For hundreds, if not thousands of generations, the world was in order. The races lived side by side in relative peace. Elves traded with humans, halflings filled villages with their merry sound, dwarves delved deep into the earth, bringing precious gems and immaculately crafted wares to the surface to trade for the finest cuts of meat and all manner of harvest difficult to procure underground.
And then, one night, now many generations ago, the moon, always solemn and quiet started to seemingly boil with violent fury. Myriads of color dazzled the surface and when it looked like the dizzying display could do no more, vast cracks and crevasses appeared and in a display watched by anyone who could get to open skies, finally shattered.
The tales that have survived and been passed down through the generations recall in horror, as the deathly silence, that had not been broken with the light show, was finally pierced as shards from the moon started to fall to the earth, glowing hotter and hotter as they fell closer and closer to the ground. Some, no larger than pebbles, simply thudded as they hit the soil after howling as they fell. Others landed in water and instantly hissed as they sank into the depths. They were the ones no-one had paid attention to. Others, larger than cattle left large craters in fields or destroyed whatever they hit. But the real destruction came hours later, as massive mountain sized shards finally fell from the skies, by this time aglow with molten fragments where the moon had been.
Those who survived that night told tales of entire cities and lands being destroyed in the blink of an eye, vast shock-waves traveling for hundreds of miles leaving vast barren landscapes completely purged of life. Seas inundated new valleys, and emptied as new islands rose from the depths.
Few folk had the time or energy to be able to notice such things. No-one could tell how long it actually was, for the days and nights were indistinguishable, for vast clouds of soot, dust and smoke covered the skies so thoroughly that daylight itself was snuffed out, but most agree it could have been a month before the day started to be visible – at first only as a dark grey in the skies, but then gradually becoming lighter and stronger until the day and night cycle finally returned.
Those who’s lives were not snuffed out instantly in the first instant grew to realize they were living in a different, but just as nightmarish apocalypse. The air was still filled soot and choking ash that continued to fall. Fields, once burgeoning with crops withered and died. Bellies, used to being filled, now growled with hunger. Disease reigned in weak tired bodies. Shadows grew longer, colder and somehow more frightening. Neighbors bickered with one another over what little food was left. Brothers and sisters cursed one another and grew distant.
Although the world was changed physically in one night, it was the aftermath that people now refer to as the dark times. For the misery that followed spared none at all.
Over the passing months, those who looked up to the skies saw the white hot molten rock slowly coalesce into three new moonlets, gradually changing to a yellow, then red glow which eventually faded altogether.
For years, the dark night skies were still pierced by flashes as fragments burned up in the atmosphere, or lit up as they penetrated all the way to the earth below.
The peace that had been, was no more.
Many that were strong, preyed upon those weaker or less fortunate. Small groups formed and plundered any resources from anyone they could. Men fought. The dwarves closed their halls and barred their entrances. Elves grew distrustful of all folks. And even halflings, that race whose voice had for centuries sounded like a cheerful brook in the sun, spoke in whispers and hushed tones.
The civilization that had been collapsed. Alliances were no more. Over the following years, local warlords reigned and fought one another for power, for food, and for the things they thought the others had. They rarely did though.
And while all this was going on in the world. The wild things grew wilder. Goblins filled many crevasses and caves unchecked. Orcs, once little more than stories told at night to keep small children from mischief, came to the edges of the lands, seemingly from all sides at once. With no order to keep these things in balance, once great nations, kingdoms and races stood on the precipice of complete annihilation. But they weren’t snuffed out, for there was no order in that chaos. Orcs were as likely to hunt goblins as halflings. The wild creatures were more wild than ever.
And so, in the generations that followed, villages guarded each other. Keeps that still stood became beacons of hope to those that they protected, but those that were guarded were mistrustful of anyone lest they steal what little they had.
And so it is, that here we begin…
Torn Realms 