Black Desert/Timeline
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Timeline
the history of the world, in order
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Valencia City, seat of the House of Nesser From the Adventurer's Guide, Pearl Abyss
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| Type | In-world chronology |
|---|---|
| Calendar | Elionian, with an older Kabuanian reckoning |
| Turning point | The plague of 235 and the war that followed |
| Present day | The 280s, when an adventurer arrives |
| Covers | All eleven regions |
The timeline of Black Desert is the in-world history of the continent, running from an age nobody now remembers to the years an adventurer walks into.
Dates are given in the Elionian calendar, which nearly every region uses. A few of the oldest events are recorded instead in the older Kabuanian reckoning, and the two do not line up. The earliest entries here therefore sit outside the sequence rather than at the start of it.
The history is not evenly distributed. Half a century between roughly 235 and 286 contains almost everything the game's story depends on, and the centuries before it are thin by comparison.
1 Before the kingdoms✎
The oldest recorded event belongs to the Kabuanian calendar. In its year 286 the world turned on itself, people attacked one another with strength they should not have had, and figures called the Edana put an end to it using black stones. Their civilization vanished afterward and left a sealed chamber in southern Balenos that nature spirits are said to guard.
A meteorite had struck the land that became Valencia long before that, breaking apart and scattering the fragments that came to be called black stones. An earlier Valencian civilization used them as a power source and was destroyed by them, leaving the ruins that still litter the desert.
In Kamasylvia the goddess Sylvia came down into the forest, planted the Kamasylve and blessed the land with the sun and the moon, from which came the Ganelle and the Vedir.
2 The kingdoms✎
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 135 | Noir Bartali III founds the Kingdom of Cron in Balenos and builds Cron Castle. He later seeks immortality, and the summoning he attempts destroys the castle, the country around it and himself. Survivors gather at Velia. |
| 185 | The Sherekhan, changed by dragon's blood, settle east of Drieghan under Akum. Drought kills most of them within a year, and Akum's dying instruction sends the survivors wandering with a dragon's tooth. |
| 226 | Rain falls after forty years and does not stop. The Sherekhan settle where it lands and found Duvencrune. |
| 233–236 | The reign of Imur Nesser in Valencia. He massacres the Aakman after failed negotiations. |
| 235 | A plague out of the desert kills more than half the population of the western continent. Elionian priests blame Valencian alchemy worked on black stone. Drieghan organizes its five territories in the shape of a dragon. |
3 The war with Valencia✎
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 236–267 | Calpheon wages war on Valencia for thirty years under King Dahad. A sandstorm swallows Dahad and his army in the Great Valencian Desert, ending the campaign. Imur Nesser names that ground the Red Desert. |
| 264–267 | Natural disasters drive barbarian peoples west. Fogans and Nagas out of Valencia settle the southern swamps of Serendia; Sausans and Helms settle in Mediah. |
| 265 | Crucio Domongatt takes the Serendian throne at twenty-seven and sets out to free the kingdom from Calpheon's influence. |
| 270–282 | The reign of Torme Nesser, the oldest king in Valencian history. Trade in black stone makes the kingdom wealthy. |
| 274 | Guy Seric of Calpheon seeks a military alliance with Kamasylvia for its archers. |
| 275–276 | Calpheon declares war on Serendia over the black stone found in its swamps, takes Heidel and imposes a humiliating treaty. Balenos surrenders without fighting. |
4 The years of collapse✎
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 276 | Queen Brolina Ornette inherits Kamasylvia as it slides toward civil war. Ahib fleeing that conflict cross into Drieghan and expose how little it can defend itself. |
| 277 | Illezra unseals the Book of Cartian. Mediah Castle burns and darkness covers the region for three days. Bareeds II dies; only his youngest heir survives. Mediahn soldiers occupy the ruin of Cron Castle. |
| 280–281 | Illezra leads the barbarians on Altinova. The guilds buy coexistence and Mediah becomes a republic under Neruda Shen. |
| 281 | Guy Seric dies in suspicious circumstances. The Calpheonite feudal order collapses and a council of all classes replaces the monarchy. |
| 282 | Sahazad Nesser becomes the sixth king of Valencia, without the golden key that legitimizes the succession. |
| 283 | Chamberlain Jordine's taxes provoke open peasant revolt in Serendia. |
| 284 | The Acher Guard defeats the Ahib and drives them southeast, where they build O'dyllita. The Ahib return strong enough to cut apart a Lemoria patrol at the Duzak Tunnel. |
| 285 | Serendia is weakened, poor and unsettled, and the disturbances around the Tower of Will begin. |
| 286 | Dragons are sighted over Drieghan and Chief Durgeff hires foreign hunters. Queen Brolina opens the borders of Kamasylvia and sends word to Calpheon and Drieghan. |
5 The present✎
The game begins at the end of this sequence rather than after it. Three of the four western powers have changed hands within a decade, Kamasylvia has just reopened, and the succession in Valencia rests on a key nobody can produce.
That is the point of arriving now. An adventurer walks into a continent where every settled arrangement is recent enough to still be contested.