History of Krynn:
While every world’s history is vast and fractured, with missing pieces and forgotten perspectives, Krynn’s tale has been shattered by the global catastrophe called the Cataclysm. The world of Krynn was forged and destroyed, yet—broken and scarred—it continued on. Most of its people, seeking merely to survive in their slowly healing lands, care little for eons past. But the sages who piece together fragments of the past focus on three periods: before the Cataclysm, the Cataclysm itself, and the dire age since.
Before the Cataclysm:
Krynn’s earliest centuries have passed into mythohistory. The story begins in the Age of Starbirth when the gods forged the world from primordial chaos. This period’s records are mere legends and scriptures, and few credit their details as fact.
Next came the Age of Dreams, a time when heroes battled the forces of evil. Many modern cultures and institutions saw their origins in this era, including the Knights of Solamnia, the Mages of High Sorcery, and the dwarven kingdom of Thorbardin. Ironically, these cultures often dismiss one another’s foundational stories as baseless myths while fiercely insisting on the veracity of their own.
During a terrible conflict known as the Third Dragon War, the knight Huma Dragonbane was granted the first of the fabled dragonlances. He used it to defeat the evil god Takhisis the Dragon Queen and end the war, forcing the god and her dragons to leave Krynn. The good dragons of Krynn soon departed as well, leaving the world to mortals and the remaining gods.
During the thousand years before the Cataclysm, known as the Age of Might, several human nations flourished, conquering vast swaths of the continent of Ansalon in the name of good. But the triumph of the Age of Might sowed the seeds of its downfall.
Over the centuries, the city of Istar in eastern Ansalon grew into a continent-spanning empire, thanks in part to a military alliance with the Knights of Solamnia. Istar came to be ruled by a series of kingpriests who declared Istar the center of the world and themselves the holy messengers of the gods of good. Under their leadership, Istar declared war on actions, peoples, and even thoughts the kingpriests considered evil. Increasingly rigid and theocratic, Istar reached its apex of power just before its apocalyptic fall. The last kingpriest undertook ever more audacious magical feats, culminating in a ritual to attain godhood and rule Krynn forever in the name of good. At last, the gods acted, united in their condemnation of Istar.