Timeline & Calendar of the Ten-Tribes

Timeline of the Ten-Tribes

-368 Summers. Wood elven nomads are the first to ascend the Plateau and establish a secure settlement on an islet in the small lake known as the Moonmirror. This settlement would become known as Isle-of-Idylls, the first of the Ten-Tribes. Ferrikan was among them in her youth, and is the only known resident of the Tribes to have seen their entire history play out before her.

-351 Summers. The elves begin a costly purge of dangerous local humanoids who had already occupied the Plateau, ridding the region of the Stone-Nosed Goblins and Ruddy Stump Orcs. The latter managed to avoid complete annihilation by sending off their mates and offspring to safe nooks and crannies in the Howling Tors, and thus their DNA survives today in both the Roarwater and Riverbane tribes.

-301 Summers. Small family clans of green dragonborn unify and establish the Place-of-Scales as a bulwark of defense against both the encroaching elves and their draconic ancestor, Saurvax, who keeps a dangerous lair in the Ayrie of the Ancients, waking occasionally to rain havoc upon the Plateau and surrounding regions. However, they end up making a truce with the elves.

-284 Summers. The mighty human hero Lord Hawkwynd and a train of nearly a thousand refugees make contact with wood elven scouts, who help them fend off numerous man-eating ogre tribes in the Great Arbordark. Half of the poor souls are slain or captured and bred by the ogres as both slaves and a food and pleasure source for their lewd and foul rituals. Most of the refugees, including Hawkwynd himself, fled a distant land, hundreds of miles across the Arbordark and Endless Ash, which is now referred to only as the Sunken Spires. Among them, men and dwarves and halflings of numerous hues and sub-races. The elves then lead the survivors up the Plateau and permit them to settle at a safe distance from the Isle-of-Idylls.

-282-273 Summers. At first, the larger communities of Misthome and Court-of-Crows are established near ready sources for water, hunting and foraging. But soon, some slight segregation occurs, with a large number of halflings and dwarves breaking away to settle Flaxwall and Cleftown. All of this took place over the course of about a decade. With the people came their Gods and icons, so the earliest shrines to the Six were created.

-260 Summers. The halfling hunter Bardolo discovers the entrance to the City of the Carvers, an ancient and elegant civilization that once thrived in a cavern-city near the foot of the Ayrie. He leads a larger, mixed expedition further inside, but they never return. Since that time, the curious are advised to stay well away from the place, though the lure of artifacts and knowledge remains...

-244 Summers. The craven Craxos the Black, along with a warband of thick-headed, dangerous thugs and buffoons, attempts a coup of Hawkwynd and the other elders of the established Tribes. In a vicious battle, Craxos and Hawkwynd slay each other in single, mounted combat from atop their great lizards, and the site is still marked on the Whipwater Plains. Though this clash ended the rebellion, it caused a wedge in the human populace. Craxos' sons and followers flee into the Old Barrowbriar and establish Dregroot on Bone Lake.

-219 Summers. Out of seemingly nowhere, the forest gnomes of The Nest make their presence known to the Tribes, with gifts of honey and wax. When pressed, they keep their lips sealed as to whether they were there all along or rode their wasp mounts to the place, but a cautious agreement is made to welcome them to the Tribes.

-200 Summers. Saurvax awakens and reigns terror over the budding Tribes, gassing and devouring hundreds in what is known as the Green Hell, a period of several weeks. Nothing can stop the beast, and it has its way with all the races, friend or foe, decimation their populations by around a third...

-198 Summers. Perhaps as a direct result of the Green Hell, contact with Craxos' followers is re-established when their furriers and traders emerge to bring wooden goods and artifacts from a mysterious Carver ruin that was discovered deep in the Barrowbriar. Peace among Men is once more avowed, and an added settlement, Briar's Edge, created on the border of the Verdant and Barrowbriar, where they can meet and trade.

-165 Summers. Ogres scale the Plateau to Cleftown and begin a slaughter of the local folk, the Cliffside Massacre. Once it is quelled by reinforcements from Court-of-Crows and Isle-of-Idylls, stronger and more difficult defenses are set up in the dwarven settlement. The quarterly Long Hunt is then established with the dual purpose of keeping the populations of ogres and other dangerous Arbordark predators low, while scrounging for rare herbs and medicines at the Illumen Vale, as well as possible slaves and exiles hiding out in the massive woodland.

-131 Summers. A dwarven-led expedition from Cleftown discovers an impossibly deep network of caverns deep in the south of the Howling Tors, full of dangers like pitch-skinned elves, fungus people and more frightening cousins of the surface goblins. Few return, but this leads to the commencement of the Blue Lanterns, an organization devoted to defending the Tribes and exploring the depths and far reaches where unknown threats might lie. Slipstones is also established around this time, in an underground cavern on the banks of the Whipwater as it flows down to the Northeast of the Cleft Plateau.

-106 Summers. With the exception of a single survivor, nearly an entire Long Hunt disappears after foraging at the Illumen Vale. Others have ended poorly, but none so tragic as this. Upon investigation, Ferrikan discovers that the 'survivor', Malkash, had been enchanted upon a previous Hunt by a sept of devious woodland witches who hoard over the Vale. He had been spared to lead yet another party to the witches' clutches, but was ultimately exiled from the Plateau. Future Long Hunts were armed with stronger magical users and defenses so that they could continue to harvest from the Vale.

-85 Summers. Reports accumulate from numerous scouts and hunting parties that the goblinfolk of the Plateau have organized themselves into stronger warbands, each with its own varying dementias and eccentricities. The Boneshade, Stinkstalker and Droolrot goblins become much greater threats than their scattered kin, larger than the Roarwater and Riverbane orc tribes and unable to be taken down by the Ten-Tribes' current numbers.

-63 Summers. Saurvax awakens once again, over a century past the previous sighting, but the green dragon's hunting to cut short when it is caught in a massive battle against two other apex predators, the tyrannosaurus Big Scour and triceratops Thunder-Mash. Saurvax survives, wounded, but decides against terrorizing the Ten-Tribes in its weakened state, settling for its two new meals. From this point on, local T-rexes are often referred to as 'Little Scour' in their youth, and 'Big Scour' in their adulthood, while various plays on 'Mash' are used for the triceratops, and other 'pet names' granted to local giant fauna.

-44-32 Summers. Dozens of mysterious disappearances are reported from the communities of Flaxwall, Briar's Edge and Court-of-Crows, over the period of about a decade; the three most 'open' Tribes due to their existence on the Whipwater Plain. Since many of the victims were traders, farmers and hunters, local rangers and sages surmise that these strange events might very well be the result of a stealthy strain of pteranodons who must inhabit the Ayrie of the Ancients. If this is true, Saurvax is no longer the sole threat from above...

-21 Summers. A bit of a martial 'Renaissance' begins, when dwarven, elven and dragonborn smiths begin using glyphs and writings of the ancient Carvers, as well as tales spun by the descendants of Hawkwynd's exiles, to craft more elaborate weapons. The materials available are still crude (wood, stone, and bone), but no longer are the hunters and guards of the Ten-Tribes limited to mere axes, clubs, spears, bows and slings. Swords and daggers of sharpened bone become very popular, and those who can create them thrive.

-10 Summers. The first encounter with the 'Echoes', silent killers who inhabit the Cleft Plateau and can mimic the cries, calls and communications of their victims, during and after the kills. To this day, none has been caught or even seen, only heard with their sweet, mocking, often melodious voices...

-0 Summers. The current year.

Timekeeping in the Ten-Tribes

The wood elves began the tradition of carving and painting stones to keep track of the flow of time on the Plateau, and this practice was passed down to the exiles and refugees of other races once they took up residence. Today, each of the Ten-Tribes employs both a Counter-of-Days as well as an understudy to follow in their footsteps, and pass on the tradition. Days and Weeks are marked by the passage of Sun and Moon, and they've even hashed out a general Week-to-Month structure, though most individual days outside of celebrations and rituals are unnamed.

The Flowering (1st day of the year, vows of matrimony).
Bar'k (New-Spring) 3 weeks, 10 days each.
Balook (Mid-Spring) 3 weeks, 10 days each.
Chuln (Late-Spring) 3 weeks, 10 days each.
The Smoldering (1 day, separates Spring and Summer, renewed pacts and bonds).
Tre'lev (New-Summer) 3 weeks, 10 days each.
Tarok (Mid-Summer) 3 weeks, 10 days each.
Hathun (Late-Summer) 3 weeks, 10 days each.
The Founding (1 day, exact middle of the year, celebration of the Ten-Tribes).
The Gathering (1day, separates Summer and Fall, harvest season, games & masquerades for children).
Fo'kri (New-Autumn) 3 weeks, 10 days each.
Farsak (Mid-Autumn) 3 weeks, 10 days each.
Shook (Late-Autumn) 3 weeks, 10 days each.
The Deepening (1 days, separates Fall and Winter, winter welcoming festival).
Sest'ar (New-Winter) 3 weeks, 10 days each.
Samiak (Mid-Winter) 3 weeks, 10 days each.
Harthoul (Late-Winter) 3 weeks, 10 days each.