Timeline

From the Fall of the Gods to the present succession wars.

The Palatine Empire reckons its history in a single calendar, kept by the Tower Wizards. The years below are the ones that matter to the world your company rides through — how the gods fell, how the knights were found, and how the empire that they built came apart at the seams.

The Age of the Gods

In the deep past, people had gods and served them. In the lands that would become the empire, the strongest was a war god. The wizards rose against the gods and banished them — but a few relics of the war god could not be destroyed, and the wizards of that region buried them in secret. The ruling family of the local kingdom knew of the secret, and were sworn to keep it.

Out of the ruin of the old powers, the first kingdoms took shape — the imperial heartland that would become Voznia, and its neighbors and rivals: Talins, Severni Mars, and the more distant realms beyond.

The Founding of the Knights

The war that made the empire began with a betrayal. A king broke faith with the wizards, gathered a band of warriors, and went down into a long-lost stronghold to recover the buried secret — the secret of the Palatine Knights.

Year	Event
763	The Voznians conquer Patria, the old heartland realm.
970	George the Short overthrows the old dynasty and founds the Voznian line.
1000	Black Stefan leads an expedition that discovers the Palatine Knights. Twelve armors are forged; twelve paladins are bonded.

The Conquests

With twelve golem-knights at the head of its army, the kingdom swept outward. Realm after realm fell, was bound into the empire, and gave its own traditions of magic to the growing Twelve Orders.

Year	Event
1005–1006	Voznia conquers Severni Mars.
1007	Voznia is invited to back a contender for the throne of Talins; Black Stefan marries into a Talins noble house.
1008	Talins falls. Black Stefan installs his son as its king and takes for himself the title Rex Magnus — High King.
1009–1011	More realms are bound in by marriage, oath, and conquest; new Orders join the empire.

The Cracks Appear

An empire won in one lifetime had no settled law of succession — and Black Stefan had many sons, by more than one wife. The seams showed early.

Year	Event
1012	Black Stefan’s eldest son rebels with the nobles of Severni Mars. He is defeated and driven into exile.
1030	Black Stefan divides the empire among his surviving sons, keeping the High Kingship for himself.
1033	Black Stefan dies, aged seventy.
1034	His last surviving legitimate son is crowned Rex Magnus.

The Wars of the Heirs

With the founder gone, his sons and grandsons turned on one another. Treaties were signed and broken; co-kings were named and unmade; claimants warred to settle the High Kingship before a rival could come of age. It was in these wars that Palatine Knights first fought Palatine Knights in great numbers — and the laws of honorable combat between them were written.

Year	Event
1035	Rebellion in Severni Mars; the rebels kill its king. The High King and his son crush them and install a new ruler.
1046	Rebellion in Talins; its king is convicted of conspiring against the High King and replaced.
1050–1055	Open war between two claimants, each racing to declare himself Rex Magnus before a younger rival comes of age.
1056	A forced treaty settles nothing for long — each claimant kept a crown, none kept the High Kingship.
1060	The old High King dies. Three heirs each declare themselves Rex Magnus.

The Present — Year 1200

A century and a half on, the original claimants are long dead, their claims passed down to a tangle of heirs. The kingdoms of Voznia, Talins, Severni Mars, and their neighbors are a patchwork of shifting alliances; nobles hold many titles at once and owe fealty to more than one would-be High King. Parts of the empire answer to no imperial house at all.

The empire claims to be at peace. It never is. There is always a succession to contest, always a wrong to be avenged, always a lord seeking an excuse to draw his swords. It would not take much to tip the whole of it into open war.

And beneath the politics, older things stir. The gods were banished, not destroyed — and somewhere their buried relics are still watched, still wanted, by those who would see the old powers walk again.

This is where your company begins.