Writing was adapted by sentient humanoid races and used in tribes to develop agricultural and nautical records, and to facilitate trade.
Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
History of Craedock
Before the Named Eras
... 8000 PME
This is a simple category of all time that occured before Aar’s Era, considered to be the first era. This timeframe covers the beginning of agriculture and civilization, and some of the first documents ever written exist today in Craedock’s largest temple libraries. During this time shamans, druids, oracles, and astrologers ruled most of the hunter-gatherer tribes. Sailing may be the most important innovation that predates writing in Craedock, which allowed all the land’s spiritual leaders to confer, even across multiple islands. This is when and how the Duotheism was discovered.
-
-4000 BNE
Writing Developed
Cultural event
Aar's Era
8000 PME 6000 PME
Agriculture has founded itself throughout various islands. During the infant years of its establishment and the various technological innovations that went along with it, many young civilizations began to form, and warfare became common between the early settlements and the “barbarian” hunter-gatherer tribes. About half-way through this era, a long period of hot drought began and famine ensnared the region. Resources were fought over, and raising enemy settlements with fire was a common practice. This later half of the era gave it its name, after the Angel of Fire. Eventually the newly found civilizations were able to manage and stockpile their resources, and their organization lead to skilled armies that suppressed the barbarian tribes, furthering the spread of civilization even moreso.
-
1000 AE
[Stub]
[Stub]
The Chroniclers' Era
6000 PME 5000 PME
Sailing has always existed in the oceanic island continent of Craedock, but this is when the ancient art truly melded with the culture, heart and souls of the region’s people. With the advent of civilization in the last era, governments formed from the tribal leaders and populations grew. With excess resources, division of labor ensued, and standardized currencies were established throughout the land and seas. This opened the door to trade, and trade ensued between all the early states. Chroniclers were the bookkeepers and accountants of the time, but the profession, sheerly out of demand for more accurate records and the limited supply of literate individuals, covered scribes of every written word imaginable. The chroniclers kept ships logs, trade records, business deals, and historical records. Governments experimented with laws, and the chroniclers wrote them down, along with all manner of pacts and treaties. Religious decrees and holy texts were originally not written by priests or monks, even though astrologers have kept calendars for as long as writing has existed, but by the expert chroniclers. Their ubiquitous influence in the history and culture of Craedock, and recording of it, gives this era its name.
-
500 CE
[Stub]
[Stub]
The Henge Era
5000 PME 3195 PME
The secularist rise of trade and commerce ignited the advent of economic power, a new type of influence that had the potential to challenge the religious and stately control systems in place. Although the vast majority of religious leaders embraced the flourishing advancements that came with improved economies, and attributed much of it to the direct handiwork of the god and goddess, a few outliers sought to resort to the older ways. These groups were eventually dubbed Henge Worshippers for their fanatic and fundamentalist adherence to rituals involving stone henges from the religion’s early history, some of which still exist today. They attracted aggressive adherents, and utilized the seafaring culture of the region to spread their ideas and influence many large populations. A formal hierarchy formed within the movement, which is ironically something that had never before existed the Craedock’s spiritual circles, and soon the henge-church was spreading their message by force. As warfare ignited and continued, the religious order took on the form of a military chain of command, and a line of Supreme Prophets lead their armies. The church became an empire. Throughout Entrophion, the Acronian Sea, and Poslool more states were subjugated. Those that had the resources to make indoctrination worth the task were forcibly integrated into the new Obelisk Empire, named so as they took on the practice of erecting massive obelisks and pyramids in the center of many of the old henges, an architectural task once impossible without the technology and resources made available over the last three-thousand years. Those settlements that refused imperial rule or were not worth the time to integrate were enslaved. To this day the Empire is still the largest “unifying” force to have ever existed in the region.
-
1753 HE
Founding of Sprigstein
Founding
The Royal Era
3194 PME 120 PME
By the end of the Henge Era, the Church of the Obelisk was a hollow shell of its original vision: it had become a corrupt and abusive empire with little spiritual resonance other than the teachings it forced upon its people. Hundreds of years of discontent lead to a revolt of spiritual, religious, and ideological slant. This era is marked by a setting ripe for many origin stories of great heroes and leaders rising up against oppression and freeing their people. Some claimed justice, some claimed divine intervention, but these great political, spiritual, and military leaders who overthrew the Empire were eventually dubbed the kings and queens of the lands, and royalty was born out of pride and reverence. The Empire was broken up into the city-states that lie on the map today and have more or less kept the same names. Although there were many conflicts over this expansive era, wars were between only a number of kingdoms and kept in check by the royal leaders and the various politics that influenced their decisions. No such conflict as the Henge Crusades would ravage all the Acronian Sea again. Economies would bloom again, and this gave rise to the metropolis capitals we see today. This is the era where the Acronian Sea got its name. A homeostasis of secularism and religion molded as temples and churches diversified and various groups (cities, guilds, schools, villages) and individuals used their newfound religious freedoms to select and choose their patron deities from the great pantheon, headed, of course, by the god and goddess. Warfare was common, but peace and trade were typically preferred. Royal bloodlines would inherit rule for millenia.
-
2889 RE
Gunpowder Invented
Technological achievement
Vytali's Era
119 PME 0 PME
As the kingdoms of old grew in might and continued to expand their domains, more and more small villages and towns were incorporated into their rule. For the most part, this was peaceful, although by no means left devoid of conflict. As populations grew, technology progressed, and literacy, religious ideas, and education spread, new ideologies began to form. Eventually the masses began to question the “obvious” nature of royal rule, many denizens felt they could be pulled into warfare at the whims of some baron or monarch, and the region’s philosophers, mathematicians, and scientists became the voices of reason in an age of faith and presumptions. A new era was dawning, so named after Vytali, the Angel of Knowledge. The more well established churches knew better than to try to suppress the people by force as the Empire of the Obelisk had once done, fearful that the murmurings of rebellion might turn on them as well. Instead, most turned on the kingdoms and monarchies themselves, spreading educational supplies and sending missionaries to teach math, reading and writing to citizens so that the spread of ideas could flourish. The churches took care not to endorse these new ideas, but did gain the good graces of the people as harbingers and servants to the masses, completely severing the idea that the temples were ever instruments of the kingdoms. They declared a Golden Era (it was very unusual to name an era as it was happening, usually they would be decided as a matter of history, not current events; a tribute to the spread of freethought at this time) and various forms and ideologies of government began to gain popularity. The kings and queens resisted of course, and revolution ensued.
-
20 VE
Sprigstein Printing Press Invented
Technological achievementThe Springstein Printing Press was invented by a team of Dwarven metallurgists and devout worshipers of Rixa, during the golden age of Vytali's Era, and quite possibly contributed to the spread of ideas that lead to the ultimate downfall of the old monarchies.
Location
Sprigstein -
24 VE
29 VE
14 /3
Founding of the Hekros Kritarchy
FoundingThe people of Hekros overthrow their old monarchy and establish their newly selected form of government.
Location
Hekros
The Modern Era
1 ME and beyond
The Modern Era, also known as the Post-Royal-Era, is when the current Gazetteer of Craedock takes full effect. Acron is the only Kingdom that maintained its existence after the revolutions, and the only other royal bloodline is in Aclia. The Elvish King gave full power to his Druidic counsel at the time in exchange for the preservation of the royal line, something the public found agreeable. The Acronian monarchy gained public support by ratifying a constitution which guaranteed the rights of the people. All the other kingdoms fell way to the new forms of government which exist today, even if they have changed name and form in the last 300 years.
-
114 ME
Fall of the Elder Stone
Disaster / DestructionRecent meteorite impact that caused the destruction of two of Craedock's largest empires, sparked a decade long winter, and bore the coming of Thellkaeon, the Third God.
© Dylan Eugene Wheeler 2018
Click to view the Author's Copyright Notice.
Find your way!
Resources
WHO WE ARE
LEGAL
Get the news
Listen to our Podcast
Our Allies
