Despite creating a fantasy world , I ' m doing my best to create a historic timeline that shows some true change , going deeper than just which dynasty sits on the throne . Because what really annoys me about the medieval stasis trope is that it lands in this your life doesn ' t really matter . You can ' t truly change anything at all in the larger scope of things . At most a peasant can rise up and take the crown , but somehow can ' t overthrow the system , or even just invent a new way to make fire . Many fantasy worlds sport impressive libraries where tons of learning and research and curiosity is going on , yet we never see a single one where a freshman student creates a simple hang glider and crashes spectacularly after studying the birds on campus . This is utter nonsense . I may be a purist here , but I do believe that birds are a package deal . If you have birds in your world , you must allow for other species to mimic the principles on which they function . Anything less than this is completely silly , and I ' m starting to sound like an episode of Lindybeige , so I ' ll stop right here .