The 3rd Darkness
- Parent: History
The Third Darkness is a time of horror that begins with the Draining and ends with the Sundering.
Although the Draining caused no damage to the landscape of the world, its effect on the populace was devastating. In one motion, all magical energy was lost and no prayers were answered. Diseases once easily controlled by the priesthood swept across the world killing more than a quarter of the population. Those that survived had to learn to live without magical aid. Empires that had stood unchallenged for thousands of years were destroyed as troop movements went from nigh-instantaneous to weeks, months, or even years-long endeavors.
Mortals struggled to survive.
And then an evil more ancient than even the jaaren stirred. Morguul. Their origin unknown, their past incomprehensible. Yet stir they did. In the little-explored lands of Rameen, a troupe of adventurers called Kith'Keleban confronted this evil. Led by Caladran, they struggled for their very sanity, while trying to keep the ancient powers at bay. They failed.
The morguul erupted with an unquenchable thirst for destruction, consuming every speck of life they touched. In these last days every being of power remaining rose to fight against them. Some say even the jaaren returned. But it was all for naught. The morguul could not be stopped. Finally it ended when Tristan Demonspawn sundered the world. Alone he stood against the tide of morguul as his sons, for whom he fought, fled the world.
Even as they vanished through a portal to a little-known world called Elindra, Tristan brought his blade down with cataclysmic results. From the point where his blade struck the face of Korinth, a great line of energy erupted, spiderwebbing the globe and emitting a thunderous eruption that split the planet in two. In that moment everything died.
For the first time since the beginning there was quiet.
But history does not end there. Eight centuries later, heroes born of Elindra walked through the pathways of time to knit the broken world back together. The Creator had foreseen these events. A seed had been prepared. All it needed was mortals to awaken it. Led by Markonus the Great Defender, the Elindran heroes faced the morguul and saved the world. History was turned back 800 years, and the world did not burst asunder, instead it was broken, shattered, changed.
Yet not all could be undone. The world was changed, wounded, but it was not dead.
