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== Time Before Reckoning ==
 
The deep history of Ahren stretches back to incalculably ancient events. Through myth and legend, a vague sequence of those events can be determined. It is best noted that in the reckoning of most mortal races, if these years or the factual nature of these events are to be believed in at all, they are almost always idiosyncratic to those who believe in those events. There are none who can remember the beginning of the passage of time and indeed it is commonly believed that time and all the other long forces of [[Cosmology]] were in motion long before Ahren existed.
 
=== Emptiness Birthing Fullness ===
The one and only point of agreement on the passage of time among the races of [[Ahren]] is that at some point, it began to pass. A world presently exists and at some point, it did not, so it must have been created.
 
[[Ars Magica]] proposes that the creation of the plane of [[Ahren]] was caused by an event known as the [[Vergence]], and refers to the period before this transpired as the [[Void Age of the Great Wheel]]. This Vergence is a planetological event where the influence of the '''Eight Essential Planes''' is "focused" through the [[Bardo]], a plane of existence that is in close mirror to a promordial vision of [[Ahren]], and which some believe existed before.
 
This believe is not directly shared by the other schools of magic and the cultures that birthed them, which feel that the universe arose in other ways. Under the [[Way of the Elements]], it is believed that the eight planes alone birthed [[Ahren]] and that it was only the later appearance of sapient creatures on the plane that caused the "shadow" of the Bardo to be cast. To the Orcs and their [[orcish shamanism]], Bardo is the ash left behind after [[the Fire-Keeper]] sparked the first fire in Ahren, and both the Carcolie and the Confederacy of Sages teach that the Bardo and Ahren have infact mutually shaped one another.
 
What is agreed is that no one god or set of gods had a free hand in the creation of [[Ahren]]; in spite of many religions claiming to know the origin of their adherents, most agree that the world itself is a more complex phenomenon than any one god could attribute. Only the church of [[Anghara]] in [[Baghar]] claims any different, but this is an isolated sect of belief largely unknown outside of the city and its immediate holdings.
 
=== Primordial Myth ===
Thus begins an age of primordial myth, so named for this is believed to be the time when [[primordial dieties]] first enter Ahren from their planes of origin. These myths vary greatly, and this period refers to an unreckonable ur-time where it is almost certain linear time flowed but nearly none existed to accurately guage its advance.
 
==== Foundation of the City of Baghar ====
Some rebellious scholars studying the [[Pre-Baghar Culture]] suggest that the city (and the few other artifacts of the culture that survive) date at least as far back as the Primordial Myth. Depending on who you ask, the construction of the city may be ascribed to one or more gods, to the Pre-Baghar Culture itself (which somehow existed alongside the earliest and smallest subset of the gods worshiped in Wisteria), or even to having existed ''before'' the Vergence - a logical impossibility. It is included here as having been established during the Age of Primordial Myth as even the histories of the Age of Mysteries tend to refer to the city as though it already existed for some time.
 


History is a reckoning of the passage of time, a subset of [[Cosmology]] that is focused on the when rather than the where. As is the case of most worlds where history has been invented, the mortals of [[Wisteria]] have periods of time which they understand that are considered to be either '''historical'' or '''prehistorical'''. In the common parlance these periods are known as the '''Ages of Reckoning''' and '''Time Before Reckoning''' specifically. For convenience of convention and unless specified otherwise, when only one date is to be given in the historical record for an event, it is considered correct to use the reckoning of the [[Rophalin Calendar]] and the counting of ages of the [[Atarlie Empire]] - the different races of [[Wisteria]], and indeed of all [[Ahren]], have their own reckonings of history and the passing of the year.
=== Age of Mysteries ===
Within the Age of Mysteries, time has become more concrete, and it's possible that this age was less a concrete epoch of universal time than a convenient catchment for all those portions of history which ''definitely happened'', but cannot be conveniently anchored in time, because the people to which they happened did not practice the recording of history at that time. Often the events ascribed to the Age of Mysteries take place in far-off lands and only incidentally include [[Wisteria]], and as the different races began their different counts in different places temporally, what time was in the Age of Mysteries for some may be concrete in others.


== Time Before Reckoning ==
==== The Infinite Delusion of the Fae ====
The deep history of [[Ahren]] stretches back to incalculably ancient events. Through myth and legend, a vague sequence of those events can be determined. It is best noted that in the reckoning of most mortal races, if these years or the factual nature of these events are to be believed in at all, they are almost always idiosyncratic to those who believe in those events. There are none who can remember the beginning of the passage of time and indeed it is commonly believed that time and all the other long forces of [[Cosmology]] were in motion long before [[Ahren]] existed.


These are the major ages of the time before reckoning:
It is best to describe the Fae as first coming to existence in the Age of Mysteries, because to do so otherwise would be to suggest they were primordial, which can't be so. Even the [[Great Fae]], nearly gods in their own realms at their own rights, rely on the believe and acknowledgement of mortal races for their continued existence, or at least their ability to influence events outside of their courts in the [[Etheral Plane]] in any way. What's more, there's a suggestion that the primordial dieties predate [[Vergence]]. This cannot be the case for the Fae, whose realms are in a convergent plane that arguably did not exist at the time of the Vergence. Scholars are advised not to look too hard or too long at the contradiction that the [[Bardo]] is asserted to have predated the world it reflects while the same is said to be impossible of the Etheral Plane, lest an Ars Magica metaphysicist subject you to a mathematics lecture again.
* [[Void Age of the Great Wheel]], as some refer to the time before [[Ahren]] existed. This age comes to an end in the unfathomable pass when a confluence of cosmological forces known as the [[Vergence]] causes the creation of [[Ahren]], allowing forces bleeding off of the '''Eight Essential Planes''' to fill in the material world of [[Ahren]] in a reflection of the [[Bardo]], which is believed to have already existed long before. Accounts differ on whether the Vergence was a unique event (as believed by men of [[Bastonia]]) or part of a great cycle of such events in the great unfathomable time of the ages of gods.
* [[Age of Darkness]], a long age of the depths of time between the [[Vergence]] and the emergence of the first mortal races on [[Ahren]]. During such time as this age of darkness a few mortal races do indeed creep into [[Ahren]]. [[The Firekeeper]] creates the first orcs not as mortals of full mind but as the '''Princes of Beasts''', and looses them in the west of wisteria, in what would long later become known as the [[Lordless Lands]]. Creatures like men, but closer to some unseen animal ancestor, also appear in [[Ahren]], but are not native to [[Wisteria]] at this time. The Age of Darkness is considered ended by the earliest events of the Age of Orcs and Men, but no firm date for this is agreed. At some point in this age, the city of [[Baghar]] is founded by [[Pre-Baghar Civilization | unknown forces]], perhaps even by [[Anghara]] itself.


== Ages of Reckoning ==
== Ages of Reckoning ==
Systems of reckoning differ between all the nations of Wisteria, with both the epoch of the years and the counting of those years into distinct ages differing among all nations. As most nations have, by the current time, adopted the [[Rophalin Calendar]], those dates will be used in both this article and wherever possible elsewhere in the records. Of special interest, events which end an age of a year *never* restart the accounting of the years. Instead, the following day becomes the same date, in the year 0 of the new age. This convention is observed with remarkable universality among all peoples.
Tracking the passage of time is generally considered to the mark of civilization, whether that's the abstract long counts of the [[Carcolie]], [[Confederacy of Sages]], and the [[Orcish Nation]], or the obsessive accounting of cultures like the [[Clans of Magnus]] and the [[Atarlie Empire]].
 
=== Epochal Touchstones ===
 
=== Reckoning of the Dwarves ===
The dwarves mark their time according to the timekeeping of the [[Whurorician Calendar]], which begins its years on the [[Festival of the Turning Wheel]] (as the [[Celestial Workbell]] and has a similar structure to the [[Rophalin Calendar]], but markedly different epochs. The count of this calendar is considered most accurate during the [[Age of Stewardship]].
 
==== Age of Tutelage ====
The [[Age of Tutelage]] is a dwarven epoch running through the Primordial Myths and the Age of Mysteries, accounted to the dwarves as a period of 10,000 years, which conflicts with other accountings of the length of the same period. Among the dwarves, this calendar is viewed as any other calendar and considered reliable. Scholarship from outside the [[Clans of Magnus]] may consider these accountings mythological or apocryphal in nature; accepting it whole-cloth would mean recognizing the dwarves as the oldest sentient race on [[Ahren]] with the obvious exception of the [[Pre-Baghar Culture]].
 
The Age of Tutelage is characterized as being an Age of the Gods. It begins with neither the creation of Ahren or [[Khaz Urheim]] or the birth of their god [[Magnus Allfather]], but with the creation of the dwarves in that city by that god and their release into the [[Atlas Mountains]]. The age takes its name from having been a period of divine tutelage, when most of the Dwarven Pantheon routinely walked among its people, founded the great clans and their clanholds, and generally set into motion the machine of dwarvish culture. The age involves the "death" of at least two of these gods and the eventual departure of the rest to [[Khaz Urdheim] at the turning of the year between 1000 Age of Tutelage and 1 Age of Stewardship.
 
==== Age of Stewardship ====
All the rest of Dwarven History, according to the [[Chronology of Dwarvenkind]], falls into the Age of Stewardship. This long age is highly useful to the detached historian as the isolationist dwarves none the less make reference to events that appear in other histories, and by the time of the Age of Stewardship, their chronicallers are generally agreed by most observers to have been using literal days, weeks, months, and years in their records rather than some of the more figurative accounts believed to have been used in the Age of Tutelage.
 
Dwarves account the "contemporary" age as part of the Age of Stewardship, and the age will only end when the gods return.
 
=== Reckoning of the Atarlie Empire ===
Like the dwarves, the Elves have a rich, semi-mythological historical record that they believe has been kept inviolate since the beginning of meaningful time. It begins with a period known as the '''Springtime of the Gods''', during which some of the history overlaps with the Primordial Myth and involves the birthing of the various non-primordial Elven gods.
 
==== Springtime of the Gods ====
The beginning of Elvish History, which concerns such mythologies as the first exodus of the elf-like beings that were the lesser children of [[Pyria Valeptor]] from Elysium, and the alike appearahnce of [[Shalaevar Shamaris]]. [[Amunhoptra]] is founded by the first elves to settle [[Wysteria]].
 
In the 500th year of this age, [[Feno Ilirel]] takes a subset of the elves and sends them on an exodus from the Atlas Mountains, breaking them off into the unique [[Carcolie]] culture. She charges this new culture of the elves with defense of the magic of nature and fostering a connection to the land, but explains none of the logic of this commandment to any of her fellow gods, and discourages even worship of herself directly by the Carcolie.
 
This period lasts for exactly 1111 years, ending with the [[Festival of the Turning Wheel]] headed into Age of Gods 1112, with a ceremony in which [[Rophalin Imperitor]], God-Emperor of the Atarlie Empire, hands over his power to the Atarlie Senate and instructs them to appoint the first mortal emperor. Thereafter, the chronicallers record the years as those of the Age of Elvish Springtime.
 
==== Age of Elvish Springtime ====
The Age of Elvish Springtime is short, and marked with expansionism, lasting only 128 years. It runs from the foundation of the first mortal empire to the consolidation of Elvish control over the [[Province of the Sun and Moon]] and the [[Southern Province]], which were not previously part of the empire. The [[War of Elves and Dwarves]] and subsequient [[Great Restoration of Civility]] are in this time period, and the latter is responsible for the political mood that lead to the [[Treaty of Hall Hill]], converting the [[Hearthlands]] to a protectorate, in the summer of AES 128. The year that followed was recorded as Year 1, Age of the Summer of Mortals.
 
Attitudes of the elves at this time mark a rapid shift, where they were forced to reckon with the fact that they were not the only sentient, or even Divine-Sparked race on [[Wisteria]], much less [[Ahren]]. While [[Atarlie Chauvinism]] remained a deep-seated problem, by the end of the age the elves at least recognized that the other races were other ''peoples'' and not just unusually clever beasts.
 
==== Age of the Summer of Mortals ====
The Age of the Summer of Mortals has run long. The Great Collapse era of the [[Republic of Petrenea]] is contemporary to the year 1586 of the Age of the Summer of Mortals, though in the years to follow, some chronicallers have suggested that the Age had turned and have proposed names for the new age such as the '''Age of Wisterian Autumn''', though officially the age is still that of the summer of mortals.
 
Unsurprisingly then, for the elves and those who trade with them, most of history is that of the Age of the Summer Of Mortals. Much of the first millenium of the age is considered "stable history", and most conflicts to be reported were entirely internal to the empire or minor diplomatic issues with the Dwarves or the Hearthland Protectorate.
 
Of note is the beginning of what is known as the [[Southern Campaign]] of the Atarlie, which began in 1279 of this age, and marked the expansion of the empire into the south. Fundamentally, this involved episodic wars between the [[Imperial Legion]], the city-state of [[Xarthekei]] (at the time part of the Great Republic of [[Petrenea]]), and the dwarves of [[Khaz Elarnzak]]. The general tide of the war was slowly in the direction of an elvish capture of Xarthekei, save for the disruption caused to the forces of the invading forces by the Great Collapse. The war ended in a treaty in 1588, which saw Xarthekei give up territory north of its position (now defining the southern edge of the [[Atarlie Frontier]]), and the empire pay the dwarves a grudge-price for not sharing the spoils of this victory.
 
=== Reckoning of the Principalities of Man ===
Moreso than any of the other races that call [[Wisteria]] home, and befitting both their nature and their recorded origins, humanity is the most fractured species on [[Ahren]], and even they themselves admit it. Humankinds origins were poor, and did not lend themselves to self-documentation. Therefore, the early history of humanity had to be largely reconstructed from their own collective recollections.
 
==== Bastonian Recknoning ====
The [[Annals of Bastonia]] record two principal ages of history - an Age of Bitter Darkness and the current Age, the Age of the Bastion, and further subdivides the first into the Age of Bitter Darkness proper and a much shorter Age of Rebellion. Both of these periods are reckoned as the years "Before the Walls", a calendar that counts the years down toward the founding of the city of [[Whiterock]] in full betrayal of its reconstructed nature. This history is deeply tied to the [[Bastonia | Bastonian]] state religion, the [[Church of the Almighty]], and its theology, which explains in some part why the Bastonians are unique among almost all the races of the world (save the city of [[Baghar]]) for expecting universal compliance to their religious edicts, especially in their own lands.
 
===== Age of Bitter Darkness =====
The Age of Bitter Darkness is largely considered mythological. It is full of largely empty periods of time and with the accounting of figures that may or may not have existed, including accounts of humans who lived well beyond what is considered to be normal human lifetimes.
 
The Age begins somewhere in the Primordial Myth with the creation of [[The Enemy]] (or his pre-existence) and the arrival of The Enemy in the plane of [[Ahren]], which he explored for a period of time usually accounted as a full milenium, before abducting a hitherto-undocumented race of great apes from across the [[Eastern Sea]] into what is now the [[Shimmering Shore]] and recreated them "of his service", birthing the earliest of Mankind.
 
What follows is a long empire (sometimes figured as as much as 4000 years, but this is believed to be inaccurate) under the direct rulership of The Enemy, and throughout which humanity expanded across the [[Shimmering Shore]] and up the lands west of the [[Atlas Mountains]]. This northward expansion is recorded by the Orcs as being the impetus for the event known as the [[Kindling]].
 
===== Age of Rebellion =====
When the empire of the Enemy was at the enith of its power, at a year long agreed to be counted as 170 Before the Walls, [[Lukas the Rebellious]] was born a slave in the city of [[Baghar]], which the Enemy was said to have conquered. This is broadly considered to have been the start of the Age of Rebellion.
 
Fifty years later, coinciding with the start of The Age of Elvish Springtime, Lukas was leading a rebellion after having served one year in a mine in the area now known as [[The Bleak]]. This rebellion began with his slaying of a pit lord named [[Balgharond]], and leading a company of liberated slaves into the wilderness.
 
In 100 BW (twenty years after the start of his active rebellion), Lukas the Rebellious and his followers have made camp at the site that would become the city of Whiterock, and believe that both distance and the presence of the Orcish Nation between themselves and the Enemy will protect them. At his direction, [[San Heather | Heather of High Toor]] begins construction of the earliest keep at Whiterock. Lukas also experiences his first vision of [[the Almighty]] at this time.
 
A series of calamaties (mostly involving the taking, retaking, and sack of [[Baghar]]) then befalls [[the Enemy]], and buys time for the completion of the city of Whiterock. The city is not attacked until the very turning of the age, leading to a long seige and an event known as the [[Battle of the First Wall]], which has extreme religious and political significance. The breaking of the seige on the day of the summer solstice culminated in the apotheosis of several of the gods of the pantheon, the breaking of the Enemy as a political force and his banishment to [[Hell]], and the signal to change the age to the '''Age of Bastion'''.
 
===== Age of Bastion =====
The first century of the Age of Bastion is home to two key eras. The first is the rule of [[San Lukas]] and [[San Heather]] as the first king and queen of the Kingdom of Bastonia, overseeing a period of great expansion and the establishment of many of the settlements in the region. In 67 AB, seeing his imminent death and transference to [[Heaven]], [[San Lukas]] bestowed the crown upon his son, [[King Bastion I]]. This lead to the start of a 22 year military campaign known as the [[Southern Expurgation]], which saw the destruction of the final factions loyal to the Enemy and lead to the [[Lordless Lands]] obtaining that name. During this war, he also oversaw the construction of the [[Bastion Line]].
 
In AB 89, [[the Enemy]] imbued an [[Archwhale]] with significant power in an attempt to destroy the city of [[Coldwater]]. The beast is defeated by [[San Marino]].
 
In AB 98, the wizard known as Sylvester the Blue saves the City of [[Oversea]] from destruction with the collapse of the cliffs below  the Oversea Bastion.  This involved a work of Grand Theurgy that lead to his diefication and started his history with the creation of [[Ars Magica]].
 
Thus begins a period of long stasis marked with internal conflict and generational wars of succession, preventing the Bastonians from having a major impact on international affairs until the start of their [[Southern Expansion]] in AB 1643. This conflict largely involved the [[Orcish Nation]], who stood opposed to being pushed off their lands by the xenophobic human colonizers.
 
==== Petrenean Reckoning ====
Being mostly humans (at least at their foundation), the Petrenean peoples of the [[Shimmering Shore]] have a shared history with the [[Bastonians]], but a very different interpretation of it. They mark the beginning period of their history as the mythological Age of Infinite Delusion, and place far less importance on the liberational themes of their northron cousins, as they place far less importance on the Enemy.
 
===== Age of Infinite Delusion =====
The Age of Infinite Delusion begins in the ancient and unnumbered past with the first humans being "breathed aware" by the Deciever, a representation of [[the Enemy]], who is granted no more mythological significance than any other devil of [[Hell]], the plane from which he resides. During this age, the "dreams of humanity" were pulled from the [[Bardo]] and breathed into life and wakefullness by the Deciever and other powerful devils who wished to abuse them for labour, for at that time Ahren was a new land and unsullied, and Hell is timeless (and therefore desolate).
 
This situation is presented as much the same as the story of [[San Lukas]], but Lukas himself never comes up, except in some footnotes usually considered to be esoterica. This is in part because the story of how Humanity became free agents in the universe instead of the slaves of powerful entities does not hinge on the interventions of [[the Almighty]] in the Petrenean narrative.
 
It is instead said that when the enemy first lost his city of [[Baghar]], a prince of the city of Petrenea was practicing a form of meditation throughout the [[Festival of the Turning Wheel]], and seeing the astrological signs of the moment in the sky, he came to a fundamental understanding that lead to an event known as [[Awakening (Awakened One)| Awakening]]. This event marks the start of the long count of the Age of Enlightenment.
 
===== Age of Awakening =====
With the teachings of the Awakened One to guide them, [[Petrenea]] remained free of the influence of the Deciever forever more, and in the years to follow eventually all the [[shimmering Shore]] was liberated. Though considered the chief god of the Petrenean Pantheon by outside writers, the Awakened One is rarely attributed as having described himself as divine, though his teachings did lead directly to the rise of two other gods - a patrenean war god named [[Xia Leng]] and an orcish hero-god named [[Xuthagug Three-Eyes]].
 
This forward count continues until at least the Awakened Year 1696 and the [[Great Collapse]] precipitated by the opening of the [[Great Rift]]. As could be expected with a loss of republican governance there is now some confusion about whether or not a new age is necessary. Those that feel that this is the end of an epoch in the same way that the liberation of mankind was often account the modern year forward from 1696 as the year "post-collapse".
 
=== Reckoning of the Lordless Lands ===
There are at least two nations in the Lordless Lands (a slightly ambiguous frontier land), and the third related nation which share a commonality in that they have their own robust and largely congruent calendars, with the only major point of difference being the timing of annual holidays and disagreement on what year it is. Conveniently, these nations do not place a strong level of importance on the accuracy of the count of the year.
 
==== Stellunar Wheel of the Carcolie ====
While not physically located in the Lordless Lands, the Carcolie and the Confederacy of Sages both share the [[Secrets of Nature]] magical school and both have a largely similar map based on the motion of the moons and the [[Ahrenic Zodiac]]. It's principal difference is that the festival of the burning wheel is 16 days long instead of 3, leaving the months at 27 days, and that same festival is referred to as the "Festival of Alignment".
 
Carcolie history begins with the tale of [[Feno Ilirel]] (who in their interpretation was a very ancient elf, albeit just an elf) guiding them into the wilderness, and in a sense the mythic age extends up into even living memory for the Carcolie. Their storytelling considers it far more important to remember the broad strokes of what happened than the fact that it happened specifically on the 7th of the 8th of some specific year, and historical events are thereby often moved to "the time of some other figure" around the time of "the nearest relevant festival".
 
==== Star-Stations of the Confederacy of Sages ====
The motions of the stars and planets are everything to the Confederacy of Sages, whose loose theocracy is headed by their most elite druidic circle, the [[Star-Counters]]. Confederacy historical records and date-keeping rely heavily on complicated star charts and passive understanding of the stellar ephemera, which has lead to two major impacts.
 
The first is that, much like the Carcolie, the average person in the Confederacy culture does not have a strong understanding of date-keeping, and that popular history is more akin to storytelling than chronicling as a result. For most purposes it is sufficient to know when a temporally-near event happened relative to the present day.
 
The second is that the sagely cohort of the society actually has very precise chronicals available to them, albiet as part of an oral history, and that these records are tied very precisely in time to descriptions of relevant stellar phenomena. This has the mixed blessing of making Confederate dates almost impossible to convert to other calendar systems, confounding foreign scholarship. This is a source of endless amusement to the Confederates, who consider such conversions meaningless anyway.
 
==== Long Count of the Orcs ====
Much like the humans of [[Bastonia]] and the [[Shimmering Shore]], the orcs acknowledge a period in their history where they were not quite fully orcs, having originally been created during the primordial or mythic ages as the '''Princes of Beasts''', being orcish in form but bestial in intellect. It would not be until [[the Firekeeper]] imbued full sentience into the orcs (an even known as the [[Kindling of the Orcs]]) in response to the arrival of mankind in their territory that true orcish history begins.


Since these ages differ in [[Elvish Reckoning]], the [[Annals of Bastonia]], the [[Chronology of Dwarvenkind]], and the [[Long-Tales of the Orcs]], and others, it is difficult to present them in a succinct way here. Instead, only a summary of these events is presented. Many of the years of the Dwarves are not listed at all, as the dwarves are secretive of their history and are the only major race of [[Wisteria]] not to use the Rophalin Calendar - indeed, dwarvenkind rarely agree with the reckoning of the history of each other's strongholds, let alone aligning to universal touchstones of time.
===== The Princes of Beasts =====
The orcs occasionally tell tales of events that transpired when they were still the princes of beasts, and the Princes of Beasts appear in historical tales shared by the Confederacy of Sages, though the sages cannot account for a precise date of the transition into the Orcish Long Count. Human histories agree that the change took place during the Age of Bitter Darkness or Age of Infinite Delusion, and the dwarves themselves agree the transition occurred some time in the Age of Tutelage.


In rough order, these are the key events that mark the beginning of reckoning in different cultures and the transition between ages:
These stories are often figurative and highly metaphorical, including such tales as the orc theft of writing from the dwarves (modern linguists argue that other than this assertion there is no similarity between the writing systems of the two languages worthy of mentioning) and a story about the orcs losing their hair by having fed most of it to their god [[Kodo the Devourer]] to trick it into going away.
* [[Magnus Allfather]] releases the Firstborn Dwarves along with [[Dwarven Pantheon| his children]] from [[Khaz Urheim]] in the Bardo into the [[Atlas Mountains]] of [[Wisteria]]. This begins the '''Age of Tutelage''' in the [[Chronology of Dwarvenkind]] and is the emergence of the first truly sentient beings on [[Ahren]].
* [[The Enemy]] comes into [[Ahren]], with accounts differing between an origin in [[Hell]] or [[Stasis]]. He spends a time (usually accounted as a millenium) surveying the land before he creates Men from the great apes of the lands across the [[Eastern Sea]], bringing them to [[Wisteria]] and settling them in what is now the [[Shimmering Shore]] to worship him and do his bidding. Humans retroactively count back into this age as part of the '''Long Age of Blackness''', whose years are reckoned as those '''Before the Walls'''.
* As The Enemy's men push northward into the wilds of an untamed wisteria, their progroms against all manner of wildlife hit the orcs especially hard. In response, [[the Firekeeper]] imbues her creations with the full sentience of man. This event is known as the Kindling of the Orcs and is the beginning of the [[Long-Tales of the Orcs]], belonging to their estimation of a '''First Age'''.
* At about the same time as the Kindling of the Orcs, [[Pyria Valeptor]] leaves [[Elysium]] for [[Ahren]]. Surveying the material world, she judges [[Wisteria]] its most comely land and creates a race of beings in her image, placing her newborn son, [[Rophalin Imperitor]], on Wisteria with them. In [[Elvish Reckoning]], this event takes place on the occasion of the day of the [[Festival of the Turning Wheel]], year 1 of the '''Age of Gods'''.
* The existence of elves, dwarves, men, and orcs on Wisteria causes, at some unmarked time, the emergence of the Fey in the Dreamlands, a layer of [[Bardo]]. The precise date of this occasion cannot be marked as the Fey are dreamed into being already-ancient, some with memories that stretch all the way back to the Vergence, as though such a thing were materially possible.
* The fey of the east dream into being the [[Halflings]] and through them sire the [[Gnomes]], races that populate the [[Hearthlands]], in what becomes later calculated as the year 0 of the Age of Springtime in [[Hearthland Reckoning]].
* [[Shalaevar Shamaris]] comes to [[Wisteria]] from [[the Abyss]], creating the diseases that plague the elves. In response, Pyria creates her daughter [[Feno Ilirel]], in Age of Gods 223, [[Elvish Reckoning]]. This will initiate a period known as the '''Springtime of Gods''', namesake of the age and a period in which most of the other gods of the [[High Elven Pantheon]] are born.
* At some point around Age of Gods 500, Feno Ilirel sends the elves who would become the [[Carcolie]] into the wilderness without other explanation to her fellow gods of the [[High Elven Pantheon]]. In doing this, she charges them above all else with remembering their intimate connection to nature, dramatically reshaping their culture in comparison to the arcane-focused Atarlie.
* At a year agreed to be 170 Before the Walls, [[San Lukas | Lukas the Rebellious]] is born among the slave class in [[Baghar]], by then already considered an ancient city. This marks a turning of an age in the reckoning of the [[Annals of Bastonia]], beginning a short age known as the '''Age of Rebellion'''.
* At the Festival of the Turning Wheel, Age of Gods 1112, [[Rophalin Imperitor]] confers the authority to elect the emperor onto the [[Atarlie Senate]]. Over the run of more than a millenium of rule, his great work of establishing the laws, customs, and guidestones of the elves is complete, and by this time he and most of the other elven gods have been drawn out of direct presence in [[Ahren]], returning to their respective realms throughout the vastness of cosmology. This is the turning of an age into the '''Age of Elvish Springtime'''.
* On the same day, Lukas the Rebellious has come of age at 50 (for in those days men aged far slower), and has been pressed into service in [[The Enemy]]'s mines in what is now [[The Bleak]]. By midsummer of that year, he has slain the pit lord [[Balgharond]] and lead a company of his fellow-miners into the wilderness.
* Inspired in part by the tales of the Elves, who dream closely of the Fey, the halflings and gnomes tell tales of their own of '''Princes of Beasts''' in the far west. Fey of the West then dream the races of the [[Confederacy of Sages]] into existence. Like the Fey themselves, the fey are born ancient, with often-proud histories that stretch back into time immemorial.
* In year 100 before the walls, Lukas the Rebellious and his followers, seasoned by an arduous journey through the lands of orcs (who mistrust them after long wars with those men loyal to [[The Enemy]]), reach the land that would become [[Whiterock]] and make camp. It is the fading of winter and the situation at once seems dire and managable, as their believe their long march and the existence of the common enemy that the [[Orcish Nation]] represents between them and their former masters in the south will protect them. On the day of the spring equinox, at the urging of Lukas the Rebellious, a woman in his company known at the time as Heather of High Toor breaks ground on the construction of the city. That same year, at midsummer, Lukas is visited by a [[the Almighty | woman in the guise of a warrior]] who cautions him that his time as a rebel is not yet at an end, and he must gird himself for war.
* Around this same year, the dwarven advance into the [[Lordless Lands]] is broken by the horde of [[Borba Wise-Eyes]], and she becomes the second god of the orcish pantheon.
* In 88 before the walls an unknown calamity strikes the people of Baghar and the city is emptied, in spite of its then-patronage by [[the Enemy]]. While the [[Annals of Bastonia]] attribute this event to a "lapse in the enemy's judgement" caused by a vision of [[the Almighty]], the orcs attribute the same event to a direct assault by [[Kodo the Devourer]], who drove the Enemy out, to his cities in [[the Bleak]]. Whichever force is ultimately responsible, the Orcs then take up residence in Baghar, a small horde of three tribes lead by [[Gul Spell-Speaker]], who would eventually ascend to godhood there and remove himself to pandemonium.
* Without Baghar as an anchor point, [[the Enemy]]'s influence over the city of [[Petrenea]] weakens. One of the humans who lives there, commonly thought to be the prince of the city, achieves a feat known as Awakening on the Festival of the Turning Wheel, 86 Before the Walls, and becomes thereafter known as the [[Awakened One]]. This becomes the year 0 of the '''Age of Enlightenment''' in the reckoning of the lands of the [[Shimmering Shore]] and marks a permanent break of the influence of [[the Enemy]] over that area, as the teachings and patronage of the [[Awakened One]] break Man out of their stupor.
* The [[Atarlie Empire]] expands to the borders of the [[Hearthlands]] at this time. Also at this time, the secret of the forging of [[Mithril]] is somehow transmitted between the [[Clans of Magnus]] and the Elves. Accounts differ as to whether this was the theft of understanding or an agreement between elves and dwarves. This occurs around Age of Elvish Sprintime 50.
* This same year, at the Vernal Equinox, the work of the construction of the city of [[Whiterock]] is completed by the woman who is now known as [[San Heather | Heather of Whiterock]]. This begins year 0 of the '''Age of Rebellion''''s forward count in the [[Annals of Bastonia]], as that same night [[San Lukas | Lukas of Whiterock]] has a vision compelling him to create a great council of war to defend the city, sent by [[the Almighty]].
* In Age of Elvish Springtime 55, the elves of the [[Atarlie Empire]] first occupy the location of [[Navarre's Crossing]], defeating a force of rebel elves who were following [[Hycis Uriris]]. With her defeat the last of the gods of the elves has fled [[Ahren]], and the influence of the [[High Elven Pantheon]] is felt only through their clerics and miracles thereafter. That same year, humans from the lands that would become [[Bastonia]] first meet elves and dwarves, trading at the city of [[Khaz Yurridduum]] for the shield that would eventually become known as [[San Lukas#The Peace of Angels|The Peace of Angels]], among other arms.
* It is AES 70, the 20th year of the Age of Rebellion, and a massive host of men sacks the city of [[Baghar]], reclaiming it the name of [[the Enemy]]. The city is blockaded via its southern passes by forces from the [[Kingdom of Alteria]] lead by the general who would become known as [[Xia Leng]]. Leaving behind only force enough to hold the most ancient of cities, the host then turns to the north and begins a campaign of conquest.
* That same year, [[Buggug Angel-Slayer]]'s campaign reaches its climax and the [[Purge of High Toor]] occurs. With the city sacked, he turns against [[Baghar]] and allies himself with [[Xia Leng]], though both have fought each other in the past and the alliance is uneasy.
* At the turning of AES 75, the 25th year of rebellion, [[the Almighty]] appears to the people of Whiterock directly, in person, and without her previous disguises. She exhorts them into observing the first Day of Expiation and thereafter consecrates the people of Whiterock, free men of the north, as sacred to her purpose and cause, and leads them as god-queen in their defense against the coming onslaught of [[The Enemy]]. By spring, the Black Host of the Enemy has laid seige to Whiterock and the [[Battle of the First Wall]]. On the day of the summer solstice, the breech of the First Wall occurs and the most significant events in the history of the Church of the Almighty occur. On this day, the main force of [[the Enemy]] is broken (due in part to the betrayal of [[San Elijah]], one of his commanders), and he is forced by [[the Almighty]] to flee to his current holdings in [[Hell]]. At that same time, [[the Almighty]] consecrates [[San Lukas]] and [[San Heather]], installing them as the king and queen of [[Whiterock]], whose line would come to rule over all [[Bastonia]] as free men of the north. This occasion marks the beginning of the year zero of the '''Age of Bastonia''' in the reckoning of the [[Annals of Bastonia]].
* This same year, a mysterious force empties the city of [[Baghar]], widely thought to be the direct intervention of [[Anghara]], ancient of ancients. In the resulting destruction, while the city stands, [[Buggug Angel-Slayer]] is blasted into the void between planes. The woman who would become [[Xia Leng]] was also killed.
* In 67 AB, an ancient and dying [[San Lukas]] confers the crown on his son, [[King Bastion I]]. Bastion I would then go on to lead a 22-year military campaign known as the [[Southern Expurgation]] which lead to the [[Lordless Lands]] obtaining their name. This campaign would destroy most of the remaining mortal followers of [[the Enemy]] and set into motion the cultural norms of Bastonian life that govern their religious orthodoxy and their distrust of orcs.
* The folk of the [[Hearthlands]] and the [[Atarlie Empire]] come to a treaty that renders the innocent hearthlands a protectorate of the Empire in AES 128. For the elves, the following year is marked as the '''Age of the Summer of Mortality'''.
* By ASM 33 (86 of the Age of Bastion), the fortifications of the [[Bastion Line]] are in place. A scholar from Oversea, [[San Sylvester | Sylvester the Blue]], has extended his experimentation with the arcane into Theurgy and is driven out of his homeland, eventually founding the schools of the arcane at [[Sylvestri Point]] later that year.
* Three years later, the Enemy throws his Archwhale at the city of [[Coldwater]], only port from which the humans and the Atarlie can easily make contact. The beast is defeated in a phyrric battle by the merchant mariner [[San Marino | Marino Zeemarch]], a minor royal cousin who is elevated to sainthood immediately thereafter.
* The same year, [[Xia Leng]] achieves Awakening and becomes a god in her own right, followed in [[Alteria]] and by some in [[Petrenea]]. Therafter her school at [[Xia Leng Ji]] is established.
* In ASM 42, Sylvester the Blue saves the City of [[Oversea]] from cataclysm by preventing the fall of Oversea Bastion into the sea (or worse, onto the lower city), using his magics arcane and divine to suspend the city in the air. This earns him the attention of [[the Almighty]], whereafter he ascends to [[Heaven]] before ultimately establishing his laboratory-school in [[Elysium]], becoming the Patron Saint of the Mysical Arts. His work together with that of the elven god [[Camus Inakas]] results in the foundation of the arcane school of [[Ars Magica]]
* At around this time, [[Xuthakug Three-Eyes]] is born and becomes an orphan-monastic at [[Xia Leng Ji]] when the men of Baghar sack his village. Unremarkable in his beginnings, he would go on to become a god of the [[Orcish Pantheon]] when he attained Awakening at the age of 33.
* Also around this time, the [[Desolation of the Bleak]] begins. Without [[the Enemy]] to stabilize it, many of the strange forces of the universe are corrupting the area. Aberrations are becoming more common. Some histories believe that [[San Verrus]] is either born or created directly by [[the Enemy]] at this time. He and his followers prey on the orcs of the southern reaches to the extent that the [[Orcish Nation]] withdraws into only their northeast holdings, leaving the southern [[Lordless Lands]] between [[Crossroads]] and [[Baghar]] largely devoid of the sentient races, apart from odd bands of orcs here or there and those who live in the [[Great Fen]]. Eventually this would recover and only the Bleak would remain truly abandoned.


Thus begins a period of relative stability, though the length of these periods vary on your reckoning. it is helpful to think of the years after around the first century of the Age of the Summer of Mortality through to the beginning of the [[Southern Campaign]] in ASM 1279 as the '''Age of Isolation'''. They are not peaceful years by any imagination, but they were years in which most conflicts were internal - wars of the Bastonian Succession, inter-Horde wars among the Orcish Nation or the occasional skirmishes with Dwarves and Carcolie, and the long intrigues of the elves. At this period, histories largely diverge, with each becoming more or less wholly unique to its nation except for the following few events:
===== The Long Tales =====
The Long Tales of the Orcs are their recorded history after kindling, though the record in question takes the form of memories historical stories and tales and is therefore somewhat loosely translatable into the concrete dates and times used by some other annals. This is not to take away from the fact that it is a relatively complete history and reasonably reliable in terms of the events that actually transpired.  


* The [[Southern Campaign]] of the Atarlie, beginning in ASM 1279 when Atarlie forces pas their borders near the hearthland and expand into what they now call the [[Atarlie Frontier]], past the River of the Moon and Stars and into the lands ruled by [[Xarthekei]], which at the time was part of the Great Republic of [[Petrenea]]. This begins a long war of skirmishes, seiges, and marches that is delayed significantly due to the involvement of the dwarves of [[Khaz Elarnzak]], who fought among both men and elves in an attempt to take some of the territory for themselves. This war was likely to result in the eventual break of [[Xarthekei]] save for the occurrence of the [[Great Collapse]]. The men of [[Xarthekei]] sued the elves for peace in ASM 1588, and the elves pursued a treaty with Clan Balippasson the following year. This treaty granted the Empire its conquests up to the edge of the river that now forms the border between the [[Atarlie Frontier]] and the [[Shimmering Shore]], and the elves and humans both paid significant reparations to the dwarves.
These tales include such tales as the [[Gul Spellspeaker's Conquest of Baghar]], [[Buggug Angel-Slayer's Defeat at Baghar]], the [[Purge of High Toor]], the [[Decay of the Bleak]] and a host of others. By most accounts the orcs are a proud and ancient nation with a history as rich as any other on [[Wisteria]], though they have been on the back foot now for nearly two millennia. Most orc communities have several story-keepers who memorize these tales and tell them back to the others at frequent intervals, meaning that by all accounts your average Orc is likely more familiar with the history of her people than a peasant-class [[Bastonian]] or even a working-class [[Dwarf]].
* The [[Great Collapse]] in ASM 1586 was an event of great magical significance, for which the root causes are not directly known, which resulted in the formation of a [[Great Rift]] in the [[Shimmering Shore]], and a Storm of Portals which has been releasing outsiders and other extraplanar creatures into the area ever since. The resulting sudden increase in the perils of travel between its cities ultimately caused the collapse of the Petrenean Republic into individual city states within a year, and the event is a contributing factor to the end of the [[Southern Campaign]].
* The Southern Expansion of Bastonia into the [[Frontier Counties]], which began in ASM 1590, began as peaceful colonization of the lands to their immediate south. As they expanded, however, this expansion brought them into outright conflict with the [[Orcish Nation]], who held much of the land in common with their less warlike cousins, the [[Confederacy of Sages]]. This opposition was not born of the presence of humans but in the expulsions of orcs and the races of the Sages which the humans conducted once they had grown enough in any given valley or dale. By 1598, the orcs had formed their [[Mighty Northern Horde]] to counter this expansion and were engaged in bloody guerilla warfare with the Bastonians, seeking only recognition of the traditional Orcish presence in the area. This war culminated in the [[Green Knoll Purge]] on '''13th of the 3rd, ASM 1603'''. During this battle, one of the warlords of the Northern Horde, [[Lum Spear-breaker]], was killed. The retreating orcs brought his legend to [[Crossroads]], where it spread like wildfire throughout the nation, and Lum is now known to exist in the [[Bardo]] as a god of the orcs.


== Ages Past Reckoning ==
== Ages Past Reckoning ==
The future never comes. Sages in Wisteria argue over the meaning of the Vergence and whether a Divergence or Second Vergence might occur. In the far depths of time, will the world be unmade? And if it is, will it be made anew?


The future never comes. Sages in Wisteria argue over the meaning of the Vergence and whether a Divergence or Second Vergence might occur. In the far depths of time, will the world be unmade? And if it is, will it be made anew?
=== Visions of an Infinite Future ===
Perhaps because of the comfort the idea brings to those with long lives, many elves in both the [[Atarlie Empire]] and among the [[Carcolie]] believe in a steady-state universe. The sun will always shine, the moons will always rise, the tide will do as the tide does and the universe will keep ticking along forever. This view is shared by the dwarves, who much like the elves consider themselves the "children" of their creator gods, blessed with an infinite universe. All three cultures have a view that they are in a position of stewardship for that infinite world, though rarely do the three come close to any kind of agreement on what that actually entails.
 
Since in the Carcolie case this position came to inform that of the [[Secrets of Nature]], it is a not-uncommon belief among some peoples in the [[Confederacy of Sages]], though the [[Cervitaur]] heads of the [[Star-Counters]] have a longer view still.
 
=== Visions of the End of Time ===
By contrast, at least one culture on Ahren forsees an upcoming end of time, with argument raging about when that end of time will come. The [[Church of the Almighty]] in [[Bastonia]] urges that there is a [[Battle of the Last Wall]] that matches the [[Battle of the First Wall]], and represents a final historical conflict where [[the Almighty]] and [[the Enemy]] will each rally a force to their side and attempt to destroy the other, tearing the world asunder in the process.
 
=== Visions of the Wheel of Time ===
Though something of a minority view in their respective cultures, it has become an orthodox interpretation of [[cosmology]] among the practitioners of [[Ars Magica]] to think of the world as inherently cyclic. After all, they founded the discipline as it is usually understood and worked out the concept of a [[Vergence]], and who's to say if such a thing could happen again or not. The split within the school over this topic is actually fairly clearly defined. Bastonian practitioners tend to argue that instead of a repeated vergence the implication is actually a divergence, or arcane destruction of the world, which suits the religious orthodoxy of their homeland. In contrast many Atarlie practitioners of the same school argue that the Divergence is just semantics, and that new universes are probably being "verged" regularly.


The vision of a world in cyclic time, long time incomprehensible, perhaps, to normal moral minds, which is periodically unmade and remade by the motion of the planes, is a logical conclusion according to [[Ars Magica]], and the teachings of the elf god [[Camus Inakas]], the Unspeakably Ancient God [[Anghara]], and the petrenean gods who follow the [[Awakened One]], including himself.
Cyclical periods of the creation and recreation of the universe are also common in the south of [[Wisteria]]. Most of the regions of the [[Shimmering Shore]] approached magic through the [[Way of the Elements]] and the teachings of the [[Awakened One]], both disciplines of which stress impermanence-even-of-nothingness. It logically follows that the universe would HAVE to be destroyed, but fear not, since it also logically follows that it could not help but be re-created.


However, such a view is heretical to the dwarves, who consider the world created and steady, like the foundations on which it is built. It is also a strange view to the men of Bastonia, whose church teach that [[The Almighty]] and [[The Enemy]] will again come to [[Ahren]], the first to defend all and the latter to enslave all, in a conflict of untold heroism and peril that they deem the [[Battle of the Last Wall]]. It is said in such teachings that if the Almighty is the victor the world will live on ever-new, but if the Enemy is able to gain the upper hand it will be destroyed past the intervention of any god to salvage it.
This view is constantly being argued into the [[Secrets of Nature]] school by the [[Star-Counters]] as well, and a cyclic view of nature is shared by [[Orcish Shamanism]] practitioners, who have direct access to the Bardo and the purported experiences, memories, and accounts given by spirits inhabiting that realm.

Revision as of 17:00, 22 June 2023

Time Before Reckoning

The deep history of Ahren stretches back to incalculably ancient events. Through myth and legend, a vague sequence of those events can be determined. It is best noted that in the reckoning of most mortal races, if these years or the factual nature of these events are to be believed in at all, they are almost always idiosyncratic to those who believe in those events. There are none who can remember the beginning of the passage of time and indeed it is commonly believed that time and all the other long forces of Cosmology were in motion long before Ahren existed.

Emptiness Birthing Fullness

The one and only point of agreement on the passage of time among the races of Ahren is that at some point, it began to pass. A world presently exists and at some point, it did not, so it must have been created.

Ars Magica proposes that the creation of the plane of Ahren was caused by an event known as the Vergence, and refers to the period before this transpired as the Void Age of the Great Wheel. This Vergence is a planetological event where the influence of the Eight Essential Planes is "focused" through the Bardo, a plane of existence that is in close mirror to a promordial vision of Ahren, and which some believe existed before.

This believe is not directly shared by the other schools of magic and the cultures that birthed them, which feel that the universe arose in other ways. Under the Way of the Elements, it is believed that the eight planes alone birthed Ahren and that it was only the later appearance of sapient creatures on the plane that caused the "shadow" of the Bardo to be cast. To the Orcs and their orcish shamanism, Bardo is the ash left behind after the Fire-Keeper sparked the first fire in Ahren, and both the Carcolie and the Confederacy of Sages teach that the Bardo and Ahren have infact mutually shaped one another.

What is agreed is that no one god or set of gods had a free hand in the creation of Ahren; in spite of many religions claiming to know the origin of their adherents, most agree that the world itself is a more complex phenomenon than any one god could attribute. Only the church of Anghara in Baghar claims any different, but this is an isolated sect of belief largely unknown outside of the city and its immediate holdings.

Primordial Myth

Thus begins an age of primordial myth, so named for this is believed to be the time when primordial dieties first enter Ahren from their planes of origin. These myths vary greatly, and this period refers to an unreckonable ur-time where it is almost certain linear time flowed but nearly none existed to accurately guage its advance.

Foundation of the City of Baghar

Some rebellious scholars studying the Pre-Baghar Culture suggest that the city (and the few other artifacts of the culture that survive) date at least as far back as the Primordial Myth. Depending on who you ask, the construction of the city may be ascribed to one or more gods, to the Pre-Baghar Culture itself (which somehow existed alongside the earliest and smallest subset of the gods worshiped in Wisteria), or even to having existed before the Vergence - a logical impossibility. It is included here as having been established during the Age of Primordial Myth as even the histories of the Age of Mysteries tend to refer to the city as though it already existed for some time.


Age of Mysteries

Within the Age of Mysteries, time has become more concrete, and it's possible that this age was less a concrete epoch of universal time than a convenient catchment for all those portions of history which definitely happened, but cannot be conveniently anchored in time, because the people to which they happened did not practice the recording of history at that time. Often the events ascribed to the Age of Mysteries take place in far-off lands and only incidentally include Wisteria, and as the different races began their different counts in different places temporally, what time was in the Age of Mysteries for some may be concrete in others.

The Infinite Delusion of the Fae

It is best to describe the Fae as first coming to existence in the Age of Mysteries, because to do so otherwise would be to suggest they were primordial, which can't be so. Even the Great Fae, nearly gods in their own realms at their own rights, rely on the believe and acknowledgement of mortal races for their continued existence, or at least their ability to influence events outside of their courts in the Etheral Plane in any way. What's more, there's a suggestion that the primordial dieties predate Vergence. This cannot be the case for the Fae, whose realms are in a convergent plane that arguably did not exist at the time of the Vergence. Scholars are advised not to look too hard or too long at the contradiction that the Bardo is asserted to have predated the world it reflects while the same is said to be impossible of the Etheral Plane, lest an Ars Magica metaphysicist subject you to a mathematics lecture again.

Ages of Reckoning

Tracking the passage of time is generally considered to the mark of civilization, whether that's the abstract long counts of the Carcolie, Confederacy of Sages, and the Orcish Nation, or the obsessive accounting of cultures like the Clans of Magnus and the Atarlie Empire.

Epochal Touchstones

Reckoning of the Dwarves

The dwarves mark their time according to the timekeeping of the Whurorician Calendar, which begins its years on the Festival of the Turning Wheel (as the Celestial Workbell and has a similar structure to the Rophalin Calendar, but markedly different epochs. The count of this calendar is considered most accurate during the Age of Stewardship.

Age of Tutelage

The Age of Tutelage is a dwarven epoch running through the Primordial Myths and the Age of Mysteries, accounted to the dwarves as a period of 10,000 years, which conflicts with other accountings of the length of the same period. Among the dwarves, this calendar is viewed as any other calendar and considered reliable. Scholarship from outside the Clans of Magnus may consider these accountings mythological or apocryphal in nature; accepting it whole-cloth would mean recognizing the dwarves as the oldest sentient race on Ahren with the obvious exception of the Pre-Baghar Culture.

The Age of Tutelage is characterized as being an Age of the Gods. It begins with neither the creation of Ahren or Khaz Urheim or the birth of their god Magnus Allfather, but with the creation of the dwarves in that city by that god and their release into the Atlas Mountains. The age takes its name from having been a period of divine tutelage, when most of the Dwarven Pantheon routinely walked among its people, founded the great clans and their clanholds, and generally set into motion the machine of dwarvish culture. The age involves the "death" of at least two of these gods and the eventual departure of the rest to [[Khaz Urdheim] at the turning of the year between 1000 Age of Tutelage and 1 Age of Stewardship.

Age of Stewardship

All the rest of Dwarven History, according to the Chronology of Dwarvenkind, falls into the Age of Stewardship. This long age is highly useful to the detached historian as the isolationist dwarves none the less make reference to events that appear in other histories, and by the time of the Age of Stewardship, their chronicallers are generally agreed by most observers to have been using literal days, weeks, months, and years in their records rather than some of the more figurative accounts believed to have been used in the Age of Tutelage.

Dwarves account the "contemporary" age as part of the Age of Stewardship, and the age will only end when the gods return.

Reckoning of the Atarlie Empire

Like the dwarves, the Elves have a rich, semi-mythological historical record that they believe has been kept inviolate since the beginning of meaningful time. It begins with a period known as the Springtime of the Gods, during which some of the history overlaps with the Primordial Myth and involves the birthing of the various non-primordial Elven gods.

Springtime of the Gods

The beginning of Elvish History, which concerns such mythologies as the first exodus of the elf-like beings that were the lesser children of Pyria Valeptor from Elysium, and the alike appearahnce of Shalaevar Shamaris. Amunhoptra is founded by the first elves to settle Wysteria.

In the 500th year of this age, Feno Ilirel takes a subset of the elves and sends them on an exodus from the Atlas Mountains, breaking them off into the unique Carcolie culture. She charges this new culture of the elves with defense of the magic of nature and fostering a connection to the land, but explains none of the logic of this commandment to any of her fellow gods, and discourages even worship of herself directly by the Carcolie.

This period lasts for exactly 1111 years, ending with the Festival of the Turning Wheel headed into Age of Gods 1112, with a ceremony in which Rophalin Imperitor, God-Emperor of the Atarlie Empire, hands over his power to the Atarlie Senate and instructs them to appoint the first mortal emperor. Thereafter, the chronicallers record the years as those of the Age of Elvish Springtime.

Age of Elvish Springtime

The Age of Elvish Springtime is short, and marked with expansionism, lasting only 128 years. It runs from the foundation of the first mortal empire to the consolidation of Elvish control over the Province of the Sun and Moon and the Southern Province, which were not previously part of the empire. The War of Elves and Dwarves and subsequient Great Restoration of Civility are in this time period, and the latter is responsible for the political mood that lead to the Treaty of Hall Hill, converting the Hearthlands to a protectorate, in the summer of AES 128. The year that followed was recorded as Year 1, Age of the Summer of Mortals.

Attitudes of the elves at this time mark a rapid shift, where they were forced to reckon with the fact that they were not the only sentient, or even Divine-Sparked race on Wisteria, much less Ahren. While Atarlie Chauvinism remained a deep-seated problem, by the end of the age the elves at least recognized that the other races were other peoples and not just unusually clever beasts.

Age of the Summer of Mortals

The Age of the Summer of Mortals has run long. The Great Collapse era of the Republic of Petrenea is contemporary to the year 1586 of the Age of the Summer of Mortals, though in the years to follow, some chronicallers have suggested that the Age had turned and have proposed names for the new age such as the Age of Wisterian Autumn, though officially the age is still that of the summer of mortals.

Unsurprisingly then, for the elves and those who trade with them, most of history is that of the Age of the Summer Of Mortals. Much of the first millenium of the age is considered "stable history", and most conflicts to be reported were entirely internal to the empire or minor diplomatic issues with the Dwarves or the Hearthland Protectorate.

Of note is the beginning of what is known as the Southern Campaign of the Atarlie, which began in 1279 of this age, and marked the expansion of the empire into the south. Fundamentally, this involved episodic wars between the Imperial Legion, the city-state of Xarthekei (at the time part of the Great Republic of Petrenea), and the dwarves of Khaz Elarnzak. The general tide of the war was slowly in the direction of an elvish capture of Xarthekei, save for the disruption caused to the forces of the invading forces by the Great Collapse. The war ended in a treaty in 1588, which saw Xarthekei give up territory north of its position (now defining the southern edge of the Atarlie Frontier), and the empire pay the dwarves a grudge-price for not sharing the spoils of this victory.

Reckoning of the Principalities of Man

Moreso than any of the other races that call Wisteria home, and befitting both their nature and their recorded origins, humanity is the most fractured species on Ahren, and even they themselves admit it. Humankinds origins were poor, and did not lend themselves to self-documentation. Therefore, the early history of humanity had to be largely reconstructed from their own collective recollections.

Bastonian Recknoning

The Annals of Bastonia record two principal ages of history - an Age of Bitter Darkness and the current Age, the Age of the Bastion, and further subdivides the first into the Age of Bitter Darkness proper and a much shorter Age of Rebellion. Both of these periods are reckoned as the years "Before the Walls", a calendar that counts the years down toward the founding of the city of Whiterock in full betrayal of its reconstructed nature. This history is deeply tied to the Bastonian state religion, the Church of the Almighty, and its theology, which explains in some part why the Bastonians are unique among almost all the races of the world (save the city of Baghar) for expecting universal compliance to their religious edicts, especially in their own lands.

Age of Bitter Darkness

The Age of Bitter Darkness is largely considered mythological. It is full of largely empty periods of time and with the accounting of figures that may or may not have existed, including accounts of humans who lived well beyond what is considered to be normal human lifetimes.

The Age begins somewhere in the Primordial Myth with the creation of The Enemy (or his pre-existence) and the arrival of The Enemy in the plane of Ahren, which he explored for a period of time usually accounted as a full milenium, before abducting a hitherto-undocumented race of great apes from across the Eastern Sea into what is now the Shimmering Shore and recreated them "of his service", birthing the earliest of Mankind.

What follows is a long empire (sometimes figured as as much as 4000 years, but this is believed to be inaccurate) under the direct rulership of The Enemy, and throughout which humanity expanded across the Shimmering Shore and up the lands west of the Atlas Mountains. This northward expansion is recorded by the Orcs as being the impetus for the event known as the Kindling.

Age of Rebellion

When the empire of the Enemy was at the enith of its power, at a year long agreed to be counted as 170 Before the Walls, Lukas the Rebellious was born a slave in the city of Baghar, which the Enemy was said to have conquered. This is broadly considered to have been the start of the Age of Rebellion.

Fifty years later, coinciding with the start of The Age of Elvish Springtime, Lukas was leading a rebellion after having served one year in a mine in the area now known as The Bleak. This rebellion began with his slaying of a pit lord named Balgharond, and leading a company of liberated slaves into the wilderness.

In 100 BW (twenty years after the start of his active rebellion), Lukas the Rebellious and his followers have made camp at the site that would become the city of Whiterock, and believe that both distance and the presence of the Orcish Nation between themselves and the Enemy will protect them. At his direction, Heather of High Toor begins construction of the earliest keep at Whiterock. Lukas also experiences his first vision of the Almighty at this time.

A series of calamaties (mostly involving the taking, retaking, and sack of Baghar) then befalls the Enemy, and buys time for the completion of the city of Whiterock. The city is not attacked until the very turning of the age, leading to a long seige and an event known as the Battle of the First Wall, which has extreme religious and political significance. The breaking of the seige on the day of the summer solstice culminated in the apotheosis of several of the gods of the pantheon, the breaking of the Enemy as a political force and his banishment to Hell, and the signal to change the age to the Age of Bastion.

Age of Bastion

The first century of the Age of Bastion is home to two key eras. The first is the rule of San Lukas and San Heather as the first king and queen of the Kingdom of Bastonia, overseeing a period of great expansion and the establishment of many of the settlements in the region. In 67 AB, seeing his imminent death and transference to Heaven, San Lukas bestowed the crown upon his son, King Bastion I. This lead to the start of a 22 year military campaign known as the Southern Expurgation, which saw the destruction of the final factions loyal to the Enemy and lead to the Lordless Lands obtaining that name. During this war, he also oversaw the construction of the Bastion Line.

In AB 89, the Enemy imbued an Archwhale with significant power in an attempt to destroy the city of Coldwater. The beast is defeated by San Marino.

In AB 98, the wizard known as Sylvester the Blue saves the City of Oversea from destruction with the collapse of the cliffs below the Oversea Bastion. This involved a work of Grand Theurgy that lead to his diefication and started his history with the creation of Ars Magica.

Thus begins a period of long stasis marked with internal conflict and generational wars of succession, preventing the Bastonians from having a major impact on international affairs until the start of their Southern Expansion in AB 1643. This conflict largely involved the Orcish Nation, who stood opposed to being pushed off their lands by the xenophobic human colonizers.

Petrenean Reckoning

Being mostly humans (at least at their foundation), the Petrenean peoples of the Shimmering Shore have a shared history with the Bastonians, but a very different interpretation of it. They mark the beginning period of their history as the mythological Age of Infinite Delusion, and place far less importance on the liberational themes of their northron cousins, as they place far less importance on the Enemy.

Age of Infinite Delusion

The Age of Infinite Delusion begins in the ancient and unnumbered past with the first humans being "breathed aware" by the Deciever, a representation of the Enemy, who is granted no more mythological significance than any other devil of Hell, the plane from which he resides. During this age, the "dreams of humanity" were pulled from the Bardo and breathed into life and wakefullness by the Deciever and other powerful devils who wished to abuse them for labour, for at that time Ahren was a new land and unsullied, and Hell is timeless (and therefore desolate).

This situation is presented as much the same as the story of San Lukas, but Lukas himself never comes up, except in some footnotes usually considered to be esoterica. This is in part because the story of how Humanity became free agents in the universe instead of the slaves of powerful entities does not hinge on the interventions of the Almighty in the Petrenean narrative.

It is instead said that when the enemy first lost his city of Baghar, a prince of the city of Petrenea was practicing a form of meditation throughout the Festival of the Turning Wheel, and seeing the astrological signs of the moment in the sky, he came to a fundamental understanding that lead to an event known as Awakening. This event marks the start of the long count of the Age of Enlightenment.

Age of Awakening

With the teachings of the Awakened One to guide them, Petrenea remained free of the influence of the Deciever forever more, and in the years to follow eventually all the shimmering Shore was liberated. Though considered the chief god of the Petrenean Pantheon by outside writers, the Awakened One is rarely attributed as having described himself as divine, though his teachings did lead directly to the rise of two other gods - a patrenean war god named Xia Leng and an orcish hero-god named Xuthagug Three-Eyes.

This forward count continues until at least the Awakened Year 1696 and the Great Collapse precipitated by the opening of the Great Rift. As could be expected with a loss of republican governance there is now some confusion about whether or not a new age is necessary. Those that feel that this is the end of an epoch in the same way that the liberation of mankind was often account the modern year forward from 1696 as the year "post-collapse".

Reckoning of the Lordless Lands

There are at least two nations in the Lordless Lands (a slightly ambiguous frontier land), and the third related nation which share a commonality in that they have their own robust and largely congruent calendars, with the only major point of difference being the timing of annual holidays and disagreement on what year it is. Conveniently, these nations do not place a strong level of importance on the accuracy of the count of the year.

Stellunar Wheel of the Carcolie

While not physically located in the Lordless Lands, the Carcolie and the Confederacy of Sages both share the Secrets of Nature magical school and both have a largely similar map based on the motion of the moons and the Ahrenic Zodiac. It's principal difference is that the festival of the burning wheel is 16 days long instead of 3, leaving the months at 27 days, and that same festival is referred to as the "Festival of Alignment".

Carcolie history begins with the tale of Feno Ilirel (who in their interpretation was a very ancient elf, albeit just an elf) guiding them into the wilderness, and in a sense the mythic age extends up into even living memory for the Carcolie. Their storytelling considers it far more important to remember the broad strokes of what happened than the fact that it happened specifically on the 7th of the 8th of some specific year, and historical events are thereby often moved to "the time of some other figure" around the time of "the nearest relevant festival".

Star-Stations of the Confederacy of Sages

The motions of the stars and planets are everything to the Confederacy of Sages, whose loose theocracy is headed by their most elite druidic circle, the Star-Counters. Confederacy historical records and date-keeping rely heavily on complicated star charts and passive understanding of the stellar ephemera, which has lead to two major impacts.

The first is that, much like the Carcolie, the average person in the Confederacy culture does not have a strong understanding of date-keeping, and that popular history is more akin to storytelling than chronicling as a result. For most purposes it is sufficient to know when a temporally-near event happened relative to the present day.

The second is that the sagely cohort of the society actually has very precise chronicals available to them, albiet as part of an oral history, and that these records are tied very precisely in time to descriptions of relevant stellar phenomena. This has the mixed blessing of making Confederate dates almost impossible to convert to other calendar systems, confounding foreign scholarship. This is a source of endless amusement to the Confederates, who consider such conversions meaningless anyway.

Long Count of the Orcs

Much like the humans of Bastonia and the Shimmering Shore, the orcs acknowledge a period in their history where they were not quite fully orcs, having originally been created during the primordial or mythic ages as the Princes of Beasts, being orcish in form but bestial in intellect. It would not be until the Firekeeper imbued full sentience into the orcs (an even known as the Kindling of the Orcs) in response to the arrival of mankind in their territory that true orcish history begins.

The Princes of Beasts

The orcs occasionally tell tales of events that transpired when they were still the princes of beasts, and the Princes of Beasts appear in historical tales shared by the Confederacy of Sages, though the sages cannot account for a precise date of the transition into the Orcish Long Count. Human histories agree that the change took place during the Age of Bitter Darkness or Age of Infinite Delusion, and the dwarves themselves agree the transition occurred some time in the Age of Tutelage.

These stories are often figurative and highly metaphorical, including such tales as the orc theft of writing from the dwarves (modern linguists argue that other than this assertion there is no similarity between the writing systems of the two languages worthy of mentioning) and a story about the orcs losing their hair by having fed most of it to their god Kodo the Devourer to trick it into going away.

The Long Tales

The Long Tales of the Orcs are their recorded history after kindling, though the record in question takes the form of memories historical stories and tales and is therefore somewhat loosely translatable into the concrete dates and times used by some other annals. This is not to take away from the fact that it is a relatively complete history and reasonably reliable in terms of the events that actually transpired.

These tales include such tales as the Gul Spellspeaker's Conquest of Baghar, Buggug Angel-Slayer's Defeat at Baghar, the Purge of High Toor, the Decay of the Bleak and a host of others. By most accounts the orcs are a proud and ancient nation with a history as rich as any other on Wisteria, though they have been on the back foot now for nearly two millennia. Most orc communities have several story-keepers who memorize these tales and tell them back to the others at frequent intervals, meaning that by all accounts your average Orc is likely more familiar with the history of her people than a peasant-class Bastonian or even a working-class Dwarf.

Ages Past Reckoning

The future never comes. Sages in Wisteria argue over the meaning of the Vergence and whether a Divergence or Second Vergence might occur. In the far depths of time, will the world be unmade? And if it is, will it be made anew?

Visions of an Infinite Future

Perhaps because of the comfort the idea brings to those with long lives, many elves in both the Atarlie Empire and among the Carcolie believe in a steady-state universe. The sun will always shine, the moons will always rise, the tide will do as the tide does and the universe will keep ticking along forever. This view is shared by the dwarves, who much like the elves consider themselves the "children" of their creator gods, blessed with an infinite universe. All three cultures have a view that they are in a position of stewardship for that infinite world, though rarely do the three come close to any kind of agreement on what that actually entails.

Since in the Carcolie case this position came to inform that of the Secrets of Nature, it is a not-uncommon belief among some peoples in the Confederacy of Sages, though the Cervitaur heads of the Star-Counters have a longer view still.

Visions of the End of Time

By contrast, at least one culture on Ahren forsees an upcoming end of time, with argument raging about when that end of time will come. The Church of the Almighty in Bastonia urges that there is a Battle of the Last Wall that matches the Battle of the First Wall, and represents a final historical conflict where the Almighty and the Enemy will each rally a force to their side and attempt to destroy the other, tearing the world asunder in the process.

Visions of the Wheel of Time

Though something of a minority view in their respective cultures, it has become an orthodox interpretation of cosmology among the practitioners of Ars Magica to think of the world as inherently cyclic. After all, they founded the discipline as it is usually understood and worked out the concept of a Vergence, and who's to say if such a thing could happen again or not. The split within the school over this topic is actually fairly clearly defined. Bastonian practitioners tend to argue that instead of a repeated vergence the implication is actually a divergence, or arcane destruction of the world, which suits the religious orthodoxy of their homeland. In contrast many Atarlie practitioners of the same school argue that the Divergence is just semantics, and that new universes are probably being "verged" regularly.

Cyclical periods of the creation and recreation of the universe are also common in the south of Wisteria. Most of the regions of the Shimmering Shore approached magic through the Way of the Elements and the teachings of the Awakened One, both disciplines of which stress impermanence-even-of-nothingness. It logically follows that the universe would HAVE to be destroyed, but fear not, since it also logically follows that it could not help but be re-created.

This view is constantly being argued into the Secrets of Nature school by the Star-Counters as well, and a cyclic view of nature is shared by Orcish Shamanism practitioners, who have direct access to the Bardo and the purported experiences, memories, and accounts given by spirits inhabiting that realm.

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