• 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. -35000 DR

  • Rise of the Sarrukh Empires (sauroid creator race)
    The introduction of cattle, sheep, and goats revolutionizes farming in the Durpar region. Herdes are semi-nomadic, driving their animals between seasonal pastures. By -35,000 DR, desertifiation of Durpar begins perhaps in part because of overgrazing. The herders' respond by migrating northwest from The Goldenwater to a region of semi-arid savanna they name Okoth.

    In Okoth, south of modern-day Mulhorand, the sarrukh found their first permanent settlements. Early sarrukh villages are dominated by temple complexes dedicated to the worship of the World Serpent. Most sarrukh settlements of this period have a population between two and eight thousand people, though Daar Mundigak itself, the largest city in Okoth, has over ten thousand.

    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. »

  • -34200 DR

  • The sarrukh empires, circa -34,200 DR

    The sarrukh civilization enters a new troubled phase as they had conquered so many races that they had became the minority in their own empire.

    Writing is invented as an aid to administration in communities that had grown so complex that sarrukh memory could no longer store all the information needed for efficient government. The earliest sarrukh signs are pictographs scribed on clay tablets then dried. The sarrukh writing systems are widely adopted by their slaves. »

  • 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. »

  • -34,000 DR

  • It is believed that the first human appear in the northern savannas of Katashaka. They soon migrate outward to populate the rest of the world.

    In the lands south of Mhairshaulk, human tribes depended on fishing, hunting and herding to sustain themselves. The tribes of Lopango, however, utilize irrigation techniques which allowed them to take up pastoral farming.

    Unfortunately the proximity of primitive human tribes to Mhairshaulk proved disastrous. Sarrukh raiding parties routinely patrolled Thinguth lands returning to Mhairshaulk with humans for food or slavery. A few are experimented upon by their sarrukh captors. Tainted and augmented by sarrukh magic, these unfortunate individuals in time become known as vrael olo, the yuan-ti. »

  • 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.

    With the fall of Isstosseffifil, this marks the Fall of the Sarrukh Empire. »

  • c. -31000 DR

  • End of the Batrachi and Giants War
    The conflict between the Batrachi and the giants of Ostoria comes to an abrupt end when the ice moon Zotha falls from the sky devastating much of the lands within central Merrouroboros. A large fragment of the moon carves a gorge so deep between the four Inner Seas, they merge together to form the Sea of Fallen Stars, an event the sarrukhs remark on as a "changing of the stars". Severe earthquakes rocked the region for weeks afterwards. The crystalline batrachi cities, though reinforced by magic, were unable to withstand the incessant aftershocks. Within a year, the Batrachi Empire had fallen into ruin.

    The impact of the moon threw up a thick cloud of dust into the atmosphere obscuring the sun for seven years. Without the sun, plant-life began to die out across the land, soon followed by the herbivores and finally the carnivores. Only those peoples possessing great magic or divine protection survived the mass extinction. »

  • c. -6000 DR

  • Elves from Evereska stumble across the tomb of Hssthak, a sarrukh mummy. Recognizing the threat it posed, a half-dozen elves volunteer to become mummies so that they can guard the tomb for all eternity. »

  • -3654 DR

  • A sarrukh lich of tremendous power disguises himself as a human archwizard and appears to the Netherese who have begun to learn magic from the Earlanni elves. Although he calls himself Arthindol, the Netherese dub him "Terraseer" for his power to see events all over the world. The Terraseer teaches secrets of the Art to humans and reappears to help them over the coming centuries, never seeming to age. Among his achievements are translations from many of the nether scrolls, the exploration of the Sword Coast North, the occupation of Old Owl Well, and the warning of impending doom at the hands of Karsus among many other prophecies and teachings. »

  • -361 DR [Year of Mageserpents]

  • A band of ophidians stumbles across the ruins of an ancient sarrukh city, hidden beneath what is now the western end of the Forest of Wyrms. During their explorations, the ophidians discover the Naja Fountain, an ancient sarrukh artifact guarded by a powerful ha-naga named Terpenzi. Claiming to be the prophet of the World Serpent, Terpenzi proclaims himself King of Najara and begins a decades-long campaign to subjugate the scattered tribes of ophidians. »

  • -304 DR [Year of Erupting Crypts]

  • The serpent god Sseth, an avatar of Merrshaulk, founds the yuan-ti empire of Serpentes amid the ruins of the ancient sarrukh-empire of Mhairshaulk. »

  • 1358 DR [Year of Shadows]

  • The avatar of Sseth appears briefly above the water of the Lapal Sea before battling the dinosaur avatar of Ubtao on the eastern edge of the Jungle of Chult.

    Sseth stops answering the prayers of the sarrukh of Okoth, and the sarrukh approach the divine minions of the deity Set and agree to bind their god Sseth into eternal slumber if they are granted spells and aid in their battle against the khaasta. At the end of the Time of Troubles, Set claims Sseth's portfolio. »

  • 1369 DR [Year of the Gauntlet]

  • Set begins to answer the prayers of his newly acquired worshippers, the sarrukh of Okoth (including the yuan-ti, who still believe their divine power to come from Sseth). These sarrukh of Okoth are lead by the legendary albino sarrukh, Pil'it'ith. They are primarily served by Scaled Ones.

    Khaastas have begun to appear in the Lake of Salt region, and the two groups continue their millennia old war. »