Timeline

Outline:

  Deep Time
  The Antediluvian Era
  The Postdiluvian Era
  The Valinorian Era
    First Age
    Second Age
    Third Age
    Fourth Age
  The Old Gods' Era
    The Reign of Heaven
    The Golden Age, the Reign of Saturn
    The Reign of the Olympians
      The Orichalcum or Atlantean Age
    The Hyperborean Age
  The Sundered Era

Deep Time

ca. 13.7 billion years ago
Creation.

War in Heaven. This event has no date, since the combatants are capable of time-travel.

ca. 5 billion years ago
The formation of the Earth. The potential for elementals arises.

The Siege of Thulcandra begins. The Bent Oyarsa of Earth is imprisoned on this planet and a barricade is established at the orbit of the Moon.

ca. 500 million years ago
First organic sentience arises and the Animal Powers are created, including the maphgia (typified by insectile fairies).

ca. 70 million years ago
Age of the Serpent Folk

The Serpent Folk are most notable, for later eras, for bringing exatheria to Earth.
At the end of their history, the Serpent Folk undergo a successful eschaton and ascend.
A minor remnant of them, the sirrushim, reappear much later, involved with the Garden of Eden and with dragon legends.

The Djinnish Era

Djinn appear in the Empyrean (the Sphere of Fire, the ionosphere).

Djinn are granted Stewardship of the Earth, briefly.

Conflict escalates between the Valar (also known as the shelihim, the Deputies of the Oyeresu) and Melkor (later "Morgoth," also known as "the Bent One") over access to the djinn.

Djinn start exploring and settling the surface of the Earth.

Djinn teach advanced shapeshifting to fays. Hominid quickly becomes the dominant True Shape for fays.

The War of Lights

Open conflict between the forces of the Valar and Melkor, largely in the Empyrean but also in off-planet zones held by both sides. Ends with the capture of Melkor.

Djinn lose the Stewardship for widespread disloyalty to the Valar.

The Antediluvian Era

ca. 74,000 B.C.
Adam and Eve are created from pre-Adamite hominids and given the Stewardship.

The Adamite Stewardship infuriates many djinn, led by Iblis, who sides with Hell. Most djinn, though, are impressed with Adamite powers of matter-magic and nymics, and the ability to astrally project to the Empyrean; they become fearful and wary of Adamites. Many djinn want to win back the favor of the Valar. Some become a worshipping servant-race to antediluvian humans. Others are of the hostile-and-envious persuasion, without necessarily going infernal.

The sirrushim, the remnant of the Serpent Folk, reappear on Earth.

In the generation of Enoch, the old gods (dhenanomim) are created by divine appointment. These are djinn-nephilim, bred by the Watchers (Grigori), and given divine mantles, godheads, pallia of the Powers wherewith to work. This is widely seen as a second chance for the jinn to show their worth.

Note: For convenience, major old gods will be referred to by the names of the classical figures that inherit most directly from them and most resemble them.

The Watchers go on, without divine sanction, to breed up nephilim from humans. I mean, it worked so well with the djinn. No...? The Watchers as a group are exiled to Earth, and many adhene are demoted futher to fays (though they are not the first adhene to whom this has happened).

ca. 73,000 B.C.
The Flood, brought about by the Toba explosion causing flooding of the Persian Basin, where all the Adamites were living.

The Postdiluvian Era

Human magic is scuttled, never to recover to anywhere near antediluvian levels.

The main breeds of Cainites originate early in the Postdiluvian.

The Tower of Babel.

Surviving Adamite mage-kings organize under Nimrod and try to storm the Empyrean in a mass astral projection. They are smacked down by God, using the Viritrilbian spirits. Human magic takes another permanent hit.

The old gods re-engineer djinn into more magically powerful types. Few old-style djinn are left.

The old gods teach the djinn ka-tech (and a bit of this filters down to the now-debased human mages).

ca. 65,000 B.C.
The first humans arrive in Australia.

The maphgia create the Scorpion Folk.

The Valinorean Era

The Valar take an active role on Earth. The old gods and the djinn remain largely in their native Empyrean. Most of their exploration of the surface takes place in eastern Asia.

ca. 30,000
Sea-levels start to drop, forming Beringia.

The First Age
6000 years

ca. 29,000 B.C.
Melkor is released, having served his sentence and made a convincing show of reform. It quickly becomes obvious that this was feigned, and that he was in touch with his partisans while imprisoned. He resumes corporeal operations and is hereafter known as "Morgoth."
In the western Old World, the Valar (also known as the shelihim, the Deputies of the Oyeresu, and the original patrons of the old gods) put out the call for fays to leave home zone Earth. Those among the sidhe who do so become the Eldar.

ca. 26,200 B.C.
Morgoth, the Bent One, draws a cloud-cover over western Europe and establishes Angband, a stronghold on the material plane, at the European glacial line..

ca. 25,500 B.C.
Varda disperses Morgoth's cloud-cover over western Europe as Noldor arrive to battle Morgoth. Humans ally with Eldarin elves in western Europe.

ca. 25,000 B.C. The War of Wrath, destroying Angband, exiling Morgoth from the material plane. In elven chronology, the end of the First Age.

The Second Age
3500 years

ca.25,000 B.C. – ca. 21,500 B.C.
Dominated by Numenor, ending with its sinking and the end of direct Valinorean contact with fays or humans.

The Third Age
3000 years

ca. 21,500 – ca. 18,500 B.C.
Dominated by the conflicts of Gondor and Mordor, ending with the War of the Ring.

ca. 20,000 B.C.
The first humans arrive in the Americas.

The Fourth Age
2000 years

ca. 18,500 – ca. 16,500 B.C.
Ending with the dissolution of Gondor.

The Old Gods' Era

The Reign of Heaven
1900 years

ca. 16,500 B.C. – ca. 14,600 B.C.

Ouranos is elected king-god. Having seen humans get smacked down twice (by God), and seen Numenor put down by the Valar, the old gods make it a policy among themselves that humans must be controlled.

The old gods invent ways for djinn to stay on the surface for extended periods or permanently, at the risk of "going native" in various ways, up to and including becoming sessile or permanently transubstantiated.

The whole Earth becomes more magic-rich, but very little of it is under human control. The largest and most thriving human communities are serfs to old gods and djinn.

The Revolt of Time

Kronos leads a revolt against his father and becomes king-god. This is a lucky break for humans, as Ouranos was going to wipe us out with another Toba-like explosion.

The leading clans of old gods are now the Titans, the Jotuns, and the Asuras.

The Reign of Saturn, the Golden Age
1600 years

ca. 14,600 B.C. – ca. 13,000 B.C.

A general suppression of human tech and population continues, but slowly. (The Revolt of Time wasn't about us.) There are no cities or agriculture, but policy is to limit us, not exterminate us. Yay?

Kronos favors fays, pre-Adamites, remaining djinn ("daemons"). Earth starts to approximate Faerie.

The Animal Powers create satyrs and merfolk.

The sirrushim—the remnant of the Serpent Folk—revolt, but ineffectively, and make a sullen peace with the old gods.

The sirrushim split into three groups: the Lung in eastern Asia, the Nagas in India, and the Dragons in western Asia and Europe, all small and reclusive.

The Revolt of Storm, the Titanomachy

Zeus exiles his father and beomes king-god.

The Reign of the Olympians, the Silver Age
4300 years

ca. 13,000 B.C. – ca. 8700 B.C.

The revolt left the Olympians weak. The following Gigantomachy with the Jotuns weakened them further, even though they won. So Zeus basically concedes Africa and the Americas to the Animals Powers. The Jotuns retreat north. The Lung still hold eastern Asia. The Olympians dominate the rest of Europe, the Mid-East, and southern and western Asia.

The Animal Powers in Africa create sphinxes as special forces to help guard their territories against the old gods.

Zeus decides to use humans. Besides, he and his brothers have developed a fancy for human women. They raise up demi-god sons intended to rule on their behalf: it's the Heroic Age among humans, a second age of nephilim. "Using" means raising up mages (under the demi-god kings) and making sure humans are worshipful.

The Orichalcum or Atlantean Age
3000 years

ca. 11,700 B.C. – ca. 8700 B.C.

An age of thaumo-tech, dominated by Atlantis, the superpower among the "tame humans," built on the ruins of Numenor.

Humans are either left to be hunter-gatherers in the wilderness or live in high-magic enclaves such as Atlantis, calculated to make them safely dependent on gods and djinn. These enclaves are so magic-heavy, they leave little trace when they finally fall.

ca. 9000 B.C.
Sea-levels rise, re-submerging Beringia.

The Typhonomachy

Typhon, of the Serpent Folk remnant, leads all those disaffected with Zeus in revolt, culminating in a duel between them. Typhon is killed and his forces scattered, but Zeus is mortally wounded, though it will take him centuries to die, and several Olympians are killed. Atlantis sinks.

The Hyperborean Age
7500 years

ca. 8700 B.C. – ca. 1194 B.C.

The old gods start to wane.
Fragments and pale copies of their godheads are variously given to or stolen by djinn, fays, ghosts, etc. who set up as gods in their turn.
Lots of little pantheons are set up locally.
Their patrons fallen from power, djinn largely retreat to the Empyrean. Fays continue the slow drift off plane that began in the Valinorean First Age and only paused during the Age of Saturn.

ca. 7300 B.C.
The events of the Ramayana: the war between the avatar Rama and the rakshasa king Ravana.

ca. 6500 – 6200 B.C.
The flooding of Doggerland.

Human civilization, sans significant magic, starts up.

ca. 4000 B.C.
The Horse Oversoul creates centaurs shortly after the latest domestication of the horse

ca. 3300 B.C.
Bronze technology developed by mundane humans: the start of the proto-historical Bronze Age.

2697 – 2598 B.C.
Reign of the Yellow Emperor, founding emperor of China.

ca. 2650 B.C.
The Yellow Emperor turns back an invasion of the Mirror People, aggressive Unbegot.

ca. 2450 B.C.
The biblical Exodus, causing the end of the Old Kingdom of Egypt.

ca. 1400 B.C.
The events of the Mahabharata: a dynastic war for the throne of Hastinapura.

The Sundered Era

ca. 1200 B.C.
Iron technology developed by mundane humans: the start of the Iron Age.

1194 – 1184 B.C.
The Trojan War.

ca. 1000 B.C.
Zeus dies of injuries sustained in the Typhonomachy more than six thousand years before. The other old gods are ailing.
The Sundering starts to rise. Cause, effect, correlation, or coincidence?

2 B.C.
The last old god on Earth, Pan, dies on the first Christmas Day.

33 A.D.
Jesus is crucified, dies, and rises.

393 A.D.
The Delphic Oracle closes with these words:

"Tell the king; the fair wrought house has fallen.
  No shelter has Apollo, nor sacred laurel leaves.
  The fountains are now silent; the voice is stilled.
  It is finished."

ca. 480 – 516 A.D.
Reign of Arthur Pendragon in Britain.

536 A.D.
Ragnarok: World-wide chill and famine as Aesir and Jötnar war. Many Norse gods die. Baldr revives and succeeds Odin as Allfather.

1170
Greenwood is founded by Thomas à Becket.

1453
Founding of Grand Normandy.

1760 – 1784
Grand Norman Exarchy: the royal family flees to America for twenty-four years.

1794
The Eclipse Directorate is founded in France, during the Reign of Terror.

1802
The Department of the Ulterior is founded by Thomas Jefferson.

1879
Greenwood is revived by Queen Victoria.

1883
The Court of the Tsar-Patriarch, in Russia, acquires the Stepmother from the djinnish kingdom of Ararat.

1917
Founding of Outer Russia.

1920
The Committee for Psycho-Physical Unity is founded by Joseph Stalin.

1930
(Optional event.) The Holy Grail is removed from the parish church of the small English village of Fardles by the immortal Prester John. See War in Heaven by Charles Williams.

1931
(Optional event.) Sir Giles Tumulty, explorer and archeologist, obtains the Stone from the crown of Solomon, containing the Tetragrammaton, the Name of God. It probably grants the holder miraculous powers, but also probably brings divine judgment down on them. Sir Giles and his nephew, the financier Reginald Montague, disappear and the Stone is returned to the Sufi order that guards it by Lord Christopher Arglay, a British magistrate, shortly after the death (by "shock") of his secretary Chloe Burnett. See Many Dimensions by Charles Williams.

1931
(Optional event.) In the Hertfordshire town of Smetham, John Berringer, a retired philosopher, falls into a coma as a result of (inadvertently?) summoning Platonic archetypes into the mundane world, in the form of Titanic animals. As an unintended result, his house was destroyed in a fire, killing him, a medical attendant, and his housekeeper. Three local people died mysteriously in various ways, and one vanished. Many animals disappeared. There were power failures and collapses of buildings and other structures. The archetypes are bannished by Anthony Durrant and Damaris Tighe, two doctoral students in philosophty. See The Place of the Lion by Charles Williams.

1932
(Optional event.) In an English country house, there is a magic "chess set" that continually "plays" its own game, using 78 little golden figures on a great, round board. These figures are the originals of the tarot card images and the game they play is the history of the world. The "chess set" is in the care of the Lee family, of gypsy extraction but now respectably bourgoise. Henry Lee tracks down the cards, the original tarots, that go with the "chess set" and will let the player control the game. He finds them in the possession of Lothair Coningsby. He also falls in love with and becomes engaged to Coningsby's daughter Nancy. Henry tries to seize the cards and accidentally sets loose a magical snow storm in rural England. The cards are destroyed and the storm is quelled by Nancy and her aunt Sybil. See The Greater Trumps by Charles Williams.

1933
Nigel Considine, an English adventurer in the British African colonies, claims to have discovered, and to teach, a way of turning all the emotional energy created by joy, love, and beauty into strength and life, a path to immortality. He teams up with various African chiefs and occultists, and starts a political movement, the "African High Executive," dedicated to the end of colonialism and, more ultimately, of rationalist civilization. But Considine is assassinated by a disgruntled follower before things get far and the Executive movement dies or goes underground. See Shadows of Ecstasy by Charles Williams.

1933-1938
Edward Rolles Weston, under infernal inspiration, develops an anachronistic spaceship. Construction is financed by Richard Devine (1935-1936).

1937
(Optional event.) In the summer of 1937, in the London suburb of Battle Hill, noted poet and playwrite Peter Stanhope helps a local theatre group put on a pretty little play. Behind the scenes, several people find salvation or damnation while dopplegangers, ghosts, and tulpas stalk them. See Descent into Hell by Charles Williams.

1938
Weston and Devine make a short trip to Malacandra.

1939
Gangster Bugsy Siegel ascends the Western Throne in Las Vegas. See Last Call by Tim Powers.

World War Two

See The Sundered Front for a summary of events in the Sundered world during World War II.

1940
Weston and Divine kidnap Elwin Ransom to Malacandra. They return nine months later; Ransom takes three months to convalesce. Weston and Devine are similarly exhausted. See Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis.

1942
Ransom and Weston go to Perelandra. See Perelandra by C. S. Lewis.
The Committee for Psycho-Physical Unity destroys the Court of the Tsar-Patriarch.

1943
The Committee for Dialectical Extrapolation branches off from the Committee for Psycho-Physical Unity.
The centaurine Dedicated Cavalry of Grand Normandy is founded by Prince Hugh.

1944
Ransom returns from Perelandra.
In the next three years, Ransom inherits St. Anne's on the Hill from his widowed sister in India, on condition that he change his name to her late husband's, "Fisher-King."

1945
Father Simon le Clerk appears on the international scene, preaching a religious revival. Covertly, he is making a bid at messiahship, energized by Hermetic magic. His plot is foiled by Richard Furnival, the ghost of his late wife Lester, le Clerk's daughter Betty Wallingford, and the artist Jonathan Drayton. See All Hallows' Eve by Charles Williams.

1945
Founding of the Sunset Empire.

1947
Georges Leon ascends the Western Throne in Las Vegas. See Last Call by Tim Powers.

1948
Ransom destroys the N.I.C.E. in Edgestow. See That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis.
The World Intelligence Taskforce founded in Palestine under the auspices of the United Nations.

1988
Kim Philby, British spy and defector to the USSR, dies of natural causes at the age of 76, and is shortly thereafter eaten by the Stepmother, the djinnia who guards the Soviet Union. She succumbs to the lethal spell put on Philby when he was shot with an enchanted bullet by Andrew Hale, a British agent of Greenwood, in 1964. Without the protection of the Stepmother, the USSR collapses in 1991. See Declare by Tim Powers.

1993
Scott Crane, son of Georges Leon, ascends the Western Throne in Las Vegas and moves to California to become a grape farmer. See Last Call by Tim Powers.

2009
The Breakdown, a temporary rift in relations between Order and Chaos, results in a series of bizarre Sundered events until the end of the rift in 2015. The Sundered world is temporarily disrupted but few people learn much about the basis for the events. See Lords of Being.

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