Shatterfall Events

The First Shatterfall

History is vague when it comes to stories from before the first Shatterfall event, but there were creatures on this planet at the time. Elves were some of the first creatures that created written scripts of events in small villages. Most of those stories were centered around the towns first politics, but then the book of the first Shatterfall event was written. It has no mention of the writer, but the title is "Skies Fall, We Rise."
This story is about the terror of moon colliding with our atmoshpere as the town experienced it. As the purple moon appeared closer and closer every year. Theories were abound of what might happen, and a lot of creatures of the realm thought a doomsday was coming. Then the beautiful, and scary event happened. The purple moon intersected with the sky. The event was detailed and then translated from the ancient sylvan texts:


“For millennia’s we had hypothesized and wondered about the purple moon we named Azurat after one of our high Kings of the Realm. The Azurat Moon seemed to orbit the gray moon, sometimes appearing large in our sky, and sometimes it was but a speck. Recently, it had only gotten closer. Elders thought it was on a collision course with us. A lot of us had prepared ourselves for the worst. A child hasn’t been born in decades as we assumed the end is nigh.


Finally, the event came. As we watched the imposing shape of the face of the moon engulf the entire sky we saw it catching fire. That fire blazed across the entirety of it. The dull purple planet from the sky then began to spark and smoke like flint creating the fires of life. As this happened, we could hear a crackling sound, and popping. Then the terror creeped in, seizing my throat. I felt a heat below my skin, but a shiver raced up my spine as I realized the end was actually here. From the crackling sky, shards of pinkish purple rocks began to rain down and pierce into every surface. I watched as my house was destroyed by a huge chunk.
From a moment of awe as we took in this magnificent event, we suddenly felt complete terror as this shard rock rained down and violently destroyed our village. One of us stayed out there. As we all ran for cover, I remember seeing Anaxis. He had no fear. He just stood among the raining rocks as I ran. After a few hours, it seemed like it was over. The sky stopped attacking us with sharp glowing red-hot rock from the purple moon. Anaxis was no where to be found. Every night I would look up at the moon and it started to appear as if it was getting farther and farther away. But I could see a scar across it’s surface. There was a band across it’s face of sparkling stone among the muted purple rock in the sky.”

The Second Shattering

At the end of the first age the elven people dominated the continents of Tanaheim.  Their incredible use of the Shard stone led to an explosion of magical developments.  Spells were created that harnessed the power within the rocks and elder thinkers found a link between the shards and the weave of magic itself, an interdimensional source of unlimited power.  By combining these forces with the tools devised from the shard stone many foundations were built.  Wizarding schools were created as well as spell books and magical devices that were able to safely and repeatedly tap into the weave.  The dwarves began building great structures and deeper mines utilizing the forces now available.  Humans as always learned all of this quickly and were able to stretch the limits of what spells and magic weapons could do.  All of this progress led to conflict with the elves who thought they were to control this resource forever.  
After almost three thousand years the shard rock was almost gone.  Either used up or turned to antimagic dust through use and decay.  The continents and races were drawn into greater and greater wars over the remaining resources.  The waning availability of magic led to powerful warlords who would rather rely on steel and guile anyway.  Another few centuries led to the Trachen Wars.  The western continent of Ventenheim faired better by leaning into nature and Maka'lua'a.
In the year SF 1 3403 the moons collided again.  A new shatterfall and a new age began.  This time the elves had no head start and no prognosticators guessed this moment.  All of the races of the world began to gather the shard rocks and horde them in fortresses, cities, and castles.

Type

Manual, Scientific