Divine Period¶
Contested
This page is named in the open questions Fall of Sanctorum and SM and AL calendars are never related. Sanctorum is destroyed by a volcano in 513 or 514 SM in the Sanctuary Age chronologies and falls to the Araxians in 904 SM here; the Sanctuary Age Timeline itself has the city's ruins retaken and rebuilt in 522 SM, so the two may well be separate events, but no source says so.
"The Principate revealed that the Divine had left the earth and that the Empress would only return after the races were worthy of her again and the earth had been purified of abominations." — Factions of Proturas (S078)
The Divine Period is the sub-era of the Fifth Age that opens with the fall of Sanctorum and the end of the Sancturi Empire, and is named for the god who took the sky two years later. "Historians mark the end of the Sancturi Age in 904 SM when the capitol Sanctorum fell to an Araxian onslaught led by the Thur'arax Dread Overlord Nikee, throwing the already besieged Sancturi Empire into complete chaos that led shortly to its fragmentation" (S112). The Fifth Age Timeline sets the "Fall of Sanctorum" at 904 and the "Ascendance of the Divine" at 906, and runs the Divine Period from there until the Rift Period (S016). What the period looked like from Proturas, the last Kalari refuge in the north, is on the Rift Period page; the Divine as a god belongs to the Divine.
Fall of Sanctorum¶
The Sancturi capital fell to the Araxians. The Divine Alliance's own legend fills in the last days: "the empress had been slain and the great city of Sanctorum overrun" (S078). The Araxians "operate in swarms managed by Overlords. Their advance and expansion has been relentless, but have slowed recently. They consume the dead and recycle their organic material in spawning pits" (S112). Behind them stood an awakened Elder God: "Seth'Arax Awakened" is dated 721 in the Fifth Age Timeline (S016), and by the Divine Period "the Elder God, Seth'Arax is fully awake" (S112). The Proturan planning notes describe the result on the north shore of the Broken Sea: "the release of several of the Elder Gods is causing big problems … coupled with large scale invasions from the Araxian Empire have led to the fall of every human kingdom on the north side of the Broken Sea" (S076).
Ascendance of the Divine¶
"The appearance of the Divine Star (Sharuvas). A very bright blue star in the sky (City of the Gods). The God, known simply as the Divine has remade much of the City of the Gods. No one is sure how, but (heretical) religious scholars surmise the Divine was able to take over most of Kalar's old shards which held back doors into many of the other shards. It is also clear that the Divine displaced Arcantus and killed Arya" (S112). Arya "shattered her shard rather than lose it to the Divine, leaving traces on the material (The Blood of Arya)" (S112).
The Divine's great act was the Redemption, which "destroyed all Hollows and removed Mithis from the world", tearing the Mithis Plane out of the Material as the Rift (S112). The Divine rules through the Divine Authority, "fanatically Orthodox", for whom "all other Gods are forsworn enemies and their followers are heretics and infidels", and through the Divine Nations of "Humans, Wood Elves, Hill Dwarves, Halflings and Oesterkull" (S112). "Everyone thinks Pravustiratel was betrayed and killed by the Dark Gods … when in fact he made a secret pact with Sharuvas and is now the Chosen of the Divine" (S112). The Divine Period is the "Age of the Divine" of the Post-Sancturi notes, in which the Divine heads the list of the sources of magic and the Divine's ascendants, "each … a dragon of various colors", live among mortals (S112).
The Unholy Flight¶
"The great exodus was led by two High Precepts from the Houses of Sidcarnon & Barahd, along with the Principate of the Sages. In the last days of the Sancturi Empire, when the empress had been slain and the great city of Sanctorum overrun, they organized an exodus, taking the Sanctoric Cartus / Elysium's Gate (their sacred text) with them to keep it safe. After brutal fighting, some of it against the other Sancturi who saw them as deserters who should ascend to Elysium with the Empress, they made their way north with a caravan of refugees and founded the kingdoms of the Divine Alliance. The three kingdoms, Lorsythe, ?? and ??." Having "purchased their refuge with all their belongings and in some cases their own freedom, they were a broken and destitute people. For their sins (of blasphemy and desertion), both High Precepts were executed and their corpses (skeletons) remain on display in the Divine Temple. Most followers of the Divine attribute their difficult circumstances as divine punishment for this original sin." Since the Principate's revelation that the Divine had left the earth, "they have been ruled by a Prophet/Prophetess who communicates the will of the Divine" (S078).
Lorsythe "was becoming increasingly orthodox in its worship of The Divine. Kalari and Spellcasters were declared pagans and Uk'Zerai as heretics", which drove many into Proturas and led to the Lorsythian War (S107). The Divine Alliance ended as a faction of Proturas, "absorbed when the southern lands were overrun" in the Second Araxian War (S078, S107).
Earlier accounts¶
The Proturan campaign ballot of 2022 (S077) placed its setting "post-Sancturi era (the fall of the Sancturi Empire)" and "following the Second Araxian invasion", with Proturas "the last bastion of the Kalari races in the north-eastern part of Astia"; the 2023 lore fixes the fall at 904 SM and names the Araxian commander.
Gap
The two unnamed kingdoms of the Divine Alliance are "??" in the source. No source gives the length of the Divine Period or the date in SM at which the Rift Period begins; the only later date is the "Fall of the Northern Kingdoms" in 1210 (S016). The "Fall of the Sanctuary" and the Worldstone shard said to have been lost in it are recorded in session documents outside this shard and are not covered here.