The Calamity
The battlefields of the catastrophic showdowns of the
Calamity were scattered across Exandria, but it was
Wynandir that suffered the full destructive powers of
the gods. Divided by the Ashkeeper Peaks, the fields of
Wynandir were once home to several powerful ruling
houses, squabbling over their own goals before being
drawn into either side of the conflict of the gods, or
abstaining for their own reasons. The immensity of
power wielded by the Prime Deities and Betrayer Gods
was enough to wound the landscape for eons, and the
irresponsible use of arcane knowledge developed by the
mortals ensured the ruin of their own legacy.
Little record remains of the terrible war, but its effects
are still felt today. The sheer magnitude of the energies
unleashed in the ensuing battles by gods and mortals
alike was enough to fray the boundaries holding back
the elemental chaos, spilling unbridled destruction into
the world. It completely rearranged the known flow of
magical ley energy across Exandria. The dark kingdom
of Ghor Dranas was reduced to ash, but the conflict
devastated Exandria's peoples, razing entire cities and
inspiring in many a desire to flee from this plane of existence
entirely. So great was the loss of life during the
war that historians believe no more than a third of Exandria's
population survived, leaving only one remaining
bastion of civilization: the Dawn City, Vasselheim.
The world entered a long, dark period of regrowth.
The Betrayer Gods were banished once more to their
realms of deception and hate, but the threat of their
return weighed heavily on the world. The Prime Deities
felt that their involvement in mortal conflict was to
blame for the cataclysmic damage inflicted on Exandria.
They knew that while the divine gateways were left
open, the prison planes that held the banished Betrayers
would remain imperfect and temporary.
Thus, hoping to ensure that such ruin would not befall
Exandria again, they left their children to fend for
themselves. The Creators returned to their own realms,
dragging both Betrayer and abomination with them and
sealing the pathways to the mortal realm behind them
with the Divine Gate. Only in this way could they prevent
their corrupted brethren from physically returning to the material plane. Sadly, for the Prime Deities, this
action also carried with it a self-imposed sentence of
exile. The Creators would henceforth never be allowed
to visit their creation.
The disappearance of the gods is known by many
names: the Second Spark for those who study the arcane,
and the Penance for those who seek closeness
to their gods. The most common name for this time of
warfare and divine separation is the Divergence, and it
marked the end of the Age of Arcanum.
Much time has passed since, and the world has been
reborn once again. The gods still influence and guide
from beyond the Divine Gate, bestowing knowledge and
power on their worshipers, but the path of mortals is
now their own to make. New cities, kingdoms, and cultures
have retaken the world, building over the ashes of
the old. New songs fill the air, and the hope of a brighter
future drives people day after day, while buried ruins
and ancient relics remind all people of a darker time of
mistakes that should never be repeated.
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