The history of the prime world has been divided into three “ages” by historians, plus a one-thousand year “dark age” from which no records remain. In actuality, these ages consist of several distinct eras, ranging in size from only a century to more than a millennium. A brief breakdown of the eras follows:

Calendar years are denoted with a roman numeral for the “age” followed by the year. Example: “III:1090” is the year 1090 in the third age.

This period of time is unknown to even the gods, as it is the time before the gods arrived at the twenty worlds. It ended when the gods gave the heaven spire to the prime world.

This era consisted of the rise of the first civilization. Very few records remained for the priests and scholars of 864 to use as a basis for the new calendar they were trying to develop. Thus, the year 864 was chosen as the best approximation, and was based more on legend than fact. The actual length of this era has been estimated as anywhere from five hundred years to two thousand years.

This era saw the founding of the first spire kingdom at its beginning, and the collapse of that same kingdom at the end. One of the many contributions of this kingdom was the founding of the first wizard's council: the order of the gûlaraî.

After the collapse of the first spire kingdom, a descendant of the first line of spire kings reclaimed the spire and its lands as part of the new Brúlan kingdom, forming the second spire kingdom. At the end of this era, a young member of the gûlaraî named Nakam Alkat was framed by the Ainagûl Psalor and cast out of the order by his peers. In the end, Nakam Alkat got his revenge on the order, causing the beginning of their end, and Psalor was cast out by his deity. In the resulting chaos, Brúlan was weakened and overtaken by orcs.

After a brief spire kingdom ruled by orcs, the kingdom of Kéaralor (“Bright Hill-lands”) reclaimed the spire for the humans and founded the third spire kingdom. This is also the time of the Pioneers and the D'Hari campaign.

Early in this era, Nakam Alkat was killed by a sword-wielding hero. Before his death, though, he made a pact with Hades to insure his “survival”. Thus, late in this era, Nakam Alkat returned as the undead Dark Mage.

In addition to inciting the barbarians to move on the civilized world, the “Dark Mage” deceived many prominent priests into thinking that their gods have turned their backs on them. The result lead to the downfall of more than one nation. When the spire kingdom itself began to falter, the aged king confronted the Dark Mage himself. In an act born of desperation, the king called upon his divine-given power over the spire to burn the mage from the face of the world. This succeeded, but the vane use of the gods' greatest gift forced it to crack, jolting the land around it with a massive earthquake.

The stunned spire king was then easily slain by the barbarian king (working with the Dark Mage at the time). The barbarian then took the Dark Mage's sword of fire: Alakîr Lubár for his own, not knowing that the mage was able to transfer his essence into it as he was being burned. Shortly thereafter, when the deceived priests began to denounce their gods, more than one god grew angry. In a great tribunal, the gods decreed that the magic shall be stripped from the world as a punishment.

Without magic, the world suffered greatly. Many nations supported in part by magic were left unprotected against the advancing barbarians. Many magic-based creatures grew sick or died, leaving a world populated almost exclusively by humans. In an effort to protect their races, Corellon and Gruumsh construct two gems to contain the essences of their respective races: elves and orcs. The result was a gradual transformation to humanity for both races. Similarly, the dragon gods constructed the eight orbs of the dragonkind to keep the dragons alive. Unlike the two other gems, though, the orbs allowed for all true dragons to remain alive, albeit at a significantly reduced power level.

The last vestige of civilization, kept alive despite its lack of magical defenses, was the Tower of the Lords, Maíl Lúral. This great tower finally was overtaken in the year 3028. Beyond this point, no written records remain. Tradition says that this era was exactly 1,000 years long - however there is some controversy about this figure among historians.

This era began when the thousand-year “dark age” was ended by the gods. In a sudden influx of mana, many features that once were dominated by magic were found to have changed. Where the ruins of the original spire city lay, a city sprang up almost overnight. The people nearby immediately settled it and called it Larum. Meanwhile, many a surprised human found their features gradually flow back into those of an elf or orc.

The newly-revived elves were lucky enough to possess not only their racial weapon: Mancú Rilmaeg, but also the great gem of Corellon: Luinmîr. The wielders of these two artifacts were a man and woman who were wed and formed the great elven kingdom known thereafter as Formlondë. The orcs, similarly armed with the gem of Gruumsh, formed their own alliance, though it was not as strong due to their in-fighting. Never-the-less, they posed enough of a threat to the elves to fight the great battle of Barámon (the spire hill), when both races decided to claim the still-cracked heaven spire. The orc's leader, known as the “one-eye”, was slain in this battle by the elvish king armed with Mancú Rilmaeg. In the end, the orcs were barely beaten back and the elvish queen called on the power of Luinmîr to heal the spire. This all took place in the year 112, and the fourth spire kingdom was born.

With the heaven spire restored, the Dark Mage re-formed. The wielder of Alakîr Lubár, a prominent barbarian, found himself overtaken by the Dark Mage's mind, and travelled back to the Dark Mage's still-standing castle. While the mage rebuilt his body and power, the elves rebuilt the Tower of the Lords and named it Minas Moríant (“Tower of Bridging Darkness”).

When the human hero Brant of the North Hills found the great sword Kelva, the humans were able to reclaim the spire. Due to the elves' short tenure and the peaceful exchange that occurred, historians consider the elvish spire kingdom and the human kingdom that replaced it to be one and the same. Meanwhile, by the year 119, the Dark Mage had established his usual foothold, and had made yet another deal with Hades. This time, his twelve closest followers were transformed by the god into "demonwraiths", creatures half-demon and half-undead. Then, the Dark Mage constructed a magical medallion and scepter for each, plus a master set for himself.

Armed with these, the twelve terrorized the world until the year 140, when the Dark Mage was struck down suddenly by the combined power of the wizard Kwalish and the time-displaced Lord Ozzie (see Era X and XI). Kwalish then destroyed the master medallion, causing the simultaneous, but temporary, discorporation of the twelve demonwraiths. Seeing no easy way to destroy the scepter, and fearing its power would eventually revive the mage, Kwalish cast the master scepter into the timestream, hoping it would never be found. Lord Ozzie then burned the Dark Mage's corpse with the sword of fire and returned to his own time with the sword.

The twelve leaderless demonwraiths tried in vain to summon their master, and eventually went into hiding to await his return. They did emerge, though, and acted on their own at the end of this era. In a series of battles, ending with the great Dagórmarth (Battle of Doom), the spire kingdom was brought to its knees and the great sword Kelva fell into the hands of the demonwraith's leader.

Without the sword Kelva, the heirs of Brant were unable to reclaim the spire, and no spire kingdom existed during this time. The greatest nation in the world became Arral, in the plains of the "southern" continent. The demonwraiths, armed with the sword and guarding the spire, surprised everybody by doing nothing. The elves form the Rimtiír (“watchful numbers”) to keep tabs on the twelve, but nothing changed for centuries.

In the year 1719, the demonwraiths found the master scepter and revived the Dark Mage. In one of the greatest mistakes ever made by the overconfident mage, the spire was abandoned. For years, the twelve ravaged the world, bringing it to its knees by the early 1800's. Then, in 1821, a hero named Egmont of the great vale (the coastline where Larum was) succeeded in wresting the sword Kelva from the demonwraith leader. The elven king Taulauren, armed with Mancú Rilmaeg, and the dwarvish king Môrgli, armed with the axe Rûklil joined forces with Egmont to vanquish the twelve once and for all. This quest consumed the remainder of Egmont's life, and when the hero finally died in 1866, only eight of the twelve had been sealed in their makeshift tombs. Egmont's grandson, Osbert, though, carried on where his grandfather had left off and brought the final four down by the year 1927, when Osbert died.

Meanwhile, the Dark Mage was faced with a diminishing roster of demonwraiths and so in 1898 made a pact with the orc one-eye. The orcs then began heated attacks against the human nations. The current Ainagûl, Aurén Ilay responded by taking steps to destroy the mage. Ilay constructed ten artifacts, designed specifically for use by the elf- king Taulauren. With these artifacts, Taulauren would have been powerful enough to destroy the Dark Mage in combat. However, unknown to Aurén Ilay, the Dark Mage had acquired from the orc one-eye the gem of Corellon. Its power was such that no elf could harm its wielder.

In February of 1929, the Dark Mage refused to grant the orc one-eye certain promised provisions and so the orcs rebelled against the mage. As punishment, the mage killed the one-eye and massacred hundreds more. This act so angered Gruumsh that the god defied the agreed rules of divine intervention and confronted the Dark Mage himself. Hades noticed the intervention and granted the mage the power to confront Gruumsh on the same power level. The result left a badly beaten and enraged Gruumsh fleeing for his life.

Seeing their opportunity, Aurén Ilay sent Taulauren against the weakened Dark Mage, but the elf-king found himself powerless against Luinmîr. In desperation, Aurén Ilay stepped in himself and struck out with the Demon Dagger, specially enchanted to imprison the mage. Meanwhile, Gruumsh, blinded by his rage, diverted a handy, nearby meteor to impact directly onto the Dark Mage's castle. So powerful was this impact that it devastated not only the castle, but all land for sixty miles in all directions. Ironically, the Dark Mage was safely imprisoned at the time and so avoided the blast. Aurén Ilay, though, was not as fortunate.

The crater left by the impact quickly filled with sea water, sending an enormous geyser of steam into the atmosphere for days. All life on the eastern half of Immenri was snuffed out. Those left alive on the western half were either killed or forced to flee within a year by the sudden climactic shift. The great nation of Arral, along with the Syiin Empire both collapsed when earthquakes and downpours cast several cities into chaos. It should be noted that magical protections became undependable when vast quantities of mana were diverted by the gods to stem any further destruction. Within ten years, the Arral Empire was in ruins and its surviving populace were fleeing the encroaching desert.

This era is characterized by the formation of numerous nomadic and barbaric tribes and the painfully slow restoration of civilization. With the shift in climate, the lands previously inhabitable became all but unlivable. The northern continent became arctic tundra and the great plains of the main continent became a vast desert. The strips of land along the north and south of the main continent as well as the eastern continent became the main centers for life.

At the beginning of this era, the great warrior, Scardore, Lord, unearthed the good trio of might and brought four rival barbarian tribes together to form the kingdom of Backbone. He declared that although the heaven spire was lost in the explosion, this kingdom would become the new spire kingdom and he constructed a scaled-down spire in the mountains overlooking the city as a symbol. The mountains themselves were dubbed the “Backbone of the world”, thus the kingdom's name.

Scardore's reign lasted for only a few years before he was assassinated and the good trio stolen. Never-the-less, the kingdom flourished under his dynasty, and slowly it grew, inspiring the formation of other nations as well.

In the year 1094, a hero magician named Sorgul was trapped by Hades and forced to become the thirteenth demonwraith: Solgar. Through him, Hades was able to free the Dark Mage in the year 1098. The twelve demonwraiths, whose imprisonment spells had faded over the years, were also freed during this time. Thus, the great kingdom of Backbone fell to the twelve.

In 1104, Solgar was restored to his true form by his goddess Bast. Together with the heroes Lord Ozzie, Rathwyn, Sly, Karelia, Cale, Strachan, Lord Norwood, Tarialaî Thoranna, and Wacarnelian Medibeard, Sorgul was able to retrieve not only the good trio of might, but also the three disks and the eye of Odin, and the three racial weapons: Kelva, Rûklil, and Mancú Rilmaeg. With these tools, the heroes were able to permanently destroy the Dark Mage's master scepter in 1104 and vanquish the mage and his twelve demonwraiths in 1105. (For more details, see Recent World History).

Only three years after the defeat of the Dark Mage, the world was thrown into a new kind of chaos when the Shadowlord overthrew the Elemental Lords and converted the Elemental World into pure Shadow (a substance comprised of an equal mixture of all six elements).

This had the effect of altering the nature of magic throughout the twenty worlds. While most wizards were able to adapt to the new magic, the time it took some of them upset the balance of power considerably. Because of this, the Council of Wizards were unable to meet for over a year.

Now, the events throughout most of the world are characterized by reconstruction in the face of the devastation brought by the Dark Mage. With the fall of the kingdoms along the north coast of the main continent, the most prominent kingdoms became Rota (on the eastern continent), and the Spindrift isles.