Time line of the last Duthelmian war

[Delbareth]

Hello!

I'm currently playing with one of my player during this war (started in 2705) in the Duthelmian side. In fact he started in 2700 but time is going and the war is finally coming. And I'm a little bit disappointed by the time line given.
Some time ago, the time line said the war was very short (few months between 2705 and 2706). You corrected that and it's now much longer. But I found strange the date of the siege of Myranor. You put it four year after the beginning of the war! I see Duthelmian army as a horde of humanoides and even if Kitar is aware of a war coming, I would guess they cannot withstand alone such a force.

On the contrary I would think  that the horde of Duthelm can effectively reach Myranor in few months, and subsenquently be beaten by the Rukemian forces.

In my game, the arrival of Karthus and his army set in motion the war preparations but Duthelm cannot be ready in one day and Karthus's army quickly head to Myranor, with minor forces from Duthelm. They will conquier the first cities and do the famous siege of Myranor before being routed by Rukemian knights. After that the big part of the Duthelmian army will eventually arrive and fight at their side. Then the front will set not far from Myranor. It will move during the war and it will end with a total rout for Duthelmian forces with breaking in their side (Xorian problem, no Draxorith to help them as "promised" by the Draxorith Cult, ...).
Well it's how I will play that part...  

[avisarr]

Hmmm... let me take a look at that little patch of history and see if there are problems... it's possible that a few items may need to be scooted around a bit.

[Delbareth]

Hi
Like Tanis I resurect some old topic.

In fact I still have the same problem than before but with other players. The previous player didn't "reach" the problem since we stopped to play.
So I still find it completely impossible that it takes nearly four years for Duthelmian horde (your word) to reach Myranor.
I would be glad if you can give me your feeling about that.

[David Roomes]

Ok, I've taken a look at the historical timeline and read some of the related history sections. I need to do a little work there to tidy things up and I see at least one small section of the timeline that isn't finished yet.

However, let me address your main concern... you're saying that you read the Timeline and found it hard to believe that it took the "horde" 3 years to reach Myranor. Let's take a closer look at the Timeline. I'm going to do some work on the Timeline soon and break it up into finer detail so you can see more of the specific events. But, for now, as of today, the Timeline reads like this:

2705 CY - The Second Demon War Begins. - The main thing that sparked off the Second Demon War was that the Black Sorcerers successfully opened up an interdimensional rift and made contact with a "mysterious entity" named Xor. You can think of him as a sort of demi-god. Lots of magic, lots of power, very evil. An alliance was struck and Xor, along with his army of xorians, came through the Rift and joined Duthelm. At the same time, the horde of Karthus arose. The "horde" refers to Karthus uniting the orcish tribes in a loose political and military alliance. I'm using the term "horde" here in a poetic, rather than literal, sense. So, you've got united orcish clans gathering in the mountains and allying themselves with Duthelm, but they aren't actually marching at this time.

How I see it is that in that mid and late 2705CY, all of these events happened. The "official" start of the war was the opening of the rift and the alliance with Xor. That's when Duthelm declared war, at least internally, on Kitar. Over the next three years, they gathered strength and struck out at several major targets - castles, forts, towns, etc. Several major battles were fought. The horde of Karthus joined in on many of these battles. A lot of other stuff was going on. The Black Sorcerers were busy with a number of projects, summonings and so forth. Duthelm won several decisive battles and managed to sack several villages, towns and fortified castles. Kitar was hard pressed and actually called for help from the Rukemian Empire. A number of mercenary companies went to aid Kitar. And this was a major part of the Avisarr Campaign. Some groups fought in the war. Others fought to prevent the return of Draxorith, which the Black Sorcerers were working on.

It wasn't until about 3 years into the war that Duthelm gathered everything they had and marched, en masse, on Kitar and laid siege to Myranor. The siege of Myranor was a turning point in the war, but it still took another year and a half to beat Duthelm back. Lots of smaller plotlines were happening around this time.

Ok, so that's ONE way of looking at it. But I really like your description as well. I need to go back and review the original notes and expand details in the timeline. I may blend the two ideas together a bit. yeah, this needs a little work. If it takes more than a few days then I may make that the spotlight for March.

[Delbareth]

OK
I understand much better your point of view.

What I presented to my players, and then what has become the "official" history, was the Karthus unification, alliance with Duthelm and subsequent raid toward Kitar border.
This part is now fixed for me. But the remaining can still be adapted and I will be glad to read more detail about this part of history.

[David Roomes]

I went back and reworked the historical dates on the Second Demon War. I expanded on the war and gave it more detail. I also added a lot of details from the notes from the original campaign. So, there's a lot more detail in there. While I was at it, I tightened up the dates a bit. The exact dates are somewhat flexible, as long as we hit all the major events in roughly the same period. So, now the war lasts a little over one year. And the march from the Citadel to Myranor takes about 2 months.

Feel free to review it and critique it. I hope that the dates and events make sense. If you see anything that looks wrong, let me know. I haven't run the Avisarr Campaign, or anything remotely connected to this part of world/historical timeline in a long time. Nevertheless, I do want this corner of the world and its history to make sense. It is the most important string of recent events in Ithria.

And, as always, DMs are free to customize things for their own campaigns.

So anyway, this is all in the Main History Timeline page. I will need to go back and adjust some things in other pages to match. Specifically, the history for Duthelm, the Citadel, Myranor, Kitar and so forth. I'll need to do some work on those history pages.

[Delbareth]

Am I wrong if I say you merge two war into a single one?
It seems to me that the "surge disruptor" war was after the second demon war, but I'm probably confused.

These details are very useful, and I have several questions/remarks :

• I would have though that Stormy Port would be one of the first big place to fall. You didn't notice that, because it was not on the Duthelmian path?
• The different location cannot be located on a map. Like for previous point in fact it's difficult to have an idea of their path. No I have no solution but drawing a detailled map of the area
• previously you mentioned the Draxorith "escape" and subsequent re-banishement. I think it would be important to add it.
• I find the Rukemia a little bit "weak" in their reinforcement. If it was their intention to send only a "small" army, perhaps it can be noticed.
• the font I see on my browser (firefox 27.0 on XP) are completely crazy in that new part, alternating from large to small font. But last time you told me you hadn't found anything wrong...

[sid6.7]

much better i like the added detail its a good story line...surge disruptors are a nice touch also and add a sense of urgency to the war....

[David Roomes]

Yes, the surge disruptors were actually something from the original Avisarr campaign. Something from the original notes.

So, Delbareth, to answer your questions...

1. Stormy Port - yes, I need to make note of Stormy Port. I'll update the timeline again later this week and make a minor adjustment.

2. The map, at its current size and resolution, doesn't include all of the "little places" like the exact locations of villages, small valleys and small forests. So, yes, the timeline is mentioning things that don't show up on the main map. Also, some of the towns and villages were utterly wiped out and they aren't there anymore. However, you're right... I should probably create a more detailed map of this area to go along with the timeline. The next version of the map will be more detailed and will show all of these details - villages, valleys, etc. I will edit things and try to make the timeline description and the current map agree a little bit more.

3. In the previous version of the Timeline, you are correct... I mentioned the banishment and "re-banishment" of Draxorith. Actually, it wasn't a re-banishment, it was more like he was going to break into the mortal realm and an adventuring party worked hard to prevent his return. That is actually the entire basis for the Avisarr campaign, which is on this web site. However, it occurred to me that the events in the Avisarr campaign don't necessarily need to happen in conjunction with the Second Demon War. They COULD happen at the same time, but they don't necessarily need to. If a DM and his group want to play out the events of the Avisarr campaign, they could and they could do it at anytime. It's also possible that the events of that campaign may not necessarily become publicly known. So, I removed the events of the Avisarr campaign from the main historical timeline. I think it works better that way. That way, any group can play out the Avisarr campaign themselves and the timeline still makes sense for them. As a sidenote, it's actually a difficult line to walk... including campaigns in the world that can affect the timeline and then created the "official" canon timeline. I'm trying to not have either one tread on the other.

4. Rukemia actually did only send a "small" army. I think this would have been due to political conflict in the Senate. Some Senators wanted to send help, others didn't. Various factions in the Senate tried to influence the Emperor. In the end, he decided to send a small army of about 12,000. Just enough to tip the scales of the war.

5. Font has been fixed. I checked it with 3 browsers. Seems fine now. If it still looks incorrect, refresh your browser.

[Delbareth]

It seems to me that it was at the begining of the Jaidor talisman campaign (yes I've red nearly all your campaign )

Wahouuuuu a new version of the map will be VERY appreciated!
But you know, if you promise me to do whatever I ask for, I can flood you under waves of demands 

I'm use also quite the same technique as you concerning campaign and timeline, apart I'm not the author of the Khoras world.
I try to fit into holes  (players won't alone win a war which would have been lost without them), and define some kind of "second layer" official canon.
That's why I try to keep the first layer as you wrote it, and don't like to change a lot of things just to fit my liking.

Sometime, the same players, with another character but in the same period of time, recognizes some events and remember what his other character was doing at this time. Quite funny!

Concerning Rukemia, I suspected this reason but I think it would be better to add a word or two in the timeline to insist on the fact that Rukemia was only helping Kitar from the tip of their fingers.

And eventually, fonts are now fine!

[David Roomes]

You are correct, it WAS the beginning of the Jaidor Talisman campaign. (You really have read all the notes...   )

At the time, the group that was going into the Jaidor Talisman campaign was (for the most part) the same group of players that had played in the 1998 version of the Avisarr campaign. I added a lot to give a smooth flow of events from one into the other. However, just because I linked the two doesn't mean that it has to be that way for other DMs using Khoras. It would be possible for me to fill the timeline with noteworthy events that were done by my player's characters, but that seems... I don't know... that seems rude, to visitors to the site. One of my goals is to make a world that's useful for other game masters. So, I'm trying to separate the two..

Like you said... there's the official canon of Khoras and then there's a second layer of material on top of that which is filled by the specific adventures of the gaming group. Each game master can fill that second layer with their own ideas and their player's actions. I myself can do it that way as well. 

Finally, I am indeed planning a new map. A larger, more detailed, world map. One of my ideas was to create an interactive map with layers that could be turned on and off. But that may be beyond my technical ability. So, to avoid a long delay, I may just created a new "flat" map, like the current one. It wouldn't have the interactive layers, but it would be more detailed. If things go well, that will be this year.

[Delbareth]

I have a last comment on the surge disruptor in the timeline.

You speak about wagon, so I imagine them a little bit big and heavy, perhaps something like 1 cubic meter and few hundreds of kilograms.
You say that a group managed to "steal" one of this device and bring it to the Rukemian army. And find it strange, either they are quite strong, or I'm wrong about the device dimensions.
The other point is the time it took for the Rukemian mages to analyse, find a solution, and explain this solution to all the other mages. A little bit short IMO.

If I remember correctly, in your campaign they stole the BOOK of the magician in charge of the device, and this book contained all usefull informations.
Both point could be solve by speaking about a book instead of the whole device. Is there a reason to change that?

[sid6.7]

look forward to the new map i can't imagine how good it will be i just love maps...

[David Roomes]

Delbareth, you're right. The surge disruptors are big, heavy, wagon-mounted mechanisms and it would have been difficult for a mercenary group to make off with one. In the session summaries from the Jaidor Talisman campaign (when my group went through it), they did indeed capture a spellbook related to the surge disruptor. It was written in Bendothi. After studying it, they deciphered the Bendothi code and then they were able to find a way to "retool" their spells so that they weren't being disrupted.

However... the group mentioned in the historical timeline is not necessarily my group. I don't want the actions of my gaming group to affect Khoras canon. So, that group can just be a generic adventuring party. Also, the surge disruptor spellbook would have been written in Bendothi. I don't want to dictate, in the timeline, that the Bendothi code was broken. That would be altering canon for other DMs and maybe they want Bendothi to still be an unbroken code for their games. Anyway, point is that this is one of those areas where the official timeline and what happened with my own group should be kept separate.

So, I tweaked the timeline a little bit... I changed it to a generic adventuring party capturing a Duthelm wizard (who was commanding one of the wagons), instead of capturing the wagon itself, and using him to figure out a way to retool spells. Without having to break the Bendothi code. That's the best compromise I can come up with at the moment.

[sid6.7]

i don't know depending on how smart they were i could see a group making off with a  wagon mounted weapon it wouldn't be easy for sure but it could be done...imho

its good your keeping the campaigns seperate from the real khoras otherwise it could get confusing....