Timeline
1st Age
The First Age began with a world united beneath a single King. There were no nations, competing kingdoms, or separate peoples—only the First Kingdom, its Heirs, and the Wardens appointed to guide them. What followed was the first great breaking of that order. Rebellion separated the Wardens and Heirs from their King, the First Kingdom vanished, and the Rift Scar was left behind. In the struggle that followed, the Wardens seized control of the world they had once been appointed to serve, divided among themselves, and established the rival powers that would shape the ages to come.
| Date Range | Event | 20-Word Summary |
|---|---|---|
| The First Kingdom | The King rules the unified world, preparing His Heirs for dominion while Wardens govern the Eight Domains. | |
| The Rebellion | One Warden, Arzu, persuades the Heirs to rebel against the King, transferring their dominion to the Wardens they then chose to follow. | |
| The Departure | The King departs with His loyal Wardens, seemingly leaving the repentant Heirs behind and the Rift Scar above them. | |
| The Warden Ascendancy | The rebellious Wardens retain the Heirs' dominion, becoming nearly unstoppable rulers while leaving the abandoned Domains to their rule. | |
| The Overthrow of Arzu | Kelek leads the Wardens against Arzu, defeating and exiling the Cobra after his attempt to claim the King's throne for himself. | |
| The Great Division | Kelek's followers establish the Empire while Arzu and his followers establish themselves in the frontier, dividing the surviving Wardens into rival powers. | |
| The Imperial Succession | Imperial Wardens establish the Rite of Succession, allowing challenges beneath the Rift Scar so no immortal Emperor can rule unopposed forever. |
2nd Age
The Second Age was the Age of Wardens. With the King gone and both power and dominion in their hands, the immortal Wardens became the rulers of civilization. Their Domains grew increasingly distinct, shaped by competing ideals and the belief that each could improve upon the world they had stolen. They reshaped the Heirs, created new races, waged wars that transformed continents, and eventually carried their rival civilizations beyond Riftmoor itself. What began as a struggle for the Throne grew across worlds and stars, until Warden civilization reached its height—and their rule came to a sudden end.
| Date Range | Event | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 0–500 | The Warden Nations | Warden Domains develop into eight distinct civilizations, each shaped by competing philosophies, cultures, sigils, and visions for ruling the world. |
| 200–900 | The First Shaping | Wardens begin redesigning life, creating Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, dragons, and later the Virborne, through Reshaping and increasingly sophisticated Bioweaving. |
| 900–1,200 | The Great Siege | The Alliance invades the Empire with Virborne armies, beginning the first great conflict of the Endless Wars, devastating Warden numbers before its invasion is finally broken at Frosthold. |
| 1,200–6,000 | The Endless Wars | The Great Siege permanently divides Warden society, splitting the eight Domains between two leagues, the Alliance and Empire, and locking them into the Endless Wars. |
| 1,200–1,500 | The Gauntlet | With far reduced Warden numbers following the Great Siege, the Gauntlet is instituted by both sides to identify exceptional mortals to support their weakened administrations. |
| 1,200–2,000 | The Four Societies | Four distinct societies become commonplace, each representing a different mortal strategy for surviving and finding purpose beneath Warden rule. |
| 1,300–2,300 | The First Expansion | The Alliance and Empire expand beyond the Vale as their domains race to secure territory, resources, and strategic frontiers across Riftmoor for the Endless Wars. |
| 1,500–2,700 | The Second Shaping | The Endless Wars trigger a global biological arms race, as Wardens create new races both to insulate themselves from their own wars and expand their competing claims to the Throne. |
| 2,500–3,500 | The Terraforming Race | The Wardens advance into space, using Star Arks, opening The Reach as rival Warden leagues terraform, colonize, and divide Riftmoor's solar system. |
| 3,500 | The Battle of Arzad | Arzu's trap shatters an Imperial invasion of Arzad; Zurn, Eleos, and Vord are killed, while the strategic world remained permanently contested. |
| 3,800 | The First Jump | Vah-Yu Wardens discover warp travel by folding space around a fleeing Star Ark, enabling interstellar expansion and stripping distance of its strategic protection within the crowded Reach. |
| 3,800–4,300 | The Interstellar Expansion | The rival leagues rapidly claim neighboring stars, expanding beyond enemy warp range as their opposing expansions shape The Span into its distinctive hourglass. |
| 4,300 | The Span | Interstellar civilization grows to roughly 150 inhabited Warden systems divided between the Empire and Alliance, with about thirty developing into major population centers. |
| 4,300–6,000 | The Height of Warden Civilization | The Span becomes a divided interstellar civilization of terraformed worlds, immense populations, trade, and warfare, with both leagues still contesting the ancient Throne on Riftmoor. |
| 6,000 | The Heir | An extraordinary Keeper gains followers through teachings and cures while resisting the Wardens. He is killed by his own, having never bent the knee to any Warden. |
| 6,000 | The Vanishing | Every Warden mysteriously vanishes, disintegrating into dust as if recalled from reality. Interstellar civilization collapses into chaos, severing the Span's worlds and ending thousands of years of Warden rule. |
3rd Age (4,000 years)
The Third Age began with the Vanishing and the sudden isolation of worlds once held together by the Wardens. Without their immortal rulers, interstellar travel ceased and civilizations were forced to survive independently. Over thousands of years, memories of the old interstellar civilization faded into history, legend, and myth as kingdoms and empires rose across separated worlds. Yet mortal civilization continued to advance. Eventually, neglected sciences caught up with the sophisticated magic inherited from the Wardens, producing Riftech. For the first time since the Vanishing, distant worlds could speak again, beginning the long reunion of civilization among the stars.
| Date Range | Event | 20-Word Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 3A 0 | The Vanishing | The Wardens disappear simultaneously, destroying interstellar infrastructure and leaving the formerly connected worlds of the Span suddenly isolated from one another. |
| 3A 0–500 | Living Memory | Survivors rebuild local societies while long-lived peoples still remember the Wardens, interstellar civilization, and inhabited worlds now unreachable beyond their own. |
| 3A 500–3,000 | The Kingdom Era | Isolated worlds develop independent kingdoms, empires, cultures, wars, and magical traditions as their shared interstellar history gradually fades into legend. |
| 3A 3,000–3,700 | Industrial Magic | Machinery and physical sciences finally catch up with advanced magical knowledge, combining into Riftech and revealing civilization's long-hidden technological potential. |
| 3A 3,700–3,800 | First Contact | Riftech signaling reconnects inhabited moons and neighboring planets, proving that civilizations separated since the Vanishing survived across the ancient Warden worlds. |
| 3A 3,800–4,000 | The Communication Era | Riftech communications cross interstellar distances, reconnecting the Span through information and unleashing diplomacy, espionage, scientific exchange, propaganda, and distant political intervention. |
| 3A 4,000 | The First Mortal Jump | Mortals independently achieve interstellar travel, physically crossing the gulf between stars and ending four millennia of isolation without relying upon Wardens. |
| 3A 4,000 | The Fourth Age Begins | Physical reconnection begins across the old Span as mortal travel restores migration, trade, exploration, diplomacy, and warfare between long-separated civilizations. |
4th Age
The Fourth Age began when mortals finally returned to the stars. Using Riftech, civilizations separated since the Vanishing crossed the interstellar gulf and began physically reuniting the worlds of the old Span. Ancient routes reopened, lost colonies and ruins were rediscovered, and peoples divided by thousands of years encountered one another again. As jump drives improved, interstellar travel became an increasingly ordinary part of civilization, bringing trade, migration, exploration, diplomacy, and war back to the stars. The Span was connected again, but this time it was the heart of a new interstellar civilization built by the Heirs.
| Date Range | Event | 20-Word Summary |
|---|---|---|
| The First Mortal Jump | Mortal Riftech vessels successfully cross between stars, ending the isolation of the Third Age and beginning physical reunification of civilization. | |
| The Reunion | Long-isolated worlds reconnect through travel, rediscovering shared origins while encountering civilizations transformed by four thousand years of independent development. | |
| The Reclamation of the Span | Explorers reopen ancient routes, rediscover lost colonies and Warden ruins, and gradually reconnect the scattered systems of the old Span. | |
| The Riftech Revolution | Rift Cells, jump drives, scanners, engines, and industrial magic mature together, establishing the technological foundations of modern interstellar civilization. | |
| The New Interstellar Order | Trade, migration, diplomacy, warfare, and exploration bind previously isolated worlds into new alliances, nations, corporations, and competing interstellar powers. | |
| The Second Expansion | Civilization expands beyond the restored Span, establishing new colonies and trade routes farther into the galaxy than post-Vanishing mortals had previously reached. | |
| The Modern Era | Interstellar civilization becomes commonplace as Riftech ships connect developed worlds, distant colonies, contested frontiers, and ancient sites throughout explored space. | |
| The Legend of Riftmoor | Riftmoor remains uniquely powerful and historically important, though its King, Wardens, First Kingdom, and true history have largely become disputed legend. |
5th Age
The Fifth Age began with the impossible: the Wardens returned. After thousands of years as legends, they descended upon a civilization built without them—not to reclaim their ancient dominions, but to destroy them. Yet the Heirs were no longer helpless, and for the first time, the Wardens began to bleed.
| Date Range | Event | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| The Return | After thousands of years, every Warden suddenly returns, descending upon the galaxy not to reclaim their kingdoms, but to destroy them. | |
| The Warden War | Mortal armies resist with advanced Riftech, but cities, fleets, and entire worlds fall before overwhelming Warden power. | |
| The Wardens Bleed | Ordinary Heirs begin resisting, wounding, and even killing Wardens, revealing that the ancient balance of dominion has somehow fundamentally changed. | |
| The King's Return | Keepers proclaim the King and loyal Wardens have returned, as mounting evidence suggests the Heirs are finally reclaiming their promised dominion. |
Third Age Technological Stagnation
The Third Age inherited a terribly distorted technological foundation. Second Age advancement had developed around magic, enchantment, and the Wardens, leaving some fields remarkably sophisticated while others had scarcely begun. After the Vanishing, there was little reason to recognize these gaps as problems: civilization appeared to have simply reached its natural limits, while feats such as spaceflight were understood as powers reserved for Wardens rather than technologies mortals might recreate.
Only gradually did scholars realize that their apparent technological ceiling was an illusion. Their civilization had not reached the end of advancement; it had followed an unusual path that had skipped many of its own foundations. Progress required returning to those neglected fields almost from ground zero, rebuilding the missing technological layers until they could finally be combined with the advanced magical knowledge the Heirs already possessed.
| Era | Approx. period | Defining factor | Society & technology | Knowledge of other worlds | Warden legacy | Interworld activity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Living Memory | 0–500 | Long lived people still remember the interstellar civilization and the Wardens. | Civilization reorganizes around whatever peoples, resources and institutions were stranded together. Magic remains the dominant sophisticated technology. | Other inhabited worlds are accepted as historical fact. Some long-lived individuals may personally remember the Second Age. | Historical fact. People remember the Wardens, their rule and their ability to carry mortals between worlds. | Effectively none. Without Wardens, space travel is considered impossible for mortals. Inhabited moons may remain visibly known. |
| Kingdom Era | 500–3,000 | Immediate concerns overwhelm ancient history | The great fantasy age: kingdoms, empires, tribes, swords, wizards, dragons, magical orders, trade and war. Worlds develop independently for thousands of years. | On isolated worlds, ancient accounts gradually become legend, religion or disputed history. Worlds with obviously inhabited moons preserve the truth much better. | Wardens range from accepted ancient rulers to gods, demons, legendary kings or outright mythology. Occult traditions continue claiming contact with them. | Mostly confined to individual worlds. Visible inhabited neighbors may experiment with lights, mirrors, enchanted optics and deliberate signaling. |
| Industrial Magic | 3,000–3,700 | Industrial technology catches up with sophisticated magic | Nonmagical industrial development—precision manufacturing, machinery, chemistry, computation, engineering—merges with centuries of advanced enchanting. Riftech emerges. | Astronomy improves dramatically. Ancient records and claims about other inhabited worlds receive renewed scholarly attention. | Warden ruins increasingly become objects of archaeology and engineering rather than merely legend. Some supposedly impossible stories begin looking technologically plausible. | Planet–moon signaling becomes increasingly sophisticated. Some civilizations can clearly establish that their neighbors are intelligent even before true communication. |
| Communication Era | 3,700–4,000 | The worlds can finally talk | Half-magical Riftech radio and related communications make reliable long-distance information exchange possible. Research accelerates explosively as isolated civilizations begin combining discoveries. | Moon → planet → system → stars. Extraterrestrial civilization changes from ancient legend to an observable, conversational reality. | Huge portions of Second Age history are vindicated. The Wardens increasingly become accepted as historical again, although enormous arguments remain about what they actually were. | Moons reconnect first, followed by other inhabited planets in the same system, then nearby stars. Diplomacy, espionage, propaganda, scientific exchange and proxy involvement explode. |
| First Spaceflight / Fourth Age | 0 | Mortals physically cross the interstellar gulf | Riftech finally makes independent mortal interstellar travel possible. | Other civilizations are no longer merely voices from unreachable worlds. | Mortals demonstrate that traveling the stars was never inherently restricted to Wardens. | Physical reconnection begins. Trade, migration, warfare, diplomacy and exploration rapidly transform the old Warden-settled region. |
The Third Age
The Third Age began with the sudden isolation of the worlds once connected by the Wardens. For roughly the first five centuries, the old interstellar civilization remained within living memory, particularly among long-lived peoples, and the existence of other inhabited worlds was accepted as historical fact. Yet without the Wardens, travel between those worlds was effectively impossible. Civilizations reorganized around whatever peoples, resources, and institutions had been stranded together, while inhabited moons and other visible neighbors sometimes remained tantalizing reminders of the wider civilization that had been lost.
Over the following two and a half millennia, immediate concerns increasingly displaced ancient history. Kingdoms, empires, tribes, magical orders, trade networks, and wars developed independently across isolated worlds. Knowledge of the Second Age faded unevenly into history, legend, religion, and myth, while worlds with visibly inhabited moons generally preserved a clearer understanding of their past. The Wardens themselves were remembered variously as ancient rulers, gods, monsters, legendary kings, or inventions, even as some occult traditions continued to claim contact with them.
Around 3,000 years after the Vanishing, a period of Industrial Magic began as developing machinery and physical sciences finally intersected with the sophisticated magical traditions inherited from the Second Age. Riftech emerged from this combination, astronomy improved dramatically, and old accounts of other worlds and impossible Warden accomplishments received renewed scrutiny. Increasingly sophisticated signaling allowed some neighboring worlds and moons to establish one another's intelligence long before they could physically meet.
By roughly 3,700 years after the Vanishing, reliable Riftech communication began reconnecting civilization. Moons spoke with their planets, inhabited worlds within the same systems followed, and eventually voices crossed the distances between stars. The consequences were enormous: isolated civilizations suddenly exchanged thousands of years of independent discoveries while diplomacy, espionage, propaganda, scientific cooperation, and interference in distant conflicts exploded. Much of the supposedly legendary Second Age was rapidly vindicated.
Around 4,000 years after the Vanishing, Riftech finally allowed mortals to cross the interstellar gulf themselves. The first successful independent interstellar voyages ended the Third Age and began the Fourth Age, transforming distant voices into reachable peoples and beginning the physical reconnection of the worlds once joined by the Wardens.
