Chronology

Manatar's arrival is year zero. Every date counts forward from it as M, and the count never runs backward. The world does not use this calendar — the Ark kept its own, and the dwarves theirs — but it is the only scale on which all four peoples can be laid side by side.

Dates with a ~ are inferred from the order of events rather than stated. A † marks an event told differently by different sources; the GM chooses which account is true.

The Four Peoples

	The Ark	Cerberus	Askenon	Brazzant
M0–M400	Manatar makes humanity and walks away. Archon inherits red mana and eternity.	Does not exist. An island of giants.	Askenar killed on the first day and the fleet lost with him. Two centuries of mourning, then Mentin's castes and the war that hands them the country.	Does not exist.
M400–M1010	The exodus, then four republics. The Golden Age of wizards. Archon is a recluse.	Does not exist.	The castes rule. Nothing changes, and that is the point of them.	Empty.
M1010–M1400	Archon becomes a god. Seven centuries of theocracy begin. The Varanov are destroyed.	Does not exist.	Still the castes. Trades with everyone, fights no one, discovers nothing.	Convicts arrive on Archon's shadow ships, sentenced to exile instead of death.
M1400–M1660	Divine rule, unbroken and uneventful.	Founded by a paladin and a vampire. Survival inside Mount Cerberus, then the houses and the Academy.	Gold for magic. The merchants reach Cerberus, outgrow the other five castes, and are made to pay for it.	The exiles become clans.
M1660–M1700	The censors govern in the god's name and do not see it coming.	The Council of Mages. The verchoix. The last generation enters the Academy.	Merenin turns an honorific crown into a real one. Askenon arms itself.	Chiefs, warbands, and the meat trade.
M1700–M1705	Invaded, its aqueducts broken, its god killed.	Wins abroad and is invaded at home in the same year.	A hundred thousand dwarves cross the sea.	Sends warriors and sells the war its food.
M1705–M1730	Ruled by Gyllyn.	Ruled by Aldor.	Ruled by Merenin, united at last.	Ruled by Einar.

Before the Count

Dwarven civilisation is already old when humanity is made, and the count begins on the day the two meet.

Askenar reigns before any of this. Born to the royal line of the mine at Kaz'Nakaram, he invents the rune system — a way of putting the powers of nature into an object — and the dwarves make him king of kings, the first king of all Askenon and, for sixteen centuries, the last. During his reign they rename the continent for him; it was called Tulon before. They rename their language for him too. He forges weapons nobody has matched since, cuts runic protection into the hulls of ships, and sends his dwarves out to survey the planet for anything worth having.

It is those survey ships, sighted off the coast of the Central Ark, that bring Manatar to his forge.

M0. Manatar arrives on Janashia with a young Archon and makes humanity — some born grown, some born as children. He raises the Central Ark, a magical country no monstrous creature can enter, and watches over it.

M0. Manatar kills Askenar. He walks into the open forge unarmed and asks one question: he has settled his people in the lands to the south, and will that be a problem. Askenar answers that his dwarves go where they like, do what they like and take what they like, and so does he. Manatar says it is the wrong answer. Askenar swings first. Manatar catches the hammer in an open hand, tells him he should not have done that and that he is not a fighter, and drops him into the ocean still holding it. The fleet goes down under the same water.

• The fleet. Every dwarf who had signed on for the great crossing goes down with it. None of them comes back, and for a long time nobody on Askenon knows why.
• What it cost. Everything Askenon later becomes is the work of his descendants, and god of the runes is a title given to a dead man. His dwarves come to accept his death, but do not learn how he died or who killed him for seventeen centuries.

M1. Manatar leaves and is never seen again. He leaves Archon red mana and eternal life, and Archon becomes a leader among the humans of the Ark.

M40. Archon begins his study of red mana and lays the first foundations of the magical system.

~M200. Two centuries of looking. Askenon searches the sea for its king's body and for his hammer and finds neither. It recovers his armour, and nothing else. This is the saddest age the dwarves have had: the birth rate falls for generation after generation and the population never stops shrinking while the search goes on.

~M210. The renaissance. A generation that never knew Askenar is less attached to his death than its parents were, and starts building and inventing again.

~M240. Mentin proposes the castes. A philosopher notices what everyone had seen and nobody had named: dwarves follow their fathers' trades, generation after generation, almost without exception. He argues for making it official.

• His case is about anxiety, not order. A young dwarf who knows from birth what he will be is spared the question, and Mentin had watched what the question did to a people already grieving. The rest follows: a society that moves faster because nobody hesitates, and trades that never go unfilled however unpopular they are.

~M300. The war of the castes and the nobles. The nobles want projects, and projects need dwarves moving between trades; the castes want their boundaries clean and their purity kept. What looks like a detail from outside is the most important thing in the world to both sides, and they go to war over it.

• The shape of it. Dwarves inside a caste fight for the right to have no choice but to stay. The nobles fight to get back the flexibility every dwarf had before Mentin.
• The castes win. The nobles are not killed. They keep their titles and lose every real power they had over the society, and it will be more than a thousand years before one of them takes any of it back.
• Then the castes refine what they already know for twelve centuries. The work inside each discipline becomes extraordinarily precise, but knowledge rarely crosses a caste boundary. Askenon gains stability and mastery without growth: few discoveries transform society, and every caste guards its improvements from the others.

The Age of the Republics

Humanity leaves the Central Ark, founds rival states, and turns red mana into a civilisation.

M400. The exodus. The Central Ark outgrows itself. Most of its people leave to explore, and must fight and survive for the first time.

M450. The Republic of Sylla is founded, on the peninsula nearest the Central Ark.

M470. The Republic of Telus, on its island.

M490. The Kingdom of Crassus, on a further peninsula.

Six centuries of invention: languages, trade, technique, and four peoples who are one people arguing. Archon spends them as a hermit in the Central Ark, the only immortal alive, working on his magic and taking his pleasure in food, drink and friends. No mortal can understand what he is in a hurry about.

M1000. The invaders. Creatures from another plane attack. The territories of the Ark must organise their defence and their alliances, and find themselves powerful, divided, slow, corrupt and decadent.

The Age of the Partage

Archon ends the invasion, becomes a god, and replaces the republics with a theocracy.

M1010. The Partage. Archon casts his epic spell and becomes a god. The invasion is broken, the people are freed, and a total theocracy replaces the republics. Several epic objects are made in the casting, among them Fleur de Bataille. Thousands of innocents die, including the family of Gérard Alois.

M1101. Archon's generosity. Brazzant becomes the land of exile for criminals, carried there on shadow ships. The god's administration has decided that its worst offenders are not worth executing, and a one-way sentence is cheaper than a gallows.

M1301. The immortals. Archon names several censors and gives them eternal life. He gives it also to great wizards of Telus, among them Cosimo Leblanc and Gérard Alois — who lost his family to the first Partage and will neither forget nor forgive. The same year a young man named Antoine de Cerberus rises among the paladins, wearing an enchanted suit called Armure. It is Manatar's own, and he found it.

M1345. The first vampire. The censor Markus Telus has the Varanov ennobled to repair his son Hector's crime against Olga. His other son, Commode, wants Vlad's wife Natalia; he murders their son, murders her, and has Vlad condemned for the assault that follows. On the scaffold Vlad curses himself. The axe falls and the head stays on. The paladins and Markus Telus name him a creature to be put down.

M1346. Commode Telus is exiled to Brazzant, where he founds a clan under the name Telix.

M1355. Vlad fathers a son on a human woman: Alfred Varanov, a vampire like him.

M1375. Antoine de Cerberus kills Alfred in a duel.

M1400. The plot. Antoine gives up the philosophy of the Partage — he no longer believes it can make humanity happy. He joins Gérard Alois and Cosimo Leblanc in a plan to leave the Ark, and draws Vlad Varanov into it. In exchange he raises Alfred from the dead with the power of Armure.

The Age of Cerberus

Exiles found Cerberus, where the great houses, the Academy, and the Council grow beyond Archon's rule.

M1410. The great refusal. The rebels leave the Ark. Archon orders his censors to let them go, and lets Cosimo and Gérard keep their eternal life. Cerberus is founded on an island full of giants.

M1415. Antoine disappears. The bargain he made with Varanov closes on him: he must live as a beast, because Varanov lived as a beast. He does not die. Nobody knows what becomes of him, and Vlad Varanov is crowned in his place.

M1420. Vlad and Cerberus are founded as cities.

~M1440. The giant wars. The people survive buried inside Mount Cerberus while the powerful bring back food. The martial culture the Ark never needed is born here, and the Knights of Cerberus with it.

~M1480. The houses settle. The mage families divide the land between the two capitals. Alois and Leblanc keep the same head they were founded with; the others begin passing power down, and pay for it.

~M1520. The Loubreton exile. An old knightly family of the Ark arrives and becomes sorcerers with limited success. Without Archon's grace their power collapses, and they hide a temple in a coastal cave near Vlad.

~M1550. Gold for magic. The first agreements with the dwarves of Askenon. Valin takes the gold trade whole; House Morin rises on healing potions.

• The merchants' age. On the dwarven side this is the caste of merchants breaking out. They are the only dwarves allowed to leave as part of ordinary life, so they are the ones who reach the barbarians of Brazzant and, far more importantly, the wizards of Cerberus. They come home holding the two things Askenon cannot make: weapons it did not forge, and healing that works in the middle of a fight. The caste everyone despised becomes the strongest in the empire.
• The other five watch and prepare. Twelve centuries of no caste ever gaining on another, and then one does.

~M1580. The Academy opens, ending the State's dependence on the descendants of the great houses.

M1620. Birth of Perennus Albion, a child abandoned for his madness. Antoine de Cerberus, still living as a beast, takes him as an apprentice. It is how Armure ends up in a locked chest at the Academy.

~M1635. Birth of Christophe Leblanc, Lucius Stoneheart and Daviau Morin.

~M1636. Vlad breaks through the Stoneheart door, kills the guards and bites the heir in his cradle. A red ring throws him through the walls. Lucius grows up orphaned and alone.

~M1640. The war on the merchants. The five castes move against the sixth. It is a war between castes rather than against nobles this time, and it settles nothing that lasts: the system that had held Askenon rigid and quiet since Mentin spends its authority fighting itself, in front of a population that had never seen it do that.

M1660. The fall of the vampire.† Valin, Portin and Prince Merenin land at Vlad with a trade mission and are thrown in the dungeon. The plot of Christophe Leblanc, Lucius Stoneheart and Daviau Morin — all three twenty-five — comes to its head. Vlad dies of a Valerium shot to the head. Christophe dies there, at twenty-five.

~M1661. The Council of Mages forms on Christophe's pactstone. Gérard Alois becomes first consul, Alfred Varanov organises the transition in the north, and Merenin takes the throne of Kaz'Nakaram.

• The crown stops being honorific. His father held the title and the castes held the country. Merenin comes home from Brazzant, from Cerberus and from a vampire's dungeon, beats the caste leaders, and keeps what he takes. He relaxes a few of the restrictions and the population is delighted, which tells you what twelve centuries of them had been like.
• He was supposed to become a monk. His father sent him away for that purpose. Merenin later took the initiative of joining a merchant ship bound for Brazzant, and everything else followed from that.

~M1670. The Psychic Project. Perennus Albion brings the petrified Aboleth back from a dwarven mine, and Marcin Sobiesansky uses it to start the Psychic Project on children taken off Brazzant. Most subjects die. Six become the first Cerberan Psychics. The verchoix and the Familiar come out of the same work, after a first version that killed nearly everyone it was tested on.

~M1682. Birth of Ivana and Igor Varanov, twins of Alfred and Catherine Varanov.

~M1702. First year. Aldor, Gyllyn, Vidock, Glandir, Frolix, Jean and Jeanne Morin, Igor and Ivana Varanov enter the Academy of Cerberus under Perennus Albion.

• The verchoix. Perennus decides his class will take it from Sobiesansky. Jean Morin nearly dies in the procedure. In the same season Perennus confronts Frolix and wakes his Psychic power.
• The taxes of Vlad. Sent to audit Alfred Varanov's contribution, they save the dwarven engineers Balin and Bolin from bandits. Aldor defends a village of the province against a giant. They kill Vorac the Alchemist.
• The baron. Perennus sets them to raise him a luxurious residence on distant land he bought cheap. A jealous baron beats Gyllyn and locks him up; Aldor and Vidock come for him, and Aldor massacres the baron and his whole court.
• The Aboleth. Perennus takes Frolix to meet the creature. He comes out of it deeply damaged.
• Perennus's estate. Apprentices and dwarves build the residence and its village together. Aldor survives an assassination sent by the dead baron's family.
• Vlad, in the holidays. Lucie and Charlie Stoneheart, Alice Luther and Tristan Softpaper find an old Loubreton temple dedicated to the Partage. Varnois Loubreton offers Viviane to the spell and receives the Investiture he spent his life seeking. Charlie saves her; Lucie kills Varnois minutes after his transformation.
• The first-year examination. A class of commoners and second sons beats the Academy's noble elite. Their opponent is Rossini, a wizard wearing his own son's face to win the tournament and lift the family name.

~M1703. Second year. The Varanovs leave the Academy. Charlie and Lucie Stoneheart join the class in their place.

• The elemental cavern. Perennus leads Aldor in. He meets the elementals of fire, and spends years afterwards learning to attract greater ones.
• Brazzant. The class sails for the flowers of intelligence and comes back with them — and with the white dragon Brisé, who kills Gyllyn there before losing and trading his own life for Aldor's. During the mission, Glandir receives an urgent message from Eden and leaves the Academy for good.
• Perennus sells Brisé to the Varanovs, then reminds his students not to think about money.
• The giants' spring. Perennus orders the flowers poured into it. At the last minute Aldor refuses and burns them. Master and student are enemies from this day.
• A marriage. Cosimo Leblanc notices Gyllyn's divination and offers him his granddaughter Mathilde. Gyllyn Bardlac becomes Gyllyn Leblanc. The wedding costs a fortune and Aldor advances him most of it.
• Everyone trains their own way. Gyllyn's way is Perennus's restaurant, months of unpaid service, and almost nothing at the end of it. He takes an intelligent object out of the professor's study as payment: a strange suit of armour.
• The second-year tournament, and a prestigious one. Aldor wins it; Frolix takes second. Randall Blackwater defeats Vidock, but the troll inside Vidock's medallion destroys Randall's body and leaves Vidock the victor in critical condition.
• Vidock's murder. Months later, Jérôme the Radiant uses Randall's grimoire to spy on Vidock and kills him in his laboratory. Vidock escapes into the troll's medallion at the last moment. Frolix later carries his mind back inside his own with Dual Mind.

The War and the Fall

~M1704. Third year, and the war.

• The massacre at Eden. The apprentices investigate the deaths of 128 villagers. The killer is Skarde, one of the six original Psychics, driven into a violent delirium by the mushrooms he uses against his pain. Glandir tries to kill him; the others stop the fight and deliver him alive to Sobiesansky.
• The Underdark. Researching on their own, they fight the beholder Qormuza — and Cauchemar uses them to put it to sleep so he can take it for himself.
• Frolix's new eyes. Vidock uses blood taken from Qormuza to alter Frolix's heart and spine. Gyllyn and Armure grow new Beholder eyes for him. Frolix keeps his Psychic power and gains several of the creature's abilities.
• The Ark mission. Gérard Alois comes to them himself. They take the identities of deckhands on the Victis Moralis, the only ship that may leave the Ark and return, and they go in.
• The Sylla peninsula. They fight the cyclops and climb the ranks of Archean society under their false names. Polymarch dies there and Aldor takes his armour.
• The Minotaur of Telus. On Telus, the creature kills Frolix in its labyrinth before it falls. Armure restores him with Aldor's mana and a resurrection diamond. The survivors return with the Minotaur's head, receive the blessing of Markus Telus, and spend their reward on Florentus Telus's land bill.
• Crassus. They sabotage the Partage's barrier and kill Flavius Marcus, the censor's general. Frolix's telekinesis destroys the seventeen amphorae powering his transformation. Marcus Crassus escapes into the Underdark; Frolix takes the peninsula.
• The last experiment. They follow Crassus underground. A Time Sphere left by Gérard Alois gives them twenty days to prepare: Aldor creates Battlefield, Frolix and Vidock create Coherent Story, and Stoneheart learns Shroud. They destroy Jerax and defeat Sobiesansky, but Crassus escapes.
• Telus. Gérard Alois and Alfred Varanov both die against Markus Telus. Ivana kills the censor.
• Sylla. Valin, Merenin and Portin bring down Lucius Cornelius Sylla with Daviau Morin's help.

~M1705. Cauchemar. Cauchemar attacks Cerberus with his army of monsters while its wizards are abroad. They come home at once, and lose the first round.

• The phantasm. He puts them inside an epic illusion, the tool he uses to break people. Their intelligent objects and Frolix get them out of it.
• The cost. Daviau Morin, bought with dreams, kills Frolix. Aldor kills Daviau for it.
• Lucius. Broken by torture, Lucius Stoneheart nearly kills Gyllyn — then takes himself back for a moment inside his own Destruction Sphere and teleports Gyllyn to the Underdark instead, to break a ritual Cauchemar's drow are preparing.
• The ritual falls. Gyllyn sees Glandir again after a long time. They come back to Cerberus through a portal.
• Cauchemar is beaten, by all of them together.
• Frolix returns. Aldor and Armure spend their last resurrection diamond to restore him. He comes back stronger, and not quite the same.

M1705. The Ark surrenders. Without Archon it cannot win, and Archon has not come out of his chamber for the whole war.

• The palace. They reach the Central Ark and find the god's body in his study, motionless and suspended. Polymarch died inside Soul Odyssey, beginning the year-long delay before his second self could return to this body. Aldor feels the conjuration still holding it and shuts the spell down.
• Archon comes back. Deactivating Soul Odyssey ends the delay immediately. Polymarch's life and memories return to Archon, who awakens stronger for the reunion.
• He explains himself. He is looking for Manatar, who made humanity on this world and left. The Partage was how he meant to gather power enough to see him again. In good faith he teleports the foreign armies off the Ark rather than kill them.
• The race. Both sides hunt Manatar. Cerberus wins it on the divination of Gyllyn and Cosimo Leblanc, and finds him on Brazzant. Manatar merges with Gyllyn, Frolix and Aldor. He considers them his successors.

M1705. The fall of the Partage. They return to the Ark and challenge Archon. It is a hard fight against the last and greatest wizard, and they win it. The Partage falls with him, and mana returns to every person's veins.

The Free Era

Archon is dead, planar threats enter the world, and four exhausted powers inherit what remains.

~M1725. Four thrones and a Grand Psychic hold an alliance and begin arguing about who does the work. The planar seal is gone; demons, Githyanki and dimensional gates arrive faster than one wizard can close them, and Aldor is tired of being the only one who does it.

~M1726. Aldor asks, publicly and before witnesses, for Archon to be resurrected. Nothing was left of the body, and that settles the matter for everyone in the room.

• The omission. Resurrection has never needed a body. It reads what a place remembers of the dead, and everyone in that room knows exactly where Archon fell. Armure is the only source of the spell in the world and does not say so. Neither Aldor nor Gyllyn understands the working well enough to ask, and what Armure wants is Gyllyn on a throne.

So the alliance chooses the other way. Soul Odyssey rewrites the memory of the mana itself, and a soul light enough not to be rejected by history can be written into the past. They will send agents back to M1000, to the war against the invaders, to reach Archon's archives and bring Planar Lock forward. If those agents die there, their souls may not come back at all.