I posted part of this in another thread, but decided it should probably go under its own title, as people are less likely to know that a thread named "Lazere" includes an AoW timeline.
Some references have been included. All of the Zeech/Alhaster material is derived from a post by Peruhain (many thanks).
Note that this is incomplete, as I haven't really meticulously combed through anything past 3FoE. Feel free to add stuff.
Prehistory:
Great war between the Wind Dukes of Aaqa and the Queen of Chaos. Rod of Law created by the seven Wandering Dukes. The Wind Duke Icosiol slays the demon Kizarvedexus (sp?). The Wind Dukes Icosiol and Zosiel slain by Miska the Wolf-Spider on the volcanic fields of Pesh. Miska the Wolf-Spider defeated by the Wind Duke Qadeej, wielding the Rod of Seven Parts, at Pesh. Rift Canyon formed. (DMG1; BoA; Ro7P; DNG#124)
Whispering Cairn constructed by the Wind Duke Nadroc in the Cairn Hills. (DNG#124)
525 CY:
A mine collapses near Diamond Lake, Cairn Hills. Over 300 miners die in the disaster. (DNG#124.62)
c 535 CY:
The Seeker Ulavant leads an expedition into the Whispering Cairn in the Cairn Hills, where the entire band meets its death. (DNG#124)
c 545 CY:
Ulgo Fant's iron mine near the Whispering Cairn near Diamond Lake in the Cairn Hills goes dry. (DNG#124.16; DR#333.62)
Ragnolin Dourstone of Greysmere, after intentionally collapsing part of one of his family's mines on his agitating workers, is run out of Greysmere and moves to Diamond Lake, where he aquires the rights to some of the mines in that region of the Cairn Hills. (DNG#124.52; AoWO.22)
553 CY:
Zeech born.
555 CY:
Felanore, a young giantess of the Cairn Hills, is captured by memebers of the Diamond Lake Garrison and "granted" to the owner of the Spinning Giant to serve as mascot. Thereafter, she becomes known as "Flailing" Felanore. (DNG#124.58)
564 CY:
Anders Land dies.
565 CY:
Alastor Land runs away from his home near Diamond Lake and dies in the Whispering Cairn in the Cairn Hills. (DNG#124)
569 CY:
Zeech sent to Admundfort, Shield Lands, to train with the Knights of Holy Shielding.
c 573 CY:
Zeech returns to Alhaster, assumes command of Alhaster’s naval forces.
575 CY:
Zeech’s father dies, his elder brother Zered becomes viscount of Alhaster. Zered has Zeech & his “privateers” arrested. Zeech conspires with Lashonna to have Zered killed in a hunting accident, inherits the viscounty. Zeech restore Lashonna to chief minister. Zeech’s lover, the erinyes Evralanya, also becomes a key advisor.
Izenfen, Mistress of the Twilight Monastery in the Cairn Hills, refuses to use the Censer of Symmetry to predict unclaimed ore deposits for a cadre of miners from naerby Diamond Lake. The miners invade the monastery, seeking to steal the Censer, but fail, though Izenfen's daughter Imonoth dies in the conflict. In retaliation, Izenfen gathers her best warriors and sends them into Diamond lake, where all fifteen survivors of the ill-fated raid are assassinated. This event becomes commemorated yearly as Darkstar's Kiss. (AoWO.20)
The rogue Balabar Smenk befriends the necromancer Filge. (DNG#124.46)
Lazare wins Greyhawk dragonchess championship and uses winnings to buy a mine in the Cairn Hills northeast of Diamond Lake. (DNG#124.53)
576 CY:
The Red Death plague ravages the Flanaess. Bemissa, Coldaran, and Gertia Land die. (WG8; DNG#124.36)
The Red Death strikes Alhaster late in the year. Ebon Triad rebels. Evralanya uses the orthodox Hextor cult that she has been nurturing in the region as rabble rousers to gather mobs to root out the Triad cultists. A popular Cuthbertine cleric named Rhorsk also helps rally the people of Alhaster against the cultists. Ebon Triad uprising put down by Zeech. Some Ebon Triad cells rooted out by Zeech; others flee Alhaster or go into hiding.
Rhorsk begins preaching sermons suggesting that the Red Death was in fact a divine punishment sent by the gods against the Alhasterites for tolerating evil, lawless elements in their midst.
577 CY:
Rhorsk publishes his “History of Alhaster,” as relations between Zeech and his liege lord, Earl Holmer of the Shield Lands, are deteriorating.
Zeech secedes from the Shield Lands and breaks with the Knights of the Holy Shielding. Civil war ensues, as most of the small Shield Knight contingent in Alhaster mutinies against Zeech’s increasingly unjust rule and attempts to overthrow him, accusing Zeech of being a “fallen paladin.” The coup attempt is defeated with help from loyal vassals of the viscount, especially Lord Kilraven, who hastens to the city with his border contingent on hearing news of the uprising. Evralanya’s Hextor cultists also help out.
In the wake of the coup, some of the rebellious Shield Knights take sanctuary in the temple of St. Cuthbert, as Rhorsk is somewhat suspicious of Zeech and sympathetic to the rebels’ cause. Evralanya’s Hextorians stir up a mob to burn the rebels out, and Rhorsk is trapped in the basement.
Remaining Shield Knights of Alhaster are rounded up and crucified on what is now known as “Traitor’s Island.”
Zeech negotiates his entry into the Combination of Free Lords (AKA the bandit Kingdoms) to deter any attempts by the Shield Knights or Earl Holmer to force Alhaster back into the Shield Lands. He names his newly autonomous state “The Principality of Redhand,”& adopts a new flag reflecting the name change: a bloody severed hand on a field of white.
Zeech establishes a police state. Evalanya sets up the Blessed Angels. Zeech has the remains of the Heironean Temple, badly damaged during the brief civil war, razed to make way for a glorious Hextorian cathedral, and the worship of Hextor becomes Redhand’s state religion. The cults of Wee Jas and Kord, which had remained neutral in the civil war, are allowed to stay, but discouraged from proselytizing.
578 CY:
Lazare nearly bankrupted, forced to sell mine to Balabar Smenk of Greyhawk City. (DNG#124.53)
579 CY:
Bucknard visits Alhaster, finds the ghoul Rhorsk, discovers the Triptych Well, consults with Lashonna, then runs off the Wormcrawl Fissure, where he is slain by Dragotha.
c 580 CY:
Lashonna discovers that Evalanya has made a soul bargain with Zeech, granting him a wish that he could retain his youthful good looks for as long as he lived, in exchange for giving up his soul to her in death. Lashonna sees Evalanya as a threat to her control over Alhaster, and thus to her plans to make Alhaster the site of Kyuss’ return. Lashonna plants evidence to frame Evalanya as the originator of the Ebon Triad heresy, and uses that evidence to turn Evalanya’s lieutenant, the captain of the Blessed Angels, against Evalanya. The two kidnap Evralanya and take her to a lonely moor north of the town, where Lashonna personally smashes the soul bind gem kills Evralanya, who is now imprisoned in Hextor’s palace, serving punishment for her failure and unable to return to the material plane to take her vengeance. Zeech freed from Evralanya’s power, but his sanity is damaged. Lashonna and the Erinyes lieutenant cover up their deed, portraying Evralanya’s kidnapping and murder as the deed of agents of the Knights of Holy Shielding (and framing some poor ordinary bandits who confess to the deed and repeat the fabricated story under torture in Zeech’s presence).
Lashonna ties Zeech more closely to herself. She whispers lies in his ear and uses her power over his dreams to cause him to have delusions of grandeur, imagining himself as the “chosen son” of Hextor, and stimulating work on the Great Project.
Seeing Zeech’s attachment to his cambion daughter, Hemriss, Lashonna and the captain of the Blessed Angels provide her with training and guidance and have Zeech set her up as a sort of enforcer in the Alhaster countryside, leader of a band of “warrior gypsies” who rove the land looking for (and liquidating) Zeech’s enemies.
581 CY:
Chaum Gansworth moves to Diamond Lake. (DNG#124.61)
583 CY:
Loris Raknian retires from his life as a gladiator & goes on to buy Free City Arena.
The Bandit Kingdoms overrun by Iuz. Lashonna maneuvers behind the scenes to arrange for Zeech’s submission in exchange for Iuz leaving Alhaster largely to its own devices
585 CY:
Balabar Smenk arrives in the Cairn Hills mining town of Diamond Lake and begins amassing his fortune. (DNG#124.52)
Professor Montague Marat's traveling sideshow comes to Diamond Lake, Cairn Hills. The Professor is seduced by, and joins forces with, Zalamandra to create the Emporium. (DNG#124.52)
The Whispering Cairn is rediscovered in the Cairn Hills by a Diamond Lake teenager. (DNG#124.16)
First year of the Champion's Games.
Coldeven 586 CY:
Canon Hazen of Veluna uses the Crook of Rao, causing “the Flight of Fiends.” The Blessed Angels’ ranks thinned by the resulting banishment of evil outsiders from the Flannaess. Several key members of the Angels spared, by luck or magic, & Lashonna takes steps to ensure that the organization is rebuilt.
c 586 CY:
Driven by his delusionary dreams, Zeech begins work on the Great Project, a monument to himself that will (in his mind) ensure his ascension to his rightful place at Hextor’s right hand. In reality, the project is Lashonna’s idea, and its imminent completion (circa 596) indicates that the Age of Worms draws nigh.
589 CY:
Local Diamond Lake girl vanishes, devoured by a snake in the Whispering Cairn. Visits to the Cairn by Diamond Lake's youth taper off. (DNG#124)
592 CY:
Professor Montague Marat leaves Diamond Lake.
Luzane Parrin and her husband are forced by waning finances to sell their home to Balabar Smenk and move into a smaller manor in Diamond Lake.
593 CY:
Ilthane infects Twisted Branch eggs.
Blackwall Keep's battlemage goes off on his own on a diplomatic mission to see the Twisted Branch tribe in the Mistmarsh. He is infected by Kyuss worms & transforms into a spawn of Kyuss. He is imprisoned in a half-finished tunnel beneath Blackwall Keep. (DNG #126)
A small cell of Vecna cultists led by the Faceless One unearths evidence of spawn of Kyuss in the Cairn Hills south of Diamond Lake. Knowing that Vecna himself had once conducted experiments in the same region, the Faceless One leads his band to Diamond Lake, where they discover Vecna's old laboratory located deep underground, near a mine owned by Ragnolin Dourstone. The Faceless One corrupts Dourstone and convinces him to carve a secret shaft to this chamber. (DNG#125.18)
Luzane Parrin's husband dies mysteriously in Diamond lake, Cairn Hills. (DNG#124.52)
Amon Kyre, high priest of Heironeous at the Diamond Lake Garrison, vanishes under mysterious circumstances. (DNG#124.57)note: The name is my own creation--a pun on the name of the DL backdrop's author.
Valkus Dun, a priest of Heironeous from Greyhawk City, replaces the missing Amon Kyre as high priest of Heironeous in Diamond Lake. (DNG#124.57)
Loris Raknian begins relationshsip with Lahaka.
Auric's Warband wins Champion's games for first time.
594 CY:
Auric's Warband wins Champion's Games for second year in a row.
Lahaka spurns Loris Raknian & he murders her.
Loris Raknian makes deal with Bozal Zahol.
595 CY:
Ragnolin Dourstone asks Balabar Smenk to run secret shipments of food and supplies to the branch of the Ebon Triad living in the Black Cathedral in Dourstone Mine in Diamond Lake. Smenk agrees, but only on condition of seeing the Black Cathedral and meeting the Faceless One. (DNG#124.40)
The necromancer Filge arrives in Diamond Lake at the behest of Balabar Smenk and sets up shop at the abandoned Diamond Lake Observatory. (DNG#124.40, 44)
The Faceless One sends a lurking strangler into the Whispering Cairn near Diamond Lake, Cairn Hills, where it becomes trapped.
AoW AP begins.
wow. this is really useful, thanks!
This is helpful. For those who are interested in more historical background on Alhaster and Zeech, I invented some, trying to fit it into the chronology in the published modules.
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If anybody would be willing, I'd like to see a version of this as an Eberron timeline pertaining to the AoWAP. Is anybody willing to take up this task?
Workin' on it as a long-term project. My adaptations involve a more significant role for the Wind Dukes and Order of the Storm in Eberron history and the "Age of Worms" than is suggested in Keith's conversion notes, so it may be less useful to others, though.
As said before in that other thread... well done, Rob!
1 question (and not having the adventure to hand) is it reaaly a few years since the blackwall guard returns to the garrison and is barricaded in the keep? i always assumed that it was no more than a few days before the PCs arrive.
1 question (and not having the adventure to hand) is it reaaly a few years since the blackwall guard returns to the garrison and is barricaded in the keep? i always assumed that it was no more than a few days before the PCs arrive.
If it was only a few days, then Marzena wouldn't be at the keep in the first place, as she replaced that guy.
ahh yep. duh. thanks. gonna make sure that i get that right when we play it. i suppose the ebon triad cult has been active under DL for about the same time so having a spawn running around a few years ago seem plausable.
The AOW Timeline can also be found at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Worms_Timeline
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Wow. It's threads like this that make me wish we had a "best of boards" for Age of Worms.
I've been compiling some of the nicer resources and ideas offered by DM's in the thread found here:
http://paizo.com/dungeon/messageboards/ageOfWorms/ageOfWormsDMCreatedResour ces
The timeline's included. If you'd like to add others that you feel would be helpful in your game and in those of others, go for it!
Man, I wish I'd spotted this thread years ago.
Wow. It's threads like this that make me wish we had a "best of boards" for Age of Worms.I've been compiling some of the nicer resources and ideas offered by DM's in the thread found here:
http://paizo.com/dungeon/messageboards/ageOfWorms/ageOfWormsDMCreatedResour ces
The timeline's included. If you'd like to add others that you feel would be helpful in your game and in those of others, go for it!
I'm going to linkify this to get rid of that space.