I like to maintain a one-to-one relationship between time in the real world and time in my campaign world. A rough approximation of this correlation can be had by subtracting 10 from the last two digits of the campaign calendar to obtain the last two digits of the real year. Thus, 1090 corresponds to 1980; and 1129 corresponds to 2019.
NOTE: This is an abbreviated version of the Good Party Calendar and it lists events that predate The Great Retcon – so some (many?) of these events never occurred
The campaign begins. The Good Party (consisting of Sorgul, Sly, Rana, and Ozzie) meet and kill the sorceress Elarion. They begin the quest for the ten artifacts of Aurén Ilay.
In a surprising assault, orcs under the leadership of Sardul attack the kingdom of Backbone and deliver a serious blow to that nation's power.
Sardul's orcs march on Backbone, the capital city. Sardul calls in assistance from the great dragon Kragnor, whom the mage Edric chases away. Edric then takes the battle to Sardul and the two wizards exchange powerful spells of entrapment. In the end, Sardul is imprisoned within Edric's own body and their two souls become entangled. The orcs are driven off once their leader is vanquished, but the kingdom is terribly weakened.
Controlled by the wizard Pelham, the generals in neighboring Lowland stage a military coup, imprison their president, and send their armies and navy to attack Backbone. Rota's navy comes to Backbone's aid, though, and the invaders are repulsed.
Meanwhile, the Good Party begins collecting the ten artifacts. By the end of the year, four of the artifacts have been recovered and Edric introduces himself to the party. His soul curse with Sardul can only be remedied with the combined power of the ten artifacts. As fate would have it, Karelia, acting independently, stumbles across the Demon Dagger, one of the ten artifacts (though nobody yet realizes this).
Karelia and Rana find two magical swords (they are gifts from their god, Corellon). The ladies explore an ancient keep, sunken beneath the surface of a lake and accidentally release one of the Dark Mage's twelve Demonwraiths (imprisoned over a millennia ago). The Good Party, meanwhile, continue tracking down the artifacts of Aurén Ilay. By the end of the year, they have found four more, leaving only one left (plus Karelia's dagger).
While in the Southlands, Wizard and Neville tangle with a local influential magician and find themselves in jail.
In the political arena, Lowland withdraws in disgrace after losing the war with Backbone, and the country is torn by civil unrest. The republic's defenses are in shambles and an army of orcs stream in (left over from Sardul's failed invasion of Backbone).
With their cousins in control in Lowland, the orcs east of Larinday decide now is the time to invade. After a two-night siege, the city is nearly defeated, but the orcs are forced to withdraw.
Karelia and Rana share a bizarre quest to retrieve the Gem of Corellon from the clutches of the orc high-priest Qôc Lômé. With the help of the immortal high elves Alatar Celebel and Celebsûl, they defeat not only the orc priest, but also the demons Kalagúrth and Gkîlarrzá. Karelia returns the gem to Corellon at the Throne of Ilay.
The Good Party find the ninth artifact and Karelia provides the tenth to help free Edric of his soul-curse. Instead of destroying Sardul, though, they free the imprisoned Melchar and imprison Sardul in the artifacts. Edric begins his quest to destroy the artifacts and thus destroy Sardul forever.
The day after Edric is freed of Sardul's curse, Pelham uncovers a source of tremendous psionic energies and draws it forth, bringing a dark storm cloud of evil down from the northern continent and planting it over the city of Lowland.
One of the Demonwraiths encounters Pelham while on a quest to recover his hidden scepter and revive his eleven comrades. Pelham, with “encouragement” from Hades, offers to help, but Lord Ozzie infiltrates their operation to stop them. Instead, Ozzie is captured and Pelham puts in his mind a powerful suggestion to kill Edric. When the moment comes, though, Ozzie resists the suggestion and Hades is forced to intervene to see his plan succeed. Sorgul, not knowing who his opponent is, psionically dominates the god, and forces him to release Ozzie from his compulsion. By the time Hades breaks free of Sorgul's control, Edric's wife Tacey has appealed to the goddess Aphrodite for assistance and Zeus steps in to stop the whole affair before real damage is done. The ensuing lightning bolt pierced a hole through several layers of the castle and to this day, no mortar or stone will stay in place as a patch.
The heroic years of the Good Party end suddenly on July 21, when Sorgul is trapped by a vengeful Hades, slain in the god's underworld realm, and brought back from the dead as the thirteenth Demonwraith: Solgar.
November – Lord Ozzie disappears into the time stream with Kwalish's Great Transport. He eventually encounters Parádoxa for the first time and has a few adventures in the past before returning in 1104.
December – Solgar recovers the Dark Mage's scepter from the ruins of the mage's castle in the center of the Dark Bay and unknowingly becomes the mage's host, setting the stage for his eventual revival.
February – Sly marries Rana and the two retire to Lendore Island.
April – the orcs push the druids out of their grove west of Lowland. They migrate north to the island of Marshard.
May – Karelia and Norwood delve into the underworld on a quest for “the crystal of Vakdra”, which is actually a powerful artifact called the Eye of Odin. In August, the two follow their quest to the adjacent world of Greyhawk, where time runs at a different rate. They will not return until late in 1104.
Pelham begins building the Storm Towers on the pretense that they are to be used as watch towers. Later that year, the Dark Mage emerges from Solgar for the first time.
The last and most powerful of the twelve demonwraiths is revived.
Queen Carina II of Rota confronts Solgar in an attempt to destroy him. The Dark Mage emerges once again and the queen is killed. Her son, Galin, only nine years old, assumes the throne under the guidance of his father, Vyner.
With the storm towers completed in Backbone, Pelham expands the storm cloud to engulf Backbone.
As she is his greatest threat, the archmage of the Council of Wizards, Elsa, is killed by the Dark Mage, once again using Solgar as his pawn. Edric is elected by the Council of Wizards to become the new archmage.
The dwarves of Blanan are sealed in their mines by an errant wizard who has powers over elemental earth.
The orcs from Lowland, strengthened by the storm cloud, attempt to invade Backbone. The kingdom's champion, Lamar, however, learns the secret of the storm towers and removes a key tower from Pelham's web of magic. In desperation, with his armies weakened from the sunlight and facing annihilation, the Dark Mage imprisons Pelham himself in the key tower in Lowland. Pelham's psionic energies add to the clouds and it once again reasserts itself over Backbone. Shortly thereafter, the Dark Mage fully emerges from Solgar. As he is no longer needed, Solgar is released, but warned not to interfere in any way.
Weakened by the storm cloud's presence, and without the dwarves to aid them, Backbone succumbs to the orc armies in November. King Scardore and his champion, Lamar, are both killed. Edric and Tacey flee the kingdom to the safety of Rota.
With Backbone taken, the orcs concentrate on the elves in Pleven. By mid summer, they have flushed the elves out of the forests and pushed them back inside the city walls of Pleven. On July 24, when the orcs finally breech the walls, they find only a handful of elves remaining. The majority had vanished!
A half-orc named Uith, with the aid of a masterful illusionist, succeeds in a coup on Lendore isle. Uith kills the king and appoints himself the new monarch. A month later, a rebellion against him is crushed. Uith burns the docks of the capital city and moves his center of command across the island to Restenford.
Late that year, Solgar inadvertently annoys the Dark Mage and is imprisoned in a dimensionless void, but his mind is left free. It is, in effect, sensory deprivation that lasts nearly three years.
The natives in the Southlands overthrow the imperialist government and restore their traditional theocracy. They revive their ancient rituals involving human sacrifice and start with their previous rulers.
Galin, the boy king of Rota is married at the age of fourteen.
Galin's advisor, his father Vyner, is assassinated and the boy appoints an unknown to take his place. Many poor reforms follow and the great kingdom begins to decline.
April 8 – Galin's advisor is found to have used magical influences on the boy king. He is executed and Galin is encouraged to appoint a known man as his advisor.
May 29 – Rathwyn, completing a ten-year quest, enlists the aid of Edric and Sly to free Solgar from his imprisonment. Once out, they resurrect his undead corpse and do their best to restore his original psyche. It isn't until Bast herself draws his soul to her world that Sorgul is fully healed, though.
June 2 – Lord Ozzie returns from his time travels and begins his quest for The Great Map.
June 26 – The Godslayer makes his first advance into the world and his psychic attack kills every living creature in the kingdom of Resh.
August 2 – Lord Ozzie find the partially submerged ancient tower called Minas Moriant. Inside, he travels a magical powder that allows him to travel to the world called Xotei, where he finds the last piece of the Great Map.
August 5 – Lord Ozzie completes his quest for The Great Map, but draws the attention of the Dark Mage. The Good Party rejoins after ten years and begins their conflict with the Dark Mage. That same day, Tacey is attacked by one of the demonwraiths. She and Edric had developed a spell which would destroy a demonwraith, but at the cost of the caster's life. With no alternative, and facing death anyway, Tacey casts the spell. The Good Party and Edric decide to store the corpse of the demonwraith in the basement for later study.
August 6 – The Good Party find that one of the Demonwraiths has built what he calls The Slaughterhouse Device to drain the life essence from a person and store it in liquid form in a jar. In his hideout, they find thousands of jars of essence from all manner of creatures, including a Deva. Sorgul dominates the demonwraith and forces him to sit in his own creation, thus destroying a second demonwraith. They remove the Deva essence from the building in the hopes that they can someday restore the spirit of good to life.
August 7 – Captured by the Dark Mage, the Good Party face extinction. But, in a shocking move, Lord Ozzie throws the essence of Deva on the Dark Mage, thus imbuing him with the elemental goodness of the Deva. The resulting shock instantly kills the mage. Shortly after, though, the mage returns to “life”, but the shock of his disparate personalities is such that he splits into two separate beings: The Dark Mage, now more evil than ever, and Nakam Alkat, the good man whom the Dark Mage once was.
November 13 – The Dark Mage seeks out the challenge of the Dragon Arral so that he may learn how to find an ancient evil power: The Evil trio of might.
November 23 – While travelling through the astral plane, the Good Party finds an odd “crystal” of pure chaos nearly 100 feet across. Without knowing what it truly is, Sorgul casts his most powerful magical analysis spells on it and promptly goes catatonic.
November 28 – Back at home, Sorgul recovers and finds that his psionic powers have been scrambled.
December 2 – Uith, who is secretly allied with the orcs on Lendore, allows the orcs to take over.
December 4 – The Good Party and the mage Griswold Gildersleeve confront The Dark Mage just as he is about to imprison Uith in the storm tower on Lendore island. Never one to pass up an ideal opportunity, the Dark Mage grabs Griswold for the tower and the cloud crosses the ocean to engulf the entire chain. In the battle, Lord Ozzie sacrifices his great sword to destroy its nemesis, Alakir Lubar. As punishment, The Dark Mage takes Ozzie captive as he leaves the battle.
December 7 – The Good Party stage a daring raid into the Dark Mage's castle to rescue Lord Ozzie. In the process, they find The Sympathetic Search Device, a magic item capable of locating items similar to its key item at a great range. It's current key item turns out to be the elven bow, Mancu Rilmaeg. They take the two magic items with them as they leave.
December 21 – Karelia and Norwood return from Greyhawk with the Eye of Odin and Kelva, the sword of command.
December 22 – The Dark Mage, following clues given by the great dragon Arral, uncovers the evil Scepter of Might. Aware of its tremendous power, he immediately travels to Edric's castle to do battle. The archmage, not knowing of the scepter, casts the final spell that he and Tacey developed. The Dark Mage, though, deflects the spell with the scepter and Edric dies in vain. A young girl named Erin, with a powerful magical gift of sound, is able to stun the mage and he is forced to flee to his castle.
December 23 – the Good Party travel to the plane of Fire, battle Imix, the evil prince of Fire and recover the Evil Orb of Might so that it won't be found by the Dark Mage.
December 27 – “Wak” find the great axe of the dwarves, Rûklik.
December 29 – The Good Party are summoned by Claira, the Master Summoner, under control by a revenge-seeking Imix. In the ensuing battle, Claira uses the Eye of Odin to enhance her powers and pluck Tarialaî Thoranna out of the time stream.
December 30 – A fleet of warships manned by undead attacks the Southlands. The fleet was assembled in secret by the Dark Mage.
December 31 – The Dark Mage uncovers the evil crown of Might and uses its power to make a telepathic broadcast to the entire population of Rota. Widespread suicides are reported.
January 1 – The Dark Mage's fleet sets sail North, along the coast of the main continent.
January 2 – The Good Party, using The Sympathetic Search Device, built by the Dark Mage, discover the location of the Good Orb of Might. Before they can act on the information, though, the Dark Mage uses the power of the crown and scepter to revive the demonwraith that Tacey killed. Since it is already inside Edric's castle, the demonwraith takes advantage of his situation and steals the evil orb of might before returning to the Dark Mage.
January 4 – The Good Party finds the Good Orb of Might after a strange underwater adventure. Meanwhile, the Dark Mage's storm cloud suddenly expands to engulf Rota and most of the rest of the world.
January 5 – The Good Party travel to the storm tower on Lendore to retrieve a magical ring from the tower zombie that was once Griswold Gildersleeve. Once there, though, they find that the Dark Mage has planted the evil scepter of might in the tower to fuel his storm cloud. In his haste to spread the cloud, the Dark Mage neglected even the most basic magical protections. The Good Party remove the scepter and the global storm cloud collapses. Using the Good Orb, the Good Party then locates both the crown and the scepter of good. As a test of their worthiness, they are forced to fight and kill the demon lord Kost. Meanwhile, just one day away from Rota, the Dark Mage's fleet takes a sudden turn west along the northern coast of the main continent.
January 6 – The precognitive psionicist Sandra Middleham senses that the Dark Mage's fleet is going to make a swift and decisive attack on Rota. She tries to warn the generals in the city to prepare for attack, but she is successful only after convincing the heroes Cale & Strachan.
January 8 – The Dark Mage, his Demonwraiths, and the fleet arrive in the ruins of Resh, where one of the great portals lies. They prepare to open the portal wide and flood their army directly into the city of Rota. The waiting armies in Rota, though, beat them to the draw and step through the portal first. A tremendous battle follows and the combined might of the world's greatest heroes defeats the Dark Mage and his demonwraiths. Also, The Godslayer was using the opportunity of the battle to push his way into this world through the portal when Lord Ozzie broke the Great Map, disrupting the portal, and sending it back to its world.
January 10 – Feeling his job is done, Ozzie takes a sabbatical and heads south.
February 8 – Lord Norwood casts out the corrupt leadership in the Spindrift Isles and declares himself King.
March 23 – Rathwyn, funded by the King of Rota, leads the first of several assaults to retake the orc-held city of Backbone.
May 24 – Norwood, unable to hold the Islands together politically, reluctantly agrees to a de-centralization of power. The independent states of Midore and Aldore are created.
June 1 – The Good Party briefly re-unite (Ozzie reluctantly) in order to rescue an old friend, Tillinghast, that they were forced to leave in the Nine Hells. The demons in charge lay out a trap for the heroes by imbuing Tillinghast and several others with incredible powers of evil, which will only manifest themselves on return to the material world. When they do, though, Sorgul uses his one-time-only wish power to restore them to their rightful minds. When completed, the five rescued men retain their incredible powers and dedicate themselves to fighting evil. They are Tillinghast, The Captain, The Engineer, Shea, and Wassom.
June 24 – Rathwyn declares herself Queen and renames her capital city to “Edric”.
August 2 – Rathwyn, in a controversial move, institutes a bounty of one silver piece for each orc killed in the kingdom. In addition to ridding the region of orcs, the plan also gives the mercenaries something to do other than kill each other.
September 11 – Lord Ozzie finds the secretive "Asian" society in the south-east of the main continent.
October 16 – Ozzie meets the Rune-Mage and learns that it is actually “Wizard”, though Ozzie does not know the significance of this.
Spring – Several adventurers stumble into the sealed dwarven mines and disrupt the spell that had held the dwarven kingdom in stasis since 1098.
Spring – Katrina, under the authority of Queen Rathwyn, establishes an outpost on the King's Island.
May 17 – The heroes of the final battle are now scattered around the world, living their own lives. Suddenly, though, they each are presented with a projected image of the Dark Mage, declaring his return. Rathwyn is first to see it and so immediately locates Sorgul. He agrees to help, even though he has taken a vow of non-magic. While visiting Norwood, Karelia also learns of the trouble and is “invited” to help out. The assembled heroes fight a series of real, quasi-real, and fully illusory opponents before finally defeating the Dark Mage. As it turns out, the “Dark Mage” was Nakam Alkat, the good half of the mage's soul, who had gone insane. The heroes are forced to kill him. Wizard meets with the Good Party and Karelia whom he had not seen in many years. He talks to Karelia about rune magic (and a little about voice magic) and she becomes very interested.
May 20 – Pelham calls for a meeting of the Council of Wizards and suggests that all the heroes attend. Karelia refuses to go.
May 25 – The Council of Wizards convenes and Pelham unveils his new creation: the re-shaped body and mind of the evil wizard Sardul in the form of “Sardula.” Upon seeing Pelham, Mary freaks out and teleports away (presumably through time). Shortly after the conference, Ozzie is summoned away by Mary to the year 1090. Back then, he sees that Mary is only about eighteen years old and is battling Pelham. Ozzie defeats Pelham, but Parádoxa shows up and restores Pelham. As punishment, Parádoxa strips Mary of her memory and real name (Claira) and then sends Ozzie back to when he should be, although at Sly and Rana's castle.
May 26 – Mary shows up at Sly and Rana's castle and Ozzie casually calls her Claira. In flood of memories, she realizes everything that had happened to her.
July 8 – Ozzie travels to Cale & Strachan's castle to ask them to teleport him to Minas Moriant. They do so, complete with a boat. Ozzie dives into the submerged tower, finds the bowl of magical powder at its top and tries to use it to travel to the plane of time, where Parádoxa lives. He ends up on the ethereal plane, far from the prime material.
July 12 – Ozzie, having spent four days exploring the ethereal plane and its connections to the elemental plane, finally stumbles across the plane of shadow and goes there. Once there, he asks to see someone important, and is taken to the Shadowlord. Ozzie asks to be shown the way to the time plane, and the Shadowlord sends him back to the ethereal plane near a window to the time plane, after Ozzie agrees to be in the shadow lord's debt. On the plane of time, he meets with Parádoxa and the time lord shows Ozzie a possible future, including an aged Sorgul and a strange man with a metal patch over one eye, flying inside a noisy, metal machine. The three are battling at least two towering creatures who have no physical bodies and who are hard to look at directly.
November – StarHawk, Top, Shale, Syl, and Duncan meet and begin their adventures. They free Ashby, the storm tower zombie on Midore Island and his spirit tells them of the storm towers and the curse of the storm crystals.
March – Shale, StarHawk, Top, Syl, and Duncan travel to the King's Island where they meet Katrina. From there, the six travel to Edric and speak to the Queen about the storm crystals. After that, they hire The Major as a guide and set out overland to get to Lowland. On the way, they meet Brandy, and then rescue Arundel.
April 2 – The group meets the wizard Reglet in his flying castle. He brings them closer to Lowland, but will not approach too close because of Pelham.
April 3 – Late at night, the group has infiltrated Lowland, a city crawling with orcs and undead. They are challenged by Sardula and some of Pelham's servants. Sardula is decapitated in the ensuing battle.
April 4 – The group makes it into Pelham's castle and inadvertently give Pelham what he needs to lift the Dark Mage's curse of unlife.
September – The King's Island adventurers meet Lord Ozzie and (briefly) Sorgul.
November 14 – The Good Party begin investigating the disappearance of the elves and in the city of Pleven, they find a broken magical statue of Corellon with arms folded. Since it has something to with teleportation, they take the pieces back to Sly's castle for more experimentation.
November 20 – As the statue's magic is related to Rune Magic, they enlist the aid of Wizard to repair it.
November 22 – The statue is brought down south to Wizard's castle.
November 23 – As an experiment, Wizard draws the transport rune on the repaired statue and is sucked through an unexpected portal. All attempts to locate him and bring him back fail.
November 30 – After a week of careful experimentation, the only way to activate the statue is to spread the arms wide. With various stone shaping spells and telekinesis, they successfully open a portal to the Godslayer's world! Since the atmosphere on this world in inhospitable, the Good Party collapses immediately on stepping through the portal. They are rescued, though, by men from Earth who live in a crashed spaceship named Aquila.
30 January – Sorgul discovers that Lord Ozzie has a hidden power relating to the combination of positive and negative energy. While the combination normally produces an uncontrolled, violent explosion, when channelled into Lord Ozzie, it imbues him with tremendous powers. Sorgul carefully opens pinprick portals to the two energy planes and Ozzie gains modicum of cosmic power. Once he can control the reaction himself, Lord Ozzie begins draining the energies from the energy planes at a tremendous rate. The Godslayer's attention is drawn, and while it battles Lord Ozzie, the rest hurriedly get the people from Aquila through the portal to safety (including the computer core from the spacecraft itself). Before they can return to help Ozzie, the portal comes crashing down for good. The Gods immediately summon the Good Party to Godsland to debrief them. As it turns out, the portal linking the Godslayer's world into the twenty worlds has been destroyed and no life remains on the world. Lord Ozzie is dead. In addition, the Shadowlord has taken over all six of the elemental planes and now shadow is supreme over both the physical and spiritual elements. As a by- product, magic is irrevocably changed throughout the twenty worlds.
22 March – The Voyager crew ventures into the Underdark on a quest that eventually leads them to the Elemental Plane of Fire, where they disrupt the Shadowlord's plans and free Kossuth, the imprisoned Lord of Fire.
At the same time, the Council of Wizards meet on Lendore Island to finally discuss the change in the magic. However, the meeting's agenda is thrown out when Kevin Arcana reveals that he has taken control over the Twenty Portals, but will allow their use for anybody willing to cough up 150 gold pieces per trip.
The V2 campaign begins…
In May, the V2 crew helped Kevin Arcana release his inner demon to thwart the Yuan-Ti's plans to release the demon lord Sertrous on the world.
The V3 campaign begins…
The Backbone campaign begins…
The Cheraî Campaign begins…
Throughout the world, magic was supreme before 1108. The rulers of nearly every country owed their power to magic. Some were wizards in their own right, while others were merely allied with wizards. Armies existed, of course, but at the head of most divisions were sorcerers of one sort or another. Power was defined in many cases not by how many soldiers one had, but in how many magic items one had and in how many wizards one could command. In Backbone, shortly after the wars, the orcs outnumbered the humans by orders of magnitude. Yet, when Rathwyn led her troops in to retake the city, they defeated the orc masses using, among other things, the Good Trio of Might. Similar circumstances existed around the world. In Rota, several prominent barons held power because of their magic, both covert and overt.
When the magic changed overnight, wizards around the world were forced to retreat to safe havens. Some who had both enemies and no safe place to go were slain outright, though this was rare since wizards tend to collect enemies who are other wizards. By the summer of 1108, a level of equilibrium had been attained in the magical community. Certain people who had been prominent were suddenly powerless and others who were better at research leapt to the forefront. In the latter category is an enterprising man named Kevin Arcana. Shortly after the magic changed, he was able to fathom the inner workings of the twenty intra-world portals and now has established a seemingly unbreakable control over them. To his credit, though, he has revealed the locations of all portals at the Council of Wizards meeting in March, 1109 and allows for their use (for a mere 150 gp).
In Backbone, magic played a minor role in day-to-day life. Rathwyn's Good Trio of Might seems to have been weakened, but still remain a most formidable obstacle to any would-be usurper. One interesting side-effect of the conversion of positive energy is that the trio now seems to be “non-aligned”. While before they were distinctly “good” artifacts, they are now simply powerful artifacts!
In Spindrift, the situation is similar to Backbone. Norwood's sword remains unaffected, but since he rarely uses its power, the political arena remains as it was. One exception to this is that a rather prominent family in Restenford has suddenly become very quiet, while before they were vocal critics of Norwood.
The most dramatic changes seem to be taking place in Rota. King Galin is facing more and more challenges to his authority and some are coming from surprising sources. In the summer of 1108, several small clashes between neighboring baronies erupted. At the end of the campaign season, there appeared to be no end in sight. It is believed that full scale war could erupt by the summer of 1109.