Chronological time lines for campaigns

[BiggusGeekus]

Two possibilities: Nothing of particular note happened in that time as far as "modern" historians of the setting consider it (i.e. it could be political)

Fine, but that's the kind if thing I want reflected in the text surrounding the timeline. To date, I've never seen the like.

the GM leaves gaps to allow him/her to plug in events that are background to an adventure or character history w/o having to tweak existing things too much.

I guess I can buy this. But, no lie, I've seen plenty of published settings that have thousand year gaps. I can appriciate a fudge factor, but I just don't understand why they don't squish their timelines down to a 1,000 - 1,500 year periods. There's more than enough leway in there to have empires rise and fall.

I mean, sure, Tolkien did this and it worked. But he also invented two languages to support his setting and had crazy detailed geneologies for those thousand year periods. It's not like he was slacking off or anything.

 

[crabclaw]

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE!

I just wanted to share what I came up with -- comments and suggestions are still welcome!


Chronology in the Planes is an ephemeral task to plot. Use your sense of standard earthy years for the following timetable, as we will for the purposes of simplicity, begin with the year 00.

Age of Decay

00: Sccarrottbalo attains a gate to collect souls, The Doorway of Doom
00-1005: The Amalgamation of the Demons Sccarottbalo and Structratus
1006: Sccarrottbalo and Structratus become Demon Lords
1006: The Demon Lords rally the Rebel Hordlings
1006: The Deepwuld War

The Time of Hatred and Pestilence

1009: The Mooring of Deepwuld in the Astral Plane
1009: The activation of the Doorway of Doom

Age of Flowers

1016: Nyomythus conscripts the Dawning Speares
1016: The War of the Dawning Speares
1016: The Creation of The Upland
1017: Armistice of the Holy Pantheon of Deepwuld
1017: Settlement of The Upland

Age of Doubt

1017: The Exile of Nyomythus from Deepwuld
1018: The Present Day

 

[Davelozzi]

I just wanted to share what I came up with...

Cool names, but why are your ages so short? two years? just curious.

 

[crabclaw]

Cool names, but why are your ages so short? two years? just curious.

Yes -- I need to think of a better word than "ages" for the short times -- I agree -- thanks

 

[Tonguez]

In my first campaign world (started 20 yrs ago when I was still at school) I decided to name the Ages 'Books' concieving the idea of the Great Divine Book which tells the History of the World

Book of Songs - Being an account of the Great Song of Creation to the War of the First World
Book of Dreams - Being an account of the first age of Mortals and the Teachings of the Lawbringers
Book of Sorrows - Being the Lost Age when foolish Mortals sought to be as gods
Book of Tears - Being an account of the Fall of the Lawbringers and the War of Shadows
Book of Dawn - Being an account of the Age of Heroes and Kings when the World was remade
Book of Heroes - Being the Current Age when Kingdoms strive against each other and mortals seek to understand their World

 

[Hand of Evil]

Yes -- I need to think of a better word than "ages" for the short times -- I agree -- thanks

I have used "song", "cycle", "step" and "age"

The Creation Song
The Song of Freedom
The Song of the Rain
The Wanders Song

 

[Esteban]

Here's another example. I use this timeline for my campaign:

http://home.cinci.rr.com/sbode/games/dnd/chronicles/timeline.htm

There are a couple races that are mentioned in the timeline that will not be familiar to you.

Shee - The fey progenitors of the elves who left the land two millennia ago but not before fighting an internecine war with their brethren the Dark Shee.

Dwimmerlokes - A race of men who were twisted and corrupted by the Dark Shee. They live under the roots of the Mickleback Mountains dreaming of the day they can destroy the world of men. (Dwimmerlokes are basically the orcs/hobgoblins of my world.)

Fomorians - a race of evil giants.

Hope it helps.

-Steve

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Age of Decay

00: Sccarrottbalo attains a gate to collect souls, The Doorway of Doom
00-1005: The Amalgamation of the Demons Sccarottbalo and Structratus
1006: Sccarrottbalo and Structratus become Demon Lords
1006: The Demon Lords rally the Rebel Hordlings
1006: The Deepwuld War

The Time of Hatred and Pestilence

1009: The Mooring of Deepwuld in the Astral Plane
1009: The activation of the Doorway of Doom

Age of Flowers

1016: Nyomythus conscripts the Dawning Speares
1016: The War of the Dawning Speares
1016: The Creation of The Upland
1017: Armistice of the Holy Pantheon of Deepwuld
1017: Settlement of The Upland

Age of Doubt

1017: The Exile of Nyomythus from Deepwuld
1018: The Present Day

OK people, see this? This is what as known as "good". There's still a fudge period in case the DM wants to expand, but the emphasis is placed on recent history (ie what most people would be concerned with).

Outstanding. Geekus like.

 

[pensiv]

The hard drive it was on has since died, but I had set up a timeline table that followed the major events of individual cultures in my campaign.

In the early years there were only 3 distinct cultures, but they diverged and converged several times by the time the PCs were alive. This not only gave me a rough history to work with, but gave me enough information to set some Past Era adventures.

I've taken a lot of inspiration from Issac Asimov's Chronology of the World

 

[WayneLigon]

Back-History in my Greatwood campaign is about half-way done. Next up is some more detailed stuff on the current age. This overview basically explains how the two main peoples came to be.