The Great Sundering

The Great Sundering was the event the made the world what it is today. It was a time of calamity that drove the gods against each other and made it necessary for a portion of the world to be raised above the clouds, while the rest of it was left to suffer down in darkness. The exact details of the event have been lost to time, as much of society was destroyed and the records of that time lost, but the legend remains.

Summary

In the time before the Great Sundering the people of the world enjoyed a prosperous life. Many great and powerful empire rose up around the world, and magical knowledge flourished. The gods stood proud of their creation, and were glad to see mortal life succeed to such a degree. One nation stood at the top of this world, and prospered more than any other. The people of this nation worshiped their leader like a god, who in turn believed that his nation was the pinnacle of civilization. He came to believe that it was his destiny to spread his nations glory across the entire world and so he built a great magical weapon. He used this weapon to conquer his neighbors, and fully declared his intentions to the rest of the world, hoping they would see his glory and join under him, but the other empire did not share in his vision. They feared the weapon he built, and so they built weapons of their own. The world erupted into a devastatingly brutal war. The empires began creating more weapons, that were larger, and even more powerful than the previous ones. These weapons scarred the world, leaving much of it a destroyed husk of what it had once been.

The Gods looked on in horror at what had become of the world, but one god was more enraged than any other. Nordurog had built the world to serve as a stable foundation, yet the mortals who lived upon it had rendered it so badly damaged, that it would harm generations for years to come. To Nodurog this war was an insult that completely spurned everything that he stood for. The mortals had taken everything that had been left for them and wasted it, rendering it unusable for the generations that would follow them. This anger drove Nodurog mad, driving him to act against his very nature. He began to channel his wrath towards the world, intending to destroy it and everything on it. He infused his rage into the very world itself, which began infecting the mortals, turning them into bloodthirsty monsters set on destroying each other. At this time the goddess Azuquya stepped in to intervene. She still held faith in mortal kind and fought against Nodurog. Their battle further damaged the world, as the very forces of air and earth clashed against each other. Seeing that only more destruction as being caused, Azuqaya resigned herself, and began to absorb all the damage that Nordurog was trying to inflict upon the world. She called out to the other gods for assistance in saving the mortals and protecting the world. The other gods answered the call and went to help Azuqaya. Rhaxium cloaked the world in a shroud, to hide what they were doing form Nodurog. Vasilisa gathered up the oceans into a sheet of ice, trying to contain Nodurog. Khaal infused the spirits of the mortals, giving them the energy they needed to act quickly, spurring as many of them as possible to run to the locations designated by Easara. Azuqaya gathered all the clouds in sky, and formed them into a protective barrier to shield the mortals from Nodurog's influence. Finally when as many of the mortals had been gathered as she felt they could wait for had reached the designated locations, Easara summoned all of here energy and grew the World Tree. The roots of the World Tree would branch off from the tree itself, gathering up the protective clouds and rising above to the surface, carrying large chunks of land up to safety, though many were left behind on the ground, forced to watch as the islands rose up, leaving them behind. The very ground itself continued to buckle and surge with Nodurog's rage, and as his strength began to fade he burst free from his icy bindings with one last surge of power. In that moment he struck Azuqaya in an attempt to make her disperse her barrier to protect herself. Instead she allowed herself to be hit, and pushed the last of herself into the clouds to ensure that they would last. With that last act, the goddess Azuqaya was killed.
Azuqaya's death fully broke Nodurog. He lapsed into complete insanity, but was completely drained of his power. He retreated to his divine realm, and fell into a deep slumber. The other gods gazed sadly at the results of what had happened. One of their kind dead, much of the world destroyed, and only a small portion was able to be saved. Vasilisa saw this chain of events as the fault of the mortals, and blamed them for the death of her friend. She herself began to radiate the icy cold she had used to bind Nodurog, and although she did not desire the destruction of the mortals, she saw them as too dangerous to be left to their own devices, and left with her own plans for how to protect the mortals from themselves. The other gods also left, and swore a binding pact that none of their kind would directly intervene in such a way again, as they were too powerful, and the world would likely not survive another battle such as this one.
And so the world was sundered in two. The islands raised up on the roots of the World Tree would become known as The Lands Above, while the remnants of the world left below the clouds would become the Sunken Lands. Travel between the two became a difficult affair. Those left living in the Sunken Lands are subject to a constant flow of corrupting energies left behind by Nodurog, and the ground itself still remains a shifting, unstable mass, while those who live in The Lands Above still live in fear of the dangers that dwell below the clouds. The World Tree provides the bridge, uniting these two worlds, and providing a way between them, though not one that is easily taken. And Nodurog still sleeps, resting in his realm. Though his followers still remain on the world, biding their time and waiting for Nodurog to recover so they may have another chance at striking the surface.