Published in Nothing Changes
Annotated version pending
This is arranged in hundred year increments, decreasing to ten year intervals, and is intended as a very broad overview of events.
Kingdom Year 0: King Ayrq establishes Bright Bay as the king’s city and lays claim to the strip of land between Bright Bay and the eastern salt marshes. His attempts to claim the Hackerwood do not end well and are eventually abandoned in favor of exploration up the coast, which yields the discovery that there are rich plains to the north of the woods and an early settlement develops just past the Forest. It is soon mysteriously destroyed, and efforts to rebuild it in nearby locations fail as well. Bright Bay covers roughly fifty square miles at this point, with a population of under five thousand.
Kingdom Year 100: Bright Bay is thriving, with an open and tolerant culture. The coastal plains are settled, and Sandsplit port is established. A port settlement, named Kismo, has been established well north of the Hackerwood, and while conditions are not easy there, it is surviving. Trade with the southlands is settling into a comfortable routine, with minimal smuggling or rivalries. The Hackerwood is under an official off-limits order, and no building is permitted within five miles of the edge. Bright Bay has grown to nearly seven thousand people, without much geographical expansion.
Kingdom Year 200: The waters along the west coast grow troubled, with unruly winds and misbehaving currents. Kismo struggles with severely dimished trade supplies and begins to send out exploratory parties with a more concrete plan of colonizing the northlands without support from Bright Bay. This does not go over well with the king, and antagonism begins to build. At the same time, religious differences have arisen, causing violent clashes – primarily within Bright Bay, but quickly spreading to the coastal area. The population is reaching unsustainable levels, and explorers are sent through the swamps in hopes of finding another way to the northern plains. None of them return.
Kingdom Year 300: An adventurer and explorer, Captain Stone, gains the backing of the crown to sail west in hopes of finding new land to settle. He discovers a chain of large, unpopulated islands with unusual plant and animal life. In bringing samples back to Bright Bay, he is bitten by one of the venomous fauna and dies just before his ship reaches Bright Bay Harbor. The islands are named for him, but are far enough away and difficult enough that rather than a population exodus, the king turns them into a place for exiling his enemies. Naturalists or every type flock to the islands for research, but only the most dedicated stick it out for more than a few months. Bright Bay has grown to accomodate a population closing in on nine thousand people.
Kingdom Year 400: Religious conflict still simmering, charismatic leaders stirring up trouble, only to be revealed as frauds and con men by another charismatic leader, and so on around again. Kings are inconsistent in how they handle the strife, which makes it worse. A deadly plague sweeps through, dropping the population to under eight thousand. There are roughly eight hundred people living in the Stone Islands.
Kingdom Year 500: Explorers have at last won through the eastern marshes, and the forested hills to the northeast are under exploration and development. Plague issues continue, possibly brought from Stone Islands. There is talk of quarantining all sea traffic, but it never gets fully implemented. There are attempts at population control laws, but riots force the king to back off on that. The coastal waters are calm now, and trade is flourishing between Kismo, Bright Bay, the southlands, and the Stone Islands. Pirate activity begins to rise along the main trade routes, difficult to address because many of the pirates have strong ties to powerful southern Families (mostly F’Heing). Relations between kingdom and the west-coast Families become strained.
Kingdom Year 600: A fanatic religious leader arises, a man named Wezel. He claims to have had a vision that there are four gods, not three; he denounces the southern Families as evil and corrupt. It is the perfect moment: he shoots to prominence, incidentally hampering the efforts of the current king (Initen the Red) to smooth out tensions with the southlands. In an effort to sidestep a bloody clash, Initen the Red makes a deal with Wezel: create a safe path through the Hackerwood and you may claim what territory you can hold to the north (it will still technically be part of the Kingdom and subject to those laws, but in real terms will be under Northern Church control). Wezel and many of his most zealous followers head off into the Hackerwood; to everyone’s surprise, they do indeed cut a broad, safe road through the entire Forest. The Stone Islands are almost entirely under pirate control. Kismo is steadily moving away from Kingdom control and towards an entirely independent government, prompted in part by the growing pirate presence along the west coast who eye Kismo’s excellent harbor covetously, and the helplessness of Bright Bay to stop them.
KY 700: The Stone Islands have been reclaimed by the kingdom. Initen the Red (a desert lord, very long lived) has repaired relationships with the southern Families. The Forest Road is under construction, with help from Aerthraim Family. Wezel and his followers have settled a large but thin swath of the northlands, establishing Isata, the River Road, and Stecatr. Stecatr is set up as the crown of the Northern Church, with a very heavy, increasingly conservative religious presence and backbone. Bright Bay population is near ten thousand at this point, Stone Islands population is six hundred, and the northlands (which don’t keep good records just yet) support somewhere between one and four thousand residents (excluding Kismo).
Kingdom year 800: The Forest Road is completed and declared safe. Bright Bay begins pressuring Kismo to rejoin the kingdom. The Northern Church is spreading rapidly across the northlands, and the population of Bright Bay and the coast begins to shift northward to fill the new settlements. Arason is a contested point, as it was originally built by the explorers that made it around the eastern swamps, but Wezel’s followers argue that it should be part of their territory. Initen the Red dies, the last of the Bright Bay desert lord kings. Assiasan is established high in the northeastern mountains as a mining town.
Kingdom year 900: The kings begin to show increasing mental instability, for reasons unknown at the time. Relationships between the southlands and the kingdom become strained once more. The Northern Church, no longer satisfied with their territory, begin working to establish a presence in Bright Bay. Ironically, the cities and towns of the northlands simultaneously begin to shift away from Northern Church control and more into an agnostic independence with loose ties to the Kingdom. The Northern Church is so intent on taking hold in Bright Bay that the warning signs are largely missed or ignored. Assiasan undergoes the most marked shift, even establishing their own mint.
Kingdom Year 1000: Kings continue unstable. Bright Bay is racked with chaos from religious and cultural conflicts; cities north of the Hackerwood are increasingly ignored by Church and Kingdom alike as the two powers battle for dominance over the king city. This is the time of Dusty Rose, among other mad rulers, and there are occasional outbursts that foreshadow the Purge. Tension between kingdom and southlands are rising steadily, misinformation is rife and there is a surge in the population shift from Bright Bay to the northlands.
Kingdom Year 1100: What little influence the southern powers have over the kingdom ends. Bright Bay is racked by strange events that Northern Church leaders seize on as evidence of southern witchcraft and the displeasure of the gods. The Northern Church gains decisive influence over the kings. The southlands, meanwhile, are undergoing internal battles of their own and don’t really pay attention to northern events for a time.
Kingdom Year 1110: Southlands crisis escalates. Teyanin totally withdraw from all Family negotiations, badly damaging Scratha Family’s reputation as the best negotiators. F’Heing begins aggressive geographical expansion, setting off a border war with Darden Family. Kismo declares themselves entirely independent of both Church and Kingdom and begins their own aggressive annexation of nearby areas.
Kingdom Year 1120: Mezarak takes the throne of Bright Bay. Harsh tax and travel laws are passed to resolve increasing unrest in Bright Bay; this backfires and causes riots. Scratha Family is slaughtered by an unknown force, sending the entire southlands into upheaval. The teyanin close the Horn; trade from kingdom to southlands is almost entirely shut down, as is travel along the Forest Road. Widespread famine and unrest throughout the northlands. Stecatr becomes even more adamant about its religious rulership.
Kingdom Year 1140: Ninnic takes the throne, with Rosin Weatherweaver (aka Roise F’Heing) as his key advisor. All Aerthraim and most southerners remaining in Bright Bay flee, largely to the northlands. The Purge begins. Ninnic declares war on Kismo in an effort to reclaim that territory; succeeds in driving Kismo back to the main city but then gets stuck in a disastrous siege.
Kingdom Year 1150-1165: The Kismo siege drags on, as does the Purge. The death count is utterly shocking within Bright Bay; the population is pent in by newly installed gates and guards. Corruption is rampant and the Church is in charge, under the control of now Head Priest Rosin Weatherweaver. The Purge reaches Arason, provoking a bloody confrontation with the local ha’rethe that ends with the ha’rethe in a coma and the Church directing a retaliatory sweep through Arason that decimates and terrorizes the population. Stecatr withdraws its support for the Kismo war, abandoning its claimed territories along the Long Road, and retreats into a nearly xenophobic isolation. The southern Families make their move at last: Ninnic is deposed. Oruen takes the throne and begins attempting to repair the damage of the last hundred years. Church leadership is driven from Bright Bay, and largely retreats to Stecatr. The Kismo war is declared over, and Oruen recalls all troops, instituting a severe culling to root out corruption in his military and government. Several northlands cities, notably Assiassan, Arason, and Isata, are contemplating declarations of independence from the Kingdom and Church alike. The main books of the Children of the Desert series take place during this time.
At the end of the Children of the Desert series, there is a significant political and geographical upheaval that blocks the Horn to all traffic, rearranges internal teyanain governance, caves in a large swath of the southlands, destabilizes maritime travel, destroys Sessin Family, transfers the control of Scratha Fortress to the newly created Peysimun Family, and ends the long dominance of the ha’reye, which, unfortunately, also removes barriers that kept some of the longer-lived pets of the ha’reye from bothering humanity….
Chapters 1-4 of Secrets of the Sands (As-published)(Annotated version)
Chapters 5-9 of Secrets of the Sands (As-published)(Annotated version)
NOTE: Future annotated chapters will only be open to Patreon subscribers.