denda, a brave navigator in the service of the Queen Dela becomes the most successful pirate in history following decades of pillaging the trade caravans along the slave routes connecting the world below to the world above. Eventually a great bounty was place on his head by the leaders of three different lith races.
* **900 A.B. (***4050 SOL***)**
	+ **Crusade:** After over a century of tension between the church and the other ruling powers of the surface world, the Aves Belief declare all non-believers “enemies of god”, encouraging and funding nobles from all races to make elaborate campaigns and crusade against those who did not meet the church’s standard, mostly the poor and vulnerable. Those who were not killed outright in their settlements were rounded up and put in labor camps. Meanwhile, other nobles or people with political power began to find their lives restrained and controlled by decrees and prohibitions declared by the church.
* **905 A.B. (***4055 SOL***)**
	+ **Pox Echo:** Since the previous balance a silent disease had spread across all of Boreal, finally in this year it mutated into what would be known as the ‘Pox Echo’. Victims would experience several odd and severe symptoms before the disease attacked the brain, causing them to lifelessly repeat their final action until they grew immobile to decay. The first report of the disease is from a sailor stationed in the Port of Dirigidale, bringing the disease home to his wife and family, the whole neighborhood would be dead within a tenday. In 905 A.B. twenty-six people die, a years later, two-thousand dead. The disease would spread quickly through the trade routes going on to kill half the world’s population by the end of the age.
* **912 A.B. (***4062 SOL***)**
	+ **First Newspaper:** In an effort to help the many orphans and survivors of the pox, proto-newspapers begin to be spread door to door as a way to reconnect those lost during the pestilence. Around this same time the first modern novels begin to make their way along trade routes, providing an escape during this time of disease and isolation.
* **913 A.B. (***4063 SOL***)**
	+ **'Still They Rise':** Trying to escape the chaos and conflict caused by pestilence and war, a roden astromancer whose research had been largely funded by the church was called forward to recant his recent findings connecting the three sols to the creation of the world. Instead he painted three large orbs of red, blue, and yellow and inscribing "Still They Rise" on the facade of the church as a symbol of defiance. While attempting to flee the city he would be captured by the church and hanged.
* **919 A.B. (***4069 SOL***)**
	+ **Coward's War:** By 918 the Pox Echo had begun to spring up again killing thousands of people, the peasants of the kingdoms called to their clerics for healing and aid but their pleas fell on deaf ears. The clerics, seeing the horrors and danger of the previous outbreak of pox, abandoned their flock in their time of need and outrage again swept through the kingdoms.
	+ Many of the most powerful members of the church died to disease and war during this period, leading to a decline in power for the church, giving rise to the scientific and industrial revolutions to come.

* **921 A.B. (***4071 SOL***)**
	+ **Pilgrims:** Looking to escape the constant death caused by the pox and the Coward’s War, desperate families banded together and established outpost settlements near the massive sinkholes that had opened up centuries ago connecting the surface to the Hollow.
* **923 A.B. (***4073 SOL***)**
	+ **Queen Prtega Nimba:** A female astradi merchant rises to the top of the Keovrone Kingdom, establishes a truce with the Dalandon Empire. Together they fight off the Aves Belief who attempt to seize control of the fallen territories of Laurandi and the western coast of Asora. She would secure astradi control of Asora for sixteen years before the end of Coward’s War.
* **925 A.B. (***4075 SOL***)**
	+ **Little Ice Age:** The world is in the grip of a mini ice age, ash from volcanic eruptions in the northwest (Cindersnow) and the southeast (Embertide Keys) began to blot out the sols creating the coolest climate conditions since the Age of Ruin. These weather conditions combining with the fallout from the pox led to famine and unrest for much of the age until finally the climate began to warm going into the next age.
	+ **Fur &** **Frontiers:** During this period there became a great demand for furs and pelts, soon frontiersman travelled into the dense wilds of Boreal looking for animal or monster hides worth four times their weight in shards. These frontiersman came into conflict with several lith races from the Hollow who had come to prepare and establish outposts for the coming balance. However the frontiersman had a significant upper hand thanks to the recent innovations of the handcannon, solocane, and maximgun, each a different weapon for killing utilizing the combinations of mecha and solomancy.
* **939 A.B. (***4089 SOL***)**
	+ **End of the Coward's War:** Following the overall defeat of the Aves Belief in 939 at the end of the Coward’s War, the power of the church over most governments had been overthrown. While the church was still allowed to operate as an organization of faith and still maintained control over several smaller dwarven kingdoms, they went from the guiding hand of the world's major kingdoms, to a seat at a crowded table of advisers. Peasants became kings under this new regime they called the ‘commonwealth’.
* **941 A.B. (***4091 SOL***)**
	+ **New Markets:** Within a few years of the lower class overthrowing the old rulers of the church and replacing them with their own a new distribution of wealth began to kick start the economy around trade. Notably that of the Stoutrock Dwarven fur traders and the Keovrone explorers of the underground. Spending their wealth loosely and freely several luxury trades began to boom and bust, bring about concepts like 'credit' and other ideas.
* **946 A.B. (***4096 SOL***)**
	+ **Nimba Nora:** As the second wave of the Pox Echo began to come to an end, Tala Nimba, the son of Queen Prtega loses his mother and beloved wife in the same year to the pox. In his grief he uses his riches to build the great wonder Nimba Nora, a sol-powered shield that protected all of Keovrone from the disease, and the rest of the world for centuries.
* **963 A.B. (***4113 SOL***)**
	+ **Restoration:** Only twenty-four years following the end of the Coward’s War, the new peasant ran republic known as the Commonwealth collapsed in upon itself due to weak and corrupt leadership. The monarchy and church that they had fought hard against is re-established. While some kingdoms only allowed the return of these monarchies under restricted conditions, many of the kingdoms gave themselves wholeheartedly back to the oppressors of their fathers. Even going as far as to re-invite exiled rulers guilty of atrocities back to the throne.
* **969 A.B. (***4119 SOL***)**
	+ **Burning of Seacrown:** A great fire sweeps through the wooden lower districts of the Stoutrock capital city of Seacrown. Though the cause of the fire is unknown it comes in a year that saw extreme unrest against the dwarven nobility, the first caused the death of more than seventy-five thousand people, causing many to think the fire was started to purge the city by the king.
* **992 A.B. (***4142 SOL***)**
	+ **Fear and Panic:** After nearly a century the pox appears to have gone away as the population tries to rebuild after decades of war, pestilence, and famine. Communities of thousands are now hundreds, while smaller settlements can barely support a few dozen people. Fear, paranoia, and desperation weigh heavy upon any of those not upper class.
	+ Unknown to the surface races the majority of the monsters who had been common during the earlier ages of the world had migrated to the hollow, leaving only a few isolated in the wilds, becoming exceedingly rare. Despite this the sol races who had survived for generations alongside these monsters were more paranoid than ever about their existence and this fear often led to panic. This period of time was marked by the death of innocents either due to crusade by the church or false trials held by scared and small communities.

* **1042 A.B. (***4192 SOL***)**
	+ **Freedom of Press:** A new way of thinking is planted when a writer for an early newspaper in the Kelwin Empire is taken to the High Court for “libel” and treason against the Kelwin chieftain. However in a surprise decision the writer is found innocent establishing press freedom leading into social revolution.
* **1058 A.B. (***4208 SOL***)**
	+ **Scientific Method:** After centuries of war, disease, and famine the people of Boreal found a way to survive and adapt to this harsh new world. Thanks to innovations that had allowed people to mass-produced written books and to connect and share new ideas with each other over long distances people began to think of the world in a new scientific way.
	+ By 1058 A.B. the people of Boreal have discovered the secrets of: microscopic and single-celled organisms, anatomy, early medicine, gravity and other cosmic forces, and conclusive proof that Boreal revolves around the three sols.
	+ In 1058 A.B., at the 85th World’s Fair, two great innovators again squared off against each other bringing technological advancements to the public. One an ursadar scientist and his alternative source of energy known as the ‘silent fire’ that used electricity and kinetic energy to power low voltage devices like gaslamps and amber. The other, a roden inventor who created the ‘guide stone’, a mechanically modified sapphire spellstone that contained basic information for thousands of different categories that could be carried on your person.

* **1070 A.B. (***4220 SOL***)**
	+ **The Sealing of Asha Tah:** A female astradi princess by the name of Asha Tah, a former slave of the hollow, becomes ruler of the astrada and the majority of the Asora continent. She goes on to seal shut and fortify any opening between the surface and the underworld on her continent citing underground prophecy.
* **1073 A.B. (***4223 SOL***)**
	+ **Industrial Revolution:** Utilizing the inventions of the past century two roden brothers, an entrepreneur and a clockmaker, work together to make the first modern machine, a device capable of spinning cotton into thread. This would go on to create factories, making the brothers the world’s first ‘Tycoons’.
	+ Within one-hundred years Dirigidale and other capital cities would have more than four-thousand factories thanks to the power of spellstones, coal, and steam.

* **1080 A.B. (***4230 SOL***)**
	+ **Revolution:** The power and wealth of the central continents of Cazimor and Velar had created a power gap between the new industrialized world and the old world continents of Etica and Asora, including Stillfallow Island and the Deepgrowth.
	+ Despite only containing 10% of the surface world’s population (following the pox), thanks to the industrial revolution they controlled 80% of the world’s wealth. Dominating the oceanic trade routes and ruling over several colonized people along eastern Etica, southern Stillfallow, western Asora, and all of Okora Island.
	+ **Timber Bay Riot:** In 1080 AB, a spark ignited among the ursadar people of colonized Etica, tired of being taxed and ruled by foreign entities they revolt against the crown. Being used for their vast lumber, forced to give up the higher quality for the King’s ships, they push two years worth of timber into the docking ports along the coast. Clogging up the shipping lanes, giving them time to prepare and fortify. Revolution had begun. A year later the ursadar War for Independence begins eventually leading to the ursadar people taking back all of Etica from the Crowns of Cazimor. The flames of revolution spread to other colonizes, eventually crippling the global power of Cazimor and Velar.

* **1097 A.B. (***4247 SOL***)**
	+ **The** **Scarlet Revolt:** The collapse of the colonial powers and ineptitude of their rulers inspired the common folk of Cazimor and Velar to rise against the monarchies who had ruled their lives for centuries. Unlike the wars for independence around the world this revolution became a massacre, public executions became daily spectacle as everyone connected to the fallen monarchies were publicly tried and usually executed, including family members and business associates. While the dwarven nations still held the title of king, they had lost all their power. All other monarchies were removed as the age of kings and queens gave rise to emperors, presidents and dictators.
* **1107 A.B. (***4257 SOL***)**
	+ **Emporer Eletanan** Eventually this would give rise to Hanen Eletanan who would become First Emperor of Stillfallow, becoming the first eastern dwarven leader to conquer the western capital. His conquest continued as he began to spill into the roden nations of Cazimor and the astradi shores of Asora. Eventually these forces would unite to defeat the emperor surrounding his armies in the deserts of Asora.
* **1117 A.B. (***4267 SOL***)**
	+ **Queen Nora:** Following the defeat and death of her inept father, King Treu III, also known as Bron the Fool, to the armies of Emporer Eletanan. The only child of King Treu, the Princess Noradramde become Queen at the age of twelve. She would go on to rule for over two centuries and be remembered as 'Mama Nora' one of the dwarf kingdom's greatest rulers.
* **1122 A.B. (***4272 SOL***)**
	+ **Allied Nations:** The world powers come together to redraw the map, breaking huge kingdoms into nations, countries, and states using the ideals of the social revolutions that brought down these kings and conquerors. Gathering representatives from across the world, including the leaders of refugee lith races from the underworld, these countries were divided from roughly a dozen official recognized larger kingdoms to over seventy independent and officially recognized countries and nation-states.
* **1135 A.B. (***4285 SOL***)**
	+ **The Solorail:** The first passenger-carrying solorail is built connecting Seacrown to Dirigidale. Eventually this would be expanded all the way down to Fogleton as Etica and Asora would construct solorail transports of their own. Soon people were able to travel the distance in a week that once would of taken a lifetime.
* **1142 A.B. (***4292 SOL***)**
	+ **Resistance:** Following a power struggle among the elven empire of the Hollow. A human slave leads an unsuccessful slave rebellion against their captures only to be slaughter by the new elven regime. News of this spreads among the surface leading to the total abolishment of slavery on the surface.
* **1146 A.B. (***4296 SOL***)**
	+ **Analytical Stone:** At the 107th World’s Fair a dwarven scientist unveils the first analytical stone, a ocular device that could be worn to give the wearer live data or historical insight when examining certain objects. This device was immediately sponsored by the new Queen and breaking with tradition, this invention was not made available to the general public, creating animosity among the queen and her allies.
* **1148 A.B. (***4298 SOL***)**
	+ **Crux War:** The new wealth and power experienced by the dwarves would allow for the dwarven kingdoms to again push into Asora and Okora. This time, not with conquest or colonization, but with trade and the importation of a drug known as crux. This substance stimulated a feeling of euphoria in the brain and was highly addictive, soon more than twelve million astradi are addicted in asora alone. *(More than fifteen times the modern real-world addiction problems in the United States.)* Soon the dwarves and the asora go to war over the right to trade this addictive substance.
* **1153 A.B. (***4303 SOL***)**
	+ **Temperance Movement:** At a time when the average commoner drank cider in the morning, beer in the afternoon, and whisky and rum at night. Overall they drink three times the alcohol throughout their life as their sons and grandsons would drink. This gave rise to Temperance Movements that would eventually lead to the Conservative Movements of the following decades. Soon drinking, smoking, and any other luxury of the senses was deemed immoral by society. Underground trade and saloons sprang up across Etica and Velar.
* **1163 A.B. (***4313 SOL***)**
	+ **Ether:** The creation of a liquid substance known as 'ether' is made and spread throughout the world by the No’qi, relieving the suffering of those during surgery or their last few moments alive. This miracle medicine gives hope that a cure for the pox can still be found as it continues to wreck the population with multiple outbreaks.
* **1180 A.B. (***4330 SOL***)**
	+ **Refugees:** The countries of the world continue to deal with the unique threat of theunderground world, many of the countries containing tunnels that have forcibly connected the races of the surface to the strange lith races of the Hollow. Refugees continue to pour out from both the large pits and the vast network of secret narrow passages connecting these two worlds, shaking the political climate of the countries they occupy. Tension brews between those who want to coexist with these former enemies and those who want to exile them, or worse.
* **1188 A.B. (***4338 SOL***)**
	+ **Stone Rush of 1188:** Relations between the surface and underground world continues to escalate as excavations and new information reveals the vast access to the large veins of spellstones connected to the world’s leylines in the Hollow. Almost overnight the surface races went from fearing the underground world to yearning for it as explorers and those looking to make their fortune began to pour into the underground tunnels, establishing mining communities and outposts.
* **1224 A.B. (***4374 SOL***)**
	+ **Plague and** **Mega Cities:** By 1224 the capital cities of industrialized world had turned into chaotic, overcrowded, filthy mega cities. A perfect breeding ground for the same pox that had killed their grandfathers. In what is considered the third major outbreak of the Pox Echo, plague swept from Asora to Cazimor killing one-third of the cities population. Still despite these deaths these cities are forced to house eight to a room, with a third of their inhabitants living in slums.
	+ **Renovation:** Eventually it is discovered by a self-taught local doctor that the widespread cause of the disease in the city was the poor water supply. The next Spring the cities are fully evacuated, with citizens living in camping communities on the outskirts or on farmlands, as the great cities of old are torn down and reconstructed to incorporating new systems like the first sewer systems, basic electrical grids, and gaslamp illuminated streets and perimeters.
* **1226 A.B. (***4376 SOL***)**
	+ **Prismatic Evolution:** While studying on the strange island of Okora, roden and ursadar researchers discover fossils that lead to a theory of evolution around six points of origin, each represented by a different shade of light. Thanks to the knowledge of the native Lazuli elders, they also categorized the surface and underground races into a Tree of Life made up of seven ‘sol races’ and fifteen ‘lith’ sentient races and their many monstrous or animalistic offshoots.
* **1258 A.B. (***4408 SOL***)**
	+ **Civil War:** After decades of conflict and tension between the surface and underground races that continued to interact and live among each other above and below the surface, things finally reach a boiling point as angry mobs march members of the lith race who had lived amongst them for generations, to the pits and passages connecting to the Hollow. The ruling class living in the larger cities viewed these actions as barbaric and soon civil war ripped throughout many of the surface countries over what to do with the lith races.
* **1261 A.B. (***4411 SOL***)**
	+ **War's End:** Thanks to their industrialization and resources the more progressive countries of the world were able to defeat the isolationist who wanted to exile all members of the lith races underground to where they came from. Soon these prisoners of the extremist were freed and allowed to establish their own countries from the territories of the defeated.
* **1267 A.B. (***4417 SOL***)**
	+ **New Progress:** Following the end of the great civil war, military force was used to ensure and enforce the global laws guaranteeing all sentient beings a right to life and liberty among the surface. The first transcontinental solorail is completed connecting Seacrown in the north to Fogleton in the south.
* **1270 A.B. (***4420 SOL***)**
	+ **Innovation:** Though the industrial revolution had been in full swing for quite sometime innovation and especially patent filing reached new heights following the end of the civil wars. On average over ten-thousand patents were filed a year in Cazimor alone. With the expansions, industrialization spread to far corners of the world, convinced isolated races like the Lazuli, No’Qi, and Astrada to join the new world.
* **1283 A.B. (***4433 SOL***)**
	+ **Exploitation:** With industrialization came exploitation, beyond the hard conditions of the average factories of Cazimor, Velar, and Etica; there were also the work camps atrocities committed by the isolated elite. In 1283, a self-taught ursadar alchemist found a way to vulcanize rubber into a more resilient compound, eventually allowing for the creations and fittings that would support the later half of the industrial revolution. However the demand for this rubber would eventually lead to the enslavement and labor of millions of slaves away from the authority of the Allied Nations.
* **1293 A.B. (***4443 SOL***)**
	+ **Photographs:** The first photographs go viral showing the atrocities suffered by both sol and lith races alike. Though these early cameras weighed more than one-hundred pounds and were awkward to use, the realistic and lifelike images they produced would go on to influence the world through the use of newspapers, inspiring the world’s elite to call for and pressure these foreign powers to end their practices.
* **1299 A.B. (***4449 SOL***)**
	+ **Economics:** After centuries of economic dominance the markets of Cazimor and Velar came crumbling down following a series of market collapses caused by speculative purchasing. The ursadar, finding new wealth in silver and gold in the hills of the Titan Heights establish the ruby standard, solidifying their spellstone as the center of energy and wealth for years to come. That same year the giants revolt against the ursadar mines and slaughter over two-hundred soldiers attempting to protect the quarry, leading to the military relocation of all giants from southern Etica to the Loborr reservations.
* **1318 A.B. (***4468 SOL***)**
	+ **Light For Everyone:** Improving upon the gaslamp, a device that had illuminated civilization for over two-hundred years, albeit dangerously, a roden scientist invents practical electric light at a fraction of its previous cost. Soon electric light is no longer the luxury of the military or wealthy and even the smallest of towns will have a few gaslamps illuminating their streets.
* **1325 A.B. (***4475 SOL***)**
	+ **New Heights:** For the first time in civilized history cities begin to expand upwards instead of outwards, while many wonders has utilized topaz and other spellstones to keep great structures aloft, these buildings supported their own weight, the largest of which at the time just over ten-stories tall. The following year eight alleged anarchist bomb several of these structures. Undaunted, several modern great wonders are created to demonstrate the building power of organized civilization.
* **1333 A.B. (***4483 SOL***)**
	+ **Blizzard of 1333:** A historic blizzard in the first half of the year cripples most of the northern world, causing many to perish and property damage so high it would take years to recover. This same year the first modern serial killer terrorizes the streets of Dirigidale.
	+ **The Flooding of the World's Fair:** The following year thousands die in floods attending the 154th World’s Fair. Many take shelter within the newly built iron-built towers including the great ursadar author Conda Bindy who years later would release the Untold Legends novels, a fictional series about time-travel that would capturing the public, going on to become the century's top-selling novel and inspiring a new era of imagination.
* **1342 A.B. (***4492 SOL***)**
	+ **Anarchy:** The 156th World’s Fair is delayed following the assassination of several world leaders by anarchist.
* **1356 A.B. (***4506 SOL***)**
	+ **Death of Queen Nora:** After reigning for over two-centuries, Queen Nora of the dwarves dies at the age of 251. She is succeeded by her son King Bron V, who turns out to be weak-willed and becomes a puppet to the tycoons of the day.
	+ **Jander Dampa:** Meanwhile in Etica, following a series of assassinations against their leaders, a brash and confident young ursadar by the name of Jander Dampa is elected leader and begins turning the country into a global power under a strong sense of moral justice, considering themselves the defenders of virtue worldwide.
* **1362 A.B. (***4512 SOL***)**
	+ **Everyday Airships:** Airships which had been commonplace since the previous age become considerably more reliable and safe. Less reliable on topaz spellstones, these heavier-than-air vehicles began to utilize twin-tethered aerostat balloons and sophisticated steering propellers and devices. Most importantly these innovations were at a fraction of the cost it took to make the airships of old that often bankrupted the country than made them. Soon these small, mobile, airships could be seen across the globe.
* **1364 A.B. (***4514 SOL***)**
	+ New innovations and technologies reshape the everyday life of common folk. Simple vacuum cleaners, powered-refrigerators, stoves, and affordable airships help families save time and have more time for leisure.
* **1365 A.B. (***4515 SOL***)**
	+ **Aeo Manifesto:** Following their defeat in a war against the No’qi, the astrada government fires upon a group of defenseless demonstrators in Keovrone Square. Soon strikes and riots follow which cripple and overthrow the ruling oligarchy. Members of the military hearing news of this government funded massacre rise up against their commanders and march upon the capital. A new leader rises from this revolution and establishes the “Aeo Manifesto” the first astradi constitution that takes power from the upper class and places it firmly in the hands of common born astrada.
* **1369 A.B. (***4519 SOL***)**
	+ **Time of Titans:** New innovations in safety handling metals allow lithomancers to reinforce buildings to colossal heights. These new techniques would allow for the height of a building or size of a ship to expand ten-fold. Soon great ships able to carry thousands and thousands of passengers make grand voyages around the world for those rich enough to pay.
* **1371 A.B. (***4521 SOL***)**
	+ **Depression:** The decades of wealth and excess come crashing down due to speculative buying in the market. The average person loses 80% of their wealth as banks shut down, unable to pay out money that isn't there. The economy wouldn't rebound for nearly a decade, finally ramping up due to a boom in military spending. Providing jobs to millions.
* **1377 A.B. (***4527 SOL***)**
	+ **Rules of War:** Thirteen years before these same national powers would come together to deal the final blow to the Velari Empire and their allies in the Great War, a proto-version of the Sol Collective was created, at first comprising of 45 nations, who each agree upon ten conventions on rules of war. These rules would be crucial in influencing public perception, with most people supporting those who followed them and crucifying those who didn’t.
* **1378 A.B. (***4528 SOL***)**
	+ **The Velari Empire:** Under a charismatic leader the smaller nations of the Velar continent are brought together under one large empire. Any person speaking the velari language are now part of a new world power that shakes the balance of power.
* **1380 A.B. (***4530 SOL***)**
	+ **The Great War**
		- The assassination of the heir to the Gree Empire in the poor country of Chenar leads to war between the powers of Cazimor and Velar:
		- Velari Empire, Deepbrow Kingdoms, and the Gree Empire carry out an organized strike of strategic resources as they each begin to march upon their unprepared neighbors.
		- Dirigidale United, Tulor, Chenar, and the Dwarven Tristates enter the war against Velari and its allies.
		- Quickly the Velari Empire conquerors the southern territories it had recently lost to revolution, continuing their conquest they take over the entire southern Cazimor coast.
		- The Gree and Ironshine army attack Seacrown and northern Dirigidale.
		- Velari forms a pact with Ordaio, Amlarey, Kairup, Carnen, and Kroga to control the trade routes of Moonrise Bay, cutting off Dirigidale from their colonies to the west. This pact gives these countries the power and support to attack Okora and Ridalya.

* **1381 A.B. (***4531 SOL***)**
	+ **The World at War**
		- Velari attacks the neutral country of Volta, forcing the dwarven merchant empire of Bron Elden to attack Velari airships in order to defend their trade interest.
		- Bron Elden and its allies Ridalya and Erida formerly declare an alliance with Dirigidale and war against Velari. Pitting the world’s greatest nations against each other and bringing the conflict to all three major continents.
		- With new reinforcements, the Deepbrow armies in the north are defeated in the *Battle of the Ironoaks*, pushing their forces back to the shores of the Ironshine.
		- Dirigidale is liberated from Velari occupation before the great armies became locked in a stalemate of trench warfare along the southern cliffs.
		- Following the defeat of the dwarves, the allied forces suffered heavy losses at sea and air in a failed attempt to reclaim and liberate Northern Velar. Utilizing this opportunity several neighboring countries of Ridalya and Erida declared allegiance with Velari and attacked their homelands.
		- Laurandon, Kanur, Salokir, Temboli, and Kroga declare a pact and war against Ridalya and its allies.
* **1382 A.B. (***4532 SOL***)**
	+ **Industrial Warfare**
		- Greyhaven, Greymont, and Kelwin declare a pact and war against Erida and its allies. They quickly tear into her heartland.
		- Velari during this time funds warbands to attack the No’qi of the Deepgrowth, hoping to disrupt their trade and hurt the global food supply to weaken their opponents.
		- The first prototype Solstriders, Warsails, and mechanized Tramplers (formerly used for farming) are used on the battlefield against the Velari to challenge their Lodestar Walkers and other machines of war. Each of the major powers began funneling all their resources into an arms race turning the battlefields into wastelands lined trenches and the shrapnel of fallen mecha.
		- Within two years after the assassination of the Gree heir, most of the surface world and all of its great powers are locked in a deadly new type of war. For the first time in history, war becomes mechanized and the death and destruction is unlike anything seen before.
* **1383 A.B. (***4533 SOL***)**
	+ **The Sol Alliance**
		- The leaders of Bron Elden, Ridalya, Great Etica, and Dirigidale come together forming the Sol Alliance, coordinating plans for a simultaneous squeeze of Velari. They also begin to discuss post war settlements but talks are put on hold as Bron Elden and Ridalya cannot agree on what should be done with the territories.
		- The invasion of Velari suffers several set backs and soon both sides are entrenched in a brutal stalemate that wouldn't break for nearly two years.
		- Dirigidale is liberated as the Gree empire surrenders.
		- Bron Elden and its incredible naval force are able to devastate and take the eastern coast of Cazimor, forcing the countries of Ironshine, Blat Grea, and Bron Dela to surrender.
* **1384 A.B. (***4534 SOL***)**
	+ **Scorched Homelands**
		- Despite recapturing most of Cazimor and pushing back the Velari empire beyond the Exile Cliffs to their southern homelands, war continues as both sides suffer strategic losses.
		- While the main strength of the Sol Alliance strikes at the central continent, the western and eastern fronts begin to favor their enemies. Greyhaven occupies most of Erida, marching upon their capital. While Laurandon moves from fortress to fortress, burning their food supplies, terrorizing the civilians of the Ridalya Empire.
* **1385 A.B. (***4535 SOL***)**
	+ **Blockades**
		- Velari is evicted from the northern front they had held for years due to low supplies as they retreat further back to their homelands. Breaking through the Velari front for the first time in five years.
		- Bron Elden and other naval powers unite to form a blockade against Velar, shutting them off from the vast majority of their supplies. This act alone would lead to over 1 million Velari dying of starvation, more than the total casualties suffered by Bron Elden through the entire conflict, and plays a major part in the unconditional surrender of Velari.
* **1387 A.B. (***4537 SOL***)**
	+ **Armistice & Atrocity**
		- The war would last for a total of eight years, eventually ending with an Armistice that would see the countries of Velar, Laurandon, Greyhaven, and others broken up into smaller countries and independent states. Giving new land and power to the people who fought against these conquerors.
		- It wouldn't be until the end of the war that the true atrocities became known the the public. Along with the greatest death toll of any conflict in recorded history it also became clear that systematic acts of genocide were put in place by the Velar and their allies against their own people and members of the lith races.
* **1388 A.B. (***4538 SOL***)**
	+ **War's End**
		- **Sol Collective:** Following the Great War, an armistice is declared after the Winter Ceasefire of 1387. The Velari and their allies were crippled and humbled, being pushed back beyond the Exile Cliff and surrounded on all sides along the coasts of Velar. After the suicide of their leader the country surrendered and came to terms, eventually leading to the creation of the Sol Collective. A league of nations representing all surface nations, including those who were defeated in the war, ensuring restoration and survival heading into the coming balance.
	+ ***The Events of The Wanderer's Library (Campaign)***
* **1391 A.B. (***4541 SOL***)**
	+ **Panacea:** A roden military doctor, neither surgeon nor physician, discovers the miracle drug panacea, which helps eradicate diseases like gangrene and final puts an end to the Pox Echo. Taking time to treat his son before treating himself, he would become one of the last well-known victims of the disease before his own discover finally put an end to the terrible disease. Panacea, easy to make and distribute, is spread to every corner of the world within a few years, giving aid to a ravaged people right before darkness overwhelmed them again.
* **1400 A.B. (***4550-4650 SOL***)**
	+ **Rise of the Gargoliths:** Remembering the tales of their grandfathers, the races of the surface world, though still reeling from their own great war, again ally and unite their collective forces against the dark forces that plot from below. Establishing forts and defenses along all pits and known tunnels between their world and the Hollow, the amass a great army at Deneb's Rest and await the final sunset before the clockwork century of darkness overtakes them. However this time, no army pours from the gates, no lone child runs stumbling from the darkness, nothing happens. Until the world rips open and a terrifying horn sounds from the north as the skies flash with calamity. The dark lords of the hollow have finally risen.
	+ **Dawn of the Age of Reflections:**The age of reflections is the pivotal point at which character (or player) decision really impacts the way of things. Did the heroes do enough to thwart the dark powers from below? Depending on their actions the next age will either become a 'solar-punk' technological metropolis preparing for a final stand, or a desolate apocalyptic wasteland that is all but conquered by the dark lords from below.