4000
At about this time, Witches in China are unified under the brutal rule of the Nine Centennial Empresses of Canton. (Each of nine cloned sisters is kept in hibernation, and thawed to rule for one hundred years.)
First Chimera produced by Nameless Imperial scientists as an intermediate form of life designed to be hardened against radiation and bioweapon spores lingering in old ruins. The Chimerae rebuild Richmond and other Downfall-damaged urban centers.
4400–4450
The Nameless Empire expands to Mexico, the Caribbean, and Brazil, and maintains transatlantic trade with the Witches of Europe and Africa.
4450–4500
The Nameless Empire suffers reformation under a Witch named Argyron Butler, and returns to the original Witch principles of nonaggression, harmony with nature, equality of the sexes, divorce, infanticide, and hatred of industry. De-industrialization and aggregation into communal farms carried out with ruthless efficiency. The Nameless Empire balkanized into Temple Priestking feudalism, and Witch civilization returns to its norm of continual civil war and bloodshed.
4460
First organized Chimerae rebel lineages formed in the Louisiana swamps as a tribe of escaped slaves under an Alpha named Remus.
4600
Polar caps melt. Coastal flooding. Famine. Witch population decimated, many cities abandoned, large numbers of nomads, scavenger bands, and pirates dominate land and sea.
4700
Rise of the mass-human sacrifice cults. Stepped pyramids raised in the jungles of Siberia and Canada.
4728
Montrose briefly (less than four months) thawed during this era, giving aid and education from certain near-surface Tombs in Mount Airy, teaching the Witches the basic principles of science and economics, in order to stave off a predicted civilization collapse. The attempt is unsuccessful, perhaps because he does not devote the requisite time to the project. His bio age still 44.
4730–4480
Plague of the Kuru disease (transmissible spongiform encephalopathy) decimates population, destroys Temple Priestking system. Medicine-Man interventions, hampered by quota rituals, aggravate rather than alleviate the plague.
4733
Melechemoshemyazanagual hibernates.
4460–4800
Uprisings and rebellions of the Chimerae, who are disease resistant to Kuru. Formation of the first Emergency Eugenic Command under Remus.
4800
Genocides. Chimerae spread throughout the Americas, first enslaving and later exterminating the Witches. Surviving Witches become the cattle, or “Kine,” of the Chimerae, in a cruel jest reflecting their animal totems: sheep, ox, goat, and so on. Note that the Kine continue to be longer-lived than the Chimerae.
4812
Suspinia hibernates.
4881
Battle of Antietam. Yuen hibernates.
4888
Defeat of the Final Sabbat at Buffington’s Island. Mass migration of Witches to China.
Age of Chimerae
4900
Proscopalianism (worship of the future) becomes the standard doctrine of the Command.
5000
End of the Centennial Empire in China. Chinese Chimerae erect a military dictatorship.
5100
Sino-Chimerae conquer the Russian steppes, Aleutian Islands, and Alaska. Western Chimerae conquer Western Plains to the Rockies.
5250
Western Chimerae conquer Canada prairies.
5250
Montrose thawed briefly. He releases scientists from the Tombs. Rediscovery of atomics. His bio age is 45.
5250–5290
Social Wars between the hemispheres end in Grand Alliance between the Oriental and Occidental Chimerae. Atheism decreed to be the compulsory religion of the Command.
5292
Anubis is allegedly from this era.
5300
Sino-Occidental Chimerical Alliance achieves conquests in Middle and South America, Pacific Islands, and South East Asia. Time of the Sea Chimerae. Vulpina is from this period.
5400
Third Space Age. Cities in Space. Space Chimerae created. All remaining nations conquered except Tibet. End of eugenic veteran-franchise form of government when all voting right suspended in favor of Eugenics Board directives. World Empire.
5480
Agathamemnon “Fairlock” Raeus elected Governor-Emperor, and dissolves the Eugenic Senate in all but name. End of the Republic. Daae hibernates.
5480–5884
Four hundred years of Chimerical World Empire.
5655
Phyle hibernates.
5700
Eugenic Emergency Command dissolved, forced human breeding program halted. Alpha class becomes inbred. Chimerae enter sharp population decline.
5884
Spaceport-Fortress Ravenna on Foehr Island assaulted by mercenaries, D’Aragó slain. End of the Third Age of Space. Fall of Richmond. Succession wars begin.
Montrose is bio age 46.
5884–5900
World Empire severed. Warring Bloodlines period. Egypt and the Middle East ruled by masterless Kine.
5900
Greencloak revolt among the Kine. Rise of the Natural Order in Mesopotamia.
5950
Larz hibernates.
Age of Nymphs
5990–6100
Natural Order spreads to all lands. Alpha and Beta Bloodlines absorbed or exterminated.
6064
Montrose wakes briefly for the Naturalists. First true Nymph, Rayura-Ah, created. Montrose is wounded by Sarmento, drawn away by Rayura-Ah and her two twin sisters to West Virginia, where he waits to be healed of his great wound. Montrose establishes long-standing treaties with Nymphs. His bio age is still 46. (This is the date Anubis correctly gives for when he learned the Natural language.)
6100
Asia depopulated. Cities fall into disuse. First living houses grown in Italy.
6226
Blight. End of the Living Houses period.
6300
Rise of the Tree Neural Net. War of the Trees.
6400
Pacifist outrage at the War of the Trees leads to the Infatuation (use of neural and amnesiac conditioning to deter violence). Illiteratization of Man. All religious and intellectual efforts discontinued. End of Matriarchy. World government passes to the Eldership.
6422
Oenoe hibernates for the first time.
6500
Neotany. Use of childlike neural structures in adults to condition the population to simplicity and trust in their Elders.
6600
Elders overthrown by the Nocturnal Council, night-adapted Nymphs conditioned to acts of terror to maintain peace and order, but who forget their dark crimes by day. (Nocturnal battle-cocoon metamorphosis establishes the basics of Hormagaunt biology.) End of Neotany.
6660s
Naturalist Weather Control begins to erode.
6700s
Summer Queens. Naturalists begin custom of annual hibernation to avoid winter.
6746
Oenoe is wakened by the Summer Queens during the “Wine of Violence” Crisis to aid in the spread of Wintermind techniques. It is during this time she teaches Del Azarchel the Wintermind techniques. Oenoe hibernates again.