Talk:Announcement: New Unofficial History Timeline Page
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There are a lot of subtle inconsistencies or unexplained cross-relationships between historical documents. This now idle Wordsmiths project on the history of necromancy was built as my model for reconciling tons of them. This copy of it has a thousand footnotes. INIQUITY (talk) 19:29, 24 April 2023 (CDT)
- Undead War
- The Undead War in particular has a lot of contradictory dates and time spans and inconsistent fine details across documents. The most serious of these is "History of the Faendryl". It has "Eight Patriarchs watched over the conflict" before the Battle of Maelshyve, which most (but not all) documents date as -15,185 Modern Era based off "Timeline of Elanthian History" (sometimes converted into Illistim or Vaalor calendar systems with their House founding dates as year 0), during the reign of Patriarch Unsenis who is number 34. Patriarch Rythwier is number 37 at the time of the Ashrim War in +157 Modern Era (which is itself a few centuries earlier than the reign of Caladsal implies for it in Ta'Illistim Monarchs, and Istmaeon's reign is two thousand years too early in it for the Kiramon war.) The current Patriarch Korvath Dardanus refers to himself in letters as Patriarch 39.
- The eight Patriarchs could maybe be handwaved as referring to the entire five thousand year period Despana was known to exist, since most (but not all) documents have the Undead War being short on the scale of a few years. But then there are just two Patriarchs covering almost 15,000 years up to Rythwier Faendryl and the Ashrim War, with Patriarch 35 starting in roughly -15,180 with the Faendryl exile to the ruins of Maelshyve.
- (The timing descriptions of the advance to ShadowGuard and its duration are also pretty deeply inconsistent between "History of Elanthia" and the Vaalor journal documents which have that one battle lasting months using Vaalorian calendar dates, while its present northern position on the Elanith map makes it seem like there is no reason the undead army should have even bothered stopping in that location. If ShadowGuard were instead further south between Nevishrim and Ta'Nalfein, it would be more consistent with History of the Sylvan Elves, and would be the Undead blocking in that relatively narrow pass around the mountains while they wreaked havoc in the "outlying provinces" west of the DragonSpine. In that position ShadowGuard's purpose could then be defined as a guardian position on the edge of the Elven Empire's core territory for dark stuff coming out of the southern wastelands, and you could have an extended period of stagnation in the forests around ShadowGuard before Dharthiir suddenly shifts gears and tries to surge northeast into the Elven Empire itself. The Sylvan history also has the Battle of Harradahn in -15,195 seven years before Maelshyve in -15,188 and later than ShadowGuard, while the Vaalor journals and "Wyvern" use the equivalent of -15,186 for ShadowGuard, with the Battle of Maelshyve within one year in -15,185. I would suggest -15,196 as the real year for ShadowGuard falling, -15,195 for Harradahn, and Maelshyve at -15,185 or -15,188, and blame it on differences between calendar systems in how they corrected or didn't correct the 365th day of the solar year. Then other inconsistencies would be unreliable narration or differences of emphasis, like Dharthiir recruiting allies as early at -15,497 and maybe low level provinces conflict reaching back to roughly -15,490.)
- The entire underground period for the Faendryl has almost no definition. The original intent was for much of (New) Ta'Faendryl to be an underground city, and then "built on a hill overlooking Rhoska-Tor" with regional sinister and eldritch ruins/relics, and then later documentation had NTF as a brand new surface city built after moving out of Rhoska-Tor to a nearby spot only after the Ashrim War. Except there had to have been other surface constructions prior to that point, such as the port where they launched their war ships and maybe Chesylcha's wedding party. (Which I think should be defined to be Gellig so that Gellig is something major enough to explain why the Faendryl reacted so much more severely to the Turamzzyrian Empire invading it in the Third Elven War. Tedronne, Creyth, and Harald's Keep would then be oriented west to east on the Faendryl northern borderlands, with Barrett's Gorge and Brantur to the west and Gellig on the east coast, and those three fortresses meant to cut off potential intervention from the Elven Nations and possibly to eventually pincer New Ta'Faendryl. Then there is a road from Gellig toward New Ta'Faendryl with the army going around the wastes and the Breaking happening southwest of Gellig and Harald's Keep, with northwest fleeing and Tedronne more in the direction of Brantur and the Wizardwaste, and Creyth more in the direction of Barrett's Gorge.) I think the sensible thing to do here is for there to be an old underground city and for what's now called New Ta'Faendryl to connect down into it, and this surface facade and its five boroughs were centrally planned for organizing the whole society governance structure from the top down. I also think the "Patriarchal Palace" should be a center city within NTF where the Enchiridion Valentia is kept underground, akin to Vatican City, so that the Basilica is architecturally a basilica like it is in OTF and the Palace in the sense of royal residence is its own towering building. Analogous to St. Peter's Basilica versus the Apostolic Palace. This would reconcile some tensions between Faendryl documents about the roles of the Basilica and the Clerisy and the Patriarchal residence and the Enchiridion archives. (e.g. Are the "Basilican Sorcerers" actually the Clerisy? Clerisy positions in the Rachis? Did Second Era Faendryl summoning, such as it actually existed in state sanctioned form, all happen secretly within and under the Basilica itself in OTF in a strictly controlled and scheduled way?)
- So, either Unsenis and Cestimir should be pushed back to something like Patriarchs 27/28 and those eight unnamed monarchs can be between Cestimir and Rythwier, or a premise can be framed that state sanctioned history by the Faendryl is somewhat revisionist / propaganda in nature and the Faendryl basically redacted that 15,000 year underground period and renumbered the Patriarchs after the Ashrim War to make the underground period sound relatively brief (allowing only one then living memory predecessor for Rythwier.) Rythwier is officially Patriarch 37, for example, but might "in reality" be something like the 53rd Patriarch. I would add an NPC note by an Illistim scholar to the top of "History of the Faendryl" saying the Faendryl have revised their Patriarch numbers to omit things, and generally exaggerate and distort historical precedent or continuity for their current practices with dark magic. That would also take pressure off "History of the Faendryl" and "Introduction to the Enchiridion Valentia and Summoning" making it sound like demonic summoning was widespread and public in the capital of the Elven Empire for roughly 20,000 years leading up to the Battle of Maelshyve, while "Path to Palestra" has the Palestra academies not being founded until after the Ashrim War (and the lesser academies founded under the current Patriarch.)
- Dhe'nar Departure and House Founding Timing
- There is inconsistency on the details of the Dhe'nar departure from the other Elves and the split into Houses in general. The core of the issue is that "History of the Dhe'nar" has a 5,000 year gap between the Noi'sho'rah prophecy (circa -50,000) and the Tahlad departure (circa -45,000). "Timeline of Elanthian History" follows this with dating the departure as -45,293. But this makes the whole Dhe'nar version of events incoherent. It is 2,000 years after the last House formed, and 4,000 years after the first House formed. (This may have happened because "History of Elanthia" had originally used 50,000 years ago for the Elven Empire, but the timeline document later defined the individual House / city foundings at earlier dates pushing back to 54,000 years ago, and the unofficial player Dhe'nar history got canonized using the original 50,000 years ago timing. But moving that date back doesn't fix the fundamental problems. The Sylvan history is the most scholarly account of the period and makes it clear the "split" into Houses was really just the urbanization of spread out and long pre-existing colonies / bloodlines.)
- (1) Age: Tahlad is Korthyr's uncle in "History of the Dhe'nar" and "History of the Faendryl". Korthyr only lives long enough to build the first borough of Ta'Faendryl, founded in -48,897 in "Timeline of Elanthian History", where Ta'Faendryl was built by Korthyr's "line" in "History of Elanthia" and mostly under Korthyr's successor, his own great nephew Khalar Andiris in "History of the Faendryl" up until around circa -48,000. Working through the timing of Patriarchs in "History of the Faendryl", the Dhe'nar departure in "Timeline of Elanthian History" probably happened during the reign of Yshryth Silvius Patriarch 14, which is around the time the Elven Empire becomes a meaningful concept (consistent with "History of Elanthia".) Whereas it would not have been a meaningful concept in -50,000 when none of the Houses existed yet, and the founders were most likely of different generations. Some may have not even been alive at the same time as others, or not known each other, the capital cities having been founded over a span of 1,500 years. This line in "History of the Faendryl" has to be an anachronism or "great man of history" myth: "The elves were ready to leave the forests and split into eight noble Houses to form the greatest empire the world had known, lead by Korthyr Faendryl, Aradhul Vaalor, Zishra Nalfein, Sharyth Ardenai, Bhoreas Ashrim, Callisto Loenthra, Linsandrych Illistim and Tahlad Tsi'shalar." Tahlad in turn dies around circa -40,000 in "History of the Dhe'nar". He would have been well over ten thousand years old if he was Korthyr's uncle.
- (2) Founding Spread: "History of the Faendryl" words it this way: "Noi'sho'rah's cult left the forests, lead by Tahlad Tsi'shalar, and later became known as the Dhe'nar. Undaunted by his uncle's desertion, Korthyr Faendryl lead the rest of the elves from their home of ages amid the trees, leaving behind those that are the sylphs, and Sharyth Ardenai's line, who would lead the elven holdings there." This is inconsistent in several ways. "History of the Sylvan Elves" has the Elves spread out in disparate colonies and living in open-air spaces outside the forests for a very long time before urbanizing, back to some time well before circa -55,000 (i.e. the split with the sylvans begins earlier than 60,000 years ago and the sylvan nomadic bands "gradually" consolidated into one colony), inconsistent with any abrupt planned division into Seven Cities of noble houses out of some central location or unified civilization. "Timeline of Elanthian History" and the documents using Illistim calendar dates have House Illistim as the first "House" in -49,107. House Ardenai was the second to last House in -47,689. The Ardenai lineages were apparently not considered "sylvisterai" in the pre-House period, so even with them, it would make more sense with the Sylvan history for Sharyth Ardenai to be leading a back to nature kind of movement into the Darkling Wood. Or at least having croplands on the forest edges with sedentary woodland hamlets (instead of clear cutting the forests to expand croplands like the other Elves) and later moving deeper into the woods to found Ta'Ardenai.
- The Sylvan city of Ithnishmyn is founded circa -45,400 in between Ta'Ardenai and Ta'Loenthra, and the Dhe'nar departure is dated after that as well. There may be some cross-reference sense in this because sylvan harassment by Elven religious cults and slavers in "History of the Sylvan Elves" started around that time, and given the Dhe'nar enslavement of Sylvans for eighty years mentioned in the lavender lore in Speech Unspoken: The Language of Flowers (which makes no geographic sense in other time periods.) The treatment of the cities Ithnishmyn versus Ta'Ardenai, for nine thousand years until -36,567, would not make much sense unless the Elves and Sylvans had culturally split much earlier. Similarly for their religious differences versus "Elven Dogma and Theology". The tension here I think would be best handled by establishing a framing for it as being a general disagreement among the Elven lineages (biased by their own self-interests or ideologies) about when the dissidents that eventually became the Dhe'nar really left and who they were in the first place. One aspect of inconsistent views they could have of the "Matter of the Elven Empire" in general, which would be something analogous to the history and legend / founding myth mixed Matter of Britain. (e.g. the Illistim emphasize Lindsandrych Illistim founded the first city with the Chronicle keepers, the Faendryl argue Korthyr lead the House movement and so they have a perverse incentive to support the Noi'sho'rah/Tahlad legend, the Vaalor with their Wyvern oral tradition mythology, etc.)
- (3) Separate Versions: One view would be the Dhe'nar left in circa -50,000 prior to the Illistim Chronicles being founded in -49,238 with Noi'sho'rah as a real person, Tahlad as the uncle of Korthyr, and were a distinct ideological tradition who could have been their own House if they had not left (giving the premise and timing in "History of the Faendryl" and to some extent "Elven Dogma and Theology".) Another view might be that Tahlad, or whoever that name really refers to in practice (possibly a few people using that name-title which means "Student" in Dhe'nar-si), was a dissident proselytizing for thousands of years and left with a group of followers after the Houses finished forming and the near dozen Faendryl coups (giving the circa -45,000 timing in "History of the Dhe'nar".) A third version for explaining the use of the specific date -45,293 might be an Illistim historiographer theory that the "Sharath" promised land people were really what became of some recorded reactionary offshoot branch of "Sharyth" Ardenai's movement who rejected the Houses and cities, and then left the forest after failing to convert the Sylvans. Possibly they would argue the "sho'rah" (which means "sister") is also an oral history debasement of "Sharyth." The second and third versions might then view the Noi'sho'rah story and "prophecy" as distorted with anachronistic details of the Houses and Elven Empire as a single nation, from the bloody politics and instability of the Faendryl in the millennium leading up to Yshryth's mother overthrowing the government, and then Yshryth executing her and purging those who undermine Elven unity and the eternal empire. Then becoming more distorted with Despana being read into it later. The first version would go all-in on the Noi'sho'rah prophecy as an actual historical event.