The Day of Woe and the Turning
Kierhaven, the last stronghold of the Elves, fell to Cambruin's army in the dead of winter, after months of hard-fought siege. The dark events that followed Cambruin's final triumph have never been discovered, for they have been lost in a web of legends, rumors, suppositions, and conflicting reports. All that is known is that one of Cambruin's own Champions was lured into black treachery by the Elves, and arranged for his sovereign's death. In the woods beyond Kierhaven this Traitor (whose identity will likely never be known, though rumors name at least four different Knights) stabbed Cambruin from behind with Shadowbane, pinning the dying king to the trunk of a mighty oak. As the tree drank the High King's blood, the ground shook and the World was changed forever.
For the High King died upon no ordinary tree: the mighty oak was none other than the First Tree, the World Tree that the All-Father had awakened at the dawning of the World. The mighty tree turned to stone, and its roots coiled and writhed like snakes through the depths of the World. Aerynth shattered, spiraling into isolated fragments that drifted apart. Seas drained into nothing, whole lands drowned beneath new oceans, and even the face of the Sun darkened. Braialla screamed in agony, and the echoes of her scream still linger for those sensitive enough to hear. The gates of Heaven and Hell slammed shut, and the All-Father's voice fell silent. The Turning had come, and none of the World's Children came through the cataclysm unscathed. A new Age, the Age of Strife, had begun.
The Age of Strife
Though the first century of this new Dark Age has not yet ended, the times since the Turning have seen more drastic changes than any other time in the history of the World. This has been an age without any masters, when the voices of the Gods have been silenced while the voices of the faithful shout louder than ever. Conflicts between great empires have ended, but only because the great empires were broken when the World was broken. New factions and alliances have arisen, each fighting with its neighbors over religious differences, ancient racial grudges, or precious resources. New creatures roam the Sundered Lands, and for the first time the folk of Aerynth have met the Children of another world. The greatest change of all, however, is the end of Death, or at least death as it had been known.
The history of the Age of Strife is, more often than not, a confusing tangle of events on different, scattered World fragments. An exhaustive account of the events since the Turning is sadly impossible, but a survey of the sundered World and of the major changes the Turning wrought is critical to understanding the World of Aerynth, as it exists today and will exist in the future.
The Sundered World
The most important change to Aerynth is also the most obvious: in the aftermath of the Turning, Aerynth is technically no more. As the High King breathed his last, the once continuous World shattered into many pieces, some large some small, and these great fragments drifted apart, isolating them from each other. In some places, great realms were dismembered, with neighboring provinces (or even halves of a single province) now separated by great gulfs of Void. In some places warring kingdoms were separated forever, while in others ancient enemies found themselves crammed together on a narrow island of stone that was all that remained of Aerynth. Travel and communication between fragments was, at first, impossible: few knew the cause or even the nature of the Turning, and many fragments thought that they were the only survivors of the end of the World.
The dwellers on many fragments had their lives changed forever by the Turning: in many places great cities stood shorn of the vast farmlands needed to feed them, and trade could no longer be counted on to supply scarce necessities. Famine and plague ravaged the fragments of Aerynth, and bitter wars quickly broke out for the control of precious resources, keeping ancient rivalries alive or even pitting folk against their own kin. Some turned to raiding, pillaging their neighbors to survive, while in other places communities transformed into fortresses, fending off the evils of the World with stout gates and thick walls. In some lands, ancient hatreds were forgotten in the name of survival, while others degenerated into savagery and ignorance. The sundering of the World spawned a host of ills and troubles for the survivors of the Day of Woe, but the troubles of isolation paled beside the spiritual aspects of the Turning.
Life, Death, and Undeath
Magi and Theologians are still debating the precise cause of the Turning, and the implications of some of its effects. Legend records that Gerriant the Old, first among Cambruin's Champions, was the last to die upon the Day of Woe: since the Turning, the Spirits of the dead are no longer drawn away from the World and into Heaven or Hell. They linger, chained to the fragments of the sundered World, and at first they quickly degenerated into hateful things, baleful specters seething with hatred for all that lives. Just as in the early years of the Age of Days, the corpses of the slain arose as foul Undead, and soon the shambling hordes of the Unholy Legion ravaged every fragment, wreaking havoc upon the ranks of the living. Ancient lore kept safe by the Holy Church led to the revival of the Undead Hunters, but on many fragments the old secrets had been forgotten, and nothing could stem the dark tide. Entire regions were lost to the Shadow, and have since become lands of nightmare. All of the World's Children would doubtless have fallen to the unholy tide if a solution had not quickly been found.
The ancient and mysterious Druids quickly learned to call across the Void to their brethren on different fragments, and sought a means of bringing life and death back into balance. Finally they devised the Trees of Life, stone trees grown from acorns harvested from the World Tree in ages past. Linked by powerful magic to the petrified World Tree, Trees of Life serve as anchors to the Spirits of the slain, drawing them back to the trees and fashioning new bodies of flesh and bone to house them. Within a few years, Trees of Life had sprouted in every major city and community, and through them the Children of the World had achieved a sort of immortality. Though true Death is no more, most folk are still afraid of dying, for the end of death's permanence did not strip it of its pain, and the journey through the Shadow back into life leaves the victim sorely weakened. It must be remembered that children are still being born in the wake of the Turning, implying that new souls can still arise even though the souls of the dead are no longer lost. The Wise are still baffled by these developments.
The New Races
After the first Trees of Life were planted, children began to be born to the Sons of Men who were… different. Pale, cold, and hairless, these strange children came to be known as Shades, and seem to have some kind of strange affinity with Death. Not even the greatest Magi are sure why one infant is born a Shade while another is not, but one thing is certain: despite purges and inquisitions, the number of Shades is steadily increasing. Many believe that they are somehow linked to the Trees of Life and the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. The Shades themselves know nothing of their origins, and are usually the targets of scorn and persecution. Their unique aptitude for stealth and thievery has earned them a place in the sundered World, however, and even those who revile Shades are often forced to respect them.
The most dramatic change in the population of Aerynth came in the fifth decade after the Day of Woe. A group of strange, winged folk appeared through an ancient Runegate, and soon large numbers of the bird-headed invaders had appeared in almost every fragment of the World. The strangers call themselves Aracoix, and they quickly attacked every city and community they came across, engaging all the World's Children in a bitter war for conquest. Though formidable and fierce in battle, the Aracoix know little of magic, and the folk of Aerynth managed to defeat the invaders, driving them into the wilderness. Though the first Aracoix encountered were universally hostile, in the years since some have broken rank to befriend the Children of the sundered World. These Aracoix revealed the secrets of the Runegates, enabling Travelers to end the isolation of Aerynth's fragments. The roaming Aracoix also gave dark hints about their origins. It seems that the Bird Lords came to Aerynth from another world entirely, looking for a new home before something destroys the world of their birth. These tales have added two new worries to the minds of Scholars: first, that the war with the Aracoix was only the first offensive of a massive invasion, and second, that whatever is driving the Aracoix to our World may eventually come through the Runegates to trouble Aerynth as well. Neither possibility is particularly comforting. Though initially hated by all the Children of the World, rumor has it that the Aracoix have made secret overtures to groups of Elves, calling for an alliance. When they first attacked, the Aracoix's lack of magical aptitude was their only weakness. With Elvish Magi to compensate, the legions of the Aracoix could become invincible.
Finally, while the days since the Turning have brought two new races to Aerynth, they have also witnessed the return of an old one, not seen for ages. The Dwarves, long forgotten by most folk, have returned to the surface for the first time since the War of Stones ended. Some have come as refugees, for the sundering of the World wreaked unimaginable havoc with the deeps, ruining many Dwarvish strongholds and cities. There are other Dwarves, however, who walk the World as emissaries from Dwarfholds still intact, making subtle inquiries and working toward some secret purpose. Rumor has it that the Dwarves are desperate to gather information about the Turning, the Runegates, and the location and final fate of Shadowbane, the Sword of Destiny. Some have surmised that Thurin and his children are working in secret to somehow reforge Aerynth and mend the sundered pieces of the World. None can even begin to guess how such a task might be accomplished, however. The Dwarves themselves have said nothing.
The Rise of New Magic
In terms of knowledge and learning, the Turning was an unimaginable cataclysm. Countless Scholars and Loremasters were lost in the upheaval and the Dark Days that followed the Day of Woe, and on many fragments the uneducated turned on the Wise, believing that reckless use of wizardry had somehow shattered the World. Libraries were destroyed, Magi were burned by angry mobs, and the isolation of Aerynth's fragments made the transmission of lore or new information impossible. Despite all of these disastrous trends, however, the magical arts have actually flourished in the wake of the Turning, for even though many arcane secrets have been lost, many have endured, and baffling new magical arts have been discovered.
Many resolute Conclaves of Magi weathered the storm of the Turning by walling themselves inside their towers and colleges and defending their libraries at all costs. In time, when the initial frenzy of the Turning waned, most folk were eager to turn to Wizards for aid against marauding monsters and raiders from rival groups. Schools of Wizardry were quick to recover from the chaos of the Turning, and quick to capitalize on the new art of Traveling. Useful as it was, other new forms and permutations of magic have arisen. Where once Summoners could only call creatures known to nature, after the Turning they gave rise to strange new beasts by mixing the true names of different beasts. The exile of the Amazons from their hidden homeland brought Scholars in close contact with the mysterious Furies and their art of Stormcalling for the first time in millennia. But strangest of all are the Warlocks, who seem able to bend the thoughts of others and the World itself to the power of their will. The effect of these changes will ultimately have on the science of Magic and upon the World itself remain to be seen, but they will doubtless be profound indeed.
