Timeline since 800 PA

The Age of Elves

 * 800 PA - the races of man are split by a sundering chill that freezes the forests of their home and forces them south; one group migrates west to become the Zami'ites, the other east to be the Mortanites.


 * 780 PA - the humans of the east are taken under the wing of the elves of Axanaira, in Karanoth; the humans of the west by the kraal of Zanor, in Karokarn.


 * 500 PA - the continent of Karanoth, made prosperous by its hardy human underclass, splits from the elven homeland in a 20 year war of independence, founding the kingdom of Axan - this begins the 500-year-rule of the Elvish Kings.


 * 495 PA - with hopes of a better settlement with their newly independent masters dashed, a human uprising is led by Zeto of Stirion; although initially successful at rallying a large mob to her cause, Zeto realises from a number of confrontations with the elves on the field that her followers are simply too poorly-trained and -equipped to overthrow Axan, and instead constructs hundreds of makeshift rafts and casts off with all that will follow her from the southern coast of Karanoth.


 * 300 PA - Zanor leads the Zami'ites on a 30 year pilgrimage into the heart of Zamiel.


 * 275 PA - a large cohort of mostly human travellers split off from Zanor's party and head east, where they encounter the Marazaki river and the lenks that make it their home. They manage to strike a deal with the lenks, fording the river with their assistance and agreeing to escort a cohort of the lenks up the Kremisi river to rumoured wetlands to the south. These human settlers will become the Ininzikzi, while the lenks they escort become the Daian lenks.


 * 270 PA - Kûl Zanor is founded in south Zamiel; human separatists found the Sunset Kingdoms in the far west whilst humans, kraal, lenk natives and migratory torochs freely mingle in the deserts and plains of Zamiel, forming the clans that will inhabit the land to the present day.


 * 220 PA - a group of starved Zami'ite nomads find Lake Odarez and settle the west Myridea valley.


 * 150 PA - the first true colonies are founded on the Zo'an archipelago by an Axan monarchy beginning to flex its naval wings, with an eventual invasion of the homeland in mind.


 * 46 PA - the prophet Azur is born in Cenobek.


 * 16 PA - Azur is convicted for sedition and sentenced to life imprisonment. A grassroots revival of the Sylvalan faith takes place all over Karanoth during his 13 years in jail - this internment is remembered through meetings of the Azurite Church's White Council, which take place every 13 years.


 * 3 PA - a broad human uprising in Axan is sparked by the execution of the prophet Azur.

The Age of Men

 * 0 AL - the last of the Elvish Kings is beheaded to mark a new beginning for humankind - the kingdom of Tor Morta'an is founded, and Azur's wife, Ida, is crowned Queen Ida Azuria, first ruler of men.


 * 26 AL - the Azurite Church is organised by Queen Ida to preserve the teachings of her husband, built on the four pillars of the Inquisition, the Scholarship, the Knights and the Temple. When she dies childless two years later, Beorhtric, a young successor, allegedly a distant relation of Azur's, ascends to the throne, thus beginning the legendary Kamorta line.


 * 51 AL - King Beorhtric "the Handsome" succeeded by son Cyneric.


 * 72 AL - Malther the Frail is crowned High King of the elves of Ullumálos; he will be the last ruler of all elfkind. Plans for a re-conquest of Karanoth are shelved.


 * 98 AL - King Cyneric "the Wise" dies, naming his daughter Fleta heir.


 * 122 AL -  Queen Fleta "the Quick" passes, and the crown goes to her cousin, Harley.


 * 153 AL - King Harley "the Healthy" finally dies, leaving an only daughter, Kestrel.


 * 200 AL - 200 years of human independence are marked by the codification of a new date system, where the week celebrates the prophet and his six successor monarchs (i.e. Azuria, Idaia, Beohria, Cynera, Fletia, Harla, Kestria; with thirteen 7-day weeks in a season, four seasons, plus an extra day between winter and spring, "Springvyst", a celebration of a new year and new life - i.e. when the Goddess is at her most powerful, thus totalling 365 days.


 * 288 AL - as the creeping cold makes the climate of Karanoth steadily less habitable, the First Crusade is decreed by the Azurite Church - tens of thousands of hastily-armed commoners sail for the Fimbrian coastline, massacring and driving back the native torochs and clearing land for what will become Torbeth, the first kingdom on Fimbria. Torbey and Valenor are founded.


 * 294 AL - the initial landings having been an all-round success, a large army of crusaders begins to push south along the Settlers' Coast to stiff resistance from the Kerathi Torochs. Stirion is founded, and Gelry a year later.


 * 295 AL - a great host of crusaders begins to work its way up the river Vandapas, founding settlements deep within the Marowoods. Renelac is settled as a forward base, with Marodell settled two years later.


 * 301 AL - the Church declares a final interpretation of Azur's "Lament for the Godless" sermon at the first meeting of the White Council following the crusade's declaration, and begins to organise significant missionary efforts among the torochi population, spreading the language and faith of the human invaders


 * 360 AL - Khepri Xafon and Kezri Kôgzir join hands in marriage to create the Xafir dynasty, simultaneously founding the first two Charters that have remained in the dynasty's hands ever since, that of water desalination and pumping, and that form the bedrock of Tekitara and its client settlements in the Western Vezdebeli.


 * 424 AL - to keep his new lands united with the old, King Leofrik "the Temperate" orders the codification of the tongue spoken most commonly throughout Tor Morta'an, which had taken letters and phrases from Quenya over the course of the occupation, as "King's Common" in the King Leofrik Dictionary. It will take a couple of centuries for Old Mortaani to properly die out in court circles.


 * 450 AL - the northern territories are settled in Nivena - when the settlers come into contact with the native Ininzikzi, they are warned against proceeding further into the continent, but allowed to establish a number of cities along the southern coast of Nivenbay. The expansionist Mortanites have, for a time, reached the limits of available land to claim and colonise.


 * 476 AL - the great Morta'ani Succession Crisis begins after King Jop Kamorta dies with no legitimate heirs - when a disputed will emerges claiming to legitimise his bastard daughter Meriel, the very ability for Jop to legitimise bastards without Church consent is called into question by the Quadrum, clearly hoping to gain a hold over the most obvious inheritor of the great kingdom. Meriel instead commissions an inquiry into the slow extension of Church authority over the preceding centuries - before it can be published, she is excommunicated, and the Church supports the faction for Jop's infertile wife Carlin's claim on the throne. After a short pitch battle in the streets of Torbey, Meriel and her supporters are driven out and exiled to the penal colony on the Clouded Isles.


 * 477 AL - Queen Carlin "the Chaste" is crowned, but with the interference of the Church still highly controversial and with no legitimate heir secured, the Zo'an isles, starting with Lybaran, fully secede from the kingdom.


 * 478 AL - with the crown's authority over Karanoth and the Stepstone Isles severely limited by the loss of the Zo'an Navy, a not uncommon peasant rebellion on the old continent manages to topple the government there, and one by one these peripheral lands secede from Tor Morta'an. In response to this weakness, Meriel leads a revolt against Carlin supported by factions still loyal to her claim on the throne, much of the prison population of the Clouded Isles and a small but zealous group of followers of her anti-Church religious teachings, the Neo-Sylvalans, or Merielites as they are more commonly known.


 * 479 AL - The Queen's Army, with heavy support from the Knights Valiant and a newly-founded order of Carlin-loyalists, the Knights Luminant, succeed in crushing the Merielite Rebellion, with Meriel herself caught and hanged. Fearful of their beliefs spreading through the populace in peace time, the Inquisition begins to round up the Neo-Sylvalans in order to exile them en mass to the previously sparsely-inhabited Clouded Isles. The city of Sylvia is founded by the exiles, while the Knights establish themselves just across the water in the fortress of Prophet's Gaze in order to quell unrest on the isles. Shortly after returning to Torbey, the supposedly barren Queen Carlin reveals she is pregnant (husband undisclosed), and an end to the Succession Crisis is hailed.

The Age of Petty Lords

 * 480 AL - Carlin dies in childbirth, her baby apparently along with her; after the wave of relief resulting from her revealing her pregnancy, the shock of this news, kept carefully secret for nearly a month after her demise by a panicking Quadrum, unleashes a wave of mutual recriminations, with accusations of poisoning, faked pregnancies, stolen babies and the like mingling with older disputes. Soon, Tor Morta'an has fallen into a multisided civil war, with various lands rallying to local lieges or pretenders to the throne. Towards the end of the year, the kingdom of Clovayn is founded on the southern banks of the Argen.


 * 482 AL - the western cities along the Rend succeed in resolving into the kingdom of Narymet.


 * 485 AL - the city of Falenir establishes almost total control over the Maro Valley, founding the kingdom of Falenor.


 * 486 AL - the remaining warring lands are unified under the city of Torbey, as well as Tuncost which is seized from Clovayn - the kingdom of Torbeth is founded. The Succession Crisis finally ends, a decade after the death of King Jop, with the total destruction of Tor Morta'an.


 * 512 AL - the Kraalic Invasion; the kraal serving under Gidur invade a barely colonised island north-west of Fimbria and construct the grand nest of Bom Gidur; a combined Falenori-Narymetti expeditionary force is annihilated.


 * 523 AL - the kraal of Bom Gidur start to appear in Falenor and Narymar's most northerly reaches, apparently without having sailed from their isle at all; a series of skirmishes occur, in which the two kingdoms, mortally afraid of the insectoids, never fully commit their armies, after which the sparsely settled land around Bom Gidur is more or less recognised as belonging to the northerly kraal - humans henceforth refer to the land, settled by kraal, humans and torochs in roughly equal measure, as Lorelock, which comes to be something of a kingdom in its own right, serving as a buffer state between kraal and humans. The rise of Lorelock is considered a great indignity by the humans of Fimbria.


 * 572 AL - the 500th anniversary of Malther's reign establishes him as the longest-reigning Elven monarch in recorded history. Speculation about his continued health abounds.


 * 600 AL - A new religion of uncertain origins begins to spread across the Razenkathi coast; the Adrexic faith asserts the existence of Adrexi, capricious entities who weave the fates of mortals, and encourages a humble life of pride-less good deeds in its followers so that the might escape the attention of the sky weavers and merge peacefully and seamlessly into the Great Tapestry.


 * 613 AL - Malther's royal alchemical lab develops a powerful new variation on the potions of rejuvenation that have been sustaining him; the new compound is designed to mutate within the body so that the effects don't dull over time. Malther, planning to rule the elves forever and desiring no immortal challengers to his throne, attempts to have his alchemists quietly executed, but the secret to his longevity is leaked, and whispers of jealousy and discontent begin to spread over Ullumálos.


 * 617 AL - the elven palace is mobbed by a crowd of desperate immortality-seekers; fearing for his life, Malther and his court load up the last vials of the immortality serum and prepare to sail for the southern colonies - at the port, however, they are stopped by the local governor, who extorts the king for the vials. Over the next few years, much of the elven homeland unilaterally declares its independence, and hundreds of successor states spring up across the continent, each organising its citizens in a uniquely esoteric manner. The potion, christened Melehyár, or King's Blood, by its thieves, is found to code itself into the glands of living beings and is thus easily reproducible.


 * 630 AL - King Malther, ruling the colony of Neldënórë in exile, finally admits that he has gone blind; soon, blindness is spreading like wildfire amongst the elves of Ullumálos, with all who sipped the Melehyár victim to increasingly poor eyesight over the preceding years. In its purely biological form it seems the compound is flawed; what's more, it passes in the bloodstream to newlyborn elves with one or two Melehyár-cursed parents. Those who did not drink migrate en masse to Neldënórë, and over the next few centuries blindness consumes the whole population of Ullumálos and scribes its mark on their society. The Ullumálosi and the elvish colonists become further estranged - the former known as high elves, the latter exiles or sea elves.


 * 815 AL - heightening tensions between the successor kingdoms drives the Azurite Church to decree a Second Crusade for Nivena in the south, until then only settled in the very north; an initial assault is launched from the northern territories, and the Ininzikzi are soon driven out of north-west Nivena, where the construction of a number of fortresses that stand to this day in Galea is begun.


 * 819 AL - the Marazan lenks of Acanto are massacred at the Battle of Cinderheath with the First Flame, a secret weapon developed and jealously guarded by the Seers (and stolen from the torochs) which allowed the invaders to set the lake water ablaze and prevent the lenks from escaping. The Church begins to transfer its command apparatus to Acanto from which to better direct the crusade.


 * 829 AL - the Ininzikzi finally surrender their subterranean fortresses and their remaining land is taken into the possession of the Church while settlers are mobilised in Fimbria - the remaining clansfolk are forcibly converted to the Sylvalan faith and left to assimilate into colonial settlements.


 * 830 AL - having scouted the crusading armies, the Daian lenks greet the armies arriving on their shores not with weapons but a great feast, both of the fish and insects that constitute the greater part of the lenk diet and local plant products designed to emulate human cookery. The crusaders, though suspicious, are naturally tired after a decade and a half of campaigning and accept; the Daias thus eludes capture and the lenks retain control of their northern shore territories.


 * 833 AL - after a show of force by the Brightspear Wardens of Neldënórë, the crusaders agree not to interfere with the colony's settlements on Nivena's eastern tip, Thirdsister.


 * 834 AL - the crusaders declare victory; Galien, commander of the Knights of the Silver Shield, a commoner's order which distinguished itself in a number of battles with the Ininzikzi of the Calico Hills, is sanctified and given credit for the key victories attained by the Valiant Heart Knights - when the Valiants object, their leaders are arrested, northern holdings seized and the broad body of them excommunicated. It is said that Knight-Captain Malcolin, while resisting arrest, was personally slain in a duel with Captain Galien in which he summoned the blue flames of Letus but was unable to scorch the saint. To commemorate the victory, St. Galien's Temple is founded on Acanto, with the remaining organs of the Church slowly migrating from the Isle of Folly to accompany it.


 * 835 AL - the last Valiant Hearts of north Nivena are starved out of their fortresses, and Saint Galien founds "New Morta'an" in their place - the theocratic republic controlled directly from Acanto that would more lastingly be known as Galea. In the years following, the remaining knights orders and other concerned interests are allocated sections of Nivena in a manner designed to prevent the continent from becoming a threat to the Fimbrian kingdoms; Catria, named for Saint Catrain of the Temple, Lumina for the Knights Luminant, and Mercia for the Merciful Inquisition which took control of the southern land into which the remaining Valiants had fled.


 * 838 AL - negotiations begun during the Patchbay Banquet culminate with the Council of Qeotal, where representatives of the Azurite Church (led by Saint Catrain), the Corda of Neldënórë, the Daian shamans, the kraal of Kûl Zanor, and a few Zami'ite clans agree to effectively unite their disparate faiths in a combined pantheon, the Unified Faith with a common creation story and acknowledgement of all the deities and higher beings celebrated by the individual religions. This is far more a political than a spiritual process, and will lead to relative religious peace on the harshly divided subcontinent of Nivena for the next two-and-a-half centuries; it also allows the Church to brand all who resist the change heretic Malcolites and have them arrested by the Inquisition.

The Age of Disasters

 * 1084 AL - Falenor and Torbeth, having secured a writ of non-aggression from their rivals in Clovayn and Narymar, sail for Lybaran, which they occupy with minimal casualties; this is the beginning of the Century War, which will soon envelop the whole continent of Fimbria and usher in Nivena as the de facto centre of human civilisation.


 * 1086 AL - after an early meeting of the White Council, the abortive Third Crusade is declared - just 7 years later it will be called to an equally hasty close after an abject failure to unite the lands of Fimbria and Nivena behind the objective, with the routing of the Silver Shields by the armies of Zaliti Kôgan.


 * 1096 AL - Zaliti Kôgan unites the southern Zami'ites and, sensing Fimbria's weakness, rides across the Marazaki; the Kingdom of Catria is toppled.


 * 1099 AL - Zami'ite aggression splits the kingdom of Lumina in two; Lumina briefly ceases to exist, Galea and Mercia lose land to the Zaliti's ascendant empire, Zor Zamexi. The king of Mercia strikes a deal with the Crimson Order, the conglomerated remnants of the Valiant Heart Knights, to repel further advances by the invader.


 * 1100 AL - the king of Lumina reaches the southern dukes and rallies them to his flag - Lumina is resurrected and begins to push into its old land; Zaliti finds she has spread herself too thin and signs a hasty peace treaty with the weary queen of Mercia, and with the Azurite Church in exchange for respecting the beliefs of her new subjects; Lumina begrudgingly signs a white peace, unsure of its ability to face the Zamexites alone. The northern cities of Lumina, which the war hasn't reached but have been taxed heavily and are now disconnected from the capital, begin to experience rising unrest.


 * 1106 AL - the Lilac Plague, carried by the Zami'ite invaders, begins to spread over Nivena; by the time it dies out, 19 years from now, it will have killed more than twice as many as the original invasion.


 * 1109 AL - a chance outbreak of the Lilac Plague on Lybaran, believed to have been carried by clergyfolk from the Isle of Folly, spreads through the occupying Torbethi forces at a dizzying pace. The marshal of Lybara, Colonel Farruk Valenky is given the authority to institute a city-wide lockdown, but once the city gates have closed he turns coat, raising the Lybari flag and overpowering loyalist elements in the garrison. The surviving forces on the isle lay siege to the city once again. A reinforcement fleet sailing from Torbeth is turned back by a newly amassed Zo'an navy, which proceeds to lift the siege on Lybara. With the recapture of Lybaran, the temporary Veldan-Luryan alliance is consolidated into the Zo'an League, with the city council of Lybara re-empowered on the isle while Valenky is made the first Grand Admiral of the Mynan Admiralty.


 * 1110 AL - in what initially appears to be a gesture towards deescalation of the conflict, much of the entrapped Torbethi army on Lybaran is permitted to return home - however, Torbeth, whose information from the isle has been spotty at best, takes too few precautions and so the returning troops carry the plague with them. The plague will spread across Fimbria for the next 15 years, leaving a wake of destruction even greater than that in warmer, less-densely-populated Nivena. With news of Torbethi weakness, Clovayn sails across the Argen and lays siege to Tuncost, while Narymet begins to assemble its forces for an attack on the sparsely-defended West Maro.


 * 1112 AL - both Tuncost and Sylvia fall to Clovayni forces in the space of a few months, while Narymet continues to lay siege to Marodell - several notable sea battles sink the vast majority of the remaining Torbethi navy, allowing the Zo'ans to lay a blockade on Falenir. As the mighty kingdom of Torbeth teeters, talks are held in Sylvia between the Zo'an League, Clovayn and Narymet about a possible partition of the Settler's Coast and the Maro Valley.


 * 1113 AL - In Sylvia, the peace talks are broken up as a Merielite uprising unleashes chaos upon the city. When a delegation of the zealots fight their way into the discussion chambers and demand Sylvalian independence, the parties are split - the Zo'ans are supportive, while the Clovayni had been eyeing up the island in order to fully monopolise Argentine trade. With no direct resolution reached by the peace council, the Merielites proclaim the Hierocracy of Sylvalia. Further doubt is sown when a combined Torbethi-Falenori force lifts the siege at Marodell and begins to pursue the Narymetti forces across the border.


 * 1114 AL - the cities of northern Lumina are in disarray, as the local steward, fiercely loyal to the Luminant Crown, who had monopolised power there in the name of the crown following the disconnection from the capital, perishes of the Lilac Plague. Various noble houses vie to fill the power vacuum, while the peasantry and townsmen, who have gained considerable wealth and land as a result of the death of two entire generations of gentry to war and plague, begin to peacefully demonstrate for an end to conflict and conscription, redress of grievances and measures taken to avoid a famine.


 * 1115 AL - a bloody power struggle between the nobles of north Lumina ends in a house closely aligned with the Cloyavni throne seizing power in the capital; they begin to negotiate with both Clovayn and southern Lumina for control of the whole territory whilst instituting internal suppression of Luminan loyalists. A peaceful peasant's march into the capital is suspected of being loyalist-aligned, and the patriarch of the house orders it to be forcefully dispersed. Seasoned soldiers are let loose upon the crowds, charging them with cavalry and cutting down the front ranks with longbow fire. As whispers spread of bodies strewn across the capital's streets, outcry and horror across the cities of northern Lumina ignite a full-on revolution, with turncoat soldiers, craftsmen, peasants and burghers alike uniting to drive out nobles and officials of the new regime; a hastily-organised secular democracy, designed and overseen by the local seer's college and supported by the powerful guilds and merchants of the big cities, manages to seize control. A counterattack by the noble house and the remains of the army falters before it can significantly engage the budding republic due to a lack of support from Clovayn, deeply embroiled with the Century War as it is (and in a show of goodwill towards the Zo'ans following the Sylvian debacle), and before long the whole of north Lumina has been united under the banner of the Free Luminant Republic.


 * 1116 AL - as more ground is lost in Narymar, the panicking Clovaynis attempt to force the hands of the equivocating Zo'ans by launching an invasion of Sylvalia. Due to fierce resistance from the zealous Merielites, the initial landing force, light in order for their mobilisation to escape the attention of the League, is beaten back. The outraged Zo'ans immediately break off the negotiations, which had anyway stalled unproductively for a several years, and offer full military support to the Sylvalians.


 * 1121 AL - the Daian lenks, partially spurred by the Nivenan peace that might cause their siblings of the Marazaki to be seen as the natural next targets of Zamexite aggression, begin a slow process of missionary work, intending to civilise the northern lenks and draw them into the fold.


 * 1122 AL - much of the Narymetti army has managed to shelter inside the numerous walled settlements dotting the Rend, and the exhausted joint Falenori-Torbethi force is ill-equipped for a long campaign of sieges. In Tuncost, an agreement is reached between Clovayn and Torbeth - the Treaty of Tuncost - in which Clovayn and Narymet agree to join the war against the Zo'ans in exchange for Torbethi recognition of Clovayni ownership of Tuncost and most of Fyntunside. The combined forces of the mainland Fimbrian kingdoms begin to prepare for a second invasion of the Zo'an isles, and the war enters an uncomfortable stalemate as both sides race to bolster their naval forces.


 * 1130 AL - with the failure to fully conquer Nivena, the lack of continual opportunities for conquest, and a sense of growing "easternisation" in Zor Zamexi, the Kogan's lands in Zamiel begin to break off or rise up against their conqueror, precipitating a speedy decline in Zaliti's empire.


 * 1143 AL - the Crimson Order continues to dominate the Mercian court; the newly crowned grandson of the king who initially struck the deal with the Order endeavours to cut them out of his affairs decisively, but his orders are intercepted and the knights stage a coup, imprisoning the young king within his own palace. The country's military, recognising the Order as heretics of the Second Crusade, marches on and besieges the capital.


 * 1145 AL - the siege is lifted by Zamexite outriders, Zaliti gambling that a Valiant Heart victory will further weaken the Church's hold on the continent. The Zamexites strike a deal with Captain Harlach, taking the Mercian king and his family into custody to prevent a restoration and striking a bilateral treaty of non-aggression good for 50 years. The kingdom of Valia is founded in Mercia's place, with Harlach named its first king.


 * 1156 AL - having finally established full control over an increasingly centralised Valia, Harlach puts Malcolite theory into practice and wages war against the Daian lenks, seizing their northern holdings and capturing a vast quantity of gold and trade goods.


 * 1157 AL - taking advantage of the disarray of Daian forces following the war with Valia, Tlatoni Nochtica, an early compliant with the missionary program, seizes Daian arms shipments and forcibly expels the southern lenks from the Marazaki.


 * 1160 AL - a major attempt to recapture the Marazan colonies by the Daians is repelled; most Marazan lenks now bow to "Paragon" Nochtica, and those that don't are subjugated shortly after. Nochtica declares the Free States of Northshore.


 * 1166 AL - with the continual stagnation of the Zamexite Empire more or less assuring the rulers of the Candlelight Republic that neither a Luminant reunification nor a second round of Zami'ite conquest is on the horizon, the republic signs the Liberation Compact with the Zo'ans and the Sylvalians and launches a surprise attack on Clovayn's southern coast while the Sylvalians begin a raiding campaign on Ambracca - as the war turns hot again, trade profits decline sharply and the fighting grows ever closer to the Clovayni heartlands, a coalition of nobles and merchants in the trading capital force King Xalvador to accept a white peace from the Zo'ans, thus severing Clovayn's alliance with Narymet as well as the Treaty of Tuncost. While Torbeth elects not to contest the issue of Tuncost for the moment, nevertheless with the strongest naval power in the Fimbrian alliance backing out there is little hope of launching another invasion.


 * 1172 AL - Harlach leads his newly-armed, ever-growing forces against the elves of Thirdsister, who, with their bluff called and the destruction of the lenks, their primary trading partners, in mind, quietly retreat from their outposts.


 * 1177 AL - Zo'an's blockade of Falenir suddenly turns into a full assault on the city, with various recent attacks revealed to have been a concentrated weakening of key naval defences opening the way for a siegebreaker force to stage a landing. Utterly blindsided by the attack, Fimbria fails to defend the city, and with the capital of Falenor fallen, the stream of opinion amongst the citizenry in favour of suing for peace bursts its banks, with riots on the streets of Torbey. Paralysed and fearing an assault directly on the ancient capital, as well as revolt by the lords of Renelac, Queen Astrid turns to the Azurite Church to negotiate a peace while she desperately attempts to maintain the unity of her realms.


 * 1178 AL - the Zo'an Concordat is negotiated by the Azurite Church, bringing a decisive end to the Century War; key ports of the original aggressors, Falenor and Torbeth, are brought into the League, Falenor is released from its personal union with Torbeth, with a Renelian dynasty, House Lavienne, ascending the throne in Renelac, and all other territorial changes over the war are reversed, save for Tuncost which remains in the hands of Clovayn (much to the Quadrum's chagrin) and Sylvalia which retains its independence.


 * 1183 AL - Valia, in high spirits after its successful minor campaigns, invades the southern remnants of Lumina - Queen Medai "of Iron", who had prepared for the eventuality, forces the first Valian army into retreat, but, completely outnumbered, retreats beyond the well-stocked, reinforced walls of her acting capital.


 * 1184 AL - sensing a chance to drive out the Zami'ite Queen once and for all, the Azurite Church brokers the first Red Peace between Harlach and Medai - Valia (which annexes a few border territories historically owned by the Valiant Hearts) and Lumina are incorporated into the "Valiant Empire", a decentralised institution mimicking the structure of the Church itself; Harlach is crowned the first Valiant Emperor, and the combined institution, effectively no longer bound by the strict terms of the treaty of non-aggression brokered between Valia the kingdom and Zor Zamexi, attacks the weakened empire.


 * 1188 AL - the Evil Year; at the start of the year, the temporary work permits, assigned to torochs to enable them to fill key gaps in the economy of Narymet following the devastation of the Century War, expire, and King Ramsey attempts to force these torochs back into their previous menial work; the largest western cities are locked down in a general strike, the king flees the capital, and the army is mobilised and begins marching south to restore order. A senior Seer in the Candlelight Republic publishes a call for reform to the Azurite faith which is interpreted as criticising the Prophet himself and Emperor Harlach, responds by disbanding and looting the Seer Colleges in Empire lands and executing any Seers he can capture en masse. It is a moment of reckoning for the Azurite Church, which chooses to strengthen ties with the Empire by excommunicating the Seers; meanwhile, the grand college in Asterzo, fearing a similar fate to that of its Valian counterparts once order is restored to the kingdom, helps assist the local toroch strikers in capturing the city's armoury, thinking to put themselves in a position of strength from which to negotiate with the king. Panicked by this development, however, Ramsey orders a disastrous assault on the city by all nearby units; when this fails, the torochs of the city declare the short-lived Republic of Asterzo, and begin to advance out of city bounds and consolidate links with other embattled citadels. After a brief stint of total independence, the revolutionaries join Paragon Nochtica's Free States - weapons and supplies begin to flow steadily upstream. By the end of the year, the Seers have been driven out of all the human lands save the Candlelight Republic and, peculiarly, Ambracca, Narymet has completely collapsed, and the Free States are at all-out war with the other human kingdoms of Fimbria. On Springvyst, the armies of Zaliti Kogan recapture prosperous trade hub (and third largest Nivenan city just years prior) Bastion and, seeing that they will lose it again in a matter of days, burn it to the ground. The number 8 becomes indelibly associated with misfortune by Fimbrian peasants.


 * 1189 AL - over the course of a gruelling 5 year war the Zamexites are pushed out of central Lumina, all of occupied Mercia, and confined to Catria and the half of Galea they captured in the initial wave - Harlach dies in 1186 and is succeeded as emperor by his son Hidelith and as king of Valia by his daughter Hesta; when it seems like the Zamexites have found their second wind, securing a few decisive victories in the sweltering summer of 1189, a Valian-engineered coup drives Zaliti from her capital and installs the claimed descendant of the old king of Catria, Fostwick "Flax-Mane", as the ruler of a combined Calicosia, a historical crusader territory Hidelith digs up to avoid having the new addition to the Empire cede its formerly Galean land - the second Red Peace. The dust finally settles on the Valiant Empire of Nivena, which now controls all but the most northerly section of Nivena.


 * 1195 AL - the Free States take the south-easterly reaches of Lorelock and strike a peace treaty whereby the kingdom must release its torochi citizens to migrate to the Free States should they so wish.


 * 1199 AL - the Imperial College of Penitents, more colloquially known as the Guild of Sorcerers, based mostly in confiscated Seer buildings, opens its doors.


 * 1200 AL - the modern day.