Lost Age (Patronage Supplement)

In the Lost Age, the Patrons continued to meet with one another and their subjects, but over time, these meetings took on a darker tone.

Timeline - Lost Age!

←	Innocent Age
671	Dragons retreat from the world.
691	With the Titans' blessing, Cyr founds Artifice and the Middle Empire.
674	Cyr adopts halfling system of coinage.
710	Cyr forces Nebu to retreat into Dragonseye.
711	Nebu dies. Middle Empire annexes Dragonseye.
760	Daria invades halfling territory.
770	Waros invades halfling and sparti free cities.
771	Dragons return and destroy the Middle Empire.
800	Dodecon first written down.
807	Dragons bar humans from Dragonseye.
810	Fey develop archery.
819	Halflings rebel against draconic rule.
881	Loyal halflings commemorate centennial of Dragons' return with silver coin.
894	Lucinda born.
900	Loyal halfling Pasion establishes standard interest rates.
907	Sparti loyalists assassinate Lucinda' parents. Lucinda escapes with Aris.
914	Lucinda declares herself Queen of Dragonslands and vanquishes Dragons; the Lost Age ends.
→	Chaotic Age

The Lost Age begins with the death of a single Dragon, but it ends with the disappearance of the entire Dragon race. The Lost Age followed the Innocent Age and preceded the Chaotic Age.

The death of the first Patron, and by a member of a Noble race no less, sent reverberations throughout Patronage. Where Patrons tended to trust their subjects, an element of distance and distrust seeped into the relationship. Patrons had been accessible. Now they retreated into their protected sanctums, with only their most trusted advisors allowed to see them. They relied more and more on favored nobles, excluding other subjects. Jealousies and envy became more prevalent in the servile races. The Dragons retreated from the world for a century. The Lost Age is so named because it represents the period of time during which the idyllic conditions of the prior Age faded away. Patrons ceased to be seen as benevolent loving parents, and began to be seen as tyrants, sometimes benevolent, sometimes uncaring, and sometimes malevolent.

Changes were observed in most of the Patron races:

• The Anthropophagi began expanding their territory into the southern reaches of the Dragonslands after the Dragons disappeared. It is said the Middle Empire spent most of its brief span fighting the Patrons' mortal advance guard. Many of the halflings and sparti abandoned by the Dragons turned to worship of the Anthropophagi, performing dark rituals in their names, in order to be spared participation in their Hunts. After the Dragons returned, the Antrhropophagi ceded all the land they had taken without a fight. The Dragons mercilessly hunted down cults of Antrhropophagi worship, and this may have contributed to the halfling rebellion.
• The Avatars began the construction of their 50 great cities, with their capital in the highest mountain in the Avatarlands, called Aligon. They took little action in the distant Dragonlands, as their territory was then separated from the Dragons by the Leviathans and the Anthropophagi.
• The Dragons retreated from the world for a century, leaving their halfling and sparti subjects without leadership and at the mercy of the ghilan warlord Nebu. When they returned, they returned with a vengeance, destroying the Middle Empire, and acting harshly with their subjects, which eventually caused a rebellion and the rise of the Lucindan Empire.
• The Elementals continued to work in their forges, apparently unaware of the turmoil in the Dragonslands and elsewhere.
• The Fey remained secluded in their courts in the Fey Realm. However, not all was peaceful there. Legends say that during this period, the Fey lost their hold over what would become the Wild Forest, and that the King of Autumn had to magically move the Autumn City out of the forest to prevent if from being overrun by rebellious goblins and elves.
• The Leviathans became quite active during this period. After Nebu refused to obey his Patrons to return, the Leviathan disallowed all sea travel in the Nereid Sea. During the Lost Age, every ship was wrecked, and the Leviathans unleashed abominable sea monsters, some of which still lurk in the murky depths.
• The Oni made occasional raids against Middle Empire, usually to recover any population of orcs or half-orcs who had fled the Green Lands. After the Dragons' returned, they left the Dragonslands alone. It was not until Lucinda's arrival that the Oni became active again.
• The Shinigami also became more rigid in their dealings with their subjects. They decreed that every warlord had to be advised by a necromancer specially trained in the Mounds of the Shinigami. This was to ensure that even beyond the lands of Duat, the warlords would be responsive to the dictates of their Patrons. And, until the accession of Efthal, this plan seemed to work.
• The Titans took a more proactive approach. They anointed the goliath Cyr to vanquish Nebu, which he did. They also gave him the secret of the landbond, which allowed him to found the Middle Empire. The Empire was destroyed by the return of the Dragons, and the Titans didn't actively interfere in mortal affairs again until the founding of Winteren.

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