It is a history that never was, and the greatest empires of earth’s past stand at the apex of their glory.

Mighty Roman gladiators do battle in the Circus Maximus, ferocious Viking warriors launch longships in search of plunder and pillage, and ruthless Persian warlords champion transcendent works of art even as they sack great cities and put millions to the sword. The Pharaohs of the Nile raise great pyramids to make their names immortal while China's peerless ministries build a Great Wall, even as the Mongol clans beyond that bulwark insatiably appraise all these empires and more besides.

Obscured among the shadows of these mighty forces, two hidden factions are locked in a secret but all-important struggle. The Order of the Celestial Dawn are keepers of a forgotten truth, devoted to fanning every human being's divine spark into the bright flame of Enlightenment. The Covenant of Twilight believes men too weak and ignorant to govern themselves, and are bent instead on secretly subjugating the empires of the world for their own ends. Against a backdrop of border wars and incursions, mighty warriors of mystical power and potent ability who are allied to these two factions fight secret battles where the stakes are no less than the very future of humankind. Their war is the ShadoWar.

Just recently, agents of the Order of the Celestial Dawn have recovered documents believed scribed by Sharizad, one of the greatest teachers and lorekeepers ever to live. Her account of the secret history of mankind at least partially corresponds to the most ancient scrolls recovered from the library of Alexandria prior to the Undying King’s purge of that collection. This information is considered by leading scholars of the Order of the Celestial Dawn to be the most accurate currently available.

Note that Sharizad uses the term “Favored” as a proper noun throughout. Scholars disagree as to what, precisely, she means by the term. All dates are given in years before now (BN).

circa 3000 BN : the age of Gods and Heroes. Many of those now worshipped as Gods are believed by some to have been born from a union of mortal blood and the Spirit Realm during this time. Among them are Zeus, Odin, Horus-Re, and others. In turn, their offspring display powers beyond those of the mortal realm. The crew of the Argo are the most celebrated collection of Favored from this time.

circa 2500 BN : The Trojan War rages. Gods and Favored fight on both sides. The seeds of the War in Heaven are planted.

circa 2000 BN : The War in Heaven shakes heaven and earth. Prometheus is chained to his rock. Set murders Osiris. The Spirit-Wolf Fenrir savages many Gods as Loki turns against his brethren in a battle now known as Ragnarok. The Spirit Realm retreats from Earth. Mankind is now the dominant force.

1700 BN : The Scroll of the Celestial Dawn is written by a man or woman identified only as Lao Shi, "Teacher" (often referred to as "The First Teacher"). The teachings contained within this scroll form the core of Order of the Celestial Dawn philosophy, and the Order generally traces its origin to this date, although it will not be known by this name for centuries.

1000 BN : Rashotep I reigns as Pharaoh of the Upper Nile.

450 BN : At the Battle of Marathon, Greek soldiers fight off a numerically superior Persian force. Many of the Favored are present on both sides, among them Pheidippedes and Echetlaeus the Plow-Man.

circa 400 BN : The Battles of Thermopylae and Salamis mark the highlights of the Second Persian War. In particular, the exploits of Leonidas's 300 Spartans show the effect of Favored on the battlefield. Meanwhile, Zhongdu is sacked by steppe nomads and the battle between Beowulf and Grendel nearly destroys the kingdom of Heorot. To certain people, the dangers of warfare - especially warfare backed by Favored - running unchecked become obvious and terrifying. The Covenant of Twilight is founded, counting many former members of the Order of the Celestial Dawn amongst its founders.

350 BN : Alexander of Macedon, acting under the influence of (or perhaps as leader of) the Covenant of Twilight, destroys the first Persian Empire and fights his way to the Indus River, conquering the Lower Nile and parts of Araby on the way. Harukaze Shinnosuke destroys the last Oni in Nippon, exterminating the last known vestiges of the Spirit Realm in Nippon.

330 BN : Alexandrian Empire falls. Beginning of the reign of the Ptolemic Pharaohs in the Lower Nile. Greece rapidly collapses into a series of warring city-states. Rome begins its rise to power. Ironically, the largest intact remnant of Alexander's conquests becomes the nucleus of the Second Persian Empire.

30 BN : Rashotep I(?) combines the Upper and Lower Nile into Unified Egypt, ruling from Abydos. Astrid and Zi Ren flee Egypt.

26 BN : Heorot is sacked by reavers. Zi Ren and Zi Mei return to China.

1 9 BN : Zi Ren's death.

5 BN : Lu Chen defeats Yi Shan and Zi Mei. Yi Shan defects to the Order of the Celestial Dawn.

4 BN : Sharizad's timeline ends here with her death during the Persian Coup. Events surrounding her death are unclear, but when the dust settled Darius II's sons had been executed for treason, his daughter was missing and wanted for treason and murder, and Darius and his queen were dead. Xerxes, Darius's vizier, now rules in Persia as a puppet of the Covenant of Twilight.