Timeline

BGE - Before Godkin, Earthkin
AK - Age of the Kin
SAGK - Second Age of the Godkin

100,000 BGE - First recorded history of Giants. Oral history describes tribal behavior.
20,000 BGE - Massive cities filled with hundreds of thousands Giants spring up all over the world. Giants master arcane magic
15,000 BGE - Giants begin the great awakening. Og ascends to godhood.
14,500 BGE - Og helps the first First children ascend to godhood
14,000 BGE - Giants begin to master divine magic
11,000 BGE - The First children help six new giant gods ascend, the gods of destruction
10,750 BGE - The gods of destruction begin forming dragons from fire and stone. Betrayed, Og leaves.
10,000 BGE - The war with the dragons begins. The giants start construction of 100 Titan Fortresses, meant as the ultimate protection from dragons.
2,000 BGE - The dragons have wiped out 90% of the giants. Three of the Titan Fortresses are finally completed, the remainder have been destroyed or abandoned. Many thousands of giants seal themselves into the Fortresses.
1,000 BGE - Og returns and helps 16 new gods ascend, the gods of balance.
900 BGE - Og creates “The Titans Pilgrimage” to allow any giant to ascend. This is the last time anyone hears from Og.
0 AK - The gods of balance form the Earthkin and Godkin and help them build cities to combat the dragon threat. The war between Earthkin, Godkin and the dragons begin.
2423 AK - The Earthkin and Godkin destroy the last major horde of dragons. The remaining dragons flee to remote areas.
2775 AK - The first clans of the giants leave the Titan Fortress of Folkenspire after thousands of years of squabbling and in fighting degenerated their society.
2982 AK - Struggles between the Earthkin and Godkin begin. Conflict over right to rule and citizenship mare relations.
3128 AK, 0 SAGK - The Earthkin begin leaving the cities en mass. War breaks out between the Earthkin and Godkin.
1024 SAGK - The wars between the Earthkin and Godkin finally fizzles out as Godkin establish walled city states and alliances to fend off the Earthkin. The Earthkin head off into the wilderness to establish new clans and cities. Their attempts at city building is mostly unsuccessful and many return to savage ways.
1154 SAGK - A group of Godkin discover the Titan Fortress of Argus Apex. Their fear takes of the best of them and they retreat.
1160 SAGK - A massive army of Godkin raid Argus Apex, killing most of the giants inside who were completely unaware of Godkins existence.
3905 SAGK - Arcane Godkin mages discover dangerous new magic. They are called high mages.
3912 SAGK - Godkin cities begin expelling high mages
3930 SAGK - The high mages establish the three high mage cities, sealing themselves off from the rest of Godkin society.
3956 SAGK - The first fiend portal opens. Fiends pour through, killing countless Earthkin and Godkin, destroying hundreds of cities.
4011 SAGK - The Guardians of Tethra are established to prevent future uses of high magics. Inquisitors are sent out to hunt down transgressors.
4050 SAGK - The fiend hunters organize, establishing the Black Order (which later becomes the Black Thumbs) and establishing fiend hunter schools in several cities.
4120 SAGK - The fiend portal is finally closed
4228 SAGK - Members of the Black Order, now in positions of leadership cause great disorder which sparks war.
4230 SAGK - City states begin expelling fiend hunters from society. The Black Order becomes the Black Thumbs, fiend hunters turned assassins for hire.
4280 SAGK - The last of the fiend hunters leave, heading off into the harsh wilderness.
4355 SAGK - Ancient iron dragon Yithmartha accidently revealed herself in Caladen, paranoia spreads quickly
4359 SAGK - Nobles suspect of being dragons are tried and executed en mass in numerous cities. Several cities strip all power from royalty, choosing other forms of government instead.
4360 SAGK - A second fiend portal is opened
4365 SAGK - Nobles reassert control through the use of wealth, fear and power as fiends start appearing everywhere.
4369 SAGK - Some cities legalize fiend hunter guilds as a way to combat the increasing threat. The new guilds are closely watched and rigidly controlled. Few take up the call. Mercenary guilds take a different approach and offer protective services to nobles.
4380 SAGK - Mercenary guilds amass power in several cities
4407 SAGK - The Guardians of Tethra discover the source of the new fiend portal and call upon all to help close it
4409 SAGK - An army amasses to destroy the fiend portal in Vago

History

Long ago, titan giants ruled the world. Massive giant cities spotted the land. Some ascended to godhood, becoming the first gods. Others mastered the divine and arcane arts. For 10,000 year, giants ruled unchecked.

The gods, long detached from their origins and tired of new giants attempting to find their place amongst the already crowded gods decided to end the giants reign by creating giant killers, dragons. A 500 year war raged between the giants and the dragons, obliterating the vast majority of giant cities, thousands of years of knowledge with them.

In a final effort for survival, Og helped twenty giants ascend to godhood who created the humanoid races as a way to bring balance to the world. Humans, elves, dwarves, halfling, Dragonborn, tieflings, gnomes, hobgoblins, kobold, orcs, bugbears, lizardfolk, gnoll, kenku, ogres and merfolk were shaped from earthen clay and spread throughout the land.

The humanoid races breed quickly, raising great fortresses and sprawling cities. They praised their gods and fought back the dragons, forcing them into the most remote areas of the world. The remaining giants, fallen back to primitive ways, retreated into places the humanoids would not venture into.

Thus the dawn of humanoids began. The humanoid gods, seeing danger in giving them too much power, limited their ability to use magic but otherwise left them be, content that the dragon threat was in check.

For a while, the humanoid races worked in tandem, but once the dragon threat was handled, they began warring amongst themselves.

The humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes and halflings banded together forming city states banishing the others. They called themselves Godkin. The remaining races, who were named Earthkin, spread throughout the world, sometimes in large communities.

Over 4000 years have past, the city states infrequently warring with each other, often warring with the banished races as they tread on their lands.

Conflict with the Fiends

400 years ago, human and elf mages began meddling with magic beyond their understanding and accidentally opened portals to another place, a world beyond our own. Horrific creatures poured through, rapidly spreading throughout the world, terrorizing humanoids everywhere. Hundreds of cities fell before the threat was fought back and the portals were closed.

Groups of brave adventures banded together and began hunting down the remaining horrors and soon earned the honored name “Fiend Hunters”.

As the remaining horrors began to dwindle, some of the Fiend Hunters began demanding exuberant sums of money to rid towns of the most horrible of monsters (all the easy to kill ones were wiped out). For a while, towns paid the handsome prices demanded of them until they could no longer bear the costs.

Some Fiend Hunters ended their career with massive wealth, power and ability in tow. They soon became a dominating force in the politics of many cities. While their fighting acumen was tremendous, their ability to govern was not. They bumped heads with the local nobles who saw their efforts as ways to elevate peasantry to nobility, diluting the meaning of nobility. The former Fiend Hunters also made many poor decisions while attempting to govern, often resulting in banishment and disdain.

The noble lords of the city states meet in secret to devise a plan to remove the former Fiend Hunters from power. New laws were enacted declaring the monetary gains that the Fiend Hunters had gathered illegal and seizable by the city states. Without the money, the Fiend Hunters quickly lost power, some voluntarily, some by the edge of a knife.

Seeing their time at an end in the city states, the Fiend Hunters left en mass, vowing to reap revenge. Those that stayed formed a secret society of hunters called the Black Thumbs that hired out their services to the highest bidder. As the years passed, people began to view them with fear and disdain, eventually declaring them assassins, murderers and thieves.

Fifty years ago, the terrible beasts that once plagued the lands and were thought to be extinct began showing up again. With laws in place to prevent Fiend Hunters from gaining much wealth and power, few new groups took to the life of Fiend Hunting.

With monsters running amuck, mercenaries began hiring themselves out in droves for protection duty. The wealth of mercenary companies swelled, and with it, influence. Now, a number of large mercenary groups has The existing walls, built after the first scourge have held back the treat, giving little incentive to the nobles to change anything.

What were once reasonable taxes became oppressive as the cost of doing business, especially anywhere outside a walled city became much more dangerous and costly.

Conflict with Dragons

Humanoids seeing dragons as terrifying adversaries marched large armies into the dragon dens and nearly wiped out all of dragon kind at a tremendous cost to humanoid life.

The few remaining dragons fled to remote and often desolate areas of the world, digging caves deep into the ground, lacing them with horrendous traps and hoarding their massive treasure within.

Humans who have dared to attempt to track these lairs down have meet a lot folly end. Dragons, long familiar with the art of magic, learned to change themselves to look like humanoids and started wandering the world, learning of the Godkin and Earthkin cultures, strengths and weaknesses.
They watched as the Earthkin and Godkin forgot their feud with dragons and started their feuds with each other. The dragons amassed wealth and power in the human society and over the centuries, slowly changed their views of dragonkind.
Their plan has worked so well that there are now numerous religions that praise and revere dragons. Alas, an ancient iron dragon named Yithmartha slipped up and revealed herself in Caladen. The people reacted with shock and horror, putting into question the true identity of all of the nobles.
The news spread fast and suspicions have run amuck. While most Earthkin and Godkin have no way of detecting a dragon in hiding, the High Mages do, though at a potentially great cost.
Nobility, the rich and powerful have lost much of the trust placed in their hands. Everyone is suspicious.

Conflict with the High Mages

500 years ago a talented wizard named Hilde accidentally found a method of casting spells with extremely more powerful effects. Increasing the power of a spell, sometime doubling the effect, was not an uncommon practice amongst wizards, but Hilde was able to cast spells that would sometimes produce effects 10x more powerful than the original. Unfortunately, the effects of these spells could be erratic, unpredictable and often dangerous. Casting aside the danger, a group of talented wizards began experimenting with these new techniques and found that it unlocked strange and sometimes terrifying effects. Naming themselves the High Mages (and all other mages Low Mages), they set on a quest to control and master this new type of magic.
Over the next fifty years, High Mages were one by one cast out of their societies after numerous experiments went horribly awry, some accidentally killing dozens of people.
In a single incident referred to as the “ground sink of Parteth”, over 500 people suddenly sank waist deep into the ground. Most of the people died slow and horrible deaths as people desperately tried to keep them alive and eventual remove them by cutting off their legs. Only 12 survived.
Outrage and shock sent the Godkin into a fit of anger. The Godkin cities attempted to execute or expel the High Mages but the power the High Mages held was great.
Many High Mages fled but a few stayed to try and assert their right as the true masters of the Godkin. Three cities fell to the High Mages Mytornak , ?, and ?. The outcast High Mages flocked to these towns, strengthening their grip over the inhabitants.
Strict social hierarchies emerged in these cities meant to cultivate new wizards.
Today, these cities remain under the influence of the High Mages. The tension remains high with the outside world but the distance and potential for real destruction has prevented any real conflict.

Conflict between the Earthkin and Godkin Races

While originally the humanoids were able to live at peace with each other, when the war with the dragons ended, this ended the kinship between races. Elves, dwarves, humans, gnomes and halflings bonded together calling themselves the Godkin, seeing each other as equals and more refined, cultured and civilized than the other humanoid races.

Tensions flared as disdain turned to hatred. The Godkin, seeing the Earthkin turn to horrific practices such as cannibalism, torture and extremely violent behavior could no longer tolerate the barbaric nature of the Earthkin. Seeing no punishments handed down from the Earthkin’s gods, they saw no choice but to expel them from society. War raged for many years until the Earthkin left the populated Godkin cities and built new cities far away from the Godkin.

As the centuries passed, remembrance of the feud passed and some Earthkin were allowed back into Godkin society, but always as low class citizens. The Dragonborn and Tieflings amongst the few, with Kenku rarely as well. The Earthkin that remained away from civilized world turned to more and more barbaric practices, their gods turning more and more evil and spiteful as their followers became more corrupted.

Today, the barbaric Earthkin plague the civilized cities of the Godkin, raid their caravans, enslave their people and commit all manner of atrocities upon them.

Yet some Earthkin have found a different path. Some Orcs and Hobgoblins have erected cities in hopes of civilizing their people and reopening a path to peace with the Godkin. Though the hate still flows deep, their acts have tempered the hate between the Earthkin and Godkin.

Conflict between Noble Families

For thousands of years, the towns and villages have fought over precious resources and over greviounsouses. The most valued of resources, tin, is rare and necessary to create bronze, the basis behind weapons and tools alike. Those who control the tin may command society as a whole.
Nobel families have fought hundreds of skirmishes in attempt to control his precious resource. These conflicts caused massive problems for the peasants who finally took up arms and forced the noble families to resolve their attempts to control the tin. A deal between noble families was finally struck and a new guild was formed, The Tin Guild, whose sole purpose is to mine and distribute tin while providing the nobel families with a fair share of the revenue.

The Tin Guild now controls the full supply of tin and thereby keep the noble families in check. The Tin Guild has gained so much power, the noble families now try and infiltrate it to influence the distribution of money while other noble families are plotting against the immense power the Tin Guild now holds. Chaos is brewing.

The Gnomes and the Fey

After the first fiend invasion, kin fought with every fiber of their being for their lives. With their limited stature and limited ability to fight the gnomes knew their time was limited. Instead of fighting the fiends they tried to understand them. While they lost many, they found a group of fiends who they could communicate with called the Fey. The Fey, while not entirely good, were not horrible butchers like many of the other fiends. The Gnomes grew to know the Fey and found safe places for them to live away from the Kin, in magical forests created by the Gnomes meant to keep the Kin’s prying eyes away.

Ever since, the gnomes have acted as their guardians, staying far from the other Kin, only returning to society when absolutely necessary.