• The Days of Thunder

  • -35000 DR to -30000 DR

    This earliest days of recorded history begins at the end of a great Ice Age, some 37,000 years ago, when the last glaciations largely ended and the great ocean receded to reveal dry land. In this ancient time before The Sundering, the lands which would one day be identified as Faerun, Kara-Tur, Maztica, and Zakhara were each but one part of a much larger super-continent named Merrouroboros. None of the dozen or so common races which populate the world today existed in this distant era. Merrouroboros knew none of the civilized folk - elves, dwarves, halflings, or gnomes. Nor did the savage peoples - goblins, orcs, ogres and their kin - inhabit the land. Though humans did exist during this time, they were primitive and apelike, using only simple tools and living in caves. These were the Days of Thunder, the time fo the Iqua-Tel'Quessir, the fabled creator races. »

  • c. -35000 DR

  • Rise of the Sarrukh Empires (sauroid creator race)
    The sarrukh establish the realm of Okoth, south of modern-day Mulhorand.  Within a hundred years, most of Faerûn is theirs. »

  • c. -34800 DR

  • The sarrukh establish the realm of Mhairshaulk, on the Chultan Peninsula westward from the Lhairghal to the Jungles of Chult.  The Mhairshaulkans are believed to have created nagas, pterafolk, troglodytes, and yuan-ti, as well as numerous other races long since lost. »

  • c. -34500 DR

  • The sarrukh establish the realm of Isstosseffifil, based in present-day Anauroch. »

  • c. -34100 DR

  • Fall of Okoth
    After a century of civil strife that drove many sarrukh of Okoth to the planes, the Okoth Empire collapses.

    The clans of Sarrukh wandered the planes for millennia but never found a plane where they wished to remain for more than a generation. This nomadic existence hardens them, turning them inexorably toward evil.

    As the sarrukh of Okoth increasingly embraced their darker natures, a few dissenters, despairing of their kindred's push toward evil, broke off from the main group. They entreated Jazirian, a fragment of the World Serpent, for succor, and it responded by transforming them into couatls. A bitter war ensued, but the couatls held their own against the more numerous Okothian sarrukh until Merrshaulk, a darker fragment of the World Serpent, finally slew Jazirian. At that point, the couatls were forced to flee to Abeir-Toril, where they eventually settled in Maztica. The god Qotal embraced them as his divine minions, and they acknowledged him as Jazirian reborn.

    After the war with the couatls, the sarrukh begin to explore the Barrens of Doom and Despair, where they happened upon the khaastas. Believing these creatures to be inferior and weak reptilians, the sarrukh attempt to enslave them. Much to the invaders surprise, not only were the khaastas extremely resistant to serving, but they also had powerful demonic allies willing to aid them. Thus begins a centuries long war between the sarrukh and the khaastas, which the sarrukh eventually lose. To escape the wrath of the victorious khaastas, the sarrukh secretly return to Faerun and begin skulking around the ruins of Okoth, on the shores of the Azulduth. »

  • c. -34000 DR

  • The otherworldly realm of Faerie is ruled by the fey (creators of korreds, sprites, and pixies).  The fey continue to rule to the present day. »

  • c. -33800 DR

  • Fall of Isstosseffifil:
    In an effort to drown the phaerimm of Phaerlin (known today as the Buried Realms in the Underdark) and dispatch their enemies in one masterful stroke, Isstossef wizards rerouted the Narrow Sea so that it ran from east to west, inundating the land around the chain of hills known today as the Tagorlar with water.  Although the Isstossef succeeded in driving the phaerimms deep into the Underdark, the massive ecological change resulting from their weavings of Art caused the Isstosseffifil empire to collapse.

    Although most of the sarrukh of Isstosseffifil died with the city's decline, many survived. The survivors retreated into lichdom in the depths of Oreme where they are protected by the asabis they had created. »

  • c. -33500 DR

  • Fall of Mhairshaulk
    Sarrukh-ruled Mhairshaulk, faced with starvation, declines gradually, sinking slowly into somnolence. The sarrukhs begin a cycle in which thousand-year hibernations alternate with brief periods of activity, during which food gathering and procreation could take place. The empire becomes the domain of the yuan-ti. »

  • Fall of the Sarrukh Empire »

  • Rise of the Batrachi Empire. The batrachi (creator race) are also known as amphibioids or creators of the bullywugs, doppelgangers, kopru, kuo-toa, locathah, sivs, tako, and other shapeshifters, amphibious or piscine races. »

  • c. -31500 DR

  • Under the wise leadership of Zhoukoudien, batrachi power reaches its zenith. The High One's reign ends when he is slain in battle with the titan thane Omo. »

  • c. -31000 DR

  • Rise of the Aearee Empires (avian creator races).

    In the west, the Aearee-Krocaa, followers of the All-Father Krocaa, establish the grand aerie of Viakoo on Mount Havraquoar, which becomes the capital of their great nation. Mount Havroquoar stood far west of where the Sword Coast ends today (Mount Havroquoar and much of the lands of the Aearee-Krocaa is destroyed many centuries later in the Sundering).

    In the north, the Aearee-Syran establish their capital at the aerie of Phwiukree, in the peaks of the Star Mounts and nested in the forests all around those mountains. A strong and majestic folk, their features were reminiscent of eagles and hawks. They enjoyed the special favor of Korcaa's daughter, Syranita, who they praised as their patron.

    In the southeast, the Aearee-Quor carve out the domain of Shara from their rookery in the Orsraun Mountains. These aearees bore the features of crows and jays. The Aearee-Quor's patron was Quolinn, whose wits and cunning preserved their flocks through the worst times of the Batrachi domination and inspired in their hearts a fierce pride and determined self-reliance. Spreading out from the Shara rookery on the Orsraun Mountains, they grew into a loose affiliation of floating city-states that would eventually span the breadth of the continent. »

  • An unimaginable catastrophe strikes Abeir-Toril. Whole continents vanish in earthquakes, fires, and windstorms, and the seas are rearranged. Ancient sarrukh accounts remark on the "changing of the stars", but no one now knows what this might mean.

    Most scholars now speculate that at about this date a comet or ice moon fell from the sky, devastating much of Abeir-Toril, and refer to this event as the Tearfall. The four Inner Seas merge together to form the body of water known today as the Sea of Fallen Stars. Tens of thousands of dragon eggs soon hatch across Toril. The dramatic climate change that followed quickly brought an end to the batrachi civilization. »

  • c. -30700 DR

  • Lammasu Massacre
    One thousand Aearee-Krocaa lose their lives to a much smaller force of lammasu. Later experiments with domesticated landwyrms produce the first winged wyrms, which the aearee name wyverns. Thanks to its new wyvern armies, the Aearee-Krocaa empire expands rapidly. »

  • -30400 DR

  • The Wasting Plague
    In a conflict between the gnolls of Urgnarash and rookery of Kookrui-Shara, shamans of Yeenoghu summons marrashi - spirits of pestilence from the Barrens of Doom and Despair - to blight aearee crops and spread a wasting plague among the avians.

    The Aearee War
    An Aearee named Sieska Waewielonn of the Okwalok-Shara rookery over the shores of the Great Sea discovers the name of Pazreal, a demon lord. With the fiends aid, Sieska becomes lord of Okwalok-Shara. Soon all the rookeries of Aearee-Quor abandones the faith of Quorlin and turns to Pazreal (all except the rookery of Tiennkoo-Shara, which flees to the farthest peaks of Kara-Tur, where their descendants yet thrive today as the crow-headed race known as Tengu, they are the only branch of the Aearee-Quor who never lost their wings). Pazreal teaches the Aearee-Quor how to summon Vrocks, but at a great cost, he took from them their power of flight. The Aearee of Shara never again ride the winds, except by spell or steed.

    Sieska then wages war on the other Aeraree nations to the north and west. Aearee-Krocaa is the first to fall. Aearee-Syran, defends with the aid of fey allies, winged treants, and soarwhales against Aearee-Quor's near-endless demon vrocks and battle rocs. In the end, Mornungongbarae (possibly the first treant), who had guarded the High Forest for nearly a thousand years, rises up and brings down the Quor floating city, but at the cost of his own life. His tragic sacrifice is still sung by treant skalds today, in a saga called The Lament of Mornungongbarae. »

  • The Dawn Ages / The Time of Dragons

  • -30000 DR to -24000 DR
    The empires of the creator races fade into memory, ushering in the Time of Dragons and the Time of Giants. Individual dragons and dragon clans rule large swaths of territory and battle with their rivals for control of the lands, seas, and skies. During this period of devastating warfare among the dragons of Faerun, isolated pockets of formerly dragon-ruled territory fall under giant control. Over time, such giant-ruled kingdoms come to threaten the hegemony of dragonkind, leading to great battles between giant kingdoms such as Darchar, Grunfesting, Helligheim, Nedeheim, Ostoria, and Rangfjell, and dragon-ruled realms such as Argissthilliax, Caesinmalsvir, Darastriverthicha, and Tharkrixghontix. »

  • -30000 DR

  • Fall of the Aearee Empires
    The Time of Dragons is ushered in as dragons across Faerun swarm together in the first Flight of Dragons. They assail the avians in the air, on the land, and beneath the ground. They fall upon the home nest of Viakoo and burn the city from the sky.

    In the caverns beneath the Orsraun Mountains, the wyrm-general Nagamat rampages through the ancestral hatcheries of Shara and claims the kingdom as his own. Using the found magic, Nagamat founds the first dragon kingdom. Sharan aearee survivors escape deeper into the Underdark, where the feral and twisted descendants of the Aearee-Quor become the dire corbies.

    The survivors of Viakoo fee west across the ocean to the land called Anchorome. Five of their cities, all crafted from spelljamming helms, flee to the stars. Rulungwar, Donnakee, Phra'iskree, Oolatiel, and an unnamed fifth one, lost during the exodus, crosses the Sea of Night to the world of Coliar. These aeries float there still, among Coliar's manifold moons. Descendants of Aearee-Krocaa are known today as the aarakocra.

    Some few repentant Aearee-Quor begs Quorlinn for his mercy, and he leads them to Kara-Tur to find refuge with their long lost cousins of Tiennkoo-Shara, the tengu. Descendants of these people call themselves kenku. »

  • The Ba'etith create the Golden Skins of the World Serpent, known today as the Nether Scrolls »

  • War of the Seldarine
    Araushnee is cast down into the Demonweb Pits, where she becomes the demon-goddess Lolth.

    For his betrayal, the solar Malkizid (who served the whole Seldarine and seduced into betrayal by Araushnee) is branded (a constantly bleeding wound on his forehead, giving him the title "the Branded King") and thrown down into the Nine Hells by Corellon Larethian. »

  • The great giant god Annam All-Father marries Othea, a lesser demigoddes of Toril. Their union produces eight terrestrial children. Ostoria, the Colossal Kingdom, is founded by Annam in honor of his sons. »

  • c. -29500 DR

  • Dragonfall War
    Followers of Xymor attack and slay Nagamat, inciting the Dragonfall War, a conflict between the followers of Bahamut and Tiamat that persists to this day. »