The Grand Chronology

The Grand Chronology is a unified calendar and history for all races of Tellandor. It is a great work in progress, the product of effort by sages and scholars of every race and nationality. The central office of the Grand Chronologians is located in Oathkeep, though they have a presence in many cities and outposts of the world, from which they commission adventurers and others to contribute to their project.

They seek to create a single chronology of all of history, based solely on fact, stripped of all racial partiality and subjective views. This is, of course, a very challenging task, as all existing histories are exactly the opposite. Rather than rely too heavily on all that is already known, they are gathering as much factual evidence as possible, from archaeological finds to anthropological studies. This process will take quite some time, but future generations may reap the benefits.

The Calendar

In order to create a chronology, one must have a calendar. Humans have long used the Junean Calendar, which is, in fact, the oldest complete calendar system in the world. It is based on the Elven way of measuring the flow of years, but rather than track groups of years by the various reigns of the Elven Queen, the Junean Calendar is content to use a simple numbering system.

Due to the meticulous detail with which the Juneans have tracked the progress of history, and the extraordinary lengths they have gone to to integrate other ancient histories, such as the equally-meticulous but ultimately self-contained histories of the dwarven clans, the Grand Chronologians have chosen to use the Junean Calendar as the basis for their Chronology.

The Chronology

The trouble with a chronology is, exact dates become fuzzy as one peers into the distant past. Dragons, elves, and titans did not keep calendars in their day, and, by all accounts, their "day" was thousands, or even millions of years, and comprises the majority of known history.

However, scholars of an order known as The Listeners have long been working to craft new magics to help plumb the depths of history. They have spells which can accurately age objects thousands, or even millions of years old. The Chronologians have been working hard to use this magic to gain solid dates on major historical events, though it is a slow-going process, as few know these spells, and fewer still are bold enough to explore the dangerous ruins and forgotten kingdoms of ages past.

Still, they have come up with enough solid data to create an objective calendar. They have based their calendar year on the founding of Oathkeep; thus, it is currently Year 3. The majority of events on said calendar are in the past, which is, ultimately, the point of the endeavor.

An abbreviated form of the chronology is given below. Most of the early dates are just rough estimates.

• mya = million years ago
• bgc = before the grand chronology (aka before Year 0)