Timeline question

1

On the website timeline, Burnt World of Athas the creation of the dray is listed as:

Guthay’s Fury (Free Year -1698)

After several more failures Dregoth succeeds in his experiments, and the second generation of dray are created in his own image.

Desert’s Fury (Free Year -1684)

After years of study Dregoth finally deciphers halfling records found in the caverns beneath Guistenal. The end result is the creation of the first generation dray, which Dregoth deems a failure and banishes to Kragmorta.

I don’t think this can be right, The second generation are created before the first generation? Does anyone know what is intended?

Maybe the years should just be swapped? But that seems like a fairly short interval between the two…

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@raddu These do feel swapped or something to me. Thoughts?

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I think it’s more than that. I’m kind of digging into it. I looked a the timeline spreadsheet in the PTDG folders and the SS has the 2nd gen line marked in red. with a note that it looks wrong. it has both lines as being sourced from CBtSS.
In that book on pg 92, (I’m skimming rather quickly) it mentioned that once the 1st gen process started it took another 200 years to figure out the recipe and then another 100 generations of failed 1st gen dray (2500 years??) plus a generation of humans. I’ll look in more depth

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So I dug a bit more into this:
I found these two sources the TL was created from decades ago:
This has a link to a rtf file that lays out the TL
https://web.archive.org/web/20000818060140/http://www.wizards.com/dnd/DnDDownloads_prev.asp

168th King’s Age (-1,694)

-Desert’s Fury

After years of study Dregoth finally deciphers halfling records found in

the caverns beneath Guistenal. The end result is the creation of the first

generation dray, which Dregoth deems a failure and banishes to Kragmorta.

-Friend’s Defiance

The thri-kreen prophet Ka’Cha begins the first of several journeys across

the Tablelands to spread the word of peace and enlightenment to the

thri-kreen, as well as other races.

-Guthay’s Agitation

After several more failures Dregoth succeeds in his experiments, and the

second generation of dray are created in his own image.

The second source is Flip’s old site:
http://meteu.octoraro.org/sands/timeline.html

it has the following:

168th King’s Age (-1,694)

-Desert’s Fury
After years of study Dregoth finally deciphers halfling records found in the caverns beneath Guistenal. The end result is the creation of the first generation dray, which Dregoth deems a failure and banishes to Kragmorta.
-Friend’s Defiance
The thri-kreen prophet Ka’Cha begins the first of several journeys across the Tablelands to spread the word of peace and enlightenment to the thri-kreen, as well as other races.
-Guthay’s Fury
After several more failures Dregoth succeeds in his experiments, and the second generation of dray are created in his own image.

Athas.org TL has the following:

168th King’s Age the year of Guthay’s Fury (Free Year: -1698)

After several more failures Dregoth succeeds in his experiments, and the second generation of dray are created in his own image.

read more…

168th King’s Age the year of Desert’s Fury (Free Year: -1684)

After years of study Dregoth finally deciphers halfling records found in the caverns beneath Guistenal. The end result is the creation of the first generation dray, which Dregoth deems a failure and banishes to Kragmorta.

read more…

168th King’s Age the year of Friend’s Defiance (Free Year: -1652)

The thri-kreen prophet Ka’Cha begins the first of several journeys across the Tablelands to spread the word of peace and enlightenment to the thri-kreen, as well as other races.

A couple of things: I am not sure if these dates have the correction for not having a year zero. and there is an obvious discrepancy between the Endlean Sofean cycles for the 2nd gen dray. it could be that the Year is pulling the Endlean/Sofean pairing from the incorrect year.
This was all being worked on by John Machielson but hasnt’t been touched in a few years. I had taken a look at it previously, so I am aware of some of the issue, but it would take me a bit to dig in.

it obviously needs the following:
Line up with what CbtSS says years-wise
set the year to the correct start Kings Age
tie all endlean and sofean cycles to the corresponding correct year.
Ensure year zero is skipped.

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5

This is what I would propose:

168th King’s Age the year of Desert’s Fury (Free Year: -1684)
After years of study Dregoth finally deciphers halfling records found in the caverns beneath Guistenal. The end result is the creation of the first generation dray, which Dregoth deems a failure and banishes to Kragmorta.

168th King’s Age the year of Guthay’s Agitation (Free Year: -1643)
After several more failures Dregoth succeeds in his experiments, and the second generation of dray are created in his own image.

This corrects the issue of the text stating that 2nd gen dray coming before 1st gen. It also puts 41 years between the last of the 1st gen dray and the 2nd gen dray as opposed to the current 14 years.

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6

It just occurred yo me to check the timeline in the v8 Rules:

Year of Desert’s Fury (Free Year –1,684) After years of study, Dregoth finally deciphers halfling records found in the caverns beneath Giustenal. The end result is the creation of the first generation dray, which Dregoth deems a failure and banishes to Kragmorta.
…
Year of Guthay’s Agitation (Free Year –1,643) After several more failures, Dregoth succeeds in his experiments and the second generation of dray is created in his own image.

So, I great minds I guess… :flexed_biceps:

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It makes me wonder if we have any other mismatches.

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Remember the love of every historian: Careful citation and brutal fact-checking.

There’s a reason why my catchphrase elsewhere is “If you can’t cite it, I won’t bite it.”

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