• The Days of Thunder

  • -35000 DR to -30000 DR

    Merrouroboros circa -35,000 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.

    While life spread quickly, 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. Unintelligent reptiles known as Thunderers ruled the land, sea, and sky. By the end of the first millennium post Ice Age, primitive bands of hunter-gatherer lizardfolk lived along the fertile waters of the Goldenwater in modern-day Durpar, exploiting game, lake-fish, and wild plants of all kinds. Unlike the Thunderers, the sauroids possessed superior intellect and tactical sense. In time they would become known as the sarrukh, the first of the mighty creator races, also known as Iqua-Tel'Quessir. »

  • 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. »

  • -30500 DR

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

    Aearee Empire, circa -30,500 DR

    The Aearee seize opportunity by occupying the fallen Batrachi lands.

    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, which stretches from as far west as Maztica and as far south as the Lake of Steam. 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). The great kokra aerie at Viakoo governed its lands fairly and forges lasting friendships with couatl, fey and other denizens of Anchorome.

    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. »

  • -30000 DR

  • The empires of Merrouroboros, circa -29,500 DR

    In the south, the first human civilizations are devastated by the dreadful Tarrasque, which pushes southward from the Black Sea. The Lopango, Eshowe, Thinguth, and Tabaxi tribes are conquered, their culture subsumed by the newly formed empire of Katashaka. Only the humans of northern Maztica, under the protection of the feathered serpent Qotal, escapes enslavement. »

  • Couatle War

  • c. -24000 DR to -23000 DR
    For centuries the couatls (Called into service by the god Ubtao, an army of winged serpents arrives in the jungles of Chult from Maztica) and the yuan-ti battle each other for control of the Chultan Peninsula. Time and again the yuan-ti are forced to concede their westernmost holdings to the couatls, until the war ends in a stalemate with the Hazur Mountains as the dividing line between the two territories. »

  • Age of Humanity

  • -3000 DR to 1358 DR
    With the elf and dwarf empires in decline, this era marks a dramatic increase in human expansion on Toril. The Mighty human empires of Calimshan, Mulhorand, and Unther arise during this era, as well as the now lost empires of Nethril, Jhaamdath, Narfell, and Raumathar.

    Towards the end of this era is a time of exploration and discovery, when new continents are discovered in the west (such as Maztica) and trade is reestablished with the east (Kara-Tur). The Great Glacier retreats, uncovering the realms of Vaasa and Damara. »

  • -1509 DR

  • The First Shalarin Passing:
    The obyrinth lord Dagon, eldest of Those Who Sleep Below, sets in motion his plan to control the depths of Seros. The first wildtide portal opens, and the shalarins arrive within Seros from the Sea of Corynactis, their home on the far side of Toril, west of Maztica. Immediately attacked by the magically attuned Emerald Eye and the madmen Kyron and Essyl, the shalarin lose more than 17 percent of their number. Tivaan, the Dukar orders, and Hmurbar all rush to the aid of the shalarin and quickly gain powerful allies. »

  • Golden Age of the Payit

  • c. 400 DR to 1000 DR
    The great twin capitals of Tulom-Itzi and Ulatos in Maztica shine as a beacon across the True World. In Tulom-Itzi, the Payit build the great observatory and study the heavens. Physicians study herbs and medicines, and sages study the ways of gods and men. They create paper and symbols to write thereupon, so that their knowledge can be passed around the True World. The Payit did not know war. Disease was rare scourge, and the faithful clerics and wise physicians of the Payit learned to cure most of the afflictions that did arise. Rain fell when it was needed, and the humans used great wells as cisterns, to preserve their moisture against the rare and short-lived periods of drought. »

  • c. 400 DR

  • A large meteorite falls from the sky near the Vale of Ixtzul in Far Payit, its immense impact felt throughout the True World (Maztica). From within a smoldering egg twice the size of a temple, the great wormlike beast H'Calos the Star Worm emerges to feed. »

  • 418 DR [Year of the Eagle's Flight]

  • The first aarakocra colonists arrive in northern Faerun, after generations of migrating from island to island across the Trackless Sea from distant Maztica and resettle ancestral six aeries in the Star Mounts. »

  • c. 600 DR

  • Human tribes abandon the Vale of Ixtzul in Maztica, leaving the guardian ship of the beast H'Calos to the Bacat, a race of giant intelligent ants. »

  • 987 DR [Year of the Flaming Dwarf]

  • Rockfire
    Deep within the tunnels under the Trackless Sea, an expedition of dwarf miners is ambushed by drow. During the ensuing conflict a deep core fissure erupts, vomiting a deadly river of magma into the gallery. Both sides take substantual casualties with only a handful of survivors. Separated from mainland Faerun and each believing their enemy destroyed, the drow and dwarf exiles undertake an epic journey through the Underdark to the west. When they finally emerge onto the surface, the dewarves find themselves amid the harshest desert imaginable, the Sands of Itzcala in Maztica. The drow emerge farther south, within the foothills of the Axapoztlan Range. »

  • 1051 DR [Year of the Dogged Search]

  • The shaman Tecco wanders the Sands of Itzcala in Maztica for a year before coming upon a cave in the heights of the Axapoztlan Range. There he is granted a visitation by the god Zaltec, who instructs him to lead the Nahuat people south and claim the lands for their own. »

  • 1099 DR [Year of the Restless]

  • Tecco's grandson Cattl, who now heads the Nahuat tribes, leads his people into the Valley of Nexal where they align themselves with the neighboring city of Tezat in Maztica. »

  • 1361 DR [Year of Maidens]

  • Discovery of the New World
    Cordell and the Golden Legion discover The New World, Maztica. The native city of Ulatos is taken over by Amnian Forces, and Helmsport is founded.

    Cordell's Golden Legion conquers Payit, and Kultaka in Maztica. They take over the city of Ulatos.

    When Naltecona, ruler of Nexal hears of Cordell's victories over the Kultakans and Payits, he decides to meet Cordell's Golden Legion in the town of Palul. Rather than face the Legion in the field as had the Kultakans and Payits, he decides to lay an ambush for Cordell during a feast in his honor. Cordell learns of the ambush from his mage Darien and attacks the Nexalan warriors without warning. The resulting massacre nearly annihilates the Nexalan army and destroys the town.

    Naltecona then welcomes Cordell into Nexal as an honored guest but Cordell takes him prisoner inside his own palace. He is assassinated by Darien, an event that triggers the Night of Wailing. »

  • Word reaches Tethyr and Calimshan of the discovery of the western lands of Maztica. »

  • 1362 DR [Year of the Helm]

  • Helmsport is declared the capital of New Amn. The clergy of Helm in the South declare that the year marks the beginning of blessed works for the faithful. »

  • 1364 DR [Year of the Wave]

  • First non-Amnian ships arrive from Faerun at Helmsport. The mercenaries lose over two-thirds of their complement to failed explorations and wild Maztican elf attacks. The Flaming Fist mercenary company later establishes Fort Flame, a small embattled fort north of Kultaka and the coastal islands just off the Bay of Balduran. »

  • 1365 DR [Year of the Sword]

  • Limited trade is established between Waterdeep and the lands of Maztica and Zakhara. The high-risk ventures (as many as 60% of the ships are lost at sea) are jointly managed by the priesthood of Helm and various noble families. »

  • The Lord-Governor of New Amn refuses to allow twelve ships from Waterdeep to trade at Helmsport because of the council's restrictions on transoceanic trade. The ships head north to land at Maztapan Island, off the jungle coast north of Mount Plutoq. Within two months, a small colony called New Waterdeep forms farther west, off the Gulf of Kultaka; these colonists trade and negotiate with the Kultakans, despite the displeasure of Governor-General Cordell of New Amn. New Waterdeep marks the northernmost extent of New Amn's influence; the former is one mile north, on the eastern side, of the river marking Kultaka's allied territory. »

  • In Maztica, with the aid of some rangers and more wizards than the Amnians' usual wont, the Waterdhavian contingent forges north and establishes a second colony called Trythosford, named after the expedition's paladin leader. It lies at the mouth of a river due west of the offshore Zilhatec Island. Both new settlements are protected by log palisades and defensive ditches that enclose most of each settlement's buildings. By year's end, eight of twelve ships head for Waterdeep, laden with new trade for the northern Sword Coast; three ships sink during the return voyage. »