CHRONICLE OF AGES
Before Sunset Dawning, there were gods, wars, fallen bloodlines and secrets buried for millennia. Trace the history of Erebos from the banishment of its dark creator to the events that would eventually place Sunset at the center of a struggle begun thousands of years before her birth.
724 BCE (Earth Time)
The BANISHMENT
Long before the world that would bear his name existed, Erebos—the ancient God of Darkness—betrayed his sister Nyx and drew the wrath of the Greek gods. His punishment would be more terrible than death.
Led by Zeus, the gods tore Erebos from their astral plane and banished him beyond their universe entirely, imprisoning him within a newborn reality containing nothing but darkness. As a final act of punishment, Zeus drove one of his thunderbolts into Erebos's ribs, leaving it lodged forever within the body of the exiled god.
There, alone in an empty cosmos created to become his prison, Erebos was condemned to endure eternity with nothing but his hatred...and time.
510 AE
RISE OF kael, THE STYGIAN ASCENDANT
Exiled but far from defeated, Erebos turned his prison into a world of his own. Having stolen the gods' secret of creation, he gathered the dark energies of his realm and began the long, painstaking work of forging life from nothing.
First came the foundations of a living world—oceans, fertile soil, twisted forests and strange creatures shaped beneath a sky no mortal had ever seen. But Erebos wanted more than beasts. He wanted a being capable of thought, ambition and will.
After centuries of failure, he succeeded. From the darkness of Erebos came Kael—the first human and the first Son of Shadows. Powerful and fiercely passionate, yet tempered by foresight and a sense of righteousness, Kael became something his creator may not have anticipated: a man capable of choosing what he would become.
Kael would not remain alone. Having finally unlocked the secret of human creation, Erebos fashioned others, and from those first generations a new civilization slowly began to populate his world. But Kael remained unique—the first, and the beginning of a bloodline unlike any that followed.
From Kael would eventually descend the bloodlines that shaped the history of Erebos.
1200 AE
THE Tome magnum
For generations, the history of Erebos survived through memory, ritual and spoken tradition. That changed with Nysera, great-granddaughter of Kael and one of the earliest great scholars of the realm.
Over the course of her eighty-nine-year life, Nysera gathered the histories, beliefs and forbidden knowledge of her people into a single monumental work: the Tome Magnum. Within its pages she recorded the lineage of Erebos, the mysteries of Stygian Mysticism, and the strange forces upon which their world had been built.
What began as a record of the past became something far more powerful—a repository of knowledge that would guide scholars, rulers and mystics for thousands of years. Some passages would be studied. Others misunderstood. And some would eventually prove dangerous enough to change the course of Erebos forever.
THE BLACK DYNAM
When Erebos completed the creation of his realm, something unexpected happened. The vast Stygian energies used to shape the new world surged through its pulsing core, resonating with the mystical forces from which it had been born.
The result became known as the Black Dynam—a living network of ancient energies intertwined with the very substance of Erebos. It flowed through the world like an unseen circulatory system, connecting the powers created by Erebos and his disciples and transforming the realm itself into a reservoir of extraordinary potential.
But the Black Dynam did not belong equally to everyone. Its currents gathered around the bloodlines descended from Kael, and through them the Seven Scions learned to wield portions of its power. Over generations, those connections became inseparable from the identities—and rivalries—of their descendants.
The Black Dynam had united the great powers of Erebos. It would also give them something worth fighting for.
2130 AE
2167 AE
THE SEVEN FACTIONS
As the descendants of Kael multiplied across Erebos, the bloodline of the first human began to divide. Seven distinct lineages emerged, each carrying its own connection to the forces flowing through the Black Dynam—and each developing different strengths, beliefs, and ambitions.
Over generations, those bloodlines grew beyond families into powerful factions. Territories formed around them. Cultures took shape. Alliances were forged, rivalries deepened, and the descendants of a common ancestor increasingly began to see themselves not as one people, but as competitors for influence over the world they shared.
What had begun with a single man created by Erebos had become seven great powers, bound together by blood yet divided by nearly everything else.
They had inherited the same world. They were about to discover how difficult it would be to share it.
2400 AE
THE GREAT WAR
The rivalries among the Seven Factions could no longer be contained. Disputes over territory, resources, influence, and control of the powers flowing through Erebos finally shattered generations of uneasy coexistence. Alliances formed, loyalties fractured, and the descendants of Kael turned their inherited power against one another.
What followed became known simply as the Great War—a conflict so devastating that entire regions were laid waste and generations were consumed by violence. Powers once used to build and protect Erebos became weapons, while old grievances gave birth to new ones with every battle.
By the time the fighting began to subside, victory had become almost meaningless. The Seven Factions had discovered that none possessed enough power to destroy the others without destroying the world they were fighting to control.
Erebos had survived the war. Peace would prove considerably more difficult.
2490 AE
THE STANDOFF/ CREATION OF HOUSES
The Great War ended not with victory, but exhaustion. With their armies depleted and vast regions of Erebos devastated, the Seven Factions reached a terrible realization: any attempt by one to destroy the others would likely bring about the destruction of them all.
Faced with mutual annihilation, the leaders of the surviving factions were forced to negotiate. If Erebos was to endure, power could no longer belong to whichever faction proved strong enough to seize it. The bloodlines would have to find a way to coexist without surrendering their individual identities, territories, or influence.
From the settlement that followed, the Seven Factions were reorganized into the great Houses of Erebos, each granted sovereignty over its own people and territory while bound to the others by a new political order. Their powers, histories, and rivalries remained—but open warfare would give way to diplomacy, alliances, and a far more subtle struggle for influence.
The Great War was over. The age of the Houses had begun.
3561 AE
Harax Lor Translation
More than two thousand years after Nysera completed the Tome Magnum, much of its oldest knowledge had become inaccessible even to the scholars of Erebos. Its language, symbols, and deepest passages resisted generations of attempted translation—until Harax Lor succeeded where others had failed.
Lor's work revealed extraordinary accounts of Erebos's earliest history, Stygian Mysticism, and forces long believed lost to antiquity. But buried among those revelations he discovered something far more dangerous: an ancient passage describing what would become known as the Secret of Eternity.
Lor understood immediately that some knowledge became dangerous simply by being known. He completed his public translation of the Tome—but deliberately concealed the Secret of Eternity, leaving that portion untranslated and telling no one what he had discovered.
For centuries, the secret remained safe—not because it had been forgotten, but because one man had decided the world was better off never knowing it existed.
3590 AE
The Black Seige
For generations, House DeBeaux had stood second only to House Gamal in power and influence. But under Madame Christine DeBeaux, ambition hardened into obsession. She coveted not merely greater authority, but the one prize even the most powerful rulers of Erebos could never command: immortality.
Her scholars eventually uncovered evidence that Harax Lor's celebrated translation of the Tome Magnum was incomplete. A passage had been deliberately withheld—knowledge Lor had judged too dangerous to reveal. DeBeaux became determined to recover what he had hidden: the Secret of Eternity.
What followed was no political maneuver or quiet betrayal. House DeBeaux turned its forces against House Gamal in a devastating assault that shattered generations of uneasy peace. Per Akhet fell. House Gamal was brought to ruin. Its people were slaughtered or scattered, and Queen K'Millah Gamal was believed among the dead.
But something survived.
A young daughter of House Gamal escaped the destruction, carrying with her a power she did not yet understand—and memories that would soon be lost to her.
Her name was Sunset.
UNIVERSAL ARCHITECTURE
FOUNDATIONS OF REALITY
The Black Dynam of Erebos
The Black Dynam is more than the source of Erebos's mysticism. It is the lingering bond between an imprisoned god and the universe he created—a primordial force woven into the very fabric of the realm.
Its power flows through ancient bloodlines, but few possess the ability to command it. For those who can, mysticism and technology become almost indistinguishable, allowing the Dynam to be shaped, focused and transformed in ways that have influenced Erebos for thousands of years.
But the Black Dynam is neither limitless nor entirely understood. Its deepest mysteries reach back to Erebos himself—and some suggest that those who believe they have mastered it may understand far less than they think.