Age of Light

The Age of Light was the first age after *The Awakening*. Taking place about 3.2 billion years after the forming of the planet, **-3,200 AB** to **-2,400 AB** on the Aves Calendar OR between the year **0** to **800** on the core timeline.

Surface world population near end of the age: 30 million

## Description

The earliest period in Sol history. This was an era of harsh survival, as beast and primal spirits still controlled much of the surface world putting the surface races in the middle of the food chain. It was also an era of spirituality and innovation as the races of the world used their new found cognition to begin to unlock the secrets of the sols, stones, and stars.

Early in the age we begin to see signs of civilization and society. The first five races: ursadar, dwarf, astrada, elf, roden (lazuli are still hidden from the world) establish settlements and trade knowledge and goods between each other. Throughout the age we see the element primal powers torment and rage against the upstart surface races, by the end of the age the surface races unite together to bring down the Primal spirits.

## Themes

#### Chronicle

Primal Age, Wood Age, Stone Age, Bronze Age, Age of Beasts

#### Flavor

Shamanism, Tribalism, Naturalism, Barbarism, Animism (circa real world -3200 B.C.)

#### 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.

* Surviving requires cunning, daring and ruthlessness.
* Even a true hero needs power to make a difference, wisdom to make the right choices, and courage to face adversity.
* The difference between cunning and wisdom, between daring and courage, between ruthlessness and power.
* Even when you have nothing left, you still have your wits and you can find a way to escape any trap, even ones set by Gods and Primals.
* Self-improvement, determination, and hard work.
* Forgiveness and redemption.
* How persistence pays off.
* The duality of cognition and the conflict between loftier aspirations and our base desires.

*(Spiritual Influences: The Odyssey, The Legend of Zelda, Dragon Ball Z, The Notebook, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)*

#### Aesthetics

Cave paintings, fertility goddess totems, megalithic structures, warrior art, animism, polytheism.

## Key Events

* The chief of a tribe of nomadic ursadar steals fire from Erida, the Primal Flame.
* Dwarves unlock the secrets of tool making, mining, and gemcraft. This knowledge spreads and soon solshards begin to shape civilization.
* Trade routes bring cooking, brewing, irrigation, and pottery from the elves to the north for the first time. While archery, rope, proto-writing travel from the astrada to the west.
* Sailing and astrology from the ursadar and roden give races easier access to each other.

## 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 -3,200 AB to -2,400 AB*

* **-3,200 AB**
	+ **The** **First Dawn:** Following the Awakening, the surface races stumbled through the darkness until finally, one day, they saw the first light of the new age. Spreading out from the center of the great continent they travel along shorelines and rivers establishing the first settlements far away from the elemental god-like rulers known as the Primals.
* **-3,190 AB**
	+ **Stealing Flame:** The first chieftain of the ursadar leads a small band of scouts into the territory of Erida, the Primal Flame. They witness the use of ruby solshards in creating fire and go on to spread this knowledge to nearby tribes.
* **-3,150 AB**
	+ **Copper Age:** The dwarves, unable to flee from Tempe the Primal Rift, delve deep beneath the mountains that today make up the Deepbrow Mountains. They become the first to discover and experiment with hardstone and copper. Using these materials to make tools that allowed them to delve deeper beneath the surface, eventually discovery of first intact solstones, diamonds.
* **-3,090 AB**
	+ **The Era of the** **Solstone:** The first recorded evidence of intuition and solstones. An ancient dwarven city was split down the middle through the use of a diamond solstone. Around the same time, a floating temple held aloft by topaz solstones comes crashing down into the settlement below.
* **-3,060 AB**
	+ **Trade:** Following the discovery of solstones, culture and civilization spread across the center and northern parts of the great continent like wildfire. Elves make first contact with the other sol races bringing with them cooking, brewing, irrigation, and pottery. The astrada share archery, rope, and proto-writing with the other races.
* **-3,005 AB**
	+ **Noko'qorra:** On a rare trade expedition to the jungle homelands of the elves to the south, a trade party returns horrified, reporting of haunting living conditions. The elves, the only race to not rebel and escape their oppressors, work endless for Lyrea the Primal Seed. The nature spirit has grown obsessed with the accumulation of solstones, hoping to find a way to return to the power she had before the Awakening.
* **-3,002 AB**
	+ **Primal Liberation:** The first recorded occasion of larger scale cooperation between sol races. Comprising of members and clans of ursadar, dwarves, astrada, and roden, the sol races plan and execute large scale attacks of the slave encampments, liberating the elves and driving away Lyrea. Despite this victory the elves remain isolated and continue their hard labor as though nothing had changed.
* **-3,000 AB**
	+ **The Erida Catastrope:** An event that brings the surface race population to its lowest since before the awakening. As the great volcano erupts following the attack on Lyrea it burns and destroying food sources and causes a volcanic winter that would last nearly a century.
* **-2,850 AB**
	+ **The Circular Wonders:** The ursadar shaman complete the first of their eventual eight monolithic circular wonders. Celebrating the 350th cycle since their awakening and the return of clear skies, they symbolize the 5th star sign. Giving chroniclers their first concrete recorded date. Meanwhile the roden take to the seas and rivers, eventually combining their knowledge with the star charts of the ursadar, developing sailing and eventually celestial navigation.
* **-2,800 AB**
	+ **Solstone Empires:** Rebounding from earlier catastrophe and growing stronger from surviving them. The sol races begin to form the first primitive empires using a surplus of solstones to construct great settlements of wood and stone. The greatest of these was the ursadar Wandering Tribes and the astradan First Oleki empire.
* **-2,740 AB**
	+ **Fall of the Primals:** Eventually the ursadar and astrada became strong enough to defeat Erida and Aeo independently. These victories made them arrogant, each refusing to help the dwarves or roden in their own fight against the primals Tempe or Aquilla.
* -**2,739 AB**
	+ **The Flooding of Oleki:** Aquilla floods the shorelines and seas of the world utilizing the spectral cycle. Destroying the water sources of the First Oleki empire, leading to its eventual collapse. Refugees of all races search for higher ground.
* **-2,710 AB**
	+ **The Wandering Army:** Under the lead of the Wandering Tribes, the sol races band together and defeat Aquilla and Tempe. Their knowledge of the star cycles tells them that there still remains a final unmet primal spirit, Haetho the Primal Change.
* **-2,678 AB**
	+ **Early Empires:** After a long period of peace and preparation, each sol race has established empires of its own. Innovation and progress spring up across the upper half of the continent as brave tribes and adventurers explore the untamed south in search of Haetho.
* **-2,620 AB**
	+ **The Primal Change:** Haetho's Realm, and the mysterious lands that would someday become Velar and Okora, are discovered. Haetho reveals itself to be far stronger than the other spirits and the sol races find themselves in a deadlock against the spirit's forces.
* **-2,625 AB**
	+ **The Stumble:** After a series of superior tactics, Haetho drives the sol armies back. Licking their wounds it would be several decades before they could strike out again.
* **-2,570 AB**
	+ **The Shadow of Balance:** Dark prophecies foretelling endless darkness spreading from empire to empire as nomadic barbarians from the outskirts of civilization sack entire villages. A dark violet glow lights up the sky from the south.
* **-2,512 AB**
	+ **The Battle of Burning Rock:** The largest standing army the world has ever seen marches upon Haetho. For the first time the lith races, the chertu and nori, join the battle against the surface army, but are dismissed at the time by the sol races as monstrous creations or servants of Haetho himself. As the sol races slowly gain ground, they eventually corner Haetho who seems to be bidding its time.
* **-2,502 AB**
	+ **The Last World Seed and The Cinder:** Haetho trying to hold out until the impending darkness, is forced to flee and give up his realm and his amethyst world seed. Not wanting the powers of time to fall into the hands of mortals he shatters the world seed. Throughout the world solstones and solshards collapsed into ash and access to magic was stripped from the young sol races.

This event would be remembered as The Cinder.

* + **The Birth of Humans:** Following The Cinder, many major events occurred throughout the world. As the power of magic slipped through the fingers of the sol races, becoming ash in their hands. Deep below the surface in a long dark and hidden world, vast veins of solstone crystals and deposits ignited with brilliant deep hues of light for the first time in a millennia. The slumbering lith races of the world began to awaken. On the surface world, the ash begins to swirl and gather at the center of the continent. From this pile of grey white ash crawled the first humans, quietly taking shelter in the vast Marblevale Forest.
* **-2,500 AB**
	+ **The First Balancing:** For the first time in recorded history the three sols don't rise. On the first day in an ink black sky, the red sol Lith rises alone as Haetho and its armies vanish with the light. For the next seventy years the world would be cloaked in darkness, though people would still feel heat during the "day", no light would shine until the balance had been satisfied. During this darkness the primal spirits entirely disappeared and the monsters of the world grew bolder and ravaged confused villages. This cycle of darkness would end every age and would become known to the people as *The Balance*, however at the time the sol races thought it to be the work of Haetho, despite its sudden disappearance.
* **-2,400 AB**
	+ **Dawn of the Red Age:** After a hundred years of magical darkness the first balancing of the Sol Cycle ends.