As described in the War of the Ancients Trilogy (Knaak, Richard), two versions of history of the War of the Ancients are given. One is the account of a history created from the influence of three characters traveling back in time 10,000 years into the past at the time of The Great Sundering. They witnessed firsthand the events of period, eventually becoming responsible for changing key aspects of the timeline. The novels also contains references to what occurred in their first timeline, before they influenced history. For ease of terminology pre-altered timeline is referred to as timeline (prime), and the second timeline is referred to as timeline (new).