History & Legends

Cruseryx has seen many long eons pass and many ages come and go. In the study of our world’s chronology, it is important to distinguish between two classifications of time: the Ages of Mortus and the Ages of Substance.

The former reflects the lived and recorded history of mortal peoples, the grand narrative tomes from which culture, identity, and myth are drawn. The latter is a more academic division, used primarily within the Royal Colleges, the Grand Library of Caelia, and certain theological circles to delineate cosmological epochs of metaphysical significance.

Where the Ages of Mortus describe how mortals experienced history, the Ages of Substance attempt to categorise how life itself has shifted and reoriented across time.

Ages of Mortus

The Ages of Mortus represent the great volumes of mortal history. Each is defined by a transformative event that reshaped not merely territory, but the structure of power, belief, and civilisation.

The First Age

The Age of Awakening and Servitude

The First Age marks the emergence of mortal life under the dominion of the Primordials. Mortals were created not as sovereign beings, but as instruments, soldiers, labourers, attendants, curiosities.

The conditions of existence varied wildly depending on the Primordial overlord. Some, such as Aluneire, permitted a structured and even elevated society among their creations. Others reduced mortal races to expendable tools in endless experiments of war and reshaping.

This Age culminated in the First Primordial War, an unprecedented uprising in which mortal races, aided by defecting Primordials and the first emergence of Divine Sparks among sympathetic beings, overthrew their creators.

The Age ends with mortal victory and the birth of the New Pantheon.

The Second Age

The Age of Sovereign Strife

Freed from primordial domination, mortals entered a turbulent era of ambition and expansion. Tribes grew into settlements. Settlements into city-states. City-states into kingdoms.

Without a unifying oppressor, mortals turned their ingenuity upon one another.

It was an era of:

• Rapid cultural divergence
• Resource wars
• The codification of early law
• The rise of organised religion
• The first major arcane institutions

This Age concludes with the formal founding of the Caelian Empire under Carridus Scarro II, a singular consolidation of ambition into imperial unity.

The Third Age

The Age of Expansion

Under the early Emperors of House Scarro, the Empire expanded across Cruseryx. Through diplomacy, conquest, alliance, and infrastructure, Caelia became the central axis of continental civilisation.

During this Age:

• The Imperial Senate was formalised.
• The Royal Colleges flourished.
• Regional autonomy systems were codified.
• The High Table evolved into its modern ceremonial structure.

The Age ended not in peace, but in catastrophe, the Second Primordial War.

The arrival of Nagash, Arkaan, and Bazrak shattered the illusion that the First War had been final.

Victory was hard fought. The Primordials were defeated and mortal life prevailed once more.

The Fourth Age

The Age of Stability

In the aftermath of the Second Primordial War, the remaining independent states of Cruseryx ceded themselves to Caelian protection. The promise of unity outweighed the risks of autonomy.

The Fourth Age has been defined by:

• Long standing continental peace
• Economic integration
• Arcane regulation
• Cultural flourishing
• The constitutional balance between Crown and Senate

It is often called the Golden Continuity.

Yet scholars note that long periods of stability often conceal slower-moving undercurrents.

Ages of Substance

Where the Ages of Mortus describe narrative history, the Ages of Substance attempt to identify the deeper structural movements of life.

These divisions are academic in origin and frequently debated.

Age of Primordials

The Age of Primordials predates mortal documentation. It was during this epoch that the world was shaped, oceans carved, mountains raised, continents fractured.

The Primordials operated as architects and tyrants in equal measure. Evidence suggests their power derived from Divine Sparks, proto-divine cores of immense creative and destructive potential.

Much of what is known about this Age comes from:

• Fragmented divine testimony
• Residual planar scars
• Draconic oral tradition
• Deep-earth geomantic resonance

Age of Tyranny

The Age of Tyranny overlaps with the First Age of Mortus but focuses specifically on metaphysical subjugation.

During this time:

• Mortal souls were bound.
• Lifespans were artificially constrained or extended.
• Early magic was regulated by Primordial oversight.

Some races, such as the Elves of Aluneire, experienced relative stability. Others endured relentless exploitation.

This Age lasted around ten thousand years before fracture.

Age of First Strife

The Age of First Strife corresponds to the First Primordial War. It marks the first time mortal will reshaped cosmic hierarchy.

Primordials were slain. Divine Sparks were inherited. The New Pantheon emerged.

This was not merely rebellion. It was self liberation.

Age of Kings

The Age of Kings is characterised by mortal assertion. Freed from tyranny, humanity and its allied races began carving dominions across open land.

Ambition replaced survival as the primary driving force.

The volatility of this Age ended when Carridus Scarro II consolidated power and declared the formation of the Caelian Empire, an act that redefined sovereignty itself.

Age of the Empire

Spanning approximately two millennia prior to the current reign, the Age of the Empire marks the institutional maturation of Caelia.

This period includes:

• Territorial consolidation
• Bureaucratic codification
• The formalisation of the Imperial Ministries
• The elevation of the Imperial Senate
• The Second Primordial War

It was during this Age that Aurelius Scarro ascended the throne, an event that would later redefine imperial continuity.

Age of Prosperity

The Age of Prosperity is the current academic designation for the ongoing Fourth Age.

It is defined not by conquest, but by preservation.

• Infrastructure expansion
• Regulated magical advancement
• Continental integration
• Long peace

Some scholars caution that prosperity is not an endpoint, but a plateau.

History, they argue, does not move in straight lines.

Timeline & Ages