The Shattering

It wasn't always like this, or so they say. In the Magic Age, anything was possible. Plays that were so many illusions, large as life, and as real-looking. Carriages that flew through the sky, crossing oceans, visiting other lands. Me, I've never done more than catch a ride or two on a bumpy wagon.

— Senna.

In the time before, in the Age of Magic, there was a war. A Great War, a war of unlimited magic, a war so all-consuming that no one quite remembered who was fighting whom, or why. If you were a caster, you fought or you were destroyed. The common people had even less recourse. Eventually, nature reached a tipping point. A circle of casters attempting a greater work than had ever been accomplished struck the spark. Magic erupted in a fearsome explosion, rending the earth, sinking mountains, and raising seas.
There are very few remnants of that time to tell what happened. What is known is that a group known as the Council of Zayathi gathered in their capital city. Some say they were preparing a massive strike at an enemy, some that they were attempting to handle raw magic from the mystic plane, itself. A few say they were trying to find a way to stop the warring, but those few are not often listened to.
Witnesses who managed to survive, miles and miles from the central point, say a massive, blinding light appeared where the city should be, shooting upward into the sky. Then, it was as if the sky tore open, large rents and cracks everywhere, with a thick rust-colored haze behind them. The world buckled and shuddered, and then chaos came forth.
Earthquakes occurred across every landmass on Azarth. Volcanoes, some long dormant, began to erupt. Tidalwaves formed and drowned entire nations. Parts of continents broke apart, and others collided into each other, forming new ones. Ravines opened beneath people's feet, cities were demolished, and those with magical ability were said to have gone up like fireballs, scorching the earth. Magic ran wild across the earth like lightning, visible to even the non-talented.
More than a month went by like this, it is believed. Records from the time are scarce, and even the best estimate as to when these events occurred is only a guess. There is not even an attempt to estimate as to how many people died during what became known as The Shattering. Entire species of plants and animals went extinct, other new, mutated species came into being, and human society as it was known came to a halt.
Life was long in recovering from this. Even after the biggest rents in the planar sphere resealed themselves, there were still places with small rifts, or magical storms visible in places. Travel had been made almost impossible, and much knowledge was lost, as humankind struggled to simply survive. Some artifacts remained, some crafts were able to be passed down, but the Age of Magic was over, and things would never be quite the same.
Those who fared the worst were the casters of magic, but they received no sympathy from the common people. After so long being tyrannized and terrified by those who could wield magic, it was commonly believed that the magical side-effects of the cataclysm were well deserved. For casters could no longer reliably draw on magical power as they had before, and when they were able to find a reservoir of power, they suffered terrible pains from the casting.
Hundreds of years later, the effects are still visible upon the earth. Rents in the earth that cannot be easily crossed, impenetrable mountain ranges block travel between peoples, and regions still experience magical storms. Casters are no longer all-powerful, and often crippled by what is now known as the Shards of Zolgar, his curse upon those who wielded too much.

The Shattering by Nightflyer0ne via Midjourney

Artist's interpretation of the Shattering

Type

Metaphysical, Arcane