A Revised World History Timeline for Castle Falkenstein

[Written circa 1994, when I was very impressed with the Castle Falkenstein role-playing game.]

• 800 BC. Aristotle writes A Treatise on Paranormal Cosmology, explaining how magick works, and is condemned to death.
• 492 BC. Herodotus records that centaurs fought alongside the Athenians at the Battle of Marathon – the first known human-faerie alliance.
• 49 BC. Powerful faerie beings of an unknown nature had been posing as Roman gods for over a century and manipulating Roman politics. This year, they back the wrong horse. Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, exposes the faerie imposters, and defeats their puppet tribune, Pompey.
• 30 AD. Last centaur legion leaves Rome and vanishes, never to return. Once common, centaurs become very rare on Earth from now on.
• 50 AD. Roman legions come to a secret agreement with the dwarfs of Europe, allowing the former to conquer the continent without retaliation from the latter.
• 185 AD. First dragon spotted in England.
• 375 AD. The persecution of the Huns by dragons in Mongolia forces the Huns to move westward.
• 450 AD. The Unseelie Court of the faerie drives Britons out of England. For some reason, the faeries then vanish, leaving England free for the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes to settle.
• 511 AD. The four sons of King Clovis try unsuccessfully to drive the dwarfs out of Gaul.
• 777 AD. Charlemagne allies himself with dwarfs and dragons, and drives all evil faerie – at least temporarily – out of Gaul. The vengeful faerie possess a Germanic tribe and ambush Charlemagne. Roland’s death at that battle is avenged by the dragon, Verepouvant.
• 800 AD. The Islamic Empire develops a math-based form of sorcery, based on the works of Aristotle and Ptolemy.
• 1090 AD. Pope Innocencia officially recognizes magick – a first for the Papacy – but only for the use of the clergy. The Holy Order of St. Boniface is founded for the purpose of training clerical magicians.
• 1347 AD. The Black Death begins in Constantinople. The Unseelie Court is suspected of involvement.
• 1450 AD. Leonardo daVinci writes a book on magic so controversial that all copies are burned, save one rumored to be in Bavaria. Marco Polo is imprisoned by the Dragon Kings of China.
• 1490 AD. Aztec blood-sorcery proves to be no match for Spanish gunpowder, though the Spanish people are rumored to be cursed from here on.
• 1588 AD. The Spanish Armada suffers bad luck against the English. Sir Walter Raleigh’s admiral, Liam O’Conner, is rumored to be a selkie, which would make him the highest ranking faerie officer in a human military, to this point in history.
• 1600 AD. The Age of Englightenment begins. Scientific and philosophical achievements coincide, either coincidentally or intentionally, with increased human and faerie interaction on an everyday level that persists for the next 150 years.