Unofficial Craft Sequence Timeline (UPDATED 2024)
Updated with new information from DEAD COUNTRY and WICKED PROBLEMS.
When I first read the Craft Sequence I, like many others, got a bit confused by the timeline and chronology. We’ve discussed the chronology and reading order before, but that didn’t shed light on exactly what span of time is covered by the books. Being the ridiculous nerd I am (waves at entire site) I’ve taken advantage of my many hundreds of thousands of words of notes to figure out not only a timeframe but as many character ages across said timeframe as possible.
I pulled together this from references in the text, but this is not Word of Gladstone (…except when it is. You’ll see what I mean when you read it), so take with a pinch of salt and feel free to comment any inaccuracies.
Disclaimers / useful information before you read:
Shortly after initially writing this article in 2022, I discovered an official world timeline in the German editions of the series. This goes up to Ruin of Angels, and I’ve translated it here for your ease.
In this article I’m using a Star Wars style naming of eras, with Last First Snow being year 0. The aforementioned official timeline does use actual years but I’m dedicated to sticking with what I wrote before discovering said timeline, so we’re going with year 0.
Games are mentioned at the end of the article. I initially said they both take place in the 40-50 years after the God Wars, but another reader (rightly) corrected me, so check that out at the end.
In my 2024 update I have found a TIMELINE HOLE. I will discuss this and relate it to the official timeline, because I’m confused and want you to help me figure it out.
Whilst this is not a spoiler-heavy article, it is not entirely spoiler-free. Proceed with caution.
Craft Sequence Timeframe
We can work out the span of the series through references scattered throughout the books. I’ve included page numbers so you can look them up, but inconveniently several of my Kindle editions are missing page numbers; instead I’ve used chapters references for those instead.
So, where do we start and finish the series (so far)?
“Caleb thought back seventeen years to the Skittersill Rising.”
We know, therefore, that Last First Snow took place 17 years before Two Serpents Rise.
“...the last six years, serpents over DL and an outbreak in AC, bond crises…”
Two Serpents Rise therefore takes place 6 years before Ruin of Angels.
“...the memory crystal she had brought home from Alikand two years before.”
And this shows us that Dead Country takes place two years after Ruin of Angels.
We don’t get a specific date range for Wicked Problems, but we do hear that Tara hasn’t had a lead on Dawn in ‘months’ (WP page 24) and Dawn has been on the run for ‘weeks’ (WP page 25). The two characters measuring the time so differently makes me believe that the time is somewhere between a month and a half to just under three months (or approximately six to eleven weeks) but that’s my own inference rather than something specifically stated. Given the close timeframe to Dead Country, I’m going to avoid adding an additional year to the span.
Therefore, we have a 25 year span for the currently published novels, give or take a year or two for Two Serpents Rise and Full Fathom Five.
Where do the books fit within that timespan?
We have a handful of time references that help us figure out where the books fit within the twenty-five years.
Full Fathom Five (page 59) tells us that the “Kos situation” – the events of Three Parts Dead – happened two years ago, and that the Two Serpents Group was founded four years ago (page 126), an event that happened at the end of Two Serpents Rise. Two Serpents Rise and Full Fathom Five take place over quite a few months, but let’s pretend they don’t so we can be clearer in timeline.
Four Roads Cross takes place a year after Three Parts Dead, which we know thanks to a helpfully time-specific quote:
“And in this manner she passed a nervous year, until Gabby Jones spoiled everything.”
Izza says in Ruin of Angels that two years had passed since they last mourned a God (chapter 33), telling us it’s been two years since the start of Full Fathom Five. Kai says that it’s been a year since she was out of hospital (possibly the end of Full Fathom Five?), but we’re going to ignore that the same way we ignore that Fathom and Serpents take place over many months each. This is an approximate timeline after all.
And a reminder of the info above - Tara brought a memory crystal back from Alikand two years before Dead Country, and Wicked Problems takes place a maximum of three months after Dead Country.
THUS
Last First Snow SEVENTEEN YEARS before Two Serpents Rise.
Two Serpents Rise FOUR YEARS before Full Fathom Five
Three Parts Dead TWO YEARS before Full Fathom Five
Four Roads Cross ONE YEAR after Three Parts Dead
Ruin of Angels SIX YEARS after Two Serpents Rise
Dead Country TWO YEARS after Ruin of Angels
Wicked Problems A COUPLE OF MONTHS after Dead Country
And, using the aforementioned Star Wars style year system, here is that in a handy graphic:
All done, let’s go home.
EXCEPT.
Wicked Problems threw a metaphorical spanner in the works. Damn you, Gladstone.
What’s with the fifteen years?
“Fifteen years later, I’m alone with a kid and a snake in a rowboat.”
“Fifteen years. And you’re still mad about that.”
“Written in what designers fifteen years ago had thought the fonts of the future would look like.”
I won’t dive into the specifics of these conversations in case you’ve got this far without reading Wicked Problems, but these comments definitively refer to it being fifteen years since the end of Two Serpents Rise.
Astute readers will notice that does not fit within the 25 year timespan. 17 years between Last First Snow and Two Serpents Rise, then 8 years after that to the Craft Wars books. Let’s say that Full Fathom Five covers a full year (which I don’t believe), making that 9 years.
We’re missing SIX WHOLE YEARS.
Was I wrong with my earlier references? Let’s refer to the official timeline included in the German editions of the Craft Sequence books. The most recent one (Ruin of Angels, to my knowledge) may have an update, but I have no way of checking, so the dates in that only go up to Ruin, and thus don’t include the Craft Wars books.
That timeline shows us the following:
1483 last first snow
1500 TWO SERPENTS RISE
1502 THREE PARTS DEAD
1503 FOUR ROADS CROSS
1504 FULL FATHOM FIVE
1507 RUIN OF ANGELS
My estimates are pretty close to correct. Last First Snow to Ruin of Angels covers about 23 years. Tara is very clear in Dead Country that it has been 2 years since Alikand, making 25 years. Perhaps I am wrong with my estimates of how close Wicked Problems is to Dead Country, but are you telling me you believe a) Tara has sat around for YEARS waiting for Dawn to do something, and b) Dawn has done nothing in, again, multiple YEARS.
I don’t believe it.
Gladstone, if you’re reading this - what’s up with the fifteen years. Am I wrong? Are you wrong? Has time compressed weirdly for the world outside Dresediel Lex? Is my maths completely off? I am desperate to know!!
Until or unless Gladstone answers my plea, I’m going to have to call the fifteen years an error. It’s the one piece that doesn’t fit, even if it is mentioned three times.
…moving on.
Across the series, how old are our main characters?
Craft Sequence Character Ages
We have specific ages for many but not all main characters (though I’m keeping an eye out on reread for those). A few key dates and ages that we are given in the text include:
Three Parts Dead – Elayne is 79 (and 3 months), Tara is 24
Last First Snow – Caleb is 10
Last First Snow – we are told that at the Liberation of Dresediel Lex (approx 40 years earlier), Elayne was 17, Temoc was 20, and Kopil was 40. However, we later learn that Elayne and Temoc are the same age bar three weeks, so I’m not quite sure what to do with this.
Full Fathom Five – Izza is 15
Ruin of Angels – Izza is 17
We don’t get any ages for Kai, but we know she went to university (which in the Craftworld / Domain seems to follow the American four year system) and she took her holy orders ten years before Full Fathom Five (page 75) after a novitiate / traineeship. If we go with leaving uni around age 22, a year novitiate, then a decade of being a priest that makes her approximately 33 in Full Fathom Five. Yet, in Wicked Problems she says she became a director due to the whole Blue Lady thing before she was 30, so I’m clearly off 3 years at least. I’ve updated my graphic below to call her 30.
We know Ley is a couple of years younger than Kai, and that Ley, Zeddig and Raymet knew each other at uni (Ruin of Angels, chapter 18). Whether they were in the same year or different is unclear, but none of their POVs imply there is a significant age difference. They are listed as ‘the delvers’ in the breakdowns below.
Abelard and Cat are definitely around the same age as each other, and Abelard says a) that he began his novitiate fifteen years before Three Parts Dead (pages 227 and 306), and that he was a novice at 11 (page 89). I’m calling him and Cat 26ish. Four Roads Cross slightly messes with this, telling us that Abelard has had six years of vigils and two of Technical Novitiate (chapter 19) buuuuut I’m going to decide those are later parts of his training and 11 year olds aren’t doing vigils.
Teo and Caleb were friends at uni, and seem approximately the same age in the brief reference to Teo in Last First Snow (page 372) so I’m going with them being the same age. Mal is about two years older (Last First Snow, page 333).
Dawn is quite frankly of indeterminate age, as explained in her dedicated article here, so I’m not adding her to the list. However, she does appear to be closest in age to Izza, which adds to the many parallels between them. Another idea to add to my to-write list…
I originally had a list of each book here, but this article is getting super long, so have a graphic instead:
What about the games?
As said in the intro, the games are both pre-series. Choice of the Deathless is set shortly after the God Wars, which end somewhere between the Liberation of Dresediel Lex (approx 43 years before Last First Snow) and the Seril case in Alt Coulumb (approx 40 years before Three Parts Dead, which makes it approx 21 years before Last First Snow).
This makes the end of the God Wars somewhere between Year -43 and -21 if we make Last First Snow Year 0 as above. Lets’s say 43 BSR (Before Skittersill Rising) and 21 BSR). City’s Thirst is harder to date but Kopil is still in human form; he says that he went full skeleton at age 60, which is Year 23 BSR based on all the ages and dates we’ve previously discussed.
I therefore place Choice of the Deathless at around 30 years BSR and City’s Thirst at about 25 years BSR.
Edit: thanks @NeoTiamat on Twitter for their correction to my guess about Choice of the Deathless with actual evidence, unlike mine above…
What do you think? Did I miss any crucial references? What do you think has happened with the missing years??
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