The Dark Eye Timeline

[Loretokartakan]

It isn't exactly Blackguards-only question, neither a game problem, but well... Let's get on with it.

So, when I was younger, I spent tons of time in both Drakensang games. Recently, I started playing other The Dark Eye games and I have NO IDEA how the timeline in this universe works. Drakensang games were both... ordered. They had dates, like 'This story started at year 1009 after Bosparan's fall', but all others don't have anything like that.
Where are the games Drakensang: The Dark Eye, Drakensang: The River of Time, Chains of Satinav, Memoria, Demonicon, Blackguards and upcoming Blackguards 2 set on The Dark Eye's timeline?

I think that Blackguards games are (will be, actually) set after Chains of Satinav and Memoria (because of *!SPOILER ALERT!* 'honorable merchant' Harm's possible death *!END OF SPOILER ALERT!*) and Demonicon is at the very beginning (it happens... 20 years, I think, after Mage Wars, which were already around 400 years in the past while playing first Drakensang). I have no idea where exactly Drakensangs are in this, though.

Does anyone has an answer or a theory about this unverse's timeline?

P.S.: I know there are three earlier games set in this universe, but I didn't play them, so I don't have much to say in their matter.

[NostromoXP]

Hi Loretokartakan,

I found this on wikipedia, hope it helps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Eye#Video_games

[Loretokartakan]

Yeah, I saw it, but either there's only info about chronolgy of game releases, or I'm blind.
There is a little bit of lore, but I know most of it already. For example, the fact that Achaz (lizardmen) had a high developed culture in ancient times was quite obvious after playing Drakensang: The Dark Eye. This is also one of things that made me wonder about the subject. In Drakensang: TDE lizardmen are rare creatures, while in Blackguards you fight dozens of them, even if they don't seem TOO civilized.

[NostromoXP]

Ah, sorry about that. I'm new to this whole series so didn't realise it has such an extensive history.

If you track down a time line it would be great to see it. I will post back if I find anything.

[Loretokartakan]

Well, for now I think it would be like this:

[Demonicon] -> Chains of Satinav -> Memoria -> Blackguards -> Blackguards 2 -> [Demonicon] -> Drakensang: The River of Time -> Drakensang: The Dark Eye

I'm not entirely sure about it, since I don't remember all stuff from Drakensang, but, well...
Now to prove my theory...
Be warned that there are spoilers ahead. The only detailed one is marked, though.

The '0' date in The Dark Eye universe is Bosparans' Empire Fall. First big date I know is that of Mage Wars (around 400 a.B.f, if I remember correctly), which were (I think) about Borbarad and his followers fighting, with the 'aid' of demons, pretty much the rest of known world.

Here's where Demonicon come in. The story's happening AT LEAST three generations/rulers of Borbarad's Church, that is, after the end of Mage Wars and Borbarad's death (so not 20 years, I was wrong earlier). There are two leaders mentioned during the game and there's, of course, the current one. However, I get a feeling that there were more of them than three. I gave this game two possible time-sets because there's NO CLUE as for when exactly games from Chains of Satinav to Blackguards 2 are set. All I know is their stories happened before Drakensang games.

Then we have a bundle of Daedalic Enteartainment's games, (mentioned Chains of Satinav, Memoria, Blackguards, Blackguards 2) which are all set in the, more or less, same time. Why? Because you meet 'the honorable merchant' Harm in Chains of Satinav AND in Blackguards, where he gives you a quest, which, if done in a certain way, !!!SPOILERS!!! can result in his death. He will probably die anyway, only slower, because of his illness. !!!SPOILERS!!! Memoria is set around six months after Chains of Satinav and Blackguards 2 is set seven years after Blackguards.

I'm pretty sure Drakensang stories are the most recent ones, because Achaz ('lizardmen'), which you kill in dozens during Blackguards, are rare creatures in them. You meet only three or four of them during the entire Drakensang: The Dark Eye game (there are no signs of them in The River of Time). But it may be just their geographical location, since Drakensangs are in a totally different region of the continent than Blackguards.

I think that's all. I don't know where the first three video games are set in this universe (Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny, RoA: Star Trail and RoA: Shadows over Riva), are on my timeline, because I didn't play them. All I know is that they happen almost directly after each other, so including them would be copy-pasting the line 'Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny -> Realms of Arkania: Star Trail -> Realms of Arkania: Shadows over Riva'.

There's also a rogue-like RPG game called The Dark Eye: Skilltree Saga, but it's not really about story, so I have no hint to where it should be on the timeline. Plus, I didn't play it, too.

Funny thing: I googled 'Mage Wars' for the date of them and found only THIS discussion, which was started by MYSELF. /)_-

[Philippe_at_bay]

I don't know the answers to your questions offhand, largely because it never bothered me enough to figure out the exact timeline for the various games.

You probably know this, but there are several different ways of keeping track of historical time, but the most common ones involve regnal years in the Middenrealm, and the action in Blackguards takes place in and on the fringes of the Horasian Empire (or whatever its called), so reckoning years in terms of the Emperor Hal is a non-starter.

The three Realms of Arcania games took place outside or on the fringes of the Middenrealm. Blade of Destiny takes place in Thorwal, and in the town of Thorwal itself there are embasies from the Horasian and Middle Kingdoms. Star Trail takes place outside the Middle Empire most of the time, though at one point you run into a cavalry patrol -- it's never exactly clear where the border is, if there even is a border. If Lowangen and the towns in the valley of the Svelt have anything to do with Gareth, the relationship seems nominal at best. As for Riva, it seems as far removed from the central authority as you can get.

I don't have the link available at the moment, but if you do a Google search and you're persistant you should eventually find a link to the pdf of The World of Aventuria, a gamemaster's lore manual that explains how everything fits together. There's also a link somewhere to the English version of the paper and pencil Dark Eye rule book, which not only makes good reading for when you're trying to figure out how this game is supposed to work (warning: it's different, but close enough to be illuminating when it isn't confusing) and which also has some material that you won't find in World of Aventuria. There's a ton of research there, and it will give you a headache, and if you only read one, skip the rulebook and concentrate on World. Among other things it goes over the creation myths in a fair amount of detail, and after reading it you'll understand a lot of things about the Chains of Satinav (and the dragons) that weren't clear before.

And somewhere out there there are even links to English and French pdfs of the 99 Laws of Rastullah. What ended up happening for me was that I realized that it was getting to be too much like work and I decided to just not worry about it, since the mythos was written over twenty odd years by manydifferent people, and probably contradicts itself at various points anyway. And there are parts of the later mythos that I consider apocryphal anyway and would prefer to ignore.

The reason, by the way, that you don't run into Achaz in the three Arkania stories and only rarely encounter them in Drakensang is that they're probably cold blooded and only live in hot southern swamps. The two Blackguards games play out in the sweltering south, so you can run into them in the southern parts of the map. You won't bump into Achaz in Thorwal because Achaz live in the south, and you won't bump into many or any orcs in the south because Orcland is in the north next to Thorwal. And if you haven't played the Arkania games, it can get really cold up there, especially in the winter (which sometimes seems to be six months long).

[Furry Wrecking Crew]

Reviving this thread to tell you: They actually state the year in Chains of Satinav, when you meet the king. The chamberlain says it something like "in this year one thousand and..." I can't remember the exact year he says, so I looked it up.

1035 BF

[Loretokartakan]

Okay, but now a question appears: does 'BF' stand for 'Before Fall (of Bosparan)' or something else?
Damn, I forgot I even started this thread 1.5 a year ago.

[Furry Wrecking Crew]

I'm confused about it as well, every timeline has BF after the years, so that would mean that there aren't any Dark Eye games AFTER the Bosparan fall?

[Loretokartakan]

If I remember correctly, Drakensangs took place after Bosparan's fall.

[Corlain]

I don't really know anything about the subject, but it wouldn't make sense for a character in the game wouldn't to use a date like "before XXX", because you can't make a calendar based on events which haven't happened yet... Well, unless it's a narrator who is telling the story much later.

[Furry Wrecking Crew]

The character in the game didn't say BF, just the year. When I looked it up, the date given for Chains of Satinav was 1035 BF. It might stand for Bosparan Fall, not Before Fall, meaning all games in the Dark Eye timeline have been AFTER the fall of the Bosparans. I figured I'd look into it because I have several Dark Eye games in my library yet to play like the Realms of Arkania series and Memoria, plus I always wanted to check out Drakensang.

[jelee]

Originally posted by Vigi React:

The character in the game didn't say BF, just the year. When I looked it up, the date given for Chains of Satinav was 1035 BF. It might stand for Bosparan Fall, not Before Fall, meaning all games in the Dark Eye timeline have been AFTER the fall of the Bosparans. I figured I'd look into it because I have several Dark Eye games in my library yet to play like the Realms of Arkania series and Memoria, plus I always wanted to check out Drakensang.

You are right BF means Bosparans Fall.

You can checkout the timeline here:
http://de.wiki-aventurica.de/wiki/Zeitrechnung

[Loretokartakan]

I thought this 1.5 year old thread would be resolved with this link, but umm, 403 Forbidden.

[Furry Wrecking Crew]

The link worked for me, but it's in German. Using the Chrome translator gives you the gist of it, and is amusing also. For example, instead of saying 'fifth month," it will say "month the five."

[Loretokartakan]

Still nothing for me. Could you make a screenshot and then link it or something?