Era I · CITADEL
In an era when the clash of swords, the resilience of shields and the early whispers of gunpowder weapons are the heartbeat of existence, the creeping blight of Myrkild looms ever larger. The divide between the noble elite and the common folk frays with each passing day. Resonance—the power of great legends and tales of old—is on the rise, threatening the status quo of power.
CITADEL: ErrackErrack in the CITADEL ageOpen in Atlas The world right now
More and more, the common folk are gaining innate power: power that cannot be bought. Amid sprawling cities, stone walls of monumental proportions rise defiantly to safeguard the fragile souls within. Caravans laden with precious cargo and even more precious lives become fortresses on wheels, guarded by armies or hired hands who have made a grim pact with coin.
Beyond the flickering glow of civilisation, solitary sojourners are an endangered breed. The wilderness teems with nameless threats, and the lone traveller courts not solitude, but death itself. Few settlements of consequence remain untarnished by conflict; claw marks scar ancient defensive walls and monumental skeletons litter the landscape like forgotten gods.
Primer
Enough context to enter the era without front-loading the encyclopaedia.
People & power
Crowns, councils, clans, guilds and landed families shape ordinary life more directly than distant abstractions of state. Wealth still buys protection, but Resonance is placing dangerous leverage in hands that inherited neither title nor fortune.
The Wyrd
Resonance is real, physical and costly, but no single explanation commands the age. A Resonant may be revered in one valley and hunted in the next. Ritual, inherited tradition and hard-earned observation do the work that later eras will try to turn into science.
Witness Resonance at LorndaleBeyond the walls
Myrkild are encountered as monsters, blights, demons and local horrors rather than as one coherent species. Roads fail, caravans vanish and fortified towns can become islands overnight. The explanation may be wrong while the warning remains useful.
Powers of the age
Across Errack, powers large and small fight for survival above the earth and deep below it. Their cultures are shaped as much by adversity as by inheritance.
A mountain bulwark built around endurance, fortification and the legacy of the Vetruxi Kingdom.
A highland dominion where tradition, cunning and intimate knowledge of the land are weapons in their own right.
A mercantile republic where coin moves quickly and private interests press hard against public rule.
A fertile kingdom of forests, farms and contested roads, wealthy in produce and never quite as safe as its abundance suggests.
What people know
Each age interprets its evidence through the institutions, instruments and fears it possesses. Greater visibility does not guarantee a complete explanation.
The record of the age
The timeline below follows the wars, bargains, disasters and discoveries that shape CITADEL. It records what happened; the articles around it explain why people believed it happened.
This list remains available when the interactive timeline cannot run.
9,203
The oath-crowning that transformed a ring of fortified valleys into the first recognised Okse Dominion.
Blodmanuthur, 9,212 — Annarrmanuthur, 9,214
A disputed three-year migration in which Resonant penitents crossed the burned north and returned speaking in borrowed voices.
19 Þrimilcimanuthur, 9,227
The first guarded caravan crossed the ossuary causeway linking the Dominion interior to the western salt kingdoms.
Ostermanuthur, 9,241
A month-long conclave bound rival smith-priests to shared measures for powder, steel and Resonant workmanship.
16 Sólmanuthur, 9,268
Lorndale fell during a Resonant assault remembered as both a military victory and a spiritual catastrophe.
13 Frostmanuthur, 9,296
A legendary winter banquet at which an entire court is said to have eaten, spoken and departed without casting shadows.
9,320 — 9,326
A six-year accounting of captives, debts and hereditary bondage conducted across the Verigoth chain-holds.
23 Tíundimanuthur, 9,355
Seven citadel bells rang together without being struck, drawing thousands into the streets before dawn.
23 Tíundimanuthur, 9,355
On the morning after the bells rang, every child born within Karn Vey was silent until sunset.
A disputed three-year migration in which Resonant penitents crossed the burned north and returned speaking in borrowed voices.
Lorndale fell during a Resonant assault remembered as both a military victory and a spiritual catastrophe.
The canonical Atlas map of Errack during the CITADEL era, presented without the non-canon markers used by the exploration demo.
The oath-crowning that transformed a ring of fortified valleys into the first recognised Okse Dominion.
A month-long conclave bound rival smith-priests to shared measures for powder, steel and Resonant workmanship.
A legendary winter banquet at which an entire court is said to have eaten, spoken and departed without casting shadows.
Seven citadel bells rang together without being struck, drawing thousands into the streets before dawn.
A harsh mountain dominion of the Oksmun, built on endurance, fortification, oil, slave labour, and old Vetruxi blood.
The first guarded caravan crossed the ossuary causeway linking the Dominion interior to the western salt kingdoms.
On the morning after the bells rang, every child born within Karn Vey was silent until sunset.
A six-year accounting of captives, debts and hereditary bondage conducted across the Verigoth chain-holds.
