From Stephen King's The Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance, Revised and Updated

In the beginning there was only the Prim, the magical soup of creation. From the Prim arose Gan, spirit of the Dark Tower, who spun the physical universe from his navel. Gan tipped the world with his finger and set it rolling. This forward movement was Time. The magical tide of the Prim receded from the earth but left behind it the Tower and the Beams, the fundamental structures which hold the macroverse together. Enough magic was left in Tower and Beams to last for eternity, but the Great Old Ones, in their hubris, decided to remake Beams and Tower using their technology. Magic is eternal, but machinery (like the men who build it) is mortal. Hence, the great technological advances of the Old People made possible not just the destruction of one level of the Tower but the obliteration of all of them. The Great Old Ones had the knowledge of gods, and so, like reckless demiurges, they assumed that they had the right to manipulate reality with impunity. For their own decadent entertainment, they created doorways that led from their world to other wheres and whens on every level of the Tower. They built great cities where centralized computers and Asimov robots catered to their every need. But still, it wasn’t enough. The Old People designed Dogans, where magic and technology could be joined. Here, their scientists/alchemists created new diseases, such as the Red Death, and terrible weapons which they launched against their enemies, poisoning earth, air, and water. Soon every living creature on the surface of the Earth became contaminated. Animals and humans gave birth to mutants, and Mid-World was reduced to a great poisoned wasteland. The time of the Great Old Ones was almost over. But before they disappeared from their level of the Tower, the Old People made a final act of atonement. To make amends for their atrocities and to pay penance for the sins they had committed against the earth and against each other, they built twelve giant mechanical Guardians to watch over the twelve entrances into, and out of, Mid-World. These Guardians—Bear and Turtle, Elephant and Wolf, Rat and Fish, Bat and Hare, Eagle and Lion, Dog and Horse—were cyborg versions of the twelve immortal animal totems left by the Prim to guard the Beams. Yet even this final act of atonement proved misguided. The fabric of reality, rewoven by the Great Old Ones, was destined to fray. Less than three thousand years after being built in the farthest reaches of Out-World, the giant cyborg Bear Guardian, Shardik, ran mad. The mechanical Beams (already eroded) began—one by one—to topple. The computers and robots built by the ancient company North Central Positronics (a leader in mind-to-mind communications since the ten thousands) became dangerously psychotic and either murdered their masters’ descendants or joined forces with the Crimson King, that ancient Lord of Chaos. And as the Old Ones’ technological web collapsed, whole worlds were destroyed by plagues like the superflu. But life is striving to be life, and against all odds it will defy the Outer Dark. The Tower had more than a little of its old magic left, and from its ancient gray-black foundations deep in the red rose-fields of End-World, it sent out a call. From In-World-that-was, it drew forth the world’s last gunslinger—final descendant of Arthur Eld, King of All-World-that-was, Warrior of the White, and Guardian of the Tower. Although this gunslinger believed that his only ambition was to climb to the top of the Tower to meet whatever being resided there, ka had greater plans for him. Like his enemy the Red King, Lord of Discordia, Roland Deschain of the White both darkles and tincts. Leaping from one level of the Dark Tower to another, he pursues his vision and his quest. With the help of a ka-tet drawn from other levels of the Tower (ones where the great city of Lud is called New York, and where North Central Positronics and the Sombra Corporation have not yet poisoned the ambitions of their culture), he opposes Discordia and fulfills the will of the White. What began, in The Gunslinger, as the journey of a goal-obsessed loner becomes, in The Dark Tower, a great journey of redemption and sacrifice. End-World lies ahead, and the Tower waits. TIMELINE FOR THE DARK TOWER SERIES Books I–VII and “The Little Sisters of Eluria” B.R.B.—Before Roland’s Birth A.R.B.—After Roland’s Birth 2,700–1,700 B.R.B. The Great Old Ones, rulers of All-World-that-was, create the cyborg Guardians to atone for their sins against the earth and against each other.29 2,200 B.R.B. Due to radiation poisoning and other types of fallout, most humans are already sterile. Women who can conceive give birth to mutants.30 Although rumor states that Castle Discordia, in End-World, is haunted again, a few stoic individuals continue to occupy End-World’s towns and villages. They will soon regret it. A jar of the Great Old One’s demonstuff cracks open, loosening plague. The Red Death wipes out the people of Fedic.31 1,800 B.R.B. The Great Old Ones finally destroy themselves. They disappear from the Earth.32 Human society fragments, and the old knowledge is forgotten. Mutants roam the wastelands. Mid-World’s Dark Age begins. 690 B.R.B. Arthur Eld rises to power and rules the Kingdom of All-World.33 The people practice human sacrifice as part of the Charyou Tree Festival of Reap. 464 B.R.B. The Great Old One’s technological web—supporting Beams and Tower—continues to decay. Blaine’s computerized monitoring equipment in End-World collapses.34 464–64 B.R.B. The Kingdom of All-World fragments and is replaced by a loose Affiliation of baronies. The In-World Barony of New Canaan is the Affiliation’s hub. New Canaan, and its barony seat of Gilead, is ruled by the gunslingers, who are the descendants of Arthur Eld and his knights. 64 B.R.B.–36 A.R.B. Civil War erupts in the distant baronies of Garlan and Porla. Wars continue for a hundred years.35 The Affiliation begins to destabilize. ROLAND IS BORN John Farson, a harrier from Garlan and Desoy, gains power in the lands west of New Canaan. His followers call him the Good Man. Farson resurrects the Great Old One’s killing machines so that he can overthrow the Affiliation and the aristocratic gunslingers. Failed gunslingers from Gilead and the In-World baronies, sent west in disgrace, begin to join Farson’s cause. 11 A.R.B. Roland’s father, Steven Deschain, is on the verge of becoming dinh of Gilead, and possibly dinh of all In-World.36 Roland and his friend Cuthbert Allgood discover that Gilead’s head cook, Hax, is poisoning people for John Farson. They tell their fathers. Hax is hanged for treason. Roland and Cuthbert witness his hanging.37 14 A.R.B. West of Gilead, near the edge of the civilized world, fighting breaks out between Farson’s rebels and the Affiliation.38 Roland finds out that his mother is having an affair with his father’s sorcerer (Marten Broadcloak/Walter O’Dim), who also happens to be a secret supporter of the Good Man. Needing guns to exact revenge, Roland goes for his test of manhood five years too early. Roland succeeds. 14–14.5 A.R.B. Roland and his two friends Cuthbert Allgood and Alain Johns are sent east to Hambry, in the Barony of Mejis, to keep them safe from Farson’s treachery.39 They discover a plot against the Affiliation and defeat some of the Good Man’s forces. They find Maerlyn’s Grapefruit, the Pink One of the Wizard’s Rainbow, and steal it for their fathers. Roland is captivated by the Pink One’s glammer and gazes into its depths. He sees his pregnant lover, Susan Delgado, burned to death on a Charyou Tree fire.40 14.5 A.R.B. Roland and his friends return to Gilead. Roland is given his father’s guns. Gabrielle Deschain, lately back from a retreat in Debaria, is still in Marten Broadcloak’s power. She secretly plans to kill her husband, but Roland prevents it.41 Roland accidentally shoots his mother.42 16 A.R.B. Much of In-World falls to the Good Man. Roland’s father is murdered.43 19 A.R.B. Roland’s ka-tel (or graduating class) of gunslingers load their guns for the first time. Only thirteen remain out of a class of fifty-six. Cort is too ill to attend the Presentation Ceremony. Nine weeks later, Cort dies of poisoning.44 21 A.R.B. Two years after Cort’s death, the red slaughter reaches Gilead, the last bastion of civilization. The final civil war begins.45 24 A.R.B. The battle of Jericho Hill is fought.46 Cuthbert Allgood dies, shot through the eye by Rudin Filaro (aka Walter O’Dim).47 Roland is the only gunslinger to survive.48 Roland leaves the Horn of Deschain (the Horn of Eld) on Jericho Hill. 24–36 A.R.B. Roland casts about for Walter’s trail.49 He visits the ruins of Gilead, now overrun with timothy and wild vines. The old castle’s kitchens are infested with Slow Mutants.50 Roland travels to Eluria, is captured by the Green Folk, and ends up in the clutches of the vampiric Little Sisters of Eluria. He escapes.51