The Night of a Thousand Fires

Disaster / Destruction

In the winter of the third year of the War of Human Attrition, the unusually cold and humid winter brought about by the drastic changes in the global environment led to countless deaths due to starvation and exposure.

In the winter of the third year of the War of Human Attrition, the unusually cold and humid winter brought about by the drastic changes in the global environment led to countless deaths due to starvation and exposure. While the wars raged on the battlefield, the common folk were facing a much more lethal opponent. Nature, black and twisted by the damage done to the planet. As the winter piled on and temperatures dropped, it was only a matter of time before something tragic occurred. The night in question is no longer remembered by date so much as time of year. In the western commons of Armuun, quietly and unexpectedly, fire broke out among the poorer estates. The shoddy fire pits and dried out wooden homes did not take long to catch and sweep through the burg, lighting hundreds of homes ablaze in the middle of the night. Due to the winds, the spreading flames raced across the tops of the structures, bathining the entire sector in a red glow that was permitted to go uncontested for just a bit too long. There was no infrastructure to save them, the watch was only a handful, and they were too intent upon the threats outside the walls to notice. By the time the screams were heard, it was already too late. The estate was surrounded and engulfed in torrential flames, and all those within were trapped. Onlookers could do nothing but watch in horror as the inhibabts, not even entirely aware they were already dead, broke through the flames like screaming elementals into the snow only to collapse and spread the fires even further. Despite the attempts by the watch and the citizens, all were lost and the entire western ward was lost all the way to the scorched stone walls that trapped them inside. While the months that followed drug on as the watch and the citizenry banded together to clear the debris and find the remains of their fellows, out of the ashes, literally, began the initial planning of what would become the most advanced fire management system in the civilized world.