timeline
title Simple Timeline
section The Time Before the Cataclysm (T.B.C.)
Year ? -> ~1400 T.B.C. : The Old World
Year ~1400 T.B.C. -> 1430 T.B.C. : The Cataclysm
section The Years of The Book (Y.B.)
Year 1430 T.B.C. -> 1450 T.B.C / 0 Y.B. : A New World
Year 0 Y.B. -> 223 Y.B. : The Present
The Old World
Year ? → ~1400 T.B.C. (Time Before The Cataclysm)
Little knowledge remains of the world that existed before The Cataclysm. What few historical texts made it through the chaos are often contradictory, and firsthand accounts from survivors are exceedingly rare.
The Land
Most texts agree that the world didn’t use to have giant ravines with flowing lava torn throughout the landscape. There also used to be a daylight cycle and the entire world was more or less habitable. Besides that, the writings agree on little. It has been said with reasonable certainty that there used to be oceans above ground where people could sail around. It is also clear that the ground itself has gone through a large transformation, geological features that existed in the past having been changed or torn apart by the forming of the ravines.
The Gods
Back in the old world, there were different deities, that much is certain. However, thair names have quite literally been torn from history. Texts often reference gods and the practice of worship, but if a name or title would be mentioned, the writing is gone. There are references to so many rituals and different sects for worshipping gods, that it seems likely there used to be a larger established pantheon than the current one.
The People
More is known about how people inhabited the world. With the whole world free for their taking, people had spread out around the globe. They organized themselves in countries with hundreds of thousands of people living in them as opposed to the much smaller nations of the modern world.
There are also references to other races than the ones that currently inhabit the world. Humans, dwarves, goblins and others still survive, but there used to be races like elves and dragonborn too. Supposedly, some of these could live for close to a millennia whereas lifespans now rarely push past eighty years for races that feel the toll of time.
The Cataclysm
*Year ~1400 T.B.C. → 1430 T.B.C
The End of the World
From shards of the heavens falling down, to the earth opening with divine wrath. The tales of what transpired during The Cataclysm are many. A few records of what happened on a larger scale have been salvaged, but more common are personal stories of the horrors Tessam’s people had to endure. Diary entries that have been salvaged, or letters that were never sent, some that arrived too late. The trouble for historians is that these accounts are terribly mismatched. The subjective horror of the world coming apart around oneself has made it impossible to present a unified story of the events. However, that doesn’t mean there haven’t been attempts.
Light of the Heavens
There is some uncertainty as to when The Cataclysm actually started. Some historians refer to it as a single catastrophic sequence of events spanning little more than a year. Others prefer to see it as a large and inevitable buildup lasting over three decades before all the chaos was unleashed.
Scholars who believe in the latter view, mostly agree that the first signs were related to the gods. For some reason, they abruptly left the world and never returned. Abandoned, their followers ran wild trying to figure out what had happened which made sure none could fail to notice the events that followed.
Several years after this state of unrest began, the gods made it known that they weren’t gone quite yet. Some form of celestial event caused the world to be suffused by an all-encompassing light. This is also the point where people started dying. Where there were references to them before the cataclysm, most records of races such as elves, gnomes and dwarves disappear at this time. Populations the size of entire countries fell to a wasting sickness that seemlingly only affected some races.
It is presumed that in the years following this heavenly light, the world adapted to its new reality. Presumably, this is where now-common inventions like the mechanical watches became commonly used, the sun no longer providing a natural synchronization of time. There are also records of large societal changes in this time. With the clergy losing its power, theocratic systems quickly started crumbling and many were absorbed by other nations.
Fury of the Earth
Around twenty years after the heavenly light started shining, the “real” Cataclysm started. Where it went from a light and a sickness to worldwide destruction. It was not a sudden change. Rather, in some places, the ground started cracking. Over the course of a few weeks, larger and larger cracks started forming around the world. There are reports of earthquakes happening in various locations, though none of them seemed to have caused more damage than a few broken items.
The real beginning of the end was when the volcano around somewhere called “Witchclaw” erupted. Naturally, nothing is left of the area around it, and no records tell of any volcano around that area earlier. It is therefore assumed that it would have been building along with the rupturing earth for these first few weeks. The eruption itself was large enough to be noticed all around the world, however. The following cover of ash and smoke, along with earthquake of a magnitude hitherto unseen, rang in the true death of the old world.
The End of Civilization
The eruption brought about months withou sunshine, the ground slowly breaking apart beneath the feet of people around the world. At first, it was going at a slow pace. But at some point, a breaking point was reached and the world snapped open. Ravines of magma tore open, earthquakes brought cities and mountains low. The oceans retreated beneath the earth as the world broke without the gods there to hold it together.
In the aftermath, most people were gone. Those who hadn’t died out under the light, mostly perished in the natural disasters following the “Witchclaw eruption”. From this point onwards, all records known are personal records of various horrors only a few survived. No countries survived, and society as a whole fell apart.
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A New World
Year 1430 T.B.C. → 1450 T.B.C / 0 Y.B. (Year of the Book)
The Time of Chaos
With the world thrown into chaos, many attempts were made to unify the survivors. Most of them only led to more pain and suffering, though they all laid the groundwork for the world to come.
Chaos Reigns
In the beginning, there was no order. No-one to unite the disparate collections of survivors and strays. There were no gods to pray to for guidance, no queens to lock shields around. But there were people wishing for the power to make something of themselves. Petty little self-made lords who now saw an opportunity to establish themselves in this new world.
Those lords would hold everyone back for years to come. Many of them had detailed records written down about whatever little victories they had before some bigger lord defeated their mercenary bands and took over. These writings also detail the first sightings of wild fey on Tessam. Lords would make bargains for more power. Though those deals rarely brought them fortune in the end, it slowly started bringing back magic to the world. Of course, magic just created more opportunities for chaos and misery.
Stories from this time are overflowing with examples of how powerful mages used to be. Certainly, some if it is bound to be exaggeration, but there are too many tales for it to be entirely untrue. Seemingly, magic in the world was more powerful before the gods returned. A single druid could destroy a mountain, a witch enchant an entire town.
From the Ashes
It was at the height of this madness, divinity returned to the world. The first was Eletha. Tales from across Tessam explain how he tore across the world in a murderous rampage. His shadowed form leaving scars deeper than the magmatic ravines of The Cataclysm. Many of the greatest mages of the time tried stopping him, but the mortal races were still divided. And divided they fell before the icy blades of their new god.
It wasn’t until his counterparts, Caior and Golgaroth ascended to their positions as Lunar Gods that he was chained to the moon where he now resides. Shortly after, the beginnings of the Khazanti religion started forming. As worship started spreading, so did the mortals’ hunger for ascending alongside these powerful beings. Many believe this is where the Planetary Gods came from. Mortal beings who harnessed the great magic of this tumultuous time to elevate themselves to deities in their own right.
These same scholars believe that the Gods of Magic arose as a reaction to this. The weave responding to the almost tearing apart by creating someone to rule over it. Not everyone agrees that this is what happened, but the first records of the gods appear here. First Qiala, then Faiach and Kôr in quick succession. Never again would mortals wield the power to sunder the earth and create new life.
Civilization Rises
Instead, the remaining peoples of Tessam were bound to their new pantheon. Slowly, the herd of lords thinned out enough that they could start meeting and discussing how to hold on to the power they had amassed. Together they brokered trade agreements and created new nations, dividing the liveable land between themselves. Slowly and brutally, settlements were brought under their rule. Though distances were large, and many were mostly isolated from the surrounding world, the countries created a unified world of peace. Civilization was reborn.
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The Present
Year 0 Y.B. → 223 Y.B.
Rebuilding the World
Having organized into the new nations, the world begins to move forwards. Life begins to improve and stabilize, while people find the time to start looking both ahead and behind.
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