The Fourth Time: Being an Account of the Reconstruction, and the Matriculation of the Younger Races

For centuries, the dwarven and elven races teetered on the brink of extinction as they labored feverishly to pass on all they knew to their respective successors, the halflings and the gnomes. Under the tutelage of the dwarves, the halflings grew into a race of travelers and traders, perpetually migrating in great caravans along the rivers and highways from one town to the next, slowly reweaving the web of civilization that had been destroyed in the Spellwars. The gnomes, learning at the feet of the elves, came to crave knowledge in every form, and together the elves and gnomes worked to return enlightenment to a world fallen into darkness.

In the early part of the Fourth Time, magic was anathema to all. It was magic that had fueled the empires of the Arcanarchs, magic that had led so many into hubris, and magic that had ignited the conflagration that nearly extinguished all life. The few wizards' towers that remained intact were razed to the ground by raging mobs, their treasure troves of hard-won arcane knowledge burned and scattered to the wind. Mystic artifacts were shattered by the scores, sometimes with catastrophic results: at least three cities were destroyed by arcane detonations when authorities attempted to dispose of powerful magic devices. This led to a change in policy: artifacts from the Spellwars and prior Times were to be sealed in hidden vaults, and all records of their existence destroyed.

But, of course, nothing stays buried forever. In time, a few scattered individuals, motivated variously by curiosity, lust for power, or simply the lure of the forbidden, began to research the foundations of magic again. Practicing in deepest secrecy, the arts of wizardry, druidism, and other forms of magic were resurrected by solitary practitioners or small cells. Some of these were rooted out by inquisitors and put to the sword, but others always sprang up in their place. As the decades and then centuries wore on and the horrors of the Spellwars largely forgotten, the taboo against magic lost its power. Finally, mortals dared to wield arcane, divine and primal magic openly again.

Peace has reigned for well over three millennia. To be sure, there are skirmishes among proud nobles, and provincial wars for pride and for territory, but most agree that mortals' taste for widespread warfare was burned out of them in the furnace of the Spellwars. But now change is coming again. Strange lights appear in the night skies, and astrologers say the Fourth Time is drawing to a close. What does this mean? What do the alien stars portend? What will be the character of the Fifth Time? None can say.