In Agrielan kingdoms such as Rein and Sor'lamir, years are tracked from the founding of the Temple of the Ascension in Torin. Years from that epoch are identified with the words Since the Raising or the abbreviation SA (Since Ascension).

 

Prior to the raising of the great Temple, years were tracked from the hypothetical date of the creation of the world. Years from this previous epoch are identified with the words Before the Ascension, or BA. BA years are counted backwards from the completion of the Temple of the Ascension while SA years are counted forward.

 

Disclaimer:
The information provided here is intended to enhance the roleplaying experience by offering insight into the broader history of Morra. It is important to remember that characters in the game would not possess all of this knowledge. As a player, try not to act as a "know-it-all" and instead allow your character to learn, discover, or even dispute these historical facts naturally through roleplay.

ANCIENT PAST

Circa 10000 BA

Records hold that around this time the world of Morra took its present form. What had once been a lifeless stone adrift in the void was shaped into a living land. In the millennia that followed, seas filled their basins, mountains rose from the crust, and forests and rivers spread across the surface. The earliest life took hold, beasts and plants forming the first balanced ecosystems. The purpose behind this shaping remains unknown, but it is widely accepted as the point from which the history of Morra begins.

Circa 8500 BA

It is said that around this time the Arrkani came into the world. Shaped in the likeness of a higher design, they were regarded as near-perfect beings, bearing strong souls and a natural command of the hidden powers that thread through Morra. Some chronicles hint that their arrival was not without dispute - that there were those who feared the coming of sentient life would one day bring ruin to the world - but such dissent is lost to silence, remembered only in obscure fragments. The Arrkani stand as the first known people of Morra, their appearance marking the dawn of true civilization.

Circa 2000 BA

By this time the Arrkani had mastered the deep currents of the Arcana, and in their pride they turned to acts of creation. From their arts came the first of the Fae, strange and wondrous beings unlike any other in Morra. Yet their works stirred resentment. Other powers, unseen but not unknown, answered by unleashing a rival people - the Kish - bred for the hunt and set upon the Arrkani as predators upon prey. In turn, Men appeared, their purpose tied to the defense of the firstborn. Thus began the long struggle remembered as the Retribution Wars, when new peoples were driven into being and loosed upon the land. From that conflict came the Tzysk, the Euum, and many other races whose origins lie shrouded in those bitter centuries. Legends hold that the makers themselves became so consumed by their feuding that they abandoned their higher design, fading into silence and leaving their creations to shape the world in their stead.

Circa 1800-1500 BA

As the Retribution Wars dragged on, the Arrkani withdrew into their hidden enclaves. Their numbers dwindled, whether from the relentlessness of the Kish or their own waning will to wage war. Though still powerful, they became less visible in the shaping of mortal history, leaving Men to take an ever greater role. The world of Morra began to pass from the hands of its firstborn to the younger races.

Circa 1400 BA

With the fading of the Arrkani and the scattering of the Kish, Men spread across the southern lands of Morra. These early peoples lived in tribal confederacies, hunting and farming in scattered settlements. Out of these groupings emerged the Morrin culture, marked by a common tongue, the veneration of ancestors, and the first crude stone circles and hill-forts. They were still bound to the land and the seasons, but a shared identity began to form.

Circa 1300 BA

From the strongest Morrin tribes arose chieftains who commanded enough warriors to raise timber halls and walled encampments. These fortified holds became the centers of trade and defense, gathering more families under their protection. In this period, the earliest notions of lordship and vassalage took root: weaker clans bent the knee to stronger ones in exchange for safety, laying the groundwork for the feudal order yet to come.

Circa 1260 BA

Among Men, Morrin ways gave way to a new identity: the Reinic culture. With the coronation of King Edward Perius, the scattered tribes and holds of the south were bound into a single crown. This marks the founding of Rein, the first true feudal human kingdom. What began as a gathering of oaths and vassal lords would grow into the most populous realm in Morra.

Circa 1240 BA

In the decades after Rein's founding, the authority of the crown was far from secure. King Edward Perius and his heirs struggled to enforce their rule beyond the royal city, where distant barons kept their own militias and clung to ancient rights. Rival houses quarreled openly, raising private banners and fortifying their halls. Though Rein stood as a kingdom in name, in truth it remained a patchwork of semi-independent lords, its unity bound more by loyalty to the dynasty than by law.

Circa 1220 BA

As Rein's fertile plains and river valleys were soon divided among the strongest families, ambitious nobles and younger sons found themselves without land to inherit. Resentment brewed, and talk spread of unclaimed country beyond the Iron Shoulder Mountains. Scouts and merchants carried back tales of rich forests and broad valleys to the northeast. Drawn by promises of new wealth and the chance to carve out lordships of their own, the dispossessed began pushing into the high passes, marking the first deliberate Reinic expansion beyond its borders.

Circa 1200 BA

What began as scattered expeditions soon took on the weight of permanence. A coalition of landless Reinic nobles, led by Roland Salis, crossed the Iron Shoulders and staked their claims in the fertile lands beyond. From their foothold settlements grew the Meltarran Kingdom, with Salis crowned as its first king. Unlike Rein, which had grown from tribal confederacies, Meltarra was built deliberately as a feudal state, its baronies and shires granted to those who had followed Salis into exile. This act created not only a new kingdom, but a lasting divide between Reinic and Meltarran culture.

Circa 1220 BA

The crown's attempts to reward loyal families with land grants quickly reached their limits, as Rein's fertile lowlands were already divided among the strongest houses. Younger sons and landless knights pressed their claims in vain, and resentment spread. Many of these dispossessed nobles began to look north to the Iron Shoulder Mountains, hoping that the unexplored valleys beyond might offer the wealth and status denied them at home. Expeditions set out to chart the forests on the far side, unknowingly setting the stage for the founding of Meltarra.

Circa 1175 BA

Barely a generation after its founding, Meltarra was torn apart by rebellion. Earl Markus Dane, one of King Salis' most trusted liegemen, gathered his vassals in the south and declared himself king. Southern Meltarra followed him, and for nearly twenty-five years civil war raged. Known as the Meltarran Conflict, the struggle drained both crowns, with towns burned, fortresses besieged, and whole provinces left in ruin. Only with the death of King Dane from illness did the rebellion collapse. His vassals bent the knee to Roland Salis once more, reuniting Meltarra under its founder's rule and bringing the kingdom into a fragile peace.

Golden Age

Circa 1140 BA

Rein and Meltarra expanded their maritime reach during this time, though along very different routes. Rein's ships sailed south into the Outer Sea, building hardy ocean-going vessels capable of braving the storms around Morra's southern horn. From there they could reach Meltarra's eastern ports and establish the first steady lines of foreign trade. Meltarra, by contrast, prospered on two coasts at once: its Outer Sea harbors near Crenshire linked it to Rein and distant waters, while its western ports on the sheltered Sea of Iveen became hubs of inland trade. The dual position of Meltarra made it the wealthiest kingdom of the age.

1100 BA

A century after the founding of Rein, the monarchy sought to curb noble infighting. Royal scribes compiled the Codex of Perius, gathering the ancient decrees of King Edward Perius alongside customary law. It became the first formal body of law in the kingdom. Enforcement remained uneven, but the Codex strengthened the crown’s claim to legitimacy and gave rise to learned magisters, early interpreters of the law who advised courts and noble houses.

1050 BA

Both Rein and Meltarra invested heavily in new infrastructure during this period, seeking to bind their growing realms together. In Rein, paved highways were laid from the royal city southward to the coast, linking its ports on the Outer Sea and allowing caravans to move more quickly inland. Meltarra, meanwhile, built its own system of stone roads radiating from Crenshire. These roads halved travel times and secured safer movement for armies, merchants, and pilgrims. Inns, tollgates, and waystations sprang up along the routes, and with them a new culture of wandering minstrels and storytellers who carried songs and news between the kingdoms.

950 BA

Reinic captains, hardened by the open waters of the Outer Sea, began to push farther afield. They told of strange islands glimpsed in the fog and of towering waves that seemed to rise from nowhere. Meltarran ships, better sheltered, kept to the east and south, building reliable circuits of trade. Tales of lands beyond Morra became common in both ports, seeding the legends of distant peoples across the ocean.

900 BA

Though separated by mountains and long sea-routes, Rein and Meltarra sought moments of fellowship. Great fairs were held in Port Redwater and Crenshire, alternating years, drawing merchants and nobles alike. For common folk, these festivals were a wonder of foreign wares, new songs, and exotic foods; for nobles, they provided an excuse for diplomacy, intrigue, and arranged marriages.

820 BA

As prosperity deepened, guilds emerged as powerful institutions. In Rein, the Merchants' Guild of Port Redwater gained the wealth to challenge noble monopolies on trade. In Meltarra, the Shipwrights' Guild and the Foresters' Guild became kingmakers in their own right, wielding economic clout to rival landed lords. Kings were forced to walk carefully, balancing their courts between feudal barons and the new guildmasters who controlled ships, timber, and coin.

820 BA

As prosperity deepened, guilds emerged as powerful institutions. In Rein, the Merchants' Guild of Port Redwater gained the wealth to challenge noble monopolies on trade. In Meltarra, the Shipwrights' Guild and the Foresters' Guild became kingmakers in their own right, wielding economic clout to rival landed lords. Kings were forced to walk carefully, balancing their courts between feudal barons and the new guildmasters who controlled ships, timber, and coin.