Event Horizon

The Event Horizon was a cataclysmic event which was so catastrophic that it has been chosen as the year zero for the modern Astronasian calendars.

Origins

No one is quiet sure what exactly caused the Event Horizon. Some believe that it was the results of a arcane experiment gone awry in Al-Kanish as the city was famous for its scientific progress. Others believe it was the beginning of a divine punishment for which people are repenting to this very day. The gods have been awfully silent ever since then to the point most people aren't even sure they really existed in the first place anymore. And others again believe it was the result of the world maturing from infancy into adulthood and that the devastation is an extremely unfortunate side effect of nature running its course.

Cataclysm

The first sign of the Event Horizon was that the great city of Al-Kanish disappeared in a flash of light, leaving nothing but an infertile crater behind which would later be called the Al-Kanish Desert in honour of the lost city. After this many other strange magical events started to appear all around the continent. In the Rim area all silver, tin, and copper disappeared from the ground which collapsed the local economy and resulted in civil war. Meanwhile in modern Jagdevia the arid grassland turned into a tropical rainforest over night and many of the inhabitants were strangled by magical vines in their sleep.
Several days later many people began to notice that they all of the sudden had the ability to manipulate mana, and on top of that they realised that the magic they created with this was not of the traditional Elemental nature, which up to that point was the only true form of magic known to scholars. For the first time in recorded history people were capable of creating shields of energy to protect themselves, or could manifest weapons out of thin air. The unregulated power which was suddenly thrown into the hands of the common folks caused many to rise up against their previously unbeatable overlords and much of the world was thrown into civil war.

Aftermath

In the end the Event Horizon had caused so much widespread devastation and chaos that the majority of existent societies of the time collapsed into clusters of bickering feudal states or were reduced to a fraction of their formal selves. The power vacuum created by the Event Horizon's destruction would allowed the Dwarven Imperium to rise from the ashes of the old world and form the new world order as a beacon of civilisation for the next 300 years.

Type

Metaphysical, Arcane