kieza
2011-11-25, 07:56 PM
I'm working on a more detailed version of my campaign world's timeline, and I need minor historical events to fill in the gaps between major upheavals. So, thought I, why not ask the Playground?
I'm looking for events that are noteworthy, but not game-changing. They can be technological, political, magical, societal, etc. Military events are okay as long as they don't involve major wars; border skirmishes, peacekeeping actions, and monster hunting are cool. For example:
-Olaf Gunderssen invents the Gunderssen smelting process.
-The city-state of Southbyrne breaks its treaty with Waystone and allies with the Victan Empire.
-Blight strikes southern Arcis Sanctis, ruining the year's grain crops.
-A necromantic cult with ties to several prominent officials is exposed and exterminated in the undercity of Waystone.
-The dwarven Highguard is deployed to the border with the Victan Empire in response to Victan "military training exercises."
What I DON'T want:
-World wars
-Assassinations of major figures
-Major magical phenomena (large numbers of mages die or lose their powers, a certain school of magic gets more or less powerful, some other plane crosses over with the Material).
-Divine intervention
I'm primarily looking for things I can use in my setting, but I don't see why it has to be just for my benefit. So, feel free to post ideas for any setting. If you're interested in my setting, here's a (relatively) brief summary.
The world started out as a Forgotten-Realms-esque world: lots of magic, medieval stasis, great and terrible empires. About 1100 years ago, the one and only major magical event in the world's history occurred: a cabal of elven research wizards, while trying to find a way of accessing the Astral Sea, managed to destroy the Ward keeping denizens of the Astral Sea from coming to the Material Plane. The absence of the Ward led to about six months when demons could easily transit to the Material Plane, causing massive destruction and panic. Eventually, an elven hero-figure returned from obscurity and mostly fixed the Ward, but vanished in the process.
The aftermath of this incident led to a great deal of paranoia among the three empires (dwarven, elven, and human) of the time. The alliance that had been in place was broken as each empire accused the others of being infiltrated by demons (and they were all right, but to a lesser degree than they feared). A coalition of religious orders conducted an Inquisition which rooted out almost all of the demons, but also caught up a lot of innocent people. A good chunk of the empires' leadership was purged during this Inquisition, and their replacements were largely incompetent or corrupt.
Around 2 centuries after the Ward failed, another magical accident occurred. An elven ley-tap (a sort of magical power generator) was sabotaged and destroyed a small city when it blew up. While this was nowhere near the severity of the Ward incident, the elves blamed the humans, starting a major war. A series of atrocities committed by both sides escalated the war, and eventually the orc tribes to the east got caught, entirely by accident, in the crossfire. The orcs' response was to join in the war en masse. If, at this point, the elves and humans had put aside their grievances, they might have survived. However, they continued to fight until it was too late. Even when the dwarves entered the war, the only thing that could be done was to delay the oncoming horde long enough for a small number of civilians to evacuate into the west. The three empires were overthrown, the orcs settled down to stay, and the survivors started to rebuild.
Now, here are the eras I'm interested in:
The Era of Steam:
In the process of rebuilding, the human refugees went in the direction of technological progress combined with magic. They invented the steam engine and related technologies, refined the firearms that they already had, and started to combine steam power and magic (by creating magical devices that could run on the output of a steam engine, for example.) The eventual creation of primitive magitech AI led to intelligent, steam powered war machines, which kicked off an arms race that led to a world war.
The Steam Wars:
During this war, technological progress was rapidly accelerated: the major players created superweapons, supersoldiers, and spells of mass destruction and used many of them for almost 150 years. There were atrocities committed by every side, but peace was eventually brought about by a council of intellectuals from several sides. This council became a peacekeeping organization in the post-war world, relying on economic clout and covert operations to end any threat to peace before it became serious.
The Council Era
Since the Great Peace, the Council has kept hostilities to a minimum. Wars are fought by proxy, either using minor powers to do the fighting, or employing deniable adventurers to perform sabotage and espionage. A high priority is tracking down and securing many of the weapons outlawed in the Council Accords: weapons and spells of mass destruction, rogue supersoldiers, and the occasional magically created monster.
As of the time of the campaign, there are 7 major powers:
-Arcis Novis: Human nation, founded in the northern part of the ruins of the old human empire. They have better steam technology than other human powers, they use electricity for weapons, communication and power, and they have a better education system than other human powers. They are vaguely Roman/Italian-inspired, as heirs to the old human empire, complete with Roman legions (with lightning cannons, but still).
-Arcis Sanctis: Human nation, founded in the eastern part of the ruins of the old human empire. They are a theocracy, but are not technologically backwards. They have an excellent health system thanks to many, many priests, they control lots of good farmland, and they repress any religion but the state-approved, lawful-neutral one. Like Arcis Novis, they are Roman/Italian, but they hew closer to the Vatican than to Rome.
-Adurean: Wood elf nation, founded by refugees from the old elven empire. Adurean is isolationist in the extreme, ruled by local lords because the queen is a hedonist. The entire nation is forested and sparsely populated, and modern technology (mainly steam power) is outlawed. The military is mostly militia, backed by druids, wooden constructs and a cadre of professional rangers.
-Dwarven Confederacy: Dwarf nation. It is the only one to survive the orcs mostly intact, which was accomplished by sealing off the major dwarf-halls and waiting the orcs out. Because the king and capital of the old empire fell, the empire became a confederacy of independent cities. Most of the dwarves are traditionalists, and eschew modern technology, but they still have powerful magic and are the best craftsmen (in terms of quality, not quantity) in the world. Their military uses massive stone constructs, which may or may not be their ancestors' spirits imbued into statues. Some younger dwarves are agitating to abandon the old ways, and many emigrate to human nations when they complete their apprenticeships.
-Numrond: High elf nation, founded by refugees from the old elven empire. Ruled by a committee of powerful families, which are subservient to a few ancient elf ancestors, called Sidhe. The Sidhe reside on the feywild, and are not benevolent rulers, but they are counterbalanced by the elven wizards, who side with the commoners. They eschew most modern technology as well, but they are able to duplicate its effects using magic. They can create magic items cheaply, thanks to devices called ley-line taps, which provide near-infinite power in a steady stream.
-Victan Empire: Human nation, founded by humans taken as prisoners by elves. Militaristic, but also culturally and technologically advanced. They had a cultural golden age after the Steam Wars, which was ended when their present Empress stole the throne from her brother. Now, they are highly militaristic, expansionistic, and subject to brutal political repression to maintain the Empress' power.
-Waystone: Human/Halfling city state. Originally founded by halflings, then modernized by human refugees. Waystone is a single, massive metropolis (the largest city in the world) surrounded by scattered villages and small towns. Politically, it is ruled by a queen who is in the process of handing over power to an elected assembly. They have control of the only trans-continental inland water route, are very advanced in alchemy (aka chemistry), and have a military that can deploy sizeable forces to any point in the world via teleportation in under a day.
I'm looking for events that are noteworthy, but not game-changing. They can be technological, political, magical, societal, etc. Military events are okay as long as they don't involve major wars; border skirmishes, peacekeeping actions, and monster hunting are cool. For example:
-Olaf Gunderssen invents the Gunderssen smelting process.
-The city-state of Southbyrne breaks its treaty with Waystone and allies with the Victan Empire.
-Blight strikes southern Arcis Sanctis, ruining the year's grain crops.
-A necromantic cult with ties to several prominent officials is exposed and exterminated in the undercity of Waystone.
-The dwarven Highguard is deployed to the border with the Victan Empire in response to Victan "military training exercises."
What I DON'T want:
-World wars
-Assassinations of major figures
-Major magical phenomena (large numbers of mages die or lose their powers, a certain school of magic gets more or less powerful, some other plane crosses over with the Material).
-Divine intervention
I'm primarily looking for things I can use in my setting, but I don't see why it has to be just for my benefit. So, feel free to post ideas for any setting. If you're interested in my setting, here's a (relatively) brief summary.
The world started out as a Forgotten-Realms-esque world: lots of magic, medieval stasis, great and terrible empires. About 1100 years ago, the one and only major magical event in the world's history occurred: a cabal of elven research wizards, while trying to find a way of accessing the Astral Sea, managed to destroy the Ward keeping denizens of the Astral Sea from coming to the Material Plane. The absence of the Ward led to about six months when demons could easily transit to the Material Plane, causing massive destruction and panic. Eventually, an elven hero-figure returned from obscurity and mostly fixed the Ward, but vanished in the process.
The aftermath of this incident led to a great deal of paranoia among the three empires (dwarven, elven, and human) of the time. The alliance that had been in place was broken as each empire accused the others of being infiltrated by demons (and they were all right, but to a lesser degree than they feared). A coalition of religious orders conducted an Inquisition which rooted out almost all of the demons, but also caught up a lot of innocent people. A good chunk of the empires' leadership was purged during this Inquisition, and their replacements were largely incompetent or corrupt.
Around 2 centuries after the Ward failed, another magical accident occurred. An elven ley-tap (a sort of magical power generator) was sabotaged and destroyed a small city when it blew up. While this was nowhere near the severity of the Ward incident, the elves blamed the humans, starting a major war. A series of atrocities committed by both sides escalated the war, and eventually the orc tribes to the east got caught, entirely by accident, in the crossfire. The orcs' response was to join in the war en masse. If, at this point, the elves and humans had put aside their grievances, they might have survived. However, they continued to fight until it was too late. Even when the dwarves entered the war, the only thing that could be done was to delay the oncoming horde long enough for a small number of civilians to evacuate into the west. The three empires were overthrown, the orcs settled down to stay, and the survivors started to rebuild.
Now, here are the eras I'm interested in:
The Era of Steam:
In the process of rebuilding, the human refugees went in the direction of technological progress combined with magic. They invented the steam engine and related technologies, refined the firearms that they already had, and started to combine steam power and magic (by creating magical devices that could run on the output of a steam engine, for example.) The eventual creation of primitive magitech AI led to intelligent, steam powered war machines, which kicked off an arms race that led to a world war.
The Steam Wars:
During this war, technological progress was rapidly accelerated: the major players created superweapons, supersoldiers, and spells of mass destruction and used many of them for almost 150 years. There were atrocities committed by every side, but peace was eventually brought about by a council of intellectuals from several sides. This council became a peacekeeping organization in the post-war world, relying on economic clout and covert operations to end any threat to peace before it became serious.
The Council Era
Since the Great Peace, the Council has kept hostilities to a minimum. Wars are fought by proxy, either using minor powers to do the fighting, or employing deniable adventurers to perform sabotage and espionage. A high priority is tracking down and securing many of the weapons outlawed in the Council Accords: weapons and spells of mass destruction, rogue supersoldiers, and the occasional magically created monster.
As of the time of the campaign, there are 7 major powers:
-Arcis Novis: Human nation, founded in the northern part of the ruins of the old human empire. They have better steam technology than other human powers, they use electricity for weapons, communication and power, and they have a better education system than other human powers. They are vaguely Roman/Italian-inspired, as heirs to the old human empire, complete with Roman legions (with lightning cannons, but still).
-Arcis Sanctis: Human nation, founded in the eastern part of the ruins of the old human empire. They are a theocracy, but are not technologically backwards. They have an excellent health system thanks to many, many priests, they control lots of good farmland, and they repress any religion but the state-approved, lawful-neutral one. Like Arcis Novis, they are Roman/Italian, but they hew closer to the Vatican than to Rome.
-Adurean: Wood elf nation, founded by refugees from the old elven empire. Adurean is isolationist in the extreme, ruled by local lords because the queen is a hedonist. The entire nation is forested and sparsely populated, and modern technology (mainly steam power) is outlawed. The military is mostly militia, backed by druids, wooden constructs and a cadre of professional rangers.
-Dwarven Confederacy: Dwarf nation. It is the only one to survive the orcs mostly intact, which was accomplished by sealing off the major dwarf-halls and waiting the orcs out. Because the king and capital of the old empire fell, the empire became a confederacy of independent cities. Most of the dwarves are traditionalists, and eschew modern technology, but they still have powerful magic and are the best craftsmen (in terms of quality, not quantity) in the world. Their military uses massive stone constructs, which may or may not be their ancestors' spirits imbued into statues. Some younger dwarves are agitating to abandon the old ways, and many emigrate to human nations when they complete their apprenticeships.
-Numrond: High elf nation, founded by refugees from the old elven empire. Ruled by a committee of powerful families, which are subservient to a few ancient elf ancestors, called Sidhe. The Sidhe reside on the feywild, and are not benevolent rulers, but they are counterbalanced by the elven wizards, who side with the commoners. They eschew most modern technology as well, but they are able to duplicate its effects using magic. They can create magic items cheaply, thanks to devices called ley-line taps, which provide near-infinite power in a steady stream.
-Victan Empire: Human nation, founded by humans taken as prisoners by elves. Militaristic, but also culturally and technologically advanced. They had a cultural golden age after the Steam Wars, which was ended when their present Empress stole the throne from her brother. Now, they are highly militaristic, expansionistic, and subject to brutal political repression to maintain the Empress' power.
-Waystone: Human/Halfling city state. Originally founded by halflings, then modernized by human refugees. Waystone is a single, massive metropolis (the largest city in the world) surrounded by scattered villages and small towns. Politically, it is ruled by a queen who is in the process of handing over power to an elected assembly. They have control of the only trans-continental inland water route, are very advanced in alchemy (aka chemistry), and have a military that can deploy sizeable forces to any point in the world via teleportation in under a day.