Timeline

AS = Ante Supremus (Before the Sovereign), PS = Post Supremus (After the Sovereign)

~3000 AS to ~500 AS: While certain pieces of evidence hint at a world of at least mild technological mastery and magic, all of that was lost at some point and this time period is filled with rudimentary civilizations doing their best to survive in a wild world of monsters. Small kingdoms would form and fall every other century and the lands were covered with roving barbarians and tribes of savage peoples. Widely called "The Great Devastation" by scholars, whole swaths of human and human adjacent species were wiped from the face of the earth due to some unknown and sudden societal collapse.  It was a dark time, and what little historical evidence remains of that time is fragmented at best and unreadable at most.

470 AS - 462 AS: Self declared Emperor Lamaar Ortigal leads his kingdom across the lands, uniting provinces and previously unaligned communities under one banner. The Empire of Ortigal is created and last for several centuries while various emperors take the mantle and continue to expand.

381 AS - The leaders of the two prominent religious groups at the time (Chosen Marcus Divitius and Great Mother Elita Tidal) both share a vision from their deity, each designating a different person to become the next emperor. The empire erupts into disagreements as up till then, the emperor was always chosen via a collective vote by representatives of the different provinces. After nearly a year of messy deliberation, riots, and several political assassinations, the empire fragments into three, each new empire forming around a different figurehead. While each called themselves The Empire of Ortigal, scholars continue to refer to the elected emperor (Curran Lin)