Broken Dimensions

The historical timeline of the Broken Dimensions spans a great deal of time and does not follow the same progression of time as our reality. Because of this, the author has spent a great deal of time mapping out the basic progression of the timeline and developing different eras and aspects through their projects.

Below is a quick breakdown of each of the 10 Eras of history of the Broken Dimensions timeline, for use as a quick reference (for readers AND Ripley, the author!). After, the author has included a more intense, detailed breakdown of each Era for anyone who might have more interest in the occurrences of each.

THE BASIC BREAKDOWN

Era 1 — the creation era; lasts around 1300 years. Ends with Crisis 1, the gods’ war for balance.

Era 2 — Lasts approximately 850 years. Ends with Crisis 2 when the god Maikoa attempts to undo the results of the War for Balance.

Era 3 — closest in aesthetic and technology to our time in the real world, lasts about 2100 years before Crisis 3 occurs and the origin world, [ x ], is cleaved from its subdivision world, Svarenheil, to create Adreoni (later known as the center of the Darekaeiin quadrant).

• Prophecy Lost takes place in the last century of this Era.

Era 4 — lasts 1,713 years to the day and comes to an end when Tartarus is created as a prison dimension for seven cruel, nearly immortal mages (Crisis 4).

Era 5 — lasts around 2205 years, ends with an interdimensional war as Adreoni and [ x ] achieve interdimensional travel and rediscover each other (Crisis 5).

Era 6 — lasts 300 years exactly and is brought to end with a ceasefire that halts the Three Hundred-Year War (still called “Crisis” 6 despite there being no real “crisis” event… unless you were the ones funding the war).

Era 7 — lasts 1032 years and ends when the tentative peace between Tartarus, Aetheria, and Adreoni is broken and they devolve into war again. Crisis 7 occurs when Aetheria immedately and surprisingly stands down, then closes off an entire quadrant of voidspace around their dimension, effectively claiming several satellites and the majority of Adreoni and Tartarus’s invasion forces.

Era 8 — lasts 3037 years, ends abruptly when an incursion between the Old Aetherian Empire and outside attackers is stopped by an unexpected demigod and Aetheria’s archipelago is revealed to be a magic field-generator of sorts. Calls the wayward gods back to set reality to rights after millennia of their absence. Involves time stopping for approximately three hours (Crisis 8).

Era 9 — an era of time anomalies after the effort of healing reality in Crisis 8 leads to the death of the god of time. Everything is normal for several hundred years, but after Xellarian dies, things get weird for an odd perceived 5-7,500 years. In reality, the stretched era timeframe lasted a whopping 10,602 years in total (unbeknownst to everyone who actually lived through it). Ended when a crazy experiment destroyed the Adreoni dimension quadrant (Crisis 9).

Era 10 — the current era, lasts at least 2050 years.

• This is the era in which most Broken Dimensions stories take place, including Fractal Alliances and The Lycanthra Syndicate.

THE MATH

When everything is added up, Broken Dimensions universe comes out to be roughly 25,200 years old!

THE BIG BREAKDOWN

ERA 1

Era 1 is nicknamed “the creation era” because it is the epoch of time in which Solorana and The Eternal Darkness (Andareis) create the inhabitable mortal universe and the first-generation gods, the first two sentient mortal races, and some of the second-generation gods. It’s during this era that [ x ] (in-universe Earth) is created, originally as a single inhabitable solar system with thriving flora, exuberant and varying fauna, and two dominating sentient races: humanity and the magoni (note: these are not the same magoni that will later inhabit Tartarus).

In this Era, humans and magoni get along as well as they can, and magic and knowledge are traded between gods and both mortal races liberally. Some of the second generation gods are created, including Ialu, Meyaa, Waulfend, Kiridia, Viabolt, Hekata, and Maikoa. New layers of culture, social status, and specialization come into existence as mortality matures over several centuries, fostered and helped along by the gods. However, the end of Era 1 is characterized by war, the first one ever fought.

The War for Balance is a cataclysmic event that pits the gods against each other in a deadly battle for whose image the rest of the cosmos will be created in: that of Solorana or Andareis. Not only does the pantheon split, so do the mortals of [ x ] (then called “Origin”). Some of the gods side with Solorana, others with Andareis, and only three remain neutral: Ialu, Meyaa and Xellarian. The magoni, magic users, side with Andareis, and humanity side with Solorana. The stability of the entire universe hung in the balance.

• Gods who side with Solorana: Virri, Cor, and Waulfend
• Gods who side with Andareis: Morsanna, Litero, Maikoa.
• “Balance” gods (aka double agents who worked both sides as they pleased): Kirida, Viabolt, Hekata
• Neutral gods: Ialu, Meyaa, Xellarian

The fallout of the War is so severe that Cor and Litero, former lovers who felt so strongly about the war’s divisions that they split, die as a direct result the metaphysically cataclysmic defeat of Andareis. (As many believe, their deaths are also partially caused by raw, emotional, psychotic breaks that lead to a fight to the death between the former lovers. The legends vary). Their split generates 4 new gods: Arric and Jacinthe, Iya and Lio (two sets of twins).

Andareis’s defeat sees them and their follows relegated to darkness. As per the terms of the war, Andareis’s godly essence is dispersed through the darkness from which they formed. This leads to the formation of the Void (sentient), navigable voidspace, and the creation of Void magic (check out the post about the Void and all its related terminology for more on that!). Andareis’s name is also obliterated from the minds of mortals and all those who had picked a side. Only Solorana, Ialu, Meyaa, and Xellarian remember their name after the end of the war; they will be referred to only as “The Eternal Darkness” (or, TED) from this point onwards.

TED’s defeat and the scattering of their mortal soldiers (the magoni) is marked as “The First Crisis,” and the gods declare the start of a new Era.

Approximate age of the universe: 1301 years

ERA 2

Era 2 is commonly known as the “Dark Era” or the era of desolation.

After the War for Balance, the rest of the multiverse begins its creation phase under Solorana’s watchful eye, which takes many of the gods away from [ x ]. The humans and magoni are left without guidance or godly supervision. Without the gods there to hold their hands, to settle their disputes and teach them new things, some groups began to hoard knowledge and privatize their practices, excluding each other more and more as generations passed. Extremist groups form and take control, spreading their ideas to foster division. Chaos grows.

Within a few hundred years, such a sharp and vast divide has grown between certain human and magoni leaders (each with their own rabid following) that when the gods finally do return, they have to separate the two groups to prevent them from going to war again and destroying one another.

Because the magoni were largely nocturnal, a separate, darker world is created for them to aid in the separation. It is named Svarenheil, sometimes called the underworld, and is fully isolated from humanity. In many ways, it becomes the opposite of the overworld: always dark and bathed in night, made up of vast, glowing plains, and utterly without oceans. Great forests mark the edge of this first-ever nightworld, protected by mysterious black-clothed warriors made and protected by the gods. Rivers flow to it from the overworld and become highly controlled and fought over in the years to come.

Centuries pass, and, the magoni rename themselves the Svarenic people and unite, finding peace, but it is hard won.

Humanity is also isolated from Svarenheil, confined to the so-called overworld. After the separation, they and their world are wiped clean of all magic and magical knowledge. This is a punishment as well as a safety measure. The humans of early Era 2 developed dangerous methods of not just physical destruction, but mental and metaphysical destruction as well. Magic combined with the most heinous of technologies.

Knowledge of some particular magicks and inventions are also wiped from the magoni.

Near what would become the end of the Era, the trickery god Maikoa is recalled to Origin from their position in the creation of the greater cosmos—and they are appalled by what they find. They petition Solorana to find another solution, to do anything but separate her creations from TED’s and wipe magic from the face of the overworld, to not abandon the Svarenic people. But over a century had passed since she and the other gods had separated the two races; a reintroduction would do them no good.

Maikoa, not content to leave the Svarenic people without a god, travels to the underworld to visit them—no others go with them. While they’re in Svarenheil, they come in contact with a well of Darkness, a pool of TED’s slumbering consciousness. They become corrupted and return home with all their memories of serving in the War for Balance intact. They’re angry, and they have every right to be.. Solorana and the others who remember the war in full, panic in the face of their anguish and distress, and subsequently banish them from the overworld. They imprison Maikoa in temple on a secluded mountain in the underworld, lest they spread their forbidden knowledge of the past, or teach their magic to the humans in the overworld.

Maikoa’s banishment then prompts the gods to withdraw themselves from mortal affairs, questioning their own memories and motivations for splitting the mortal races. These two events (Maikoa’s banishment and the withdraw of the gods) are subsequently dubbed “Crisis 2,” and thus mark the end of the Era.

Approximate age of the universe: ~2151 years

ERA 3

The Dark Age of Era 2 continues through first half of Era 3. It technically only ends in the 1340s, during which Hekata, Kirida, Waulfend, and Viabolt return down to the mortal world to check on humans and assess their knowledge. It is discovered then that, without the gods’ regular intervention (and without any living memory of what came before The First Crisis, human society had degraded into a different kind of dark age.

After Magic was banned and wiped from all record, the gods were no longer known or revered. The humans made up their own. Soon after, infighting and bigotry divided most of the overworld’s inhabitants. What few non-human species (can’in, av’in, fel’in, ursinai, and medusai) remained were either hunted close to extinction or forced to live in places largely uninhabitable for standard humans.

(Please check out the post on Races of the Overworld when it releases for more information on the non-human races of Broken Dimensions!)

The ursinai had built strongholds in the far north and south reaches of the planet, and in some northern forests. The can’in and fel’in had become myths, living in enclaves in the woods or far unexplored regions, like hidden valleys and isolated forest spaces. The av’in had become mountain wraiths, isolationist in practice and in society. The medusai had all but gone extinct, and some survivors had been given homes in the underwater kingdoms of the water spirits. On land, the humans—and only the humans—dominated.

Hekata, Kirida, Waulfend, and Viabolt were appalled. When they returned to the secluded island they had alighted upon at their arrival, they met with Ialu, Meyaa, and Morsanna, who had gone to check on the Svarenic peoples. There, they had found less racial division but much more division between class and trade. In the underworld, the more you worked, the less value you had as a being, and amongst the low-value working class, there was division by specification of trade.

Morsanna, Ialu, and Meyaa, however, had decided to help while they were there—something that nearly earned them their own banishment. Solorana and Xellarian vetoed any further action until more information was gathered. Virri and Morsanna were stationed in the two realms, alternating with each other, in order to learn more about the state of society in each place.

After centuries of stagnation, human technology had advanced rapidly during an industrial revolution in the 1800s. They had also begun to stir up the ancient magicks which they had forgotten, although they called it “science” instead. Around that time, the people of Svarenhiel were also uniting and uncovering their own ancient texts—and discovering the rituals and warding put around the god Maikoa’s temple of isolation.

The Svarenics, it seemed, reached their ignition event first: they discovered Maikoa and freed them near the end of the 1800s, and thus came in contact with a god for the first time since Morsanna, Meyaa, and Ialu visited.

Maikoa, woken from a slumber during which their mind melded with that of the Eternal Darkness’s, escaped Svarenheil and ran to the home of the gods in the overworld to find it deserted. Interactions with mortals were still banned, and only Morsanna and Virri were still present, guarding the portal to the Otherworld—the miasmic creation that existed outside the bubble of Origin and its planets.

Thus begins Maikoa’s Quest.*

They spend a century of searching, traveling through the cosmic mud and pre-formed matter of the universe, now only partially constructed. Then, at long last, Maikoa finds who they’re looking for: Solorana and the other gods, secluded on a new plane of reality where they can watch [ x ] (“Origin”) remotely. Having found some of the gods in the creation zones along their travels, Maikoa arrives with verified witnesses to the darkness rising in [ x ]. Together, the group explains to Solorana and the others the state of the mortal world. They also share what Maikoa learned from sharing a mind with TED—all the horrible, amazing things the humans and Svarenics can or could do, alongside information about a race of Void magic users called ziojic.

• The gods Maikoa picks up along the way: Hekata, Waulfend, Meyaa, Ialu, Zarris, Cerise, and Lio.

A decision is made to return, and two things happen at once: the gods return to the overworld of [ x ], and the Svarenics make (in mortal memory) their first debut into it. The gods’ return is deliberate, a logical decision made in light of Maikoa’s worrying testimony of the state of the mortal world. The Svarenics’ return, however, happens entirely by accident.

In Maikoa’s century-long absence, multiple cults had risen in the name of the gods and gained popularity. Most of the cults were dedicated to Maikoa, Ialu, Meyaa, and Morsanna—with the exception of Maikoa’s followers, most of them abided by doctrines of peace and contemplation. But some groups had gone… off the deep end.

So, when Maikoa returns in a burst of excitement and opened portals to the overworld, several of the more unsavory groups of Maikoa-Morsanna devotees had been in the process of attacking their enemies. Those attacks bleed out into the overworld as soon as Maikoa’s portals open, and the result is utter chaos. Several major overworld cities suffered major damage in the misguided attacks, and poor first impressions are made. War threatens immediately as each group attempts to rally defense against the newcomers.

Sense prevails… eventually. Maikoa spends a long time afterward righting their mistake as the gods fully return to [ x ] to mingle with mortals—Svarenic, human alike, and those in between. Peace is brokered, misgivings are forgiven and corrected, and learning and cross-cultural exchange runs rampant.

Most of the final century of Era 3 is spent engaged in cultural exchange, reviving the knowledge that was buried for both Svarenics and overworlders. Magic, technology, and society advance. And yet…

Tension builds and war soon bristles again, near the end of the first century of The Revival. With the intermingled populations of the over- and underworld so much more advanced in both technology and magic, a war couldn’t be allowed. It would become everything the gods feared and were trying to prevent. A war between the majority of humans and Svarenics would embody chaos, death, and destruction.

It could tear the universe apart.

So, the gods round up the troublemakers and cleave Origin in two, separating Origin and Svarenheil into two different words: [ x ] and Adreoni. Most humans were separate from most Svarenic people again, this time for good.

This marks “Crisis 3,” the end of the Era.

Approximate age of the universe: ~4251 years

ERA 4

Era 4 is an era of change, adaptation, and reformation in [ x ]. The backwards ways that lingered from the Dark Ages were finally banished from public practice, and magic was revitalized and taught en masse. The Svarenics who remained in [ x ] after the splitting of worlds already had a leg up in the magic department due to having a few decades of extra research and exposure, and their top scholars were key in not only spreading magic practices across the surface of [ x ], but also in the formation of the Guilds of the Gods. Modern magical practices would not have evolved without their expertise.

Two important Guilds that were created in this Era are the Hekatan Mage Guild and the Death Mage Order, respectively led by the gods Hekata and Morsanna. In simple terms, these two gods were granted the right to live every grad student’s dream and put together their own individual research and experimentation teams to pursue their own goals. Notably, the leader of the Hekatan Mage Guild was Nathan Shasear, who had been Hekata’s student since several years before the Revival began.

After these first two experimental groups began to see some success, several other guilds were formed. Viabolt headed a forge guild, Waulfend created an order of environmental researchers and activists dedicated to stabilizing [ x ] after it was cleaved from Svarenheil (now Adreoni), and Maikoa synthesized their cults into something more viable. The rest of the gods began to cultivate priesthoods and temple organizations to foster their own devotee’s interests and lives.

Partway through the Era, Morsanna’s Order of Death Mages became the first Guild to see serious trouble. Small groups revolted against Morsanna throughout the middle 300 years of the Era, challenging her for the title of Death and her sole rule over the Dead and the Afterlife. These revolts divided the Order into two factions: loyalists who sided with Morsanna and were content and proud to be her Reapers, and separatists who wanted to claim or divide her power amongst themselves and promoted a form of selective eugenics. Morsanna was forced to cull the rebels and disband her Order, stripping nearly all of her Death Mages of their titles and abilities. Only a few dozen loyalists were allowed to retain their Reaper status, among them, Serra Tyrannis.

The fall of Morsanna’s Order was the start of the end of the era of peace. The latter 500 years of Era 4 in [ x ] were plagued by petty mortal wars, illegal magic experimentation, and growing calls for defiance against the gods. Around the year 1580, E-4, seven powerful mages banded together and led regular mortals and Guild members alike in a movement-turned-urban warfare with the sole goal of dethroning the gods.

This short war was later dubbed “The Great Rebellion.”

The conflict claimed tens of thousands of lives, Svarenic, human, and otherwise; mortal and non-mortal alike. In the end, the loyalist groups who chose to defend the gods defeated the revolutionaries and created a special prison dimension to house them: Artificial Planar Void TR-5, later known as Tartarus.

In APV TR-5, the seven powerful leaders of the rebellion (who are later dubbed the Seven Heathen Mages of Tartarus), continued some of the experiments they had been banished for. They had mastered something known as Creation Magic, which the gods tried very hard to keep out of mortal hands. When they worked together, the Seven could create entirely new lifeforms, which is what they did en masse as soon as they realized they were stuck in TR-5. They created their own sentient, humanoid lifeforms to subjugate and manipulate, recreating the abuse they claimed the gods had imposed on them. They named these peoples after themselves, and reigned over them as dictators and overlords:

• Corva Herrei created the Herrenic race
• Dorian Mirrala created the Miila race
• Zarian Laxa created the Laxaa race
• Jor Raya created the Rayani race and its subgroups: the Miiredians, Irosians, and Regalians.
• Grecian Hekta created the Jica race
• Julius Tahni created the Tahni race
• Lor Amas created the Amads

The creation of APV TR-5 and the banishment of the rebels comprises Crisis 4 and marks the end of the Era.

(Keep an eye out for the DIMENSIONS post series, which will dive more deeply into the creation of worlds, especially Tartarus, and their inhabitants!)

Approximate age of the universe: ~5970 years

ERA 5

Era 5 is one of instability and lost faith, and is characterized by the budding multivesre’s slow descent into chaos. In addition to being the longest era to date at a whopping 2205 years, Era 5 also sees some of the darkest moments in multiversial history play out.

The worst of it starts when the gods begin to take interest in the newly-forming reality pocket they call Aetheria. At this point in time, Aetheria is just a cluster of solid debris and cosmic dust being swirled around by a semi-conscious TED. And yet, they can sense its potential. So can other entities, including ziojics and demigods such as a young Phantasma, who eventually migrate there.

The consequence, though, is the gods attention being diverted outward, pulling it away from [ x ] and Adreoni (which they have been carefully monitoring since cleaving the two worlds from each other). The gods’ attention is also being pulled towards all the other worlds they left half-developed after the Great Revival in [ x ], and Solorana begins to split her time and essence between the creation and maintenance of all of them. Some of the others gods start doing the same, and it beings to take a visible toll…

But the end of the first millennium, the pantheon is distant and scattered, but the Guilds are managing well enough on their own.

[ x ] is relatively stable and sufficiently united as a planetary society, meaning there is relatively little international strife.

Adreoni is healing, growing in population, and its inhabitants are starting to branch out into more fields of magical and technological study. They are aided by Eiro, Hekata, and several minor gods, who spend much of their time there.

Artificial Planar Void TR-5 is embroiled in civil war, infighting, and many other self-inflicted issues generated by the Seven Heathen Mages or their immediate successors. Most of the gods… are pretending it doesn’t exist.

Seeing this independence and functionality, the gods begin to pull away from mortality over the first 1200 years of the Era. Content with their work and the fact that mortality in [ x ] doesn’t need them right now, they leave them to their own devices and pick up their old projects.

…And, slowly, the Guilds start to doubt their leadership again, but this time more quietly. So do the non-Guild mortals in [ x ] and most of the civilians in Adreoni, despite the gods’ continuing involvement in both dimensions’ healing and repair. The doubt turns to disregard, and the Guilds are disbanded late in the Era by one Nathan Shasear, who had been granted immortality in Era 3 for saving the goddess Ialu and since been left in charge of the mortal Guilds.

Eventually, the faith of mortals begins to waver so much that gods actually start to feel it. Very few take this mortal rejection well, subtle or unintended as it may be. Some leave them behind out of anger. Others quit because they’ve practically been forgotten, and disappear into “retirement” in their own domains.

But the same thing happens to all the gods who retreat to their reality (the same one they observed [ x ] from during Eras 2 and 3): they all fall into a deep, seemingly endless sleep. They do not wake up.

Crisis 5 is two-fold: first, the remaining gods fly into a panic at their fallen (sleeping) comrades’ condition. Those who disappeared into retirement deign not to care, or at least not to react.

Second, Adreoni and [ x ] achieve interdimensional travel almost simultaneously and start the first interdimensional war.

Approximate age of the universe: ~8175 years

ERA 6

Era 6 lasts a short 300 years, characterized by one giant war. This era, the shortest yet, sees the earliest forms of interdimensional warfare and is painfully dotted with rampant godly panic.

At the start of the war, Nathan Shasear attempts to rally former Guild members whose loyalty has survived the gods’ panic and silence. He tries to organized humanitarian aid on both sides of the conflict, acting as a delegate between [ x ] and Adreoni since he had heriditary ties to both. His efforts ultimately fail, and he takes the fall for it.

By the year 150 E-3, Shasear disbands the Guilds for good, for everyone’s safety. It was for the best, after his already minuscule numbers began to tank as members ran home, chased after the gods, or questioned their entire moral system in the face of unfathomable war. Still, he faced backlash twice that of what he faced the first time he disbanded the Guilds—this time, he also receives reprimands from the pantheon. Shortly before the end of the war, he disappears.

Meanwhile, Tartarus becomes embroiled in revolution. The races of Tartarus lead revolts against the remaining Seven Heathen Mages and their sadistic heirs, breaking free of their control and ending their lives in cold, furious vengeance. They split into individual factions in the aftermath, still divided by their differences and united only by their race and twisted second-hand cultures. The Ialuan Empire quickly takes over much of the east coast, jockeying for power against the Tritaran Empire to the north and west of them. The Dev-Rayan (or “anti-Rayan”) Congolmerate forms in the far west. The the name “magoni” is revived when the neutral, scholarship-based province of Zitraa’lazii is formed (later Zitraala) and the Jica race renames themselves the Magoni. The Heartland province also forms: a multicultural “neutral zone” that eventually becomes the center of the United Tartarun Federation.

By the end of the Era, Aetheria has its first inhabitants: a new race created by the gods called (with astonishing originality) Aetherians. They are the first ever telepathic race. As the Three-Hundred-Year war between [ x ] and Adreoni comes to an end in “Crisis 6” (which is once again a ceasefire, not a crisis), the growing multiverse turns to Aetheria with renewed interest.

Approximate age of the universe: ~8475 years

ERA 7

Interdimensional travel has been achieved, and advancements are happening quickly. A great many things happen in Era 7, starting with Tartarus achieving interdimensional travel in record time, and the gods finally acknowledging its existence. The panic the gods were swept up in at the end of Era 5 has cooled down, but many of them are still isolating themselves from mortality. Some hide in fear of rejection (and possible death from it), others hide because they are so busy trying to find a way to help their sleeping brethren that they neglect their other duties (despite constant calls, warnings, and begging for help from former Guild heads like Nathan Shasear).

Some gods have made their way to Tartarus and settled in, even introducing several matriarchal clans, subgroups, and religions. The primary example of this is Ialu, who quietly started a Tartarun Empire in her own name. After her come Cerise, Lio, Meyaa, and Maikoa. The influx of guidance, much of which comes from women or female-presenting deities, unintentionally kickstarts the Tartaruns’ deep-set and culturally-significant respect for women.

Other gods, however, like Xellarian and Kirida, remain wary of the dimension, which is reflected in the rest of the mortal world as well. With Tartarus now on the playing field, [ x ] and Adreoni (who both have residual legends and historical records of the Seven Heathen Mages) share some of the Pantheon’s understandable worry.

However, the Tartarun’s deep curiosity and sense of adventurous wonder endears them to the Adreonians almost immediately. This is in spite of the fact that APV TR-5 was created from a reality plane called Boltar, a world of hellfire—the exact opposite of the cool nightworld of Adreoni. Against all odds, an alliance forms!

Meanwhile, the Aetherians are growing in number and in strength, and the gods have realized that lingering around such an intelligent, powerfully telepathic race… may not have been in their best interests. The Aetherians now have a rather large collective ego, and possess knowledge they should never have been given access to in the first place. They create not only the first entirely stable interdimensional warp travel technology, but they reformat it from simply translating people from one world to another to make it so they can instead transport whole ships of people from one world to another, almost instantaneously.

Thus comes the introduction of transdimensional warping, and hyperspace travel.

And of course, what is their first inclination upon encountering the satellite worlds around Aetheria, and later the large dimensions of Tartarus, Adreoni, and [ x ]?

To start a blood war! (Of course…)

Tartarus and Adreoni form a proper alliance shortly after the initial Aetherian attack, around 470 E-7, when it is made clear that these Aetherians weren’t given enough of a conscience to rival their intelligence or beat their egos into submission. Together, the war-born Tartaruns and the eon-wizened strategists of Adreoni decide to do it for them.

They analyze captured Aetherian warships and reverse engineer them to create their own models. They quickly boost their own interdimensional power and viability, and they begin pushing the Aetherians back into their own territory. They successfully catch the unorganized Aetherian warships off-guard,and they retreat back to their homeworld.

But war was still declared, and it was never exactly called off…

The Aetherian military reforms itself over time, taking inspiration from the growing and changing armies of Tartarus and the various political factions of Era 7 [ x ]. For most of the rest of the era (some 800 years, which is chump change in a half-formed, time-bending world like Old Aetheria), they lie in wait. They keep to the sidelines, abd the background, gathering data and information on the other worlds and mortal species. Wrongly assuming things were overwith, Tartarus cools down and reinforces its alliance with Adreoni. [ x ] stops playing dumb and gets involved with interdimensional trade and politics again. They all start sending out probes and research teams to chart voidspace and monitor the formation of new dimensional pockets (and to keep tabs on Aetheria).

(Note: this is also the era in which the former continents of Merias form the Averonian Coalition, which eventually become the Averonian State, then the Free Averonian States, and eventually the Averonian State Trade Confederation of Era 10.)

At the end of the Era, Aetheria (now the (First) Empire of Aetheria) lashes out again. They start claiming new satellite dimensions, breaching Tartarun and Adreonian regions of voidspace, and gun it for [ x ].

The gods, save for the few who carved out a home for themselves in Tartarus, are nowhere to be found.

The renewed war lasts more than five years before a joint force, led predominately by Tartarus and Adreoni, successfully breaches the expanding Aetherian border and starts attacking their outposts, then their homeworld.

The Aetherians regroup, and many retreat again. The Tartaruns and Adreonian Shades think they’ve won (again).

Then, in a shocking move that catches everyone by surprise, the Aetherian military immediately shuts down and activates some new device. It utilizes an impenetrable magical blockade* and entirely prohibits entry beyond itself—and locks hundreds of thousands of Tartaruns and Adreonian Shades inside Aetheria’s borders.

The blockade effectively creates the modern reaches of Aetheria (from centra to its nearest satellites, including some that were absorbed to form the outer edges of centra) by using technology and magic to generate something close to the modern borders. The Imperials also claim every enemy ship on their side of their new blockade wall, and cut their external communications completely. No one knows what exactly happens to those ships or their crews after.

This is Crisis 7.

Approximate age of the universe: ~9507 years

ERA 8

Era 8 is a time of perilous recovery. No one quite knows if or when Aetheria will open up its borders again, or if doing so will result in another round of expansionist colonization attempts. The fear of it happening again lingers in the backs of people’s minds for generations, to the point that fake prophecies and exaggerated histories and myths surrounding Crisis 7 are written. But centuries pass with little to no activity from Aetheria, imperialistic or otherwise.

Tartarus and Adreoni spend a good chunk of early Era 8 rebuilding their militaries (and their general populations) after losing substantial numbers to Crisis 7. Their bond strengthens.

The rest of the multiverse is just trying to figure out what happened, what kind of technology Aetheria has created and been exposed to (and how), and whether or not the gods know what happened, or if knew in advance what Aetheria would become. The other budding satellite dimensions located outside the Aetherian quarantine are beginning to make contact with the major dimensions. Some are given sanctuary, others become willing (or unwilling) colonies.

Slowly, things calm down again. Tartarus experiences a cultural, artistic, and technological renaissance. The gods who stuck around to support them are openly involved and celebrated. In the first millennium, the Tech Twins (Angelis and Vici ValKerie), ascend to godhood as first demigods and later minor gods under Eiro’s tutelage and are celebrated as the first gods from Tartarus (they technically aren’t, but… that’s a long story). Later, in the final millennium, the Aracane Brothers are created by remaining gods and certain unnamed immortals to supplement Trefas, god of music, who promptly disappears.**

(**He doesn’t die or “fade” like some other gods. He just leaves. And no one has seen him since, although it is highly suspected he disappeared into Waulfend’s Nature Preserve in Averon, [ x ]…)

Other minor reprieves take place in this Era.

Multiple interdimensional alliances are formed, and trading systems are established that will stand the test of time.

Some of the gods who stayed set up sanctuaries and failsafes for if they leave, or begin to “fade.” Waulfend, for example, sets up a nature preserve in [ x ] that takes up most of modern Averon and protects all kinds of local and non-local flora and fauna. (Legend says, the deeper you go into the forests, the more exotic and mystical the inhabitants.)

Heathera, a nature protector elevated to her new divine status by Virri and Waulfend, also sets up an interdimensional research center for all things biology, with a heavy focus on plant life: her preference and purview. The Gardens of He’tara become one of the most significant, influential resources for research on health, wildlife, and environmental protections in all history.

Boltar, the dimension of Hellfire (aka the power source of Tartarus’s Core), and Solari, the dimension of light, are also discovered during interdimensional exploration excursions. Both are inaccessible and unsurvivable to mortals, but they are able to be perceived and act as wells of power for Viabolt and Soloranna respectively.

It is the end of Era 8 when things change in the dramatic way you simply can’t come back from.

Aetheria opens up its borders in the third and final millennium of Era 8 (specifically: in the early 2900s) and the Imperial government pretends to act as if Crisis 7, their capture of hundreds of thousands of enemy combatants, never happened. They establish themselves as a strong but fair empire, and no one is brave enough to challenge their claims or the iron grip with which they hold the worlds inside their borders.

Eventually, those worlds (and the people who were trapped in them) simply become part of Aetheria.

This tentative, fearful peace lasts until what will become the last two years of the Era. The tension had been building for almost a century by then, and it comes to a peak when interdimensional warlords like Vahn Tracer (an Adreonian pirate king), Huron velTarre (a Tartarun expatriate, outlaw, fleet warlord), and others drum up support for a confrontation and conquest of the First Empire of Aetheria (Phantasma affiliates, certain members of the ziojic Guilds, families of those trapped and likely imprisoned by the Empire in Crisis 7).

When negotiations inevitably fail, the story goes one of two ways, and even history can’t decide which really happened. Either the Aetherians were goaded into attacking the warlords, or it was the other way around and Vahn Tracer started it all. In the end, it doesn’t really matter. Battle lines were drawn and war became imminent.

The gods that were present, and certain immortals like Nathan Shasear, began to hearken back to Crisis 3. Once again, the multiverse was faced with unimaginable conflict (although the definition of “unimaginable” had greatly changed since then). War on this scale, with combatants and technology from every major world, and with unknown weaponry on both sides… it would be truly catastrophic.

For better or for worse there was someone who had seen it before, back when Adreoni and [ x ] were still the only big players out there. He knew what kind of disaster it would bring—and who needed to be there to stop it.

Nathan Shasear had been living covertly in Aetheria for some time by the time war talks began. He had gotten past the blockade a few years before it broke down and made a name for himself advising the leaders of Aetheria—mostly the local ones, but occasionally those closer to the top of the Imperial ladder. He had gone to Aetheria before the Empire to study it and its anomalies, and to learn what exactly the gods had left behind. He had watched it grow and change over the millennia. He saw the First Empire rise, and he saw what it was planning at the end of Era 8. He knew what to expect.

When he saw the negotiations turning sour and the first warships appeared on the borders of Aetheria centra, he tried one last time to convince the Imperialis to stand down and continue negotiations. After that failed, he hailed the warlords and even attempted to contact Phantasma, his former student, and pose some other kind of interference. When those options also failed, he was left with two options: watch the worlds tear each other apart, or use a last resort option to stop it.

He chose the latter.

The event later known as Crisis 8 was, in specifics, an in-world “cataclysm” caused by the islands of Aetheria being re-aligned into a highly specific pattern—the same pattern in which they had been originally formed, which greatly resembled a rune matrix. The islands of Aetheria centra had drifted over time, but they could be pulled back into their original positions with ease using a few supercharged alignment beacons disguised as abandoned outposts and Shasear’s pet project: the advanced molecular-soularia control magic, later renamed torjic.

It was a crazy plan, but it worked. The effect wasn’t dissimilar to the way the First Empire had set up their mysterious blockade, except Shasear’s application fixed a problem rather than cause one. Aetheria’s once-chronic problem of instability, gravity variance, and time-warping was resolved with one ultimate experiment.

It is believed that Shasear activated the entire alignment system on his own. It caused all the islands to shift back to their original positions, thus putting them in place to form the largest summoning matrix in existence.

In short, he turned the dimension itself into a supercharged power cell, the energy source for a grand summoning matrix.

Some believe he reactivated the matrix that created the first gods, Solorana and TED. Others believe he temporarily opened a portal to Hell.

Others more logically suppose all worlds were arranged in the formation of a giant rune matrix, once upon a time (they were right).

Either way, in addition to fixing Aetheria centra, the matrix igniting both summoned the gods back and stopped time. The original pause lasted only a few minutes, but to repair the damage Shasear ‘s had caused and save lives, the gods (namely Xellarian) had to freeze time for almost three months after.

This event, the pause of the flow of time and all things living, marks Crisis 8.

Some extra notes:

• Aetheria’s ability to act as a supercharged power source is often supposed to be the reason it does not have a set Core or Core island, like other dimensions. It doesn’t need one, especially not after Crisis 8.
• The last piece of the puzzle was one that Shasear hadn’t yet figured out: Aetheria was created as apower matrix, yes, but it was a power matrix designed by the first-generation gods—specifically Xellarian, Morsanna, and Solorana. It had many functions aside from being a giant summoning beacon, which was his original hypothesis for its use.
• Furthermore, some speculate that Shasear had help at each outpost of the matrix (each junction point on the multdimensional matrix sphere). Most say the aid came from his own local guild members/followers, or from the remnants of the alleged Godhunter guild, a group dedicated to upholding the myth of “The Godhunter,” a vigilante who may or may not have been allied with Shasear at the time.

Approximate age of the universe: ~12,544 years

ERA 9

Era 9 is characterized by time fluctuations, the opening of time portals and vortexes, and general multiversial instability. In fact, the recording of time was so flawed and sporadic during this era that its length was grossly miscalculated! The minimum recorded length was 5312 years, the maximum was 7132, and the official length recorded later by the Fate Council was 10,602 years.

But when all is said and done, the length of this era does not matter nearly as much as the events that transpired during it.

This Era is a sad parallel to the Revival of Era 3.

Yes, the gods returned during Crisis 8 and put a stop to not only the infighting and interdimensional conflict, but also the reigns of tyranny in the outlands, interdimensional neuatral zones, and regions like the Iron Archipelagos.

Yes, Nathan Shasear was reprimanded for his failure to support mortal reality in the gods’ absence and vanishing from public view. Most saw his disappearance as the removal of a menace.

Yes, interdimensional war between the largest powers of the time was avoided.

And yes, admittedly not much else changed at first. The First Empire of Aetheria was quarantined by the gods so they could figure out what exactly happened since they had left it to its own devices. The Empire was effectively dismantled, and many of its leaders were punished for war crimes and abuses of power by the justice goddess, Lio (sans Iya, her more compassionate brother). The rest of the groups involved, especially the warlords (who not only abused their own powers and peoples, but played into the drama and spun stories to drive people further and further against each other), were reprimanded or chose to continue watching in baffled silence as it all unfolded.

But, as always, new problems arose.

Firstly, the gods knew that Nathan Shasear’s breach of the flow of time had been unnatural, and that he had come dangerously close to throwing everything out of balance. His project, the magic type later known as torjic, had played a huge part in that. What they didn’t know (at first) was how close he’d truly been to destroying everything.

Shasear’s plan had worked, yes, but it came at a terrible cost. Stopping the flow of time to ensure Aetheria wouldn’t collapse, moving the people and cities who would have been killed by the collision of newly moved islands, and intervening in the minds of billions of people to stop a war… was a lot. The toll was the complete exhaustion and subsequent fading of the god of time, Xellarian.

A few centuries into the reconstruction of Aetheria and the worlds of certain malicious warlords, the god of Time fell into the first of several long, sudden sleeps. Time itself seemed to slow and ripple for the two years he lay comatose, and when he woke up, nearly mad with visions of the future and the past, not even Ialu or Solorana knew what to make of it.

After that first time, it happened irregularly and unexpectedly. The fifth time, the gods began to see how it affected the mortals. Time, it seemed, was actually quickening and slowing according to Xellarian’s periods of comatose prophetic dreaming. Ialu, too, was greatly affected, and her ability to prophesy and see potential futures (or pieces of them) was all but gone.

This went on for centuries, then millennia, and as Xellarian grew weaker and his periods of dead sleep grew longer, the Pantheon began to wonder what would happen if he faded away. They began to disappear again in search of a remedy, or The Eternal Darkness, or something that could fix their problems and stop them from fading away. Meanwhile, a scorned demigod (or twelve) hid in the lower cities of Aetheria and wondered why the gods didn’t understand that that was the problem. That their repeated decision to leave behind mortal reality, which depended on them to maintain its functionality, was the issue.

The gods’ intermittent absences led to more strife and uncertainty in the mortal realms, and some eventually resigned themselves to their fate to either fade or be relegated. Certain gods, like Ialu, Lio, the forge gods, and the Aracane brothers found homes in Tartarus. Others, like Waulfend and Virri, began establishing refuges for mortals and nature spaces, hoping that preserving more wild spaces would help

(It did. Had they not tried, Jade Masiiri, the revolutionary goddess, would never have been raised to godhood. Heathera, mother of the greatest bio-tech, biology, and life magic research paragon in history, would never have found or saved Waulfend himself from fading. But sometimes, they still think it was all in vain).)

Maikoa, for one, returned to their roots, or what was left of them: Adreoni, and the other scattered shadow worlds of Darekaeii. Viabolt disappeared into Boltar, hoping craft a cure, but never returned. Kirdia vanished as well, although a statue of her exact likeness stands in the capitol of the undersea world in [ x ], where Cerise attends her.

One of the key events that stands out amongst the chaos of Era 9 is the tragedy of how Darekaeii falls. Or, more specifically, how Adira Eagriss destroys it. Without the guidance of inventor gods (or anyone with a moral backbone), her deadly, reckless, experimental attempt to bring the broken worlds of Darekaeii together to form on great, big community failed spectacularly. She cause what is recorded in history as the Great Darekaeiin Cataclysm, a Class 5 cataclysmic event that caused the explosion of Adreoni (the Darekaeiin center-world), and the subsequent obliteration of the rest of the quadrant.

Rumor has it she was influenced by someone with a grudge against the gods, but that even they had no idea what she was truly capable of. Her cataclysm made the Class 3 cataclysm of Era 4 in [ x ], which created the Iron Archipelagos, seem like child’s play.

The Great Darekaeiin Cataclysm makes up the majority of Crisis 9, although its direct aftermath is also considered a part of it. From the fall of Darekaeii’s last surviving regiments from the Adreonian Mercenary Corps, to the Rise of the New Empire of Aetheria as the smoke cleared, to the cover-up that followed.

Some, however, hypothesize that the true Crisis 9 occurred when Xellarian disappeared. The time anomalies ceased as soon as he was found to be missing, but no one since has figured out why, or if he’s still alive. There were rumors, though, shortly before the Fall of Darekaeii, that he left an heir—although no one has ever been able to confirm such a thing. Not even the Fate Council knows (or at least they claim not to).

Still, the multiverse hasn’t yet collapsed. Either Xellarian did name an heir, and they have been keeping reality in check since his death, or he’s still out there somewhere, as much a dissipated ghost as Andareis…

Percieved age of the universe: ~19,676 years

Actual approximate age of the universe: ~23,146 years

ERA 9

Era 10 starts off slow and solemn. Much of the multiverse is still grieving and in shock of the Darekaeiin Cataclysm, and the first few years are characterized by mass humanitarian aid intervention, spearheaded by Tartarus and the newly-formed, (allegedly morally reformed) New Empire of Aetheria (NEA). The rest of the first century or two are spent figuring out how to operate without the worlds of Darekaeii.

Trade, justice, and war all change fundamentally. Darekaeii, and especially Adreoni, had stood as a bastion of clear judgement and honest business (mostly) for millennia. They had supervised and supplemented interdimensional trade. They had forged and mapped new routes between worlds. They had provided security forces and mercenaries for wars across the ages. They had been a refuge, an artistic stronghold, and a technological epicenter for the last 14,600 years. No one quite knew how to operate without their leadership, nor how to mourn the loss of their billions of lives.

[ x ] tried to fill the holes and step into its sister-world’s vacant spot. They tried, but they ultimately failed. The lovely thing about humans is that they are fantastic creators and innovators. The terrible thing is that they all think they’re better than one another. [ x ] being the primary homeworld of humanity and all its flaws was its downfall. The world devolved into infighting (again) around the year 300 E-10.

In the end, it took multiple worlds to fill the space left by Darekaeii.

Tartarus eventually stepped up to become the military epicenter it always should have been. They experienced an industrial boom as the multiverse turned to them for weapons manufacturing, the advancement of technological warfare elements, and, surprisingly, new moral standards for the conduct of war. Tartarus had, of course, perfected the art of war millennia ago. They had also perfected the art of negotiating and keeping the piece, especially when it came to pedantic or tricky parties (of which many of themselves were).

As they shared their knowledge with others, the multiverse’s collective view of them began to change. And, as a result, the dimension as a whole changed how it presented itself. States and tribal lands became united provinces, and they all agreed to unite themselves under the banner of Tartarus centra, whose provinces served each other, the Post-Revival Codex, and the select few gods who had chosen them. They still had infighting and civil issues and wars, but, at least, it was less about destroying each other and more about… semantics.

Feldspar stepped up too. Darekaeii had been the technological epicenter of the multiverse. When it was wiped out, the technology they developed went with them. The holonet as it had existed from Era 8 onward ceased to exist or operate. Nearly every server, every corner of the holonet crashed. Only a few backups remained on a few limited physical storage drives in out-of-world branches. Feldspar saw the rising panic at this catastrophe, looked at their own perfectly fine, entirely operable in-world holonet service, and said “Hey, we can market this (and help a lot of people)!”

(Some people think that their monetary motivations were greedy, but those people forget that Feldspar was and always has been somewhat of a giant commune run by sentient, telepathic Cats. Their idea of “monetary greed” involves gaining large sums of money, distributing two thirds of it to their people, and using the rest to fund insane research projects and the upkeep of their successful Core Energy Dispersal and Power Supply System (or, the CEDPSS, or “Sedeps”), which is what Adira Eagriss later tries to recreate in Era 10.)

(They also spend a fair amount of the undistributed share importing exotic seafood… but that’s beside the point.)

And, finally, someone had to step in and manage the most obvious void left behind by the Darekaeiin system of worlds: the role of interdimensional neutral arbitrator.

The New Empire of Aetheria, as shiny and fresh-off-the-line it seemed, was practically curated for this role. While the gods had, by and large, been in and out of things during Era 9, they had managed to set Aetheria back on track. Even once they disappeared again, following the clues Xellarian’s scattered mind had left for them to use to find the next God of Time, the NEA seemed to be doing alright. With the democratic, people-ruled Imperial Council backing the first Emperor (a paltry title that may have been better understood had it been changed to “President” or Ae’Docra (an Aetherian word meaning “chosen ruler” or “chosen doctrinal-leader”)) it seemed best that they handled things.

( If those scorned demigods mentioned earlier had suddenly gone oddly quiet, and the new Imperial Council seemed to have a few odd characters that hadn’t quite reformed during the “reformation era,” well… No one had to know.)

And that is where 2 of the 3 focal stories of Broken Dimensions pick up! The first story to take place during it is Fractal Alliances, which begins in 1906 E-10 and runs all the way until 2047 E-10. Fractal Alliances focuses on the interactions of Tartarus and Aetheria, the two largest military powerhouses still standing after Crisis 9 and [ x ]’s multitude of civil wars. A prospective follow-up series called Afterdeath picks up in 2049/2050 E-10.

Running parallel to the latter half of Fractal Alliances is the story of Catie Davis and the Lycanthra Syndicate. The Lycanthra Syndicate is a work-in-progress webcomic that starts 2033 E-10, with prequel shorts that run all the way back to the 1960s and a central storyline that runs until the early 2050s.

After that… well, let’s just say things get Dark…

Approximate age of the universe (as of Afterdeath): ~25,196 years

The interspersed images on this page are titlecard variations for “Timeline Tuesday,” a series I ran over on the Broken Dimensions Patreon page in early 2025! Check out the link below to visit the collection there: