The following is a timeline I had been putting together for Orgathra before re-discovering the Ultea world, so a lot of it is based kind of directly off of a previously-written story which was meant for that world (this is where I actually pulled the name "Ultea" from). As a result, it's kind of a confused mess because I was already working on a timeline while working out an evolutionary tree for various humanoid races I wanted to include. Most of it will need to be trashed, but I figured I'd post it anyway because there's some interesting tidbits in there.
A confused timeline of Orgathra
The First Great Age: The Age of Elves
While not the first humanoid race, elves were the first to tap into the vast richness of the plane's mana, above the animalistic feeding on it. They managed to bend mana to their will in what would become the world's oldest spells. With this discovery, they were able to forge an empire, pushing back the beasts which preyed upon them and building the first true society.
This Great Age was not to last, however. As the elves had little true understanding of how their magic worked, as the leylines ebbed and flowed, so too did their magic come and go. Civilizations rose and fell for hundreds of years before a massive shift in the leylines caused the mana of Indris to dry up, rendering them unable to perform the very spells which kept their societies together, and powerless against the dangers which they had so long been protected against.
Most of the elven species died out, and their unique forms of magic died with them, but they left a lasting legacy that would shape the plane for eons to come. While their form-shaping magic has been lost to time, their use of it gave rise to several modern species. Some small, disparate communities which had borrowed aquatic forms, permanently hid themselves in the sea, slowly propagating into the modern merfolk species (and their derivatives). Their once-small helpers, intelligent birds, became wild and grew into the modern harpy. The few able to go out in search of the missing mana, the so-called winged angels, fused their souls to the leylines they found, becoming the immortal angels, finite in number and aged beyond reckoning.
The first elves would come to be known as high elves, and the scattered survivors of their great empire would live on in small tribes, becoming the modern dark-skinned elf of the grasslands.
The Second Great Age: The Age of Dragons
The Second Great Age is known as the Age of Dragons. As the magic of the high elves faded, their civilization was destroyed from without by the dangerous predators of Ultea. Among them, were the ancient dragons, which had started organizing at this time into a loose civilization.
Perhaps by design, or perhaps by a few rogue dragons, the last of the high elves were subjugated under the rule of the ancient dragons along with other developing races. The elves were suppressed for several generations (approximately 500 years) to keep them from relying on their natural magical talent, until the knowledge of their most powerful spells passed from memory.
As the elves’ magic was kept carefully controlled, the dragons’ magic was growing, until they were able to shape-shift into humanoid forms.
Meanwhile, orcs and humans, not as attuned to the flow of mana, were similarly enslaved in order to build grand structures for them, including gates to the Ashen Realm, a massive underground cavern system that was used as a prison by the draconic emperors. After the Age of Dragons ended and these structures were abandoned, they became part of the dungeons littering the world.
Changelings were discovered in small numbers, hidden among the enslaved races. Those that were found, were mostly kept close to those that discovered them, due to their peculiar biology making them easy to blackmail. Changelings feed vampirically on positive emotions, meaning they require the secrecy of their disguises.
Perhaps by design, or perhaps by a few rogue dragons, the last of the high elves were subjugated under the rule of the ancient dragons along with other developing races. The elves were suppressed for several generations (approximately 500 years) to keep them from relying on their natural magical talent, until the knowledge of their most powerful spells passed from memory.
As the elves’ magic was kept carefully controlled, the dragons’ magic was growing, until they were able to shape-shift into humanoid forms.
Meanwhile, orcs and humans, not as attuned to the flow of mana, were similarly enslaved in order to build grand structures for them, including gates to the Ashen Realm, a massive underground cavern system that was used as a prison by the draconic emperors. After the Age of Dragons ended and these structures were abandoned, they became part of the dungeons littering the world.
Changelings were discovered in small numbers, hidden among the enslaved races. Those that were found, were mostly kept close to those that discovered them, due to their peculiar biology making them easy to blackmail. Changelings feed vampirically on positive emotions, meaning they require the secrecy of their disguises.
Addt'l info about the dragons' rise and fall
Salamanders first rose to power - though they were always powerful - as the first empire of the elves began to wane. Long wishing to feed upon the elves, they quickly recognized that they could feed indefinitely if they stole their civilization, rather than decimating it. So they did, carefully repressing the elves over generations until their formshaping magic passed from memory. Then, they began to expand their empire in earnest, conquering new lands and people as they pleased, feeding their insatiable appetites. In this time of draconic elightenment - for many were born from the enslaved population - dissenters came to be banished to the Ashen Realm, rather than destroyed.
In the Ashen Realm, where the flesh-searing sun passes through every night on its journey, there is nothing with which to directly feed their fire, only burned stones to act as coals. Many chose to perish, returning to the formless aether rather than serve their sentence. One, however, chose differently.
Unjhenal, a salamander of seemingly endless patience and hatred, learned to feed not on the hot stones, but on the sun itself. Her flame grew to heights never seen before or since, and when she had finally released herself, she burned all of Ultea down, destroying most of her bretherin in the process. Thus ended the Age of Dragons.
In the Modern Era, salamanders carve out territories as Lords, some as rulers among the umani, some as tyrant monsters demanding tribute, all feeding on the land they claim.
In the Ashen Realm, where the flesh-searing sun passes through every night on its journey, there is nothing with which to directly feed their fire, only burned stones to act as coals. Many chose to perish, returning to the formless aether rather than serve their sentence. One, however, chose differently.
Unjhenal, a salamander of seemingly endless patience and hatred, learned to feed not on the hot stones, but on the sun itself. Her flame grew to heights never seen before or since, and when she had finally released herself, she burned all of Ultea down, destroying most of her bretherin in the process. Thus ended the Age of Dragons.
In the Modern Era, salamanders carve out territories as Lords, some as rulers among the umani, some as tyrant monsters demanding tribute, all feeding on the land they claim.
The Dark Age
Sorry, no flowery prose here, as I didn't get around to writing much here yet. After Unjhenal broke out and caused a civil war (or burned the plane herself?), there would have been a long stretch of non-history, as many land-based humanoids would have been wiped out (orcs, most elves, changelings, etc.), while others managed to survive (dwarves by tunneling, merfolk by obvious means). It was going to be during this time that eumidians (a seemingly-abandoned Magic race of wasp-people that were never actually depicted apart from a single card from Legends), and skinnudu (minotaurs but with elk heads instead) evolved, but since I'm dropping the evolution angle entirely, I no longer know what to put here.
Modern Era
Still no flowery prose. The current state of the world was supposed to be, more or less, the Era of Man, though I had ideas for a time period in-between the Dark Age and the Modern Era, including the eumidians growing an empire of sorts (drawing parallels to feudal era Japan, though mostly by accident), and the skinnudu first flourishing and later being conquered and driven out of their homelands by the invading allied forces of humans, elves, and dwarves. Also during this time merfolk would have been "re-discovered" after they had gone into hiding for many millennia to avoid the dragons.
Anyway, I know I had been building a bit of a world based on the unpublished NaNoWriMo story I wrote last year, but I'm not sure where my notes went for that. What I can remember is that powerful elemental beings known as Lords would have sectioned out the world between them, and acted basically as the gods of the world, accepting offerings to appease them and occasionally deigning to grant requests of them. Dragons may have been the
Lords, and I know I was working on child-like shape-shifting entities for 
's Lord type, based on the Duel Masters game Cyber Lords. They would have been what would have allowed civilization to flourish, as they kept the greater dangers (like the kinds of huge creatures that could be considered natural disasters in their own right) at bay.
Anyway, I know I had been building a bit of a world based on the unpublished NaNoWriMo story I wrote last year, but I'm not sure where my notes went for that. What I can remember is that powerful elemental beings known as Lords would have sectioned out the world between them, and acted basically as the gods of the world, accepting offerings to appease them and occasionally deigning to grant requests of them. Dragons may have been the
Lords, and I know I was working on child-like shape-shifting entities for 's Lord type, based on the Duel Masters game Cyber Lords. They would have been what would have allowed civilization to flourish, as they kept the greater dangers (like the kinds of huge creatures that could be considered natural disasters in their own right) at bay.
's color pie when I'm thinking up worlds, because a lot of the go-to creature types and spell effects feel so one-dimensional to me.
mana, and are a force for community and connection.
mana, so important for many functions of life and capable of regeneration.