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A short overview of History, focused upon the Eastern region of the Baris Continent of Huade:
“bp” stands for “before present”. All “bp” dates are approximate and rounded off. On the actual calendar used by Orestania, it is currently the 3261st Year of the Imperial Ostish Calendar (which measures from the legendary foundation of the old city of Oste.)
Primordial Age – Era of the Archaic (aka Primordial) Gods. More than fifteen thousand years before present.
The Great Ice Age – Begins 15000 bp. Actions by the Archaic Gods cause gradual reduction of the global temperature of the planet. After a millenium, nearly the entirety of all land and oceans became covered in glaciation and humanity nearly perishes.
Elder Age – Begins 14000 bp.
14000 bp: Heavenly Conquest. Because the Archaic Gods have tormented the humans of Huade and used them as their toys, and neglected their peril in the Great Ice Age, Heaven sends a team of lower-realm immortals led by a mid-realm immortal (Atian name ‘Oranos’) to remove and replace them in the tutelary deity role over Huade.
The new tutelary deities temporarily shelter the surviving humans and other land creatures in time-dilated dimensional pockets while the immortal engineer known in Ostish as Gaia creates massive systems of caverns, as much as a mile below the surface, containing entire working ecosystems, for them to safely live for a longer term.
Oranos enlists a group of Fundamental Realm human-clade immortals (of the particular strain known as Celestial Maidens), who agree to allow him to store their immortal bodies so they can inhabit the non-mortal Huadean bodies created in order to support them in the Mortal Realm. Their job will be to restore the ruined planet’s ecology and help the creatures of Huade survive.
14000-13000 bp: Subterranean Era. During this time, the Elders and their Servants manage the caverns while working to restore the ecology of Huade.
13000-13500 bp: Great Spring. The land returns to habitability and the mortals gradually recolonize it.
13500-12000 bp: High Elder Age – A high-tech high-magic civilization led by the Elders and Servants spreads across the Main Continent (in Atian, Baris Continent). Many mortals and their genetically modified children, desiring to live their own lives, set out into the wilderness to build their own settlements.
12000 bp onward, the High Elder civilization becomes balkanized into many successor states of mortal leadership, with the Elders and Servants continuing to guide as much as possible, but allowing the mortals to rule themselves.
10200 bp: Silver Empire forms, defying the authority of the Servants.
10000 bp: Demonic War destroys the Silver Empire and pushes the Elders to extinction.
10000-7500 bp: Ancient Fairy Age. With the guidance and assistance of the early generations of fairies, humans manage to cast off the rule of the demons and rebuild their lives, but go on to live largely pastoral and nomadic existences. Various small kingdoms rise and fall, with only the fairies and their kindred maintaining any continuing record.
7500 bp: First appearance of the Demon King. Foundation of the First Demonic Empire crushes what little mortal civilization exists in the effort to organize them into herds of livestock.
7550 bp: An alliance of Elven tribes destroys the first Demon King after several decades, leading to the Elven Ascendance.
7500-6500 bp: Elven Golden Age. Elves, dwarves, centaurs and other mortal (non-human) species organize a loose global civilization
6500-4000 bp: Heroic Age. With Elven leadership on one side and demonic leadership on the other, and humans split between them, repeated rises of demon kings, using various gambits to take over kingdoms and empires as they rise and fall, are defeated by repeated appearances of heroes.
4000 bp: Rise of Demon King Orgoth. The last hero of the Heroic Age, the forgotten hero Mizky (actually 深透, Mizuki, a late Showa Era Japanese girl) was summoned to go against him and lost, falling to Orgoth’s invention, the spirit sword curse, while wielding the Holy Sword Durandal.
4000-3200 bp: Demonic Age. Supremacy of the demons across most of the inhabited world, although their rule was never total, during the last eight centuries of the Heroic Age. Across the centuries, more heroes repeatedly pushed the Demonic Empire back, although their gains were always lost once more to the demons.
3700-3200 bp: Northern Kingdoms period. The final five hundred years of the Demonic Age begin with the founding of the ancient Hamagaaran kingdom of Cara Eleta, the origin of all the northern kingdoms, including Thuriben, Bray and Raga, the ancestral land of the Regaritan Empire.
3200 bp to present: Human Age. measured from the foundation of the City of Oste, the first great city in the central region.
3200 bp: A demigod hero (the son of Oranos and thus Oberon’s younger brother) defeats Orgoth and brings the Demonic Empire to an end at last. He marries the princess of Oste and becomes king.
3000-1800 bp: Imperial Era
3000 bp: Ostish, Dorian and Regaritan Empires all rise.
2000 years bp: apex of Imperial Era
1800-1500 bp: Downfall Era. A rise of the Demon King is thwarted, but the cost effectively brings the Ostish Empire to an end. The Dorian kingdom balkanizes and the Regaritan Empire staggers on in a much reduced form.
1500 bp: Modern Era begins. Rise of the Kingdom of Orestania. Regaritan Empire rebuilds, Dorian successor states rebuild, and eventually Orestania conquers most of the East.
