DND Timeline

##COUNTLESS YEARS AGO
- The gods awaken
- The gods create the cosmos
- The gods bless chosen planets with life
- Civilization flourishes
- The folk of our world discover magic
- On another world, Mindflayers discover the art of spelljamming
- Mindflayers begin a campaign of galactic conquest
- A kindly god protects our world by sealing it away recursively within a crystal sphere (many gods trapped as well)
- Infinitely accumulating magic within a finite space threatens syntropy
- The gods create the devnull in order to siphon away extra magic
- The gods lose most of their divine power in the siphoning
##SEVEN THOUSAND YEARS AGO
- Acererak the wizard fears death
- Acererak creates a phylactery
- Acererak, now a lich, begins a reign of terror
- A group of heroes, aided by the great dragon Djeolumnix, slay Acererak
- The heroes cast Acererak's phylactery into the devnull
- One of those heroes is named the first emperor
##SIX THOUSAND YEARS AGO
- During a war between the empire and Doas'yan, the grand archives are destroyed and most of recorded history is lost
- Acererak is forgotten - his skeleton remains on its throne in his castle in Goblin Valley as "the king that time forgot"
##FOUR HUNDRED YEARS AGO
- Prosperity in the land under Emperor Vaunord
- The wizards Lum, Zagyg, and Warnes create fantastical machines (including the occursus ruptors and the Tradehold's mechanical blacksmith)
- LZ&W, noticing that the devnull is behaving oddly, use their greatest machine to analyze it
- LZ&W discover something within the devnull that is not being annihilated - Acererak's phylactery, which has been feeding on the devnull's siphoned magic
- LZ&W invent a new machine and use it to find a way to cut the phylactery off from its endless supply of magic
- LZ&W enclose the devnull in a silver lattice, acting as a faraday cage to prevent magic from reaching the phylactery
- LZ&W entrust the devnull to Vaunord
- With the devnull cut off, syntropy once again becomes a threat
- As a replacement for the devnull, LZ&W erect massive capacitors in the southern plains
- The capacitors are effective for a while, but begin discharging magic at random as they reach capacity
- The plains become a wasteland
- Djeolumnix resolves to patrol the wastes, feeding on the energy of the capacitors whenever they near critical charge
- Emperor Vaunord fears death
- Vaunord researches reincarnation
- Vaunord makes arrangements for a large cache of treasure to be hidden northeast of Goblin Valley so that he might find it in his next life
- Vaunord divides a map into 7 pieces and scatters them around the continent
##NOW
- Strangers (the player characters) meet in the town of Hawkfeather on the eve of the Reading of the Dead, each carrying a fragment of Vaunord's map
- The strangers become fast friends and form an adventuring party
- The party locates Vaunord's tomb and the devnull (but don't know what it is)
- The party visits Goblin Valley and find Acererak's castle (but don't know who it belongs to)
- The party accidentally damages the silver lattice on the devnull
- Acererak's soul escapes the phylactery and rejoins his body