Age of Renaissance

Humanity’s recovery after the destruction of the Aetheric Collector ushered in the Fourth Age of Man. Despite how far man had fallen, during this age humanity experienced a rebirth. Kingdoms and citystates quickly established themselves from the ruins of the past, trade flourished, and the fields of magic, art, and craftsmanship advanced to levels not seen since the Second Age. Unfortunately, the Fourth Age was also the shortest of the Ages of Man. Much like a candle that flares intensely and then burns out, the triumphs of humanity were tempered and almost wrought to nil. The Fourth Age lasted for about 150 years.

Formation of the Free Cities of Calythir
521 AR

Calythir was once an outlying province of the Marasinian Empire. After the collapse of Marasinia, the inhabitants of the region rallied around the six major settlements in Calythir, spending the Age of Chaos defending the towns and cities and surviving as best they could. After the dust had settled from the end of the Third Age, the cities joined into a loose alliance known as the Free Cities of Calythir.

First Sekhemet Undead Invasion
550 AR

Sekhemet was a wizard of ancient Khemsa who became a lich during the Second Age. In 550 AR, he led an army of the Undead over the Varghani Mountains and into the Emerald Coast. The people living there were more organized than he had expected and the invasion was repelled. Sekhemet himself escaped and would continue to be a menance to the region in the years to come.

The Great Houses
c. 570 AR

During the early part of the Fourth Age, the Great Houses began to establish themselves and consolidate their power. The Houses started as influential families with numerous resources that had the acumen to take advantage of the rise in travel and trade. Eventually they focused on their specialties and extended their reach to all parts of the continent.

Saren Civil War
607 AR

In 607 AR, a collation of Saren nobles rebelled against the Sarenland king. The king and his loyalists fought the rebel nobility for years, though ultimately they were victorious. However, the damage wrought by the war was so great that Sarenland has never fully recovered.

Aldanor Ravaged by Demonic Invasion
648 AR

Fifty years ago, the king of Aldanor was an accomplished wizard named Alwyn Harcourt. Harcourt was an avaricious and ambitious man, consumed with the idea of ruling the entirety of the Emerald Coast. His desires led to years of skirmishing and occasional warring with neighboring kingdoms, and eventually led him to traffick with dark, otherworldly forces. In 648 AR Harcourt decided to summon a horde of demons to help him in his conquests and hasten the formation of his sought-after empire. During his summoning ritual, however, Harcourt was assassinated by a Ralynian spy; unfortunately, the infernal gateway the king had created was already open, and with his death, there was no easy way to close it.

The demons that came through the gateway ravaged western Aldanor, laying waste to towns, villages, and the Aldish army was devastated. With assistance from Ilmara, Miradel, and Talîsmarr, Harcourt’s heir was able to stop the demon army and seal their gateway.

Asettrine Prophecy Validated
652 AR

Asettra was an ancient Khemsan prophet and author of a famous prophecy that portended the doom of Ryh’ardha. The prophecy was discounted by most sages for years until 652 AR when the Church of Aeryandris stunned the scholarly community by announcing that they believed Assetra’s Prophecy to be truthful. Many still scoffed at the idea years afterward until the last major events of the Fourth Age took place – in accordance with the Prophecy. Now, many of them are spending great amounts of gold and effort to decipher the remaining passages that have yet to be fulfilled.

Demongate Wars
658 AR

In 658 AR, a faction of the Ordos Arcanis Ex Imperium acquired a Marasinian artifact from the ruins of Kyrantheum. The device was a large, glyphcovered orb that they believed could be used to open the ancient runegates (aka “demongates”). Their plan was to use the orb to open the gates for a time and allow various demons, devils, and other creatures to enter the material realm. This would embroil the Ryh’ardhan kingdoms in conflict with the fiendish hordes and deplete their armies and resources. Despite the fact that this sort of thing almost always ended in terrible failure in the past, the wizards believed their plan would succeed. They would keep the gates in Ulthia from opening and thus would be unharmed by the conflict. They would then be able to sweep through the west, conquering the weakened kingdoms relatively easily.

Unfortunately, as is too often the case, their plan failed. Runegates opened everywhere, including Ulthia, and the wizards were unable to deactivate the orb to close them again. Fortunately, a number of religious orders had foreseen elements of this event and through collaboration with one another learned what was happening and how to stop it. They engaged a band of adventurers to recover an artifact called the Hammer of Njorask, also known as “Relicbreaker”. With the help of some Ulthian Azakhari clerics – rivals of the Ordos mages – these heroes were able to penetrate the wizards’ sanctum and destroy the orb.

Though the orb had been destroyed, it had not simply opened portals – it opened them and imbued them with enough energy to stay open. To date, a number of gates have been found and destroyed or sealed, but many more still exist undiscovered in the wilderlands.

Sylvari Return to Ryh’ardha
668 AR

Long thought to have been destroyed by the Marasinian Empire in 450 AR, the Sylvari returned to the continent of Ryh’ardha in 668 AR. While most of the elven race had indeed been killed by the Mystarchs, tens of thousands had managed to escape the Marasinian plague by using an unsealed (and uncorrupted) runegate to travel to a continent far to the east. There they had established the kingdom of Elthanamir. Eventually, these eastern Sylvari chose to return to Ryh’ardha to see what had transpired in the wars with Marasinia. Many also wanted to recover items that had been left behind in the cities and palaces, assuming they had not been entirely looted in the past 200 years.

The returning Sylvari avoided Ulthia and Aelorea, landing at Griffin’s Keep where they were greeted warmly – if with a great deal of surprise – by the paladins of Lhyrna. Over time, elven ships have found harbor in Zeldora, Talîsmarr, and Ilmara. Embassies have been established and homes built, and eventually the Sylvari reclaimed their ancient city Tyr Aegas.

Aaduan Devastation
672 AR

The world had barely begun to recover from the Demongate Wars when the cult of Aadu almost delivered a coup de grace to finish it off. The followers of the Mad God discovered an ancient cache of “Chaos Orbs”: crystal spheres containing pure chaos energy. The cache contains literally tens of thousands of these orbs. The cult leaders hatched a scheme wherein these orbs would be placed in various strategic locations around Ryh’ardha and then a magical ritual would release the chaos energy of all of them simultaneously, causing massive destruction across the world – possibly even destroying it.

Fortunately, the nature of Aadu’s clergy worked against the scheme, since it relied on a high-degree of coordination – something the chaotic priests of Aadu were not accustomed to. Between overanxious clerics activating the power of their orbs prematurely to cultist cells eliminated by heroes and mercenaries, the degree of destruction was dramatically lessened. It was still vast, however. Among other things, Miradel and Valdahar were levelled, the Abyssal Maelstrom was formed, and myriad villages and towns disappeared literally in an instant.