The in-world calendar as reconstructed from Rugby’s Roaming Gazette’s 15 surviving issues, in in-world date order (not publication order — the two diverge, see below). Recorded sessions are placed on this calendar only where the Gazette gives real traction; otherwise an issue is simply listed on the calendar alone.
A note on order: the issues are not published in strict in-world chronological order, and one issue is a flagged anomaly. Publication order (by filename/real-world date) runs 2019-04-01, 04-09, 04-15, 04-22, 04-29, 05-12, 06-10, 06-17, 06-24, 07-15, 10-07, 2020-04-13, 2022-12-18, 2022-12-26, 2023-09-24. Every issue except the 05-12 one runs APRIL 1 4885 → DEC 19 4885 in sequence. The 05-12 issue alone is dated APRIL 17 4900 — fifteen years later — and the issue immediately after it (06-10) reverts to APRIL 24 4885 and continues the ongoing war as if nothing happened. The paper never references the 4900 events again. It is placed below by its stated date, flagged prominently, rather than folded silently into the main sequence.
4885
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APRIL 1 4885 — 2019-04-01. Published in Conopimalis, Erepec, Kingdom of Binneth (contradicted by every later issue’s masthead — see places/Conopimalis (Erepec)). Stars vanishing from the sky; a blue dragon attacks the Isle of Torta; doppelganger infiltration panic begins in Ezaso City; Rex Sauvage’s first field report.
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APRIL 6 4885 — 2019-04-09. Bostur falls to the Nayesche orc tribe under Gorthak (“Bloody Tuesday”); two dragons escape Torta and devastate Stroth Castle; Captain Tartan walks back the doppelganger panic.
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APRIL 10 4885 — 2019-04-15. The annual Squiyles airship race convenes at Laudir; King Stroth nearly throws King Tygard out a window; Kafka falls to Gorthak’s army.
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APRIL 12 4885 — 2019-04-22. Three dragons burn Tadmenroe Cathedral in Thorhofn; King Stroth declares Squiyles’ first draft in 90 years; a masked orcish killer murders children in Ezaso; reader submission from “Dr. Boom” (see the-gang Unresolved).
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APRIL 15 4885 — 2019-04-29. Captain Jamal claims the Free Islands; Gorthak is proclaimed ruler of all orc clans; Binneth captures its first orc scout.
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APRIL 17 4900 — FLAGGED ANOMALY, see note above — 2019-05-12. “The Agency” and Dr. E Brown investigate “Day Zero”; the Material Plane apparently ceases to exist; mass evacuation to the Feywild, Shadowfell, and Ethereal plane. Never referenced again by the paper.
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APRIL 24 4885 — 2019-06-10. (Resumes the 4885 sequence immediately after the 4900 anomaly, as if it hadn’t happened.) St. Cuthbert’s church burns in Holsoy; trolls sighted leaving Acatlalco; naval standoff in the Howling Gulf; Rex Sauvage reported missing; Gorthak demands the return of his son Zakmed.
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APRIL 28 4885 — 2019-06-17. Riots and a civil-war brewing in Squiyles; trolls rampage central Squiyles’ farms; Binneth’s fire-breathing ships devastate the Squiylian navy; Zakmed escapes Binneth custody, confirmed as Gorthak’s son.
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MAY 4 4885 — 2019-06-24. Turgythe announces a space program; Squiyles starves under the war and draft; the Bringska reality-rift incident; Grandmaster Wizard Kirby’s immortality-spell catastrophe.
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MAY 8 4885 — 2019-07-15. Graverobbing and the “Dodgers” gang rise in wartime Squiyles; Rex Sauvage still missing; Cacoal self-declares the “Changeling Nation”; the “Isle of Death” sighting near Sawyen/Suenth (see places/Isle of Death Unresolved).
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JUNE 1 4885 — 2019-10-07. Squiyles has fallen; Eastern and Western Territories declare sovereignty; changelings rule the former Squiylian heartland; Rugby’s Gazette relocates to Stogath, Western Territories; a strange magical tunnel appears in the Howling Gulf.
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JULY 4 4885 — 2020-04-13. The miasmic “death cloud” spreads from Sawyen and Suenth across eastern Binneth, the Orc Lands, and Hawkthorne; the village of Meschen is lost; the Gazette solicits a replacement for the still-missing Rex Sauvage.
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JUNE 7 4885 (two issues, same in-world week, different real-world publication dates) — 2022-12-18 and 2022-12-26. Post-war cleanup continues; changelings rule former Squiyles with “an iron fist”; an international peace summit is announced, then collapses when changeling delegates are caught impersonating other nations’ diplomats; the Narfuuuk goblin-kidnapping story near Balnaskor; Timothy Mantooth succeeds the late Rex Sauvage as field reporter.
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DEC 19 4885 — 2023-09-24. The Death-Defying “Rugmandella” magic-carpet race is announced; a troll-sterilizing alchemical “vaccine” is unveiled; Godoy’s guard shortage and Captain Cadillac Huggins’ heroic framing (see Cadillac Unresolved); Ray Parker’s mystery-airship report.
This is the one issue with a direct, dateable tie into a recorded campaign: its Godoy/Cadillac/ Rugmandella content sits alongside the JakeDM campaign’s own session dates (real-world September– November 2023), though the in-world calendars of the Gazette (4885) and JakeDM’s campaign are never reconciled — see Cadillac and Godoy for the dramatic-irony cross-reference. No other issue is force-fit onto a session date; most Gazette content predates every recorded session — anything before 2019-10-15 belongs to the earliest unrecorded era of the-gang.
Recorded sessions, for reference
- First recorded session of any campaign: 2019-10-15 (the-gang). Everything in the Gazette’s 4885/4900 run predates this real-world date, placing it in the unrecorded pre-history the campaign page itself flags as “backstory from before this wiki’s transcript coverage begins.” 2019-04-22’s “Dr. Boom” submission is the one piece of Gazette content that reads like it could be drawn from that unrecorded era — see the-gang Unresolved.
- The JakeDM campaign’s sessions run real-world September–November 2023, overlapping the 2023-09-24 Gazette issue’s publication date, though not its in-world date (DEC 19 4885) — see above.