02 - Broken Chain Catastrophe

AN ENVIRONMENTAL OR OTHER LARGE-SCALE NATURAL DISASTER

The churning clouds seemed to writhe as though it were a real, solid creature of flesh and mass whenever a bolt of lightning would flash from the sky. No sunlight could pierce the dense storm that spread out above them in every direction, which meant no navigating and only the barest sense of time. The only light they could muster on their tiny raft was the grade-school magic that one of the survivors barely remembered and now they clung to it as literally their only light in the darkness. Truly though, it only served to remind them that they're adrift and alone with nothing but poisonous water all around them and nowhere to go back to.

The Ancient Eiyudi were an advanced society who believed in facts and science. They had learned many of the same lessons that the Allegrans have begun to understand by signing the Accords but their lack of metaphysical knowledge left them dangerously ignorant. During their golden age and what would ultimatley be their final age, their scientists and inventors began to experiment with a volitile new element in their metalwork; Vusinium. The metaphysical properties were vexing to the Ancient Eiyudi who truly couldn't phathom the possibile uses or the cultural impact.

Unable to find a superior alternative to wood-built ships, the advancement of their society had stalled without a way to transport good and travel keeping up with the growth. With the ham-fisted process one of their steel producers worked out he could make strong chains that weighed a third of ordinary steel. When word of his technique spread, other even less qualified smiths began hammering and alloying the volitile material with an abandon only the truly ignorant could enjoy. The concequences of their actions damned their entire continent.

The storm that created the Storm.

Manifestation

As the active vusinium began to accumulate in the larger urban communities strange and unexplainable events would occur. Most often oddly vibrant static shocks of purple electric energy or harmless clouds of twinkling sparkles that drifted along the ground like dust devils. This was alarming to everyone as the Ancient Eiyudi had no magical traditions and the concept of metaphysical sciences hadn't been conceived yet.

With no one linking the strange events to the production of the vusinium steel, they both continued and the effects escalated rapidly. The ambient vusinium that invisibly filled the air was causing magic to go wild and manifest effects based on very little provocation. Some surviving tales recall that simply speaking words with intent could cause them to magically happen, which is likely how the entire continent ended up in ruin.

Nobody that survived could say for certain whether the vusinium clouds simply reached their natural Arcane Capacitance or if they were somehow directed intentionally but when you overcharge a magical battery the effects are dramatic. Every kind of destructive energy or force was hurled at the Eiyudi and only those who survived for months on the ocean ever saw land again.

Type

Natural