I doubt that. Azalin writes about it himself, that his beloved Darkon had gone to pot without him present. (Remember, in 751, Azalin is "dead" and Death appears to be a pretty absent ruler) GazII also makes it pretty clear that the government of Darkon is decentralized in Azalin's absence and hints that there might have been conflicts between the different baronies within the Kingdom of Darkon. It's pretty easy to assume that any and all trade deals with Paridon would be with individual baronies in Darkon and not with Death's administration.Nathan of the FoS wrote:...no strong central government?...Azalin will be interested to hear that, I'm sure...Lord Cyclohexane wrote: My vote: 751 BC for discovery, so 4 years to develop trade deals before SotK starts (might require extra time due to no strong central Darkonese government, so have to start deals with individual Darkonese territories). Anyone else?
It's really not a hard limit, but I'm not comfortable adding ideas before they appear in canon (RCS is the first reference, covering 758 BC, whereas the previous is DoD for 751, so I'd prefer the first not be until after DoD in 751). There's no real reason for that, however. But I'm equally uncomfortable with positing the existence of clusters previous to 740 BC (DoD introducing clusters, but no mention in the Red Box set in 740 BC).Nathan of the FoS wrote:I'm not sure that the failure to mention trade in Paridon in 742 should be considered a hard limit; why not assume that trade was going on before that time, but that it wasn't an important plot element of HotK?
[EDIT: Mind you, Mangrum blows that out of the water with talk of the "Barovian cluster" in GazII...]
Well, the reasoning also allows for anywhere between 751-755, so a later year may be better as well. And as you mentioned, there's no hard rule saying that the Mistway couldn't have existed even during the time of HotK, it's just that I personally wouldn't feel comfortable positing it.Nathan of the FoS wrote:The "Shroud" connection is very interesting and suggestive, though--nice catch, btw--so maybe 751-ish is the best choice.
But to again ask the question... What do people feel is a good year for the Mistway to be discovered? (I ask selfishly, as my submission is on the Divinity of Mankind outside of Paridon, and with the Mistway it means Darkon is the first they run into... Strong vs weak Darkon and strong vs weak Eternal Order will obviously change these initial encounters)