DAWN AGE KOTHAR: the Doraddi are exploring the Veldt. To the west is the goblin territory of Sozganjio which gets colonized by humans under Pan Chaku, to the north is the Chaon Dacca, the Jelmre and beyond them the evil jungle and the Mari Mostali (who IMO should have Benin Bronzes for Jolanti). West is Jolar while south lies the last Artmali. The main conflict is the war against the Goblins.
JOLAR: is home to a forest of green elves. They successfully resist human penetration from the east but fall victim to internal strife due to climate change. The Doraddi from the east move in and settle the place. There's (deliberate) confusion in the sources about whether humans were originally present; according to the God Learners they claim to have come from Kothar but in modern times there are Doraddi who claim to always have lived in Jolar.
The Iron City may be present in Jolar and provides a useful antagonist before it moves at the end of the age.
TARIEN: I don't think Tarien is reachable to humans because of the toughness of the Tarmo Uz. It's only when the Uz are subjected to the Trollkin curse that they are forced to withdraw and retrench to their mountain fastness.
Now there are Slarges in Tarien but the odd thing is that it supposedly takes many centuries for the Slarges to become a threat to the people living in modern Tarien and before then they have had no contact. Pamaltela may be big but it's not that big.
My best guess is that the last Artmali of mythical Kungatu are hanging out in here with masses of Slarge servants and dinosaur herds. But eventually they grow too cruel and oppressive or too weak and decadent and the Slarges rise up and devour them all.
MASLO: the primary power here is wicked Fozeranto, ruled by evil creatures, similar to the Gorgers. Eventually the Golden Fleet sweeps down from Vithela and sinks the vile country and sparks off another wave of migration. There are elves here but they are far from united and busy wracked by botanic cleansing performed by the Green and Yellow Elves.
FONRIT: Fonrit is a land of blues and yellow elves. Missing Lands does depict the Blues as being peaceful folk who would never hurt a fly but that's bollocks IMO. I see them as having a mesoamericanesque civilization in the jungle ruins with grisly sacrifices to Jraktal. Eventually they are overcome by waves of migrants from Laskal under Garangordos.
UMATHELA: Again another elven civil war this time mixed in with lascerdan lizard people. David D. said no humans but I find this difficult to credit. At the very least there's waertagi explorers with Brithini underlings not to mention Artmali settlers from neighbouring Fonrit.
EVENTS: The big thing here is the Sunstop which heals a plague in the Jungle, weakens Tarmo and sends the Doraddi to send a boat-building expedition to Pithdaros. The conquest of Fonrit is dated 500 ST but thematically it should begin much earlier. Likewise Jesolo's Golden Fleet sinks Fozeranto within early Dawn but it makes better timing for me to have it take place after the Sunstop.
The one difference between Genertela and Pamaltela should be that Pamaltela didn't have an Arkat or a Bad God moving through the land spreading gore and atrocities in his wake. Yet the same underlying tensions are there and if followed to their source leads through magical roads into Genertela (So what if they're not mentioned? The westerners thought they were Krjalki and that's all they write).
IMPERIAL AGE FONRIT: As the new rulers of Fonrit strive to develop their realms, much of Fonrit falls under the sway of Kalabar which is depicted as an evil city of sorcery. Keeping Kalabar contained is probably a major policy goal of the Elf Empire and the God Learners of Umathela. To make things more interesting, since the two sides hate each other, whoever's doing the containing has to cope with efforts by the other side to life that containment.
JOLAR: Jolar is visited at different times by the Elf Empire and the God Learners. My main complaint about the six-legged empire is that it apparently doesn't last very long (no more than fifty years according to the Middle Sea Empire). So rather than have most of Jolar peaceful at this time, I'll interpret the six-legged empire as a metaphor for repeated foreign conquests that got misinterpreted about horses.
So two legs of the "Empire" are known - the God Learners and the Elf Empire. Kalabar could quite easily be a third, the Doraddi need to have bad memories of Fonrit. Adding in the Mari Mostali, the Tarmo Uz and the creatures from the Nargan, the age looks more fitting as a time of woe.
KOTHAR: A real blank spot here. There's periodic attacks by the Jungle Elves from the north but that's boring stuff (about as common as Orlanthi clan feuds). In keeping with the Imperial theme of this age, I think the Kothari must as organized themselves into some type of civilization, perhaps a conscious revival of the ancient kingdom of Tishamto.
Much of its details can be teased out by postulating that the reason why the Kresh are so popular in Kothar in modern times is that they are as far away from the mistakes of Imperial Age Kothar as you can get. Thus the Kresh worked with wood so that IA Kothari worked with stone. The Kresh move around a lot, the IA Kothari made people come to them even if it caused them hardship.
The IA Kothari have several dramatic and showy fights against the Six Legged Empire and the Elf Empire of Errinoru. They might even try to reinforce the human kingdoms in the great swamp in an attempt to become a Naval Power. But eventually its mistakes are too much and it is abandoned.
MASLO: The Elf Empire of Errinoru. 'nuff said.
TARIEN: Hmm. So the Artmali in control of the Slarges have just been eaten. What do the Slarges do? Ideally they should expand but here we run into a key problem is that the humans still haven't heard of them.
The only way out of this is postulating that Kargan Ilor, the goblin queen of Hornilio was influenced by the Elf Empire and decided to create the Swamp Empire. The Slarges had their hands full with trying to keep their lands dry while Kargan Ilor was also besieging Slon. The God Learners are involved here trying to keep a lid on Kargan Ilor's ambitions. Eventually she loses control over most of her territory and much of Tarien dries up.
UMATHELA: God Learners. 'enuf said.
MODERN AGE FONRIT: The rise and disappearance of the Yranians. The foundation of Kareeshtu and Afadjann (technically Afadjann was founded in the Imperial Age but it truly becomes a potent state now).
JOLAR: The contact with the Kresh has been fairly recent. Postulating a Yranian incursions interesting but it wouldn't last very long and also isn't in keeping with the Age's theme of conservatism and isolation.
The only thing I can think of as a dispute might be the deliberate confusion that I mentioned before. Namely whether Pamalt comes from Kothar (as the chiefly genealogies recorded by the God Learners indicate) or whether he comes from Taluk Mormadak.
Hence I think much of this age, the Agimori of Jolar are having leadership disputes. Those chafing under the rule of the traditional chiefs have found a way to undermine their authority by creating new lineages of chieftains at Taluk Mormadak. This results in numerous conflicts and bickering and surreptitious hiring of exiger clans to "sort out" the other people with many losers fleeing into Kothar or Jolar.
Finally the two sides agree to disagree (and the exiger clans expelled to the Mari wastes) but the unexpected consequence is that it has created a warlike spirit that can be easily tapped into when the Kresh appear.
KOTHAR: Rise of the Kresh and establishment of their empire.
MASLO: The great story of this age would be the rise and fall on Onlaks. An aggressive nation of Elf haters, they are actively colonizing the weakened jungles with the elves there too powerless to resist. But after the Garbullia forest springs into action, the Onlaks colonies are either abandoned or overrun. Elamle would fight them but they have to cope with the Mother of Monsters.
UMATHELA: The War against Silence. The Eight Season Wars. There's enough material in the sources to work with.
--Peter Metcalfe
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