“The world ended on a Monday.”

The Meteor refers to the cataclysmic impact of an unknown celestial body on January 18th, 1886, the single event that ended the old world and ushered in a new magical era upon the Earth.

The extraterrestrial object later associated with the origin of Shardisite obliterated vast regions of the planet and triggered a cascading collapse of geographic, magical, and metaphysical systems. No corner of the world was spared. Nations fell. Natural law fractured. Magic erupted violently into daily existence. Even the planet itself was torn from its axis, plunging the Earth into an unstable and unrecognizable age.

Contemporary witness accounts describe the sky burning emerald for hours before impact. The object was no ordinary meteor. Survivors recorded unnatural auroras, impossible atmospheric phenomena, and visions that defied explanation in the hours leading up to the catastrophe. When the celestial body finally struck, the immediate blast vaporized Greenland and Iceland, sending shockwaves through the Earth’s crust and flooding the atmosphere with torrents of raw arcane energy.

At the site of impact, Shardisite emerged: crystalline, pale green, and humming with chaotic power unlike any known substance.

The oceans surged. Mountains collapsed. Entire coastlines vanished beneath the sea. Magic flooded the world like blood from a reopened wound.

In the days following The Meteor event, Earth became a storm-wracked wasteland. Fire rained from the skies. Emerald lightning split the heavens. The seas swallowed cities whole. Uncontrolled magic warped animals, plants, and survivors alike, birthing grotesque and unstable new forms of life.

Worst of all, the planet itself shifted violently. Earth’s rotation tilted nearly ninety degrees, repositioning the poles and forging a new equator.

• The Atlantic Ocean became the new northern sea.
• The Pacific Ocean expanded into the vast southern ocean.
• Former tropical regions plunged into permanent winter.
• Former polar regions warmed as ancient ice sheets melted, flooding the world anew.

Amid the ruins, the Sea of Ghosts was born, concealing the original impact site beneath storm-churned, shard-saturated waters.

Magic, once relegated to myth and superstition, became undeniable reality. In the wake of The Meteor event:

• Spells manifested spontaneously among survivors.
• Shardisite radiated chaotic magical fields that reshaped minds, bodies, and landscapes.
• New races emerged—elves, dwarves, orcs, gnomes, and others—mutations that stabilized only over centuries.
• Divine forces awoke as entities of belief and emotion manifested physically, drawn by the overwhelming magical and emotional trauma of a broken world.

Belief itself became a catalyst. Faith could shape reality. Doubt could be lethal. Civilization struggled to survive in a world where the impossible had become commonplace.

The legacy of The Meteor event defines every aspect of life to this day:

• Time is measured from the fall: Anno Meteorum.
• The Earth’s geography bears little resemblance to the old world.
• Nations rose and fell around Shardisite extraction and magical warfare.
• Environmental collapse—pollution, mutation, and magical disasters—became constants of existence.
• Technological innovation and arcane power grew inseparable, giving rise to an era of industrialized magic.

Culturally, the old world is remembered as a lost age, viewed with equal parts nostalgia and horror. Few reliable records survived the collapse.

The true nature of the object that struck the Earth remains unknown.

Some scholars argue it was a fragment of another plane, a shard of a broken world or a fallen heaven. Others claim it was divine retribution, pointing to the surge of religious extremism and social unrest in the late nineteenth century. Arcane researchers speculate that the object was an ancient artifact, a seed of chaos cast—deliberately or accidentally—across the void.

While its origin remains fiercely debated, its consequences are undeniable. The Meteor event shattered Earth’s physical, magical, and metaphysical order in a single, irreversible moment.

Every major religion, government, and magical institution traces its lineage to the fallout of The Meteor event. It remains the defining wound of the world—unhealed, and perhaps unhealable.

The Sea of Ghosts still conceals the impact crater beneath its cursed waters. Above it rages the Maelstrom, a permanent magical storm that renders direct exploration impossible.

On one point, scholars, priests, and sorcerers agree: the world did not survive the Apocalypse.

It became something else.