The OFFICIAL History of The Cursed Lands!!

Hi everyone! Well it was a lot of work and also a lot of fun. I present to you the official timeline of the world of the Cursed Lands! It spans prehistory to the "present day" of Bite Fight right up to our recent battle with Marvel.

I plan on posting this to the BF message boards, but I wanted you all to have first crack at it. Feel free to comment or ask questions.

You may noticed I included quite a lot of vampire items too. I thank the leadership of the Aes Sedai clan for their permission and cooperation!

Enjoy!!

- GF

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c. 15,000,000,000 BC – Azathoth, the primal blind and idiot chaos, creates the present space-time continuum in a cataclysm of free energy. Yog-Sothoth, the all-in-one, is extended into this new dimension.

c. 11,000,000,000 BC – The Earth coalesces from gas and dust by the power of Abhoth the Formless.

c. 4,000,000,000 BC – The Earth cools. Shub-Niggurath, the Great Mother, arrives from another dimension and gives birth to primitive groups of cells. Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, forms the Dreamlands of Earth and schemes for the coming of mankind.

c. 1,000,000,000 BC - The Elder Things descend and begin to engineer Earth life. The first shoggoths are created.

c. 350,000,000 BC – Great Cthulhu and his star spawn arrive from Xoth, creating the nightmare city of R’lyeh. Hastur the Unspeakable, his half-brother, extends his consciousness from Aldebaraan and begins to twist the minds of certain vertebrates.

c. 340,000,000 BC – Shub-Niggurath devours many shoggoths who wander into her woodland realm. The Dark Young are created from these unholy activities.

c. 65,000,000 BC – Azathoth partially awakens from his mindless idiocy, presumably at the bidding of Nyarlathotep. The resultant cataclysm wipes out the dinosaurs and much of earth life. R’lyeh sinks beneath the waves. Elder Thing civilization is devastated, never to recover.

c. 1,500,000 BC – Shub-Niggurath and Hastur begin to hunger for the emerging race of Earth bipeds. The first vampires and werewolves created from the pithecathropoid ancestors of man.

c. 900,000 BC – Nameless City founded.

c. 750,000 BC – Nameless City falls due to unknown cataclysm. City is rapidly consumed by the Sahara.

c. 9600 BC – The Hyborian age comes to a close. The last remnants of the Hyperborian civilization are consumed by vampires and lycanthropes.

c. 3100 BC – Bronze Age. Sumerian and Egyptian Old Kingdom cultures flourish. First Dynasty of Uruk founded. Uruk undermined by vampire clans who come to create the first shadow kingdom under the aegis of the Aes Sedai.

c. 2500 BC – Babylon founded. Cults dedicated to the Great Old Ones are instituted.

c. 1200 BC – Middle Iron Age. Trojan war fought as a result of the werewolf prince Paris spiriting away Helen, daughter of the vampire elder Menelaus. War ends when Ulysses orchestrates a covert attack from with the city. Troy is sacked and burned to the ground.

c. 753 BC – The remnants of the lycanthropes of Troy, led by the twins Romulus and Remus, land on the shores of Italy. Rome city-state founded.

c. 550 BC – Persian Empire founded. Certain members of the king’s court are secretly turned by the Aes Sedai, specifically those that have the most to do with social programs and census-taking. Many Persian peasants discover the remains of Old One cults and adopt their blasphemous practices.

c. 440 BC – Herodotus records an incident of a Scythian tribe of lycanthropes. He disappears soon after penning his Histories.

c. 323 BC – Deemed dangerous by the Aes Sedai’s high council, Alexander the Great is assassinated by a detachment of the Forsaken.

c. 146 BC – Roman conquest of Greece. Werewolf elders are rapidly deposed or assassinated by vampire insurgents before they can seize power. “Oath of Anarchy” taken by werewolf race. Most lycanthropes retreat to the Urals, Siberia, and Alpine regions. They do not form clans again for 1000 years.

c. 6 BC – Birth of “The Great Good One.” Unrest in Jordan and Syrian regions causes Roman crackdown. Hastur cult founded in Alexandria.

c. 27 AD – Founding of Christianity. Werewolves of the blueblood line attack and infect a village in northern Scandinavia. The village is found deserted a day later by curious travelers.

c. 644 AD – Muslim conquest of Persia.

c. 730 AD – Abdul Alhazred pens the “Kitab Al-Azif.” Shortly thereafter he is killed by an unknown and invisible entity.

c. 900 AD - Caius Phillippus Faber translates the “Book of Eibon” into Latin, retitling it “Liber Ivonis.”

c. 950 AD - Theodorus Philetas of Constantinople translates the “Kitab Al-Azif” into Greek, and renames it the “Necronomicon.” The first of the new werewolf clans begins to emerge in Gaul.

c. 1000 AD – Followers of Shub-Niggurath, in her guise as the Magna Mater, begin a secret man-eating cult in ancient Anchester, England. Many members are thought to be blessed with Lycanthropy.

c. 1200 AD – In response to an alarming prophecy of a tide of werewolf savagery that will take place in two hundred years, The Aes Sedai unites with several other clans to form the Dark Knights, an elite lycanthrope hunting force. Nevertheless, many fear it will not be enough.

1324 AD – Charles IV of France fights in the War of Saint-Sardos in Gascony. During the siege of La Reole, he is attacked by a berserker werewolf known to the human world as Feronius the Ferocius. He is turned and slaughters his courtesans, his generals and much of the soldiery.

1390 AD – The “Werewolf Plague.” Feronius the Ferocius and his kin unite with the alpine werewolves and rapidly spread the curse of lycanthropy all over Germany and Switzerland.

1415 AD – The plague reaches a fever pitch, spilling over into France. Henry V, slave of the Vampiress the Duchess of Lancaster, invades Calais and fights the Battle of Agincourt. Caught between the hammer of the English offensive and the anvil of Feronius’ werewolves, the French government quickly collapses.

1416 AD – Feronius is killed by the Inquisition, but his son Julius escapes. Taking the name of Alban LeVay, Julius escapes to Germany’s heartland, settling in the hamlet of Vale.

1417 AD – The presence of Vampires and Werewolves is now openly acknowledged by the common people and denounced by the church. War is declared against the immortals.

1418 AD – The Battle of Blood is fought between the holy Armies of Pope Gregory XII and divisions of the vampire elder Jonas’ Ruby Parliament. The battle lasts for six months and lays waste to central Germany. A “neutral zone” is finally established when the vampire sorceress Moriamis foolishly invokes Azathoth, incinerating much of both opposing armies. This zone becomes forever known as the Cursed Lands.

1419 AD – The Human Empire is established by the pope. Moriamis is exiled by Jonas, who founds the Vampire Kingdoms centered around the twin peaks of Mount Blood and Tower Crag. However, Tower Crag is rapidly vacated for reasons unknown.

1421 AD – Werewolves of the Shargrailar Order stage a series of blitz-style battles and drive the vampires from the northern regions of the Cursed Lands. The Wolf Lands are established shortly thereafter. Within a matter of weeks, the entire region becomes infested with lycanthropes.

1427 AD – Vale is terrorized by Alban LeVay, now calling himself Goretongue. Eventually he is caught and executed, but not before he births the LeVay and Andermann bloodlines. The Andermanns embrace their lycanthropic savagery and begin to inhabit the Lycanwood, the forest surrounding Tower Crag. The LeVays embrace the church and seek redemption from the curse of the werewolf.

1527 AD – The Vampire Wars, a series of skirmishes between the Vampire Kingdoms and the Human Empire, are fought in the Cursed Lands, neither side gaining any significant strategic advantage.

1528 AD – Sir Gregory Basile, a human knight, slaughters a den of Werewolves during an outflanking maneuver against the vampires’ northern spearhead. Wartooth, the elder and sole survivor, vows revenge.

1529 AD – The inquisition destroys the Shargrailar order. Less than six werewolves escape with their lives. The City is founded in the extreme west of the Human Empire.

1530 AD – The Aes Sedai erect the White Tower in the rich section of The City, sending out sinister tendrils into the human government and turning the ruling baron, Nicholas DeHumphries. Wartooth assassinates Sir Gregory and infects his fiancé, Lady Acacia Arianna Cromwell. Acacia slaughters her entire household and turns her ancestral mansion into a den of monsters.

1533 AD – The Sanddevi conflict ensues. Richard LeVay, descendant of Alban, refuses holy orders and transforms into the infamous and unbelievably savage werewolf Gloomfang the Devourer, Son of Azathoth. Shortly thereafter, Gloomfang and the Lady Acacia drive the Andermanns from the slopes of Tower Crag and establish a fledgling nation called the “Lunar Empire.”

1534 AD – The Battle of the Monoliths is fought between the vanguard vampire clan Marvel and Gloomfang’s growing army of werewolves. The lycanthropes are victorious, but Lady Acacia is killed. Shortly thereafter, she is resurrected by the Grotto Witches during an invocation to Shub-Niggurath. The Magna Mater names Acacia as her avatar and oracle.

1535 AD – Present Day. The Vampires of Mount Blood begin preparations for rituals to summon Hastur to Earth in response to the composition of the play “The King in Yellow.” Meanwhile, rumors persist of a growing Lycanthrope horde, poised to break out from the southern reaches of the Wolf Lands. The Human Empire, by now weak and vacillating as it struggles in the unseen grip of the Aes Sedai, huddles and waits for the inevitable.