The Ruin of Halwes

The Ruin of Halwes (also known as Ducaniel's Rending or the Day of Ashen Sky) was a catastrophic event that took place in Ancient Halwes. It was caused by Ducaniel during his short time imprisoned in Aesadas, it took form in a magical explosion that engulfed and shattered the entire continent into pieces, rendering it inhospitable to life.

Those who survived The Ruin and were saved in The Relief of Halwes eventually escaped in The Great Drift, becoming part of the Remnant Fleet that arrived in Halcann after a thousand years at sea.

Affects on the rest of the world: The Day of Ashen Sky
The Ruin also affected the continents of Halcann and Haless, such as removal the genie race from the material plane, it's most notable effect was the ash clouds that enveloped the world darkness for an entire day, with weeks of ashfall afterwards. Many cultures write their own inteperations of this event but most see it as a apocalyptic event and turning point for their culture.

Intepretations of the Ruin
The Solemn Exchange - The Bulwari people exchange their immortality for their freedom

The Dissipation - The disappearance of the genie race from the Material Plane.

Kelarimar - The birth of Harimar and the uplifting of the harimarians

Stages
Most scholars agree that the Ruin of Halwes was split into five stages.

Stage 1: Fall of Aesadas
At the end of the war Ducaniel was imprisoned in the flying city of Aesadas, the capital of the Precursor Empire. During his time in prison Ducaniel began a dark ritual to incur his wrath against all those who wronged him. The first step, as with all dark magic, is sacrifice. He had his followers infiltrate the flying city and cause it to crash to provide such energy.

Stage 2: Ducaniel's Wrath
As the city crashed into earth the ritual was fed the souls of the fallen and emitted the realm-shattering blast that would be known today as Ducaniel's Wrath. The blast consumed everything in a large spherical radius (still seen today) and began to crack and split the continent of Halwes apart.

Stage 3: Rending Earth
It is believed that the underlying continental plates were split apart in the blast, pushing them in an outward radius. This was the main event in The Ruin and destroyed many cities in continent-wide earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters. Those in the plains, deserts and jungles were mostly spared, but they would suffer a more terrible fate in the final stage.

It is in this stage that the Day of Ashen Skies could be seen.

Stage 4: Rending Spirits
Not much is known about this stage, and much is hypothesis by modern scholars. While tearing apart Halwes, the blast also tore the fabrics of reality, creating/opening up parallel and 'corrupted' versions of our world. Most notable is the Shadow Plane and the Feywild, which lie on the opposite sides of life and death - some scholars such as Rothomar the Wise suggests that some surviving precursors were thrown into these parallel planes and corrupted into the planar creatures we see today.

This stage affected the world as a whole, archaeological evidence suggests that the sudden disappearance of the Salahadi Genie Sultanates, as well as the initial appearance of creatures such as satyrs could be attributed to this event.

Stage 5: Corruption
Combined with the excess of raw magical energy and the geographical destruction of the continent, Halwes began to morph and change, climates changed drastically, fauna turned volatile, and the precursors that remained were degenerated into the creatures we see today.

During the Age of Rediscovery the explorers of Cannor found Halwes a inhospitable place, though still possible for development and bountiful harvest. In the time between The Ruin and the Rediscovery scholars suggest that the magical corruption had faded to a manageable level, even enough to provide new crops, metals and other resources.

'' its the dark descendants, they did it. ''