| Latest revision |
Your text |
| Line 87: |
Line 87: |
| | | | |
| | It is believed by some scholars and most small children that there are inhabited cities on the moons. | | It is believed by some scholars and most small children that there are inhabited cities on the moons. |
| − |
| |
| − | ==A Hypercompressed Timeline==
| |
| − | So as not to engage in the fantasy world designer's great sin of just adding a bunch of zeroes onto a reasonable timeline, I'm not providing any numbers here. Think of these as the approximate ages of the world, liberally seasoned with disinformation, misunderstanding, propaganda, temporal anomalies, and genuinely antique texts from different planets that were improperly mixed into the local historical record.
| |
| − |
| |
| − | *'''Era Zero: The Precursors.''' There are occasionally objects or devices (such as the Cidrian Gates or the Sublunar Machinery) which seem to correspond to some time or people before the era of the Lizard Kings. Anything that old which is still operational can be presumed to have unimaginable power and sophistication. They may have been built by prior human civilizations or by entities even further removed from our understanding. It is presumed that human colonization occurred during this era due to the fact that some of these devices appear made for beings on the approximate size and body plan of modern humanity.
| |
| − | *'''Era One: Early Human Colonization.''' During this period, large numbers of humans arrived on the planet via means which are not known for certain, and engaged in widespread terraforming and genetic resequencing of themselves and everything else they could get their hands on. The early colonies “failed,” in that C&C with whoever sent them was lost, and whatever early governments were established collapsed. Humans went through a period of barbaric savagery, and then got it out of their systems. There is little evidence of heavy industry during this period, indicating a break from the precursor era, which did engage in large-scale engineering.
| |
| − | *'''Era Two''': '''The Lizard Queens'''. The Lizardfolk were for a time the apex sophont on the planet. They built crystalline devices that ran on psionic rather than technological or magical principles, subjugated humans when they felt the need, and built ziggurats, pyramids, and canals. They revived the precursor habit of constructing Deeps, or at least cleared and restored to use a number that were already ancient. These enormous underground spaces were considered proof against enemies approaching overland or from the skies. It is believed that airborne attacks must have been a major hazard at the time. The decline in cognitive capability among lizardfolk is most likely what allowed humanity to eventually overtake them.
| |
| − | *'''Era Three:''' '''The Amaranthan Empire'''. This human empire rose out of a small but wealthy kingdom by a bay, where innovative magicians laid down the foundation-stones of modern sorcery. It was a darker, cruder magic that they practiced, and they were insatiable for more power. Within a handful of generations, the leaders of the Amaranthan kingdoms had as much magic in their veins as blood, and they conquered the vast majority of the world. Between their spells, and pre-Saurian technology and learning they recovered from the Deeps, they easily brought to heel the feudal human societies that arose to fill the vacuum left by the Lizard Kings.
| |
| − | *'''Era Four:''' '''The Hubris.''' The Amaranthans declared war on everyone and everything that would not bend the knee to their Emperor. After a hundred years of blood and fire, they lost.
| |
| − | *'''Era Five:''' '''The Long Dark.''' Little enough of this era is recorded. Vengeful beings of every sort preyed on humanity and dominated their cities. Much awful tribute was extracted, and the lore of the Amaranthans was destroyed whenever it could be found. The tech level at this time was definitely more medieval in character, as humans were lucky if their masters allowed them pointy sticks, in most places. This was the era of the Lex Sanguinis, codified by the Vampire Regents who ruled so many city-states. Much of the current law and custom is descended from these dark times, with appropriate adaptations.
| |
| − | *'''Era Six: The Thracian Hegemony'''. The Thracians began as a small group of seafaring city-states, in which a few privileged human servants formed a conspiracy. They managed to throw off the yokes of their inhuman masters and institute democracy. They rapidly became masters of the exchange of goods. Thracian civilization avoided reliance on direct sorcery, since they didn't wish to repeat the mistakes of the Amaranthans. They pursued alchemy, artifice, and technology. While they never approached the sophistication of Precursor technology, they could produce much more sophisticated machinery at scale than is possible in the current era. They were able to free most of the rest of human civilization via a combination of disaster capitalism and laser-armed airships. They also standardized weights, measures, and coinage, which standards are still used today. Currency from pre-Thracian cultures is often extremely non-standard.
| |
| − | *'''Era Seven: The Decapitation'''. The leaders of the Thracian Combines attempted to make treaty with the various Lunar civilizations, just as they had done to the monstrous kingdoms that had existed on the terrestrial sphere. For whatever reason (but probably because the Lunatics weren't ignorant of how this had worked out for the vampire princes, etc.), negotiations fell through, and ended in several nights of orbital bombardment. When the smoke cleared, the Thracian civilization came apart at the seams. They had always kept their leadership and industrial base centralized, to maintain their hegemony. Unfortunately, that meant it was all destroyed by the swarm of large iron meteorites that turned their five greatest cities into a morass of smoking, flooded craters. Bereft of leadership and centralized industrial production, the Thracians were raided into nonexistence by tribal or feudal peoples, monsters, and various nonhuman intelligences. Their society disintegrated, and the lore of operating their great machines and mysterious facilities became lost.
| |
| − | *'''Era Eight: The Age of City-States'''. You are here! Over much of the world, humanity has reorganized itself into independent and semi-independent city-states. There is trade and communication between the various civilizations, but vast waste-lands full of ruins and ancient roads occupy the space between them. Human civilization seems to be somewhat drowsy at this time in history, and the people of the world are plagued by hedonism and sybaritic boredom. Greed takes the place of ambition, and everywhere men and women take the low and easy road to comfort. Globe-spanning ambitions are distinctly out of fashion. Non-human intelligences have many thriving civilizations of their own, and so far there's so much room that large-scale conflict hasn't broken out.
| |
| | | | |
| | ==Contemporary Material Culture== | | ==Contemporary Material Culture== |
