Elysian Calamity

The Elysian Calamity refers to the destruction and disappearance of the High Material Plane between 3548-3553, leading to the deaths of innumerable Elves and Dwarves and the mass exodus of the Ascendant Races to the Prime Material Plane. The Elysian Calamity marked the end of the First Era.

### Forewarning and Ecomagical Collapse

Beginning in year 3504, Elysium began to experience forewarnings of ecomagical disaster: minor and major earthquakes, the release of terrible primordial beasts, and deadly arcane storms. Displacement and destruction resulting from these disasters led many inhabitants of Elysium to seek refuge on Terra. While most researchers and governmental officials acknowledged by the mid 36th century that these disasters were caused by the actions of sentient races on Elysium, few anticipated that they would lead to the destruction of the plane. Many Dwarven communities moved to Terran settlements prior to 3548, however, this was likely due to the danger, inconvenience and cost of the disasters on Elysium as opposed to credible beliefs that the plane would collapse. Over the course of three days in 3548, extraplanar bridges between Terra and Elysium were severed, beginning with artificially constructed bridges and the largest naturally occurring portals. The nature of this collapse led to substantial unrest and panic, with massive bottlenecks and reports of violence at smaller shrines and holy sites.

While no firsthand accounts of the Elysian Calamity are available to researchers, young Elves (prior to their Drawing of the Veil) sometimes report reveries of victims of the Calamity, involving destructive winds, dissolving earth, and consumption by shadow beings and magical miasma. Most of these recollections take place during the beginning of the Calamity; this indicates either that most intelligent life was killed soon after the planar bridges became severed, or that, as some Elven researchers and theologians have claimed, that the souls of those not immediately killed by disasters were sucked into the Astral Sea and prevented from reincarnation. Arcane researchers lost contact with Elysium in early 3553.

### Causes of the Calamity

Most contemporary researchers agree that the ecomagical degradation and eventual destruction of Elysium was related to the extensive extraction, refinement and use of Arcanite in the late First Era. Prior to the Calamity, firms and nations pursued increasingly invasive methods of locating and extracting Arcanite in order to satisfy the tremendous resource demand of burgeoning arcane industry. In just one of many Elven cities on Elysium, a quarter-ton of refined Arcanite was used each week to create constant elaborate sky-images. Many nations also pursued aggressive magical terraformation projects, the most notable of which occured in the Great Deserts of Eastern Elysium. It is unclear whether the Calamity occurred as a result of extensive Arcanite *extraction*, destabilizing the plane, or the extensive *use* of Arcanite, which may have disrupted the Weave. Concerns over the latter led most Terran nations to ban arcane magic in the aftermath of the Elysian Calamity, with varying exceptions for research and sanctioned economic use. With the exception of Holy Kirlian Empire, all Terran nations now (broadly) permit the public practice of arcane magic.

1. ↑ Many researchers also cite early bans on arcane magic, or at least differential enforcement of bans, on xenophobia against Elves.