Timeline

PRIMAL PAST:

This stage of history should only be described in the vaguest of terms: only the Gods and the Powers witnessed these events, and whilst their avatars may obliquely hint at what happened it is, to an extent, beyond human comprehension. Hence, in the descriptions below you'll note I talk about the Gods and Powers behaving in a decidedly anthropomorphic way: this is not the literal truth.

• At the beginning of things there was only the Fire below, the Stars above, and the Gods sailing between the stars on their great barges.
• The Gods rolled out the shell of the world over the fires, and poured out the Ocean.
• The Gods sang and danced on the new world; their song became the Sky, and where their feet touched the ground there sprang forth the Land.
• The Gods then slept with the Ocean and the Land and the Sky and gave birth to all life that lives in the True Lands.

MYTHIC DREAMTIME:

Only oral traditions survive from these times, and this is an age when humankind was not yet wholly sentient. Human beings, in these days, were much like cattle, and staggered around in a sort of trance, which was occasionally interrupted by vivid dreams as the Gods gave their orders and the Powers attempted to influence them. Again, the Gods and Powers will be described behaving in an anthropomorphic manner; again, this is not the literal truth.

• In these days the Gods were at the peak of their power, and the Powers were a lot more awake and active than they are these days.
• Human beings lived in nomadic tribes, who would occasionally build vast monuments under the direction of the Gods for esoteric purposes.
• The Land and the Oceans and the Sky were fickle, and secretly lay with the Stars and the Fire, bringing forth all life that lives in the Treacherous Lands.
• The Gods, using human slave labour, made a Wall between the Treacherous Lands and the True Lands, and a city in the True Lands to guard the Wall. This was the first city.
• One day the God of Oaths came to the city and demanded that the humans living there give him tribute and treasures and their finest women. But the humans - aided, perhaps, by some of the Powers - had awoken from their dream, and their leader struck and killed the God, and fed the God to the dogs of the city (and that is why to this day the dogs of the city have witnessed oaths and punished oathbreakers).
• The Gods realised that the power of humanity was waxing, and that of the Gods and Powers waning; they almost unleashed their wrath upon the world to destroy it, but the Intercessor convinced them to stay their hand.

RECORDED HISTORY:

Written records begin around this time. Humankind is fully awake and sentient; the Powers are not, and the Gods from here on in become ever more senile and distant.

• The Intercessor gives his One Message to his church and departs from the world, abdicating from any further involvement with it.
• The Gods depart the world, but persist in sending avatars to work their will. Through their avatars they invest the ruler of the city with certain powers - a number of magics, as well as the right to walk beyond the wall into the Treacherous Lands - and declare that he is the lawful ruler of the world, by right of conquest. They intend to rule through him, reasoning that humankind would be more amenable to obeying a human proxy of theirs than themselves, but he tricks them and drives them from his presence.
• The power of the Empire spreads, and over the course of centuries the Emperor takes over all the True Lands and receives tribute from most of the Treacherous Lands. A mirror-city is built on the other side of the wall by the denizens of the Treacherous Lands, to provide the Emperor with a capital in the weirder half of his domain (dig that Berlin vibe, man).
• Meanwhile, the Church of the Intercessor does good works across the True Lands, and agitates against the avatars of the other gods. The people petition the Emperor for aid in hunting down and destroying avatars; the Emperor gladly gives him this.
• The upshot of this is that several thousand years after the Gods flee avatars have become very rare within the True Lands. The Empire never, however, manages to become as strong in the Treacherous Lands as in the True, and some avatars manage to do very well for themselves there. (The irony of the primary agents of the Gods being forced to find sanctuary in the very lands that rejected the Gods at the dawn of time is not lost on them.)
• The Golden Age that results lasts for a few dozen centuries. The Emperor, however, is constantly plumbing ever more esoteric mysteries, and has lived a longer life than any human being can cope with. Paranoia, insanity, and megalomania all contribute to the Emperor's transformation from stern-yet-just patriarch of mankind to twisted dictator.
• War breaks out. Several Imperial provinces in the True Lands declare independence. The Empire in the Treacherous Lands crumbles and the Emperor is driven out in humilation; currently, the mirror-city beyond the wall is an empty ruin, the denizens of the Treacherous Lands by and large being unwilling to have anything to do with the True Lands until the Emperor is out of the way.
• The Free Kingdoms and the Empire go to war several times over the next few centuries - we're talking centuries of peace interrupted by cataclysmic wars here. As he loses his sanity bit by bit, the Emperor forgets more and more of his old powers. The last war is the worst; the Emperor, fearing for his survival and driven into a frenzy by the constant frustrations offered by the Free Kingdoms and his impending dotage, sends hordes of dark-clad warriors out in a last ditch attempt to reconquer the world. He is defeated, and all that remains of his great kingdom is the city-state that used to be its capital. (The Emperor is actually still alive, walled up in the throne room of the Imperial palace. He is now utterly senile and is in no fit state to take power himself; however, enterprising PCs could easily find ways to use him as a figurehead for a neo-Imperialist uprising if they were so inclined.)
• The campaign starts decades after the end of the wars. The Mayors of the city have so far managed to save the city from being absorbed by one of the Four Kingdoms by playing the victors off against one another; the city is sufficiently important that none of the Kingdoms want any of the others to get it. Industry grows apace. Prospectors are beginning to find ways to slip through the Wall in order to scavenge the Treacherous Lands for interesting things; meanwhile, the denizens of the Treacherous Lands are slowly becoming aware that the Empire has fallen once and for all. The Gods and the Powers both desire to seize this last chance to mould humanity. And it's debatable whether the city that is at the centre of all of this is ruled by the Mayor, the agents of the Four Kingdoms, the technologists or the crime lords.