As I wandered aimlessly around the Internet last night, it occurred to me that
no one, to my knowledge, had ever incorporated Aebrynis' history into the
mainstream of Prime Material Plane history. So I sallied forth, thrashed
around for a while and wrote up the following:

AEBRYNIS AND THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE PRIMES

Aebrynis' connection to mainstream history comes in the person of Gregor
Zolnik, the man who brought about the creation of the domain of Vorostokov in
the Demiplane of Dread. According to the Ravenloft Timeline, Gregor was born
in Vosgaard's Grovinekevic Forest in 709 BY and brought Vorostokov over in 731
BY. Since these dates are very generic and could have happened at any time
since c. -500 HC(the approximate date that the Vos arrived in Vosgaard), the
"campaign hook"(a connecting point between two campaign worlds) will have to
be established by some other means. Here the trail grows faint, for we now
have to rely on real world publication dates. The Birthright boxed set was
released in July 1995, and the Ravenloft adventure "Circle of Darkness" was
released during the preceding month. "Circle of Darkness" dates to 745 BY, so
it can be said that 1524 HC= 745 BY. This results in the following timeline:
1488 HC: Gregor Zolnik born in village of Vorostkov in northern
Vosgaard.
1510 HC: Gregor Zolnik murders his wife and a castle full of people;
Vorostokov becomes a domain in the Demiplane of Dread.

Having established a campaign hook, we can begin to extrapolate common dates
from that point. Thus:
1524 HC equals 1364 DR/332 NR/5223 NY/6 PR(Forgotten Realms), 382 AC/-1
SC(Dragonlance), 594 CY(Greyhawk), FY -26(Dark Sun), Y 2614(Kara-Tur), 5029
OC(Spelljammer)

The following calculations can be used to establish the corresponding dates
between Birthright and TSR's other campaign settings:
HC= BY + 779; DR + 133/NR + 1192/NY - 3699/PR + 1491; AC + 1142/SC
+1525; CY + 930; FY + 1550; Y - 1090; OC - 3505.

SOURCES
A Temporal Chronology of the
Primes[www.digitalmarble.com/realmspace/primes.asp]- Biased toward the Realms
somewhat, but still an excellent resource for those of us who have neither the
time nor the financial resources to chart the meandering courses of TSR's
campaign histories.

John W. Mangrum's Complete Ravenloft
Timeline[www.kargatane.com/sotk/ref/timeline.html]- A truly remarkable
accomplishment(or an amazing example of fetishism, you be the judge :)) six
years in the making. If all campaign worlds had this level of feverish
committment from their fans, the world would be a much happier place.

NOTES
1. I make no claim as to the accuracy of either of the above sources. As I
own none of the relevant Ravenloft/Forgotten Realms/etc. products, I cannot
independently confirm their chronological arrangements. My calculations are
based on the assumption that both sources are correct.

2. There are, obviously, some holes in my reasoning here. Among them:
1)The calendar used for Haelyn's Count is based on a 388-day year, as
opposed to the more standard(c. 365 days/year) calendars of the other Prime
worlds. Over the progress of a century, this surplus adds up to 2300 extra
days, or a little more than 6 standard years/century, 60 yrs/millenium, etc.
For this essays' purposes, such a chronological 'hiccup' can be
overlooked(I've assumed that the temporal vagaries of the Demiplane of Dread
somehow balance out the difference). My numerically-challenged brain is
hardly up to the challenge of straightening the whole mess out, but those of
you who seek a more exact timeline are welcome to have a crack at it.
2)The discrepancy evident in the Ravenloft/Forgotten Realm dates between the
Chronology and the Ravenloft Timeline need some explaining. In this essay, I
follow Mr. Mangrum's reasoning(see his preface to the Timeline and his notes
under "751 BY" for a much clearer explanation of the problem), rather than the
Chronology's. Basically, all that is necessary to bring the Chronology into
line with the Ravenloft Timeline is to take the Realms-dependent years(DR, NR,
NY, PR, Y and OC) in the Chronology and subtract 27. Thus, where 751 BY once
corresponded to 1397 DR, 751 BY now equals 1370 DR.

3. A Disclaimer: I'm not perfect. Chances are good that I've let a real
doozy slip past me while I was typing this up, and you, the reader, are now
scratching your head in annoyed confusion at a dyslexic date or a mangled
sentence. In that case, you can fire off your angry emails(or any other
comments) to [komnenos@netscape.net]. Thank you for your time.


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