The Silver Age Cataclysm
History
Near the beginning of the Silver Age, humans had incredibly long lifespans. They weren't immortal like the Golden Race, but they could still live for tens of thousands of years. Queen Issia lived the longest at nearly fifty five thousand years. The silver humans were content with these long lifepsans, and hadn't yet though of immortality, until whispers from the darkness started to make them ponder what would happen if they lived forever.
The rest of the Silver Age was defined by the silver humans' quest for immortality. They went through any means to make it happen. They even started to follow the advice of a dark imprisoned god, Tazil, who gradually corrupted them over hundreds of millennia. He eroded the humans' confidence in the other elder gods of the Tetrad: Alom, Yanneth, and Nora.
Sure that Tazil had the secrets to immortality the silver humans went to war against the gods to set him free from his prison. They set fire to Meliheal, and if not for the sacrifice of the water goddess Ibora, the cataclysm would have happened here. The Elder Gods eventually won this war, and imposed their own rule on the humans that lasted for a hundred millennia.
Then Tazil began whispering to the humans again, telling them of ways to defeat the elder gods, how to seal them away forever. He told them of ways to gain their immortality. The Silver Humans followed these whispers, building great weapons to take down the gods, and once they successfully sealed them away, they started construction of a great crystal tower. According to Tazil, this tower once activated will grant humans their immortality.
The Silver Humans spent the next hundred millennia building this tower, gathering crystals from across the world, and from worlds beyond Vreathe. Even as their lifespans declined due to their defiance against the gods, they continued on, persevering in a way that only humans knew how.
When the tower was completed, it was turned on, and this is where everything went wrong. Most people regardless of where they were in the universe saw a flash of white light, then nothing. The tower had exploded, sending a shockwave of aetheric energies tearing across the world and the rest of the universe. Mountains were raised and lands were sunk beneath the sea.
Every single Silver Human was forever altered no matter where in the universe they were, judged and transformed by the creator according to their crimes. Some achieved immortality, but the vast majority were punished.
Humans tried to harness the power of Aether, the energy of nature, the energy of creation, the very energy of the universe and of the creator himself. They failed and they paid for it. Everything that ever existed and will ever exist will pay for their arrogance and attempts at defying all that there is.
Consequences
Crystallization of The Olimian wastes
The aetheric energies of the exploding tower were so great that many millions of people that were within a few hundred miles of the tower were instantly turned to Quartz crystal. Over the many thousands of years that followed, they fell apart from erosion and were buried by the sands of the great desert. Often only the heads remain after such a long time.
Being made primarily of Quartz Crystal, these heads contain large amounts of aether that modern mages like to draw power from. Expeditions are regularly conducted to go into the desert to retrieve more of these heads, and there seems to be a near infinite supply of them. The crystals also store the memories of the original person, at least the last few minutes of their lives.
There are unverified rumors that the heads are still technicially alive, forever trapped in a prison of their civilization's own making, being used to power the fall of the next great civilization.
Activation of the Mountain Seeds
Altus was known as the God of Giants and his purpose was to create the mountain ranges across the world. He did so by planting what were known as mountain seeds that could later be activated with a great amount of energy. The Silver Age Cataclysm provided this great amount of energy.
When the mountain seeds were activated, a worldwide shaking and tectonic rifting occured, and many mountain ranges sprang up within a matter of minutes. These mountains were so tall that it altered the world's climate, creating vast deserts where there were none before. The great desert of The Olimian wastes were created as a result of this, which eventually buried the Olimian civilization, the ones who built the tower.
Bronze Age Rule and Fall of the Gods
With the Silver Humans gone and with three of the four elder gods imprisoned on the moon Nodan, the lesser gods took over rule of Vreathe. The Tetrad had hundreds of children between them, and all of them were lesser gods with various overlapping powers. Most of them are unnamed and are completely lost to time.
At first, the Gods ruled with a council and treated elves and humans like pests to be squashed and managed. Tired of the rule of the Gods, the peoples of Vreathe used the blood of the Tetrad to forge God Slayer Blades that could rend immortality.
This started a great war that tore Vreathe apart and ended in a Bronze Age Cataclysm. While lesser than that of the Silver Age Cataclysm, it still nearly ended all life and very well could have if not for an intervention. The elder goddess Saint Nora, last of the Tetrad, sacrificed her power to create a barrier around Vreathe that would prevent any divine being from setting foot on the world again.
Not all gods were petty beings, instead staying loyal to Nora and didn't interfere in human affairs. The God Vikuon uses the power of the sun to maintain the barrier over Vreathe, from his throne on the world Yikonis. The Goddess Flora was too busy creating Vreathe's many plants to take part in petty wars. Beirunes, the greatest among the lesser gods, would have turned Vreathe into a burning cinder and nothing would have stopped him, but instead, he returned to his world, The Moon Izi.
Many lesser gods are known only by surviving wall mosiacs from various abandoned temples. The ones hated by humans were completely destroyed and wiped from history, so the names of many are unknown or were later fabricated.
The Creation of the Peoples of Vreathe
People that were more distant to the explosion were said to be individually judged by the Creator, Silnos himself. They were forever altered according to their crimes and beliefs. The humans that were transformed into Elves were said to be without sin so were rewarded with the original intent of the crystal tower. Less than 1/100th of all Silver Age humans turned into Elves. They have long lifespans similar to that of Queen Issia the Golden, and they have an innate ability to absorb aether and cast magic that few other races of Vreathe possess.
Other humans were said to have sin, and were each transformed into gradually more grotesque beings until the most sinful, the Nameless Horrors, had an appearance that could never be confused for human. These beings are immortal, but are in never ending pain, writhing about with their tentacled forms, hateful of the gods, humans, and everything else. It is said that there were even more sinful humans that Silnos couldn't punish. He just made them stop existing as the aetheric energies of the cataclysm touched them.
Creation of the Fairies of Vreathe
When an Elf is bathed in Aether over the span of hundreds of years, their form changes slightly, and this is how numerous ethnicities and types of Elves have appeared since the Silver Age. During the Cataclysm, some elves were bathed in so much aether that also mixed with the exiled gods, that they were turned into a being that hardly resembled Elves at all. They became Fairies.
Fairies are immortal and possess so much magical power that the laws of reality seem to shift and even break in their presence. Their tiny forms can barely contain the vast power within them and on close inspection their bodies seem to be cracking apart, showing a window into an unknown reality.
"Should we tell them what our true purpose is on Vreathe?"
- Lirienne
"Humans are smart, I might be giving them too much credit, but they can figure it out on their own!"
- Belladonna
"What? Nah, they haven't earned it yet! Maybe later!"
- Xana
"That and we don't want Tellars threatening to erase us from exisence again!"
- Azura
Time Bubbles
For a short time during and after the cataclysm, physical laws stopped working as normal. Time stood still in parts of the world, marked with a pulsing bluish energy. You can't see the contents inside these areas and you will become frozen in time yourself if you attempt to move inside. These became known as Reality Bubbles. Depending on the specific reality bubble, they disappeared after a few centuries and time moved as normal again, or they stayed in place for many thousands of years.
There are people, creatures, and even gods that are frozen in place, even in current times. Whenever a reality bubble collapses and time flows normally again, it almost never ends well for the people of the surrounding area. The beings of the Silver Age are much more powerful than the beings of the Iron Age. The Knight Council keeps tabs on every known reality bubble in case one of them ever breaks open.
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