I've just realized the history of the island has changed rather drastically with the Kohlingen update, and the timeline is not at all reliable anymore. If the staff has a new timeline, can it be integrated into the current one? Doing IC research into history, it would be nice to know if the documents I find are retconned or not. Is Kohlingen's new history available to PCs somewhere other than piecing together in game?

I'm told there was actually an update until the hack attack. Is it gone forever?

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Would be nice! Include the whole khem plot because of its global scale as well.

A ton has happened all over without the updated timeline.

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The Peacock wrote:

[GreatPigeon] is better than me.

Wait, what?

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

There is a lot of lore in the module now, none of which was in the Kohlingen lore thread, or written in any manner of IC reference. So there's now gaps in Kohlingens timeline again.. Or so it'd appear.

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Aoth Nathandem - Wizard of house Tholaunt and chosen of Ma'at.

There were no drastic changes to the history of the island with the recent update of Kohlingen. Changes throughout the last years just are now apparent in game as the city was not updated in years. The Kohlingen Update/Expansion did not focus in the least on additional changes to lore and culture, but to have the module reflect the established culture and history in game, both as it has developed in game and as it was changed by the DMs after the events over the last years. There was some fine brushing of the lore (both old and revised), a few very minor additions, as well as simple development that occured through the expansion itself. There was a lot of work done by Fabian, Nivo and Gorgometh (the DMs who oversaw the project) to really enrich the culture and history felt when you are in game. The project took months, and was tested again and again so that it all made sense.

But I believe what Iron is refering to are the previous lore and timeline changes the update simply now reflects in game. For example, that Kohlingen's founding was pushed back in time to 1122 DR quite some time ago, and hence the destruction of the Kingdom of Benwick was pushed back to around that time as well. This was not something you could learn from the module itself before, but only from dm controlled npcs or characters who were made aware of the changes.

The characters on amia had a very real effect on the history and development of the server. In the last ten years Kohlingen was created, Benwick, Udos, Ultrinnan, Wyrmhold, Mystra's Grove, the Monolith, the Benwick Kelemvor Temple all were destroyed, Cordor was under Duchal rule, a republic, under duchal rule, destoyed, rebuild, experienced a revolution now being a republic again. You have Zanshibon being dragged to the Abyss. There are still many characters who were around in those events, or who knew or are related to people who were around.

Changes like that of Kohlingen (and there were a lot of lore changes in the past four to five years) simply have a notable ripple effect on the history of events, characters and locations that were tied to these events. Previous changes to the creation, culture, history and development of Kohlingen make the roleplay of old characters and factions inaccurate if not completly contradictory. That is the drastic change to the history of the island Iron is refering to and why the timeline is not reliable anymore, and why it had not been reliable for a very long time.

I would love for there to be a project to deliever an accurate, detailed and sensible timeline that has limited effect on old characters and ties everything together neatly. That however is a huge task and daunting, especially now that the history of the island over the last nine years has been spread over a timeframe of a few centuries.

So somebody's been retconning history for years now and just not telling players about it? At the same time, existing timelines in the Khem forum are removed and never reposted. Somebody really needs to get a grasp of the big picture and pull the strings together, in the team.

Not saying the changes were bad; I don't know them, but they probably make sense. The way it's been handled, quietly pushing in 200 years of new history contrary to previous, in-game books, NPC conversations and R&L articles, is kind of abysmal. If the team developed a new timeline to guide their stories, it needs to be posted and clearly stated to invalidate older, contradicting information. Whenever we shuffled timelines (like Khem and the big one) we posted them for player to comment on and adjust to, beforehand.

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Well, that would make it sound like it was purposefully kept from the players, which was not the case. I simply think that some DMs have the preference of writing long detailed lore and culture histories, while others do not. They instead establish it in game through their plots. Of course I would prefer the lore to be in a lore topic and reflected through the module and the majority of such changes to occur through plots, but that is just my personal preference. How these revisions are decided upon I do not know, as I have no idea how the team decides upon them or if any dm just has the authority to make them to the places he oversees.

You mentioned Khem. Khem (desert of something before) was a undefined desert in the Skull Crags, as you know. At some point it was decided it was not sensible, so it was changed to a portal to the island of Khem. Nes'ek was now a foreign culture (instead of a local culture) in a place far away. There was a big update of Khem that brought in locations such as Djedet. The DMs who now oversaw the rp there established the lore and history that replaced the old (Kjetta, and I think you helped with that) to make it sensible. That history and lore was later revised by a DM who followed after Kjetta left to tie it more closely to the canon mulhorandi lore. I think that is why it was removed, and because it was never finished not re-posted.

In the case of Kohlingen it was a more gradual change that came over the years, but that in retrospect changed the city's history enormously. The Justicar was changed to be the leader of Kohlingen instead of the Defenders, and later the lore was altered that it had always been the case. The new concept was fleshed out through the introduction of the lore that the old Justicar names the new, and the Church of the Triad has always confirmed him. That meant that the Church of the Triad had always been in Kohlingen, and was not established in the middle of the cities history when Haulfast had a fit of devils besmirching his temple in Cordor, which had resulted to him moving to Kohlingen. Later, because the city was so big, it was deemed silly it just grew so big in such a short period of time, so the date of the founding was pushed back two centuries. With that previous Justicars had to be created, and so forth.

There is also the aspect to consider that a lot of previous events are not being taken into account as most of it was just lost in the depths of the forum throughout the years, inbetween events that are just so silly nobody wants to take them into account, and the fact that not every place had a fleshed out history. Not to mention all the contradictions that already existed back then.

Yes, and now I'm asking that all this material be provided. I'm not commenting on their substance - how could I, before even seeing it? It's probably good and mostly justified. I'm commenting on their unavailability. If the city was able to redesigned with all these memorial statues, there must be a timeline somewhere.

Compiling old DM Story topics for a history piece, I really do need to know which of them apply. Fortunately, almost everything before 2006 is pretty much unusable anyway.

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I am happy to elaborate how certain changes were made to the history of the server from my experience as a player, and explain to you as the designer of the Kohl Update/Expansion that there were no drastic changes to history that were not already established a long time before. However, it is a whole different matter for you to ask me for my design notes. Especially as a former DM you know I am not allowed to share them, even if I wanted to. Which I do not. These notes you want to see are not meant to be posted here, as they are designer notes. They consist of a variety of things like descriptions of NPCs and PLCs, conversations of NPCs, builds, conversations with designers and dms, their notes for me when I needed elaboration or had questions, and so forth.

Perhaps to make it also clear why I do not have a complete detailed history of Kohlingen: I had the benefit that I did not need every date or be as objective with the lore as would be needed for an ooc timeline. While I needed the correct dates or information for historical aspects I wanted to add, like the founding date and the dates of reign of the Justicars (which you now can easily read up in game), or the roles of the triad clergy (which you now can easily read up in game), certain historical occurences I could taint with subjectivity and others I could simply leave out for the sake of not spending two years on the project. Some things I left out, others I wanted in. I wanted the story of how Kohlingen was founded in there, so I needed to know about it. Tristam left Benwick. What exactly occured when he left Benwick? I did not have to care little to nothing was available about that, as I told that bit through an npc who heard the story from his grandfather, who heard it from his own grandfather and did not recall the details. I of course needed to know Benwicks fall was not long after the founding of Kohlingen, as then it would not be the great-great-grandfather who was supposedly around for it.

The module now reflects the culture and history of Kohlingen accurately, however it does not cover every part of it. So all I can say is to look at what is available in game and the forums at the moment start with that. Then when you get further with your research and see some things do not fit, you can always ask the help of the DMs to help make sense of it. Perhaps if you do a great job and the team helps sort everything out, his work could be the new subjective history of amia that replaces the out of date timeline.

I'm not asking you, I'm asking the DMs responsible for rewriting the lore. If history was recently (after the publication and the latest updates to the official timeline) rewritten, then surely the DM team has that lore somewhere. There's nothing problematic or controversial about this request.

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There was, and I was so disheartened that I could never muster the strength to do it all over again. I had just days on the project about three weeks or so prior, maybe.

Perhaps I was just very angry at myself for not backing the project up on my own computer, and expecting the forums to do that for me. Somehow.

Feudal nobility was not a cornerstone of Kohlingen until you shoehorned it in with a city update, actually.

Source: The guy who ranv Kohl and helped upkeep much of the lore and had to jump hoops after that little update.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

Well, I'm just genuinely curious if the lore exists as I'm sure it must and would like to see it posted. The fall of Benwick happened in 1367, 14 years ago, in our current timeline. But am I correct to assume that's now false and IC documents I find on the forum referencing the town are to be ignored? (That means my PC's mother probably can't be from Benwick like I wrote in my citizenship exam, even if that was almost 60 years ago. Uh-oh!)

And that sucks pretty hard, Yossarin.

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What? that would have to be correct. kohlingen existed for a long time before Benwick fell. Changing that alters a ton of other things.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

Kghrk, I keep finding things to pick apart in Phearnun's posts, like the Defenders/Justicar thing (Tristram was the original Justicar and always led Kohl, despite being a leader of the defenders: there was crossover but Tristram still ruled)

I need to shut my mouth before I get into a pissing match again.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

But it was within the same generation, wasn't it? Unless King Galahad or whatever his name actually lived for centuries. Which, given our setting, might very well be.

I've always assumed that Tristam founded his keep by an existing village of Kohlingen, though. That village wouldn't have had Justicars of course, but that's where Nabessa the Sword Saint had lived. Tristam's arrival would have happened within a generation of today.

Or not?

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King Galahad as a Paladin ... Blackguard. So living long could very well have been attributed to the (lesser known) second half of his classes.

Galahad was not a very nice King.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

The module now reflects the culture and history of Kohlingen accurately, as the DMs who oversaw the project made sure it would and were happy it accomplished that. All three of the DMs I worked for focused on being true to the standing lore. I mention it again, as I will get to that in a bit in regard to the standing lore.

As to your 'Kghrk' about the Defenders, I am not truly interrested to debate details that I was around for as a faction member which occured eight years ago, details that were made irrelevant with the revised timeline five years ago. You are free to pm me if you truly want to do so, but I honestly see no point to it, least of all in this manner. It served simply as an example how certain aspects of the history were changed.

As to Benwick, there was a lack of available lore in which changes to the server storyline of Kohlingen and Benwick could be looked up. If there had been, I would have seen it for the project, and I am quite certain it would have been kept as such. Wether or not common sense dictates that King Galahad was around until fourteen years ago as a two century old villan, or wether or not common sense dictates that the destruction of Benwick is rightfully moved back with Kohlingen is not something that I am interrested to debate either. That is was not moved back because it would have changed a lot is also not something that could be gone by, as moving back Kohlingen (an event closely tied to it) already changed a lot.

It goes without saying, but I will say it anyway, with so many events tied together changing one simply will make the lore a bit scurvy and the pieces will not fit neatly. But that was a can of worms that was opened years ago. What is however now a fact is that King Galahad was not around until fourteen years ago, and that he was not a two hundred year old blackguard.

You guys really should just wait to hear from the Kohl DMs. Why debate back and forth on what may or may not be, instead of getting it from the proverbial horse's mouth.

This is utterly wrong and should be fixed, though. I may not be a DM but the basis for the lore by and large came from me, Suney, Iron and Yoss. Just because you didn't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, Mr, "I am a Designer and not a DM and therefore did not have access to every forum and every discussion."

You and I aren't interested in debating. Good. Because there's nothing to debate: You're wrong and I'm right. The Justicar has alwyas been the true Leader of Kohlingen, no matter how much day to day power the Defenders weilded, and Kohlingen was alwyas founded long before Benwick was destroyed, because Imperator didn't flee to Kohlingen until Benwick went poof from the resurgence of Wyrmhold. Both places existed simultaneously for quite some time. If we're citing 'I played 8 years ago' as experience, then I think I got a lot more to say than you here, so mind that when pulling the whole... seniority issue... with someone like me.



Yeah, uh, considering I to this day get PMs from you guys asking me about the lore, don't mind me if I'm still a bit picky about it, ok? Especially on Kohl. Considering how much I got asked, I sometimes feel like I am basically the horse's mouth here, unless you guys really did retcon a bunch of things that had no need to be retconned because it was already har din stone laid out when we did the timeline, with stories written for back up and everything by Yoss.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

As one of the ones who still on occasion tosses you those PM messages for Tark stuff every now and then, I'm definitely well aware and had no issue with the initial "zomg!"

I'm just suggesting that before you guys get yourselves into a big long back and forth debate, that we wait to see where the Kohl DM(s) are on this is all.

Can't you just look on teh forums and post it yourself and solve it now?

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

Honestly, I've steered 100% clear of Kohlingen stuff since I started really delving into Tarkuul, for better or for worse.

I'm really no longer sure about anything. The timeline we did doesn't reference Kohlingen's beginning at all, so it certainly isn't something that was consciously changed when I was a DM. Nabessa's story gives some glimpse of the beginning, and it does imply it happened before Montgomery's time since that duke was deposed by vote of the Merchant's Guild and some Freckin dude took over. There's no date for that story, but I guess I can figure that out by checking her statue in game. Anyway, the story explains quite well the rapid initial growth of the settlement:

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We'll get it sorted and make sure everything is updated accordingly and correctly.