The Great Sundering
The Great Sundering was the catastrophic event that ended the Age of Giants and reshaped the world of Areth forever.
Background
For two thousand years, the Giants had built a golden civilization in Zenwey—floating cities held aloft by air crystals, automatons powered by life crystals, and wonders beyond imagination. But pride and corruption grew among them.
The Convergence Engine
Some Giants, believing themselves equal to the Firstborn, built the Convergence Engine—a device designed to combine the power of all seven crystal types. Their goal was to achieve divine power.
The Catastrophe
When the Convergence Engine was activated, it went catastrophically wrong. The resulting explosion:
- Destroyed the Giants' civilization
- Caused earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions worldwide
- Transformed surviving Giants caught in the blast into evolved giants—massive, blob-like creatures of psychic energy
- Scattered crystals across the world
- Created the conditions that would eventually give rise to human civilizations
Legacy
The Sundering is remembered in legends across all cultures. The Nightmen are descended from Giants who survived, and the evolved giants beneath Devil's Mountain and elsewhere are direct remnants of the catastrophe.
In A History of Rislandia
A History of Rislandia treats the Great Sundering as the pivotal rupture in all of Areth's recorded history, devoting substantial attention to its causes, sequence, geographic reach, and long-term consequences. The sourcebook's account both supplements and in several respects contradicts the version preserved in popular legend and on this page.
Cause: Crystal Confiscation and Blood Magic, Not the Convergence Engine Alone
According to A History of Rislandia, the Sundering was not triggered solely by the Convergence Engine malfunction. The sourcebook states that reality itself rebelled as a consequence of the mass confiscation and corruption of crystals by the Orethan Dominion combined with the widespread practice of blood magic. The Convergence Engine explosion is confirmed as occurring during the Sundering, but the bible frames it as one catastrophic element within a broader systemic collapse rather than the singular initiating cause.
The Sundering also occurred three months after the Night of Shattered Crystals, suggesting a period of escalating instability preceded the main event.
Sequence of Events
A History of Rislandia describes the Sundering unfolding in a distinct progression rather than as a single explosion:
- It began with earthquakes, then storms, then stranger and less explicable phenomena.
- Crystals across the empire began to crack and shatter spontaneously.
- Within a week, crystal magic ceased to function completely across the empire.
- Confiscated crystals stored in imperial vaults exploded, killing hundreds.
- Automatons powered by life crystals froze mid-action.
- The Floating Gardens crashed to the ground.
- The Imperial Spire's crystal reinforcements shattered, causing portions of the structure to collapse.
Millions died in the ensuing chaos. The ancient empire fractured into warring states within months, knowledge was lost, and civilization regressed broadly across central and eastern Areth.
Geographic Reach and Exceptions
The sourcebook notes that the Sundering's effects were not perfectly uniform. According to A History of Rislandia, the Iberanth Peninsula may have been at the edge of the catastrophe's reach — the air crystal deposit there is theorized to have survived because the Sundering's effect was weaker in that region. This is consistent with the note that the air crystals in the Rislandia caverns had not failed during the event, and that the Church of the Great One survived it intact.
The sourcebook also records that some whisper the Great Bridge was destroyed in the Sundering, sinking beneath the waves, though this is presented as rumor rather than established fact.
The Zenwey Desert and Giant Civilization
A History of Rislandia states that the Zenwey Desert may have been fertile land before the Great Sundering, and that Giant ruins found there suggest Zenwey was once a center of Giant civilization. The desert has continued to expand over the centuries since the Sundering. Some Zarma have reported strange creatures in the deep desert possibly related to the catastrophe. The sourcebook also notes that Zarma was part of the ancient empire before the Sundering, and that Nyanzi subsequently developed its own independent technological path in the aftermath.
The Golgmarsh Ocean
According to A History of Rislandia, Zenwey shamans hold that Golgmarsh the Giant's fall was literal — that the Golgmarsh Ocean was formed by the geological catastrophe of the Sundering. Modern scholars within the sourcebook debate whether Golgmarsh was a real giant whose death during the Sundering caused actual geological changes.
Effects on Crystal Magic and the Firstborn's Gift
The sourcebook emphasizes that the Sundering severed and permanently weakened humanity's connection to the Firstborn's gift of crystal magic. Knowledge of crystal magic was lost during or in the immediate aftermath of the event. The bible further notes that the Sundering weakened the elders' attunement over time, and that this weakening was a reason the elders could not fully restore the old empire's power. Crystal magic is described as having "left the world for a time" before its eventual rediscovery.
Volcareth and the Age of Giants
A History of Rislandia notes that Volcareth is recorded as having lived through both the Age of Giants and the Sundering, placing the event more than 500 years before the current era. The sourcebook also records that the dragon Emberwing flew to the highest peak of the Dragonmist Isles and turned to stone after the Sundering, and that the dragon Pyrathor was killed in the Convergence Engine explosion during the event — ending the age of dragon-riders.
Scholarly Uncertainty
A History of Rislandia acknowledges that the exact nature of the Sundering is debated by scholars within the world, and notes that the full truth about it is presented as an ancient secret yet to be fully uncovered.