Event

First Age

CanonOfficial lore from the booksSSGp. 10-11, 17

The First Age is a far more mysterious and less known period in the history of Teneris than the ages that followed, and its length is unknown. It was the time before The Desolation, when no barrier stood in the Great Western Sea and the whole of Caligran was full of life and of many civilisations. It is said that the age passed in the shadow of these high civilisations.¹

Gods and magic

Before the Exodus, the people of Teneris lived by pushing the limits of magic across the world. The gods taught both arcane and divine magic directly to mortals, to everyone's benefit, and every one of the now-forgotten civilisations had a god as its teacher and shepherd. Legends say that the gods took form in the bodies of chosen individuals and spoke to mortals directly, guiding them.¹

Humans of the north

The humans living in the northern regions of Caligran were perhaps the youngest and most primitive race in all of Teneris. The twin gods Alarath and Amarath took an interest in this young race and sent their avatars among them. According to legend, the solid walls of Marble City and the Marble Palace were raised from the ground by godly magic in this age.¹

The end of the age

This age of prosperity and learning came to a sudden and sharp end. What exactly happened is still unknown, for apart from religious texts there is no objective account, at least not in the Lands of Exile.¹

According to the records of the Church of Alarath, at the end of the age The Dark One somehow emerged from the void and attacked Teneris. The attack threatened all of existence and was repelled only by the combined resistance of gods and mortals. This event, the Desolation, brought the death of gods and of whole civilisations, the separation of the two continents by the Eye of Aquaron, and the covering of more than half of Caligran by a vile desert.¹

The church teaches that the gods' living among mortals had left all of Teneris vulnerable to the Dark One, and that the best way to protect mortals was to watch over them from above. As the survivors fled north in the Exodus, the surviving gods withdrew to the higher planes and left the mighty Priest-Kings to rule as absolute sovereigns. The Second Age, the longest era after the First, began in mourning, in a narrower and less advanced world now governed by humans.²

Legacy

Architectural marvels of the First Age can still be found in the ruined deserts and the deep forests, and the magical artefacts found in its ruins are the most powerful and dangerous of all.¹ Drawing on sources from the First and Second Ages, the wizard Castor Onerio came to believe that a vast continent lay to the west; the expedition he led west in 285 AVD returned in 289 AVD with the discovery of Canarque.³

Notes

↑BookLands of Exile: Starter Setting Guide, p. 10
↑BookLands of Exile: Starter Setting Guide, pp. 10, 11
↑BookLands of Exile: Starter Setting Guide, p. 17

Sources

This article draws on:

SSGLands of Exile: Starter Setting Guide(Bad Badger Games, 2024), pp. 10-11, 17

RegionTenerisThe ancient world in which the Lands of Exile lie, with two great continents, Caligran in the east and Canarque in the west, divided by the Great Western Sea and the vortex called the Eye of Aquaron.RegionCaligranThe eastern of the two great continents of Teneris, mostly desert since the Desolation, whose habitable north holds the Lands of Exile, the refuge of the surviving races.EventSecond AgeThe long age that began when the gods withdrew after the Desolation and left the Priest-Kings to rule, and that ended with the rise of the Empire, a second threat from the Dark One averted, and the disappearance of Xeratos.

EventThe DesolationThe cataclysm that ended the First Age, when the Dark One attacked Teneris. Gods and whole civilisations died, the two continents were parted and more than half of Caligran became desert.RegionGreat Western SeaThe great sea between Caligran and Canarque, home of the Eye of Aquaron, the Farr Islands and the sunken elven city of Athrokaan, along whose shores live the Free Folk.EventAges of TenerisThe four great eras into which scholars divide the history of Teneris, from the mysterious First Age before the Desolation to the present Fourth Age that began after Victory Day.EventFourth AgeThe present age of Teneris, which began after Victory Day, when the Grand Alliance's costly win broke the old balance of power, weakened the Emperor and set the noble houses against one another.EventThird AgeThe historical age that followed the Second Age and lasted 2230 years, the first age whose length is precisely known; it saw the War of the Immortal Mages and the Sanction, and ended with Victory Day.ConceptPlan to repeat the DesolationIn the Yeni Dünya campaign, the design that the wounded mage Manfred attributed to the war-mage Deimos and his radicals, as he claimed to have pieced it together from a dead operative's memories, together with what he said of the abducted scholar Orson.OrganisationGrand AllianceThe union of armies rallied across Caligran by the Chain Wardens against the Heralds at the end of the Third Age, the largest in the history of Teneris. It won the battle of Victory Day outside the Marble City, but its unity soon broke apart.