The Everlasting Night

The Everlasting Night (Euluska: Saheromuänza, Rakki: Taiatiussa) was a 52-year period with no sunrise during the God Wars, where all of Indratera was wracked by freak weather - powerful magnetic auroras, harsh snow, and psychoactive fog. It dictated the flow of the God Wars, as well as being the cause of The Collapse that decimated the world and left it in the ensuing post-God-Wars era. It had several key phases. 
== Phases ==
=== The Withering ===
The first phase was the Withering. On the morning of Varokoleäna 16th, 1642, the sun Seiros did not rise. Panic and chaos ensued for days. Temperatures dropped globally. Over the ensuing days, plants withered and died, livestock froze, food ran out, and water froze over, hence this phase's moniker. 
=== The Shimmering ===
Soon, months later, the Indrateran aurora grew stronger and stronger and brighter. Everything was bathed in brightness; though the sun never rose, it was almost just as vivid outdoors sometimes. The curtain of green and reddish-purple light shimmered eerily over everything, and could be seen almost everywhere north of where the "tropics" once were. It disrupted weather patterns, causing fickle winds and blizzards, sending what animals survived into unpredictable and aggressive forms of behaviour. What few plants outlasted or adapted to the cold became unusually overgrown or mutated.
=== The Flickering ===
The aurora was not a thing of beauty for long. It increased in intensity rapidly; and with it, the geomagnetic storm it brought became destructive to technology. Steam turbines, electrical engines, trains, light aircraft, cars, golems, telegraphs - they all rapidly deteriorated and went haywire. Electrical weapons or machines exploded upon their users; telegraphs whipped around like lethal snakes; trains were left sparking in the thick snowdrifts. When this phase happened, the war shifted dramatically again. The superior technology of the Euluskan League was now a hazardous liability and a dead weight. Infrastructure crumbled. 
=== The Shivering ===
After some time, things kept getting colder. Without steam power, fossil fuels, or electricity, the world kept cooling dramatically, and unendingly. It was inevitable, and Indratera was consigned to a frozen doom. It was hailed as the "dead world". Trains, cars, carts, entire villages all laid dead in the snow. Once great cities huddled for warmth, with no way to renew their dwindling resources. The animals were dead, the fuel would not regrow. Even the Burning Hills were sometimes sub-zero; only the southern Fallo, Lakay, and the Horn were above freezing, and safe havens.
=== The Glimmering ===
In 1670 there began a dire and new phase of the Night. This was the Glimmering, where clouds of golden glittering fog drifted lazily around. They caused long-broken electronics to go haywire, and they caused strange afflictions to those who inhaled them - insomnia, hallucinations, dreams, and other things. The Glimmering all but marked the end of the warring period. It waned within five years or so, and the aurora kept shining bright as the world kept getting colder and colder, until...
=== The Dawn ===
On 23rd Veltai 1694 TE, the sun rose over a broken and desolate world of ice. The world slowly thawed, and its people picked up the pieces. Millions had died from the cold and from shortages, on top of those who fell in the God Wars.
== Legacy and Importance in the Collapse ==
Due to the harsh snowy conditions, it was cited as the underlying cause of millions of worldwide deaths due to the cold, famine, and blizzards, more than the conflict itself claimed. Golden Age technology ceased to function and exist during this period, and knowledge of its workings was frequently lost. Knowledge was forgotten and records were ruined. This is why in the Collapse Era (from 0 C / 1694 TE) onwards, electric and steampunk tech was a rarity. The first sunrise marked the start of the Collapse Era. 
Category:Lore
Category:Events