Brief History of Faerie

WARNING: HERE THERE BE EXPOSITION~~ If you were linked here for a specific historical event, you can find it via the table of contents of ctrl+f/ctrl+g.

Written by invadersforever

Early History of Faerie

Before the Great Contamination

It is unknown if the Faerie Continent we know existed prior to the Great Contamination or its fallout. There are Pre-contamination era ruins that have been found in a few places, which confirms some of the land that is now Faerie supported civilizations.
ŞIV´IA is suspected to have been a moderately magical world, with roughly bronze to middle age technological and societal levels. Roughly three distinct civilizations have been cataloged in various parts of ŞIV´IA, though most of what we have is architecture and pottery.
One of the main Pre-Corruption sites is in the Desolate Expanse. This site appears to be a fort that was laid siege to by another army. While a large number of Dragon bones have been found here, the remains of any humanoids at the sight are much rarer, commonly fragmented, and ultimately inconclusive. Since we don't know what kinds of creatures populated the area, it is impossible to make reliable estimates on how many creatures died there.

The Great Contamination/ the Corruption

Recommended Reading: The Infinite Chain  (its short, but this will all make more sense with context)
All that is known about Contamination Era ŞIV´IA is it's connections to higher worlds, and its cooperation with several of those worlds to stop the Flow of corrupted magic down the chain. As a result of their success, many worlds were spared. However, ŞIV´IA took the full force of the continuing Corruption, which ultimately destroyed most of the life in the world. At some point after the Flow was plugged but before the Corruption was cured, many bridges to Faerie were closed. The reason behind this is unknown.
The corruption killed many billions of beings and drastically altered many worlds. As such, the exact facts are sketchy at best. Most ŞIV´IAN sources point to Io as the source of the Corruption. However, other sources mention damages to Glacier Dome which indicates either the Corruption came from higher up the chain or had some way of traveling back against the Flow.
Additionally, the cure is credited as coming from Mysterium, despite the paradoxical world having been first conceptualized several million years after the end of the corruption. This idea is thought to have entered public knowledge with the highly criticized and inaccurate play War of the Infinity Braid . The wider academic community has ruled this likely untrue. There is a small but growing group of academics who believe the Corruption was never cured at all, but that the worlds affected by it simply adapted to the new conditions.
Whatever the case, the civilizations that existed on ŞIV´IA at that time were destroyed. It took a long time for new life and eventually new civilizations to form.

Post-Contamination

After the Contamination was cured, the magical build up on ŞIV´IA allowed for the rapid development 

Pre-Empire Era Faerie

Early Dynasties

Mid-Dynasties

Late Dynasties

Post-Empire/Reconstruction/Modern Era