Collapse of Tana Mo

This event is the historical calamity discovered during the events of TAND: Under the City of Stars.

Towards the end of the history of Tana Mo, the archmages of the undercity became fascinated with the Outer Planes. They reached out towards them through the Pit in the Sky, discovering a race of eldritch beings with an immense capacity to host and divert radiant energy. While attempts were made to contact and treat with these beings, any who came in contact with them was corrupted, destroyed, or unable to communicate at all with these beings of immense strangeness and hunger.

Uther Overstar, then the Archmage of Tana Mo's House of Alembia, discovered one way to put the Endlings into the service of mortalkind. These creatures of immense potential, when exposed to sufficient psychic Will, could be induced to develop and express a mortal sentience tied to their essence. Overwhelmed with empathy, these creatures could then be induced to shed a fraction of their armour, exposing some of the raw eldritch creature beneath.

After this core had been exposed, a sufficiently powerful radiant drill could inscribe binding runes on the creatures through a precisely-aimed Moonwindow. The mages developed a new codified language, referring to it as Celestial, designed to be used to control the newly shackled Endlings.

He oversaw the construction of a Dread Orrery under the city to harvest raw despair from the Condemned, a population of undead, revived, priests and hierophants from the First Age of Tana Mo whose Will was being diverted to drive extreme empathetic reactions from the Endlings.

And thus the Divine Era began. Gods created from Endlings were far more suited to serving mortal whims than the old gods; capricious, demanding, and too unmoving with the ages. They quickly took over the skies and heavens, squeezing the Titans out of divinity.

Dragons, proudest of the Old Gods, consolidated their shared divinity into the Greatwill Dragon, which alone, bolstered by dragons' individual Wills and the kobold populations of the world, could stand its own against the New Gods.

Worship of the New Gods spread quickly through Tana Mo, where it provided simple and accessible routes to powerful abilities and services for the residents. Many attempts were made to spread the worship beyond the borders of the city, but other nations and peoples were largely repulsed by having to forsake their ancestral deities.

However, not all were pleased with the new reality in Tana Mo, and many were suspicious of how these new "gifts from the gods" emerged. Chief among these were the Druids of the Cathedral of Stars - recognising Pynvion, the "wonder metal", as an organic substance, they began to search the depths of the city for an answer.

Elder Eventriss, referred to as The Heretic, was the Archdruid during the Collapse. He was the first to discover that the Hall of the Dead had been raided some years prior; when he raised the issue for concern during a council meeting he was dismissed from it. Furious, he began keeping tabs on the announcement ceremonies for new gods.

After the announcement of the last two gods, Felix Fleetfoot and Od, Eventriss sent his familiar, Gem, after the Archmage. This is when he discovered the Hall of the Condemned. In a fury, he set about dismantling the systems by which the new gods were created.

He stormed down to the Hall, slaying the undead and cutting off the flow of Will from the Dread Orrery.

However, this happened at the same time as Uther Overstar was attempting to seal an extra deity. He had, over the years, been creating more gods than he announced to the public. Chief among these was Phestor, his personal assassin god, but there were more. On that day, he was planning to create Maebe, Prince of sleep and queen of dreams, in order to infect the minds of those outside the city to spread his methods further.

The disruption occurred just as the entity was contacted and awakened. Before the Drill could be used to carve celestial binding runes upon the Endling, the flow of Will being used to restrain Maebe was cut short. Armed with godly power and a mortal sentience to guide it, the being tore a rift into the Orrery and began to attack the priests.

Several Hierophants sent gods to subdue the creature, but it became apparent that radiant energy would simply be consumed by an unbound Endling. Whole gods were consumed, instantly destroying their priests and hierophants.

Uther Overstar summoned Phestor to attack Maebe, but he refused in terror, in doing so repeatedly Shattering himself. Uther continued to summon him and demand he attack, but the tug of war between command and refusal eventually resulted in an anguished release of raw divine energy, sent rocketing up through the city. This triggered cave collapses, panic, rockfalls, and began to bring the whole undercity down on top of the Orrery.

Dragons atop the Border Mountains (Dragonmount in particular), noticing the raw blast of power, came to intervene.

One Noble Dragon, Ystross, attacked the creature, successfully damaging it and coiling around it to prevent it damaging others. Maebe, undeterred, began carving her way out through the Ancient Dragon's body.

Panicking, the archmages cast a Force Sphere around the pair, and flung them out into Zophiran through the Rift. They sealed this, trapping the Zophirans along with the Endling in the plane of air.

Once more dragons arrived they realised what had been done to their elder. In their fury, they took to the already-collapsing city with their dragonfire, slaying many who were trying to escape.

None left the city alive.

After this event, the Dabueyan Pact was created by the remaining Endling Gods. This scoured knowledge of Tana Mo, Pynvion, and the Endlings from all minds, mortal and immortal, on Edar.

In the present day, the events that transpired under the city were discovered and pieced together by Margery Frimpe, Dirvin Karsh, Senfris, and Kyt Zophira during the events of TAND: Under the City of Stars.