The Age of Shadows

The Age of Shadows on Magicians' End begin in 4290 APC after the dramatic fall of the government of the Second Popular Ascendancy and lasted for more than nine hundred years until 5148 APC when the realm fell to the Limit Princes and was briefly under the hated Limit Protectorate.
After the Dark Domain Frenzy of 3596 APC, the Hylacon Gates were weakened in ways that were not initially suspected. This allowed for a number of subversive invasions into the human continents from the Dark Domains, which had already begun in stealthy fashion during the time of the Second Popular Ascendancy but which accelerated after its fall. The Age of Shadows is characterised, in large part, by the arrival of sinister supernatural agencies and forces which sought to subvert civil society and find further ways to undermine the protection offered by the remaining barriers protecting the world from the Dark Domains. Their aim was to finally break the Hylacon Gates fully open so that a second invasion to rival the one that destroyed the Old Pale Empire after the Planar Conformation could be launched.
Whilst this aim was in fact never achieved, the end of the age was still a far from happy resolution.