A Brief History

The history of Kelik is divided into the ages, the term *age* is often used loosely as there is no time restriction on each age and are instead decided by the relevant historians of the time who name them after the various events of the age.

Kelik is riddled with discovery and bloodshed through each age, despite this however there is always time for peace and time to celebrate but those times don't stick out as much as the aforementioned events.

Entries written in *italics* are based on deeds committed during sessions of *Dungeons and Dragons.*

## **Ancient age** (unknown - 568 BCE)

*"Not much is known about this age, if it wasn't an ancient age I would probably call it the boring age".*

Reaching back into unrecorded history, **Goliaths** from the northern mountain later known as **Atsmahni** move south where they adapt into modern day **Humans**. Venturing further south to the desert to avoid the **Elves** who dominated most of **Kelik,** the Humans settle and create the nation of **VenJarra**.

**583 BCE: Magic** is discovered by VenJarran Humans.

**570 BCE:** Magic is formally taught for the first time and many Elves make pilgrimage to VenJarra to learn.

## **Arcane age** (568 BCE - 230 BCE)

*"The arcane age, also known as the age Vecna decided to ruin magic for everyone. Yeah, those were the times".*

**568 BCE:** **Vecna**, a powerful wizard with a lot of influence in his home of VenJarra discovered how to travel across planes thus meeting the **Gnomes** in the **Feywilds** who would later move to the **Material Plane**. He theorised that there is a 'space' between the planes which he called the **Astral Sea**, him and an expert diviner called **Nihlus** dedicated years of study to access the Astral Sea for it is the source of all Arcane energy.

**562 BCE:** Vecna and Nihlus are the first mortals to physically enter the Astral Sea, they are drawn to the area of biggest arcane influence and find the **Goddess Ki** who is in a deep slumber. Corrupt by the intense power surging off from Ki the couple attempt to seize it for themselves, Ki Awakens in response to this and swiftly defeats the wizards. Vecna's body is torn apart and Nihlus is banished to an empty barren plane which will later be known as **The Nine Hells**.

**315 BCE:** Centuries later, Vecna's spiritual body manifests in the astral sea. Not entirely living or dead, he is effectively the first **undead** ever created. Vecna slowly regains his power as he travels the astral sea and begins to influence wizards on the material plane to seek darker forms of magic, Vecna discovers/invents **Necromancy** and shares his findings with the leadership of VenJarra who begin using necromancy on a mass scale.

**241 BCE:** Nihlus, trapped in his plane is visited by the spiritual form of Vecna who teaches him how to siphon power from the Astral Sea. In time Nihlus become stronger and coerces wizards to travel to his plane where he corrupts them thus creating the first **Demons**.

**235 BCE:** The Elves denounce the VenJarrans for corrupting the Astral Sea and angering their Goddess.

## **Unification age** (230 BCE - 120 BCE)

*"Thought Vecna was pretty bad? He gets worse, but hey at least bloodshed brings us together right?".*

**230 BCE:** Vecna finds his way back to the material plane and reclaims his old influence in VenJarra, using his newly-found power he convinces the leadership of VenJarra to march north and fight the Elves.

**200 BCE:** There is much bloodshed and as the Elven homelands are conquered the **Dwarves** from **Knardon** leave the mountains for the first time and make first contact with the Elves, seeing the humans as a mutual threat they join forces and push back against Vecna's invading forces.

**196 BCE:** Many Humans seeking refuge from Vecna's dominion are given land by the unified Elven and Dwarven people, this land is later known as **Ostair**.

**190 BCE:** Humans (excluding VenJarrans), Elves, Dwarves and Gnomes form **The Unified Governments** to combat any outside threat.

**188 BCE:** Vecna calls off the invasion and retreats back to VenJarra, he instead spends his time researching immortality and creates the very ritual that would create the first **Lich**.

## **Dragon age** (120 BCE - 35 BCE)

*"What could be worse than Vecna and his horde of dead? Vecna, his horde of dead AND a horde of Dragons".*

**120 BCE:** South of Ostair, a flotilla of refugee ships are found on the coast containing hundreds of **Dragonborn** people escaping their old home. In time the Dragonborn explain how their old home was taken by colossal fire-breathing flying monsters known as **Dragons**.

**114 BCE:** More Dragonborn move to Kelik and settle in VenJarra.

**92 BCE:** A army of **Chromatic Dragons** lead by their leader **Telzorak** start to siege the entirety of Kelik. Vecna, seeing the raw power of Dragons urges VenJarra to ally with them thus starting Vecna's second attempt at world-wide domination.

**56 BCE:** After one particular battle Telzorak betrays Vecna and banishes him to the Astral Sea leaving behind only his hand and eye.

**40 BCE:** The unified government surrenders to Telzorak accepting him as their new ruler.

## **Heroic age** (35 BCE - 15 CE)

*"I'm kind of bittersweet about this one, on the one hand things things are finally looking good for us but The Circle never really boded well for us".*

**35 BCE:** The Unified Government, tired of their treatment under Telzorak begin to rebel after the arrival of the **Metallic dragons**. The Dragonborn, previously blamed for leading the dragons to Kelik begin to forge a set of armour that would later be used to bind Telzorak.

**27 BCE:** A metallic dragon known as **Bahumut** trains mortal soldiers how to combat Dragons, those soldiers later form an elite 'spec-ops' group known as **The Circle**. During this time however the unified government face very big losses, especially to the Elven population.

**11 BCE:** The Circle march into VenJarra with a large unified army behind them. **Moradin**, a Dwarven paladin of the circle trained first hand by Bahumut fights Telzorak one-on-one. Even though Moradin has the upper hand he is unable to land a killing blow on the Dragon, as this happens the Dragonborn complete their ritual allowing Moradin to trap the weakened Dragon in a set of armour which is later hidden across various part of Kelik.

**10 BCE:** As Telzorak was defeated there was a huge surge of arcane energy all across the Astral Sea (which combined with Vecna's presence there) made magic a lot more dangerous and unstable. People of all races begin to naturally develop spell-casting abilities unlike traditional wizards, as a response the Circle who no longer are required to fight dragons re-build to serve the spell-casters and protect them from outside influences from the Astral Sea and Nine Hells.

**3 BCE:** The Unified Government eventually dissolve, whether it was due to infighting or just a lack of necessity is unknown.

**0 BCE:** The circle establish a base of operations in **Khorver** and are treated as heroes thus ushering a new era with a more hopeful future.

## **Storm age** (15 CE - 250 CE)

*"Got bored because no one was killed for 28 years? This is the age for you! It's quite a sad age though, it will take many lifetimes before the Elves can recover".*

**15 CE:** The Dwarves return to Knardon where they rebuild and the Humans are able to replenish their population in no time. The Elves however still remain weakened to this day.

**17 CE:** Goliath forces from the north take advantage of the weakened Elves and lack of Unified Government, they begin a series of raids which turns into a full on invasion.

**34 CE:** The Goliaths invade in such a brutal fashion that the Elves are forced to flee mainland Kelik leaving their ancestral homeland behind and settling in the **Crescent Isles**.

**39 CE:** Goliaths begin to tread into the boundary of Human-occupied Ostair, this is followed by decades of fighting before a full-blown war. The humans plea for help from the Dwarves and Elves but are ignored, eventually they resort to asking the Circle for aid who agree to help as long as they are given more political power after the conflict.

**41 CE:** Unrelated to the Goliath conflict, Nihlus' spiritual form appears before a group of nomadic people in VenJarra and gives them his blessing thus creating the first **Tieflings**.

**57 CE:** The Goliaths are eventually driven back to Atsmahni thanks to the efforts from The Circle and the Humans claim the previously Elven land thus founding the county of **Kiaton**. The Elves plea for the Kiatons to give them back their ancestral homeland but deny them based on their inaction during the Goliath invasion. The Circle are officially recognised as a peace-keeping force in Kiaton and Ostair and are given permissions to enact their laws.

**157 CE:** For the first time in a century there is peace and celebrations are held across the land. As this happens however the Elves of The Crescent Isles close off their borders for anyone who isn't an Elf after feeling betrayed by the Humans for keeping their land to themselves.

## **Current age** (250 CE - 479 CE)

*"This is our age, hence why it doesn't have a name yet. No idea what to call it, maybe 'The Lux Age'? He'll love us for that..."*

**250 CE:** A team of Dwarves create the first **intelligent Golem** after accidentally giving it the ability to learn and adapt, this would later cause the **Golem Consensus** to be formed due to conflicting opinions of Golem intelligence and whether they should be recognised as such.

**278 CE:** Much to the chagrin of the folk of **The Shattered Isles**, Gnomes begin to settle in the unclaimed land that would later be known as **Poriscourt**. Through leaps and bounds of technological innovation the country is built up and established in no time.

**456 CE:** A wizardry school in Ostair gets a visit from the Nine Hells after a conjuration ritual goes wrong, this results in a small minority of the school becoming possessed by demons. The school agrees to keep this quiet to avoid the Circle.

**458 CE:** The Circle find out about the wizardry School and accuses them of deliberately summoning and harbouring demons, this results in the **Melan Massacre** which involved Hundreds of Circle Knights indiscriminately killing every student, teacher and member of staff in the college. This resulted in a bloody underground rebellion between spellcasters and the circle which still continues to this day in secret. **The Mages Collective** is formed and their first deed was to annex the city where the Melan Massacre was held, this city is now recognised as **Mela**.

**479 CE:** During negotiations between the leadership of Kiaton, VenJarra, Ostair and Mela over the treatment as magic users the Empress of Ostair is assassinated. Not long after the King of Kiaton succumbs to a strange illness affecting his mental functions, this King would later be known as **The Mad Purple King.**

**480 CE:** *A group of adventurers helps a young man named Peter slay a dragon so that he could propose to the daughter of the Mad Purple King, they are successful and through taking advantage of the King's poor mental state the King decides that Peter shall be his next successor.*

*Deep in the Feywilds the same group of adventurers discover a part of the ancient armour containing the soul of Telzorak, after a series of adventures the group finds the remaining pieces of dragon soul-containing armour.*

*An ancient mountain-sized being known as **Vanguard** is spotted as it lays waste to a small part of the mountain range north of Ostair, a group of Adventurers manage to save the citizens of a city state known as **Ritrad** and begin to forge an alliance with powers across Kiaton and Ostair to fight this threat. The party have since travelled to Ostair and discovered that the Marshall of the **Chevaliers** who swore an oath to the Empress of Ostair was the main player in the assassination plot, since then the newly elected **Empress Montilliet Boldevan** has swore to support the effort against the Vanguard.*

*Days before a critical battle against the forces of the Vanguard the adventurers unite Telzorak's armour and release the Red Dragon believing that he has changed his ways, Telzorak honours his saviours and leads the charge against Vanguard in a later battle that would seal Vanguard's fate. Telzorak disappears telling his old friends that he would like to live somewhere far away where he couldn't hurt anyone.*