The Collision

### Overview

The Collision, as it is known to all of the races of Jørþejm was the event that brought them into the realm to exist on the Continent. All of the races have very little collective memory of what their realms were like before they arrived in Jørþejm, and this is thought to be a result of the Collision. Nothing is known to the four races of what caused the Collision, save that it was an even that was magical by nature. Varying theories exist, but none have any evidence to back them up. Some have religious explanations, some try to rationalize it, and other still simply accept that they will never know why it happened. Points of discussion around the Collision include, but are not limited to, Jørþejm's pre-dating of the Collision, the origin of Jørþejm itself and the Collision's relation to it, and the relationship of The World's Point to the Collision.

### History

None of the true history of the Collision is known to the races of Jørþejm, and it has remained this way until the present. In fact, the Collision was caused by the actions of four powerful beings, powerful even among their own kind. Only known as the Others, this group of magic-wielders come from another realm where magic was commonplace and understood well by many. Infighting overtook their realm and, corrupted by foul and dangerous applications of magic, a large cohort of the Others began to systematically erase all those who would not bow the knee. A group of four powerful Others discovered the means by which they could traverse between realms, and together they made their escape from their own realm. It did not take long before the Dark Others, discovering for themselves the same method of traveling between realms, found the four fugitives. For hundreds of years they fled, always being hunted. It wasn't until they began to return, either by accident or of their own accord, to realms in which they had previously hid that they realized what they were leaving in their wake. The Dark Others were draining the energy from the worlds they found, growing their own power. Some realms were able to fight back to some degree, and others were annihilated. As time passed they also made the realization that the more deeply connected to magic a realm was, the more easily it was found and attacked by the Dark Others. Scouring the realms, they elected to separate themselves, and each went to a realm in which there was little to no magic whatsoever in hopes that they would be able to better conceal themselves and pose as little danger to the realm in which they hid as possible.

For a while, it seemed as if their plan had worked, and there were no signs that the Dark Others were making their way into the realms in which the four had hid, but even this did not last. One of the four, she who had been hiding among the Elves in their home realm, was the first to be found by the Dark Others. In desperation, she used what little magic that could be mustered in that realm to leave it, and she stumbled upon Jørþejm. In none of the realms she had been to had there been a connection to magic as strong as that which was in Jørþejm, and it was devoid of sentient races so far as she could tell. She called out through the realms to her companions, beckoning them to her through the space between. All of them came, and they met together in Jørþejm, seeing each other again for the first time in a decade. Here they came up with a plan, a plan to save the races with whom they had hidden from the Dark Others, and a plan to conceal themselves and Jørþejm in the process. The four ascended to the height of The World's Point, the place of the strongest magical energy that any of them had ever felt, and they began to work their magic. In a moment, a massive eruption of magical energy tore the fabric between realms apart and wove it back together, in the process ripping large swathes of each of the Elven, Dwarven, Human, and Giant populations from their own realms and bringing them into Jørþejm. Those who were not brought into Jørþejm vanished, drawn into the four who would save the races and realms by becoming themselves the sole inhabitants and embodiments of each. Jørþejm was now hidden, concealed by four realms, each devoid of living beings save for one, and shielded from the ravenous conquest of the Dark Others.

At present, something is beginning to go amiss and things in Jørþejm are not as they should be. Users of magic throughout the realm have noticed a shift, something volatile and dangerous, as if cracks in magic itself were beginning to form.