The Great Calamity

AN ACCOUNTING OF THE GREAT CALAMITY & THE CHANGES IT WROUGHT ON UCLANDIA

Hundreds of years ago, the elemental forces keeping Uclandia together were becoming increasingly unstable, although no one could determine why. The best & brightest minds across Uclandia were summoned to the capital to explain the reason for the state of their world to the King. Scholars, wizards, witches, and mages...none could explain why Uclandia was tearing itself apart.
Wildfires raged unchecked, earthquakes shook the land, and tsunamis threatened the Western coast. The lands that were once well-watered by rain & fertile began to dry up. Creatures of all sorts were forced to migrate to find water. It was a hard time, and very few were untouched.
This document is an accounting of the terrible time all Uclandians refer to now as “The Great Calamity”
The Dragon Council, a group of wise and ancient dragons that lived all across the land, sensed an impending catastrophe that their far-seeing members prophesied would kill most of them. To save themselves from extinction, most chose to retreat to a place called "Välimaa," (a Finnish term meaning intermediate space). However, the history of that specific event is not contained in this document. For more information, please see The Great Calamity & The Dragons Withdrawal
The dragons predicted that an even greater disaster was coming. And they were right.

by Liud Myla Shalimova

A crippling drought settled over most of the land. Crops and wild food sources dried up, and even the most creative had difficulty feeding their families. Hunting sources disappeared too, as the game migrated, and populations plummeted because of food & water scarcity. Fishing in the east was affected as the water on that coast warmed. Many of the different fish that could normally be found there seemed to have fled for waters unknown. Even the smaller fish that had been deemed easier to catch were suddenly more scarce. Overall, surviving personal accounts record winds being stronger and hotter, except for Banern Province. 
When a lightning-induced fire started in the forest surrounding the Imperial Palace (which was then in Glasgern Province), it consumed everything organic. Anything that lived in the forest fled or was consumed by the flames. Eventually, the palace too was swallowed by the fire.
Those who could not escape quickly enough died and irreplaceable treasures were lost or damaged.
When the great fire starved itself of fuel and went out, survivors who had taken refuge in the subterranean tunnels emerged to find Uclandia’s Ruler, Malculmus Alfgeir, dead. He had died battling the flames, trying to save his home. Of his family, only his 8-year-old son, Rolland, had survived, (due to a slave-servant snatching the boy from his hiding place under a table and fleeing to the tunnels with him). The boy lived to be 120 years old, ruled until nearly his last breath, and changed the government of the land for centuries after.
Five years after his father died, a mighty earthquake shook the land. The very center of Uclandia heaved and dipped, and when the tremors were over, a massive crater sat in the middle of Uclandia.
The following year, the rains returned with a vengeance. It rained almost all year, causing widespread flooding. The ruins of the former palace were once again consumed, only this time by water. Rolland ordered his advisors, and household staff to accompany him on a quest throughout the land in search of a safe, dry place to rebuild the capital.
After many months of miserable travel, deaths due to poor food supplies, and many insurrections and beheadings by those who opposed Rolland, they finally found the tremendous crater in the middle of Uclandia. Seeing the crater filling with water, fed by a broad and flat river, Rolland decided they would rebuild there. He proclaimed himself Emperor and ordered a palace built. He also named the crater Carwall Basin, for the slave that had saved his life years before. There were still many who opposed him and despite his age of only 14 years, he reigned with little tolerance for civil disobedience. He became known as Rolland the Bloodthirsty, for the number of beheadings he ordered.

And so it was that because of the Great Calamity, the capital of Uclandia came to be moved to the center of the land, and was named Vahaava Ri.

The Scholars who have turned their minds to the matter theorize that this mysterious environmental calamity may never be explained. But they do acknowledge that the future of Uclandia was greatly changed because of it.

• Instead of a King who ruled over Uclandia, Rolland the Bloodthirsty instituted a system where the Emperor ruled until he relinquished the throne to a successor of his choice. If the Emperor was removed by a more powerful individual (as happened 250 years after Rolland), then the victor would rule until their successor took the throne. In this way, Rolland’s bloodline ruled for the following 250 years.
• Some animals recorded to have lived in various parts of Uclandia before the Great Calamity, forced from their natural dominions, were either wiped out entirely or adopted what new territories they could find.
• The geography of Uclandia was altered in dramatic ways. Most easily seen in the Buiac Mountain range to the north, and Chonaic Ridge in the west, as well as the presence of Carwall Basin.