Eon XLIV — The Wars of Dominion

Imperial Fracture, Sacred Kingdoms and the Fortified World

The Wars of Dominion begin when the great iron empires discover that law, roads and armies can outlive the governments that created them—and end when nearly every powerful realm has hardened itself behind walls, armed households, sacred claims and inherited fear.

Time Frame: 300–1200 CE

Common Name: Late Antiquity and the Early to High Medieval Period, depending upon the region

Theme: Empires fracture, successor kingdoms harden, and rulers use law, lineage, divine sanction, fortified settlement and organised violence to claim dominion over an increasingly connected world.

The Wars of Dominion follow The Iron Ascendancies. The earlier age built territorial empires, administrative systems and long-distance exchange networks on an unprecedented scale. This age inherits those systems after their certainty has begun to fail.

Rome divides. The western imperial succession ends. Sasanian Persia and the Eastern Roman Empire exhaust one another. Gupta authority fragments. China repeatedly divides and reunifies. Aksum rises above Red Sea routes and later contracts. Tang and Song administrations transform East Asia. Maya courts, Andean states, Sahelian kingdoms, Khmer capitals, Norse settlements and Polynesian voyaging societies follow their own political and sacred histories.

Sacred authority takes many forms. Temple institutions become major landholders and schools in some regions; elsewhere diviners, lineage houses, assemblies, sacred kings, shrine custodians, philosophical orders and ancestor courts govern ritual and law. Roman, Iranian, Indian, Chinese, African, American, Shinto, Oceanic and other traditions expand through their own histories rather than converging into one universal system.

The age is nevertheless united by one pressure: rulers increasingly seek the power to define who belongs, whose law applies, which gods receive public honour, which lands may be taxed and which peoples may be conquered, expelled, enslaved or declared monstrous.

Nonhuman peoples are not passive remnants. Dwarven holds regulate mines and deep roads. Elven courts choose between treaty, withdrawal and intervention. Gnome enclaves become coveted for engineering, healing and record magic. Halfling leagues control food, ferries and market routes. Orc, hobgoblin, goblin and kobold societies form their own states, confederacies and fortified communities. Giant, Fey and serpentfolk powers survive through open dominion, treaty or concealment.

Mixed settlements exist, but they remain specific arrangements created by ports, mines, frontier treaties, royal marriages, refugee movements or supernatural crossings. They require law. They do not arise from an assumption that every people naturally shares the same city, ruler or social order.

The Wars of Dominion are an age of migration, plague, restoration, courtly brilliance, law, mathematics, poetry, trade, fortification, shipbuilding, record-keeping and supernatural struggle. They leave institutions strong enough to survive into 1454 CE—and grievances deep enough to help break them in The Age of Severed Crowns.

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The World at the Beginning

• The Roman Empire still controls most Mediterranean shores, but authority is divided among several courts and military commands.
• The Sasanian Empire is a major Iranian power competing with Rome across Mesopotamia, Armenia and the Caucasus.
• Gupta rulers are beginning to consolidate power in northern India.
• China remains divided after the fall of Han, with northern and southern courts claiming legitimate succession.
• Aksum controls important highland and Red Sea routes and maintains relations with Arabia, the Nile world and the Indian Ocean.
• Teotihuacan is one of the largest urban centres in the Americas.
• Classic Maya dynasties are developing monumental courts, writing and competitive city-state systems.
• Moche, Nazca and other Andean societies are expanding irrigation, craft and ceremonial centres.
• Roman, Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Iranian, Indian, Chinese, African, American, Shinto and Oceanic gods remain real regional powers.
• The Roman pantheon retains divine realms and cult claims despite political division.
• The Celtic pantheon remains active through local kingdoms, sacred landscapes and Otherworld courts.
• The Asgardian gods influence northern kingship, oath, seafaring, feud and war without making Scandinavia one united sacred state.
• Dwarven, elven, giant and Fey territories survive beside and beneath expanding mortal states.
• Arthur, Beowulf, Grendel, Charlemagne and other later legendary figures have not yet entered history.
• Gunpowder, government paper money and the great Atlantic Norse voyages still lie centuries ahead.

The age begins with imperial systems under strain. It ends with successor kingdoms, temple capitals, fortified aristocracies, trading cities, assemblies and cavalry confederacies pressed tightly against one another from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

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The Wars of Dominion Timeline

300–375 CE — The Great Imperial Systems Divide

The Roman, Sasanian, Gupta and post-Han worlds begin the age as powerful but very different political systems.

Roman government relies upon taxation, professional armies, provincial administration, cities and roads. Sasanian authority combines royal court, noble houses, cavalry, fortified frontiers and Iranian sacred traditions. Gupta rulers build alliances, tribute relationships and court culture across much of northern India. China remains divided among competing dynasties whose officials preserve the idea that legitimate unity can be restored.

The divine realms remain intact when mortal governments divide. Roman civil war can split taxation, public ritual and imperial worship without dividing the domains of Jupiter, Mars, Minerva, Janus or other gods.

c. 300–550 CE — Aksum Commands the Red Sea Heights

Aksum reaches imperial prominence in northeastern Africa.

Its rulers control highland agriculture, cattle, tribute, coinage and routes linking the Red Sea with the African interior. Merchants connect Aksum with Arabia, Kemet, the eastern Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean.

Monumental stelae, royal tombs and sacred enclosures express local kingship rather than imitation of Rome or Persia. Aksumite authority expands and contracts through campaigns, alliances and control of routes rather than continuous occupation of every surrounding community.

Aksum’s public sacred order recognises highland gods, royal ancestors, celestial powers and regional cults. Foreign merchants and subject communities bring additional rites without displacing the powers rooted in the highlands.

c. 320–550 CE — Gupta Courts and Regional India

Gupta rulers dominate large parts of northern India through warfare, marriage alliances, tribute and negotiated regional authority.

Courts support Sanskrit literature, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, philosophy, temple building and sculpture. The political realm is not one uniform administration. Local rulers, guilds, villages, sacred institutions and forest peoples retain substantial authority.

Southern India, Sri Lanka, the Deccan, the Himalayan regions and the northwestern frontiers follow separate political histories. They interact with Gupta power without becoming lesser copies of it.

The gods remain numerous and active. Vishnu, Shiva, Devi, Skanda, river powers, yakshas, nagas and local ancestors possess distinct cults and territorial relationships.

330 CE — Constantinople Becomes the Eastern Imperial Capital

Constantine establishes Constantinople as the principal eastern capital of the Roman Empire.

The city commands the Bosporus, links European and Asian provinces and becomes a centre of court ceremony, taxation, grain distribution, law and military planning.

Binding campaign ruling: Constantinople’s imperial sacred order joins Roman state cult, protective city powers, philosophical schools, imperial ancestors and recognised regional gods. The Tyche of Constantinople, the ancestral guardians of the Bosporus and the public hearth of the Roman people receive defined offices within the capital’s ceremonial law.

The city’s political inhabitants continue calling themselves Romans. “Byzantine” remains a later historical label rather than their own national identity.

c. 350–500 CE — Migrations Break the Old Frontier Map

Gothic, Alan, Vandal, Suebi, Burgundian, Frankish, Hunnic and other groups move across imperial frontiers.

These peoples do not form one migration or one “barbarian” race. Some arrive as refugees from stronger enemies. Some enter as military allies. Some seize land by force. Some serve Roman commanders before becoming independent rulers.

Migration carries families, livestock, captives, priests, smiths, oral law and sacred objects as well as warriors.

Human officials often label nonhuman migrants as monsters to avoid recognising claims to land, ransom or lawful surrender.

c. 370 CE — Hunnic Confederations Enter the Western Steppe

Hunnic forces defeat or displace Alan and Gothic powers north of the Black Sea.

The Huns are a changing political and military confederation, not one timeless ethnicity. Their authority depends upon cavalry, tribute, personal loyalty, hostage exchange and the ability to distribute wealth.

Hunnic seers possess genuine weather, ancestor and steppe-spirit rites. Their confederations remain mortal political creations held together by leaders, tribute and negotiated loyalty.

376–378 CE — The Danube Crisis and Adrianople

Large Gothic groups cross the Danube seeking refuge from Hunnic pressure.

Roman corruption, food extortion and abuse turn settlement into revolt. At Adrianople in 378, the eastern emperor Valens is killed and a Roman field army is destroyed.

The disaster demonstrates that imperial mistreatment can transform recognised refugees and military recruits into a powerful enemy.

395 CE — The Roman Courts Divide Permanently

After the death of Theodosius I, Arcadius rules in the east and Honorius in the west.

The division is administrative and dynastic rather than the creation of two wholly separate civilisations. Law, titles, trade and diplomatic recognition continue to cross the boundary.

Different cults and cities support rival courts, but the Roman claim to universal empire survives on both sides.

406–407 CE — The Rhine Frontier Fails

Vandals, Alans, Suebi and other groups enter Gaul while western imperial forces are divided by rebellion and civil war.

The crossing leaves much of Roman government. Cities negotiate, armies defect, local magnates raise troops and communities choose between rival protectors.

The event begins a long redistribution of land and military authority rather than one night of total collapse.

410 CE — Alaric Sacks Rome

Alaric’s Gothic army enters Rome after prolonged political failure, broken promises and disputes over military settlement.

The sack has enormous symbolic power because Rome was believed to stand beneath exceptional divine and ancestral protection.

Rome’s gods remain active, but several public wards fail after rival authorities neglect offerings, change their legal custodians and consume temple wealth in civil war.

c. 400–650 CE — Teotihuacan, Maya Courts and the American City Worlds

Teotihuacan remains a vast urban and ceremonial centre with wide influence across Mesoamerica.

Classic Maya kingdoms expand systems of dynastic writing, calendrical record, monument building, diplomacy and war. Cities such as Tikal, Calakmul, Copán and Palenque belong to competing political networks rather than one Maya empire.

In the Andes, Moche polities control irrigated valleys and ceremonial centres while Nazca traditions continue in the south. North American Hopewell exchange networks connect distant communities without requiring a single king or capital.

American gods, ancestors and transformed rulers are independent powers with their own histories, names and territorial relationships.

c. 440–500 CE — The Brittonic Kingdoms and the Saxon Settlements

Roman government has withdrawn from Britain, but Brittonic kingdoms, towns, forts, roads and military traditions survive.

Vortigern and other rulers employ Germanic mercenaries against rivals. Hengist, Horsa and later war leaders establish permanent territories rather than remaining temporary soldiers.

Britons, Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Picts, Irish settlers, Roman-descended communities and nonhuman peoples contest Britain through separate alliances and wars.

The Arthurian courts arise from this fractured landscape rather than from a unified medieval kingdom.

451 CE — Attila Is Checked in Gaul

A Roman-led coalition confronts Attila’s army at the Catalaunian Plains.

The battle includes Romans, Visigoths, Alans, Franks, Burgundians and other forces on both sides. It is not a simple struggle between civilisation and barbarism.

Attila’s death in 453 is followed by the fragmentation of his confederation, demonstrating how quickly a tribute empire can weaken when succession fails.

455 CE — The Vandals Sack Rome

Vandal forces from North Africa enter Rome during a western succession crisis.

The Vandal kingdom is a maritime state controlling major African territories and sea routes, not merely a band of destroyers.

Its fleet and grain-producing lands make it one of the western Mediterranean’s strongest powers.

476 CE — The Western Imperial Succession Ends

Odoacer deposes Romulus Augustulus and rules Italy without appointing another western emperor.

This date marks a political change, not the disappearance of Roman people, towns, law or identity.

Eastern emperors continue claiming Roman universality. Successor kings use Roman titles, officials and taxation when useful while building their own dynastic legitimacy.

493–553 CE — Ostrogothic Italy and the Wars of Restoration

Theodoric establishes an Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy that preserves much Roman administration while maintaining a Gothic military elite.

Justinian later attempts to restore direct eastern imperial rule across North Africa, Italy and part of Iberia.

The campaigns regain territory but devastate cities, farms and tax systems. Restoration proves capable of destroying the lands it intends to recover.

c. 500–515 CE — Mons Badonicus

Arthur’s coalition defeats a major West Saxon advance at Mons Badonicus.

The victory preserves several Brittonic kingdoms and creates the political space from which Camelot’s authority grows.

Binding campaign ruling: Arthur is a historical and supernatural ruler whose later romances merge several campaigns and generations. His court combines Brittonic law, Roman military inheritance, Celtic divine relationships and negotiated Fey power.

Merlin serves as seer, adviser and dangerous guardian of the old pacts. Gawain represents an older sovereignty tradition within the developing Round Table order.

c. 500–700 CE — Nobadia, Makuria and Alodia Guard the Middle Nile

Nubian successor kingdoms consolidate between Kemet and the upper Nile.

Nobadia, Makuria and Alodia control cataracts, agricultural lands, caravan routes and fortified river settlements. Their rulers negotiate with Eastern Rome, Aksum, desert peoples and later Arabian governments while preserving distinct languages and royal traditions.

The kingdoms draw upon Kushite inheritance, Nile cults, royal ancestors and locally rooted sacred powers. Temples and learned houses become centres of record, healing and diplomacy.

Campaign ruling: the Cataract Compact recognises three classes of river power: navigable channels protected for trade, royal reaches controlled by the crown and forbidden waters held by ancient spirits. Conquest of a river town does not transfer ownership of the spirit-bound channel beside it.

529–534 CE — Justinian’s Legal Codification

Justinian’s government gathers, edits and systematises centuries of Roman law.

The resulting legal collections become foundations for later courts far beyond the territories Justinian successfully controls.

Codification preserves valid rights and entrenched injustices alike. Survival in an authoritative book gives a judgement force, not moral innocence.

536–660 CE — The Dimmed Summers

A sequence of major volcanic eruptions beginning in 536 darkens skies and contributes to severe cooling across substantial parts of the Northern Hemisphere.

Harvest failures, livestock losses and disrupted trade intensify existing political pressures. The effects differ by region and year. The crisis does not produce one universal famine or explain every migration and war.

Further eruptions around 540 and 547 prolong the instability. Communities respond through migration, emergency grain controls, altered planting, raiding, charity, hoarding and sacrifice.

Binding campaign ruling: the dimmed sun is a natural atmospheric event rather than the work of one god or sorcerer. Competing courts nevertheless exploit it as an omen, and several weather cults acquire dangerous authority by claiming they alone can restore the seasons.

537 CE — Camlann and the Passing of Camelot

Arthur and Medraut fall at Camlann after dynastic treason, factional war and the collapse of trust within the Round Table.

Arthur is carried to Avalon rather than confirmed dead. Camelot’s central court withdraws from ordinary mortal geography and becomes accessible through unstable routes into the Fey World.

Binding campaign ruling: Camelot does not vanish because its ideals were historically inevitable or universally just. It fails because oath, succession, personhood and private loyalty become impossible to reconcile under one court.

541–542 CE — The First Great Plague Pandemic

Plague reaches Constantinople and spreads through Mediterranean, Near Eastern and connected regions in repeated waves.

Deaths disrupt labour, military recruitment, burial, taxation and food distribution. Some districts and villages lose the people responsible for maintaining canals, wards, granaries and ancestral rites.

The disease is natural and transmissible. Supernatural disasters arise around it when mass death, abandoned ritual or deliberate exploitation tears local boundaries.

Wrongful disposal of the dead produces ghosts, oath-wights and revenants in particular communities, but the dead do not all rise and the plague is not caused by undead.

c. 500–900 CE — Madagascar and the East African Sea Roads

Austronesian-speaking voyagers, African communities and Indian Ocean traders contribute to the settlement and exchange networks of Madagascar.

The island’s populations develop through migration, intermarriage and local adaptation through several founding movements. Crops, cattle, boat traditions and languages preserve connections across both Africa and the wider Indian Ocean.

Along the East African coast, communities link inland resources with maritime trade while retaining local authority over harbours, islands and river mouths.

Campaign ruling: the first durable sea agreements recognise reefs, ancestral landing places and weather spirits as territorial powers. A foreign captain may buy cargo without gaining the right to build, bury the dead or summon protective magic ashore.

c. 550 CE — Silk Cultivation Reaches the Eastern Roman Empire

Silkworm eggs and specialist knowledge are carried west, allowing imperial workshops to reduce dependence upon imported finished silk.

The new industry remains controlled by court regulation, skilled labour and access to mulberry cultivation.

The event demonstrates that technology spreads through people and institutions, not through the mere possession of one stolen object.

c. 550–750 CE — Harsha, the Pallavas and the Chalukyas

After Gupta power fragments, Harsha establishes a strong but temporary northern realm centred upon the Ganges plain.

Pallava rulers develop major centres in southeastern India, while the Chalukyas dominate much of the western Deccan. Their rivalry shapes routes, ports, temple patronage, cavalry service and the movement of scholars and artisans.

Buddhist, Jain, Shaiva, Vaishnava and local sacred institutions maintain schools, estates, hospitals, pilgrimage places and legal privileges. None represents all of India.

Xuanzang’s travels through India record courts, monasteries, cities and sacred sites from the perspective of one learned visitor rather than an exhaustive survey of the subcontinent.

Binding campaign ruling: southern temple foundations renew agreements with river goddesses, nagas and territorial spirits. A dynasty can endow a shrine, but it cannot transfer the underlying divine covenant without the recognised custodians.

Sixth Century — The Age of Beowulf

Beowulf of the Geats travels to the Danish court and destroys Grendel, whose attacks have made Heorot unusable.

Grendel’s mother attacks in vengeance and is defeated in her lake-bound hall. Decades later, Beowulf rules as king and dies fighting a treasure-hoarding dragon whose awakening threatens his people.

Binding campaign ruling: Grendel and his mother possess kinship, memory and territorial claims, but their deliberate killing of hall inhabitants makes them active enemies rather than misunderstood innocents. Their personhood does not remove responsibility for murder.

The wider Midgard Bestiary preserves creatures and powers associated with northern courts, wilderness and sea routes.

552–744 CE — The Turkic Khaganates Command the Inner Roads

Göktürk rulers create vast steppe empires stretching across much of Inner Asia.

The First Turkic Khaganate divides into eastern and western spheres. Their rulers control pasture, tribute, diplomatic access and important sections of the overland exchange routes linking China, Iran, India and the western steppe.

Sogdian merchants and scribes become essential intermediaries. Turkic rulers negotiate with Tang China, Persia, the Roman world and oasis states while maintaining their own sky, ancestor and territorial rites.

The Second Turkic Khaganate restores steppe imperial authority after a period of Tang dominance.

Binding campaign ruling: the blue-sky mandate of the khagans is a genuine sacred relationship, but it depends upon protection, distribution and victory. A ruler who loses the confidence of the clans may retain a divine title while losing the confederation.

568 CE Onward — Lombard Kingdoms in Italy

Lombard groups establish duchies and kingdoms across much of Italy after the imperial wars have weakened local defence.

Eastern Roman enclaves, the Roman city, independent dukes and rural communities create a fragmented political landscape.

Law differs by status, ancestry, town and lordship. A person may be protected by one legal tradition and vulnerable under another.

589–618 CE — Sui Reunification and the Road to Tang

The Sui reunify China after centuries of division.

Major public works, including canal construction, strengthen transport and taxation but impose immense labour demands.

Military failure and compulsory service weaken the dynasty. The Tang inherit both the renewed imperial framework and the resentment created by its costs.

c. 500–1000 CE — Wari and Tiwanaku Reshape the Andes

Wari and Tiwanaku develop powerful but different political systems across the central and southern Andes.

Wari influence spreads through administrative centres, roads, planned compounds and regional relationships. Tiwanaku reaches its height around Lake Titicaca through monumental construction, raised-field agriculture, pilgrimage and exchange.

Neither system forms a modern nation-state or controls every community within its sphere. Local lords, farming settlements and caravan peoples negotiate participation, tribute and ritual obligation.

Campaign ruling: Tiwanaku’s Gate of the Sun aligns with a celestial and ancestral crossing during particular seasonal rites. The opening grants audience, not unrestricted travel, and closes when the recognised ritual offices are absent.

602–628 CE — The Final Roman–Sasanian War

The Eastern Roman and Sasanian empires wage an exceptionally destructive war across Anatolia, the Levant, Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Caucasus.

Armies seize cities and sacred objects, populations are displaced and tax bases collapse. Heraclius eventually restores Roman territory, but both empires emerge exhausted.

Sacred objects captured during the war carry real divine and legal significance. They can strengthen a claim or ritual without rescuing an incompetent army from the consequences of its commanders.

603–632 CE — The Seven Wells Compact

Arabian sanctuary cities, caravan houses, oasis assemblies and jinn-bound territories seek an end to cycles of blood-feud that have made pilgrimage and long-distance trade increasingly dangerous.

Delegates meet through seven successive seasons at protected wells associated with Shams, al-Lat, al-Uzza, Manat, Hubal, ancestral judges and the Unbound Wind. Human law-speakers and recognised jinn witnesses agree the Seven Wells Compact.

The Compact establishes protected routes and months, immunity for envoys, standard weights, a common blood-price procedure, rules for returning captives and an absolute prohibition against poisoning wells. Each signatory community retains its gods and household law while accepting the judgement of rotating sanctuary courts in disputes crossing tribal boundaries.

Three political traditions emerge within the Compact:

• the Open Sanctuary, which protects the autonomy of participating cults and cities;
• the Banner Houses, which argue that one military command is required to defend and expand the peace;
• the Keepers of Measure, jurists and merchants who seek uniform contracts, taxation and administration.

Binding campaign ruling: the Compact is the foundation of the later Arabian imperial order. Its authority comes from sworn law among many recognised powers, not from a declaration that every other god is false.

618–842 CE — The Tibetan Empire Commands the High Routes

Tibetan rulers build an empire across the plateau and contest Central Asian routes with Tang China, steppe powers and oasis states.

Mounted armies, fortified valleys, tribute and control of high passes support expansion. The court adopts foreign writing and learning while maintaining mountain gods, royal ancestors and local territorial rites.

After the ninth-century collapse of central authority, regional houses and sacred institutions retain fragments of imperial law and archive.

Campaign ruling: several high passes are governed by oath-bound mountain powers whose treaties name dynasties rather than nations. A later ruler claiming Tibetan imperial succession inherits the obligations as well as the toll rights.

629–645 CE — Xuanzang’s Western Journey

Xuanzang travels from Tang China through Central Asia to India in search of authoritative teaching, manuscripts and direct instruction.

He crosses states controlled by Chinese officials, Turkic rulers, oasis kings and Indian dynasties. His return strengthens the movement of texts, languages, artistic forms and geographical knowledge across Asia.

Binding campaign ruling: Xuanzang also gains lawful passage through naga waters, yaksha-protected monasteries and a mountain court that recognises neither Tang nor Indian sovereignty. Later accounts turn these negotiations into allegory, but the supernatural journeys are historical.

632–700 CE — The Banner Conquests and the Persian Settlement

After the Roman–Sasanian war, Banner House armies and allied peoples expand into Syria, Mesopotamia, Kemet, Iran and neighbouring territories.

The conquests succeed through cavalry, exhausted opponents, negotiated surrender and the promise that recognised cities may retain local courts and gods under tribute. Some commanders honour these terms; others seize land and sacred wealth, creating rebellions that last for generations.

Sasanian royal government ends, but Iranian nobles, farmers, cavalry houses, scribes, priests and cities remain. Persian administration, literature and court ceremony reshape the new imperial system.

The resulting order is neither purely Arabian nor simply Persian. It is a contested union of sanctuary law, dynastic military power, provincial custom and inherited imperial practice.

618–907 CE — Tang China

Tang China becomes one of the age’s greatest imperial systems.

Chang’an gathers officials, merchants, envoys, scholars, artisans and travellers from across East and Central Asia. Administration, examination, law, taxation and military colonies support imperial authority.

The empire’s scale does not erase regional differences. Korea, Japan, Tibet, steppe confederacies, Southeast Asian states and oasis kingdoms adopt selected Tang practices without becoming culturally identical or permanently subordinate.

c. 600–900 CE — Classic Maya Kingdoms Flourish

Maya rulers record dynasties, wars, marriages, captives, rituals and calendrical events in inscriptions and monuments.

Tikal and Calakmul lead competing alliance networks, but no one city controls the entire Maya world.

Royal power depends upon agriculture, water management, tribute, craft, warfare and relationships with ancestors and gods.

The decline or abandonment of some southern lowland courts after the eighth century is regional and prolonged rather than the disappearance of Maya peoples.

c. 600–800 CE — Chenla, Champa and the Maritime Southeast

States in mainland and maritime Southeast Asia expand through river control, port exchange, temple foundations and alliances among local rulers.

Chenla succeeds earlier Funan-linked systems in parts of the Mekong region. Champa develops along the coast of present-day central Vietnam. Maritime communities across the Malay world control straits and sea routes.

Indian religious and artistic influences are adapted into local languages, ancestors, spirit cults and royal traditions rather than copied unchanged.

668 CE — Silla Unifies Most of the Korean Peninsula

Silla defeats rival Baekje and Goguryeo with Tang assistance, then resists direct Tang control.

Balhae later arises in the north from former Goguryeo and other peoples.

Korean kingdoms preserve distinct languages, aristocracies, sacred mountains, ancestral systems and material traditions despite sustained exchange with China and Japan.

c. 670–1025 CE — Srivijaya and the Straits

Srivijaya becomes a major maritime power centred upon Sumatra and the strategic straits of island Southeast Asia.

Its influence rests upon ports, shipping, tribute, diplomacy and the ability to protect or obstruct sea traffic. Harbour rulers and island communities retain local authority even when acknowledging Srivijayan supremacy.

Sacred learning, multilingual trade and relationships with India and China strengthen the court.

Campaign ruling: the Crown of the Straits is a network of harbour compacts witnessed by sea ancestors and local spirits. It cannot be inherited as one object, and a fleet that seizes the capital gains no automatic authority over every participating port.

c. 650–970 CE — Khazar, Bulgar and Avar Frontier States

Khazar, Bulgar, Avar and neighbouring powers govern the steppe, river and frontier zones between the Black Sea, Caspian, Danube and forest worlds.

Their states draw wealth from tribute, livestock, trade routes, military service and control of crossings. They include several languages and subject peoples rather than one homogeneous population.

Some rulers adopt foreign court rites or legal traditions to strengthen diplomacy. Local sky, ancestor, river and hearth powers remain active beneath these political choices.

Campaign ruling: steppe tribute agreements recognise mobility as a lawful territorial use. Settled rulers who claim every seasonal pasture as vacant land violate treaties still remembered by spirits, clans and surviving confederations.

c. 700–900 CE — Paper and Woodblock Printing Multiply Records

Paper production spreads through East and Central Asian networks and into the western imperial worlds.

Woodblock printing allows texts, calendars, charms, administrative forms and images to be reproduced in far greater numbers than hand copying alone permits.

Printing strengthens states and sacred institutions but also enables unauthorised teaching, forged decrees and rapid circulation of political prophecy.

711 CE — The Western Banner Crosses into Iberia

An army composed largely of Berber forces with Arabian commanders crosses from North Africa and defeats the Visigothic monarchy.

The conquest produces provincial governments, local treaties, refugee movements and fortified resistance in northern regions. Berber communities receive less reward and recognition than many commanders promised, creating revolts within the conquering coalition.

Roman civic cults, Iberian sacred landscapes, Berber ancestors, Arabian sanctuary law and local household gods continue under changing rulers.

The western provinces never become a simple religious frontier. Their conflicts concern dynasty, land, taxation, sanctuary and control of cities as much as sacred allegiance.

732 CE — Frankish Forces Check the Loire Expedition

Frankish forces under Charles Martel defeat a western Banner army campaigning beyond its secure Iberian bases.

The battle ends one expedition and strengthens Frankish authority. It neither expels the western Arabian dynasties from Iberia nor ends exchange across the Mediterranean.

Merchants, scholars, captives, mercenaries and diplomats continue moving between Frankish, Iberian, African and Arabian courts.

744–840 CE — The Uyghur Khaganate

The Uyghurs replace the Second Turkic Khaganate and dominate much of Mongolia and the eastern steppe.

Their power combines cavalry, tribute, cities, diplomacy and close relationships with Sogdian merchants. Uyghur armies assist Tang rulers during the An Lushan crisis and gain wealth and political leverage in return.

Several sacred traditions operate within the khaganate, including Turkic sky and ancestor rites, Iranian religious institutions and Buddhist communities along the Silk Roads.

Binding campaign ruling: Uyghur royal scribes maintain parallel versions of major treaties in several languages and ritual forms. A treaty remains incomplete until its mortal text, ancestral recitation and sky-oath agree.

750 CE — The Abbasid Revolution Re-centres the Compact

The Abbasid house overthrows the Umayyad dynasty with support from eastern provinces, Persian networks and opponents of hereditary Banner dominance.

The new court claims to restore balance among the Compact’s three traditions. In practice it builds a more elaborate imperial administration and depends heavily upon Persian officials, merchants, scholars and military households.

Baghdad grows as a centre of government, translation, craft and exchange. The city’s courts recognise Seven Wells law, provincial temple jurisdiction and royal decree in an uneasy hierarchy.

The revolution changes the ruling house without resolving whether the Compact is primarily a sanctuary league, an empire or a jurists’ commonwealth.

756 CE — The Umayyad Banner Survives in Córdoba

An Umayyad prince establishes an independent dynasty in Iberia.

Córdoba becomes a wealthy court and urban centre connected to North Africa, the western Mediterranean and wider scholarly networks.

The western Umayyads present themselves as guardians of the older Banner tradition while retaining local Roman administration, Berber military settlements and the sanctuary privileges negotiated after conquest.

The realm contains several languages, peoples and legal communities whose security depends upon tax, status, patronage and enforceable agreements.

755–763 CE — The An Lushan Rebellion Breaks Tang Confidence

A rebellion led by An Lushan captures major capitals and forces the Tang court into flight.

The dynasty survives through provincial armies, allied cavalry and enormous financial concessions. The rebellion kills and displaces large populations while strengthening military governors whose power the court can no longer easily reverse.

Foreign soldiers and frontier peoples fight on several sides. Ethnicity alone does not determine loyalty.

Campaign ruling: the imperial Mandate remains real but contested. Omens confirm that the court has failed in major duties; they do not identify one automatic replacement dynasty.

c. 750–1200 CE — Pala, Pratihara and Rashtrakuta Worlds

After Gupta power, northern and central India remain divided among major regional states.

Pala rulers support eastern centres of scholarship and sacred learning. Gurjara-Pratihara kings compete for the north and western routes. Rashtrakuta rulers dominate much of the Deccan while fighting both northern and southern rivals.

Temple estates, universities, merchant guilds, village assemblies and warrior houses hold authority alongside royal courts.

Campaign ruling: river and naga compacts remain locally binding regardless of which dynasty claims imperial precedence. A ruler who grants irrigated land without renewing the water covenant may possess the field in law and lose the river in practice.

768–814 CE — Charlemagne’s Dominion

Charlemagne expands Frankish authority across much of western and central Europe.

His armies conquer Lombard territory, fight Saxon resistance and intervene in Iberian and Danubian frontiers.

Royal estates, counts, assemblies, sacred houses and written capitularies extend government beyond the king’s immediate household.

Campaign ruling: Charlemagne’s imperial restoration is recognised through Roman political inheritance, oaths before Janus and Jupiter, alliances with Frankish and Celtic cult authorities and custody of restored public law.

The destruction of the Irminsul is an attack upon a real Saxon sacred centre and an assertion of Frankish dominion, not the defeat of a false god.

793 CE Onward — The Norse Raiding Age Begins

Northern fleets attack wealthy coastal estates, sacred houses, ports and undefended settlements.

Raiding is only one part of Norse expansion. Scandinavian communities also trade, settle, explore, serve as mercenaries and build states.

The Asgardian pantheon influences oath, kingship, seafaring, feud and battle. Local cults differ, and not every Scandinavian ruler honours the same gods in the same way.

Slavery is central to many raids and trading networks. Captives are people under the laws of their own communities even when raiders classify them as property.

794 CE — The Heian Court Is Established

The Japanese imperial court establishes its capital at Heian-kyō.

Court families, provincial governors, shrine networks and landed estates shape political authority.

Chinese writing, administration and philosophy influence the court, while Japanese language, poetry and aesthetics develop distinct forms.

Binding campaign ruling: Shinto gods, kami and ancestral powers remain the sacred foundation of Japan. Imported traditions are interpreted within this living landscape rather than replacing it.

Early Ninth Century — Gunpowder Is Discovered in China

Alchemical experimentation with saltpetre, sulphur and combustible materials produces early gunpowder mixtures.

Initial uses include fire effects, signals, dangerous experiments and incendiary weapons.

Gunpowder does not immediately create cannon armies or make walls obsolete. Recipes, purity, containers and military delivery systems require centuries of development.

c. 800–950 CE — Angkor and the Khmer Imperial System

Khmer rulers establish capitals around Angkor and connect temple foundations, reservoirs, canals, roads, rice production and royal ritual.

The system is neither only a “hydraulic empire” nor merely a collection of temples. It joins urban settlement, agriculture, sacred geography, labour and regional authority.

Local spirits and ancestors remain active within a court that also recognises major Indian-derived gods.

843 CE — The Frankish Empire Is Divided

The Treaty of Verdun divides Charlemagne’s imperial inheritance among his grandsons.

The division creates several royal realms while preserving claims to Frankish and Roman legitimacy.

Local counts, high custodians of sacred colleges, rectors of temple estates and military households gain greater independence as kings compete for loyalty.

c. 849–1200 CE — Pagan and the Irrawaddy Sacred Plain

Pagan grows beside the Irrawaddy and becomes the centre of an expanding kingdom in present-day Myanmar.

By the eleventh century, royal patronage, irrigation, taxation and temple foundations bind surrounding regions more closely to the capital.

Pyu inheritance, Mon influence, local spirit traditions and imported sacred learning combine without erasing one another.

Campaign ruling: the plain’s temple foundations form a measured protective pattern. Each new foundation strengthens royal authority but also assigns the crown continuing duties to villages, spirits and waterworks named in its dedication.

865–886 CE — The Great Army and the Danelaw

A large Scandinavian army campaigns across England and conquers several kingdoms.

Alfred of Wessex survives, reorganises defence and eventually negotiates a political boundary with Danish rulers.

The Danelaw is not an empty land occupied by one foreign people. Existing English, Brittonic, Danish and other communities live under changing combinations of local and Scandinavian law.

882 CE — Kiev Becomes a Rus Centre

Oleg takes Kiev and joins northern and southern river routes into a growing dominion.

The Rus network includes Norse, Slavic, Finnic, Baltic and steppe peoples connected through tribute, trade, warfare and settlement.

It is not yet one uniform nation. River towns and subject communities retain separate laws, gods and political identities.

c. 895–955 CE — Magyar Settlement and Western Raids

Magyar confederations enter the Carpathian Basin and establish a durable political base.

Mounted war bands raid widely across central and western Europe before suffering major defeats and shifting towards more settled rule.

The confederation includes several clans, allies and subject communities. Its sacred traditions combine steppe sky, ancestor and territorial powers.

Later royal government grows from this settlement without making the earlier confederation a simple preliminary version of one kingdom.

c. 900 CE — Tang Authority Collapses

Rebellion, regional military power, fiscal pressure and court conflict end the Tang dynasty.

China enters a period of competing states before Song reunification.

Tang institutions, literature, law and international relationships survive the dynasty that created them.

c. 900–1150 CE — Ghana, Kanem and the Sahelian Kingdoms

West African states grow through control of gold, salt, tribute, agricultural lands and caravan relationships.

Ghana’s rulers govern a kingdom rather than the modern territory bearing the same name. Kanem develops around Lake Chad through pastoral, agricultural and trading communities.

Desert merchants, oasis towns and Sahelian courts depend upon one another without sharing one culture or sacred system.

Arabian merchants and jurists influence some courts, while African gods, ancestors, spirit territories and royal ritual remain foundations of local authority.

c. 900–1200 CE — Toltec, Maya and North American Transformations

Tula becomes a major Toltec centre in central Mexico. Maya successor cities and northern lowland powers continue after the decline of many southern courts.

Later traditions preserve Ce Acatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl as ruler, priest and exile associated with Tula’s sacred and political order.

Binding campaign ruling: Topiltzin is a historical priest-king who bears a divine title connected with Quetzalcoatl. Later stories merge his deeds with those of other rulers and with the god himself, but his exile and the division it causes at Tula are real.

Mississippian societies develop mound centres and regional exchange. Cahokia grows rapidly after about 1050 into the largest known urban centre north of Mesoamerica.

Chaco Canyon links great houses, roads, ritual and exchange across the ancestral Pueblo world.

These developments arise from separate peoples and environments through independent regional systems.

909–1171 CE — The Fatimid House and the Western Wells

The Fatimid house rises in North Africa and later conquers Kemet, establishing Cairo as an imperial capital.

In campaign history, the dynasty takes its name from Fatima of the Western Well, an ancestral law-speaker whose descendants claim a superior interpretation of the Seven Wells Compact.

Fatimid rulers challenge Abbasid authority, control important Mediterranean and Red Sea routes and sponsor courts, libraries, workshops and urban institutions.

Their authority combines Berber military support, Egyptian administration, dynastic sanctuary law and negotiated recognition of local gods and temple estates.

Binding campaign ruling: the Fatimid claim to the Western Well is legitimate but limited. It gives the dynasty standing within the Compact, not universal authority over every sanctuary or Arabian lineage.

911 CE — Normandy Is Founded

Rollo receives territory from the Frankish king in exchange for defence and recognised loyalty.

Norse settlers, local Frankish populations and neighbouring Breton communities gradually create a new Norman identity.

The settlement demonstrates that raiders can become hereditary rulers while retaining networks beyond their new lands.

916–1125 CE — Liao, Western Xia and the Northern Frontier

The Khitan-led Liao state rules broad northern territories and compels Song China to negotiate tribute and borders.

Western Xia emerges in the northwest and controls strategic corridors between China, Tibet and Central Asia.

Both states combine mobile military traditions with cities, agriculture, writing and administration. They are neither temporary raiding camps nor incomplete Chinese dynasties.

Campaign ruling: frontier treaties recognise several forms of sovereignty at once: walled towns, seasonal pasture, caravan passage and sacred mountain jurisdiction. A map showing one coloured border records only part of the agreement.

918 CE — Goryeo Is Founded

Wang Geon establishes Goryeo amid the fragmentation of Later Silla.

The new kingdom seeks to unify the peninsula while incorporating regional elites and maintaining relationships with northern powers.

Korean court traditions remain distinct even when adopting technologies, literature or ceremonial forms from China.

930 CE — The Alþingi Is Established

Icelandic chieftains establish a national assembly at Þingvellir.

The Alþingi provides law-speaking, judgement, alliance and feud settlement without a king.

Its existence demonstrates that political order can be public and durable without monarchy, a palace bureaucracy or a standing army.

Its protection remains unequal. Slaves, outlaws and people without strong kin possess fewer effective remedies than recognised householders.

955–962 CE — Otto I and the Restored Western Empire

Otto I defeats a major Magyar army at Lechfeld in 955, strengthening royal authority among the German duchies.

He intervenes in Italy, takes the Lombard crown and receives the western imperial title at Rome in 962.

Binding campaign ruling: the coronation is conducted by the Roman College of Custodians with oaths before Janus, Jupiter, the public hearth and the recognised gods of the German and Italian kingdoms. Otto promises to defend Roman law, sacred estates and the liberties of the constituent peoples.

The restored polity joins the German kingdom and northern Italy beneath a contested Roman imperial claim. It becomes the Holy Roman Empire known in later ages, although its rulers never exercise uniform control over every prince, city, sacred college or Italian territory.

Otto’s use of high custodians and temple rectors as royal officers strengthens the crown while creating a lasting dispute over whether sacred offices belong to rulers, local colleges or the gods they serve.

c. 960–970 CE — Gudit’s War in the Aksumite Highlands

Later highland traditions preserve a destructive queen known as Gudit, Yodit or by related names.

Her campaigns break royal centres, burn sacred estates and accelerate the decline of old Aksumite authority. The surviving accounts disagree about her ancestry, allies and precise territories.

Binding campaign ruling: Gudit is a historical ruler leading a coalition of highland communities excluded from Aksumite power. She destroys royal institutions but does not erase Aksumite peoples or every sacred site. Several burned sanctuaries survive through hidden custodians who still dispute whether she was liberator, conqueror or oath-breaker.

960 CE Onward — Song China

The Song dynasty reunifies much of China and develops powerful civil administration, cities, markets, printing, engineering and scholarship.

The state faces strong northern rivals including Liao, Western Xia and later Jin. Tribute and diplomacy coexist with war.

Economic growth does not produce military invulnerability. Administrative brilliance and frontier weakness can exist within the same state.

977–1010 CE — Ferdowsi Preserves the Iranian Heroic Kings

Ferdowsi composes the Shahnameh from older written and oral traditions of Iranian kings, heroes and monsters.

The poem preserves the deeds of Zal, Rostam, Sohrab, Siyavash, Zahhak and other figures while giving New Persian literature an enduring epic centre.

Binding campaign ruling: the heroic cycle records genuine supernatural history, but it is not a literal year-by-year chronicle. Several rulers are composites, and court poets reshape events to judge kingship, loyalty and the consequences of ambition.

The Simurgh, divs and other beings of the epic remain active powers. Possessing a manuscript does not place them under the reader’s command.

c. 985–1070 CE — Chola Maritime Power

Chola rulers expand across southern India and project naval force into Sri Lanka and Southeast Asian trade networks.

Temples become centres of landholding, employment, ritual, craft and record.

Chola power rests upon local administration and maritime connections as well as royal armies.

c. 1000 CE — Norse Voyages Reach North America

Voyagers from Greenland explore lands west of the Atlantic.

They encounter Indigenous peoples whose territories, law and knowledge predate Norse arrival.

Binding campaign ruling: the Norse possess no automatic claim to settlement through discovery. Exchange, conflict and withdrawal are governed by the conduct and agreements of particular groups.

1021 CE — L’Anse aux Meadows Is Active

A Norse settlement operates at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland.

The site supports ship repair, exploration and resource gathering but does not become a permanent conquering colony.

Distance, supply, local resistance and internal priorities prevent a large Atlantic dominion from forming.

Eleventh Century — Government Paper Money Develops in Song China

Commercial notes and state-backed paper currency expand within a large monetised economy.

Paper money depends upon public confidence, taxation and government redemption. It is not wealth created from nothing.

Counterfeiting, inflation and political abuse become new threats alongside the advantages of easier long-distance payment.

c. 1000–1200 CE — Polynesian Voyages Reach Distant Islands

Polynesian navigators continue settling and maintaining routes across immense ocean distances.

Navigation uses stars, swells, winds, birds, cloud patterns, memory and inherited teaching.

Voyaging authority belongs to many communities through many independent voyaging communities.

The Polynesian gods, ancestors and sea powers require renewed agreements as people enter new islands and waters.

1037–1092 CE — The Great Seljuk Ascendancy

Seljuk rulers build a major empire across Iran, Iraq and neighbouring regions.

Turkic cavalry households, Persian administrators, Seven Wells jurists, urban elites and regional sacred institutions support the state while competing for influence.

The Seljuks enter Baghdad as protectors and masters of the Abbasid court, then expand towards Anatolia and Central Asia.

Binding campaign ruling: Seljuk royal law recognises Turkic sky-oaths, Persian fire-temple contracts and the Seven Wells Compact. Courts decide which tradition governs a dispute according to the parties, land and oath involved; rulers repeatedly manipulate those decisions for political advantage.

After the death of Malik-Shah, succession struggles divide the imperial system into rival sultanates and military households.

c. 1040 CE — Bi Sheng Develops Movable Type

Bi Sheng develops a system of movable ceramic type during the Northern Song period.

The system is technically significant but does not immediately replace woodblock printing, which remains efficient for many Chinese texts and images.

Binding campaign ruling: early type cases acquire sympathetic associations with the characters repeatedly cast from them. Careless printers can reproduce a legal seal’s magical authority as well as its visible form.

Eleventh–Twelfth Centuries — The Compass Enters Maritime Navigation

Chinese knowledge of magnetism develops into increasingly practical directional instruments.

Mariners combine the compass with stars, winds, currents, soundings, coastal knowledge and written sailing directions. It assists navigation without replacing experienced pilots.

The instrument spreads through maritime exchange rather than appearing everywhere at once.

1066 CE — The Norman Conquest of England

William of Normandy defeats Harold at Hastings and establishes a new ruling dynasty.

Conquest redistributes land, castles, offices and military obligations. Existing English law survives but is increasingly controlled by a new elite.

Norman rule coexists with the population. It places a foreign-speaking aristocracy over English, Danish and Brittonic communities while drawing upon earlier administration.

1071–1200 CE — The Eastern March Wars

After the Roman defeat at Manzikert, Turkic powers expand across much of Anatolia.

Eastern emperors recruit mercenaries and seek western military aid. Frankish, Norman and other armed hosts enter Anatolia and the Levant seeking land, wealth, relics and control of sacred routes.

Imperial interventions, armed pilgrimages, dynastic conquests and wars over Roman, Hellenic, Anatolian, Arabian and local sanctuaries create frontier principalities and military orders.

Binding campaign ruling: no side possesses universal sacred title to the region. Every army enters lands already governed by cities, villages, temple estates, tribal agreements and nonhuman territories whose claims survive conquest.

1075–1122 CE — The Investiture Struggle

Holy Roman rulers and the Roman College of Custodians contest who may appoint high custodians, temple rectors and other holders of wealthy sacred offices.

Emperors argue that offices carrying land, courts and military duties must answer to the crown. Sacred colleges argue that royal appointment turns divine trusts into hereditary political rewards.

Princes, cities and rival claimants exploit the conflict. Excommunication becomes formal exclusion from specified sacred courts and imperial rites rather than a claim that the condemned person has lost every god’s protection.

The settlement at Worms in 1122 separates aspects of sacred installation from the grant of temporal authority without ending the underlying struggle.

Binding campaign ruling: the settlement binds the named imperial and sacred offices. It does not give either side jurisdiction over independent Celtic sanctuaries, dwarven holds, elven courts or local gods outside the agreement.

1086 CE — The Great Survey

The Norman crown records landholders, resources, obligations and taxable value in the survey later called Domesday Book.

The record strengthens royal knowledge but also fixes conquest into administrative memory.

Binding campaign ruling: the survey records what the crown can compel witnesses to acknowledge. It does not automatically extinguish older customary, nonhuman or sacred land claims.

c. 1100 CE Onward — Great Zimbabwe Grows

Stone enclosures, cattle wealth, craft and long-distance trade support the growth of Great Zimbabwe.

Its rulers connect inland resources with Indian Ocean exchange through regional networks.

Binding campaign ruling: Great Zimbabwe is built by Shona ancestors and allied local communities. Foreign myths claiming an external lost civilisation or queen as its founder are false political inventions.

1127 CE — Northern Song Falls

Jin forces capture Kaifeng and the Song court retreats south.

Southern Song China remains wealthy, urban and administratively sophisticated while losing large northern territories.

The division intensifies naval development, frontier fortification and diplomatic competition.

1185–1192 CE — Warrior Government Emerges in Japan

The Genpei War destroys Taira dominance and brings Minamoto military leadership to power.

The Kamakura shogunate establishes a durable warrior government while the imperial court and shrine traditions remain important.

Japan now contains overlapping court, military, estate and sacred jurisdictions through overlapping court, military, estate and sacred jurisdictions.

c. 1150–1200 CE — Dominion Reaches Exhaustion

Across Eurasia, fortified kingdoms, temple states, cavalry confederacies, maritime powers and armed households press harder against one another.

Liao, Western Xia, Jin, Song, Cuman, Kipchak, Rus, Khwarazmian, Frankish, Roman, Seljuk, Chola and other powers occupy a dense political world of tribute, raid, treaty and dynastic rivalry.

Castles, city walls and fortified passes multiply. Archives deepen. Land and service are defined more precisely. Warrior elites become more hereditary in many regions.

These systems are powerful, but they are brittle. Their frontiers assume that enemies will move at familiar speeds and that tribute, sacred legitimacy and fortified centres will continue to function.

By 1200 CE, the world is ready for The Age of Severed Crowns, when steppe conquest, dynastic crisis, plague and gunpowder begin breaking the confidence built during this age.

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The World at 1200 CE

The Mediterranean and West Asia

The Eastern Roman Empire survives but has lost much of Anatolia. Persian court culture lives within several successor states. The Seven Wells imperial order is divided among rival dynasties, provincial powers and frontier rulers.

Europe and the North Atlantic

Frankish successor kingdoms, Norman principalities, English and Scandinavian monarchies, Rus states, assemblies and armed lordships share a landscape of castles, fortified towns and disputed Roman inheritance. Arthurian and older Celtic claims remain active beneath later boundaries.

Africa

Nubian kingdoms still guard the middle Nile. Sahelian states control gold, salt and caravan relationships. East African and Indian Ocean ports connect inland communities with Arabia, India and Southeast Asia. Great Zimbabwe is becoming a major southern centre.

South and Central Asia

Regional Indian kingdoms, temple estates, guilds and warrior houses govern different parts of the subcontinent. Central Asian routes are contested by settled states, cavalry powers and oasis cities. No ruler controls the whole network.

East Asia

Southern Song wealth faces Jin power in the north, with Liao inheritance and Western Xia controlling other strategic frontiers. Goryeo rules Korea. Japan’s warrior government operates beside the imperial court and Shinto sacred order.

Southeast Asia

Angkor, Pagan, Champa and maritime powers command river plains, temple landscapes, ports and straits. Their authority remains dependent upon waterworks, harbour agreements and local sacred obligations.

The Americas

Maya successor states, Toltec inheritances, Cahokia, Chacoan networks and Andean polities occupy separate political worlds. Several major centres have declined, but their peoples, roads, monuments and ritual obligations endure.

Oceania and Australia

Polynesian voyaging communities maintain and extend island networks. Australian peoples continue governing land through kinship, fire, water and sacred custodianship beyond the state systems dominating other regions.

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Peoples beyond One Dominion Model

Dwarves — Fortified Holds and Deep-Road Law

Dwarven societies vary greatly.

Some holds become wealthy through iron, silver, salt and weapon production. Others seal themselves after plague, giant war or human encroachment. Several control underground routes beneath mortal borders and refuse to recognise surface claims to the same territory.

Dwarven law often distinguishes clan member, guest, contracted worker, freed slave and enemy. Former enslavement by giants does not make every hold just. Some free any captive reaching their gates; others repeat forced labour against foreigners.

Elves — Courts of Treaty and Withdrawal

Elven courts do not retreat in one coordinated movement.

Some negotiate with successor kingdoms, recognising mortal roads in exchange for protected forests or harbours. Some withdraw deeper into Britain, Scandinavia and hidden territories. Others intervene through marriage, fosterage, diplomacy or assassination.

Long-lived rulers create succession problems unlike those of mortal kingdoms. An elven treaty signed six centuries earlier may still have living witnesses.

Gnomes — Engineers, Healers and Captive Specialists

Gnome enclaves possess local expertise in surveying, water control, medicine, alchemy, seals and portal law.

Courts invite, purchase or abduct gnome specialists. A gnome engineer may strengthen a city wall while leaving their home settlement vulnerable to the ruler who now knows its location.

Halflings — Food, Ferry and Market Leagues

Halfling communities often organise villages, river markets, ferries and agricultural leagues rather than territorial kingdoms.

Their grain, gardens and transport become strategically important during siege and famine. Rulers attempt to tax or relocate them; some leagues negotiate exemptions, while others arm militia or abandon exposed settlements.

Orcs and Hobgoblins

Orc and hobgoblin peoples remain distinct.

Some create cavalry confederacies, fortified border kingdoms or military colonies. Others live in pastoral, forest or mountain communities outside state rule.

Human chronicles frequently call their organised states “hordes” while calling comparable human powers kingdoms.

Goblins and Kobolds

Goblin and kobold societies occupy mines, ruined forts, forest margins and urban underworks.

Some are raiders. Others become toll-keepers, metalworkers, scouts or subject communities. A city may depend upon kobold maintenance beneath its walls while denying kobolds public personhood above ground.

Giants

Giant rulers survive in mountain valleys, islands and inherited titan fortresses.

Some retain enslaved populations. Others negotiate with mortal kings or serve as recognised border powers.

Arthurian and northern tales preserve giant-slaying as heroic memory, but each giant conflict requires its own judgement. A tyrant, a territorial ruler and a peaceful giant household are not one legal category.

Serpentfolk and Hidden Dynasties

Serpentfolk exploit the age’s dependence upon archives, lineage and sacred legitimacy.

They enter courts as astrologers, physicians, genealogists and custodians of older ruins. Some alter bloodlines or legal records. Others seek the recovery of prehuman sites buried beneath new capitals.

Mixed Settlements

Mixed settlements remain exceptions created by named conditions: a treaty port, shared mine, sanctuary, refugee town, royal marriage, frontier fortress or supernatural crossing.

Each requires rules for taxation, burial, marriage, slavery, military service and jurisdiction. Without such rules, the strongest group usually treats coexistence as permission to dominate.

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Gods, Ancestors and Sacred Dominion

The gods do not become unreal when kingdoms suppress their cults. Mortal authority can destroy temples, seize estates, outlaw rites and kill priests. It cannot abolish a divine realm by decree.

Roman and Hellenic Powers

The Roman pantheon remains tied to city protection, oath, war, household and imperial identity.

Janus becomes especially important during divisions, restorations and disputed successions. Mars, Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Vesta and other powers support different institutions rather than one permanently united court.

Celtic and Arthurian Britain

The Celtic gods, sovereignty powers and Otherworld courts remain central to Arthurian Britain.

Arthur’s kingship depends upon mortal law and supernatural agreements. It is not created by divine favour alone, and it can fail when the court breaks its obligations.

The Asgardian Gods

The Asgardian pantheon influences Scandinavian rulers, seafarers, merchants, poets and warriors.

No god grants all Norse rulers a common political programme. Odin may favour one king’s ambition while Thor protects the households resisting him.

Iranian Sacred Law

Zoroastrian fire temples, priestly houses and laws of purity remain important under the Sasanians and survive their fall.

Ahura Mazda, yazatas, ancestral powers and hostile spirits are real parts of Iranian sacred history. Political defeat does not invalidate the fires or contracts maintained by local communities.

Indian Gods and Philosophical Traditions

Shaiva, Vaishnava, Shakta and other Hindu traditions maintain temples, pilgrimage, philosophy and devotional practice around active gods.

Buddhist and Jain communities establish monasteries, schools, hospitals and merchant relationships across India and much of Asia. They provide distinct teachings about liberation, conduct and the nature of existence without making local gods, nagas, yakshas or ancestors unreal.

Royal patronage can enrich one tradition and suppress another, but India never possesses one sacred institution governing every region.

Chinese Ancestors, Daoist Orders and Confucian Schools

The Eastern pantheon includes Chinese celestial powers, local gods and deified ancestors.

Daoist orders preserve ritual, alchemy, healing and relationships with divine officials. Confucian schools shape administration, family duty, education and public ethics. Ancestor rites and territorial gods remain essential beneath both court systems.

The celestial order resembles mortal bureaucracy because courts borrow its language and symbols; it is not merely the empire projected into the sky.

Shinto Japan

Japan recognises kami, ancestors, sacred landscapes and Shinto shrine law as its public sacred foundation.

Continental philosophy, writing, medicine and contemplative disciplines enter court life and are integrated into Japanese schools and shrine institutions rather than forming a separate public religion.

A court decree may rank shrines and offerings, but it cannot merge distinct kami or transfer a sacred mountain’s authority to the capital.

African, American and Oceanic Powers

The African, Mesoamerican, North American and Polynesian pantheons remain regionally distinct.

Similar portfolios do not prove identity. A storm god, sea power or maize spirit in one tradition is not automatically the same being under another name.

Arabian Sanctuary Powers

The Concord of the Seven Wells recognises many gods, ancestors, stars and jinn-bound places.

Imperial rulers attempt to standardise the law governing these powers but cannot make every oasis, tribe or city accept one hierarchy.

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Law, War and Labour

Citizen, Subject and Foreigner

Law increasingly classifies people by citizenship, ancestry, lordship, household, tribute status and recognised community.

A person may be free in one kingdom, a subject in another and an outlaw or slave in a third.

Sanctuary and Surrender

Sacred houses, temples, assemblies and royal halls may offer sanctuary, but its protection depends upon recognition.

Surrender is strongest for recognised persons under known law. A creature or foreigner classified as a monster may be denied ransom or trial even when capable of speech and treaty.

Feud, Compensation and Outlawry

Many societies use compensation, oath and kin responsibility to contain violence.

Outlawry removes legal protection and can amount to a sentence of social death. It does not prove that every act committed against an outlaw is morally justified.

Land Grants and Military Service

Rulers grant land, tax rights and offices in return for service.

Such grants often ignore tenants, nonhuman claims, sacred boundaries and older communal rights.

Slavery

Slavery remains widespread through war, debt, birth, piracy, punishment and trade.

Norse, Mediterranean, Arabian, African, Asian and other systems differ. No one people possesses a monopoly upon either enslavement or resistance.

Fortification

Walls, castles, citadels, fortified sacred houses and defended towns spread.

Fortification protects populations but also strengthens rulers who control gates, granaries and wells.

Warrior Households

Military service increasingly concentrates around mounted elites, household troops, retainers and hereditary officers in many regions.

This does not happen everywhere or at the same speed. Communal militia, infantry armies, naval forces and steppe levies remain decisive.

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Magic in the Wars of Dominion

Archive Magic

Charters, land books, genealogies and tax rolls acquire magical as well as administrative force.

A forged genealogy may redirect a relic, ancestor ward or succession oath if the fraud remains undiscovered long enough to gain public recognition.

Fortress Wards

Fortifications increasingly combine stone, measured foundations, buried offerings, guardian images and bound spirits.

A ward may survive its dynasty and enforce obsolete rules against later inhabitants.

Sacred Houses and Schools

Temple colleges, shrine estates, philosophical schools and secluded sacred communities preserve books, healing, astronomy and ritual.

They may protect knowledge or monopolise it. Their neutrality depends upon law and power, not holiness alone.

Plague Magic

Plague inspires wards, quarantine rites, purification, divination and exploitation.

Effective magic can slow supernatural consequences or aid healing, but no common rite cures the whole pandemic.

Relics and Royal Objects

Swords, thrones, crowns, seals, banners, stones and ancestral remains become instruments of legitimacy.

A relic may recognise office, oath or conduct rather than blood. Possession alone does not always confer authority.

Gunpowder and Alchemy

Early gunpowder emerges from alchemy rather than replacing magic.

Its effects are material, reproducible and dangerous. Magical fire may improve or destabilise it, but does not remove the need for correct ingredients and handling.

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Knowledge and Technologies of Dominion

Paper, Printing and Archives

Paper lowers the cost of administration and correspondence in regions able to produce or import it. Woodblock printing multiplies calendars, law, ritual text and images; movable type introduces a flexible alternative without immediately replacing established methods.

Mills, Water and Agricultural Expansion

Watermills, irrigation systems, drainage, reservoirs and regional farming tools expand production in many areas. No one agricultural package spreads everywhere. Angkorian reservoirs, Sahelian pastoral systems, Andean terraces and raised fields, Chinese canals and European mills answer different environments.

Cavalry, Harness and the Armed Household

Stirrups, saddles, horse breeding, armour and organised remount systems strengthen mounted forces. Their effects depend upon pasture, wealth, training and terrain. Infantry, fleets, fortifications and communal militia remain decisive.

Ships, Pilots and the Compass

Improved hulls, rigging, port organisation and navigational knowledge support larger maritime networks. The magnetic compass becomes one tool among stars, swells, winds, soundings and inherited route memory.

Translation and Learned Networks

Scholars translate medicine, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, law and sacred texts among Greek, Persian, Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan, Arabic and other languages.

Translation preserves knowledge while changing it. A technical term, divine name or legal category may acquire a new meaning when moved into another language and sacred jurisdiction.

What Changed During the Wars of Dominion

• The western Roman imperial succession ends while Roman law and identity survive.
• Constantinople becomes the enduring centre of the Eastern Roman state.
• Sasanian Persia reaches great power, exhausts itself in war and falls.
• The Concord of the Seven Wells creates a non-Abrahamic Arabian imperial framework.
• Gupta courts shape northern Indian culture before regional powers succeed them.
• Aksum becomes a major Red Sea and highland kingdom.
• Arthur unites a Brittonic coalition, wins at Badon and falls at Camlann.
• Camelot withdraws into unstable Fey geography.
• Beowulf defeats Grendel, Grendel’s mother and a dragon before dying as king.
• The Dimmed Summers beginning in 536 intensify harvest failure and political instability across affected regions.
• The Justinianic plague disrupts populations and institutions across connected regions.
• Göktürk and Uyghur khaganates control major Inner Asian routes and steppe empires.
• Xuanzang’s journey connects Chinese, Central Asian and Indian learned worlds.
• Tang China becomes a cosmopolitan imperial power before the An Lushan rebellion shifts authority towards regional armies.
• The Tibetan Empire controls high routes and leaves treaty obligations in mountain passes.
• Liao and Western Xia prove that northern frontier states can combine mobile warfare with cities and administration.
• Paper, woodblock printing, movable type and the compass reshape administration, learning and navigation.
• Song China expands printing, cities, commerce and administrative capacity.
• Gunpowder appears in China but does not yet make artillery dominant.
• Classic Maya kingdoms record dynastic competition and sacred history.
• Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl’s exile becomes a defining Toltec political and sacred memory.
• Wari and Tiwanaku reorganise wide regions of the Andes through distinct political and ritual systems.
• Srivijaya controls strategic straits through a network of ports and harbour compacts.
• Angkor joins temple, city, agriculture and water management on a vast scale.
• Pagan turns the Irrawaddy plain into a dense landscape of royal and sacred foundations.
• Nobadia, Makuria and Alodia protect the middle Nile through fortified river kingdoms.
• Madagascar and the East African coast become parts of a wider Indian Ocean world.
• Gudit’s campaigns break old Aksumite royal centres and leave disputed highland sacred claims.
• Ghana, Kanem and other Sahelian powers expand.
• Norse raiders become traders, settlers, kings and Atlantic explorers.
• Kiev becomes a Rus political and commercial centre.
• Otto I establishes the imperial system that becomes the Holy Roman Empire.
• The Investiture Struggle defines the contested boundary between imperial and sacred appointments.
• Normandy turns a raiding settlement into a hereditary principality.
• The Alþingi creates public national law without kingship.
• Norse activity in North America is securely dated to 1021.
• Chola rulers project power through southern India and the Indian Ocean.
• Cahokia, Chaco, Toltec and Maya successor systems reshape the Americas.
• Great Zimbabwe begins growing as an inland trading and political centre.
• The Norman Conquest redistributes English land and military authority.
• Warrior government emerges in Japan alongside the imperial court.
• Fortification, archives and armed households become increasingly important.
• Steppe and frontier pressure prepares the crises of the following age.

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What Survives from the Wars of Dominion

• Roman laws copied by kingdoms that no longer understand their original institutions;
• Constantinopolitan wards tied to offices whose holders changed centuries ago;
• Sasanian seals and cavalry oaths surviving within later Persian houses;
• Aksumite stelae, tombs and royal claims;
• Gupta astronomical and mathematical manuscripts;
• Arthurian roads opening only under the terms of old sovereignty pacts;
• Camelot’s vanished court and unstable routes to Avalon;
• Merlin’s prophecies preserved in contradictory copies;
• Grendel’s bloodline and unclaimed territories around Heorot;
• weather cult charters issued during the Dimmed Summers;
• plague pits whose dead were never lawfully named;
• Justinianic legal claims used in later land disputes;
• the Concord of the Seven Wells and its sanctuary obligations;
• Ottonian imperial grants disputed by princes, cities and sacred colleges;
• Frankish charters granting lands already claimed by elves, dwarves or local communities;
• Saxon sacred sites damaged during imperial expansion;
• Norse runestones marking debts, voyages and inheritance;
• Danelaw boundaries still recognised by some spirits and oath-wards;
• Rus river tolls claimed by dead dynasties;
• Icelandic judgements binding outlaw descendants;
• Tang archives recording foreign envoys and magical gifts;
• Göktürk and Uyghur treaty versions whose sky-oaths contradict their written copies;
• Tibetan pass treaties naming dynasties that no longer exist;
• Khazar and Bulgar grazing rights ignored by later settled kingdoms;
• Ferdowsi manuscripts containing variant heroic names and dormant Simurgh signs;
• Song paper currency and counterfeit plates;
• movable-type cases capable of reproducing obsolete seals;
• early gunpowder formulas sealed in alchemical workshops;
• Maya monuments whose calendrical obligations remain active;
• Tiwanaku’s Gate of the Sun and its seasonal ancestral audience;
• Srivijayan harbour compacts divided among ports that dispute the old crown;
• Angkorian reservoirs containing bound water guardians;
• Pagan temple grants whose village obligations remain enforceable;
• Cahokian mound alignments opening seasonal spirit routes;
• Chaco roads that do not always lead through ordinary distance;
• Polynesian star paths preserved in genealogical chant;
• L’Anse aux Meadows evidence of unfinished Norse agreements;
• Great Zimbabwe trade objects carrying contracts from distant coasts;
• Norman surveys that omit pre-conquest sacred and nonhuman rights;
• fortress guardians defending ruins after every mortal claimant has died.

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Campaign Legacies

The Last Charter of Camelot

A newly recovered charter bears Arthur’s seal and grants a border forest to a community no modern crown recognises. The forest’s elven court has waited centuries for a mortal witness willing to enforce it.

The Grendel Compensation

A Danish hall claims Beowulf’s victory ended every legal obligation to Grendel’s surviving kin. A carved boundary stone states that compensation was promised for the destruction of their lake hall.

The Plague Ward

A sealed district beneath an eastern city remains protected by a sixth-century quarantine ward. Opening it may release plague, revenants or a population whose descendants believe the empire still exists.

The Seventh Well

One of the sanctuaries named by the Arabian Concord has vanished from all maps. Its guardian jinn insists that every dynasty ruling the surrounding region has violated the original terms.

The Irminsul Fragment

A surviving piece of the destroyed Saxon sacred pillar begins growing beneath a Frankish fortress. Several gods, giant houses and human dynasties claim the right to decide what it becomes.

The Danelaw Oath

An old boundary oath prevents an army from crossing a river. The current kingdoms deny that the Danelaw still exists, but the land itself continues enforcing the agreement.

The Cataract Crown

A Nubian royal seal commands safe passage through a dangerous Nile reach. The river spirits recognise the seal, but the modern government denies the descendants of the boat clans who once maintained the channel.

The Gate of the Sun

Tiwanaku’s seasonal crossing opens during an astronomical alignment. The ancestral court demands the return of offerings removed by collectors and conquerors before it will close again.

The Harbour without a King

A Srivijayan port invokes an ancient compact to close a strategic strait. Every surviving harbour claims authority to appoint the missing Crown of the Straits.

The Tang Envoy

A preserved official awakens from enchanted suspension carrying credentials for a court that fell three centuries ago. The gifts in their custody belong to foreign gods who now demand delivery.

The Counterfeit Heaven Note

A Song printing plate can create currency recognised by a forgotten treasury spirit. Every note issued increases the spirit’s claim over the modern city.

The Vinland Claim

A Norse legal record asserts a land grant in North America. Indigenous guardians possess a second record showing that the grant was conditional, temporary and revoked after violence.

The Emperor’s Empty Ring

An Ottonian investiture ring still grants authority over a wealthy sacred estate. The Roman College of Custodians, the imperial court and the estate’s local god each recognise a different lawful successor.

The Three Treaty Copies

A Turkic frontier treaty survives in written, ancestral and sky-sworn forms. Each version grants the same valley to a different people, and all three have supernatural witnesses.

Rostam’s Missing Verse

A newly discovered Shahnameh fragment describes a weapon hidden by Rostam after a victory omitted from every known version. The div named in the passage insists the omission was part of the peace treaty.

The Type Case of Ten Thousand Seals

An early movable-type workshop can reproduce any official seal once its characters are correctly assembled. Every false decree strengthens a forgotten Song archive spirit that is beginning to claim the surrounding city.

The Unfinished Great Enclosure

A stone pattern at Great Zimbabwe was left incomplete because its final course would have bound a powerful territorial spirit. A modern ruler wants the wall completed without accepting the obligations attached to it.

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Historic and Mythic Context

The Wars of Dominion combines established history, archaeological chronology, literary tradition and binding campaign rulings.

Roman imperial division, the end of the western imperial succession, Justinian’s legal compilation, the Dimmed Summers, the Justinianic plague, Aksum, Gupta and post-Gupta states, the Turkic and Uyghur khaganates, Tang and Song rule, Otto’s imperial restoration, Fatimid and Seljuk power, Angkor, Bagan, Tiwanaku, Cahokia, Chaco, Norse expansion, L’Anse aux Meadows and Great Zimbabwe belong to documented history, although particular dates and interpretations remain debated.

Arthur, Beowulf, Gudit, Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl and the Iranian heroes preserved by Ferdowsi are binding historical or supernatural figures within the campaign. Xuanzang’s recorded journey also contains genuine supernatural diplomacy. Later literary traditions preserve real people and events while compressing chronology, combining rulers and adding the assumptions of later courts.

SpiralWorlds removes Abrahamic religions from its sacred history. Political developments historically connected with Christianity and Islam are reconstructed through maintained regional gods, philosophical schools, temple institutions and the original Seven Wells Compact. These replacements alter law, legitimacy and supernatural relationships while preserving recognisable material and geopolitical pressures.

Dates for Teotihuacan’s decline, Maya political transformations, Polynesian settlement, early Sahelian kingdoms, Madagascar and Great Zimbabwe remain broad because the evidence does not support false precision.

The supernatural complements material explanation. Plague remains disease. Empires fail through politics, economy, war, succession, climate and human decisions even when gods, spirits and magic also act.

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Continue the Timeline

• Previous: The Iron Ascendancies
• Next: The Age of Severed Crowns
• Arthurian Characters
• Merlin the Enchanter
• Sir Gawain
• Grendel
• Midgard Bestiary
• Roman Pantheon
• Celtic Pantheon
• Asgardian Pantheon
• Eastern Pantheon
• African Pantheon
• Mesoamerican Pantheon
• North American Pantheon
• Polynesian Pantheon

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Selected Historical and Archaeological References

• The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Byzantium, c. 330–1453
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art — From Attila to Charlemagne
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art — The Vikings, 780–1100
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Tang Dynasty, 618–907
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Internationalism in the Tang Dynasty
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Northern Song Dynasty, 960–1127
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Northern and Southern Dynasties
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Gupta and South Asian Sacred Art
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art — South Asia: North, 500–1000 CE
• UNESCO — General History of Africa, Volume III: Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century
• UNESCO — Tiwanaku: Spiritual and Political Centre
• UNESCO — Cahokia Mounds
• UNESCO — Chaco Culture
• UNESCO — Bagan
• British Library — Beowulf Online
• British Library — King Arthur: Fable, Fact and Fiction
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Pre-Angkor Traditions
• University of Oxford — The Sasanian World
• UNESCO — Aksum
• UNESCO — Angkor
• UNESCO — Sambor Prei Kuk and Chenla
• UNESCO — Koh Ker
• UNESCO — Great Zimbabwe
• UNESCO — L’Anse aux Meadows
• Nature Geoscience — Cooling and Societal Change during the Late Antique Little Ice Age
• UNESCO — Silk Roads: Chang’an–Tianshan Corridor
• UNESCO — The Uighurs, the Kyrgyz and the Tangut
• History Today — Otto the Great Crowned Emperor of the Romans
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art — The Art of the Fatimid Period
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Court and Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs
• Encyclopaedia Iranica — Shahnameh
• UNESCO — History of Movable-Type Printing in China
• UNESCO — China: Past and Present