The Abrupt Demise

Before the god Oasis ascended, mortal souls created themselves naturally using ambient blue magic. Of course, these souls were extremely weak and frail. With no god to strengthen them and no Afterlife for them to return to, these primitive souls would simply dissipate upon a creature's death. Any soul that came into existence before the abrupt demise has been lost to time permanently as a result of this.

Of course, mortal life before the ascension of Oasis was of a far lesser quality due to their weakened souls. Weak souls result in smaller mana pools. Mortals killed by red magic during this time did not become demons, their souls just self destructed. Red magic was far more dangerous as well, as even a small amount of it making contact with a soul was enough to destroy it. The lack of blue magic brought on shortened lifespans too. Blue Magic being the magic of time is partially why average humanoids are able to live to the 100’s, rather than dying off early.

After the ascension of oasis, blue magic had a being able to fully harness and control its power. Not only that, but Oasis leaving the mortal realm and ascending to the afterlife tore away almost all of Mirror Domain’s blue ambiance, at least temporarily. These things combined made it no longer possible for souls to occur naturally. Blue Magic was no longer operating under its own free will, it was operating under the will of its new source. With souls no longer forming naturally, the births of new mortals abruptly stopped. No creature can survive without a soul, and if souls couldn’t be created anymore nothing new could be born.

It didn’t take long for this issue to come to the attention of Oasis. Her visions of the future quickly shifted into that of death and decay, with the Mortal Realm being nothing but an empty wasteland of sand and rock. But these visions only showed the aftermath, they didn’t show her how to fix anything. The Abrupt Demise began the same year Oasis ascended, 4300BDI, and it wouldn’t end until 4255BDI when Oasis finally learned how to manifest new mortal souls.

Mere months into the Abrupt Demise mortals began to catch on to the fact something was gravely wrong with their world. Livestock stopped reproducing, causing many farming centric settlements to begin struggling. Creatures with abysmal lifespans quickly went extinct, which in turn caused ripple effects throughout Mirror Domain’s ecosystem. Populations of animals like mice, voles, and other short lived prey rapidly began to decline as their remaining population was picked off by predators. Lack of available food sources caused many predators to starve as well. The world was in a state of panic. Everything was beginning to die off, and nobody knew why.

Of course, it didn’t take long for Oasis to take action. Once her visions of the future began showing her the mass extinction of mortal life, she began using her newfound powers to temporarily extend the lifespans of shorter lived creatures. As more time went on, more creature’s natural lifespans were erased entirely. She still didn’t know the true matter at hand, but by granting these creatures temporary immortality she was at least able to preserve many of these species.

Carnivorous creatures were the ones hit the hardest. Plants do not have souls, so animals and settlements whose primary food source were plants were able to sustain themselves far better than those who relied on meat. Villages all across the world caught on to this, and as a result many places unofficially began to ban the practice of hunting. People knew that if they killed any animals in their homeland, those animals would be gone permanently. That being said, this knowledge was also extremely dangerous.

The vast majority of mortals, even to this day, have difficulty looking at the bigger picture. Many mortals caught on to the fact that they could permanently rid their homes of creatures they deemed pests. They also knew that they’d easily be able to rid other villages or towns of people they considered to be “the enemy”. Minor wars broke out amongst villages, with each side knowing that their victory would be permanent.

While Oasis granted many creatures immortality as a means of preserving their existence, she only did so to creatures who would not otherwise survive. Whenever her visions of the near future showed the extinction of a species that was nearing the end of its lifespan, she’d step in and stop it. But most pure mortals could live well into their eighties. These creatures continued to age, and eventually town elders began to die off with no one to replace them. Children grew older, time ticked forwards, and life only got worse and worse.

Obviously this period did not last forever. Eventually, after years and years of practice and research, Oasis learned how to create mortal souls. Immediately she began creating them in mass, lifting her blessings of immortality and allowing creatures to finally repopulate their dwindling populations. The world began to rebuild itself, albeit extremely slowly, and with many permanent scars.

As previously stated, many species did not survive the Abrupt Demise. Pretty much anything alive at the time with a lifespan of less than three months went extinct before Oasis was able to do anything to prevent it. Many insects were wiped off the map never to be seen again. Several commonly hunted species also went extinct, including several species of vole, mice, rabbit, and squirrels to name a few. The most well known loss was the extinction of the equine variant Kodin, which were exterminated due to interspecies conflict.

Many species blamed each other for the Abrupt Demise, and the three carnivorous variants of Kodin harbored a lot of resentment towards the Equines. As a result, they slaughtered them in mass until their populations were so low they could no longer recover. The only remnants of this race are the Equine variant Satyr, which still retain some of this variant's genes.