Time and History (Maztica Supplement)
History of Maztica[edit]
Blue Age (??? — ???)[edit]
In the beginning, the Prime Material plane was home to a number of nigh-omnipotent beings known as the Overgods suspended within endless phlogiston. Each of these gods sought out to create their vision of reality, inevitably leading to division, so rather than collaborating, each god shaped a crystal sphere in the phlogiston.
Among these Overgods were Ao the Hidden Watcher and Maztica the Mother of Life. While Ao had grandiose visions of balanced dualism; good and evil, order and chaos all balanced in an eternal struggle, Maztica simply desired a home and a family. While Ao shaped Realmspace; the planets in their orbits around the Sun, and gave life to his first gods, Shar the Mistress of Light and Selûne the Moonmaiden, Maztica drew earth from the seas of the primordial world Abeir-Toril, created her husband Kukul, and lit the Darkfyre in her land's highest peak so that no other god, not even Ao, could enter her home without her permission.
Shadow Epoch (??? — 35,000 BDR)[edit]
The land was peaceful for a time. Maztica covered the earth with all manner of primal beasts and spirits while Kukul painted the sky with stars. Both acts surprised Ao, but did little to disrupt his plans as they were not intended to do so. The pinnacle of Maztica's creations was the first city, Tewahca whose pyramid was tall enough to witness the full beauty of Kukul's art, and its inhabitants, the primordial tlincalli who lacked skin and chitin to protect themselves.
This peaceful home came to an end, however, with the Dawn War; when the primordials, beings of unrestrained entropy from the chaos that surrounds the elemental planes, sought to destroy all creations of the Overgods. On Realmspace's front, an army of celestials, beasts, and humanoids lead by Ouroboros the World Serpent, the greatest of the primal spirits, fought back endless waves of elementals, fiends, and giants on Abeir-Toril, while the the gods and primordials did battle in the Astral Plane.
Toward the tail end of the war, Realmspace was all but lost. The primordials had infested Death's Reach, a part of the Shadowfell where the souls of the dead rested at the time, giving them even greater power by consuming the souls of mortals, and Dendar the Night Serpent, a powerful primordial, had swallowed the Sun, freezing Abeir-Toril and much of the gods' mortal forces. It was only through the primordial Ubtao the Deceiver that the gods wrested back control of the Shadowfell, and by his own hand that the Sun was ripped from Dendar's stomach and that she was thrown into the Fugue Plane to haunt nightmares until the end of the world.
Days of Thunder (35,000 BDR — 30,000 BDR)[edit]
Abeir-Toril lay in ruins, as did many of its species and gods. In this time, most of Maztica still lay under glacial sheets of ice and snow from the centuries that the Sun was absent in the far north of Merrouroboros, Abeir-Toril's pangaea. Maztica and Kukul's children had been shattered into fragments of themselves, and though the tlincalli still worshiped these fragments, their population had become small and weak from the war and cold. Instead, the two imbued these fragments with new life, becoming the continent's new gods.
With the birth of each of their children, Kukul cut the fingers from one of his many hands and shaped them into humans for the child to preside over as they saw fit in hopes that a single cataclysm would not destroy them like it had the tlincalli. The new gods gave their humans gifts just as they had been given: speech and curiosity from Qotal, honor and courage from Zaltec, water and fire from Azul and Tezca, creativity from Plutoq, love from Kiltzi, agriculture from Watil, hunting from Nula, and travel from Eha.
In this era, humanity primarily dwelt in caves around what would become Central Maztica, and hunted all manner of 4, mammoths, horses, saber-toothed tigers, and polar bears with sharpened stones. Lopango was home to what few tlincalli remained, though these remnants were forced to flee to tunnel systems deep within the warm rock of the volcanoes around 33rd century BDR when the powerful Batrachi Empires spread their furthest border to the peninsula, though this empire would cease long before the Days of Thunder would due to the already-rising Aeree Empires, and from numerous calamities that would result in the Tearfall, when Abeir and Toril became separate planets.
Dawn Age (30,000 BDR — 24,000 BDR)[edit]
Maztica was largely spared from the wars and massacres of the Dawn Age. Instead, the worshipers of Maztica's children grew greatly in number and technological advancement.
It was in this time that Qotal first envied the worship of his mother, greatest of their pantheon. To earn a greater portion of humanity's worship, he gave the gift of maize, growing his faith to rival his mother's. However, not to be outdone by this brother, Zaltec gave humanity the gift of hishna, magic fueled by violence.
The gift of hishna began a long string of Hishna Wars that crushed cities and populations one by one. In order to put a stop to this destruction, Maztica gave the gift of pluma at Qotal's imploring. But this perceived favoritism enraged Zaltec, who stormed the Pyramid of the Gods and slew his mother. This transgression erupted into an all-out war between the gods, with Maztica's sons siding with Zaltec and her daughters siding with Qotal. Amidst the fighting, Kukul became despondent from loss and banished himself from Maztica. Qotal would ultimately best Zaltec in single combat. As the new head, Qotal tended the Darkfyre with a swarm of qoatl and used its power to temporarily banish his murderous brother as punishment.
First Flowering (24,000 BDR — 12,000 BDR)[edit]
With both hishna and pluma; knowledge of the bloodiest wars and brightest peace, Maztica enjoyed a golden age. Though Qotal's Payit Empire conquered nearly the entirety of the True World, which had mostly freed itself from most of the frozen north, they brought with them a benevolent rule of law. Under Imperial Payit rule, Maztican art and architecture flourished. Every city was now marked with multiple pyramids, and even commonfolk ornamented themselves with gold and jewels.
But Qotal was still a jealous god, and envied the love the humans shared. Abusing his authority, he bed Kiltzi, who in retaliation poisoned him, throwing him into a slumber for 10 years.
Age of Zaltec (12,000 BDR — 1000 DR)[edit]
In Qotal's absence at the beginning of the 13th century BDR, pluma magic was heavily weakened. As crops failed and worship of other gods grew, more and more client nations of the Payit Empire rebelled, causing famine to spread across its cities. Ultimately, however, it was feuds between rival nobles in the core Payit cities that collapsed the empire, having grown bloodthirsty and desperate for power amidst the chaos.
When Qotal awoke in 12,009 BDR, Zaltec had not only returned, but replaced him as the godhead. With the weakening of the Darkfyre in his absence, Zaltec had directed a tribe of warriors from beyond Itzcala to join with the Nexalan population he had first given hishna to, strengthening the otherwise small community of valley farmers. With their newfound power, they stormed the Darkfyre and slew Qotal's qoatls, fully allowing their god to return and take control of it. For his transgressions against Kiltzi, and powerless against an empowered Zaltec, Qotal banished himself, though he left a prophesy with his priests that he would return.
Emboldened, Nexal conquered the True World, forming the Nexalan Empire. While famine once again subsided and cities were able to flourish, this peace was ensured by a vast army and obsidian-edged justice.
Age of Slavery (1000 DR — 1385 DR)[edit]
By the 10th century DR, the Nexalan Empire had taken its toll on Maztica. Though the empire had morphed many times under the rule of many Revered Councilors, the early and mid Age of Slavery was marked by exceptionally brutal leadership that demanded greater sacrifices and levies each generation. Much of the population was enslaved for apparent apostasy, chafing Zaltec's siblings. Meanwhile, word traveled from the unconquered reaches of Far Payit that Qotal's return was imminent, further frustrating Nexal's rulers.
In 1361 DR, Maztica was 'discovered' by Amnian explorers led by Captain Cordell and his Golden Legion. Seeing a land apparently flush with gold, enough to ornament nearly every major structure in every city, held by a population that still used wood, stone, and leather arms, the invaders sought to take these riches for themselves.
Pushing through Payit and Pezelac, as well as parts of eastern Kultaka, Cordell's invasion considered their conquest of Maztica complete with the Night of Wailing, the time of Nexal's fall. As even the city's great pyramids crumbled, Qotal reappeared, defending the city in the form of a great feathered dragon, freezing Lake Qotal over to make routes for fleeing survivors and blooming foliage in the deserts they fled to, though the city itself was reduced to ruins filled with jagre.
In the so-called "New Amn", temples to Zaltec and Azul were torn down, their stones and sites used to construct temples dedicated to Helm, the Faerûnian god of protection. Maztican natives were enslaved en masse in service of plantations and the whims of nobles, thrown to their deaths in search of Nexal's items of power or supposed treasure sequestered in the dense jungles.
Age of Freedom (1385 DR — Present)[edit]
In 1385 DR, the Year of Blue Fire, wild magic caused by Mystra's assassination shrouded Maztica, transporting it into the seas of Abeir. For the previous 20 years, survivors from Nexal had been gathering strength in Huacli, Kultaka, and Itzcala, and when New Amn sent out its ships in an attempt to establish new trade routes, they struck razing Helmsport and tearing down Fort Cordell. While the Valley of Nexal would forever stand as the land of the jagre, the Nexalan victory transformed Helmsport-Ulatos into New Nexal. Great stone walls were erected around the Gulf of Cordell, rechristened the Gulf of Zaltec, and those ships that laid eyes on the fires returned to Abeir's ports.
Payit and Pezalac had been weakened in its slavery, and though Nexal had won a great victory, it was not without cost of its own blood. Rather than an era of conquest and empires, the early Age of Freedom was one of rebuilding and defending from the horrors of the on-going Spellplague, though many of Maztica's nations still seek to claim the Darkfyre for their god.
In 1486 DR, with the end of the Spellplauge, Maztica returned to Toril. Though many within the nations sharing a sea with Maztica looked upon it with greed just as Cordell had, his cruelty and ultimate defeat stood clearly in the minds of the nobility that would have to back such an expedition.
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