The History of Pirates of the Bronze Sky

Just so you know, we at LPJ Design have been working very hard on Pirates of the Bronze Sky. Chris Field has turned in the rough first draft of the setting which is already 70,000 words. So this upcoming sourcebook looks like it is going to be much longer than I initially though. Which is good for you players (more exciting content) and bad for us (How many pieces of art are you going to need???). So I thought you might find it interesting to take a look at historical breakdown of the last 6,000 years. Hope you enjoy.

Sky Reckoning 
The Sky Reckoning is the current Monarchist calendar, and has been used without significant change for more than seven centuries. It is a solar calendar of thirteen months, alternating between twenty three and twenty four days, giving the gas giant a year 306 days long.

Year Zero of the Sky Reckoning calendar is based on the year of the great upheaval. No living being truly knows the date Nova Avalon took its current shape, but Monarchist theologians place this legendary event a little over 6,000 years in our past. The current year when the campaign begins is 6,111 S.R.

Other calendars in use on Nova Avalon include the Imperial Dynastic Calendar of Shan-Wei, which stretches back several millennia before Sky Reckoning’s Year Zero. The Tocarra’s Counting of Memory stretches back nearly fifteen millennia into pre-history, suggesting the great upheaval happened significantly longer ago than the Monarchy believes, if it occurred at all.

0 S.R. The Upheaval. Man begins to rebuild on the many sky-islands strewn across the living sky.

1,815 S.R. The Draaz Horde forms and enslaves several human and gnome-held sky-islands. No force can stand against them.

3,362 S.R. Thomas Sextus is born on the small island of Magistera in the enslaved human nation of Utherlon.

3,377 S.R. Thomas Sextus begins gathering an army of human rebels and raiding the Draaz Horde that occupies his homeland.

3,398 S.R. The Shan-Wei sell the secret of gunpowder trained musketeers to warlord Thomas Sextus’ human army. Armed with the new technology, Sextus formally declares war on the Draaz Horde besieging his birthplace.

3,405 S.R. The Conquest of Draaz. The human nation of Utherlon wins its freedom from the Draaz Horde and puts the orcs and bugbears to the sword. King Thomas Sextus I founds the Monarchy.

3,407 S.R. Orc and bugbear refugees fleeing Sextus’ forces descend into the upper tumult and found a colony on the floating rock, Skullcrack.

3,420 S.R. Gnome clans living in on the Draaz’ former sky-islands are formally welcomed into the Monarchy and become full citizens.

3,551 S.R. The Monarchy discover a chain of rugged and mountainous sky islands beyond the western borders of the former Draaz Horde. Monarchy explorers encounter the Kaylethon for the first time.

3,580 S.R. The first Kaylethon mercenaries serve with the Crown Marines.

4,000 S.R. In celebration of the fourth millennia since the upheaval, Queen Margaret Sextus VII signs the Laws of Monstrous Redemption, offering full Monarchy citizenship to the monstrous humanoids of the former Draaz Horde.

4,003 S.R. Queen Margaret Sextus VII dies suddenly. To this day, some suspect that her unexpected demise was the work of Gnomish prisoners, enraged at her passage of the Laws of Monstrous Redemption.

5,721 S.R. The sky-island of Avalon is discovered by the Monarchy vessel Merriment. The Monarchy’s explorers encounter Drow, Tocarra and other races native to Avalon for the first time.

5,725 S.R. The first Avalonian colony is founded at Sunfall Township, named for Captain Nathanial Sunfall, skipper of the Merriment.

5,739 S.R. Sunfall Township is destroyed by a Drow raid, its inhabitants slaughtered to the last child. Open warfare with the Drow begins.

5,743 S.R. Sunfall Township is reestablished by a generation of colonists and becomes a major trade hub. The new township lies nearly five miles from the haunted ruins of the original colony.

5,980 S.R. The pirate sanctuary of Lady Port is founded.

5,993 S.R. King Harold Retarius I institutes a bloody purge of Jada Rainbringer’s worshippers, executing more than 200 as witches and heretics. This Black Season only lasts through the Spring of 5,994 but has a lasting impact on Avalon.

6,090 S.R. Jenner Morris publishes Crafty Jenner’s Almanac, widely read by Avalonian colonists and farmers.

6,095 S.R. King Harold Retarius III takes the Monarchy throne.

6,100 S.R. Hoping to head off rebellion, Avalonian author, politician and captain Jenner Morris returns to the Monarchy to plead the colonists’ case directly before King Harold III. He is declared a traitor, and placed under house arrest at his Magistera estate.

6,101 S.R. Jenner Morris writes An Assertion of Our Rights, a scathing critique of Monarchist rule while imprisoned. His allies smuggle the manuscript out and publish it in Avalon, where it becomes the nation’s most widely read pamphlet, supplanting even the Testament.

6,102 S.R. Diplomatic relations between the Monarchy and its Avalonian colonies worsen, as King Harold III refuses the colonist’s request for representation in the Monarchy’s House of Freefolk.

Fearing rebellion, Crown Marines and Kaylethon shock troops are dispatched en masse to Avalon. Local innkeepers are forced to quarter the newly arrived troops, crippling their businesses and driving many to poverty. During the fall, the so-called Innkeeper’s Revolt occurs, as several furious innkeepers burn their establishments rather than allow Monarchist banks to foreclose.

6,103 S.R. High General Arthur Gruenwald of the Avalonian Militia engages Monarchy troops at High Harbor, officially beginning the Avalonian Mutiny.

6,109 S.R. Jenner Morris is freed from house arrest by a daring raid, and is returned to Avalon by allies, where he becomes a general under Gruenwald.

6,111 S.R. Current Year.

Keep checking back in all the more interesting things we are going to add to the Pirates of the Bronze Sky. Talk to you later…