Oblivion Vale

Calendar Notes

Oblivion Vale is one continent, reorganized around the Plaguelands. History is told in three Ages. The Third Age uses “3A.” The current year is 3A 3192. Before the Plaguelands, rivers ran and lakes held. After they appeared, the Drying followed and open water failed. Magic exists but is rare and policed. Faith grants real blessings, but the gods do not speak.

Age I (c. 30,000–12,000 years ago): The Age of Running Waters

Age I began about 30,000 years ago, when rivers and lakes still shaped daily life.

What survives of the record

Age I is mostly fragments: stone carvings, ruined river-temples, and dwarven tallies sealed in Dreadhorn vaults. Later courts argue over every line. Elven memory keeps more, but it is selective and tied to forest law.

Rivers and linked lakes made travel easier and faster than today. City-states grew on crossings and fought for salt seams, toll bridges, and fertile banks. Many “old roads” in Bloodhollow and the central plains were first built as river routes, and the oldest ruins still sit on those ridges. Monsters existed, but they were treated as local hazards, not a continent-wide condition.

Age I also births the first legends of mortal “gods.” Songs speak of an Undying Monarch, a body-thief sage, and a wraith queen. Proof is thin, yet later ages keep finding architecture designed for one ruler to outlast generations: sealed throne rooms, lineage laws, and cult shrines with no named god.

Timeline markers (vague)

• ~30,000 years ago: Age I begins; river cities and lake markets form.

• ~21,000: Elven forest compacts restrict cutting and fire near sacred corridors.

• ~18,000: Dreadhorn codifies water vault law and gate discipline.

• ~15,000: A major ridge war ends through “peace by contract,” later blamed for bringing devils into civic law.

• ~12,000: Age II begins as crowns and archives replace most city-states.

Age II (c. 12,000–3,000 years ago): The Age of Crowns and Oaths

Age II began about 12,000 years ago, when crowns and written law started to outlast city-states.

The rise of realms

Age II is clearer but still uneven. Four human kingdoms take durable shape around the center. Dreadhorn becomes a holdfast state with gate-cities and controlled trade. Two elven kingdoms harden borders in Gloamveil and Crowbriar. In the south, Ashcrown’s dragonborn dominion chains forts along passes. Stillsong’s gnomes survive by engineering wells, pumps, and seals, selling skill under strict treaties.

War widens beyond conquest. Bloodhollow pass wars decide tariffs and escort rights. Bleedsap and the Caskwood become timber fronts, with patrol lines and punishments for illegal cutting. Orc warbands and goblinoid road-camps raid old river routes, forcing towns to cluster behind walls and temples. Faith grows into administration: Life runs heal houses and relief stores; Death controls burial law and early quarantines; Fate turns oaths and debt into public power. In this age, law becomes another tool of control, and courts decide survival as often as armies.

Devils, debt, and controlled magic

Infernal influence becomes practical. Devils bargain for bloodlines, charters, and court access. They promise siege relief, succession stability, and “legal certainty,” then bind families with clauses that outlive kings. Tiefling births become a political weapon, especially where contract courts and registries are strongest. Purity registries and witch-hunter circles grow in response, and many people act on fear without proof.

Magic tightens under fear of sabotage and cults. Mage registries spread in northern and eastern courts, watched by temple auditors. Unlicensed casting is treated as a civic threat. Hidden cabals form in Nightscar and the Witchmire, trading rare services for protection and materials. Some cabals vanish without trace, feeding the belief that power brings danger.

Timeline markers (partly clear)

• ~12,000 years ago: Age II begins; crown archives and oath records spread.

• ~9,000: Timber compacts and border corridors solidify around Gloamveil.

• ~8,000: Eastern contract courts formalize sealed casks, ledger marks, and debt seizure.

• ~6,000: Dreadhorn enforces deep quarantine doctrine after rot outbreaks.

• ~4,500: An infernal-backed succession settlement shocks northern courts; registry law expands.

• ~3,000: Age III begins with the Appearance of the Plaguelands and the start of the Drying.

Age III (3,000 years ago–present): The Age of Dry Wells

Age III began about 3,000 years ago, at the Appearance of the Plaguelands and the first years of the Drying.

The Appearance and the new order

The Plaguelands appear at the start of Age III. First comes sickness, crop failure, and animal change. Then comes panic, flight, and violence. Quarantine lines, burn crews, and watchtowers rise to stop refugees as much as monsters. Within generations, rivers fail into empty channels and lakes become cracked basins. The continent does not recover. It reorganizes around wells, aquifers, and sealed cisterns.

Scarcity becomes law. Water is counted and guarded. Aquifer maps become state secrets. Cistern yards get curfews. Theft becomes treason in practice. Whole offices rise to manage survival: Well-Wardens, Reservoir Guards, Quarantine Patrols, and contract inspectors who can cut a district off with a stamp. Smugglers and “black cask” networks grow alongside them, sometimes as relief, sometimes as predation. Roads become borders because they connect depots, salt, timber, ore, and escorted water convoys.

Devils thrive in this structure. Contracts offer a short solution and a long trap. In the same centuries, older evils wake in sealed sites, especially in Nightscar, where ruins are older than any crown. Mortal “gods” shift from myth to regional fact, because anything that can endure a hundred years can rule by patience alone. Faith remains real but silent, and miracles become another reason to control people: some are treated as proof of worth, others as proof of infection.

Accurate Third Age timeline (3A 0–3192)

• 3A 0–30: Plaguelands appear; central towns die or evacuate; burn lines begin.

• 3A 80–120: First Quarantine Wars between human crowns over forts, routes, and “legal” refugees.

• 3A 160–260: Rivers become seasonal; lake levels collapse; mass hunger drives forced resettlement.

• 3A 310: Well registries and cistern audits become standard in major cities.

• 3A 400: Dreadhorn seals gates after plague signs in a trade camp; gate law hardens.

• 3A 560–650: Reservoir Wars in the east; charter houses, crowns, and smugglers fight over depots and ration notes.

• 3A 710: Fate courts split over mercy clauses versus inherited debt; riots follow in three cities.

• 3A 880–940: Ashcrown–Southern Shield pass war over tariffs and convoy rights; public executions for desertion.

• 3A 1010: Stillsong sealing valves spread; raids against gnome caravans rise.

• 3A 1170–1210: Famine cycle drives orc incursions; burn campaigns ruin timber for generations.

• 3A 1320s: Plague-wind seasons expand Death order authority and quarantine reach.

• 3A 1499: Infernal broker purge in an eastern court; many innocent tieflings die with the guilty.

• 3A 1610–1680: Thornbound War as goblinoid camps unify briefly and pressure Crowbriar’s borders.

• 3A 1761: A licensed mage circle is executed for alleged well sabotage; magic control tightens across realms.

• 3A 1900s: Coastal routes and protected depots expand as inland roads fail; the Caskwood becomes a warehousing fortress belt.

• 3A 2230–2290: Life orders try to curb ration cruelty; riots burn heal houses and store ledgers.

• 3A 2417: Gate Treaty trades deep salt for oath-bound inspectors and escorted routes.

• 3A 2570–2625: A southern cordon breaks; border massacres harden into revenge raids.

• 3A 2830s: Ledger Riots after counterfeit ration notes spread; courts answer with mass arrests.

• 3A 3012: Winter-dry years force halfling relocations; protection pacts become near-serfdom.

• 3A 3096–3140: War returns to Bloodhollow passes as old mines reopen; undead rise near neglected burial pits.

• 3A 3192: Present year; the Plaguelands hold, the Drying endures, and every kingdom survives by ration, fear, and force.

What historians still argue about

No source can prove the cause of the Plaguelands. Some claim a failed containment rite. Some blame an awakened ancient evil. Some blame layered infernal bargains that finally broke the land. The only stable conclusion is social: once the Plaguelands appeared, every institution learned to survive through control, and every person learned that survival has a cost.