The Blight is an event believed to have occurred several thousand years in the past that brought about the destruction of nearly every civilization. Many believe that this event is in some way connected to the concept of cycles, believing that the world before the Blight had grown so advanced that the only recourse was for the divines to wipe it from existence. Others have suggested the Blight was a manmade event, similar to the Collapse, with some suggesting that elements of the Collapse could have been the result of researchers attempting to better understand the cause of the Blight.
History
Year 0
In the Yrnath Standard Calendar, the Blight is designated as Year 0. Year 0 is a rather nebulous concept, as the lack of any timekeeping prevent historians from reconstructing a record of events. Moreover, it is widely accepted that something had triggered a Gearstop during the Blight. The concept of the Year 0 encapsulates the entirety of this Gearstop, and its conclusion is used to indicate the beginning of Year 1.
Events
The Blight was a time of chaos and uncertainty. As a result, what history managed to survive the Blight is in many ways contradictory with histories that have existed post-Blight. This record attempts to catelogue the inaccuracies and contradictions, in an attempt to better
Disappearing Cultures
During the Blight, a number of civilizations disappeared from Yrnath simultaneously. The most notable of these are the bokren, dwarves, and teuberel peoples, though it is believed that there many have been as many as a dozen more that were completely lost to history. These additional peoples survived in the records of other cultures, such as the forest-folk of Prozes that were mentioned in the histories of both the gnomish and orcish peoples on the continent despite no evidence suggesting any culture existed there at all.
Author's Note
There is some confusion surrounding the disappearances that occurred during this time. It is not uncommon for people to believe that the eladrin also disappeared during the Blight, however the eladrin actually disappeared roughly a century prior in a separate incident.
Rapid Cultural Shifts
Cultures that were lucky enough to survive the Blight often found themselves being drastically different than how they had been beforehand. One example is the goliath peoples of Oprijaun, whose history spoke of wandering nomads on Shae'daqen, yet had suddenly become an isolated agrarian society on the island of Oprijaun.
