THE WORLD BEFORE
Though the history of the Old World has been poorly preserved, at best, a sudden revival of interest in the subject has sparked a new effort to collect and preserve texts and artifacts from the era before the Harrowing. It is known that the world was enjoying a relatively widespread golden age of magical-technological innovation due to the introduction of artificing, which is believed to have begun within the Namarrine Empire and spread outward. The genesis of magical mechanization rapidly transformed daily life within urban centers across the continent of Etipa, first for the elite, then
eventually for the rest of society. As the lands and palaces of the ruling class expanded ever outward, the urban working classes were stacked ontop of one another in increasingly "humble yet efficient" tenement housing, causing urban populations to explode. As airships took to the sky and crop yields became magically enhanced, the possibilities for the future seemed limitless. Art and architecture reached a pinnacle of grace and ornamentation while the first factories began to blight the edge of "modern" cities, spewing sickly green and stormy-purple smoke from their towering chimneys. The magical arms race had begun.
While the continent of Etipa contained almost two dozen sovereign nations, most ascribed to a rapidly growing school of thought that believed in the divine essentialism of the classes. In fact, it got so deeply embedded in the mindset of certain ruling dynasties that they began to believe in their own divinity. Upon the threshold of the Harrowing, it is rumored that a few rulers aspired to steal the divinity of the gods for themselves, or even sacrifice one or multiple dieties in order to harness such power for an ultimate superweapon. What actually occured is unknown, but amid a volatile magical arms race, it seems that something triggered every nation's superweapons to go off simultaneously. The result left the continent of Etipa uninhabitable (at least by most standards) and cloaked in a perpetual mist, residue of the arcane chaos that was unleashed upon the world.
For futher reading about the world before the Harrowing, visit the Old Fort Library (Biblioteca del Antiguo Fuerte) on Calle Fuerte in Ravona, Island of Tivito. Appointments are preferred but not necessary.
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