I know I didn't make it very clear in the game, but here's what was going on:
During the fight to save the Shard from utter destruction, the End of Time and the rest of his buddies had already started dismantling everything. The End of Strength started sapping the strongest, the End of Justice began killing the innocent and empowering the cruel and destructive, and the End of Time began traveling back through time and freezing the most important people who would keep the Shard together.
Fortunately you were able to defeat each of these world-enders, thus undoing their work. But the End of Time was spared, and while he was banished, the work he had accomplished so far remained. Thus when you returned to the world, you found it altered, missing critical components.
Eventually you tracked down the frozen areas and destroyed them, resetting the timeline in the process. Caius had very little control over what had happened, but he eventually figured out how to preserve each of you (his 'implements') when time changed. The End of Time was weakening as he went backwards (due to the battle) so each frozen area affected a smaller area and less powerful being. At first he was able to freeze a paragon directly (Baiyan), then only a group of lowly creatures he knew would affect Xan, and beyond the time of Sorako's ascension only a single item, the divinely radiant artifact.
All of the above, the Stormcrows found out on their own or with a bit of explaining from Caius. The most of the rest of this probably wasn't figured out, but maybe some of it could be.
In regards to the last frozen item, it actually had the biggest effect on the world; because Sorako never encountered it, his religion either never got started or was much less influential...in fact he may never have become religious at all. This meant that all the thousands of people he converted, and that they converted and so on, never had that experience, and many of them may have fallen to lesser lives or been tempted by other religions or cults. Sorako also failed to provide some much needed redistribution of wealth to the poor and needy, particularly of Wuu Tai, leading to decline and further poor and desperate people looking for a way out.
As for the deal with "Tim," at some point after leaving the Stormcrows, he died and became a Larva Mage (basically the maggots and bugs on his corpse were enchanted by his magic and sheer will to live). As is typical of Larva Mages, he set out forming alliances with various factions, and came up with the idea to take as much power as possible. (He did retain some portion of his previous personality, hence the stereotypical evil genius plot, and the delicious irony of setting up his evil lair beneath a candy shop.) He had the idea of planting arcane bombs in people, Joker-style, to use as leverage against world leaders. Also, he collected whatever powerful items and artifacts he could find, for use against the inevitable band of evil-genius-slaying heroes.
In the original timeline, he didn't have much luck finding allies and victims, although he probably would have come to your attention at some point. With Baiyan out of the picture, the Goblin nation was more vulnerable, and he tried to take over with sheer force. Once you restored that, he instead found Freedom's Refuge a relatively isolated place to kidnap people from, among other cities. However, with Sorako out of the picture, that provided quite a nice environment for his plans to really take off. He was able to kidnap thousands in cities across the Shard. He allied with some Yuan-Ti and some humans, and some undead. In his quest for artifacts, he also heard of a certain dark box from his allies in the Underdark, which he transported to his lair for further study.
He knew of the Stormcrows, obviously, and he figured you might eventually confront him. Thus the scrying and spying on you, and he tried to kill Councilman Strong before he could give you any information. He knew you were coming. He was watching the whole fight with the crazy nobles and their cult. He set up the fight in the cavern so he could see what you would do, particularly Sorako since he was an unknown factor (and radiant, at that...particularly scary for an undead guy). He had hoped to use his invisibility to see which portal you would choose to go through and then go the opposite way. All else having failed, he used his ace, the bombs which were the source of his influence over the world.
He didn't really know what the dark box did, so when Cas went for it he assumed you were just trying to destroy his stuff. The box contained the radiant artifact that had such a large influence on Sorako. (Some kind of divine sunrod or something? I dunno.) It had a similar divine effect on Cas, though of course, each person gets inspired in their own way...
Finally you returned to what seems to be the original timeline, having undone all of the End of Time's work. Now nobody knows all of the stuff that happened, except perhaps a few people who saw Fear disappear or those who were traveling in or out of the Shard's plane during a reset. As far as the Council and the rest of the world knows, the world was ending and somehow the Stormcrows fought off Caius or something. The Council rewards you as they did each time, not for resetting the timeline but for defeating Caius and saving the world.
As an aside, there was a lot of potential for abuse here, not only in asking stuff of the council, but also in the way the resetting worked. I half-expected you guys to realize you could commit grand theft kingdom and none of it would matter after the reset, except you'd be filthy rich. But each of your characters was remarkably selfless, even after figuring out what was possible. (Except for Fear... I had him take advantage to show you what you could get away with, but nobody went for it.) I particularly like how Sorako helped some youth escape the Underdark life and even lost quite a bit of money to the 'throwaway' timeline.
Dangling plot threads: The Maruts promised to tell you who wanted you dead. They may or may not remember the conversation, however. It's also possible the End of Time was able to change some small thing far in the past that didn't have such grand effects, but perhaps some small things are off. Caius may be able to prevent a total reset if such a thing gets fixed...or he may not. Tim still exists in the original timeline, he just wasn't able to do too much damage yet; he'll probably grow in power until he can achieve his goals and he might strike at the party preemptively if he sees a chance. Then there's Fear's meddling in Sigil...just what was he up to, and what was he planning to do before poofing back to the Shard?
Rewards: Some precious gems and other items off the tombstone golems and undead, a few old Goblin coins (collector's items!), some Stern Handler's Wraps (Epic Tier) from the Storm giant, a scroll of View Object plus the arcane components and crystal ball focus to cast it from the Maruts, a bunch of coin and art and low-level items from the gnoll shrine, Gauntlets of Magical Interchange from Councilman Strong, various jewelry from the insane nobles, a Greater Ring of Invisibility dropped by Tim, and a selection of items from the last Council ceremony.
All together that comes to: 450,000 gold, Scroll of View Object, Crystal Ball worth 5,000gp, Gauntlets of Magical Interchange (lvl 22), Greater Ring of Invisibility (lvl 23), Stern Handler's Wraps (lvl 24), and your choice of lvl 25 item.
I know I said lvl 24 and 23, but I was mistaken cause I forgot about the Wraps, and forgot the lvl 25 item. I also changed the parcels to be for a 5 character party instead of 6. This way it's like Fear wasn't there, but I'm giving him the same amount of gold each of you got (90k) just so he's where he should be for his level. (This is justified by him asking the council for it, or possibly stealing stuff in Sigil.)
Alternatively, we could do it like it was a 6 character party, which would mean splitting the 450k up 6 ways, but throwing in an extra lvl 23 item of your choice. So each person gets 75k instead and you get to choose a lvl 25 and lvl 23 item. (This could be justified by the council refusing to give Fear the 90k, or it counts toward the total) Let me know, I'm not sure how you guys want to do it. Also feel free to ask any other questions in case this wasn't long and convoluted enough for ya.
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