Chapter 1: Campaigns in tal'Dorei 7Not trusting any but themselves, the self-interested and
singular humans beat their instruments of celebration
into instruments of incredible power: artifacts that could
be wielded by singular heroes. The dwarves’ fascination
with rock and earth turned toward isolation as they
burrowed further into the mountains, using their divine
gifts to animate legions of autonomous golems to protect
their ancestral halls. Elves used their understanding
of creation’s beauty and intricacies to weave spells of
unimaginable destructive force, the likes of which Exan-
dria had never seen before.
For the first time since the Primordials, the focus of
magic was warfare. The gods themselves agreed to join
their children on the field of battle, descending from
the heavens to take up arms once more for the war now
referred to as “The Calamity.”
the Calamity
No record remains of the terrible war that followed, but
its effects are still felt today. The sheer magnitude of the
energies unleashed in the ensuing battles of gods and
mortals alike was enough to fray the boundaries holding
back the elemental chaos, spilling unbridled destruction
into the world. It completely rearranged the known flow
of magical ley energy across Exandria. The dark kingdom
of Ghor Dranas was brought to ruin, but the conflict dev-
astated Exandria’s peoples, reducing most cities to ash,
inspiring in many a desire to flee from this plane of exis-
tence entirely. So great was the loss of life during the war
that historians believe no more than a third of Exandria’s
population survived, leaving the only remaining bastion of
civilization: the Dawn City itself, Vasselheim.
The world entered a long, dark period of recovery,
when history had to be recovered and purpose had to be
restored. The Betrayer Gods were banished once more to
their realms of deception and hate, but the threat of their
return weighed heavily on the world. The Prime Deities
felt that their involvement in mortal conflict was to blame
for the cataclysmic damage inflicted upon Exandria. They
knew that while the divine gateways were left open, the
prison planes that held the banished Betrayers would
remain imperfect and temporary.
Thus, in hopes of ensuring such ruin would not befall
Exandria again, they left their children to fend for them-
selves within and beyond the walls of Vasselheim. The
Prime Deities returned to their own realms, dragging
both Betrayer and Abomination with them and sealing
the pathways to the mortal realm behind them with the
Divine Gate. Only in this way could they prevent their
corrupted brethren from physically returning to the
material plane. Sadly, for the Prime Deities, this action
also carried with it a self-imposed sentence of exile. They
would henceforth never be allowed to visit Creation.
The disappearance of the gods is known by many
names: “The Second Spark” for those who study the
arcane; “The Penance” for those who seek closeness to
their gods; but the most common name for this time of
warfare and separation is “The Divergence,” and it marked
the end of the Age of Arcanum.
Much time has passed since, and the world has been
reborn once again. The gods still exhibit their influence and