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A Gazetteer of Ochalea - Timeline

by Giampaolo Agosta

Next: Politics Up: A Gazetteer of Ochalea Previous: Introduction   Contents

Subsections


Timeline

This section reports the history of Ochalea as the Immortals know it.

Prehistory

3500 BC - First Colonisation
Beastmen fleeing the Blackmoorian crusades migrate south-west of Borea, reaching the land that will become Ochalea. They find an existing Rakasta population, which arrived from Davania centuries before.

Taymoran Age

3000 BC - Formation of Ochalea
The Great Rain of Fire causes the land around modern Ochalea to be flooded, separating the island from Brun. Pardasta and Beastmen tribes are blocked in Ochalea by the rising waters.

The Great Rain of Fire also affect the border between the material and spirit worlds - spirits find it easier to reach the material world in the forests, lakes and mountain of Ochalea.

2600 BC - Creation of the Ogre Magi
Beastmen start breeding true. Larger beastmen (Ogres) with some giantish blood form an upper caste, while smaller beastmen become a lower caste. At the same time, nature spirits influence the Ogres, who reach a higher level of culture - it is the birth of the Ogre Magi.

Despite the differences, the Beastmen and Rakasta cultures have grown closer by this time, thanks to the influence of the nature and animal spirits. They speak variants of the same language, and steady trade exist between Ogre Magi settlements (exporting wood, hides, and metals) and Rakasta towns (exporting seafood, jade, and higher quality pottery and weapons).

2200 BC - Taymoran Lupins
The Taymoran Hairless and the Taymoran Hound Lupin breeds are created as the original Lupins fall under the sway of the Necromancer Kings of Taymor. They uses their powerful magics to instil useful abilities in these Lupins - a special ability to recognise werewolves, and a racial hatred of these creatures, as well as heightened strength and a larger body frame, making them more suited to act as soldiers and guards.

2000 BC - Ogre-Rakasta Wars
The Ogre Magi, now powerful magic users with shapechanging abilities, send armies of lower-caste beastmen - by now reduced to slavery - against the coastal Rakasta towns. The slave armies are slaughtered by the well-ordered tactics of Rakasta archers and tiger-riders.

1700 BC - Fall of Taymor
The destruction of Taymor causes a tsunami. Foreseeing the disaster, and hard pressed by a renewed attack of the Ogre Mage kingdom, Rakasta sages open gates to other regions, saving most of their population. Only a few Pardasta clans remain in Ochalea.

The invading slave-armies of the Ogre Magi find only deserted towns. While they secure the area, the tsunami hits the coast of Ochalea and annihilates them.

1500 BC - Lupins reach Ochalea
Several large clans of Taymoran Lupins, both Hound and Hairless, flee west and south from the destruction of Taymor. After a long journey, they land in the western reaches of Ochalea.

1400 BC - Ogre Magi attack!
The Ogre Mage kings, needing more slaves after the catastrophic losses suffered three centuries earlier, attack and enslave several Lupin clans.

1000 BC - Alphatian Landfall
Old Alphatia is destroyed in the war between followers of the philosophies of Fire and Air. The Followers of Air flee to Mystara, settling on the continent they name Alphatia. They bring strains of lycanthropy - in particular, tiger lycanthropy, with them.

900 BC - Ogre Mage Wars
In Ochalea, the Foo Dogs interaction with the Ochalean Houndling (direct descendants of the Taymoran Hairless), has resulted in the birth of the Ochalean Crested, and the Ogre Magi have bred the Chow-Chow from Houndling and Shar-Pei (derived from the Taymoran Hounds) slaves. The Shar-Pei, Ochalean Crested and Foo Dogs lead a war against the Ogre Magi kingdom, with some help from Pardasta clans.

By this time, the Lupins control the Shun, Yuen and Ta'ang provinces, while the rest of Ochalea is controlled by the Ogre Magi kingdom.

Formation of the Ochalean Culture

800 BC - Arrival of the Cypri
A large number of common Alphatians, born without the trait of magic use, flee the southern Alphatian kingdoms (mainly Arogansa and Greenspur) to escape persecution and enslavement at the hands of magic-using Alphatians. They land in Ochalea (in the modern Celestial Domains, which they named Bei at the time), hoping to build a new homeland, where they can live free from the wizards.

They find the island in the midst of a century-long war between Lupins and Ogre-Magi, and side with the former, turning the balance in the near-humans' favour. The Ogre Magi kingdom is destroyed, and only three clans survive, retiring deep into the forests.

700 BC - Colonisation of Kiang
By this time, the Cypri have settled Wang and Shou. Independent Cypri pioneers from Wang push into the Kiang province, claiming new lands.

Meanwhile, the Lupins expand into the Daisun province.

500 BC - Rise of the Ochalean Culture
By this time, the Ochalean culture, an original mix of Cypric, Rakastan and Lupin culture is born, under the supervision of the benevolent Foo Dogs. They speak a language that is based on the old Rakasta and Ogre Mage tongue (in the Rakasta variant), but pronunciation is deeply influenced by Alphatian, with the addition of a tonal system.

The Wang Cypri family from Wang unifies the Bei, Shou and Wang nations, and begin the colonisation of Sung. They also obtain the submission of the Kiang aristocracy - the heirs of the pioneers - but must concede a semi-independent status to that province. Radical elements of Kiang start moving towards Chun and Cao as a result of this interference.

300 BC - Alphatian Occupation
Alphatian armies led by powerful wizards land in Beitung, kill the Wang royal family and establish a ``Protectorate'', milling the local farmers to fill their own coffers and the imperial treasury.

The Shar-Pei and the Chow-Chow retreat to the badlands, where they fight a guerrilla war, while the Houndling are mostly forced to submit to the invaders. The Ochalean Crested, who have powerful mages among them, are left alone, but secretly provide help to the rebels.

During the following centuries, the Lupin and human population mix heavily, so that by the end of the millennium, Yuen and Shun are not anymore recognisable as a Lupin territory, while Lupin become common in Daisun, Chun, Kiang and Cao.

Chi and Bohan also see the first waves of colonisation at this time. The province of Cao is also settled up to the current extent during the Alphatian occupation, as the Alphatian governors hope to find gold there.

200 BC - Emergence of the Gu
By this time, Alphatian overlords in Ochalea have been mostly replaced by mixed-breed Ochalean-Alphatian governors. The Gu family acquire a dominance, so that, by the end of the century, the Gu leader is named King of Ochalea, as a subject nation to the Empire of Alphatia.

The Thyatian Empire

1 AC - Foundation of the Empire
The wizard Lucinius Trezantembium and the warrior Zendrolion Tatriokanitas lead the Thyatians in a liberation war against Alphatia. Pearl Islanders and Ochaleans ally with them, throwing off the Alphatian yoke. After obtaining independence, Zendrolion murders Lucinius and the Ochalean and Nuari kings, proclaiming himself Emperor of Thyatis. He conquers Ochalea and the Pearl Islands.

The Gu dynasty dies out in the following years.

20 AC - Valentia's Proclamation
Valentia the Justiciar, Zendrolion's widow, makes the Citizen's Proclamation. Ochalea re-joins the Empire as a Grand Duchy. The philo-Thyatian Wai dynasty is instated.

Rise of Ochalea

380 AC - Creation of the Naval Fortress at Beitung
Tiberius II Kerdolion, after repelling an Alphatian attack on the Pearl Islands, orders the construction of fortifications at Seagirt and Beitung.

Crown Prince Gabrionus is sent to supervise the works. The vast imperial funds allow Beitung to live a time of economic boom.

Moreover, Gabrionus marries an Ochalean noblewoman of the Teng family, who becomes the first Empress of Ochalean descent in 386 AC. They have no male heirs, so the husband of their daughter, Fabia, becomes the next Emperor.

426 AC - Ascension of the Teng
The Wai dynasty dies out. Emperor Alexian II names a second cousin of his wife, Fabia, as the new Archduke, strengthening Ochalea's ties with the Kerdolion dynasty.

563 AC - The Ochalean Usurper
Building on the growing unrest of the military, not pleased with the rule of Emperor Lucius Nuar, an Ochalean naval officer, Tien Dun Wei, declares himself Emperor and leads a revolt, sailing with his fleet to the mainland. Tien Dun Wei's forces are defeated, and the usurper is captured and executed.

567 AC - The Ochalean Emperor
Senator Wein Dein-Ling, a Philosopher of Law, is elected Emperor after the death of his predecessor, Lucius Naur. He is the first, and only, full-blooded Ochalean to raise to the Imperial throne.

Wein Dien-Ling enacts penal reforms, instituting penal colonies in the Ierendian Isles in 571. The prisoners, according to Emperor Wein's philosophy, must be allowed a chance to reform by working hard and paying their debt to the society - building new infrastructures, settlements, and ships in the colonies.

The Ochalean Emperor also drives the rebuilding of the military forces, elevating the Retebius Air Corps, to the rank of Air Fleet, and using the new penal colonies to speed up the reconstruction of the Thyatian fleet.

622 AC - Ochalean Philosophy divulged in the mainland
Rang Tchou-Chan, a cleric of the Jade Temple, writes ``A Look into my Soul'', a summary of the main philosophical and religious works published in Thyatis, which includes a chapter on Ochalean religion. It is the first such work to reach the mainstream public of the Thyatian mainland.

Modern Era

985 AC - Construction of the new harbour at Wumingdou
Emperor Thincol Torion orders the construction of new military facilities at Wumingdou, in the province of Bohan, to support his plans for the colonisation of the Four Kingdoms in northern Davania.

988 AC - Colonisation of the Hinterlands
Troops led by Governor-General Leila ben Nadir land in the Four Kingdoms, and establish the Province of the Thyatian Hinterlands. Sea trading intensifies in the province of Bohan.

1000 AC - Present
This is the present in the Gazetteer era; it also marks the end of the first millennium of life for the Empire.

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