Wild fires spread across Akados

Geological / environmental event

The Borderlands of Eastern and South-Eastern Akados did not fare so well when the windswept maelstrom of fire swept across the plains from the destruction of Curgantium in 2496 I.R. The parched grasses ignited like tinder, causing a wave of flames to reach from Curgantium all the way to the distant Matagost Peninsula. The fires, unlike the droughts, caused famines of incalculable damage, massively depopulating the entire region and culling arable land to a mere fraction of what had once been cultivated and tamed. This disaster set back civilization in many of the provinces by a hundred years or more, depending on how one measures the progress of a civilization. Learning survived in such places as Endhome, saved by the Gaelon River’s firebreak; Vermis, which was located just beyond the reach of the fires; and Troye, blocked from the fires by the Cretian Mountains. Many remnants of the great continental forest that had once covered the area burned away, feeding the onrushing flames. From this point in history, although many great — even vast — forests still remained, the Borderland Provinces region could no longer be described as predominantly forested.