We all went to bed like nothing was wrong. The night was quiet, the city peaceful...
But the streets were running red with blood in the morning.
The Royal Family was gone, they said-
Vanished in the night with the Astrovanis.
It was all Baron Duchol and Lady Avaris need to go to war over the throne.
The Streets were red for days...
~A Shimsharian Resident
There wasn't a whisper of rebellion in the streets-
Okay, maybe there was, but not near enough for anyone to suspect open treason.
Still-The Royal family murdered in their beds.
It was enough to scare anyone. Would our base of power be so easily shaken?
~A Cailaran General
The Fire was terrible.
You hear the explosion, midnight sharp, from miles away.
By the time anyone got to the castle, it was gone.
Smoke billowed into the sky like an ominous cloud
and it has remained over our two kingdoms ever since.
~The Master of the Dalreme Royal Troupe
The Prelude
The Mortal Lands, by turn of the century, was barreling full steam into an era of technological and magical progress like none had ever seen before. Artificers and Machinicks were developing new tools every day, bolstered by the help of the Mechanicals that were being excavated from what Memoria ruins had been buried by time. Cailar was the queen of the land, at least it seemed if one looked at a map from those days. It commanded huge swaths of land, multiple colonies, and its trade agreements kept any of the neighboring kingdoms from daring to rise up to take its crown.
Midnight
One By One, the crowns began to fall.
Cailar's Royal family was found murdered in their beds, although who had done the deed was never discovered. There were multiple clues; bloody fingerprints, the knife wounds, a scrap of cloth caught in an open window-yet they all clashed with each other, telling a different story. The scream of the maid who came in the early hours of the dawn to check on the young prince's nightclothes echoed throughout the fortress before she was found, dead of fright. Some say her scream can still be heard to this day, in the early hours of that dreadful day.
Shimshar's Royal court had all set sail on the Astrovanis, the latest and greatest ship out of her royal shipyards. She was said to be luxurious and splendourus beyond anything the Mortal Lands had seen before, powered by a restored Memoria Engine that had been discovered in a old laboratory. Yet the night was foggy, and when the Astrovanis sailed away on her maiden voyage she vanished, never to be seen again. Rumors from drunken sailors claim that on foggy nights, you can still see the lights from the staterooms as she sails on, searching for her way home.
Dalreme's King and Queen perished in a great fire that consumed Dalreme castle. The city that had sprung up around the castle was half-destroyed by the explosion that rocked the castle's inner foundation, although the outer streets merely had their shingles shaken from the roofs. There were only a few survivors, including two members of the court each bearing a small babe, not more than a few days old. Each claimed to be bearing the true heir to the throne, and war swiftly erupted.
Mira's King had been traveling back from Cailar on a diplomatic mission when his caravan was beset by raiders. The King vanished in the confusion, and he was believed dead, much to the dismay of Queen Lydia. Suddenly beset on all sides by courtiers wishing to woo the new widow, she fought to keep the kingdom under control until the King's miraculous return, in the guise of a carpenter. King Emeric and Queen Lydia are the only rulers to have survived the Night of Falling Crowns
Cincini's Mayor was found floating in the harbor, a stomach full of beer and lungs full of water. While it is not uncommon to find men in the morning like this, it is national news when the mayor was very, very well known for his dislike of alcoholic drinks. Unfortunately Cincini's police department was not up to even basic patrols most days, and the sudden murder of the mayor was well beyond their skills. The circumstances of his death remained a mystery for years, and the resulting power struggle as various parties fought for the Mayoral seat resulted in a decline in the small city-state.
The Lunis Archiapegalo's Queen died in her bed, of natural causes. This being said a snake bite is considered 'natural'. The young prince survived, having toddled out of his own bed to relieve himself in the dead of night. The mourning process lasted for months, then years as the kingdom grieved, and clung to the memory of their queen with such ferocity that they refused to move forward, even as the generals struggled to keep the kingdom on an even heading.
The Morning After
It could be said that the Night of Falling Crowns is the only international disaster that did not strike the world down in a single night. Rather, it was the effects of economies reeling, then collapsing that did the Mortal Lands in. Technological progress halted, even regressing in certain fields as men and women of the technical skills died faster than they could be replaced.
There were a few kingdoms where the sudden death of the previous power was an invitation to war rather than an event to be mourned. Shimshar, in particular, had no sooner received word that the Astrovanis had vanished than two remaining members of the royal court were at each other's throats, fighting for control of the kingdom. Dalreme was another, supporters quickly sprouting up around either the Advisor or the Fool who had both emerged from the flames bearing a theoretical heir. The Kingdom quickly split in two and dissolved into civil war.
The Empire's Fall
At first, the Mortal Lands were shaky and believed that they would recover. Alas, it was not too be. Despite the beliefs of the people in the capital of Cailar, there was more than whispers of dissent within the Colonies, and even the outer reaches of the kingdom. Those little revolutionary pockets that had simmered for the longest time finally erupted, striking at the unprepared outposts that dotted the Empire. The Colonies were quickly lost, and with them the valuable resources that had been traded all through the Mortal Lands. Suddenly bereft of these resources, countries that had been teetering on the brink began to collapse. And the resources they had traded also became scarce, or impossible to export out of the country safely. And the dominoes fell, one by one.
Cailar collapsed two years after the Night of Falling Crowns, crumbling into a smaller collection of nations and city states that still fight to solidify their borders twenty years later. At their center is the Eternal Battlefield, plains and mountains that have become nothing more than minefields and ruins, unable to be claimed by any country.
The Lunis Archipelago soon followed, the near fanatic devotion to the fallen queen reaching a point where any voice that spoke out against the royal family or the government was silenced via an angry mob. The hunts of madmen soon followed as rumors and slander slid its knife across every throat in the Archipelago, bringing the country to its knees.
The Last Bastion
Of all the Kingdoms of the Mortal Lands, only Mira spared a gruesome fate. No one is quite sure why, to the jealously of many who would have loved to see their home saved from harm. Mira soon found itself under a deluge of refugees as those desperate for survival flocked to the last bastion of light in an increasingly dark world.
Shimshar soon stabilized, brought under the thumb under a tyrant, but an effective tyrant. The trade agreements renewed between the two kingdoms allowed them to cling to each other in a mercantile sense, holding each other afloat.
Ruben and Lazuli, the two kingdoms that split from Dalreme, settled into a cold war five years after the Night of Falling Crowns, when it became apparent that far more than the throne of the kingdom was at stake. While neither would openly trade with each other, their trade with other kingdoms helped them to stabilize and end in a wary orbit, one waiting for the other to make a move.
The World Gone Quiet
Today the Mortal Lands are a far cry from the great and prosperous land they once were. Many of the Kingdoms that once existed were wiped off the map utterly, and those that remained became greatly diminished. Much of the land now lies unclaimed by any kingdom, those small settlements that persist reliant on only themselves for survival.
Still, there is hope. Those kingdoms that survived have now pulled themselves together enough to push forward once more, leading those who all but stumble in their wake. Yet many valuable resources have been lost or destroyed, and will take time to renew. For now the world is quiet, licking its wounds even as it looks toward a brighter future.
Comments