Astreans
Elven Memorians. Oldest source. Poetic chronicle, biased.
Five ages. Fifteen dated centuries, two before the calendar. Five schools of Memorians disagree on causes — all agree on Veil ruptures. Current year: 2026 of the Broken Age
No chronology is neutral. Dates below are reconstructed by cross-referencing five traditions; the gravest discrepancies are noted.
Elven Memorians. Oldest source. Poetic chronicle, biased.
Dwarven. Counts wrongs suffered. Precise on dates, biased on causes.
Reading of the Plan. Metahistorical. Unintelligible to the uninitiated.
Anonymous, carved on ancient battlefields. Dated by lunar cycles.
Aldérium, Albion, Cathay. The most recent, the most contradictory.
The Age of Legends is the age of which one tells what one tells, because no people saw its origins with their own eyes. The Astréen Memorants, the Dwarven Forgers at the Book of Grudges, the Saurian Mage-Priests at their glyph-tablets, the Watcher Stelae — each keeps a version, and all contradict on the edges.
Emergence of the six Primordial peoples on Aldemoros — Astreans (then a single elven branch), Builder-Dwarves, Watchers of the Naharemnu, Greenskins, and the first Convergent-Beasts. On the Cinder-World simultaneously, the Sculptors begin their Plan.
First recorded Greenskin Krakaa. The Dwarf Forge-King Borrek-the-First loses the gallery of Azar. Inscription: the first grudge in the Book. No Forger has forgotten.
Drakhorn, Vargrid-Veld and Norhall are dug simultaneously under the direction of the First Builder. Conclave of the Dwarf Kings established at the World-Forge.
The Watchers raise Setarnahar as mother-city upon the Naharemnu. The greatest necropolis of Aldemoros takes shape. First ziggurat-pyramid consecrated to Setep-Sah.
The first Watcher Pharaohs master at Setarnahar what no other people dared: death as continuation. Birth of ritual sealing and the Liturgy of Awakening. The Naharemnu prospers.
The Thirteen First Houses seal their Pacts with the great Beasts — Calandros with the Phoenix, Helonys with the Dragon, Thelaris with the Great Eagle, Leontides with the Lion. Nine other Pacts now forgotten.
Borrek-the-First, having meditated on metal for seven centuries, forges the first Master-Rune at the Runic Anvil of Drakhorn. The Way of Runes is established.
A crystal from before the present peoples, captured upon Aldemoros by a forgotten rite — the Mnemonists have disputed ever since whose hand placed it in the world. The Dawn remains whole for seven thousand years.
Astrean delegation to the World-Forge for the celebrations of Star-Steel. An Astrean Elder — whose name is not written in our chronicles but is in the Book of Grudges — refuses to uncover his head before the Builder. The Astreans forget the incident within a decade. The Dwarves, never.
Sutar-Emnu, First Watcher Dynast, is sealed in the mother-pyramid of Setarnahar for the longest sleep. No other Pharaoh shall sleep so long without being awakened.
Forged at the Dwarven World-Forge, an Astrean-Dwarven collaboration that both peoples have claimed ever since. The Dwarves call it Forefather-Steel. The alloy enters history.
Magical cataclysm preceding the First Fracture, whose origin the Watcher Mnemonists still debate. The Naharemnu transforms into burned desert. Response: generalised ritual sealing. No Pharaoh shall die; all shall sleep.
Orghuz-the-First, legendary ancestor of Orghuz Three-Horns, sounds the greatest Bray-Cry of the Age of Legends. Two galleries of Drakhorn lost. Borrek-son-of-Borrek dead. The Book records. The Krakaa subsides; the losses are not made good.
The First Fracture designates two events at different scales. On the Cinder-World, the Sculptors were completing their Plan — a great mother-glyph that was to fix the destinies of all things. The glyph broke under its own ambition, and what came out had no longer form: the cosmic energy invoked inverted itself, took consciousness of itself, and became the Ch...
The Sculptors' Plan breaks under its own ambition upon the Cinder-World. The cosmic energy summoned reverses, becomes self-aware, and turns into Chaos. The Cinder-World is consumed.
Upon the already-consumed Cinder-World, the Saurians mount their defence. Tlaxan-Itza, the first Temple-City, is besieged by the hordes of the Breath-of-Error. The First Mage-Priest sacrifices himself to banish a hundred thousand Demons in an instant. Tlaxan-Itza falls all the same.
The elves split into three branches under cosmic pressure. Astreans (preservation), Sylvestrins (forest balance, dilution), Dark Elves (annihilation, forced-pacts). No reconciliation since. The Triple Elven Discord dates from that night.
Under cosmic pressure, the Dawn shatters. Its Shards scatter across all of Aldemoros. Wherever a Shard passes, the dead no longer walk.
The Astreans withdraw to the Erys Archipelago and establish Calanthion as new mother-city. The Doctrine of the Elders' Withdrawal is instituted. A few dissenting voices; none heeded then.
The Saurians, then guardians of the Plan, raise the first Temple-Cities upon the Cinder-World to resist Chaos. The Council-of-Form is established. The Marches of the Plan are theorised.
The Age of Kingdoms is the age when one tried. The age opens with the First Convergence — the first tear of the cosmic Veil over Aldémoros, which spilled the humans of the Former World upon this world. The Four Ancient Dragons of Aldémoros blessed by the Blood-Gift the imperial line that would become the Empire of Jade. Alderick the Great rallied the other h...
The cosmic Veil tears for the first time. Humans of the Former-World are spilled onto Aldemoros. Four Ancient Dragons of Aldemoros welcome the humans of Jade through the Gift-of-Blood. Alderick, among the human exiles to the east, a young war-band leader, ought not to have survived a decade.
An Astrean arch-mage of the engulfed House Athrenis breaks with the Doctrine of the Elders' Withdrawal and goes to the humans. Alderick receives the Grace of Long-Life. Human chronicles will never record the mage's name.
Alderick rallies the exiles across the first generations and founds Alderium at the heart of the continent. First Empire of Men established.
Battle of the Roncevaux passes. Alderick fights side by side with the Dwarf Forge-King Drumin Black-Hammer against a Greenskin horde threatening both peoples at once. Pact sealed in blood.
Drumin teaches surface rune-craft to the humans — utility runes, principles of engraving, integration into engines. No more than that. First steam chariots, first batteries of rune-cannons.
Alderick departs at 240 years old, with the face of a man of 80. Theandriel ceases the Grace one night during the fortieth Council. The Faith of the Return is born from the disbelief of his subjects. "He is absent, not departed."
Sire Vorlach and other humans of the Former-World wrest from the Watchers a fragment of immortality — according to the Watchers, it was given in contempt; according to the Vampires, it was taken. First Lineage founded.
Krazga the Smasher, Black Orc Boss of the Krazz-Plains, sounds a Krakaa that simultaneously threatens Alderium and Drakhorn. First and only temporary Empire-Dwarf alliance since the Pact of the Hammer: joint armies at the Battle of the Three Passes. Krazga defeated, his skull hung at the World-Forge. No Boss sounds another Krakaa for two centuries.
Under the Celestial Emperor Long-Hua the Patient, the Veil-Library is begun at the Court of Jade. The Rain-of-Fire Mage-Smiths will record there over two centuries the alchemical knowledge of Jade that neither Dwarf rune nor Vermin Corrupted-Steel will imitate.
At Alderium, under the seventh Emperor's reign, the Lectorate burns the first Thousand-Faced Cell uncovered beneath the imperial cathedral. The Inquisition is founded the following month. The Cults are never eradicated — they relocate.
Human nobles refusing rune-engines and the Faith of the Return raise the standard of revolt. Three centuries of intermittent wars. No victor. The Empire does not bend. The rebels do not surrender.
The Treaty seals Albion's independence. Human knights withdraw to the deep western forests. No victor, no reconciliation. Mutual memory kept in low voices.
The Albeans on the edge of the Mother-Forest find the Sylvestrins. Not friends, not enemies. The Faith of the Sovereign is born of this ancient contact — what the Sylvestrins call the Mother-Tree, the Albeans receive as the Sovereign.
The Watchers begin their cycles of Risings against the living peoples — a few pyramids awaken each century, never in great number. Humans learn to fear the Naharemnu.
The Collapse of the Veil is year 0. All that is counted today is counted from that night.
The cosmic Veil cracks for the second time. Saurians, Vermin, Beastmen, and Chaos are spilled onto Aldemoros from the consumed Cinder-World. Solmarche engulfed. Astrean House Athrenis engulfed. Veil-Wound torn open in the Great North. Corrupted-Steel appears. Aldemoros will not stabilise.
The Broken Age is the one we live. It has lasted two thousand twenty-six years to this day, and no century of it has known general peace. None. We have learned to count in blood spilled.
The Vermin establish their secret mother-city, the Rotten-Heart, in the deep under-world. The Council of Thirteen is founded. The empty seat is reserved for the Thirteenth-who-waits.
Volkmar of Tournay, chief Mage-Smith of the fifth Emperor, is caught at Drakhorn engraving a Master-Rune signed in his own name. Eirik the Mad summons the Council. The Council demands his head. The fifth Emperor refuses. Rune-craft transmission ceases. Inscribed in the Book of Grudges.
First Albean Crusade organised toward Solmarche to burn the Vampire Counts. Seven Lesser-Counts struck down, three Shards driven into the stone of the Veil. Solmarche not retaken — none believe it can be.
Sire Vorlach seals himself for the longest duration, refusing the corruption that would have completed the Lineage. Five Lineage-Houses continue without his arbitration. He sleeps still.
Brokk, King of Norhall, loses the Seventh Gallery to the Vermin. He renounces the crown, transgresses the Slayer's prohibition, enters perpetual wandering. Becomes Brokk the Forsworn. Walks still.
Sir Enguerrand of Valcourt, at 47, faces alone with lance the dragon of Tournay that was ravaging three villages. A day's combat. The skull hung in the chapel of Valcourt. The Vow of the Dawn sworn that same night.
Pyreon Calandros, Archon of Calandros, elected Four Times Crowned by the Diet of the Five Crowns. Youngest of the four Archons of his time, and the most aggressive. Helonys observes without approving, Thelaris hesitates, Leontides exults.
A Saurian Mage-Priest discovers in a dead temple-city of the deep south a glyph-tablet that no one had entered into the registry. Dated from before the Fissure. The Council-of-Form has it sealed the same day. The Mage-Priest dies during the next March of the Plan.
A Thirteen-Seer of the Thirteen-Tunnels Clan receives seven simultaneous visions of the Thirteenth-who-waits. Seven opportunities to exploit — Long-Awakening, Krakaa, Breach, Astrean arsenals, vampire crypts, Corrupted-Woods. The seventh vision is not yet written.
Orghuz Three-Horns, Beastlord, sounds the Bray-Cry on the Tribe-Stone of the North-March. Fifty Beastman Hordes answer. Sixty. More. A Great Hunt descends toward the Sylvestrin Mother-Forest.
The seals of Sutar-Emnu begin to breathe. Seven lesser Pharaohs awaken. The Council of Watchers teaches that the Long-Awakening prophesied on the Stele of Setep-Sah has begun. The Pharaohs are coming to harvest.
Pyreon Calandros, six decades after his election, breaks two thousand years of Astrean withdrawal and publicly announces that he "shall purge Aldemoros by fire". Star-Steel arsenals reopened. A fleet of Dark Elves descends upon the Archipelago for the eighth time in three centuries.
The present season. Several crises converge as never since the Collapse. Watcher Long-Awakening underway, unprecedented Greenskin Krakaa, Beastmen Bray-Cry, election of Pyreon, Dark Elf descent, Albean Crusade in preparation, four borders of the Jade Empire on alert. The age is not over.