A Brief History of Gielinor

As taught to the ordinary citizens of the kingdom of Misthalin, from the books Reldo keeps in the Library of Varrock.

Introduction

Our world has two names. Gielinor is its true name, as the god Guthix spells it. Q-pea is the name the people gave it, after two marks the gods made. You will hear both in the market, and both are right.

Little survives of the oldest ages: a handful of myths, a few holy books, and the letters the gods still write to the living. The gods disagree about who made the world, and each of them has written to say so. What follows is what the scholars agree on, and where they argue, you will hear both sides.

Before the Ages - The Folding

No calendar counts this time, and its only witness is Guthix, who tells it badly and out of order. The druids keep it as their oldest teaching. Reldo files it under myth, with a note in the margin: "Probably true."

Before Gielinor, there were hundreds of worlds side by side, each with its own peoples and its own gods. They were never at peace. Gods fought gods across the seams between the worlds, and the dead outnumbered the living a thousand times over.

Then Guthix lost his temper. He let go of his shape and became a green storm wide enough to touch every world at once. Then he closed his hand. The worlds folded in upon each other until only two were left, the Slow and the Swift. You live upon the Swift.

The crushing froze both worlds solid. For millions of years, nothing moved. When the ice gave way, the sleepers woke, unable to remember where they came from, and unable to sleep again. That is how Gielinor was formed.

This stillness was all to end in the First Age.

The First Age - The Eldest

The scholars count the First Age at 3,427 years, and admit the world is older than their count. Guthix woke from his first rest and opened the World Gate. Peoples came through it from other worlds: the elves, who built Prifddinas, and the first humans.

Guthix made the world's magic from the Stone of Jas and scattered it across the land as runestones. Then he went deep underground to sleep. While he slept, other gods came.

The Gods Who Came

Saradomin is order. He first stepped onto the world at Entrana, and his motto is "Strength through wisdom". Zamorak is chaos, and his motto is "Strength through chaos". Guthix is balance, and he would rather you made up your own mind.

Under the three gods stand three demi-gods, each the maker of one mark. Guthix's made the q, and Saradomin's the p. Zamorak's wanted to stand out, chose a capital W, and declared that only a mighty W can close a gap between q and p. Our world takes its common name from the q and the p.

The Second Age - The Empire

In the Second Age, the god Zaros built the greatest empire the world has known, from a village called Senntisten. Zamorak was his general. Zamorak betrayed him with a stolen staff, banished him, and rose a god in his place.

A new god had risen, and he would not wait long to use his power.

The Third Age - The God Wars

The Third Age lasted 4,508 years, and humanity barely survived it. The gods fought over the Stone of Jas. The dwarves hid under the mountains, and the elves shut themselves in Prifddinas. The warriors the gods brought in dropped weapons of a metal called dragon when they fell.

In the north, the land burned until nothing would grow. We call it the Wilderness. Then Guthix woke, bade the gods cease, and bound them by the Edicts never to walk the world in war again. His tears still fall in the caves under the Lumbridge swamp.

The gods were gone, and the mortals were alone in a scarred land at last.

The Fourth Age - The Age of Mortals

The Fourth Age lasted 1,952 years. The tribes of men wandered, fought and settled. They learned to farm, to mine and to work metal, and with settled life came poems, songs and fine craft.

In the year 700, wanderers found a child by a river and named their camp Duhbelu. The goblins screamed his name as they fell: Cuepee. He grew to be the hero of men, and Duhbelu grew into the city we now call Varrock.

King Claudius founded Lumbridge in the year 1937. Fifteen years later, a man of the north found rune essence, and the age came to an end.

The Fifth Age - The Age of Runes

With runes, a handful of mages could hold a town against any foe. Misthalin, Asgarnia and Kandarin rose. Men and dwarves became allies, and mages built a great tower to study the runes.

Then disaster struck. Followers of Zamorak among the mages set the tower alight, and it burned with most of the wizards inside. Crusades followed against Zamorak's people, and his symbols are outlawed in Saradomin's lands to this day.

In this age the outlanders came. They woke in a light over Lumbridge castle, knowing nothing, and set out to make their fortunes. The world was small then, with four corners and no banks. Saradomin remembers it best, and his memories sit on the Library's shelves.

Then the world gained its depth. The people call it the Deepening. Outlanders could see each other's armour at a glance, fight a beast together and wear rings. The years after it are the Golden Era, the years the world's map remembers best.

Those were the days of the great outlanders, of Zezima and The Old Nite, of the lurers of the Wilderness, and of the gypsy's vision of Falador. As with most of Gielinor's history, the peace did not last. The gods were quarrelling again.

The Sixth Age - The Age of Two Worlds

The old world grew crowded. Every rock had three miners on it, and every tree five woodcutters. The land grew boring, boredom bred chaos, and the citizens wrote to the gods asking for more.

Saradomin wanted a modern world of united nations. Zamorak wanted the old world, with his demons in it. They argued until the balance tipped. Guthix woke, screamed his own name, and struck his head against a wall. The two worlds became one.

New lands arrived at the edges of the old map: Great Kourend, Varlamore, the isles of the north and the reaches of the desert. Prifddinas stands whole again. The Wilderness gained a town called Ferox Enclave, with a bank and a pool. Six times since, the gods have held trials for their champions, and the relics of those trials stayed in the world.

Zamorak's curse thinned and spread over every land, and any outlander may now strike another anywhere. Saradomin answered by spreading his hand over every bank, where no blow lands. Most of the people of Misthalin count a new age from the day of the wall.

The Present

Outlanders still arrive, as they always have, in a light. The gods moved that light to Varrock in the fusion, beside the west bank. Lumbridge had no bank anyway.

No scholar can tell you what happens next. Some fear the gods will war again. Some wait for their own god to prove the others wrong. Some watch the light over Varrock, and wonder why the old tales say it opened somewhere else.

Will you follow Saradomin, Zamorak or Guthix, or none of them? Will you learn the histories, or make new ones? Will you close the gap between q and p?

This, is now your story.