What Was Shroudfall?

Shroudfall is the name given to the great sorcerous disaster that occurred over one thousand years ago. Although the exact nature of the event and its genesis are unknown, what is known is that the Elven Prince Morhgaray of the land of Aeledorin (destroyed in the disaster, it lay far to the east), in a fit of great despair after slaying his human brother-in-law – an act which led to his wife’s suicide – somehow opened a planar gateway to a dark realm hitherto unknown, and the resultant influx of magical energy caused a cataclysm of global proportions.

The doorway that Morhgaray opened released a vast roiling cloud of rainbow-bright chaotic power, which then propagated itself and spread across the globe by means of the famed Elvengates (a network of teleportals), destroying ancient cities and laying waste to nations. The very earth heaved and groaned under the irresistible might of the Shroud, and storms of horrific power swept across the face of the world. Only where the Elvengates did not reach – or where the magic seals were reinforced and stayed shut – was there comparative relief from the world-shattering power of the Shroud. In the New Kingdoms, three key gates held, but several others did not, leading directly to the collapse of Seyeren rule in the east and the Kolsec Empire in the west. In the wake of the catastrophe came plague, famine and war, unravelling much of what had survived the initial disaster. For over three hundred years, there was little but chaos across most of the world, and contact was completely lost between the eastern and western hemispheres.

When the much-reduced bastions of civilisation had recovered and stabilised somewhat, exploration took place as attempts were made to reach out from the isolated islands of order and rebuild the world anew. But it was found that it was no longer possible to travel to the east. A vast rift of Shroud now stood like a living barrier between the two halves of the world – although none were able to draw near what has become known as the Veil, for it was found that well before the Veil could be reached, the world assumed an aspect of deep gloom, where the sun shone for only the barest moments in the far west before vanishing, and the land rippled like water, earth and rocks were ripped from the ground and tossed skyward in horrendous gales, and the oceans vanished into hurricanes of varicoloured vapour. Of all who have dared to pass this point and reach the Veil, not one has returned. So only the testimony of the Twilit Lands – where the earth and ocean are steadily decaying into the stuff of pure Chaos, and the stars are slowly devoured by the great disc of the Veil – tells of what may lie further beyond.

Picture by Jeff Brown

Nonetheless it is known that the lands of the east also survived the carnage of Shroudfall, for on occasion seers and priests have received visions and communications from those who dwell there still. It is said that some parts of the east survived Shroudfall in much the same way as did the New Kingdoms, but that they are under assault from powerful enemies that they name the Shroudborn and the Shroudsworn, and it is feared that they cannot hold. It is also known that the east too has its Twilit Lands, and it is thought by dark prophets that these regions of despair and horror are spreading on both sides of the Veil and that ultimately, all the world shall be consumed, that the respite after Shroudfall was a doom postponed, not avoided. On this, the Gods are silent, and the knowledge of mortals inadequate.

Yet most do not believe these fatalistic oracles, for Shroudfall is a millennium in the past, and the Veil and Twilit Lands many months travel from the surviving nexus of civilisation. Folk carry on their lives, seeking as they always have to build little empires and play their games of power or faith, or merely to survive. The Shroud is seldom mentioned, save as a reminder of woes surmounted. And none can say which side is in the right.