Scourings of Aeldrum

The were a series of 17 cataclysmic events which occurred on Aeldrum during and after the fall of the Mage Imperium.
== Description ==
The Aeldrum Spires were ancient communication and coordination devices for the armies of Baradun, but also serviceable as weapons, capable of tearing apart the fabric of the ether. The First Scouring saw the Third Spire used to start a chain reaction in all but the Seventh Spire (defunct) that would cover Aeldrum in roiling etheric storms for months. Tens of millions, famished and terrified by the Lechtan tyranny, were given sudden and terminal liberation. The Black Spires would be fired sixteen more times over the next century as Aeldrum changed hands among an increasingly deranged assortment of ascensionists, revivalists and neo-Imperialists.
== History ==
The First Scouring of Aeldrum occurred in , and is used as the reference point for the After Sundering calendar system (i.e ). The subsequent Scourings of Aeldrum occurred in 2, 3, 11, 13, 22, 29, 30, 31, 35, 55, 66, 67, 81, 84, 88, and .
== First Scouring of Aeldrum ==
Imperial Seer MacDonald, using an unsecured demonic battery array bought from Dres'Fialt (and secretly supplied to Dres'Fialt by Admiral Clara Keith in return for his cooperation in the planned grav-bombing of Emperor Evrek of the Thalranese), destroyed the 7th Spire of Aeldrum.  Hundreds of thousands were vaporized instantly, and the deal toll reached into the millions within hours.
The bombing occurred while Seer MacDonald delivered an address on the subject of apostasy and heresy to the Imperial Diet, at the summit of the Aeldrum Spire.  MacDonald's hundreds of loyal, psionically brainwashed cultists had prepared a complex ritual to allow the Seer to siphon the souls of the dead of the 7th spire into himself, making him a living god.  The ritual failed, however, and MacDonald was confronted by Imperial Seers Vendesh and Malthan with charges of apostasy, in full view of the Imperial Diet and as the roiling psychic energies of MacDonald's failed ritual set papers and hairpieces aflame.  While MacDonald's Friend gave him the power to liquefy Vendesh's brain instantaneously, Malthan withstood the psychic assault and was able to break MacDonald's hold over the other four Imperial Seers.  Thus confronted with five of the Imperium's great psychics and a platoon of imperial marines sent to arrest him, without the power he had expected from the destruction of the seventh spire, MacDonald thought it an excellent time to die.  He released his friend, and in the moment before the Diet Chamber was scoured by sentient hellfire, felt truly alone for the first time in three decades.  Of the Imperial Seers, all but Malthan were burnt to ash along with most of the Imperial Diet.  Seer Malthan survived, a charred husk of a man, unfit for the monumental task of holding together the Imperium whose sole ruler he had just become.  Surviving Imperial history does not record any subsequent Imperial Seers, nor the ultimate fate of Seer Malthan.  Imperial History does, however, remember the Apostate MacDonald, whose final great crime against the Imperium sealed its end.
A Mage Prince Ascendant named Sybern was widely believed to have aided in the destruction of the Seventh Spire and begun the scouring of Aeldrum. He was presumed dead by many survivors of the cataclysmic events, a perception which went unchallenged in the annals of the Academy on Saldan, whose founders included several witness of the Scouring. A select group of Mage Princes believed differently, however, and recent archaeological evidence from a Knight Mercantile expedition to the Basin of Aztlan on Kalros (later named "Sierna" by the Knights Mercantile) suggests that they pursued Sybern across the cosmos in search of bloody vengeance. The findings of the Knights Mercantile suggest that they indeed found Sybern, but were slain or otherwise subdued by him. Sybern's ultimate fate is unknown.
Category:Historical Events