THE TIMELINE OF ESTOS
The history of Estos is one of ambition, betrayal, and survival. What began as a hopeful migration from central Estrana would evolve into a tale of fractured kingdoms, devastating war, and bitter rivalries that persist to this day. Understanding this timeline is essential to comprehending the forces that shape the present age.
1,100 Years Ago: The First Settlement
When nomadic settlers from central Estrana first ventured into the untamed region of Estos, they found a land rich beyond imagination. Dense forests teemed with game. Rivers ran clear and abundant. The soil, especially in what would become southern Estos and Vlencia, proved remarkably fertile. Most enticing of all, the region remained almost entirely uninhabited by other humans—a blank canvas for those seeking to forge their own destiny.
These settlers were defectors in spirit, individuals who had chosen to leave the established territories of central Estrana in search of opportunity and autonomy. Under the leadership of Wagner Taydal's forebears, they established what would simply become known as the First Settlement in the northern reaches of Estos, a region they named Elron after the elder who first scouted the land.
The early years were harsh. The megafauna that dominated Estos posed constant threats to the fledgling settlement. Massive herbivores—creatures that would later be hunted to extinction—trampled crops and destroyed early fortifications. The predators that fed upon these giants viewed humans as easy prey. Yet through determination and cooperation, the settlers persevered, slowly carving out a foothold in this dangerous new world.
1,080 Years Ago: The Fracture
Success bred ambition, and ambition bred conflict. As the First Settlement grew and prospered, internal power struggles emerged between its leaders. Torijn Rarkez, a charismatic and ambitious figure, grew increasingly at odds with the Taydal leadership. Historical accounts differ on the precise nature of their disagreement—some suggest it was purely political, a clash between those who favoured cautious consolidation and those who desired aggressive expansion. Others hint at philosophical differences about governance and the distribution of resources.
What is certain is that Torijn Rarkez, unwilling to submit to Taydal's authority, gathered his followers and led them south through what is today known as the Forbidden Forest. This breakaway faction discovered the temperate, fertile lands that would become Vlencia. The climate proved milder than harsh Elron, the soil richer, the growing season longer. It seemed, to Torijn and his people, that they had found paradise.
The split was not entirely peaceful, however. Resentment festered on both sides. The Taydals viewed the Rarkez defection as betrayal and theft—after all, these newly southerners had benefited from the collective struggle to establish the First Settlement before abandoning their fellows. The Rarkez faction, for their part, felt stifled and unappreciated, believing their ambitions and contributions had been systematically suppressed by Taydal leadership.
Thus were planted the seeds of a rivalry and skirmishes that would define the region for the next millennium.
1,050 Years Ago: The Decimation of Megafauna
As both nascent kingdoms expanded, they faced a common obstacle: the megafauna of Estos. These creatures were magnificent and terrible in equal measure.
The Titanoryx stood nearly twenty feet tall at the shoulder, herbivorous giants whose five massive tusks could uproot trees and reshape the landscape. Their hides were thick as fortress walls, their footsteps capable of crushing human dwellings.
The Bronthar, even larger, had great sail-like ridges running along their backs and elongated necks. Herds of dozens would migrate across the plains, leaving devastation in their wake.
The Stoneback, a rhino-like beast the size of a small building, possessed armour-like hide that could deflect even the sharpest spears. These herbivores proved particularly aggressive when threatened, often charging settlements without provocation.
These herbivores, in turn, supported apex predators. Chief among them was the sa'abrak, a massive feline predator that made even today's khuegers seem tame by comparison. Standing eight feet at the shoulder with fangs as long as swords, packs of sa'abraks could bring down even the mighty Titanoryx.
Both kingdoms recognised that coexistence with such creatures was impossible if they hoped to build lasting cities. Thus began a systematic campaign of extermination. Hunting parties were organised, traps were laid, and entire herds were driven off cliffs or into bogs where they could be slaughtered safely.
The campaign was devastatingly effective. Within a single generation, the great megafauna of mainland Estos were extinct, surviving only in the isolated ecosystem of what would later be called Skull Island. The hunters justified their actions as necessary for survival and progress. The meat fed growing populations and the hides provided materials for armour, tents, and trade goods. The bones became tools, weapons, and black market medicine.
Yet this decimation came with unforeseen consequences. With the megafauna gone, the ecological balance shifted. Smaller predators proliferated. The landscape itself changed as the great beasts that had shaped it through their grazing and migrations vanished. And in the southeastern reaches of Estos, in the desolate region of Kaudon, something ancient and terrible took notice of mankind's presumption.
1,020 Years Ago: The Discovery of Kaudon
By this time, Valentius Rarkez, grandson of the founder Torijn, sat upon the Vlencian throne. Young, ambitious, and hungry for glory, Valentius embodied the expansionist spirit that had driven his grandfather south. Under his rule, Vlencia sent explorers ever outward, seeking new resources, new lands, new opportunities for wealth and prestige.
One such expedition ventured southeast, beyond the fertile heartland of Vlencia, into the rocky wasteland dominated by jagged peaks covered in strange scarlet moss. There, amid the desolation, they discovered something that should have remained lost: the ancient fortress of Kaudon.
And within that fortress dwelt Vraqor, the Dark Lord.
How long Vraqor had existed in Kaudon remains unknown. Some scholars suggest he had always been there, a primordial force predating human settlement. Others theorise he arrived in Estos long before mankind, establishing his domain over what he considered his rightful territory. What is certain is that Vraqor viewed himself as the true master of Estos—and the arrival of humans, with their cities and farms and systematic destruction of the natural order, was an invasion he would not tolerate.
The explorers returned to Istrille with tales of the Dark Lord and his necromancers, of creatures that should not exist, of dark magic that poisoned the very air. A prudent ruler might have chosen to leave such horrors undisturbed, to establish borders and maintain distance. Valentius Rarkez was not prudent. He was ambitious, and he saw opportunity where others saw danger.
1,010 Years Ago: Escalation
What followed was a decade of increasing hostility. Valentius, whether driven by greed for Kaudon's rumoured mineral wealth, fear of a potential threat, or simple desire for martial glory, ordered increasingly aggressive incursions into Kaudon's territory. Vlencian soldiers established outposts on Kaudon's borders. Mining operations began in the Scarlet Mountains, extracting iron ore and precious metals from what Vraqor considered his domain.
Vraqor responded with restraint—at first. His necromancers drove away the miners with shows of dark magic. His creatures harassed the outposts. But Valentius interpreted this as weakness rather than warning, and each repulsion only prompted a larger, more aggressive Vlencian response.
The Dark Lord's patience, never abundant, wore thin. From his perspective, these humans were precisely what he had feared—locusts that consumed and destroyed without thought for the land they despoiled. They had already driven the great megafauna to extinction on the mainland. Now they presumed to mine his mountains and build their settlements in his territory.
Vraqor decided that if warnings would not suffice, an example must be made.
1,000 Years Ago: The Great Battle Begins
The assault on Bleim was as quick as it was devastating and absolute. Vraqor himself led his necromancers and the spawn of Kaudon—creatures of nightmare made flesh—against the unsuspecting city. What had been a prosperous town in its short years became a charnel house in a single night. Thousands died. The survivors fled north and east with tales of horror that spread panic across Vlencia.
Valentius Rarkez suddenly found himself facing an existential threat. Vraqor's forces pushed northward, and it became clear that the Dark Lord intended nothing less than the complete eradication of human presence in the southern kingdom. Vlencian forces, no matter how skilled, could not stand alone against such an enemy.
For the first time in eighty years, a Rarkez humbled himself before a Taydal.
Wagner Taydal, ruler of Elron and inheritor of his family's long grievance against House Rarkez, had every reason to refuse Valentius's desperate plea for alliance. The Taydals had not forgotten the defection, the loss of population and resources when Torijn Rarkez led his people south. Yet Wagner proved himself a pragmatic leader. However much he despised the Rarkez, he recognised that if Vlencia fell, Elron would be next.
The terms of the Great Alliance were comprehensive: shared trade, freedom of movement between kingdoms, military cooperation, and provisions for joint governance in matters affecting both realms. For the duration of the war and beyond, the two kingdoms would function as a unified force.
Thus began ten years of the bloodiest conflict Estos had ever witnessed.
990 Years Ago: Victory and Betrayal
The Great Battle—or more accurately, the Great War—raged for a full decade. 90,000 lives were lost. Entire cities were razed and never rebuilt. The spawn of Kaudon, creatures like the draconic skarloxes and other horrors, terrorised both kingdoms. Dark magic poisoned the land and drove men mad. Yet the alliance held, and the combined might of Vlencia and Elron, supported by the white magic users of Kladstin, slowly turned the tide.
The final confrontation saw Kings Valentius and Wagner, alongside Mage Alderan and elite warriors from both kingdoms, breach Kaudon Fortress itself. The battle was savage. Vraqor, seven feet of armoured fury, wielding weapons of impossible size, nearly won. But in a moment of distraction, Ser Kalen Grey of the Hellhands drove his longsword through a gap in the Dark Lord's armour.
Vraqor fell, and with him, his entire army collapsed. The spawn of Kaudon crumbled to ash. The necromancers fell dead where they stood. The war was won.
But Ser Kalen Grey paid the ultimate price, killed instantly by the backlash of dark magic that coursed through his blade. He died a hero, forever remembered as the Great Slayer.
Vraqor's body was entombed beneath Kaudon in a crypt sealed with ancient magic, intended to be unbreakable for all eternity. The threat, it seemed, had been eliminated.
Yet victory soured almost immediately. Historical accounts suggest that Valentius Rarkez was consumed by jealous rage that an Elronian—rather than himself—had struck the killing blow. The glory he had craved, the legendary status he had fought for, belonged to someone else and worse still, an Elronian. This humiliation, combined with the enormous cost of the war and Valentius's fundamental distrust of sharing power, led him to a fateful decision.
Within weeks of Vraqor's defeat, Valentius broke every term of the alliance. Trade agreements were dissolved. Movement between kingdoms was restricted. Military cooperation ended. The Great Betrayal, as it came to be known, shattered the unity that had saved Estos and reignited the ancient rift between Rarkez and Taydal.
The betrayed Elronian soldiers, whose swords were barely scrubbed of blood, didn’t even make it out of Vlencia. They were instead driven into the Forbidden Forest to die, where they became steelspirits—vengeful ghosts that haunt that cursed woodland to this day.
980 Years Ago: The Skull Island Conflicts Begin
In the aftermath of the Great Betrayal, both kingdoms eyed each other with suspicion and hostility. When scouts from both sides discovered Skull Island—a lush, resource-rich territory that had somehow preserved the megafauna and abundant minerals absent from the mainland—both kingdoms immediately claimed it as their own.
Neither had the strength to seize it outright after the devastating losses of the Great Battle. What followed were centuries of skirmishes, raids, and occasional larger battles over control of the island. Tuga on the Elronian coast and other strategic cities became military strongholds, but that didn’t stop thousands more lives from being lost in a conflict neither side could win, but neither would abandon.
The island itself became forbidden territory—settlement was prohibited by unspoken agreement, though both kingdoms turned blind eyes to illegal harvesting operations. Those caught faced brutal punishment: the loss of a hand as a permanent reminder of their transgression, or, in some cases, the executioner’s axe.
40 Years Ago: The Stalemate
Four decades before the present day, the Skull Island conflicts reached a point of exhausted futility. Both kingdoms had poured enormous resources into a fight that yielded no decisive victor. The costs in lives, gold, and materials had become unsustainable, and so, without formal treaty or ceremony, both sides simply... stopped.
The stalemate was unspoken, unofficial, and fragile. Military forces remained positioned in makeshift camps and shelters despite simmering tensions over the disputed territory. Forty years of unfounded peace, however, gave birth to a ceaseless paranoia, with each kingdom suspecting the other of plotting attacks on the mainland itself.
Yet the stalemate held, becoming the new normal for an entire generation.
10 Years Ago: A Prince in Exile
Ten years before the current age, Prince Darius Rarkez, eldest son of King Robick and heir to the Vlencian throne, was accused of attempting to assassinate his father. Though the evidence was later questioned, it proved sufficient at the time. Spared execution by his father's reluctant mercy, Darius was exiled to the Forbidden Forest—a fate considered worse than death.
Against all odds, he survived.
Present Day: The Threshold of Change
Today, Estos stands at a crossroads. King Robick Rarkez rules Vlencia with a pacifist hand, seeking peace but weakened by illness. King Jefor Taydal governs Elron with harsh laws and an iron grip, plagued by fears of inadequacy for failing to produce a legitimate son. Both monarchs seem preoccupied with their own plights, yet still, the whispers of their lengthy conflict continue to haunt the corners of their throne chambers.
And in the southeast, in the Dead City of Kaudon, some claim to hear stirrings in the deep places. Whether these are mere superstitions or genuine warnings, none can say with certainty.
But those who know the history of Estos understand one truth: peace in this region has always been temporary, and the sins of the past have a way of returning to haunt the present.
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