Remember the Gygax 75 Challenge?
My article queue has three uncompleted articles in the series, and I’m trying to clear the queue … but writing a dungeon is hard. So I’m going to flashforward to “Week” 5 and start detailing the history of this proposed campaign world, mostly from a magical perspective.
Before Human History
Years: at least 3000 years before the Era of Canon (B.E.C.)
Rising: the gods, the Antediluvian Empire
The Gods
In the beginning were the gods. Which gods is a matter of some debate.
The Canonists asserts that only one god, whom they call the Most High, created the cosmos, and all other gods are deceving lesser spirits or outright fabrications. The Druids teach that the Earth is a Goddess and the Sky is a God, and from their union sprang the other gods, the Fey, and the first mortals. The Magi believe that a creator god made the heavens and the earth and appointed the gods to watch over it, a duty which only the gods of Law perform. Magic Users and their inheritors taught that the cosmos arose through a confluence of powerful magical forces, from which the gods arose afterwards.
Believers in contemporary religions assert that once there was a profusion of gods. (Accounts differ which ones.) After these many gods created the heavens and the earth (accounts differ in the details) they separated into factions of Law, Balance, and Chaos and began the War of the Gods. Either Law (allegedly) overthrew Chaos, Chaos and Law battled to a standstill, or the gods of Balance halted the War (again accounts differ). Whatever the outcome, the gods forged the Great Compromise: they would henceforth only compete over the hearts and souls of mortals, although the gods of Chaos predictably seek to violate the Compromise.
The Antediluvian Empire
What little we know about the Antediluvians and their Empire comes from sites discovered all over the Continent, mostly in the Southlands and the Westlands.
The Antediluvians, self-described as the “children of the gods”, came from across the sea to conquer the Continent. They enslaved all the peoples of the Continent, notably the dwarves and halflings. It is said that the Elves were children of the Antediluvians charmed and captured by the Fey.
The Antediluvians ruled for untold centuries until their empire abruptly ended, and the dominance of mankind began.
The Zeroth Age
Time: about 3000 - 0 B.E.C.
Ending: Antediluvian Empire
Rising: humans, magic-users, pagan cultists, tribes, clans
The Antediluvian Empire ended abruptly when their island sank into the sea. Some blame the wrath of the gods, others a worldwide flood, still others a blasphemous magical experiment gone horribly wrong. Whatever the case, the Antediluvians mostly perished. Some say a few remnants still wander the Continent, cursed neither to die nor to possess their former power.
Humans
Scholars hotly debate the origin of humans. Some say the Antediluvians brought them to the Continent from their island. Others believe they arose from an Antediluvian experiment. Stil others contend they always existed.
In any case, humanity organized itself into bands, tribes, and eventually clans. Most were hunter-gatherers, although agrarian villages and farmlands first arose during this time. Humans also learned the smelting and forging of metal, first bronze then iron. Scholars have noted the first evidence of pottery, charcoal, and other useful arts during this time. Writing was still in its infancy, and many inscriptions from this period have yet to be deciphered.
Magic-Users
The first humans either stole the secrets of magic from the Antediluvians, learned them from some other source like the Fey or the gods, or stumbled on them themselves. According to a few surviving arcanist works, early magic was based on rote formulas with sometimes unpredictable results. Later magic-users refined their techniques, and specialized into the many magic-using specialties listed below.
Pagan Cultists
Some magic comes not from the study of arcane energies but from appeals to the gods. Early worship centered around these “pagan” deities.
The First Age
Time: year 1 of the Era of Canon to about 1000 E.C.
Declining: pagan cultists
Rising: bards, Canonist clerics, chaos cultists, disciples of Balance, druids, thieves, elves, dwarfs, halflings, city-states, kingdoms
The oldest surviving religion also wrote all the chronicles about what we call the “First Age”, so we know next to nothing beyond what the chroniclers told us. That we have to call the age before it the Zeroth Age itself indicates how biased those chroniclers were.
Written records independent of Canonism attest to the beginning of kingdoms that comprise more than one settlement. Early in the First Age these were cities that exercized their power over surrounding farming villages, but by the end kings appeared that ruled over multiple towns and cities.
Canonists
According to The Canon (and the Apocrypha), the Most High created the heavens and the earth, then created humans. The Archons and Luminaries of the Most High then taught mankind language, writing, and all the useful arts, and then blessed them with The Canon. To preserve The Canon the Most High then granted a portion of Their powers to a subset of priests we call Clerics. Both the knowledge and blessing continue to this day.
More skeptical scholars believe the Canon originally consisted of memorized verses which, as literacy advanced, the Canonists eventually transcribed into The Canon.
The Canon teaches what most religions teach: pray to the Most High, embrace your role in the social order, commit no sins against other humans or the Most High, and you will be rewarded with a happy life and the Peace of the Most High after death. Break the moral precepts of the Canon and you can expect endless solitude in the Realm of the Dead, endless torment in the Planes of Chaos, or ultimate oblivion. (The Canon is not consistent on this issue or indeed in many others. Reconciling the inconsistencies is one of the duties of the priesthood.)
Clerics
The origin of Clerics remains obscure. Some believe Clericism is a subtype of Magic Use, others that it’s granted through fervent belief in a god or principle. Canonists, of course, assert it’s a direct gift of the Most High to one who is worthy, although the worthiness of some Canonist Clerics has long been doubted. (See also Witch Hunters.)
Paladins
Mystically empowered warriors called Paladins also emerged to fight all forces opposed to the Canonists. While effective against Chaos cultists, they were less effective against Unaligned pagan cultists and Balance-aligned druids.
Chaos Cultists
In opposition to Canonism arose the Chaos Cults, worship of the Chaos gods or demons. Many writers in the Apocrypha decry these cults, yet we have little direct information from them because they were so secretive.
We do know for sure that they practiced human sacrifices and other detestable rites. Their leaders, also called “priests”, may possess powers derived from ordinary magic use or a direct connection to a Chaos God.
Disciples of Balance
The Way of Balance began in the East. Unlike magic users disciples of Balance seek not magical power but control over their own bodies, minds, and souls. Some might call it magic, but disciples of Balance insist their methods hone natural abilities all humans possess but few people use.
Druids
Druids descend from those cultists who worship nature itself. Variants of Druidism introduce other gods besides Earth and Sky, like the Horned Man, patron of shamans and guide to the spirit world, or the Fey court.
In time their abilities would mimic those of Clerics, but with more of a woodsy bent.
Bards
While thought of today as troubadors with magical songs, the Canonist chronicles mention Bards as a caste either parallel to or subordinate to Druids.
The Elder Peoples
Dwarfs, Elves, and Halflings first enter the Canonist records, mostly in negative terms: the greed of Dwarfs, the impiety of Elves, the laziness of Halflings.
Their own records tell fascinating tales of first contact with humans. Dwarfs tell of humanity’s superstitions and sloppy craftsmanship, elves of humanity’s lack of humor, and halfling oral tales tell of human stupidity and clumsiness.
The Eastlands in the First Age
Most histories of the “First Age” mainly concern the rise of Canonism. In the East, however, polytheism continued unabated. Most such gods had no alignment to Law or Chaos.
When the sun god Mitra incarnated as the hero Mihryazd, he became the upholder of oaths and contracts and the guardian of cattle and irrigation channels, symbols of civilization. Thus he aligned himself firmly with Law. (Mitra will become important later.)
The Second Age
Time: about 1000 E.C. to 2219 E. C.
Declining: paladins
Rising: alchemists, arcanists, magi, theurges, witches, Eastern culture
The Second Age continues the social development of the First Age into every more complex kingdoms, including feudal relationships. It also marks the rise of magical specialties.
The Canonist orthodoxy consolidated their hold over the Central lands and extended through the Westlands and Southlands. Many preserved chronicles decry the “heathen ways” of the West and South, and the “barbarism” of the Northlands.
The Northlands developed only a few towns and no major cities during this time. Even to this day, the Northlands remains a culture of tribes and clans. The “jarl” of each clan meets once a year to decide matters that affect the whole Northlands. The largest city of contemporary times is the meeting-place for all jarls, called the All-thing.
Alchemists
Alchemists studied the magic inherent in matter. They prepared concoctions that had spell-like effects or aid in the healing process. Their ultimate goals were the transmutation of matter and the refinement of the soul.
Arcanists
Arcanists studied magic itself, in an effort to refine the rote spells of past magic users into a system of laws and principles. (Or, depending on inclination, the ways to enforce their will on the phenomenal world.) Many of the earliest surviving spells came from the work of Arcanists.
Arcanists also studied how to infuse magic into matter. (Unlike the alchemists, who sought to bring magic from matter.) Many of the wonders of the Second Age came from this research: relics, artifacts, what the common folk call “magic items”. Alas, they left no notes on how to reproduce most of these enchantments.
Ascension
Some of the great Arcanists of this age achieved “ascension”, a process that transformed them into a minor god of magic. They survive today, in some rarified realm beyond comprehension. Only Wizards dedicated to their service can invoke their aid.
Magi
From the East came an order of priest-magicians called Magi, who believed that a creator god created all the other gods. The gods of Law are worthy of worship, while the gods of Balance and Chaos are unworthy of worship.
Their powers derive not from the gods of Law, however, but from magic. Nevertheless, their system of magic classifies all spells as either White (lawful and benevolent), Grey (neutral and dangerous), or Black (chaotic and to be shunned).
Theurges
Theurges arose in the east, as a fusion of the practices of the Magi and the long-standing tradition of “prophets” who warned secular rulers againt excess and moral turpitude. Theurges formed pacts not with demons but with the Luminaries, benevolent beings said to oversee the workings of the universe. Through these pacts the Theurge gains supernatural power.
Witches
Witches seem to blend the nature-focus of druids with the moral shades of Magi magic. However, witches were less shy about using Black Magic in defense of their villages, their woods, or their persons.
According to sources outside Canonism and witch hunting, Witches acquired their magical powers at puberty. A senior witch would teach them how to control their power and channel it into spells and “cantrips”, lesser magical effects. Upon leaving their apprenticeship, witches would adopt a village, keeping it safe from monsters, Fey, and other threats.
Naturally those opposed to witchcraft deny this characterization. According to them, witches were priestesses of Chaos who cursed cattle, slew villagers, and seduced young men (and women) into debauchery. As few if any self-proclaimed witches survive today, we may never know the truth.
The Eastlands in the Second Age
The Eastlands begin to develop their distinct culture: city-states and independent princedoms, each presided over by a local god. While most such gods remained Unaligned, the Lawful god Mitra and His three consorts rose steadily in popularity. The Way of Balance spread slowly across the Eastlands.
Because of the East’s lawful religions, Canonism never took hold in the Eastlands. Magi and theurges practiced a faith very close to Canonism, despite having different holy scriptures. The second incarnation of Mitra advocated similarly Canonist principles. The East’s greatest difference with Canonism lay in its tolerance of other gods. Despite their best efforts, Canonist clerics and paladins could not overcome powers so similar to their own.
The Third Age
Time: Imperial Year 1 (2219 E.C.) to Imperial Year 687 (2905 E.C.)
Rising: artificers, non-Canonist clerics, theurges, the First Empire
The Third Age begins with the rise of the First Empire. The origins of this Empire remain obscure, owing to the wholesale destruction of “blasphemous” books during the Fourth Age, but it seems to originate from a now lost city somewhere in the Central Lands. It extended across much of the Continent, even into the Eastlands.
During the height of the First Empire, scholarship and technology flourished. It’s no surprise, therefore, that three magical specialties flourished as well, two now lost to us.
Artificers
While those called “artificers” have always invented useful tools, artificers of the Second Age studied the artifacts of the Second Age and attempted to reproduce their effects. Some modern enchantment spells originate from this research.
The hand-crafted and reproducable magical artifacts of the Second Age hid a little-known flaw; unlike the artifacts of the Second Age, they would eventually run out of magical power. An artificer would either have to recharge the artifact, perform the enchantment again, or replace the artifact.
Some of the great wonders of the Third Age therefore stopped working when too few artificers remained to re-enchant them. As some of these enchantments had become essential to the continued existence of the Third Age’s megacities, those cities died when no one could get fresh water, import food, or even journey to the other side of the city.
Non-Canonist Clerics
In the Third Age, not all Clerics followed Canonism. Priests of other gods began developing their own clerical powers, often with a few powers related to their god.
Canonists decried it as “Idolatry”, and indeed their powers waxed and waned depending on proximity to their god’s image or temple. Contact with their god’s element or activity worked nearly as well: a god of commerce or wealth could be invoked around a lot of gold, and a god of the oceans was most powerful near the ocean.
Theurges (Third Age)
In the Third Age, the Great Covenant proved a turning point in theurgy. At once every theurge who joined the Covenant had the powers of a Luminary at their disposal. Only their faith and their concentration limited what they could acheive: heal the sick, bar monsters from entering a place, bar people from entering a place, create light, create darkness … any divine miracle that did no lasting harm.
The Eastlands in the Third Age
After multiple catastrophic failures of provincial governors, the First Empire found the Eastlands easier to manage through Easter satraps. Thus the East had semi-independent rulers in place when the First Empire collapsed.
The Fourth Age
Time: Year One (2905 E.C.) to Year Six Hundred Forty Four (3549 E.C.)
Ending: the First Empire, arcanists, artificers, theurges
Declining: bards, Canonism, clerics (all religions), disciples of Balance, druids, magi, paladins, witches, elves, dwarves, halflings
Rising: the Church of Pure Truth, Mitraism, plague doctors, sorcerers, witch-hunters, Wordbound
This is the era of The Grimdark Age, The Artificer’s Tale, and The War of Sun and Light.
The First Empire collapsed under the weight of its own corruption, its overly optimistic expectations of Artificers, and the increasing disparity between the few ultra-wealthy and the many poor and struggling.
Into this spiritual and secular power vacuum came a new religion …
The Church of Pure Truth
The Church of Pure Truth, or simply the Church, arose from a reform movement within Canonism. It promulgated its own holy book that trimmed the “difficult” passages from Canon and encouraged a “simple faith” which the Church claimed would rid the land of “evil”, including magic-users and monsters.
From its birthplace in the town of Bolg the movement spread quickly through the dying First Empire. All works of magic, and most users of magic, burned in bonfires lit across the Westlands and the Central Regions. The movement spread even as far as the Northlands and Southlands, although those regions had never been strictly Canonist.
What had begun as one friar’s manifesto became a religious orthodoxy and a religious hierarchy. Below are the ranks of the Church.
Elders and the Patriarch
At the top sat the Elders, senior churchmen and religious scholars, and the Patriarch, elected by the Elders to guide the faithful to the Pure Truth of the Most High.
Inquisitors
Below the Elders, the Inquisitors toured the countryside, searching for those who deviated from the Pure Truth. They brought them and those whom they may have influenced back to the Truth, by any means necessary.
Witch Hunters
The Witch Hunters fanned out across the land, searching for any remaining users of magic, including Canonist Clerics who performed “miracles”. (“All men are equal before the Most High,” says the Book of Pure Truth, and thus anyone who exercises supernatural powers must be in league with Chaos.) Witch Hunters also hunted monsters in their spare time.
One cannot dismiss Witch Hunters as simple fanatics. True witch hunters had demonstrable abilities to sniff out magic, protect themselves against magic, and ward off “unholy” beings like undead and demons. As the Fourth Age wore on, though, frauds and fallen hunters tended to crowd out those with some measure of divine favor.
Vicars, Deacons, and Acolytes
Tending to the faithful, the Vicars conducted weekly services where they read from the Book of Pure Truth. Their main duty is to tend to the moral and spiritual health of the common folk. Deacons and Acolytes assist Vicars during services.
Friars
Friars study the Book of Pure Truth not to tend to others but to purify their own souls. Occasionally friars copied books of a non-blasphemous nature to promote learning, or brewed alcoholic spirits to help fund their monasteries. Some Elders frowned on such activities.
Lay Members
All those not part of the hierarchy were lay members of the Church, whether they wanted to be or not. In the light of the Pure Truth, commoners stuck to the tasks commoners were born to, nobles exemplified the virtues of Pure Truth, and the nascent merchant class suppressed their uncharitable lust for gold with their fear of the Most High.
Reality, as it often does, often fell short of these ideals.
Plague Doctors
With the loss of magical healing, plagues ran rampant. The Plague Doctors, alchemists who specialized in treating disease, came to the “rescue”. Soon quackery and unethical experimentation ran rampant.
Saints
In defiance of the Church’s stance on miracles, the Reformed Canonist Assembly began recognizing “saints”, exceptional believers whose prayers could work miracles. Often witch hunters had previously executed these believers as witches and heretics.
Sorcerers
Arcanists died in droves, artificing faded away, and theurges self-destructed. Surviving magi fled East, druids hid themselves in the far West, and the scant remaining witches reportedly fled North or into the deep woods. Non-Canonist clerics went underground. Even Canonist clerics and paladins were not spared.
With the erasure of virtually all magical knowledge, dedicated and persistent students of the arcane reinvented techniques of ancient magic-users and arcanists. Having lost the secret of memorizing spells, sorcerers resorted to two techniques:
-
Writing spell rituals in books and reciting them out of the book. Often sorcerers kept a main tome with all their spells at their secret lair and several easy-to-carry chapbooks with one spell each on their person. Reciting from a book took far more time than the old spell-casting methods. It also left books for the witch hunters to find.
-
Tattooing arcane symbols and formulae on their own flesh, to empower themselves. This also left evidence for the witch hunters, but it allowed sorcerers to cast those spells within a few seconds.
Wordbound
Around the same time mortals with incredible magical (or divine?) power appeared, mostly in the East, West, and South which had not quite fallen under the Church’s sway. Some claimed to be children of gods, gods reborn, or new gods: a certain sentence of blasphemy. Despite this, their powers exceeded those of even the greatest arcanists of prior ages.
The term “wordbound” comes from the fact that each of these godlings’ powers centered on a few words, like Earth, Command, or Weapons.
The Eastlands in the Fourth Age
To prevent the spread of the Church, the East isolated itself from the rest of the Continent and welcomed its refugees. It, too, went through a spiritual revolution …
Mitraists
Queen (later Empress) Mitra-Yset of Trikaya was undoubtedly the most successful Wordbound. Claiming to be an incarnation of the Lawful god Mitra, god of the sun and of oaths, she extended her reign over the entire East through a combination of religious indoctrination and secular might. Her assassination ended her Empire, but the Eastern Hegemony quickly replaced it. Mitraism remained the religion of the East, with all other gods coming a distant second.
The Assimilation of the Magi
Those Magi that had spread to the rest of the Continent quickly fled before the witch hunters. Many of them became Mitraists either for social reasons or because the myths of Mitra echoed their own, more ancient beliefs.
The Fall of the Theurges
Most Theurges also fled East and there encountered new (perceived) enemies, Mitraists.
The Great Covenant proved theurges’ undoing when a group of theurges broke the terms of the Covenant. Because of that, all theurges became powerless, and the practice of theurgy all but died out. Even in the Fifth Age theurges can muster at best a few minor miracles after long years of proving themselves worthy of power.
The Fifth Age
Time: Aquilan Year 282 (3549 E.C.) onward; currently A.Y. 1000 (4267 E.C.)
Ending: plague-doctors, sorcerers, witch-hunters, Wordbound
Declining: the Church of Pure Truth, the Magi
Rising: the Great Continental Empire, clerics (all religions), disciples of Balance, wizards, warriors, thieves, elves, dwarfs, halflings, guilds
Eventually the Church of Pure Truth succumbed to the arrogance and corruption endemic to all powerful institutions. The formerly professional witch hunter corps became lax and easily bribable, thus losing all moral authority. A series of rebellions ended the authority of the Church, and the last witch hunters disappeared into history.
With that, the Fourth Age came to an end, and a new spirit of cooperation, consolidation, and (alas) imperialism rose across the Continent.
The Great Continental Empire
Coinciding with the fall of the Church, the Great Continental Empire, also called the Aquilan Empire after its original capitol Aquila in the far West, conquered all Church domains. It reached an “agreement” with the Southlands to not invade if the Southlands paid tribute, and built its new capitol Cordius within striking distance of the South, West, and Central regions to consolidate its empire. The Northlands resist the Empire for now, but it’s only a matter of time.
Conquest halted when the Empire met the Eastern Hegemony, a coalition of powerful Eastern princes united by Mitraism and a distaste for the West.
Clerics of All Religions
After the fall of the witch-hunters, clerics of all religions, Canonists and non-Canonists alike, experienced a renaissance. Having codified and reformed their doctrines, they once again, with the blessings of their gods, set out among the people to heal the sick and smite the unholy.
The rise of the Great Continental Empire coincided with the rise of its gods, the Imperial Pantheon. Originally consisting only of Menrva the Wise Maiden, Tinius the Sky Father, and Uni the All-Mother, the pantheon assimilated gods from the lands it conquered.
One of the most notable of these foreign gods was Sol Invictus, a version of Mitra stripped of Eastern values that did not suit the Empire. Nevertheless the cult of Sol Invictus eventually began to outshine the Supreme Triad of Menrva, Tinius, and Una as the god of civilization, oaths, and the sun.
Wizards
No longer hunted, surviving sorcerers came together, reluctantly, to pool their knowledge and organize against future persecution. This Guild of Wizards established standards for conduct (often more honored in the breach than the observance), a mutual aid society (which quickly fell apart), and an established canon of spells for the newly christened “Wizards”. Unearthed treatises taught Wizards how to memorize their spells; once memorized, spells are retained indefinitely.
Each Wizard also has a supernatural Patron, either an ascended Arcanist of a prior age or something less savory.
Warriors
A Warriors’ Guild also formed, bringing together mercenaries, monster-hunters, and assorted masters of the blade. Like the Wizards, they concentrated on teaching younger folks the art of combat, formalizing styles and schools, and providing a refuge for warriors down on their luck or too old to fight.
These Warriors’ Guilds presaged the eventual Adventerers’ Guilds that sprang up in the Earldom of Bergarus Vale.
Thieves
Following the Clerics, Wizards, and Warriors, the Thieves too organized … into mostly local crime syndicates. Each syndicate developed its own secret language called Thieves’ Cant which rendered conversations impenetrable to outsiders (like the newly professionalized city guards) and its own hierarchical structure. Thieves also developed specialties, like traditional theft and second-story work, confidence scams, spying, and assassination.
Notably, any thief not affiliated with a syndicate could expect anything from harassment to outright murder if they refused to join or failed to pay their dues. Syndicates also policed their own members to avoid clashes within or between syndicates, and to enable the wealthiest members of society to pay a “protection fee” and avoid more costly forms of crime.
Merchants
Other professions, notably the Merchants, formed their own mostly local guilds.
The Merchants’ Guilds often cornered the market on all financial services, including banking, precious metals, real estate, and loans. On one hand, this stabilized currency and gave consumers (a new word) one-stop shopping. On the minus side, with no competition the prices for various services rose as much as the market would bear. Most prices cited gold, not silver.
The Elder Peoples (again)
During the Fifth Age, dwarfs began to come down from their mountains, elves from their forests, and halflings from their hidden villages. While humans still dominated most of the world, the Elder Peoples began to mingle with them more freely.
The Eastlands in the Fifth Age
The East did not remain isolated from the rest of the Continent.
The Passing of the Magi
With the appearance of true Clerics of Mitra and other gods, and the arrival of Wizards in the East, the old Magi caste began to fade away. The magically gifted chose either the path of the amoral Arcane or the ethically pure Divine. Few remained to carry on the way of the Magi.
The Rise of Balance
With the Continent becoming ever more divided between Law and Chaos, the Disciples of Balance spread across the Continent once more. Those of a conspiratorial bent regard them as agents of a foreign religion trying to overthrow the social order. More sober investigations indicate the Disciples stabilize most regimes, except for those with an excess of Law or Chaos.
Empire and Hegemony
The Eastern Hegemony united against the Continental Empire during its initial expansion. For centuries relations between the two have been virtually nonexistent. Yet in recent decades the Imperial Court has made overtures to normalize relations with the Prince of Sahr and the Caliph of Trikaya, the two most important princedoms of the Hegemony.