Evolving Timeline of Narya Part I: Ancient History of Narya

As I develop Narya, I have to think hard about world history. I think an important element to grounding a fantasy setting is to give a sense of scale of time and to ground the past in a meaningful series of events. This means that a historian should have a pretty keen idea of how many years have passed between events and it gives context to the motivations of the characters, both individuals and cultures, in the narrative. But that doesn't mean things have to be so concrete.

For perspective, Earth is about 4.5 billion years old and life on it is about 300 million years old. The universe, for that matter, is 14 billion years old. The scale of time on a cosmic level is baffling to comprehend. This might help you get how life fits into the greater scale of time:

With fantasy worlds, you have to couple the laws of nature with magic which, frankly, bends and breaks these laws. With that in mind, we have to assume that a fantasy world is not completely natural. It may have evolved from or evolve into a more natural world but, for the sake of simplicity, let's assume that Narya was created by a god.

Narya or "The World" as we know it is just one world in an an entire universe. It is safe to assume that it is part of a solar system, which is part of a galaxy, which is part of a universe, which is probably part of a multiverse (if you buy into that theory). This opens up all matter of infinite possibilties but let's focus on just this world.

There are multiple creation myths in Narya and, arguably, part of the fun of having so many cultures is that the gods may know the truth about creation (or not) but the mortals probably don't. Heck, the only one who really knows the truth is the in-real-life creator of the setting.

My goals for the history of Narya are: to set a baseline series of major events and to create a scope of time from the beginning of the world to current events. The history is very much from a Sublanaryan perspective and understanding. This means it leaves out details about unknown continents across the sea and on the other side of the world.

An important note about this article and every other article on this blog-- this is all a work-in-progress. I am still developing the multiple continents of this world, the cultures on them, and therefore everything is in flux. That in mind, if you're familiar with my worlds and history of dungeons and dragons, you will find I am trying to fit my best ideas into this setting. It is gonna be jam-packed.

This article is Part 1: Ancient History and covers before and during the first Epoch. The next article, Part 2: Modern History will cover the rest of history, or at least the history of Sublanarya, up to the default or current setting. In the future, I will probably add additional articles about the history of other lands of Narya.

Before Epoch I: Chaos and Creation

 

Epoch I: Ancient Narya

1st Age: The Mother & The Clay People 

2nd Age: The Primordials and the Old Ones

The Rise of the Titans

The Creation of the Elemental Planes

The Creation of the Heavens, the Underworld, and Oblivion

3rd Age: The Creation of the Twilight Realms of Dusk and Dawn

The First Empires of Man and Monster

The Fall of the Titans and Rise of the New Gods

4th Age: The Wyrd War

Ends with Grimnir Blue-Cloak Closing the Planar Gates

Here goes: