History

"If the Gods are omnipotent, or nearly, it stands to reason they are permitted to make mistakes."

- Proverb attributable to Camus Inakas

This article is the target of major revisions.

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.

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.

These are the major ages of the time before reckoning:

• 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 unknown forces, perhaps even by Anghara itself.

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.

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.

In rough order, these are the key events that mark the beginning of reckoning in different cultures and the transition between ages:

• Magnus Allfather releases the Firstborn Dwarves along with 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, 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 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 Heather of Whiterock. This begins year 0 of the Age of Rebellion's forward count in the Annals of Bastonia, as that same night 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 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, 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 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 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.
• 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

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 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.

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.