Before creation · Deep time · Mortal history · 1454 CE
SpiralWorlds Timeline
Follow one continuous history from the death of the last universe and the first cosmic distinctions through the formation of Earth, prehistoric civilisations, mortal kingdoms and the late-medieval campaign present.
Reading the chronology
Myth records events even when memory distorts them.
Exact dates mark accepted chronology; approximate dates use c.; events beyond mortal calendars follow mythic sequence. Poetry, damaged records, rival calendars, prophecy and political memory may disagree without making the underlying event unreal. A creature, spirit, custom or legend may predate its first written record: later folklore records are evidence of presence, not automatic origin dates.
For Earth history, geology, evolution, climate, continental movement and extinction remain real. Supernatural events occur within that natural history rather than replacing it. Temporal magic may observe, revisit, branch, loop or locally distort events, but it cannot silently overwrite the maintained chronology that holds in 1454. Rare temporal folds may expose another state of a particular place’s own past, future or branch history, but remain bounded by site, condition or duration rather than rewriting the world’s maintained past.
01 · Cosmic history
Before worlds, there were distinctions.
The earliest history establishes energy, thought, physical reality, cosmic law, the planes, magic, divine generations and the outsider peoples that later inherit those realms.
The Last Universe
An earlier creation reaches its end. Its final powers sacrifice themselves to imprison Nihros, while remnants and impossible memories survive the death of their universe.
Open the Last Universe → Between creationsThe Void Between Universes
Distance, duration, form and causation no longer possess dependable meaning. Qlippoths arise within the horror between creations while remnants of the previous universe refuse to disappear.
Enter the Void → Eons I–IVCosmic Dawn
The Great Collision in Eon II breaks primordial unity and releases the polar energies that become Positive and Negative. The Astral Plane awakens afterward in Eon III, and the first Elder Gods arise in Eon IV to begin ordering an unfinished cosmos.
Explore the Cosmic Dawn → Eons V–VIIIFoundations of Order
The first great schisms appear. In Eon VI dependable cosmic law is forged, with exceptional primordial law-powers such as the Circle of Three already present. In Eon VII the Outer Planes form: Hell and its layers exist before devils, infernal cities and later rulers. Stars and galaxies then give large-scale structure to the material universe.
Explore the foundations → Eons IX–XIIRaw Power & Hidden Cracks
Magic becomes repeatable, elemental realms stabilise, mirror worlds form and the Beyond begins pressing against the increasingly connected structure of reality. From the Eon XI boundary structure onward, naturally or artificially weak boundaries can appear; later mortal scholars call these Veil Faults, and use Veil-working to locate, stabilise, open, close or exploit them without creating new planes or gaining automatic sovereignty over what lies beyond.
Explore raw power → Eons XIII–XVCosmic Reckoning & Recovery
Cosmic fractures become battlefronts. During the Elder Wars, the six Primal Titans — Flame, Tide, Stone, Gale, Dream and Dusk — act as immense independent powers rather than a single united host. Elder wars scar reality, cosmic leylines help bind the damaged cosmos and the first gods gradually retreat from direct rule.
Explore the reckoning → Eon XVIDawn of the Outsiders
The stabilised planes generate or mature characteristic sapient peoples including devils, demons, celestials, modrons, inevitables, genies, yugoloths and many other outsider lineages. Hell and its layers already exist before mature devil society. After the Outsider Dawn, the infernal sovereign bearing the title Lucifer consolidates formal government over older hellspawn and local powers. The Wars of Dominance belong to this consolidation. Lucifer later creates or commissions the pit-fiend caste, with Aesmadeva as the first completed pit fiend. Still before the Great Fall, Asmodeus displaces Lucifer in the Battles of Light and Greed and takes the Serpent’s Throne without creating Hell or erasing its pre-existing peoples, layers and offices.
Explore the Outsider Dawn → Eon XVII · Great Fall in Eon XXToward Earth and Beyond
In Eon XVII, later divine generations establish pantheons, courts, estates, afterlife jurisdictions and prison-domains inside planes that are already ancient. Within the Mesopotamian succession, Apsu and Tiamat awaken as conscious water-powers only after cosmic law, identity and elemental differentiation already exist; Lahmu and Lahamu precede Anshar and Kishar, Anu later becomes formal sovereign, Enki defeats Apsu, and Marduk later defeats Tiamat’s war-host and Kingu. Ereshkigal remains the original sovereign of Irkalla, with Namtar as minister and Nergal a later consort and military co-ruler; Inanna’s descent, restoration and the Dumuzid/Geshtinanna substitutions establish major underworld and resurrection precedents. By Eon XX, prolonged mortal contact has helped some celestials develop genuine independent choice and the Great Fall becomes a multi-world civil war. Beelzebub unifies the principal rebel coalition, Belial becomes its great ideological leader and Moloch one of its principal field commanders. Belial orders the first deliberate destruction of a proto-world; Asmodeus manipulates and exploits the crisis from Hell, while Astarte pursues coercive bloodline control and her programme produces the Anakim as a stable, self-reproducing giant warrior people. Loyalists ultimately prevail; convicted rebels are tried and exiled into an already-existing Hell, the temporary wartime prison is dismantled, and celestial authorities impose new safeguards on future mortal-facing service. A surviving Anakim population later seizes an older off-world ark; generations of failing inherited operation eventually strand the vessel on Earth, although the absolute date of that arrival remains unresolved.
Continue toward Earth →02 · Earth and deep time
A magical Earth remains a natural Earth.
Earth forms naturally. Life evolves. Continents move, climates change and mass extinctions reshape the planet. Spirits, elder peoples, alien colonies and hidden survivals act within that history rather than replacing its natural causes. At an unresolved point in deep prehuman history, a distinct off-world uplift civilisation begins making rare interventions through advanced technology, selective contact, uplift and proxy influence. It is entirely separate from the Mesopotamian Anunnaki divine assembly; its first Earth contact and true name remain unresolved, while hidden cells survive into 1454.
The Dawn of Earth
Earth forms, oceans and atmosphere develop and native terrestrial life begins. Cthugha is already present in the Hadean. Elder Things arrive during the Archean before c. 3.5 billion years ago, establishing scientific colonies beneath the oceans and manipulating microorganisms that already evolved on Earth; they do not create terrestrial life. Their biotechnology later produces proto-Shoggoths; fully adaptive Shoggoths emerge by the late Precambrian. After the Cryogenian ice, Flumph choirs spread their non-aggressive radiance through protected seas. Ancient terrestrial Aboleths remain in deep-water refuges rather than ruling a universal world-spanning empire as the Cambrian predator world approaches.
c. 4.54 billion–538.8 million years ago → Earth Age 02The Age of Awakening
Complex seas fill with new forms of animal life. Reefs grow, fishes diversify and plants and arthropods establish the first great living footholds on land. In the Silurian, native magical fungal communities develop shared memory and communication; Zuggtmoy later corrupts parts of those networks rather than creating fungi or owning the resulting peoples. The hidden Spore Wars drive many surviving independent Fungoid communities into protected underground refuges.
538.8–358.9 million years ago → Earth Age 03Bugs, Amphibians and the Rise of Giants
Coal forests, giant arthropods and amphibian worlds give rise to the first Elder Treants, followed later by ordinary Treants and other distinct plant-monster lineages. Native terrestrial Serpentfolk already exist before First Valusia, which rises around c. 275 million years ago as a dominant but non-universal Serpentfolk imperial power. The Shoggoth rebellion erupts c. 270–260 million years ago; the natural Great Dying follows around 252 million years ago. By c. 225 million years ago, Triassic ecological disasters shatter unified Valusia into successor dynasties, subterranean cities, sealed sanctuaries and surviving political and cultic networks. Surviving Shoggoths likewise persist in deep hidden refuges.
358.9–201.4 million years ago → Earth Age 04The Age of Giants
Dinosaurs dominate Jurassic landscapes while great reptiles command sea and sky. Around 160 million years ago, a major renewed Mi-Go colonisation and extraction wave becomes full-scale war with the Elder Things; the Mi-Go seize much of the northern land territory, while Elder Thing civilisation contracts toward Antarctica, southern installations, marine refuges and deep complexes. The Mi-Go then maintain a persistent but changing Earth network of mines, laboratories, observation stations and deep routes that can be abandoned, destroyed, reopened or replaced. Yaddith-Gho in Mu predates terrestrial life: the Spawn of Yuggoth built the fortress and installed Ghatanothoa there before later perishing. Jurassic Mi-Go explorers rediscover its ruins, confirm that Ghatanothoa survives beneath them, and quarantine or avoid the site rather than reoccupying it. Around 150 million years ago, a single Yekubian cube reaches Earth; the Great Race detects the infiltration, destroys the occupied bodies and quarantines the device. Later cubes fail to reach Earth. Records of the incident survive as the Eltdown Shards, displaced backward into much older strata so the geological age of the deposit and the age of the information diverge. Jurassic Fey activity also resurges regionally as old crossings reopen and new ones form in recovering forests; these courts remain independent rather than becoming a global Fey empire.
201.4–143.1 million years ago → Earth Age 05The Flowering World
Flowering plants spread through increasingly diverse ecosystems while the last great dinosaur worlds reach their height. Elder Thing civilisation remains powerful but contracted in Antarctica, marine refuges and deep complexes; around c. 100 million years ago it reaches a final regional cultural and scientific renaissance without recovering its lost northern empire or interstellar capability. The age ends with the natural end-Cretaceous catastrophe.
143.1–66 million years ago → Earth Age 06The Ashen Dawn
Impact, darkness and extinction break the Cretaceous world. Mammals, birds and recovering ecosystems expand through the long aftermath, while older powers survive in refuges rather than simply vanishing. Around c. 50 million years ago, imprisoned Flying Polyps break free and renew their ancient war with the Great Race of Yith. The Great Race loses its principal terrestrial centres without becoming extinct; the wider catastrophe destroys numerous Elder Thing cities, including their original Antarctic settlement. In the same broad period the ancient Lemurians establish Shamballah, marking a civilisation threshold rather than the origin of their people.
66–23 million years ago → Earth Age 07The Age of Open Lands
Grasslands, steppes and changing forests reshape the continents as increasingly familiar mammal lineages spread and the long history of hominins begins. Around c. 5 million years ago, the Serpent People city of Yoth fractures in a religious and political schism between Yig loyalists and Tsathogguan factions; Yig destroys the city and its survivors scatter. Around c. 3 million years ago, Voormis uprisings destroy surviving breeding houses and laboratories in parts of Hyperborea and establish an independent surface kingdom.
23–2.58 million years ago → Earth Age 08The Shattered Crown
Repeated ice ages remake Earth as ancient dominions fragment and human and nonhuman peoples spread through a world of advancing and retreating ice. Around c. 1.7 million years ago, Ithaqua becomes openly active in the far north; its storms, disappearances and cult wars accelerate the decline of Voormis and other northern powers, while later cold, famine and war help break Hyperborea and Lomar. Before the Great Elven Fragmentation, most major terrestrial elven polities ultimately answer to one Supreme Continental Elven Empire. A disputed succession and wider crisis divide its claimant blocs; competing uses of imperial magic become civil-war weapons and amplify the catastrophe into a magical-geological cascade. By the Middle Pleistocene the universal imperial order is broken, leaving successor states, displaced or transformed territories and rival traditions. An older Draconic War of Crowns involving rival dragon dynasties, giant powers and the ancient elven empire is known to predate the Fragmentation, although its absolute date remains unresolved. Britain and Scandinavia are among the strongest openly surviving elven power-centres by 1454.
2.58 million years ago–c. 9700 BCE →03 · Ages of mortal civilisation
Settlement becomes memory, law and empire.
These ages identify major transformations without claiming that every people urbanises, centralises, adopts the same technology or changes at the same moment. Human and nonhuman societies continue along distinct regional histories.
The Dawning Age
Post-glacial warming, rising seas, enduring settlements, managed landscapes and inherited territories reshape human and nonhuman societies worldwide.
c. 9700–7000 BCE → Earth Age 10The Rooting Age
Fields, herds, villages, storage, shrines, labour and inheritance bind many communities more tightly to particular territories while other ways of life endure.
c. 7000–5000 BCE → Earth Age 11The Blooming Cities
Large villages become towns and early cities as public sanctuaries, stores, workshops, walls, trade districts and permanent authorities reshape settled life.
c. 5000–3500 BCE → Earth Age 12The Breaking Paths
Writing, migration, widening trade, sacred kingship and early territorial states separate regional political traditions and preserve increasingly different versions of the past.
c. 3500–2000 BCE → Earth Age 13The Rise of Kingdoms
Palaces, chariots, royal archives, heroic dynasties and international diplomacy create magnificent but dangerously interdependent Bronze Age powers. In the mythic Hellenic age, at an exact absolute date that remains unresolved, Gaia’s earth-born Gigantes rise against the Olympian order in the Gigantomachy. Alcyoneus and Porphyrion lead the rebellion; Heracles fights beside the Olympians, and the coalition is defeated. The Gigantes are a distinct chthonic primordial lineage, not the Titan-descended Material giant successor peoples of later Earth history.
c. 2000–1200 BCE → Earth Age 14The Iron Ascendancies
Ironworking spreads unevenly while cavalry, coinage, roads, written law, administration and expanding states transform political power across many regions.
c. 1200 BCE–300 CE → Earth Age 15The Wars of Dominion
Great imperial systems fracture into kingdoms, confederacies, sacred jurisdictions, fortified territories and rival powers competing over law, land, trade and inherited authority. Arthur halts the West Saxon advance at Badon in 515; Camlann in 537 ends ordinary Camelot, Arthur is carried to Avalon and Camelot passes into unstable Fey geography rather than surviving as a functioning government into 1454.
300–1200 CE → Earth Age 16The Age of Severed Crowns
Mhurak Stone-Blood begins the orc Great Muster in 1206; its conquests later fracture into four orc successor powers, while human conquerors such as Timur remain distinct from them. Catfolk seize Kemet in 1250. In 1274 Mizuchi-no-Arashi rises beneath the first Eastern Fang invasion of Japan; in 1281 Raijin, Susanoo, coastal kami and autonomous sea kaiju including Mogaru help destroy the second invasion. Mansa Musa undertakes the Great Circuit through Catfolk Kemet and the Seven Wells in 1324, and Tenochtitlan is founded beneath Huitzilopochtli’s sign in 1325. Plague, revolt, gunpowder and artillery transform older societies. Established Atlantic colonies already exist before the Ninefold Dominion seizes Constantinople in 1453, carrying the world into the campaign present.
1200–1454 CE →04 · Campaign present
1454 CE
The campaign opens one year after the hobgoblin Ninefold Dominion seized Constantinople and one year after the end of the Hundred Years’ War. The Dominion and the Ottoman state remain separate powers.
The Black Death has emptied settlements and transformed labour, inheritance and burial. The rarer Red Death is a supernatural sister plague: those it kills return as undead. Zombies, ghouls, grave-touched dead, ghasts and other returns appear according to corpse, place and corruption; ordinary undead also exist independently of the plague.
Cannon and gunpowder are changing siegecraft. Mercenary companies seek employers, and the four orc successor powers remain dangerous across the steppe world. Catfolk rule Kemet. The Empire remains a patchwork of kingdoms, principalities, duchies, counties, lordships, free cities and sacred territories under the weak authority of Frederick III. In Wallachia, Vlad III is already a vampire and his undead power is expanding against the Ninefold threat rather than marching on the Empire.
Across the Atlantic, six English colonies, Dutch New Netherland and a Norse Delaware presence coexist with inland towns, river settlements and frontier communities. Exiled gnome gunsmiths in North America have accelerated some firearms far beyond ordinary European 1454 technology; the Caribbean remains contested, Mexica and Inca powers continue expanding, and Terra Australis has been charted. Gods, spirits, monsters, ancient peoples and hidden civilisations continue to hold recognised claims over land, bloodlines, roads, graves and sacred places.
The past is not background. Every earlier age can return as ownership, danger, obligation, alliance, inheritance or adventure.
05 · Continue through the world
Follow history into place, power and danger.
The Timeline establishes sequence. These collections show where the consequences of that history survive in 1454.
06 · Further reading
Scientific chronology beneath the fantasy world.
Cosmic, geological and human history remain the natural foundation of the world, while gods, monsters, magic and ancient civilisations act within that same chronology. These institutional sources provide the scientific framework beneath the recorded ages.
The authoritative international reference for geological periods, epochs and formally recognised boundary ages.
International Chronostratigraphic Chart ↗Formation and development of the Solar System, including its origin about 4.6 billion years ago.
Solar System facts ↗An accessible introduction to geological time and the evidence used to reconstruct the immense history of Earth.
Geologic Time ↗Research and explanatory material on human evolution, adaptation and the changing environments in which hominin history unfolded.
Climate and Human Evolution ↗Search SpiralWorlds
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