The Rending
In the final years of The Rending War, The Basati Empire became increasingly desperate to acquire the power of The God Machine. Gavana Mukhadori, the Patriarch of House Mukh, could see that the solution to the war and dominance over the other four empires depended upon gaining access to the abilities the High Ashad Isha had been granted when she entered the Machine.
However, at this point in the war, Isha and The Five Nations held most of the Central Tir of Keshwar, an area that was extremely difficult to access. Despite Basati technological dominance, through the crafting and development of The Black Widow and other weapons of war, they struggled to pass through The Keshwar Gate.
After Basat's failed attempt to send an army of Shades into The Eastern Desert to attack the newly-formed Duum Canyon, Mukhadori finally contacted the scientist Tallat and demanded another solution to the problem. Isha had withdrawn into the walls of the canyon itself, and having convinced the Shades to help her, was completely out of reach.
Mukhadori was also able to convince the rulers of the other four Empires that success and stability depended on eliminating the threat posed by Isha, her ethos and sway over both The Five Nations and The One Hundred Thousand. Until that point, Tallat had been ostensibly still working for The Council of the White Tree, under whose direction she had revivified the Shades army and sent it into Keshwar to assault Isha and take back control of the God Machine.
Tallat designed a new device, known in Tallats Codex as The Rending Device and since lost, that was intended to open a hole in reality that would give the Basati High Command, then based in the city of Cir Nacayjil, immediate access to Isha herself.
The device worked. A tear in the Heka of reality was opened been Cir Nacayjil and an inner chamber at the head of the canyon, behind the waterfall. Isha now faced a war on several fronts, with the united armies of the Five Empires on the outside, and a further force attacking through the "gap".
However, the rending entirely destabilised reality. In order to prevent immediate catastrophe, Isha bound herself against the Gap and was able to redirect its force to another location. This was only a temporary solution, although it did create a Heka backwash that blew up the Gap on the Cir Nacayjil side and destroy the Basati Empire in its entirety.
Over the following decades, several more "Gaps" opened up in various places all over Amaresh, which eventually led to the establishment of the Amnari Alliance. These locations became Magical Exclusion Zones, managed by Amnari organisations that were charged with ensuring that whatever creatures from other locations coming through were destroyed and that the Gaps, when they opened, could be closed again.
Attempts to find a permanent method of closing the Gaps have so far failed. The devastation at Cir Nacayjil was especially severe, forcing Isha to spend the rest of her existence trapped at the Nas Ashca to prevent the first Gap from widening and causing the destruction of reality itself.
Localization
Gaps opened in several locations all over Amaresh, usually in areas with intense climatic and environmental conditions already, where destabilisation is much more likely. Research into the exact nature of what causes Gaps to open where they do is still underway and has been since the Alliance was able to provide itself with a firm footing in each location to prevent an escalation of the problem.
The map above shows the locations of each of the Gaps (click on layers: "Exclusion Zones" to view). There are seven, alongside the Nas Ashca (central Iscarion) and Amin Duum Exclusion Zone. Each of these has their own exclusion zone, managed Amnari area and relations with local communities to mitigate the harm created by the Gaps freqeuntly Rending open. This also allows Amnari to provide benefits to those communities from the excess Kata and Ana released, including medical care and social and ecological support.
Type
Metaphysical, Elemental
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