The Desolation
Once home to millions of people, now the largest expanse of devastated and ruined land on Lasair, The Desolation is a scar running down the east coast of the continent. Uninhabitable but dotted with ruins, the region is uninviting to life but a potential treasure trove for those willing to brave the lingering effects of the main battleground of the Dragonscourge.
History
The Empire
[Main Article ] The Desolation was once a vast and pleasant land, full of rolling grassy hills, dotted with ancient forests, and crossed by a wide, curling river. This land gave rise to the first great Human empire, ushering in the Imperial Era. An enormous city rose at the mouth of the great river, from which grew a system of roads, settlements, military outposts, and farms. The Empire dominated the eastern half of the continent, from the Firelands to the Korth'an Forest, building a thriving nation.The Dragonscourge
[Main Article] The Dragons of the world watched the rise of the Empire with concern. An eminently magical species, dragons were nonetheless aware of the power of mortals capable of raising great power. Knowing the Empire was friendly with Elvenkind (another inherently magical species), they feared that their power could be overtaken due to the mortals' superior numbers. They chose war. The war that the dragons began would devastate the world over twenty-five years, and Lasair was not spared any of the cataclysm. As the dominant human force on the continent, the Empire was one of the primary targets of the dragons' ire, and the battles that took place in and around the Empire would literally erase it from the map. The war began with mundane battles: dragons led armies made up of enslaved or magically-created species laid siege to much of the Empire. As the legions of the Empire fought back, the war escalated to large-scale magical fighting - the dragons and the Sorcerers they had created facing off against the elves' magic and that of human wizards that had been taught by the elves. Cities would be wiped out by gigantic spells; mountaintops would explode; permanent storms were raised and thrown against each other over the sea.Cataclysm
Three events would bring the war to an end - but would also destroy the very foundations of the Empire and break the back of the Dragon forces.Lumine's Eclipse
The first of these was the fall of the largest Elvish enclave. Lumine, the brightest star in the Elves' constellation of floating cities, was brought crashing to the ground through the suicidal infiltration by a trip of sorcerers. The three siblings (they were, in fact, triplets) were extremely strong in shadow magic, able to hide themselves from watchful eyes. Having been bred, raised, and trained for this purpose, the three made their way into the city. Each of the siblings infiltrated one of the three grand crystal chambers - fonts of magical energy drawing from the power of the land below them. With perfect timing granted by a telepathic bond, the three sorcerers sacrificed their lives to raise powerful anti-magic fields around each of the chambers. The city gave a single shudder, and then dropped to the ground below. The release of magical energy imbued within the city exploded into the night, a shockwave traveling out from the impact. To the west, the shockwave was deflected up by the Bloodpeak Mountains, but the rest of the way around the site was scoured clean to flat stone. Lumine had been the cultural and social center of Elven society. Losing it was a shock that the species never recovered from. After the war's end, the latent class distinctions within their society would lead to the sundering of Elven society into the scattered remainders of today.Drake's Fall
The second cataclysmic event to contribute to the Desolation's creation brought an end to the Dragons' coherence as a species, mirroring the loss of the Elves' society at Lumine. After Lumine's desctruction, the remaining elder elven mages, using powerful divination magics, determined the location of the most powerful of Dragonkind. Known as "The Void", one of the seven Lords of Dragonkind, the most powerful of the dragons led the war effort against the Empire from a hidden aerie within the Bloodpeak Mountains. Finding this location, the elven mages launched an all-out attack, without any thought to their own survival. The combat lasted a full week as The Void, several lesser dragons and a number of sorcerers fought wildly against a dozen ancient elves. As the magical strength of both sides waned, the final strike was landed. Five elven mages expended the last of their strength, pierced the last defenses of The Void, and struck the shadowy form of the dragon from the sky. As its form fell to the ground, an ages' worth of magical energy burst forth before collapsing in upon itself. This collapse created a momentary singularity which extinguished all life - and all magic - within a huge radius. The land surrounding the impact point remains a deadly waste to this day.Moon's Landing
The final strike brought an end to the Empire - and was the single most deadly event to occur on Lasair since the fall of the Giants. After the destruction of The Void, the remaining Lords of Dragonkind knew their war was lost. Both sides had suffered enormous losses of magical beings, but the sheer force of numbers the Empire could continue to raise even through the war meant that they would never overcome. So they chose to commit to mutual destruction. The world used to have two moons - the first still hangs bright in the sky, phases passing as it moves slowly across the night. However, there once was a tiny, flighty, satellite, passing more frequently, almost appearing to wobble in the sky. The remaining dragon lords expended their lives to power a final devastating spell - one that shattered the moon and pulled a fragment from the sky to strike the world. Their intent was for it to impact upon the capital of the Empire. A handful of remaining elven mages were able to detect the attack and attempted to stop it. In the end, their efforts did little but to deflect its impact slightly. The rock would miss the capital, but its impact just off shore still devastated the lands of the empire and snuffed out millions of lives. The small piece of the moon, pulled from low in the sky, crushed through the mountains (forming The Glow with the magical energy left behind) and landed in the sea. Three main effects resulted from the impact. First, a magical shockwave (similar to that from the fall of Lumine but on a much vaster scale) scoured the land. Then the land shook, fragmented, and fell, as earthquakes of a magnitude never seen on the world radiated out from the impact point. Finally, a wave a mile high swept over the land, washing away any man-made structures still standing after the earthquakes. The Imperial capital was utterly submerged and much of the empire remains underwater to this day, the shattered landscape reduced to islands referred to as the Thousand Shards.Today
In the current day, the Desolation remains much as it has for the last several centuries. There are no settlements, no cities, not even a port. There are occasional camps, housing those willing (or desperate enough) to dig through the ruined land seeking artifacts and remnants of the Imperial Age. The craters around the first two cataclysms are commonly explored by treasure hunters, but these are deadly sites to truly delve into. Nonetheless, mapped trails to both sites exist - even if they are rarely used. Occasionally, a titanic earth elemental will wander into the region from the Firelands, and one of those striding out of the haze will put a fright into even the most seasoned adventurer. The Thousand Shards, formerly the heart of the Empire, does bear life of a sort. A small enclave of Elves, from a caste responsible for fishing and waterworks, took shelter from the world by hiding within them. Over the millennium since the end of the Dragonscourge, these elves eventually took to living under the waves, unseen to the rare watercraft picking their way through the broken and jagged islands. In the thousand years since the moon's destruction, its remaining pieces have spread out into a glittering line across the night sky.
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