The Plateau of Periculum

Although holy writ tells of man's origins on the Plateau of Periculum, this range of unscalable mountains surrounded by a windswept, inhospitable desert has ever remained impassable to humankind. Perhaps it is, as legend tells, because the Periculian Mountains are the residence of the gods. But intrepid explorers have told how the desert approaches to the plateau turn so violently cold at night that men freeze to death in a few short hours there, and turn so blazingly hot during the day that they die of thirst and heat. The mountains themselves are steep and treacherous, and the few passes inhabited by terrible, ravenous beasts who seem immune to the Plateau's extremes. Thus, the center of the Great Continent has ever remained wild and unsettled.

Prehistoric Times (15,000 - 10,000 BP*)

Before man was created by the gods on the Plateau of Periculum, holy writ tells us that the lands of the Great Continent to the east of the Plateau and on the islands were inhabited by strange reptilian creatures who had sprung to life from the ocean, and that the lands to the west of the Plateau were inhabited by a race of intelligent apes who had sprung to life from the mud. In the far north, on the island of Waltia were the mysterious "Mound People," of whose origins holy writ remains silent. These civilizations were destroyed in numerous wars with Man, in the age before men recorded their own history. But the ruins of their cities are still evident everywhere. Each have left their mark on Human civilization, culture, and language.

The Diluvian Age (10,000 - 3,000 BP)

For the first seven thousand years of recorded history, the great continent was dominated by Diluvia, the great eastern civilization. Heavily influenced by the Reptilian civilization which preceded them, the Diluvians invented agriculture and food preservation, irrigation, roads, writing and the alphabet, law, and seafaring, and built the first great cities.

Diluvian society has remained unchanged for millennia. Diluvians are ruled by the Military and the Priestly castes, and they still practice the ancient religion. According to the Old Religion, the Diluvian Emperor is regarded as the gods' anointed one, representing their will on earth. Every Diluvian's life is pre-destined, depending on which of the six castes he or she is born into: the Military caste, the Priestly caste, the Scholarly caste, the Merchant caste, the Worker caste, or the Slave caste.

Although the Diluvians once dominated the continent, their society has remained archaic, static, and closed. In the 32nd century, a movement of ascetics was founded by the Monk Ahenobarbus, pledged to overthrow the caste system and replace it with a more enlightened philosophy based on self-sacrifice and discipline. Plagued for centuries by civil war and discontent, the Diluvian Empire is now on the brink of disaster. The most recent Emperor, Flavius, has abrogated many of the laws granting power to the Priestly and Scholarly castes, and has imposed a military dictatorship which many Diluvians view as a usurpation of the ancient laws and practices.

The First Dark Age (3,000 - 1,000 BP)

Around 3000 years before the common era, a terrible plague swept across the continent, devastating society and plunging civilization into the First Dark Age, a period of about two thousand years dominated by local warlords and kings. Gradually, toward the end of the first dark age, two empires arose. In the east, the Diluvian Empire reconstituted itself, and in the west rose the brilliant and powerful Caputonian Empire.

The Caputonian Empire (1,000 BP - 1,000 YE**)

Influenced by the gentle Ape civilization, the western half of the Great Continent had always been culturally and linguistically different from the eastern, Reptilian-influenced half. Toward the end of the first dark age, there was a flowering of civilization in the west. The Caputonians are credited with laying the foundations for modern scientific inquiry through their formal studies of magic, and helped to create a concept of law as an extension of the natural order, rather than the whims of gods and emperors. The Caputonians were brilliant military strategists, organizers and statesmen who in the first millennium before Peregrinus established themselves as the dominant power on the Great Continent.

The Caputonian Empire flourished for two thousand years, until a spiritual crisis provoked by the teachings of the Great Prophet St. Peregrinus and the rise of the worship of the One True God led to the series of political crises and civil war that brought about its downfall and the rise of the Sanctonian Empire.

St. Peregrinus and the Rise of Sanctonia (1 - 1,500 YE)

So momentous has the influence of the Great Prophet Peregrinus been on Western Civilization, that we now count our years from the first year of his teachings. As every school child now knows, it was in the small mountain hamlet of Gaudium that St. Peregrinus descended from the mountain of the Unknown God at the heart of Plateau of Periculum, to reveal Her teachings.

Throughout Human history, the northwestern quarter of the Great Continent had always been its most sparsely populated and economically underdeveloped region. It was in this region that the teachings of St. Peregrinus first spread like wild fire. The teachings of the Prophet, which demanded the repudiation of the ancient gods in favor of the One God Above All Gods, was not met with favor by the Caputonian Emperor. The Laa Cult was brutally suppressed. But of course, the more the Emperor sought to crush it, the more, it seemed, the fame of this new way began to spread, especially among the poor and dispossessed.

By the third century of the common era, a rebellion began in the far northern regions of the Caputonian Empire, on the island of Waltia. The rebellion soon spread throughout the northern half of the Empire, leading to a century of warfare. St. Morton of Heilstadt led a rebellion further to the south, and founded the Holy Order of the Knights of Laa. Holy writ tells of great battles between Angels summoned by St. Peregrinus and the Demons summoned by the priests of the false gods. In the end, the Emperor of Caputonia was himself overthrown by southern worshippers of Laa, peace was declared between north and south, and Sanctonia, an empire founded upon the truths revealed by St. Peregrinus and owing its allegiance to the One True God Laa, was born.

The Second Dark Age (1,500 - 3,200 YE)

For more than a thousand years, the Sanctonian Empire flourished as a beacon of strength and truth. But eventually, the priestly classes grew corrupt. Local warlords used the priests in an attempt to usurp power from the emperors, and reestablish the worship of the old gods in the form of the cult of saints. The Patriarchs began to treat the holy writ as though it were a closely guarded secret, not to be shared with the common people, and slowly the northern and southern empires slipped into darkness, superstition, and endemic warfare. Then came the second great plague, and for another two thousand years, the Great Continent languished under the Second Dark Age.

Cyrus Gatchett and Modern Civilization (3,200 YE - present)

By the dawn of the 33rd century, a movement of renewal was under way in the far north, in the birthplace of the rebellion against Caputonia, on the island of Waltia. Cyrus Gatchett, schooled in the ancient academies of magic that had been founded in the ancient Caputonian age, began to ask questions about the origins and nature of magic that had never been asked before. The result was the birth of modern science, and the world has never been the same since. The Grand Duke of Waltia, a lover of truth and learning, made a place for Gatchett in his court, and established a ministry specifically for the purpose of applying scientific principles to the government of the state and the development of the economy. It was, of course, in this era that, spurred by these new scientific achievements, Alexander Farther began a reform of the True Faith aimed at bringing the world back to the teachings of St. Peregrinus more than three millennia before. The result was that the Island, once an economic, political, and social backwater, rose quickly as one of the most dynamic, militarily powerful states in the world. When the Waltian court refused to pay the customary tribute to the Emperor of Sanctonia, and declared that its people no longer owed fealty to the corrupt hierarchy of the Hierophantist Church, the ensuing war resulted in humiliation for the Emperor and the birth of the independent Kingdom of Waltia.

Waltia's successful challenge to the authority of the Sanctonian Emperor led the Grand Duke of Masovia to declare his Duchy as an independent kingdom, and yet another state was born. Unlike the King of Waltia, the King of Masovia succeeded in making numerous reforms to the Hierophantist faith in his kingdom without schism, and Masovia remains within the Hierophantist fold to this day. Nevertheless, the king of Masovia was quick to adopt the principles and teachings of Cyrus Gatchett, employing Gatchett's leading disciples in his court, and emulating the progress and achievements of the Kingdom of Waltia. Indeed, in some ways he surpassed the King of Waltia in making his own nation the world's leader in science and military might. It was, of course, the King of Masovia who took the risk of funding the very first voyages of exploration across the western ocean, that led to Mercutio Haldevi's dramatic voyage and the discovery of the lands we now call Haldevia.

* BP = "Before Peregrinus"
** YE = "In the Year of Our Enlightenment"