Timeline
History is incongruous and full of holes. This document will attempt to address it, but there are no guarantees as to it's clarity. In this timeline, history is broken into eras, or Ages, each of which has it's own sub-page.
Recorded History
This table represents all of recorded history within the era where the Course Books take place.
Era | Length |
The Mage Wars | 3,800 Years |
Ages of the Alliance | 5,908 Years |
Age of the Dragon | 50 Years |
Long Night | 3,115 Years |
New Day | ??? |
Pre-History
There is, of course, considerably more to history than is recorded. These are described in detail in the book Where Ancients Dare Not Tread, by Hunter Jusenkyou(Note: this book does not actually exist, its a book within a book written by a character in a book). Several eras, some more myth than fact, are known. This includes Antiquity, the era of the Progenitors, the Mythical Age(talk about more myth!), and of course the pesky Age of Darkness.
The length and exact order of these eras are not widely agreed upon. Up until the late Sixth Age, Antiquity was held to be the dawn of time and to have lasted only a few millennia at the absolute most. This all changed when Jason Bur'I published a paper called Where Ancients Dare Not Tread, which eventually became a book published in Hunter Jusenkyou's name, and revised throughout the Age of the Dragon. The lengths and order are not accepted by all scholars, and many disagree with the published statements of the Gudersnipe Foundation, known as "Doctrine". While the Foundation is always open to revising it's doctrine, they were somewhat miffed at Hunter and Jason's publication.
This table describes Pre-History according to the eras and the accepted length of each according to the different historians involved:
Key:
- H&J = Hunter and Jason
- DOC = Foundation Doctrine
- CP = Common Perception, as held before the publication of H&J's book
- DNH = Did Not Happen, according to Common Perception
- ~ = "about"
Era | H&J | DOC | CP |
Era of the Progenitors | ~7,500 | 10,000 | DNH |
Mythical Age | 12,000 | 10,000 | DNH |
Greater Antiquity | 25 or 35,000 | See Doctrine | DNH |
Classic Antiquity | 10,000 | 10,000 | ~3,000(inc Greater) |
Age of Darkness | ~2,000 | 2,000 | ~1,500-2,800 |
The only era not in dispute is the Age of Darkness, which everyone accepts happened , but no one will agree on the length of.
Foundation Doctrine Interpretations
While not widely published before Jason's book, the Foundation did in fact acknowledge the existence of all of the aforementioned eras, but had severely wildly different interpretations of them.
- In one version, Classic Antiquity and Greater Antiquity happened concurrently, and together lasted only 25,000 years(making Classic 10,000 and Greater 15,000).
- Another version of events places the Progenitors and the Myth era within Greater Antiquity, but seperates classic. In this version