Hatchling Cockatrice Slawbug Posted June 17, 2016 Share Posted June 17, 2016 Centuries ago Five Dragons born (exact circumstances unclear) and eventually come to Avernum Olgai tribe begins its most recent Resting 617 or so Valorim first settled Blackcrag Fortress built Darkling Sliths expelled from the Slith homeland under Sss-Thoss 710 Empire discovers Caves of Avernum First Expedition explores Caves and is split up and defeated by Grah-Hoth, Drath, Pyrog, Motrax, slithzerikai, nephilim, and various other monsters 730 By around this time, the Empire's policy of exterminating non-humans had begun and ramped up 775 Empire begins exiling misfits to Avernum 780-781 Micah exiled Micah attempts to organize Avernites Erika, Patrick, and Rone exiled at Garzahd's bidding Aimee, Solberg, and X exiled in turn Tower of Magi built Erika and other mages begin conjuring plants, creating edible mushroom strains and cavewood trees, augmenting the glowing fungus, and transcribing spells Mages assault Grah-Hoth in Akhronath; Erika, Patrick, and Rone seal him in Skarragath First Slith War begins with sliths under Sss-Thoss Kingdom of Avernum founded Castle built Gnass founded by peaceful sliths 790 Micah, long the effective leader of Avernum, officially installed as king Around this time, Hawthorne becomes Emperor and accelerates the rate of exile 805 Patrick leaves the Tower of Magi and founds his own tower; X joins Triad The Anama Church is born on the newly settled Isle of Bigail 813 Krizsan province settled 814 Erika asked to leave the Tower of Magi; Linda joins Triad 816 Linda develops scheme to summon Adze-Haakai Solberg flees to his tower 817 (A1) Linda summons Adze-Haakai Sss-Thsss defeated; end of First Slith War Grah-Hoth destroys Fort Remote Treasures of the First Expedition recovered Pyrog, Drath, and Adze-Haakai slain Grah-Hoth freed, and then slain Emperor Hawthorne assassinated by Erika + adventurers Prazac crowned Empress, while Garzahd controls reins of power 818 Empire ceases exiling anyone and begins preparations for invasion Last Remaining Exit to the surface sealed Mahdavi replaces Linda on the Triad 820 Kothtar built 822 Empire steals three Olgai tribe Crystal Souls with help from Gaddika Empire invades Avernum Empire takes over the Abyss, kills sliths, subdues Khoth and Sulfras, and attacks Motrax Olgai tribe awakens from the Resting Tower of Magi creates Portal 823 (A2) Olgai tribe afflicts Avernum with the Barriers Bon-Ihrno arranges for Avernite adventurers to travel from Formello to Olgai Empire destroys Cotra Barriers removed Adventurers rescue three Crystal Souls, defeating Garzahd at Ornotha Ziggurat Mahdavi + adventurers destroy Empire's mass teleporter before it is operational Adventurers assassinate Garzahd 824 Motrax passes away Athron's brood hatches, including Melanchion 828 Tower of Magi begins work on Surface Portal 831 Upper Avernum founded 832 Rentar-Ihrno sets Plagues loose on Valorim Sulfras, Khoth, and Athron relocate to the surface First party of surface explorers sent out 833 (A3) Second party of surface explorers sent out Tower of Magi disaster occurs; Linda and Mahdavi slain Valorim cleansed of Plagues Erika slain by Rentar-Ihrno Empress Prazac negotiates peace with Avernum 834 Seletine and Kelner replace Mahdavi and Solberg on the Triad Half of Avernum's population begins moving up to settle Krizsan province 838 Second Slith War begins in lower caves 840 (ZKR) Fort Cavalier reinforced 848 King Micah dies Starrus becomes King of Avernum 855 (A4) Time of the Shades: Rentar-Ihrno afflicts Avernum with various monsters Rentar-Ihrno slain 859 Northern Rapids opened up Drake Pillars settled 865 Azure Gallery settled 870 (A5) Darkside Loyalists assassinate Empress Prazac Dorikas slain Manifred Redmark becomes Emperor Pathass dies 875 Rone dies 878 The Blight afflicts Avernum Third Slith War begins 880 (A6) Cotra destroyed (again) The Horde Triad defeated Starrus, Gladwell, and Melanchion grapple for power The level of civilization in Avernum recedes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Slawbug Posted June 17, 2016 Author Share Posted June 17, 2016 Lately I've been thinking about the chronology of events in Avernum. I did a lot of research into this a decade ago, and alongside Aran and Drakey and others we put together the "Timeline of Ermarian" on EE. A lot of the research was good, but we also made copious accommodations for fanon, particularly Relhan canon, and incorporated some unsubstantiated assumptions, like having more than one Hawthorne. Also, the bulk of the work was done before A5 or A6 came out, so they aren't incorporated quite so rigorously. I decided to go back and look at things again, rechallenge old assumptions about the timeline, and see what the best fit is that I could put together. This is the result. All dates between 813 and 834 are fairly precise. These are all dated closely to X1, X2, and X3. Those games (and only those versions of them) provide actual years, the distance between which makes perfect sense. Dates before and after that period are approximate, within a few years. For the later dates, this is quite certain, we just don't have exact years relative to X3. For the earlier dates, there is a little more wiggle room due to occasional inconsistencies in what the games say. I've looked at all the available evidence and tried to pick the dates that offer the best fit, both directly with direct statements made by the game, and indirectly with other factors like lifespan of non-mages. It's gonna take me a sec to finish formatting this, but once it's in place, please share comments and feel free to argue about it as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Slawbug Posted June 17, 2016 Author Share Posted June 17, 2016 Some justification for dates: The First Expedition: There is one reference (in A1 but not E1) to it being "about fifty" years ago, but everything else is consistent with the "over one hundred years ago" claim. 780-781: The mages fought Grah-Hoth off 40 years ago, and Micah's had 40 years of rule, per A1. I've pushed it slightly forward to reconcile modestly with Erika's duration estimate in E3 as well as reduce the problem with Micah's age (below). Also to help with that line, I've suggested that he wasn't formally installed by the Council of Avernum until a bit later. Linda: There is some evidence that she might have been exiled in that period, but other evidence that she wasn't there or is too young. I weigh it slightly favoring the "too young" angle. Erika was apparently in the ToM until relatively recently (per Ethridge in A2), so Patrick presumably left first, as his Tower doesn't seem too recent in X1. It is harder to imagine Linda making the Triad with Erika still around; plus, she's clearly younger than X. Starrus, Micah, and A4: Starrus is in his "early twenties" in A4, and became king at 14. It seems unlikely that he was born by X3 -- that would have been news even for Fort Emergence. There are several compelling reasons to put A4 at the earliest possible date: mainly, there are a lot of random people who show up in both A1 and A4. We know some of the mages extend their lives magically, and maybe offered that to Micah; but Julio, Starcap, Carol Hamer, and the like are not in that category. Additionally, the Mertis inn is celebrating its 40th anniversary in A4. It changes names a few times but ultimately, in A6, invokes the name it bore in A1, the Mertis Arms. The building also stays in roughly the same area. So, it would be preferable to have A4 no more than 40 years later than A1. 855 means: - the Mertis Arms was founded 2 years before A1 - Starrus is born in 834, making him 21 in A4 - If Micah was 18 when he became the leader of Avernum, that puts him at 86 when he died; 71 in A3, 61 in A2, 55 in A1. Not totally implausible given his easy access to powerful magical assistance and the assumption that he had a strong constitution to begin with. - Random NPCs who appear in both A1 and A4 only have to justify 38 years of aging; they could be 25 in A1 and not yet at American retirement age in A4. A5 and A6: Dorikas was a soldier during A2. I'd like to have him a bit younger (and hence A5 a bit earlier) but the portal guy in A5 (forget his name) says he worked on the Tower of Magi Portal as an apprentice about 50 years earlier. That's pretty specific. 870 is likely 48 years after said Portal development. A6 is 20-25 years after A4. There are a few references to the Time of Shades being "about twenty years ago." There's evidence in Gnass that it's exactly 25 years after A4, and evidence in Silvar that suggests 25 or more. 20 would also be hard because A5 is at least 12 years after A4 (to allow time for the Northern Rapids settlement, which surely did not occur while "tentacle monsters" were in the waters), and enough has changed by A6 that it would seem to need at least a few years after A5. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Triumph Posted June 17, 2016 Share Posted June 17, 2016 First Expedition explores Caves and is split up and defeated by Grah-Hoth, Drath, Pyrog, Motrax, slithzerikai, nephilim, and various other monsters I thought the Nephils were native to the surface and didn't appear in the caves until the Empire started using Avernum as a prison? Is it explicitly stated that some helped kill off the First Expedition and / or that some Nephils were native to Avernum? I know the Nephils in X1 have some artifacts of the First Expedition, but I assumed that was from scavenging / taking from cave natives, rather than having acquired them directly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Alorael at Large Posted June 17, 2016 Share Posted June 17, 2016 I think the implication is that nephilim were dumped before the Empire turned to exiling human undesirables. —Alorael, who also thinks that makes sense. And he's pretty sure the nephilim wouldn't end up so deep in Avernite territory if they didn't have a head start. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Slawbug Posted June 17, 2016 Author Share Posted June 17, 2016 I thought the Nephils were native to the surface and didn't appear in the caves until the Empire started using Avernum as a prison? Is it explicitly stated that some helped kill off the First Expedition and / or that some Nephils were native to Avernum? I know the Nephils in X1 have some artifacts of the First Expedition, but I assumed that was from scavenging / taking from cave natives, rather than having acquired them directly. Solberg in X1: "When the sword was broken, the creatures that slew the humans took the pieces as trophies. The Slithzerikai took a piece to their holy shrine, in a swamp far to the south. Another piece was taken by a lich, to an ancient den of undead far to the west... Of the third piece, we know nothing. But some believe the Nepharim took it." It makes sense that nephils might have been first exiled before humans. However, it doesn't make sense that the Empire would have dumped angry, hostile nephils into the caves before exploring them, when they thought the caves might be useful in some way. Perhaps some nephils deliberately went underground to escape from the Empire's genocide campaigns on the surface. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Triumph Posted June 17, 2016 Share Posted June 17, 2016 Right, the problem isn't Nephils getting exiled before humans, but Nephils getting exiled before the First Expedition even took place. "...some believe the Nepharim took it." - does this require that the Nepharim took it FROM the First Expedition? Or could we read it to indicate only that at some later point, after the Empire starting dumping Nephils into the caves, the Nepharim acquired it, presumably seizing it from one of the parties that wiped out the First Expedition? That seems like a preferable reading to one that requires a mysterious Nephilim presence to predate the First Expedition. (Unless, obviously, there is other more explicit evidence of the Nephilim and F.E. interacting?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Slawbug Posted June 17, 2016 Author Share Posted June 17, 2016 I don't think so, but I also don't think there's any explicit evidence that nephilim were never in the caves until the Empire explicitly teleported them there. And the non-human extermination campaign, which probably predates the First Expedition, would give them good reason to consider fleeing underground. I'm not sure why "no nephils" is a preferred reading when there's no evidence either way -- aside from the Demonslayer piece itself, of course -- after all, pretty much every creature seems to have made it to Avernum somewhere Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Triumph Posted June 17, 2016 Share Posted June 17, 2016 We're explicitly told that both humans and nephils were native to the surface, and that both were banished to the caves by the Empire. I know the dragons came down from the surface, but, well, they're dragons, they can do stuff normal folks can't. It seems like a much bigger leap to me to assume some Nephils independently discovered the caves, without the massive resources we know are necessary to construct a teleporter, and voluntarily migrated there, than to just assume some of the Empire-banished Nephils came along later and took a piece of the sword from of Avernum's native menaces. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Slawbug Posted June 17, 2016 Author Share Posted June 17, 2016 Humans did that too: see the Ancient Crypt. Okay, there might have been dark magic involved in that, but remember that there were at least a handful of exits from the cave system that the Empire had to go out of their way to close off, on top of the one that remains in A1. The other problem is that nephils are sort of the bottom of the food chain. What "native menace" that was capable of defeating Karzoth et al., would the nephils be able to capture it from? Aha, there was another reference. Hfass, the captured nephil: "The tomb of a Nephar hero of old, who helped win the first victory against you humans. Hrmmm. In the crypt is a piece of the great blade of a human hero. It is a beautiful sight. I hope to see it again before the giants eat me." That piece of Demonslayer was not in Avernum's hands previous to A1, or Solberg wouldn't be so unsure what happened to it. Presumably, then, it was captured directly from the First Expedition. Triumph 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Triumph Posted June 17, 2016 Share Posted June 17, 2016 Aha, yes, that definitely confirms the Nephils got it firsthand, rather than poaching it from someone else. Interesting. Did every civilization in the world know about Avernum except the Empire? LOL. #conspiracytheory Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rotghroth Rhapsody Thaluikhain Posted June 20, 2016 Share Posted June 20, 2016 So, Valorim was settled some 200+ years before E3, but Kriszan and Bigail weren't until 20ish beforehand? Do we know why they weren't settled beforehand, were there lots of natural monsters in the way between Blackcrag and there? Or were they sending resources to Avernum instead? Also, who was building the human pre-Empire stuff (that circular crypt in Bigail comes to mind)? One also wonders what the Vahnatai thought when they heard about this "Upper Avernum" plan the humans were working on, did they try to get it delayed to have more time for the plagues to work? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Zaego Posted July 6, 2016 Share Posted July 6, 2016 As for who might have been building the human pre-Empire things, I could imagine that there might have been either other humanoid races who have simply disappeared while waging wars and dying of extinction, or (much more likely) that there might have been other human tribes who had wandered off from Aizo before the Empire was properly formed. Say, like a huge frigate that the Empire sent to explore the other continents; but then the ship crashed to the shores of Bigail and the survivors formed a cult to keep themselves sane, and created the circular crypt that you mentioned. Perhaps they, too, disappeared within the twilight between the past and the present, presumably exterminated by monsters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fledgling Fyora tekelidook Posted July 9, 2023 Share Posted July 9, 2023 Hi! Sorry for necroposting, but what is the "ZKR" on year 840? And where does Blades fit on the timeline? Though I guess when it comes to Blades it depends on the scenario? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Slawbug Posted July 9, 2023 Author Share Posted July 9, 2023 ZKR is the Za-Khazi Run, the bundled (and canonical) Blades scenario. It's the only one of the bundled scenarios that has much connection to Avernum or its timeline. For the others (and certainly non-Spiderweb scenarios) I think you're right, it just depends. tekelidook 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curious Artila Magic Master Posted October 30, 2023 Share Posted October 30, 2023 (edited) On 6/17/2016 at 7:13 PM, tout en cherchant said: 780-781 Micah exiled Micah attempts to organize Avernites Erika, Patrick, and Rone exiled at Garzahd's bidding Aimee, Solberg, and X exiled in turn Tower of Magi built Erika and other mages begin conjuring plants, creating edible mushroom strains and cavewood trees, augmenting the glowing fungus, and transcribing spells Mages assault Grah-Hoth in Akhronath; Erika, Patrick, and Rone seal him in Skarragath First Slith War begins with sliths under Sss-Thoss Kingdom of Avernum founded Castle built Gnass founded by peaceful sliths I think too much has happened in just two years. Perhaps Micah was exiled in 777 ("forty years ago") as a teenager or young genius ("a born leader") to finish building the castle by 781. Edited October 30, 2023 by Magic Master Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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