The First Age
The Age of First Breath - The Paradise of Hwain - The First Sunrise - The Age of the Deep Sea - The Great Winter
Little is said of this age outside of myth, but most cultures around the world have legends of an era before a habitable world. A time of great forces that would come to shape the world to be, towering titans that would create great pockets of life and send them crashing back down into the abyss or the waves.
According to The Veriglas, first there was Hwain, god of magic, who in this era crafted the other gods. While many cultures depict this time as chaotic and destructive, to The Veriglas this era was the first paradise under the perfect order imagined by Hwain.
The Second Age
The Age of Ancients - The Age of Dragons - The Primordial Spring
Still spoken of mostly in myth, stories now begin to include mortals alongside Gods. Pantheons often speak of the children of the first gods during this time. Dragons and titans still dominate much of the earth and mortals live in fear of great forces beyond their control. Towards the end of the second age though mortals begin acquiring more agency over their world.
The Veriglas speaks of this era as the early strife within the pantheon of the gods, as Hwain’s children begin to undermine his rightful leadership. The era is commonly understood to end with the rise of The Aulva, the first mortals to gain true agency in the world.
The Third Age
The Age of the Aulva - The Age of the Elves - The Age of Enlightenment
The Aulva, an ancient mysterious civilization commonly thought to be the first mortal empire, take charge of the great continent and beyond. The Aulva are often thought to by a hypothetical extinct race more commonly referred to as ‘elves’. According to The Veriglas, The first Elves were angels or demigods sent down by the god Hwain himself to reshape the world in the perfect image of the heavens. This era was thought to be full of magic, for it was presided over by the god of magic Hwain and his chosen people. Aton is commonly thought to have been the first city, out from which the great Aulvan empire greatly expanded. This era is still strongly associated with dragons, with this civilization at times being cast in legend as a great nation of dragon slayers, at other times as dragon friends. It is a common belief that the elves ruled over the other species of this time, taking care of them and inviting them into their paradise. Rarely are the Aulva spoken of as tyrannical, though such stories exist as well.
The Fourth Age
The Age of Kings - The Age of Nobility - The Age of War
After what seemed like an eternity of paradise, the Aulva began to disappear from the world, retreating to their hidden groves and caves. The other mortals were left more and more to their own devices in the paradise the Aulva built. According to The Veriglas the first human kings were anointed by the elves themselves, and for a while the paradise was maintained. But after a time disagreements and splits began. For much of the fourth age the great unifying civilization of the Aulva was split into the twin empires of Cornagt and Xwageen, who both claimed to be the true peoples chosen by the Aulva. Due to certain famous works of literature that have been widely propagated for several centuries, Cornagt is often portrayed as the true successor and Xwageen as the villains, though actual historical evidence is more convoluted. There are tales from this era of great heroes gaining access to the hidden groves and speaking and gaining advice from the Aulva, who are rarely portrayed as showing any interest in one empire over the other.
Towards the end of the fourth age, Xwageen and Cornagt splintered too into smaller warring bands. This vanity and division is often seen as the harbinger of the calamities to come.
The Fifth Age
The Age of Calamity - The Dark Age
The Age of Calamity is said to begin with the collapse of Cornagt, as the gates of the royal palace fall at the hands of starving peasants. Truly, Cornagt had long ceased to be a unified nation. The empire was one in name only, with its territories divided by the children of its last great king. For many years crops across the whole of The Old World had begun to wither. A mass starvation began and the great empires that spanned the continent collapsed in a matter of years. Some nobles still clung to the last vestiges of their kingdoms, praying for salvation, but only more calamities would come. The mysterious Horned Legion, so named for the great antlers their leaders wore on their helms, swept from Aton across the land laying siege to the palaces of any cities that yet remained and driving all to the woods and seas. The Horned Legion is said to have been led primarily by ogers, who to this day bear the stereotype as ill omens and destroyers of civilization. Given where they started, it is believed that The Horned Legion slew the Aulva, and those who believe in the legends of the elves mostly believe this was their final end.
The Fifth Age is remembered as an age of famine and strife, and little is written about it as few inhabited cities or wrote things down. What legends remain of this era tell of horrible tragedies and great heroes. Of legendary warriors such as the orc Zoggir who slew a true dragon like the Aulva of old to steal its magic and save his people. The nobles that do survive and maintain any portion of their wealth immigrated to the coasts of The Old World and The Hellas Isles, and it is from them who the most reliable writings of this era remain. Towards the end of The Fifth Age begins a time of longing for the old Aulvan empire, and the concept of the great kingdom of Atnia as the birthright of any noble who can claim it begins to surface.
The Sixth Age
The Age of Magic
Little is more truly known about the sixth age than the fifth, and stories of it are shrouded in often doubted legends of great feats of heroism and magic. It was a wild and chaotic time full of possibilities, where the veil between dream and reality was thin.
The Veriglas characterizes this old magic as witchcraft and heresy, claiming it was smote down by the very gods themselves at the end of this age, but there is little evidence to this effect.
Many other strange legends lurk in the popular memory of this area. Some say that during this time the world was once conquered by a great goblin wizard whose power rivaled the Aulva themselves. Others speak of a secret order set upon returning the Aulva from the dead. Still others speak of the birth of new gods and the deaths of the old. The Veriglas sees much of this as folktales at best and heresy at worst.
The Seventh Age
The Age of Mortals
Following the sixth age, magic becomes a rarity and is often persecuted where it is found. This is the first age of human prominence. Though they had taken part in empires of the past, rarely were they the rulers. But following the age of magic human hunters of mages first develop a supremacy of might, and then slowly the kingdoms in The Old World and Hellas come to be dominated by human lords. This age is defined by mortal might and pure economics, with magic and dragons consigned for most to the realm of legend.
It is during this time that the familiar nations of the eighth age begin to form. Jespark lays claim to much of the south of The Old World, though in practice it controls very little of its official territory. Mnem had been a force in the world since the fifth age, but it is during this era that it becomes a true force of trade in concert with The Old World Isles and Hellas. Lekvia is settled at this time by exiled Jespark nobles, and The Twilight Isle by ‘rulers’ of Atnia who had given up on that impossible task. It is during this era that Gaius Tetlok writes Discourses on the Scattering of Peoples and shortly after these writings become central to the doctrines of The Veriglas.
The Eighth Age
^a57220 The Modern Age - The Age of the Archmages - The Age of The Aulvalín
The mundane age of mortals came to a sudden halt with the successful venture of the first archmages into the ruins at Aton and the rapid modernization the world underwent thereafter. Few archmages actually ruled nations, but any nation where they resided grew rapidly in power and advanced in magical technology in leaps and bounds. Oana returned to her home of Mnem to further study Aulvan Magic, where she was quickly chosen as its queen as it expanded rapidly from a city state into a fully fledged nation. Augusta returned to The Hellas Isles with divination magic which she used to subdue piracy and strife in her homeland which became a beacon of trade and cultural acceptance. Sorvald returned to Lekvia where he became court physician and the nation prospered with the help of his alchemy. Pyrus remained in Atnia to support the burgeoning Bevan Dynasty and develop his theories of magical law. Nyka left this world entirely to develop Planar Magic and travel The Planes. Cyrvo, a priest of The Veriglas who had helped to fund the expedition developped Divine Magic and revolutionize the church in their homeland of Mykeldor. Some years later, Sorvald’s student Lutekai altered his theories to craft Major Alchemy with which he could harness the forces of nature to his command. He used this power as a relatively unknown sun of The Emperor of Jespark to win the succession war and modernize the formerly backwards nation into the most technologically advanced in the world in a matter of years.
The Ninth Age
The Second Calamity - The Age of Demons - The End of the World
The Eighth Age came to an end in a flash with magical lights in the sky and a dark shrouded army flying to the gates of heaven which appeared over the stars. The Apocalypse culminated in a great flash of light, and suddenly the world was safe no more. The gods could not be contacted, and monsters and demons roamed the land. What survivors there were hid where they could and barely contacted each other for a great many years. Many thought the end times were upon us. Many still do, though the roads are perhaps a little safer than they were when it all began. Perhaps there will be comfort again, perhaps it is a lull before a still greater storm that will spell the world’s end.
The Tenth Age
The Age of the Forsaken - The Age of Freedom
Many say we still live in the ninth age, but The Forsaken say that has passed. The great destruction of the old world is over and we may now step out of our houses and see that the storm has passed. Gods, kings, and archmages have fallen one and all. We are forsaken by all our old rulers, and we should rejoice. For what did religion and kings ever grant us but chains? True freedom is here, and we need only grasp it.