The Sweltering

The Sweltering was the name given to the five-hundred-year-long age of runaway climate change that destroyed the Old World and its advanced world-spanning civilization. This long period of suffering and decline was brought on by the consequences of the Ancient's degradation of the Earth's climate during the preceding Age of Acceleration, an era of massive industrial growth and scientific innovation that saw humanity reach its highest levels of technological and economic progress. During this largely forgotten age, millions upon millions inhabited sprawling metropolises comprised of towering structures that appeared to scrape the very skies above, great forges and workshops churned out endless streams of devices and goods which made nearly every aspect of life easier for even the least well-off members of society, and complex machines such as flying chariots and self-propelled carts allowed people to traverse the interconnected world at great speeds.

But all these innovations and machines were powered by a lightning-like essence known as electricity, which could only be attained by burning the crude Black Fuels, which created the heat required to turn the large turbines and engines that generated this prized energy. These Black Fuels released poisonous fumes and gasses into the skies when ignited, which suffocated nature and caused plant and animal life to wither away slowly. The scholars of the age desperately attempted to promote new, purer ways of producing the electrical essence they had worked to develop. Still, they were largely ignored by the princes and moguls of the day, whose only ambition was to increase their wealth and power regardless of the consequences. Eventually, the fumes and gasses produced by the burning Black Fuels began to overheat the climate at an alarming rate. A Great Hole was torn in the sky, allowing the sun to beat down upon the Earth with its powerful rays unhindered, thus marking the beginning of The Sweltering.

The world's temperatures rose drastically, causing massive droughts and famines that saw millions upon millions die of starvation. The great glaciers and ice caps of the far north and south began to melt away into the sea, rising waters began to submerge all of the world's lower-lying lands, and countless great cities disappeared beneath the rising waves. Those who were spared from starvation and the great floods were left at the mercy of the suns piercing rays, which caused horrible tumors and blisters to engulf their bodies as they slowly withered away from the Sun Plague. Storms became much more frequent and fierce; powerful hurricanes, dust storms, and tornados were a common sight during the Sweltering.

The world's population fell from the billions to mere millions during the millennia of the Sweltering. Those few who survived were reduced to savagery, living in small bands of scavengers that hid from the burning light and treacherous elements in the little shade provided by the ruins of the Old Worlds' crumbling infrastructure, often resorting to cannibalism just to survive. All of the technology of the past was left to rot away as those who were knowledgeable in its operation had perished, and literacy became a thing of the past as survival and strength were now of first importance. The languages of the Beforetimes were forgotten, and the tongues scattered into hundreds of new regional dialects and jargon, which rapidly became unintelligible to one another. The people who had once operated advanced machinery were now reduced to hunting with spears and slings among the remains of dead cities.

Finally, in the last centuries of the horrible Sweltering, nature slowly began to repair itself and retake the world from humanity's abuses. Shrubs and trees began to once again sprout from the cracked and dehydrated soil and engulf the rotted remains of mankind's former glory, spreading across the wastelands of the world's reshaped continents. The Earth was resurrected as a New World came to life, and rivers that had been reduced to mere trickles once again flowed vibrantly down to the newly entrenched seashores. The few surviving remnants of mankind emerged from their dugouts and caves and freely wandered the new landscapes, forming new nations and tribes with little resemblance to the ones of their ancient ancestors. Their only memories of the advanced times before came in the form of fables and myths passed down by their elders, who spoke of Gods and giants that once lived among mortals, who had since returned to the heavens and punished mankind for their arrogance with the suffering and hardships of the Sweltering.