The Sixth Epoch covers the period of time when hominids began to build civilizations with the advent of agriculture up until the Great Cataclysm.
The First Hominid Age
The First Hominid Age, generally called the First Age, was marked by hominids developing forms of agriculture, including both cultivating crops and raising livestock. This allowed them to settle into stable communities and develop civilizations – towns, villages, and eventually kingdoms and empires.
Although these hominids developed tools, much of that was limited because the abundance of Dream Force allowed for the use of magic to aid in both simple and complex tasks alike. Metalworking, for example, could be done without the use of modern forges, and tools like forges wouldn’t be developed until the Seventh Epoch, when Dream Force was much less plentiful.
The Second Hominid Age
The Second Hominid Age in the Sixth Epoch of the Third Era was marked by the first studying of magic and the codification of spells. The instinctive magic used by early druids and sorcerers began to be recorded and explored through experimentation, allowing for the emergence of wizards and arcane lore.
The Third Hominid Age
The Third Hominid Age, sometimes called the Age of Mages, was marked by the emergence of spellcasters so powerful that their might can scarcely be imagined. The abundance of Dream Force allowed these mages to cast spells that were ten, maybe fifty times more potent than the most powerful modern spells.
Great wizards could create entire cities without the use of modern tools. It is believed that many of the chimeric hybrid creatures like the owlbears, perytons, and griffons – maybe even demi-hominids like centaurs, harengons, and satyrs – were created through arcane experimentation during this time. They built immense Towers that climbed hundreds, thousands of feet into the sky.
These mages grew so powerful that when they went to war, the earth itself trembled. They had the power to cleave mountains, to flatten cities thousands of miles away, to make the very rivers and oceans burn like oil. The last of these battles became known as the Great Cataclysm. As much as ninety percent of all hominid life was destroyed during this last terrible war known as the Mage Wars.
At the end of the Great Cataclysm, most of the powerful mages were destroyed and those who survived were driven from the earth. An invisible barrier of disputed origin encircled Adnati, though whether it was created or emerged through natural forces remains a matter of speculation. It kept most of the Dream Force in the heavens, with modern mages only able to tap into tiny quantities of it to weave their spells.
Less-powerful survivors were forced to hide deep in the forests or beneath the surface of the land. Every civilization on Adnati was destroyed and had to be rebuilt in the Seventh Epoch.