History Of The Lords Timeline?

[caamora]

I also remember it being 2000 years between the RoD and TC's arrival.

[Damelon]

I think it was only 1000 years between the RoD and TC.

The era of the Old Lords was about 2000 years with Kevin being High Lord for 1000 of those.

[drew]

1000 years from RoD to TC sounds right.
500 years outside the Land
500 back in the Land.

500 years leaves plenty of room for lots of Lords and High Lords. The new Lords didn't live as long as the Old ones.

[Damelon]

There were about 20 New Lord High Lords, if the scene in Foul's throneroom is correct.

As I think about it, the first new lords were established about 100 years after the RoD.

[drew]

That would give them 900 years...about 45 years per High Lord...okay, I'll buy it.
Except the fact that in 900 years they only cracked One Ward!!
Plus Foamfollower was born while still in exile from the Land...I know the Giants are Long Lived, but he wasn't old aged..I walways guessed him to be about 400-500 years old-not 900.

Yeesh!--do you think SRD would give us a time-line in the GI if someone asked?

[Thaale]

It’s definitely 1,000 years between the Ritual of Desecration and Covenant’s first visit. Of this 1,000 years, for 500 the Land was largely unpopulated (still recovering from the Ritual), before the descendants of its former inhabitants began repopulating it from their exile beyond its bounds.

Somewhere there was a reference that the old Lords ruled for 2,000 years (Berek to Kevin). I’ll try to find that one and post a link.

So a timeline might look like this:


•King and Queen rule the Land
3,000 BT: Rise of Berek
•Berek founds Council
•Damelon succeeds Berek as High Lord
•Loric succeeds Damelon as High Lord
•Kevin succeeds Loric as High Lord
•Haruchai come east to the Land, enter Kevin’s service
•The Rise of Foul
1,000 BT: Kevin and Foul enact Ritual of Desecration. Land is barren for 500 years
500 BT: Land begins to be repopulated
Year 0: Covenant arrives in the Land; Lord Foul’s Bane
35 AT: Atiarin attempts to summon Covenant; Troy is brought to the Land
40 AT: Covenant returns; The Illearth War
47 AT: Covenant returns again; The Power That Preserves. Foul is enfeebled
•The Land thrives in Foul’s absence. Slowly he begins to recover
~1,800 AT: Foul has regained some strength. His Raver begins to undermine the Council and twist the Land’s history. The Clave is formed. Rise of the Sunbane
•Sunbane strengthens for centuries. Lore is lost, history becomes forgotten and/or twisted
~3,500 AT: Covenant returns to the Land with Linden; Second Chronicles. Foul is again weakened
~7,000 AT: Linden returns to the Land; Third Chronicles



We know that the Old Lords lived decades as other men live years. With this knowledge, we could estimate some of the first 2,000 years:

~3,000 BT: Berek becomes Earthfriend
~2,800 BT: birth of Damelon
~2,500 BT: Damelon succeeds Berek
~2,300 BT: birth of Loric
~2,000 BT: Loric Succeeds Damelon
~1,800 BT: birth of Kevin
~1,500 BT: Kevin succeeds Loric
~1,000 BT: an aged Kevin enacts RoD

This assumes that each man fathers his son at about 50 (biological) and lives to about 80 (biological). And I started with Berek being 30 (actual 30, before becoming Earthfriend), though an older age is probably more likely.

[Thaale]

Here it is:

"...Berek Halfhand was given the name Heartthew,and he became the Lord-Fatherer, the first of the Old Lords. Those who followed his path flourished in the Land for two thousand years."

www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0345348656/ref ... eader-page

However, searching for that 2,000 reference reminded me that the Haruchai had been in the Land for 2,000 years at the time of Covenant’s first visit. That’s about 1,000 years since the RoD, plus another 1,000 before the RoD. And Kevin was already High Lord when the Haruchai first arrived.

In light of that, Kevin obviously lived well over 1,000 years and thus lived decades as other men lived maybe half-years, not merely years. So scrap my prior rough estimate of the 2,000 years between Berek and the RoD.

Now, what I’ve always wondered about is, when were all those wars that Foul fought vs. the Old Lords-the ones in which he would always be met by the armies of the Land at Landsdrop? In the eras of all four of the Old High Lords? Did Berek face his armies? Did Kevin? Were some of these wars even before Berek’s time?

[Variol Farseer]

My guess is that Berek was a bit longer-lived than normal men – say, about as much so as the New Lords; Damelon, Loric, and Kevin lived successively longer as their command of the Earthpower improved.

I always figured something like this:

~3000 BT:Berek becomes Earthfriend. Some time after this he makes the Staff of Law and founds the Council.
~2900 BT:Death of Berek. Damelon becomes High Lord.
~2600 BT:Death of Damelon. Loric becomes High Lord.
~2000 BT:Death of Loric. Kevin becomes High Lord. Shortly thereafter, the Haruchai enter the Land and swear the Vow.

That puts the lifespans of the Old Lords in a fairly smooth geometrical progression. High Lordships of 100, 300, 600, and 1000 years: and the first four 'triangle numbers' are 1, 3, 6, and 10. Kevin must have felt old age weighing upon him when the Despiser revealed himself and the last war began.

[Kenaustin Ardenol]

Variol Farseers seems about the closest so far give or take varying ages for damelon and loric and bereks age being included when it shouldn't, theory is sound ages increasing as knowlege increases. heres the relevant time related quotes in one spot,

"Berek Halfhand was given the name Heartthew, and he became the Lord-Fatherer, the first of the Old Lords. Those who followed his path flourished in the Land for two thousand years"
"For a thousand years, Kevin stood at the head of the Council, and he extended the Earthfriendship of the Lords beyond anything known before in the Land, and he was greatly honored"
"Drool Rockworm, Cavewight of Mount Thunder, has found the Staff of Law, which was lost ten times a hundred years ago by Kevin at the Ritual of Desecration."
So the Old Lords ruled the land for 2000years after Berek the first thousand divided between Damelon and Loric, The second Thousand Kevin, then the R.O.D and another thousand years before Covenant turns up in which time the land has been resettled and the New Lords have set up shop.

[MrKABC]

I seem to remember it being mentioned that Valiant was the first of the "new" High Lords after the Giants delivered the First Ward. I'm not sure of the reference.

Wasn't the Oath of Peace first devised and administered "in the days of Valiant"?

I also seem to remember the figure of 1,000 years for the period between the Desecreation and LFB.

Actually, the only reference to High Lord Vailant (spelled like that, not Valiant) was referred to "a time not too long ago" when he came to the Council and resigned his High Lordship, setting a precedent.

The Desolation (The Land after Desecration) was said to last 1000 years. Which brings up a gaffe - Saltheart Foamfollower said he was born on a ship during the Giants' exile from the Land due to the Desecration. Did that mean he was 1000 years old? (or thereabouts)

The only reference to beginnings of the Oath of Peace was a generic statement of the New Lords undertaking the Oath to "forswear the destructive passions of our forebears" like High Lord Kevin.

[Thaale]

Vailant was High Lord about 100 years before LFB. He offered his resignation.

The Desolation (The Land after Desecration) was said to last 1000 years. Which brings up a gaffe - Saltheart Foamfollower said he was born on a ship during the Giants' exile from the Land due to the Desecration. Did that mean he was 1000 years old? (or thereabouts)

Yes, no gaffe. That's his age.

[Warmark]

why do the New Lords not follow from Father to son like the Old Lords? Perhaps they feel they are not wothy and must be chosen? "High Lord by choice of the council."

[drew]

I think the Old Lords ran things a bit differently.
For example there was no Loresraat...they learned what they had to learn from Berek.-He learned the Earthpower from the Earthpower himself..(and I assume the Sword knowledge from his years as a royal knight.)
There was no good reason for the new Lords to use Heredity to choose the High Lord-as they wanted to best current Lord as the the High Lord.

[Thaale]

Do we know that the Old Lords used a strictly hereditary rule? Certainly what we know of Damelon, Loric, and Kevin would seem to indicate that each man possessed enough mastery of Lore to be the High Lord under any system of choice.

Mhoram was the son of a High Lord, but that's not why he himself was chosen as High Lord. Heredity may well play a part in who has the abilities to become a Lord, but that's not the same as saying that the High Lord is appointed based merely on who his parent(s) are.

AFAICT, there is no reason to think the New Lords used any different system than the Old Lords did.

[Variol Farseer]

On the other hand, there's no reason to think the New Lords would have copied their system from the Old Lords. I don't suppose the laws of succession were written down in the First Ward, which (at first) was just about the only reliable source of information that the New Lords had on Kevin and his predecessors.

When one family is so obviously preeminent over all others as Berek's was over the Old Lords, a hereditary succession seems both natural and obvious. As long as the succession is never in dispute, no formal rules are needed. Think of the Old Lords as a family business, and the New Lords as a management team that took over the firm when the family had died out, and you may see what I mean.

[Thaale]

When one family is so obviously preeminent over all others as Berek's was over the Old Lords...

This is question-begging. In a vacuum, it could explain Kevin's eventual choice given his three predecessors, but the family wasn't "obviously preeminent," as High Lords, at the time that Damelon became High Lord. A heriditary scheme would already have to have been in place, unless Damelon himself had qualtities that made him a fitting choice from High Lord beyond being Berek's son.

[drew]

But lke I was saying-with no Loresraat, The obvious choice would be the son-If only because his aDad would have been teaching him Lore more than anyone else...Don't forget that during Bereks rein, they probebly travelled the Land, as there was no Revelstone, so with his son in tow, he would have learned much about the Earthpower.

[Variol Farseer]

This is question-begging.

I hardly think so.

In a vacuum, it could explain Kevin's eventual choice given his three predecessors, but the family wasn't "obviously preeminent," as High Lords, at the time that Damelon became High Lord. A heriditary scheme would already have to have been in place, unless Damelon himself had qualtities that made him a fitting choice from High Lord beyond being Berek's son.

Which is my point exactly. The talent for Earthpower seems to run in families to some extent (Mhoram's parents, for instance, were both Lords); and it appears to have done so pre-eminently in the case of Berek's line. If the fitness to be High Lord was hereditary, nobody would have stopped to wonder whether the title ought to be hereditary as well. It was a moot point.