FIRST MILLENNIUM IC
1000: Emperor Ludwig the Fat grants an Imperial Charter and an Electoral vote to the Halflings of the Moot.
1001: Louis the Rash, son of Gilles, becomes a Grail Knight and is crowned King of Bretonnia, establishing the tradition that the king has to be one of the Lady's chosen. The Decrees of Chivalry are formalised.
1004: At the equinox of Tlac-Ipec, Lord Mazdamundi consults the plaques of Huatl. He raises the Grey Guardians mountain range in the path of a mighty Dark Elf invasion of northern Lustria. The plaque sequence of Huatl is realigned with that of Itza.
1005: King Louis of Bretonnia acknowledges Athel Loren as an independent realm, while the Wood Elves offer their friendship.
1011: Luthor Harkon creates an enchantment that lures ships that try to cross the Great Ocean to the Vampire Coast, where they usually shipwreck and are reanimated to serve in Harkon's army.
1017: Norse raiders establish a stronghold on Sartosa.
1022: Dwarfs develop the first steam engine.
1032: Skalf Dragonslayer becomes the king of Karak Azgal after killing the dragon Graug.
1053: Boris Goldgather becomes Emperor. He is widely remembered as one of the most incompetent and corrupt figures to hold the office.
1110: The Arch Lector of Sigmar is revealed to be a cultist of Slaanesh. The Imperial Court is relocated as a result.
[p]1111: The Black Death unleashed by the Clan Pestilens wipes out nine tenths of the Empire's population. Skaven erupt from their hidden tunnel systems and overrun the land.[1a] In Sylvania, the Necromancer Frederick van Hal raises a huge Undead army from the bodies of the plague’s victims and turns back the Skaven invaders.(1112 to 1124): Vanhal builds the fortress of Vanhaldenschlosse and carves out a powerful Undead empire. Over the following decade Vanhal, the remnants of the Empire, and the Skaven fight a prolonged war against each other. The war ends when Vanhal is assassinated and his Undead horde wiped out. The Skaven, weakened by their war with Vanhal, are defeated and driven back underground by Count Mandred Skavenslayer.
1115: The Skaven start to systematically enslave the surviving human settlements in the Empire.
1119: Gharad the Ox duels the hated Elector Count Wulfgang von Greihardt at Maulwurfbad and takes his victim's skull as a drinking vessel. During the duel, Gharad is astonished to be cheered on by the women of the township. Obscurely pleased, he leaves the town and its inhabitants intact.
1122: Count Mandred Skavenslayer rallies support from the Elector Counts and leads a crusade against the Skaven.
1124: The Skaven are finally driven below ground in the Empire in the Battle of the Howling Hills. Mandred Skavenslayer is elected emperor.
1125: Warlord Krricht Dwarf-slicer defeats all challengers to become the new Warlord of Clan Mors.
1127: By this point, Luthor Harkons Zombie Pirates are known and feared by the sailors of the Old World.
(C. 1112 to 1140): Forest Goblins emerge from the woods to fight the Shaven over the spoils of the plague-ridden Empire. All human settlements closest to the Black Pit, the sacred spider grounds deep in the Drakwald, are razed to the ground. The few survivors of those villages tell tales of spiders larger than houses.
1142: King Guillaume, the third Bretonnian King, defeats a large Orc army at the Battle of Armandur and drives out the last of the Orcs from northern Bretonnia. The last living Grail Companion, Thierulf of Lyonesse, falls in battle.
C. 1150: Ibn Jellaba of Araby treks across desert to find overland route into the interior of the South Lands. Encounters hidden Lizardman city of Zlatlan.
1152: Emperor Mandred is assassinated by the Skaven; the Empire fragments into self-governing provinces. Middenheim annexes Middenland, granting the Elector of Middenheim two electoral votes.
1167: Zandri is assaulted by a Black Ark of Naggaroth. The Dark Elves’ numerous War Hydras are only killed when Necrolith Colossi drag them into the Great Mortis River and drown them beneath the poisonous waters.st Bretonnia. He is met at Savage Point by a Bretonnian fleet led by Admiral Henri Lamorte. Settra's fleet is heavily defeated, but he escapes vowing revenge.
(1207 to 1244) Dieter Helsnicht is discovered to be a Necromancer and driven out of the Empire city of Middenheim. He escapes to the Forest of Shadows where he raises a large Undead army and attacks the Empire. He annihilates one Empire army that is sent to stop him, but is defeated at the Battle of Beeckerhoven by a combined Empire and Kislevite force. Dieter’s body is never recovered.
1237: The ruins of the temple-city of Xahutec are again overrun by Daemons. Unleashing Kroq-Gar to contain the threat, many Slann work to close the magical breach once more.
1240: Sartosa invaded by Corsairs of Araby.
1247: Tilean explorer Marco Polare reaches Cathay, and writes of the Skaven spying under the great city of Wei-jin.
1248: Count Otto von Luitpold’s prized antiquity collection is unsealed and put on display in the Altdorf museum, including the priceless Golden Death Mask of Khamut. Sensing the presence of the ancient artefact, a dozen Tomb Kings awaken from their slumber and together they lead their combined armies into the heart of the Empire to retrieve it.
1265: Faulk of Middenland begins a campaign to clear the Drakwald Forest of Beastmen. In response, Kartok Great-Horn unites thirty warherds and destroys Faulks army.
1275: The Lamorte family crypt is pillaged by grave robbers who steal the long dead body of Henri Lamorte in an apparently motiveless crime. Soon after, however, there are reports of a new and highly skilled Wight Lord commanding Settra's Undead fleet...
1283: A Storm of Magic converges around Averheim. The city is besieged by Lizardmen and several reptilian monsters. The men of the Empire manage to hold the walls long enough for the storm to disappear, causing the lizardmen to vanish.
1310: A series of earthquakes cause part of the Great Bastion of Cathay to collapse. A truly colossal invasion ensues as scores of the battle-hungry Kurgan tribes that roam the steppes flood into that rich and ancient empire. Hordes of Chaos Warriors battle legions of terracotta automatons attempting to shore up the Great Wall with their own clay bodies, mutated War Mammoths gore and trample whole regiments of one-horned Ogres, and in the skies above Daemon Princes duel with bejewelled Gold Dragons. The Cathayans ultimately blunt the invasion, but not before the Chaos horde has carved a bloody path into the heartland of the orient.
1321: Kalandrithir, the Great Golden Drake, awakens from his millennia-long hibernation in the Worlds Edge Mountains. For reasons unknown, the vast Dragon descends into the Land of the Dead and topples dozens of Quatar’s pyramids, obliterating whole dynasties of Tomb Kings whilst they slumber: Kalandrithir continues tearing the necropolis asunder until a Necrolith Colossus shoots the ancient creature through the heart with a single shot from a giant golden bow.
1344: The army of Gogrut the Unstoppable meets with the army of Thograt the Unmovable to launch a combined attack against Karaz-a-Karak. Disagreements about the name that their Waaagh! should receive lead to a bloody brawl that destroys both of their armies. The pile of greenskin corpses is named the Green Mountain.
1350: The Battle of Pine Crags. The dwarfs of Karak Norn are defeated by an army of Wood Elves.
1351: Luthor Harkons undead army marches from the Vampire Coast against the Lizardmen. His forces manage to topple Axlotl and loot it of countless magical artefacts.
1359: The Elector Counts finally manage to select a new Emperor: the Grand Duke of Stirland is crowned in Nuln.
1360: Countess Ottilia of Talabecland declares herself Empress.
1366: Tilean mercenaries fight on both sides in the civil wars that ravage the Empire.
1375: The Elector Count of Nordland hosts peace talks between the Ottilian and elected Emperor within Salzenmund. All within are slaughtered by a group of Khornate daemons. Both sides blame the other for having orchestrated an attack and the violence continues.
1396: Valkia the Bloody attacks Karak Ghulg, the northernmost stronghold of the dwarfs. Valkia invents the bloodraven, a technique to open a victims ribcage.
1414: The former province of Drakwald is divided between Middenland and Nordland.
1421: Reikland begins to invest into shipbuilding.
1425: Tournament of Ravola. Flower of Bretonnian chivalry beaten by Tilean knights, ending Bretonnian pretensions to domains in Tilea.
1435: Sultan Jaffar, a powerful Arabyan sorcerer, welds together a coalition of several desert tribes and expands his city state to a small empire with the capture of Al-Haikk, Copher. Martek and Lashiek. Legend speaks of him summoning daemons and conversing with spirits. The Skaven in Araby secretly ally with Sultan Jaffar, spying for him and murdering his rivals in exchange for warpstone.
1448: The Skaven manage to convince Jaffar that Estalia intends to attack Araby. The Sultan invades Estalia and captures Magritta. This begins the Araby crusades which eventually drive the Sultan's armies back to Araby and shatter the Sultanate at the battle of Al-Haikk.
1448 to 1450: The Crusades against Araby begin. Knightly Orders from the Empire, Bretonnia and Tilea take part, freeing Estalia and destroying Jaffar's empire. The Order of the Knights Panther and the Order of the Knights of the Blazing Sun are founded during the Crusades.
1451: The Battle of El Haikk. Sultan Jaffar is defeated.
1452: Knights Errant battle greenskins at the crossings of Blood River. Bretonnian knights build castles to hold back the many tribes of Orcs travelling up from the Badlands. Thus are born the fiefdoms known as the Border Princes.
1454: The Duke of Aquitaine returns from the crusades as a Vampire. Known as the Red Duke, he is finally defeated at Ceren Field and his body magically entombed.
1487: Dark Elf raid on Remas.
1489: The first Reikland navy is constructed to control trade along the Reik.
1492: Tilean explorer Marco Colombo voyages to Lustria, arriving on the fifteenth day after the zenith of the Itchli Star. This event is predicted in the Prophecy of Zhocl-Tlapoc. The explorer is present at the defeat of the Dark Elves at Tlaxtlan.
1493: A Dark Elf raiding force attempting to sack Tlax is defeated by Mage-Priest Xltoc.
1501: Sartosa recaptured from Corsairs of Araby by mercenary army of Luciano Catena.
1520: Gorthor leads one of the largest warherds of Beastmen into the Empire, bringing down two provinces and destroys Hergig, the capital of Hochland.
1524: Kislev is founded. The Khan-Queen of the Gospodars becomes its first Tzarina.
1527: The greatest Ungol city, Norvard, is conquered by Kislev and renamed Erengard.
1547: The Count of Middenheim proclaims himself Emperor. The Age of Three Emperors begins, with rivals in Middenheim, Nuln, and Talabheim.
1550: Middenland becomes a separate Province of the Empire. Dwarfs invent a naphtha based flame cannon. Marienburg is occupied by an army of the Duke of L'Anguille.
1555: The Bretonnians leave Marienburg after an army of the Grand Duke of Middenland approaches the city. The Mountaineater tribe defeats the Greater Daemon Kza'arahn in the Skycastle ruins.
(1563 to 1565): Tobaro is overrun by Skaven breaking in through the ancient Elf-carved network of tunnels which riddle the cliffs around it.
1565: Tobaro is recaptured by a mercenary army mustered by Meldo Marcelli, the Prince of Tobaro, reinforced by a contingent of High Elves.
1593: The children's game "Smell the Gauntlet" leads to great revolt of Bretonnian peasants against the upper class. They are crushed mercilessly.
1601: The village of Escantos in Southern Tilea is completely devoured by swarms of rats.
1604: The birth of democracy in Marienburg, when Baron van Bulk grants seats on the City Council to merchants and ship-owners.
1666: Gunthold the Bold of Nordland leads a successful campaign against a tribe of chaos worshippers. During the victory feast, a Slaaneshi cult tempts the attendants to excess and invites bands of Chaos Warriors to storm Guntholds castle.
1670: Battle of Meadow Glades. An Imperial army that has trespassed into Athel Loren is destroyed. The Wood Elves lead a punitive campaign that lays waste to the town from where the army had started.
1681: The Night of the Restless Dead. Nagash returns to life once again, 1.666 years after he was slain by Sigmar. For one night throughout the Known World the dead stir and walk the land, sowing terror and confusion amongst the living. Entire villages and towns are overrun and destroyed before the night of terror ends. Sylvania declares its independence from the Empire.
1690: Cathayan Yin-Tuan makes epic journey across isthmus of Lustria and the South lands. Escapes sacrifice in Zlatlan.
1699: Ricco and Robbio trek east along the silk road and are received at the court of Emperor Wu of Cathay.
1702: Adanhu confronts the maddened Ariel at the King's Glade. The Elder sacrifices himself to cleanse the Mage Queen from the taint that had corrupted her soul. Ariel flees in shame to the Oak of Ages.
1703: Norscan longships reach the coast of Ulthuan. The Season of Redemption begins as Orion is finally reborn and leads the Wood Elves to make amends with their onetime allies.
C. 1705: Around this time Gorbad Ironclaw defeats Crusher Zogoth and unites the Ironclaw and Broken Tooth tribes at the fortress of Iron Rock.
(1707-1712): The greatest Warlord of all time, Gorbad Ironclaw, leads a huge Waaagh into the Empire. Averland and the Moot are devastated. Averheim and Nuln are taken and burned. At the battle of Solland’s Crown, Eldred, Count of Solland, is slain and his magic sword, the Runefang of Solland, taken by the Orcs. Solland is devastated. Gorbad is badly wounded at the Battle of Grunberg, but the battle is won and the Empire army flees back to Altdorf. Altdorf is besieged. The Emperor Sigismund is killed in the fighting. Gorbad’s wound causes him to become weaker and weaker, until the Waaagh gradually loses impetus. The Orc army breaks up leaving the eastern half of the Empire in ruins.
(1712 to 1715): Many different splinter groups from Gorbad’s Waaagh! make it through Axe Bite Pass and spread out to raze many Bretonnian hamlets before being finally caught and destroyed by a great gathering of knights.
1721: A Dark Elf raiding force uses the Black Way to attack Xlanhuapec, the City of Mists. The intruders bypass the city’s arcane defences and penetrate its outer quarters. Lizardmen using the mists and their knowledge of the city’s layout mount a series of devastating ambushes and slaughter the intruders.
1728: A large army of Chaos worshippers attacks Naggaroth across the frozen Sea of Chill. While the army is destroyed thanks to an intervention from Malekith, the Witch King orders a counter attack to teach the barbarians their place.
1730: Kholek Suneater is freed from his glacial prison by the Chaos Sorcerer Malofex.
1750: The War of Blood. Nourgul the Necrarch raises an army and lays waste to Estalia. The war ends when Nourgul conquers Magritta and steps into the inner sanctum of the temple of Myrmidia. He is destroyed and his army disintegrates without his dark magic. The citizens of Talabheim elect their own emperor, Helmut II, who stands in opposition to the emperor of Talabecland.
1757: Sartosa becomes lair of pirates.
1786: Clan Eshin release rats infected with the Red Pox. Clan Pestilens' latest scourge, in the sewers of Bordeleaux in Bretonnia. The city loses over a third of its population to the Red Pox in a single week. The Baron Giscard Du'ponte orders the poor quarter to be burned to the ground in a fit of desperation. This appears to work and the Pox is halted almost immediately.
1797: Vlad von Carstein marries Countess Isabella von Drak, and becomes the first of the Vampire Counts of Sylvania. Over the following two centuries the remaining aristocratic families are infected with the curse of Vampirism.
1801: The ousted Pirate Prince of Sartosa, Lucciano Soprania, founds Port Reaver. Despite numerous Lizardmen attacks, it manages to turn into a flourishing trading port, though it is notorious as a den of cutthroats and raiders as well as a haven for adventurers and treasure seekers.
1809: Workers rebuilding the Great Pyramid of Pahuax discover a secret chamber. Within is found the only known egg of the mysterious Quango, a creature from legend not seen in the world since the time of the Old Ones. The egg is presented to Lord Mazdamundi, who declares that it will only hatch when the Old Ones have returned.
1812: Southern Bretonnia and Northern Tilea are ravaged by another outbreak of the Red Pox.[2a] Panic, anarchy and rioting spread through several Bretonnian cities as mobs rampage through the cities burning anything that might carry the pox, including sheep, dogs. cats, frogs and fish. In Brionne. The resulting Great Fire of Brionne razes three-quarters of the city. The Grand Duke of Middenland lays siege to Middenheim, but is repelled thanks to the aid of the Imperial Dwarfs within the city.
1813: Two Skaven armies emerge between Brionne and Quenelles, razing several villages and small towns along the river Brienne before laying siege to both cities. They are defeated and driven off by a combined army of Wood Elves and Bretonnian knights rushed down from Parravon. Eventually a combination of the arrival of winter and rigorous quarantining brings the Red Pox under control. The king of Bretonnia censures Duke Merovech of Mousillon after learning that the duke had kept impaled criminals in his dining hall.
1814: Lyonesse leads a force against Mousillon after the madness of Duke Merovech becomes public knowledge. The mad duke is slain and Lyonesse annexes much of Mousillon's territory. A large Skaven army ventures into the Northern Wastes, but is destroyed by Decasor, a champion of Nurgle.
1847: Amidst rumours of illegitimacy, Duke Tudual du L'Anguille finances an expedition led by his son into the jungles of Lustria. They land in Port Reaver, and spend several months in preparations. Nearly six months after entering the jungles, the Lizardmen temple-city of Huatl is robbed of its sacred artefacts. The young Bretonnian noble and his entourage are never heard from again. Their presence is not missed.
C. 1850: The Skaven Under-Empire erupts into its second civil war. The other Lords of Decay use the failure of the Bretonnian campaign as a pretext to force the removal of Clan Pestilens from the Council of Thirteen. In the vicious in-fighting that follows the Plague Lords of Clan Pestilens attempt to seize control of the temple of the Homed Rat in Skavenblight and complete anarchy ensues.
1850: Norscan raids along the Sea of Claws resume. Marienburg sacked for fourth (and last) time.
1865: The Siege of Carroburg.
1877: A pig, Piggalo I is elected Prince of Tobaro and retains the throne for 12 years.[2a
]1883: Skinks believe the great Krakatoa is awakening once more, but the eruptions prove to be an influx of Chaos. Daemons again stalk Lustria. Gor-Rok defeats a plague army at Itza, a massed charge of Stegadons prevents a breakout from the ruins of Xahutec, and the assembled Mage-Priests of Tlaxtlan overcome a host of Greater Daemons to save their temple-city.
1887: Walach Harkon arrives at Blood Keep and in one night defeats their best warriors. He slaughters the unworthy, but spares a few and turns them into Vampires.
1903: After 200 years of increasing Norscan raids, the mages of Saphery create a shroud of mists to protect Ulthuan from the eastern sea approaches. Phoenix King Bel-Hathor forbids Humans from setting foot in Ulthuan, on penalty of death.
1905: The Ostermark declares independence from the Empire, forming the League of Ostermark under the protection of the Grand Prince of Ostland.
1910: Lord Nanahua leads an expedition to Chaqua in search of lost relics of the Old Ones, but in the process contracts a Skaven plague. Though he summons the magical strength to keep death at bay, he is covered in weeping buboes and contagious sores. He goes into voluntary exile and now resides in an isolated temple deep in the jungle, only emerging to defend Lustria against Skaven incursions.
1932: The Red Duke is freed by his disciples and once more wages war on Aquitaine. His army is again defeated at Ceren Field, and the Red Duke flees to the sanctuary of the Forest of Chalons.
1937: Constant Drachenfels poisons Emperor Carolus and his court at a banquet at Castle Drachenfels.
1943: Witch hunter Gunther van Hel assaults Blood Keep with an army drawn from several Imperial provinces.
1944: El Cadavo, adventurer and sometime pirate, founds the port of Cadavo on his third attempt to penetrate the jungles. The town is destroyed under the order of Slann Mage-Priest Mazdamundi three times, each time being rebuilt. Thus Mazdamundi is proven to be the one spoken of in the Prophecy of Querchi, ‘he who rides the Horned Beast’. A devastating earthquake ensures that the town is finally abandoned. It is rumoured that El Cadavo, having escaped by ship with Lustrian treasures, is lost at sea due to unseasonably deadly weather conditions.
1946: Blood Keep falls to the Imperial siege. Walach Harkon and several of his followers escape the pursuing forces of the Empire.
1948: Year of the Four Tyrannies of Tilea.[2a]
1977: A Skink Priest enacting the Ritual of Listening at the Sentinels of Xeti believes that he briefly hears the distant voice of the Old Ones. The Slann Mage-Priests contemplate the matter for several years, before finally denouncing the Priest’s claim.
1979: Magritta of Marienburg is "elected" Empress. Only Wissenland, Stirland and Averland acknowledge the vote and the Grand Theogonist officially declares the position of Emperor vacant. No new Emperor is elected, with the Empire having effectively fractured into divided provinces. Wizard's War spreads through the Empire, with necromancers and daemonologists terrorizing the population.
1991: Gunpoweder is introduced to the fractured Empire by their dwarf allies. Wizard's War is ended.