With my bare bones set, I usually start trying to figure out how to put the pieces in order. I've got some ideas floating around, unattached, as it were. Since I have to start somewhere, I find that a rough chronology is as good a spot as any. It'll end up changing in response to ideas I develop later, probably multiple times. But for now, it'll do.
The way I usually do this is with a pseudo-timeline. I'm not going to try to assign dates yet, just put events in order. At the end, I'll have a pretty good idea of how the setting developed from the "Big Bang" or whatever. (This being a fantasy world, it could be a cosmic sneeze, or any number of other things)
What you're going to see below is actually a pretty poor representation of my timeline. You'll just see it all laid out in order. There's no good way to show you the deletions, rewritings, and additions. You will probably see the uneven writing. I go pretty freely between "game text" and dry (or occasionally sarcastic) descriptions that just get the point across without being particularly pretty. This isn't the final product. It's just my notes.
In the beginning, there was nothing. Father Sun and Mother Earth joined, and created the world. The races of man were few and scattered, and worshiped the Mother and the Father. They might have used different names, but they worshiped the same entities.
There was a third being at the beginning of time, the Darkness. The Darkness was opposed to creation. The Light burned him. The softest earth was like daggers to his feet. He retreated to the darkest places and slept. In his sleep, his dreams were of blood and fire and pain, of destruction to all that had been created. And because he was a god, his dreams were real.
Father Sun and Mother Earth saw that their creation would be despoiled by the creatures of Darkness, so they dreamed together, and their dreams were of gods and angels to defend the earth. Father Sun and Mother Earth were exhausted by their efforts and fell into sleep. Their children, the gods, divided the tribes of men among themselves and shepherded over them.
They young gods were dreams, and were shaped by the dreams of their worshipers.
The foundations of modern civilizations were laid. Each god or group of gods "adopted" a part of the world and the people found there. Some gods roved around, and had different guises in different lands. The rest, though, took on racial characteristics - shaped by their people and in turn shaping them.
During this time period, the gods lived on the earth as beings of flesh and spirit, just like humans, but vastly more powerful. They eventually forced all the demons into the dark places, beyond the reaches of men. (In point of fact, into a physical "Underworld" that can be reached by going deep enough underground.
In a way, it was a golden age. But it was not to last. Warfare between neighboring states led some people to wipe out others. The "orphaned" gods sometimes died, but other times went mad. Among those who went mad, some were tempted to the Darkness.
Eventually, as they always do, things went all to hell. The dark gods (those who had been corrupted by the Darkness) unleashed the forces of Darkness on earth. They attracted worshipers to the Darkness, which allowed for the Reign of Darkness. This lead to years of plague, the release of fell beasts and goblinkin, storms of ice and fire, and finally a global cataclysm as the Darkness tried to destroy the earth and all life upon it.
Humanity found allies in the Fey, who entered the world to battle against the Darkness. But even so, the tide was turning against the light.
The gods realized they'd failed their worshipers and sacrificed themselves to save the world. They fell into dreams and used their dreaming power to preserve their people's lives and keep the world from destruction. They forced the denizens of Darkness into the Underworld, and by their blood sealed the Darkness away.
The world had nearly been torn asunder, and much of the surface was still overrun with poisons, flames, and goblinkin. Many people retreated to the sky, on magical islands born on the wind. Those who remained on the ground had to be hard and fierce, or were corrupted by the remnants of Darkness.
There were years of upheaval in the wake of the cataclysm. A new order emerged. The sleeping gods could no longer protect their servants directly, and further, they had learned that it was better to inspire and guide humans than to treat them like sheep.
Or possibly they figured out that they couldn't lead them around like sheep anymore. The only way to influence mortal events was through living conduits -clerics, essentially. Either way, this marked the end of the age of the gods and the beginning of the age of man.
Some time into the fourth age is when most of the cool stuff of the game will happen. There will be modern countries, with their interrelations mostly worked out. Allies and enemies will mostly have the battle lines drawn, and everything is more or less at a stasis point, with the possibility for major change just a few key events away.
With the history done, I have kind of a road-map for future developments.
I also know I'll probably be revisiting the history for more work at some point.
So, lots of work still ahead, but I can see how it's shaping up now. My next step is likely to be flora and fauna, which mostly means monsters. But I could start with cultures or something if that strikes my fancy instead.
Fourth Age history will be expanded more than any of the previous ages once I start really writing the world's history. Before that, history was almost more myth than fact. Different regions probably have different takes on what happened. But now that I have the basics down, I can start skipping ahead to the modern age and working my way back along the path, rather than trying to build everything from the most ancient past to the present in exact order.
In fact, I don't really want to get too detailed with history until I have to. Leaving some gaps gives me more options as I go along.
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