=====History of the World=====

>''“When the world was shattered, shardisite arrived and never left.”''

====The Age of Collapse (0 – ~100 A.M.)====
The Age of Collapse began with [[Homebrew Rules & Reference:The Meteor|the catastrophic Meteor]] strike on January 18th, 1886. In a single day, the Earth’s axis tilted, continents reformed, and magic erupted into daily life.

The immediate aftermath was marked by widespread devastation, uncontrollable mutation, and the collapse of every known government. [[Homebrew Rules & Reference:Shardisite]] first emerged from the earth in this period, radiating unstable magical energy. Survivors lived amidst storms of green fire and arcane blight, and the world was consumed by chaos.

Very little stable record-keeping survived from this era. History refers to it as a dark time of wandering, survival, and fragmentation.

====The Age of Recovery (~100 – ~700 A.M.)====
During the Age of Recovery, scattered survivors began to rebuild fragile communities atop the ruins of the old world. Small kingdoms, nomadic tribes, and fortified enclaves arose, many of them guided as much by faith and superstition as by law or reason.

This era saw the first emergence of new magical traditions and localized governments. Shardisite use became more systematic, though it remained poorly understood and dangerous.

The early non-human races, still warped by uncontrolled mutation, were unstable and grotesque, often indistinguishable from monsters. Coalescence into distinct peoples had not yet occurred.

====The Age of Nations (~700 – ~1000 A.M.)====
The Age of Nations marked the birth of the first enduring political powers. As Shardisite refinement techniques improved, city-states and kingdoms stabilized, giving rise to modern nations such as Europa, Cordoba, Atlantis, and Lemuria.

Global trade routes reopened across land, sea, and eventually sky. Resources flowed more reliably, borders hardened, and centralized authority returned to a world that had spent centuries fractured and wandering. By the later part of this era, early airship designs emerged, reshaping transportation, commerce, and the projection of power across vast distances.

It was also during this period that the first demons emerged from the devastation and desperation of the shattered world. Their appearance was not sudden nor universally recognized at the time, but instead unfolded gradually through scattered incidents, unexplained phenomena, and increasingly consistent patterns of calamity. Where suffering became entrenched, where fear was cultivated rather than endured, and where despair was allowed to metastasize, something answered.

Early records describe these events obliquely, often framed as moral warnings, heresies, or localized disasters rather than encounters with discrete beings. Only later scholarship would attempt to identify a common thread linking these manifestations. By the end of the Age of Nations, it was no longer possible to deny that the world had begun producing entities shaped not by faith alone, but by anguish, exploitation, and the sustained pressure of a civilization rebuilding itself atop unhealed wounds.

====The Age of Dominion (~1000 – 1651 A.M.)====
The Age of Dominion was a period of explosive growth, conflict, and transformation.

This era saw the first [[The Choir & The Legion|angelic and demonic entities]] manifest openly across the world, shifting the balance of spiritual and political power. Worship of angels spread rapidly, leading to the construction (or is some cases reconstruction) of cathedrals, churches, and shrines throughout major cities. Demon worship persisted in secret, hidden among forbidden cults and black markets.

At the same time, technological and industrial advances accelerated dramatically. Shardisite became the engine of industry and warfare. Entire continents were devastated by wars for Shardisite control, leaving regions poisoned, depopulated, or permanently twisted by magical fallout.

Meanwhile, the non-human races, once unstable and monstrous, began to stabilize into recognizable peoples. Dwarves, elves, gnomes, orcs, and others took on the forms that would endure into the modern age.

With the Amazonian revolt spilling over into open civil war against the Cordoban crown, starting what would become known as the American Foreverwar, a new era of global conflict begun. Thus began the Age of Conquest.

==== The Modern Era: The Age of Conquest (~1651 A.M. – Present) ====
The Modern Era stands at the bleeding edge of invention, ambition, and catastrophe. The current year is approximately **2100 A.M.**

The American Foreverwar serves as both a global arcanotech testing ground and a primary catalyst for industrial development. Nations across the world supply the conflict from all sides, each maintaining a vested interest in ensuring the war continues indefinitely to fuel their own economies.

Arcane technology now fuels global society, though its dominance comes with a heavy toll. Airships crisscross continents and complex rail networks stitch nations together. Shardisite powers everything from heavy industry to modern warfare. Pollution, systemic corruption, and volatile magical mutations are rampant in the wake of industrial expansion.

The peoples of the world, human and non-human alike, have finally solidified into a complex, multicultural, multi-species global civilization. Spiritual life remains a battlefield of its own as faith in [[...:The Choir & The Legion|The Choir]] remains widespread and institutionalized while the worship of [[...:The Choir & The Legion|The Legion]] endures, though it has been driven into the shadows.

Though centuries have passed since [[Homebrew Rules & Reference:The Meteor]] event, its scars remain etched into the earth and soul alike. The world constantly balances on the knife’s edge between a second renaissance or a second ruin.