The history of the world is a spiral: always repeating, but a little different on every loop. Places, ideas, names may recur from cycle to cycle, but never in quite the same form.

Rising Ages--periods in which civilization grows in size, power, and sophistication--end in Choosings, after which (depending on the Choice made) an Age of Order or Age of Chaos begins. Ages of Order are stagnant, unchanging, peaceful and prosperous but also regimented and constraining. They lead to new Choosings just as Rising Ages do. Ages of Chaos are violent, unpredictable, volatile and uncertain but also liberated and free. They lead to Rising Ages, and the cycles continue.

Before Lemma the Librarian (BL):

~2.5 billion years BL: Earth is colonized by beings so advanced that their science isn't just indistinguishable from magic, it IS magic. They establish their primary homes in what will be Antarctica and Mu, and the first Age of Order begins. However, their monstrous biomechanical servants develop wills of their own and, in the first Choosing, rebel, forcing the aliens to abandon their colony in Antarctica and shift Mu into a pocket dimension connected to the rest of the world only by three gates--and, later, they are even forced to abandon that. Soon after, the evolution of photosynthesis fills the atmosphere with deadly oxygen, wiping out all alien life on earth. The first and longest Age of Chaos ensues.

~252 million years BL: A species of synapsid, the Ryleans, develops sapience, then begins to develop a civilization. A Rising Age begins. The Ryleans discover what will one day be called the R'lyeh Gate, leading to Mu, and in the second Choosing, they begin learning magic from the ruins there. They found the city of R'lyeh in southwestern Mu, hence the name "Ryleans." A new Age of Order begins. Rylean researchers learn much about magic and begin developing new spells of their own. In the third Choosing, one of these new spells--the Rite of Uncreation--is cast, causing the Permian-Triassic extinction event and ushering in a new Age of Chaos. Five thousand Ryleans escape into the future: their seers scan ahead to the next beings to evolve brains capable of holding Rylean minds, and swap souls with them. The remaining Ryleans, their crops dead or dying, seek a way to save themselves with magic. They discover the Outer Dark and the Old Ones, and begin worshipping them as gods. With their "blessing," they are able to survive for a time in Mu, though they become monstrously distorted (both physically and mentally) in the process, and must abandon the world beyond the Gates. Eventually they summon an Old One to Mu and are destroyed.

~65 million years BL: The Chicxulub meteor causes another mass extinction, though nowhere near as bad as the Rite of Uncreation. The Old One of Mu goes to sleep.

~1 million BL: 5,000 Homo erectus, possessed by the souls of Rylean sorcerers from the past, travel to Mu and resettle R'lyeh. A new Rising Age begins. The New Ryleans remain few in number, however, because their Rylean minds find hominid bodies repulsive. Instead of mating, they clone themselves, transferring their souls from clone to clone. Exploring Lemuria, they find the sleeping Old One and accidentally wake it. Driven from R'lyeh, which is now the Shattered City, they flee back to the world. There, they infuse various living creatures with magic to create an army of monsters and dragons, with which they battle the Old One, drive it from R'lyeh to the far side of Mu, and force it back to sleep. Terrified of the Old Ones, they study dimensional magic, and find the realm of Faerie between the mortal world and the Outer Dark. Learning from the battles with That Which Shattered the City, they create a new kind of magical creature optimized to fight the Old Ones. The Ryleans combine a little bit of several kinds of insect, a little bit more of hominids like their new bodies, and an enormous amount of magic to create creatures of binding Order that could oppose the Chaos of the Outer Dark: the fey. Then came the fourth Choosing: the Ryleans had made promises to the fey in exchange for them maintaining Faerie as a buffer against the Old Ones, but chose to break those promises. The fey killed them all and declared themselves the lords of Faerie, leaving the mortal world to descend into another Age of Chaos.

~4000 BL: Humans discover agriculture. A few stumble onto the Lemuria Gate and settle in Mu. A new Rising Age begins. Around this time, a 4-year-old boy named Seth living about 50 miles west of what will someday be Lagusch manipulates one of his older brothers into killing the other in a squabble over who was more favored by the gods, resulting in Seth becoming heir to their family's lands. Also at around this time, a woman named Lilith founds the first brothel in what will someday be Hattush, and uses it to become a major power-broker in the region. They are the first people to truly master using envy and lust to control others, respectively, and on their deaths become the first envy and lust demons, founding the two oldest demonic Houses. (It is not known which came first.)

~2500 BL: Three people in a small fishing boat are washed out to sea in a storm, and discover the Atalan Gate. Two survive to return home and gather their clan, who pass en masse through the Atalan Gate and found the city of Atalan.

~2000 BL: Muan explorers find R'lyeh, becoming the first human mages. Knowledge of magic soon spreads to the Atalan traders, and from them to the outer world.

~1800 BL: That Which Shattered the City, the Old One of Mu, is discovered. An order of mages forms, dedicated to watching it, ensuring it remains asleep, and if necessary fighting it. Their order eventually becomes the center of magical scholarship, as the city of Lemuria grows around them. They create an Academy to pass on their knowledge and a Library to store it--and with the construction of the Library, the Old One of Mu is now That Which Sleeps Beneath the Library.

~1500 BL to ~1000 BL: A series of wars occurs between Atalan and Lemuria, with the various other city-states of Mu sometimes participating and sometimes not. Atalan is wealthier and has trade ties to the outside world, while Lemuria--despite being very near the Irem Gate--does not. However, Lemuria has much stronger magic, and thus usually wins. Lemuria gradually acquires more and more territory.

998 BL: General luSifrion of Lemuria convinces the people that Lemuria's magic makes it inherently superior, and it is therefore both their right and their duty to conquer Atalan once and for all. He succeeds, and on his return declares himself Emperor to much public acclaim. On his death, he becomes the first pride demon, though over time his name morphs to Lucifer. He will later claim to be the first demon and lord over all of them, but then he would, wouldn't he?

998-530 BL: The newly formed Lemurian Empire conquers all of Mu except R'lyeh, which was abandoned (see below).

595 BL: Lemurian mages living in R'lyeh make contact with Faerie. After a brief conflict, King Herne, Queen Maev, and Emperor luThirell sign the Treaty of R'lyeh. Among other things, this requires that R'lyeh remain uninhabited forever, as the fey believe there might still be Rylean ghosts there, hungry for a body to possess.

~200 BL: Sepher Shel Agrat written by boCambril the Inconsistently Careful, documenting essentially everything then known about demons. By this time there are a total of seven demonic houses, though the origin dates of the other four are not known other than "between 4000 and 200 BL": the Houses of Mammon (greed), Tiamat (fear), Aeshma (wrath), and Abaddon (sloth).

52 BL: The future Archmagus boKantrel (then only an Enforcer) blackmails Vilnus torBantrel of Lemuria steals a number of books from the Library and flees to the outside world.

52-45 BL: Vilnus scatters the books around the shores of the Inner Sea, accompanied by a woman of the Sea People, before they marry and settle in Mercia. Vilnus still periodically travels around the Tin Isles to get rid of the books.

35 BL: Vilnus' daughter Maida born in Mercia.

34 BL: Tyryn born in Yr.

23 BL: Tyryn is apprenticed to Vilnus of Mercia.

22 BL: Iola born in the Sea People village of Iardanos.

20 BL: Iason born in the Sea People village of Iardanos.

19 BL: Lemma born in Lemuria.

18 BL: Rhoda born in Alba.

16 BL: Tyryn is 18. Events of Youth of the Dark Lord.

Events of Lemma the Librarian:

Year 1 (0 BL): Lemma arrives in the Iron Islands, travels around gathering the books of the Lost Library (including The Rite of Uncreation), and defeats Brea, Vampire Queen of the Iron Isles.

Year 2: Lemma travels the Inner Sea, gathering the remaining books, including the Sepher Bel Agrat. The fifth Choosing occurs: Lemma defeats Asmodeus, preventing the rise of an Age of Order and ensuring that there will soon be an Age of Chaos.

Year 3 (0 AL): Lemma becomes the first Great Librarian, then marries Iason. Meanwhile, Princess Ceilidh of Mercia becomes Tyryn's prisoner. Events of the first part of Rise of the Dark Lord.

After Lemma the Librarian (AL):

1 AL: Tyryn uses Ceilidh and her mother to take over Mercia. Events of the second part of Rise of the Dark Lord.

75-205 AL: The two youngest demonic Houses are founded, both by women: Sophia (curiosity) and Pandora (hope).

~300 AL: That Which Sleeps Beneath the Library wakes. The last Great Librarian casts the Rite of Uncreation to kill it, but is unable to maintain control. For 1/4 second, there is no magic anywhere in the world. The continent of Mu is almost entirely destroyed, with only the distorted space around R'lyeh surviving. (Vague memories of the Lemurian Empire endure, however, in tales such as Atlantis, Brigadoon, and El Dorado.) All demons, angels, and gods in the mortal world are forcibly discorporated, and all their thralls die, as do all creatures whose life depends on magic: vampires and other monsters collapse into dust, dragons dissolve in fire, and so on. Faerie is disconnected, and any fey in the mortal world collapse into dust as well. Everything built with magic is destroyed, every spell breaks. Anarchy, plague, and famine erupt. Another Age of Chaos begins as the world is literally knocked back into the Stone Age, and magic is almost entirely forgotten.

~5,000 AL: Agriculture reinvented in the Levant.

~6500 AL: Jericho, oldest city of the post-magic world, founded. Balance begins to shift away from chaos.

~7000 AL: Settled farming along Nile Valley, precursor to Ancient Egyptian civilization.

~7400 AL: Agriculture reinvented in Indus Valley.

~8500 AL: Rice farming invented in China. First Chinese city, Chengtoushan. Balance is now tilted more to order than chaos.

~10,000 AL: Maize farming in Tehuacan--the first farms in the New World.

~11,500 AL: The world is now clearly in a Rising Age, as Sumerian (Central Asia and Middle East), Egyptian, Indus Valley (India), Chinese, and Norte Chico (South America) civilizations flower.

~11,500 AL - ~17,000 AL: All of recorded history happens.

~17,000 AL (2017-18 CE): Karnath, a lust demon, is summoned to Earth by Christina. Events of Incubus.