Statement Begins: Here is the unofficial Timeline for The Magnus Archives.
Unmarked Spoilers Ahead!
Prehistory
- Hundreds of Millions of Years Ago: A creature experiences fear for the first time, creating the Thing That Was Fear, later known as the Hunt. It begins to manifest in predators chasing prey, and predators becoming prey themselves.
- ~300,000 BC: First humans evolve, giving new facets to the Thing That Was Fear. It split, first causing the separation of the Thing That Was Fear into the Hunt and the Dark. Finally cognizant of the fear of their own deaths causes the End to manifest. Soon after comes the fear of being watched and forbidden knowledge, becoming the Eye and Spiral respectively. Soon after came the fear of the unknown figure, the Stranger. With that came the fear of being alone, and so the Lonely manifested.
- Some Time Later: Humans discover fire and the Desolation manifests as well.
- The Next Few Centuries: The Vast, Corruption, Flesh, Slaughter, Buried, and Web manifest from new facets of human fear.
- Unknown Time: The first Avatar of the Fears is created, thinning the walls between their reality and ours. Monsters begin to manifest in the world.
Early Human History
- Pre-Recorded History:
- The first Archivists are chosen by the Eye.
- 3300-1300 BC:
- Indus Valley Civilization creates burial pit which has some corpses with removed eyes and others that were buried alive, likely in defiance of the Eye.
- 2613- 2494 BC:
- Pyramid is constructed to contain a mummy likely tainted by the End.
- 4th century AD:
- A cult dedicated to the Dark and possibly masquerading as Christian zealots sacks the Serapeum of Alexandria, a surviving annex of the great library that served as an early archive. Despite this, a significant portion of the Serapeum, as well as its inhuman Archivist, survives the attack.
- 1279:
- Johan Von Wurttemburg's tomb is claimed by the Eye.
- Somewhere in 1533-1594:
- The person who will one day be known as Simon Fairchild apprentices under the painter Tintoretto and, enticed by the skies in his paintings, surrenders himself to the Vast.
1700s
- 1714:
- Unknown Date (Pre-2 May): Edmund Halley is converted to service of the Dark by a mysterious group of followers with dark eyes.
- 2 May: Flamsteed drowns Halley in a dark pool in the forest.
- 4 May: Halley is revived as an avatar and thanks Flamsteed for his help.
- 1715:
- John Flamsteed gives his statement (MAG 140 - The Movement of the Heavens).
- 1719:
- 31 December: Flamsteed dies and is succeeded by Halley, who then serves as Astronomer Royale for the rest of his natural life.
- Unknown Point After: Halley changes his name to Maxwell Raynor.
- 1775:
- Nathaniel Thorp is critically injured in the Revolutionary War and plays a game with a manifestation of Death, winning but becoming a personification of Death himself for almost 200 years.
- 1787:
- October: The Unknowing is attempted by Wolfgang Von Kempelen.
- 2 November: Abraham Janssen gives his statement (MAG 116 - The Show Must Go On).
- 1799:
- Jeremy Bentham begins to work on the Panopticon, on the site that would become Milbank Prison.
1800s
- 1815:
- Winter: Albrecht von Closen finds the tomb of Johann von Württemberg in the Schwartzwald.
- 1816:
- 21 March: Albrecht von Closen writes a letter to Jonah Magnus (MAG 23 - Schwartzwald.)
- Unknown Date: Rudolph Zeitler is brutally killed after stealing from Johann von Württemberg's tomb.
- 1818:
- Unknown Date: The Magnus Institute is founded.
- 1821:
- Unknown Date: Millbank Penitentiary is completed.
- 1824:
- 9 April: Barnabas Bennett writes a letter to Jonah Magnus asking for help in freeing him from a world with no other people (MAG 92 - Nothing Beside Remains).
- 1831
- April - November: Doctor Jonathan Fanshawe visits Albrecht von Closen and attempts to help him get well. When Albrecht dies, Fanshawe finds eyes inside him.
- 21 November: Doctor Jonathan Fanshawe writes a letter to Jonah Magnus telling him of the event (MAG 127 - Remains to be Seen).
- 1834:
- Unknown Date: Sampson Kempthorne takes on George Gilbert Scott as a protégé, and Scott suggests more cramped designs for workhouses, and eventually disappears.
- 1835:
- Unknown Date: Robert Smirke builds tunnels underneath Pall Mall.
- 1837:
- August: Hezekiah Wakely writes a letter to Nathaniel Beale about his new job as a sextant and his newfound fulfillment in digging graves.
- 1838:
- February: Hezekiah Wakely writes another letter to Nathaniel about his newfound enjoyment in sleeping in graves, and a dream he had while sleeping in one.
1900s
- 1918:
- Spring, exact date unknown: Wilfred Owen is caught in an artillery explosion during an attack on the Hindenburg Line. He meets the Piper, a creature of the Slaughter, and it spares his life in exchange for him becoming an avatar of the Slaughter, to spread depictions of war in his poetry and to kill his enemies with unbridled savagery.
- November 4th: The end of World War I is assured, and Wilfred Owen dies instantly.
- 1959:
- Autumn: Homeless orphans Trevor and Nigel Herbert are compelled by a vampire to enter its home. The vampire kills Nigel before Trevor kills and burns it.
- 1960s:
- Raymond Fielding, an avatar of the Web, turns the house on Hilltop Road as a halfway house for teenaged delinquents, killing them when they reach the age of majority and are expected to leave.
- Agnes Montague is sent to Hilltop Road to live among human children and challenge Raymond Fielding. She kills him but becomes bound to the area.
- 1968:
- June: Trevor Herbert finds and kills his second vampire.
- 1974:
- The house at Hilltop Road burns down.
- 1982:
- 2nd August: Due to a number of factors, including an injury to his foot and addictions to heroin and the Hunt, Trevor Herbert misidentifies a man named Alard Dupont as a vampire and murders him.
- 1990s:
- Joshua Gillespie is approached by "John", a creature of the Stranger, and unknowingly agrees to look after the Coffin. It is delivered to him a year later and Joshua manages to resist its attempts to coerce him into opening it and entering the Buried for a year and a half. When "John" returns with Breekon and Hope, the Coffin takes it instead of Joshua, and the Coffin remains bound to Breekon and Hope.
- 1990:
- Linette Montauk attempts to leave the People's Church of the Divine Host, and Maxwell Raynor sends the Still and Lightless Beast to kill her. Robert Montauk leaves the police force and begins to murder people to feed or empower the Beast, possibly because he believes Raynor can return his wife, but certainly to protect his daughter Julia Montauk from being killed as well.
- 1991:
- Autumn: Carlos Vittery encounters and accidentally kills a spider and its spawn, instilling a phobia based around the presence of spiders.
- 1995:
- Autumn: Robert Montauk performs a ritual to temporarily kill the Still and Lightless Beast. The Beast attacks the Montauk household during this ritual and Julia Montauk calls the police, causing them to discover evidence of Robert's 40 murders. He is chased, caught, and sentenced to life imprisonment in HMP Wakefield.
- 1996:
- September: Michael Crew discards the Leitner book The Boneturner's Tale in Chiswick Library, where it is found by Jared Hopworth, who begins using it to twist his family and himself, gradually becoming an avatar of the Flesh.
- October: Jared Hopworth's mother attempts to return The Boneturner's Tale to Chiswick Library, blaming Jared's former friend Sebastian Adekoya for exposing him to it. Later that night Jared breaks into the library to retrieve the book, confronting Sebastian and displaying his new inhuman abilities.
2000s
- 2002:
- 3rd June: Robert Kelly goes on a skydive involving Simon Fairchild, avatar of the Vast, and upon jumping finds himself in a location with no ground or clouds, just endless blue sky in all directions. After an indeterminate amount of time falling, possibly days, he returns to the real world and lands safely, discovering that he had only been missing for fifteen minutes. Robert immediately quits his skydiving job and goes home to his mother.
- 6th June: Robert Kelly arrives at the house of his mother Moira Kelly and attempts to explain what had happened to him on his last skydive.
- 7th June: Moira Kelly takes her son Robert Kelly out to a picnic at the top of a hill, where Robert is 'eaten' by the sky.
- Late in the year: Christof Rudenko moves into the ground floor flat at Welbeck House and catches his first glimpse of his upstairs neighbor Toby Carlisle, avatar of the Flesh.
- 2005:
- 5th July: Toby Carlisle begins to nail pieces of meat to the walls, floor, and ceiling of his second floor flat at Welbeck House, due to backlash from the failure of the Flesh's ritual of the Last Feast.
- September: Amy Patel begins a criminology class and meets Graham Folger.
- November 2005 - March 2010: The entity known as the Angler Fish hunts in the area of Fish Market Close, Edinburgh, Scotland, taking people so their skins and bodies can be used in the Unknowing. Its confirmed victims are Sarah Baldwin, Daniel Rawlings, Ashley Dobson, and Megan Shaw, and possibly Jessica McEwan and John Fellowes.
- December: Amy Patel discovers that she lives on the same street as Graham Folger. She is attacked by the Not-Them and receives a concussion, causing her to see exactly which flat Graham lives in. She begins to spy on him in her spare time, witnessing his odd behavior.
- 2006:
- 17th April: Jared Hopworth tracks down former childhood friend Sebastian Adekoya and twists him to death.
- 7th July: Amy Patel witnesses the Not-Them entering Graham Folger's flat to kill and replace him. She calls the police but they find nothing out of the ordinary, and Not-Graham begins to spy on and harass Amy until she moves.
- November: Ivo Lensik is called in to work on constructing the new house on Hilltop Road. He encounters the ghost of Raymond Fielding and, agitated by the encounter, slips and hits his head, necessitating his hospitalization. In the hospital he meets Anna Kasuma, who tells him the history of Raymond Fielding and Agnes Montague before he is discharged. Ivo returns to work at Hilltop Road and continues to see ghosts.note
- 23rd November: Ivo Lensik is attacked at Hilltop Road by the Desolation, suddenly feeling like he is burning alive. The attack stops with the arrival of Father Edwin Burroughs, who was sent by Anna Kasuma to investigate. Ivo goes outside as Fr. Burroughs perform a blessing on the house. The Desolation attacks Burroughs in the same way it attacked Ivo, but another Power tells the Desolation through Burroughs that he is already claimed. Meanwhile, Ivo is compelled to uproot the tree in the house's garden, stopping the attack on Burroughs and severely injuring Agnes Montague through her link to Hilltop Road. Agnes Montague then hangs herself that night, in an attempt to return some of her power to the Desolation.note
- 2007:
- Exact date unknown: Oliver Banks has a stress-induced meltdown that causes him to leave his job, and he begins to have dreams about people's deaths.
- Exact date unknown: Catholic priest Father Edwin Burroughs attempt to exorcise Bethany O'Connor, a victim of the Spiral. The exorcism fails and the Spiral begins to affect Fr. Burroughs, who is reprimanded for Bethany's death and told not to perform exorcisms for a time.note
- October 22nd: The rotting meat from Toby Carlisle's flat at Welbeck House seeps into the flat of Christof Rudenko downstairs. Christof goes upstairs to confront Toby Carlisle, but finds him dead from gangrene and a creature of the Flesh in the flat, which disappears soon after.
- 2008:
- Several undisclosed dates, beginning in winter: a group of refuse collectors including Kieran Woodward and Alan Parfitt find trash bags containing unsettling items at 93 Lancaster Road, Walthamstow, England. It culminates in finding a bag full of 2,780 copies of the same human tooth. Alan begins to watch the house in an attempt to find the culprit, getting himself fired.
- 8th August: Alana Parfitt texts Kieran Woodward claiming to have found the man leaving the strange trash. Alan immediately goes missing, and when Kieran checks 93 Lancaster Road he finds a trash bag containing a crude metal carving of a human heart with Alan Parfitt's name engraved on it.
- Late September: Mary Kaey mutilates herself in an attempt to bind herself to and take full control of the Catalogue of the Trapped Dead. She begs Gerard Kaey to help her but he flees instead. Mary dies, partially succeeding in her task, and Gerard is arrested on suspicion of murder. Mary manages to manifest herself to contaminate evidence and threaten witnesses, and Gerard is released.
- 2009:
- 23rd November: Nurse Anna Kasuma calls Father Edwin Burroughs and asks him to go to the house on Hilltop Road to speak to Ivo Lensik about his encounter with the ghost of Raymond Fielding (see 23rd November 2006 for details).note
- 24th November: Father Edwin Burroughs is assailed by several powers, mainly the Spiral, culminating in his unknowingly eating the flesh of two students in the basement of 89 Bullingdon Road during an intense hallucination. Upon returning to his senses he willingly enters police custody and pleads guilty to all charges, being sentenced to life imprisonment at HMP Wakefield.note
- 2011:
- Exact dates unknown: Lee Rentoul commissions Angela, an avatar of the Flesh, to kill Paul Noriga. After weeks of nothing obviously happening to Noriga, Rentoul murders him himself, and the curse that Angela had put on Noriga passes to Rentoul, causing him to lose pieces of his body one at a time until his death.
- 23rd December: A confrontation between Diego Molina and Gerard Kaey results in the hospitalization of both. Diego begins chanting in the hospital, causing strange events as witnessed by nurse Lesere Saraki until Gerard murders him.
- 2012:
- 10th November: Dominic Swain finds the Leitner book Ex Altiora in a secondhand store and purchases it.
- 11th November: Dominic Swain finds Pinhole Books and meets the dead Mary Kaey. He discovers the woodcut with a Lichtenberg figure that reminds him of his childhood friend Michael Crew. Gerard Kaey follows Dominic to his home and purchases Ex Altiora, before immediately burning it.
- 2014:
- 14th June: Laura Popham and Alena Sanderson enter Lost Johns' Cave and become trapped by the Buried. Laura is rescued the next day, Alena is never found.
- 18th November: Harriet Lee is attacked by Jane Prentiss on Elthorne Road, Archway, and is infected by a worm.
- 20th November: Harriet Lee meets and has sex with Timothy Hodge, infecting him. Harriet's own infection suddenly accelerates and she explodes into worms, causing Timothy to burn down his apartment.
- 21st December: Oliver Banks sees his father's death in his dreams.
- 31st December: Oliver Banks's father dies despite Oliver's attempts to save him.
- 2015:
- Exact date unknown: Carlos Vittery is haunted by the spider he killed as a child, feeling increasingly compelled to kill it repeatedly, until he is found dead from suffocations due to spider/s in his throat and encased in spiderweb.
- 12th March: Oliver Banks sees Gertrude Robinson's death in his dreams.
- 14th March: Oliver Banks make a statement under the name Antonio Blake in an attempt to warn Gertrude Robinson about her impending death.
- 22nd March: Evan Lukas dies unexpectedly, leaving behind his fiancé Naomi Herne.
- 30th March: Gertrude Robinson and Jurgen Leitner attempt to destroy the Archives. Jonah Magnus catches Gertrude in the act and murders her with a gun, hiding her body and files in the tunnels of Millbank Prison and appointing Jonathan Sims as the new Archivist.
- 29th March: Naomi Herne goes to the Lukas household for the funeral of her fiancé Evan Lukas. After being dismissed by the family Naomi flees and winds up entering the Lonely, only escaping with the help of Evan.
- 2016:
- 13th January: Jonathan Sims takes a statement directly from Naomi Herne, victim of the Lonely.
- 28th February: Martin Blackwood goes to Boothby Road to investigate Carlos Vittery's death and encounters Jane Prentiss in the basement of his former apartment building. Martin flees to his own flat, losing his phone in the process; Jane Prentiss pursues him, retrieving his phone and sending messages posing as Martin saying he's fallen ill.
- 29th February: Jane Prentiss lays siege to Martin Blackwood's flat, preventing him from leaving or contacting anyone.
- 12th March: Jane Prentiss ends her siege of Martin Blackwood's flat, allowing him to escape to the Magnus Insitute and give a statement about his experience. Martin begins living in the Archives.
