Summary
"This tale begins with the world in a sorry state of affairs, I'm afraid. But when has a good story ever started without conflict? Ah, but Albion and her people do suffer so... After our Hero Queen vanquished the fearsome Crawler and brought our proud country to victory, there was a short time of peace. Albion began to rebuild, and its people once again flourished. But the world was a little bit darker, just a touch more unfriendly. They were weakened from the loss of so many, and the nightmare still clung to their minds.
Samarkand saw the opportunity, and attacked. Once again, Albion was thrown into war. For six years, the Hero Queen valiantly led her soldiers into battle, but the enemy was strong. And then, all at once, she disappeared. Neither side knew where she had gone, but the people of Albion were furious and convinced that Samarkand were behind it. They fought that much harder, that much wilder, and another six years later, defeated Samarkand and won the day, but their Queen was never seen again.
And so began Albion's descent into chaos.
With the Queen's disappearance, Albion was left without a leader, and scrambling for a new form of government. For a time, there was a King-regent, but he was soon deemed unfit to rule by the common people and was assassinated after only a year in office. Every other attempt to put someone's butt in the chair resulted in some sort of tragedy, until finally a Parliament was conceived. There were three houses: The aristocracy, the military, and the common folk. Each were represented by a single speaker: Reaver, Benjamin Finn, and the righteous Page serving each house respectively. They bickered constantly and rarely got anything done.
Needless to say, the people didn't like it, and it only served to divide the country further. Many feared the government's incompetence, and with Albion so weak, there was the fear that another country might try to invade again. The people began to grow suspicious of outsiders as well as each other, and as the civil unrest continued to grow, whispers of another revolution were on their lips.
Naturally, the government and aristocracy began to wet their very expensive hosiery. The military tried to keep the peace for as long as possible at first, but things began to crumble too fast, and eventually it was all it could do to just protect members of Parliament and put down the riots that were increasing alarmingly quickly. Without soldiers to maintain order, crime was at an all-time high, and the rich were left just as unprotected as the rest. Communities banned together to create militias to help curb the amount of crime in some areas, but the rich mostly tried to appear just as powerful as they always had been while crying themselves to sleep at night.
With the government and the economy in shambles and crime becoming increasingly popular among the desperate, banditry had become the profession of choice for many. But, while living outside the city walls may have seemed like the best option at first, the roads and wilds quickly became even more frightful than before. Something slunk in the shadows. People were dropping like flies, and disease had sank its claws into the heart of the country. There were rumors of the Darkness returning, that it was the cause of all of this madness. No one knew for sure.
Everyone was afraid. Where were the Heroes of legend that were supposed to arise to save them?
A few people grew tired of waiting. If the Heroes would not come, then they would rise in their place! At least, that was the idea. Few were actually of Heroic blood, and fewer still knew it. Many of them died trying to protect those who could not protect themselves, but all of them stood as beacons of hope to the people of Albion.
Things could not get any worse. And then, of course, they did just that.
A new enemy had come to Albion, though none but a Seer and a Dweller boy knew what was happening. The Corruptor had come to claim the throne for his own, and his evil touched every corner of the map. But in three days, in an explosion that shook the country to its core, his threat and the Spire were wiped from the face of the earth. For a brief time, it was believed that whatever had happened was over and that things would return to the chaos that had become Albion's normalcy. But, when have things ever been that easy?
The storms started off small, but quickly grew in size and number. Rather than lightning, pure will energy was discharged in dangerous amounts, setting forests ablaze or freezing entire towns in mere moments. The earth often shook and Mount Ruon, a volcano long thought to be dead, became active once more. Typhoons and heavy rains drowned the coasts. Animals began to behave erratically and creatures that had once been believed to be mere legend had begun to reappear. Mother Nature seemed to be retaking Albion by force.
In short, the world had gone to shit. Not a very happy setting, is it? Don't worry, a merry band of misfits fixed everything and saved the world. What? Did you think this was about them? No, no, no, of course not! Why would I do that? That story's certainly too good to tell you for free. I've got to make a living somehow, don't I? No, I'm going to tell you about the survivors of this little fiasco! This one is just as fun, I promise. Now, make yourself comfortable and enjoy, my friend!"
--Lyric the Bard
Timeline
Below is a simplistic timeline from the end of Fable III (Year 0) to when our roleplay takes place (Comic Chapter One, Y. 51). Given that we don't know what kind of timeline the Fable games are really set on (I will be working on something to rectify that), we will mark the end of Fable III as Year 0 for now.