I agree with Matt completely and I look forward to the times where I'll have to change one or more of the "facts" on the timeline.


Scott

hey before this gets to far down the road, would it be possible to get page references added to those where applicable (even it its just pointing to the printed timeline)

Okay, so all of the timeline on page 15 has been added. And the stuff from the appendix 1: timeline of modern events is still only partially added. But I color-coded the dates to indicate the source.

Also, I have a new client that I'm starting on next week. I expect to be extremely busy for a while. (As opposed to this week where I have more free time than usual.) So... Who wants to be an editor and help fill out the timeline?

Scott

What are the rules on the timeline? Any chance that information from the previous campaign could be put there? Battles fought, Valinor (claimed) met, hints given, etc? As a newbie who only gets to hear about those stories in disjointed bits and pieces, something codifying what people believe they learned (not assuming accurate of course) is on my wishlist...

So here are my thoughts on that. In the free .pdf version of the Codex Arcanis, there is an appendix (Appendix 1: Timeline of current events) that has brief summaries of things that occurred in the original living campaign. As an example:


I don't foresee any problems including any of this. It's already freely available from PCI. But I'd be a little worried about including stuff that's more specific than that. It's not easy to generalize what should or should not be included. But the Codex Arcanis does a good job of summarizing the events or the original campaign.

I also see being able to include the contents of the old forum discussions, since those were things that the fans publicly discussed. However, those things are less "fact" and more theory or speculations, and as such, probably don't belong on a timeline. But again, we'll have to take each on an individual basis.

Scott

Those end before the campaign did though, right?

Yes. If my math is correct, that timeline ends after the 4th year of the campaign. Whereas I think the campaign went 6 years. (I'm not 100% certain of this, but I believe that the original campaign went for six story years, ending in 1031 IC.)

Scott

Scott you are right the old campaign went from 1025 to 1031. But you can't take the Second Codex time line with 100% accuracy especially the end of it. Some of the events listed occurred in 1030, even though they are listed under 1029.

I don't take any of it with 100% accuracy. That's not the point. The point is to take the things we think we know and plot them out on the timeline. Use this as a tool to help put the puzzle pieces together and to centralize knowledge. Plus it makes a great visual tool for new players and people like me who are more visually oriented. And hopefully it can be used to help generate more interest in the campaign.

Scott

Some people want objective truth, but once it is printed there is no way for the Chronicler to use it for surprise. If one is running a game at home, just decide what is true and work from there. If you are in the campaign, we can mess around with it ourselves. I much prefer the "student of history" style of the Arcanis background. There are literally hundreds of settings that just spell it out for you. Some of them do so in positively pedantic detail.

Frankly, I could not give a rat's ass how many levels or what magic items Elminster has. He is a plot point, a motivator or information source. He is not an adversary to fight, nor an ally to fight beside you. To me, that is a useless item of information, and punchline to the joke "who has a higher CR, Elminster or Cthulhu?"