The Causes of The Great Disaster

Introduction

This paper deals with the causes of, and the immediate effects of The Great Disaster. It is known today that actions of a few (mostly human) individuals were the primary cause, but there is no single person who can be pointed to. There seems to have been a series of co-incidences that combined to cause all these problems. During the run-up to that time the use of magic had grown far out of hand; it was used recklessly, and nature rebelled. What happened during The Disaster is detailed later; first we shall look at the social issues which caused The Disaster to happen.

This work was produced by Graham Doverlain, a student of Magical History at the The Imperial Library at Nareth.

Social Causes

Before we can fully examine the causes, an analysis of the pre-disaster political situation is required. Facts have been difficult to obtain, but recent discoveries have allowed more pieces of the jigsaw to be fitted together. Now, historians feel that an accurate picture has been produced, despite the many holes in the research.

We know that there were many cultures and civilisations in the world, and that there was a widely diverse population. One of the problems researchers have struggled with is finding the correct names for all the lands and nations that existed. The confusion is compounded with some nations, several have different names for the same places, often used at different times.

Political Roadmap

The layout of the land was different before The Great Disaster. We have shown beyond doubt that there was probably a single major land mass - much larger than Arthea today. There may have also been many much smaller islands, surrounding this main continent, but detail of the geography is difficult to place. Many surrounding islands may easily have been independent nations.

In the north of the major continent there were at least four major political powers; Appatetha, Muergas, and Kunanth (also called Bochella and Gurvagh in different writings). There was one other state which we have not been able to establish the name of (but which has become known as as Hunelian City State A, because its political structures seem to have been centred around a single, very large, city).

Muergas and Kunanth appear to have been located physically where Arthea is today, with Muergas the more northerly of these two countries. Appatetha was further to the east, and was almost as large as these other two nations. City State A was to the south of Appatetha, and appears to have been cut off from the two western powers, with access only by particular routes, possibly using sea-craft and what seems to have been a treacherous land-route.

Appatetha seemed to have carried political sway among the nations of the north, but its outlook was somewhat different to its neighbours. While all these nations seem to have been kingdoms, they spent the best part of the last 500 years prior to the disaster in an uneasy alliance forged to keep a check on the warmongering nations of the south. Social conditions seem to have been different; the nations of the west were feudal powers with a liberal approach; their peasants did well in times of peace. In the east, however, Appatetha was an iron-fist dictatorship, which seemed to rely on slavery (mostly people taken from City State A to south, and undocumented states to the north and further east). Only in Appatetha was magic accepted and approved of; further to the west magic was completely outlawed, and its use may well have been treated as a crime, much like the present day in Arthea.

To the south were another four nations. The two small eastern powers were Ticetia and Caldonacia, and these bordered to the north with Kunanth (although we believe there was a short border between Muergas and Caldonacia). These three nations are known well through surviving text references and from recorded comments made by elves shortly after the Great Disaster. To their west was a Kingdom-Empire known as Halland, while further to the south was another nation, which is completely unknown to us; it exists only in surviving texts as minor references of what lay beyond the southern borders of the pre-disaster nations. It has become known as Hunelian Kingdom A.

The states of Caldonacia and Ticetia were natural friends, the lands were fertile, and they existed on the major trade routes between north and south. Their position was envied by the Halland Empire, who coveted their position, and in the last century or so before The Disaster threatened invasion. This forced an alliance between Ticetia and Caldonacia against these threats, and while magic was not popular in these nations, the kingdoms were forced to adopt magical defences to counter the threat of magical attack from the west, where powerful magic users were commonplace.

Leadup to The Disaster

An unexpected sequence of events took place at the time of the destruction of the world.

Firstly, in the north, a civil war broke out in Kunanth, the westernmost nation. A new king had come to the throne, and a faction was trying to capitalise on the new king's unpopularity in an attempt to gain control. Most importantly, the usurpers were using magic, and the only option available to the king to contain them was to hire magic users from other nations, most notably from Appatetha. The king also hired troops from his southern neighbours of Ticetia and Caldonacia.

Shortly after the civil war started, and with peasants deployed out of Caldonacia and Ticetia as troops for their northern neighbour, the Halland Empire invaded Caldonacia. This sparked a war which tested the resolve of the southern allies. The alliance held strong; Ticetians bore the brunt of defence work while troops were recalled from the north, and the allies braced themselves for magical attack. The years prior to the invasion had been used well; a defence against magical attack was well prepared, and extensive magical research had been quietly carried out, giving new forms of both offensive and defensive magic which would help them in the war. This first round of new spells caused the world to buckle, and the danger signs were present if anyone had been capable of reading them.

In the north, the usurpers in the civil war were being held at bay, but only just. Because Caldonacia and Ticetia had recalled all their troops for their own fight, Kunanth turned to its other neighbours for help. Muergas could barely spare any troops; they were busy patrolling their borders with Appatetha, while the eastern power looked on the civil war as an opportunity for expansion. Appatetha told its neighbour that few troops could be spared for the same reasons, but that they had the results of new magical research which could be purchased. Kunanth bought any new magic it could find.

In the south, the Empire was amazed to find not only a strong resistance, but a magical aptitude from Caldonacia and Ticetia that it had not fully appreciated. The Emperor decided that new, more powerful magics were needed, and went on to research some of the most deadly spells ever, and worked it conjunction with the distant land of Appatetha.

This new round of spells seems to have arrived from both sides at once; coinciding over a period of probably two weeks where the spells were repeatedly cast. What seems to have made matters much worse is that new spells fell into enemy hands very quickly after being used for the first time. Within a few days, everyone had access to this powerful magic. It did not take very long for the world to break under this pressure.

How the world managed to stay together after all this is still a mystery, as standard magical calculations on the raw magical force as compared to the size and mass of the world show there was enough magic flying around to destroy the world at least twice over. Hunelian proposed a theory that part of the magical force must have been directed toward keeping the world intact. There does seem to have been another power involved, although its nature and intent is not known.

Physical Effects of The Great Disaster

This section looks into the physical causes of The Disaster, and tries to explain how the magical force affected the world as much as it did. Unfortunately precise calculations cannot be performed without detailed knowledge of which spells were cast and when, although it is possible to produce approximations using standard assumptions. Before we do this, it will be necessary to explain a little about the mathematical theory behind magic.

Magical Force

For our calculations we use the two standard magical units. Firstly the unit of magical energy is defined as the amount of magic needed to lift one ounce in weight of matter through one inch against an opposing force of standard gravity (1g). This unit is known as 1 magik, or 1M. The second unit is known as the Unit of Magical Flux, which describes naturally occurring or background magic present in an area which can be used by a wizard. One unit of Magical Flux, 1 Mf, is the amount of flux which will be converted into 1M by a first level spell.

To illustrate this, let us examine the spell Levitate:

Levitation of 1lb through 10':

This, of course, does not include the magic needed to maintain the body as its new height. In fact, it can be shown that this amount of magic is needed every second if true levitation is to be achieved. This example illustrates that the magic required to perform even the simplest of tasks is very large, and in this case, lifting by hand would be far easier. It is not uncommon for spells to utilise magic in the region of 1 x 106M or even 1 x 109M.

Also, this is a simplified example. The figures for this kind of calculation do not always work in this way, as some spells require more magic and some require less, even if they appear to do the same thing. The generalisation is that spells which involve access to energies or beings from other planes (particularly those of the Summoning school and several Evocation school spells) require between 5% and 10% more magic due to the inherent difficulties in inter-planar contact. Studies have been carried out into the theoretical mathematics which sit behind this extra 'effort' required, and several works have been published on the subject.

Magical Flux

When a spell is cast by a wizard or sorcerer, they call upon energy sources which exist in the natural universe. The energy source used is different for each sphere of spells. To make life easier for the magic user, ambient magic is used first; this is more readily available and hence quicker to harness. This ambient magic is called Magical Flux, and can be measured. Once all the magical flux in the area of the caster has been used, then the spell draws on the sources of power for its school. Therefore, the higher the level of background magic, the easier it becomes to use magical spells.

There are a number of factors which will affect the level of magical flux; we will describe the most common here. Firstly, the cycle of the moon has a large effect, as the moon approaches full, the flux can increase by about 40% compared to the amount that is around at new moon.

Secondly, the use of high level spells can leave a residue in the area in which they were cast. This usually dissipates naturally over time as the flux level reverts to a normal level. It is caused by a spells pulling too much energy from its natural source during its activation, which is then left over after the magical effect is complete. Under normal conditions, spells of third or lower level will leave so small a residue that it is almost negligible (although there are exceptions). For higher level spells, the size of any residue depends on the amount of energy sourced from outside the current environment i.e. non-flux sourced energy. Above 3rd level, it is quite normal for spells to require much more energy than can be obtained from the local environment, and hence, even high levels of flux cannot prevent such a residue. Once a spell is drawing energy from a non-local source, the energy transferred must be enough to power the spell being cast; hence it is the tendency for such spells to create and maintain an energy stream that is slightly larger than necessary to complete the spell. The residue is not consistent per spell, and depends on both the duration of the spell and the casting time. It is usually possible to identify which spell has been cast from this residue.

Thirdly, the presence of extra-planar creatures (including most undead and all intervention on this plane by deities) leaves a trace of magic as though spells had been used. This can increase the magical flux by several percent, but it can be seen that this is the most difficult to measure.

An increase in the magical flux is not, in itself, a bad thing, as wizards everywhere find it useful. It also seems to help nature; plant life seems more abundant where magical flux is high. There are, however, drawbacks to having high magical flux.

The magical field generated by the world runs along the lines of latitude. Background magic seems strongest around the equator, but it does not weaken uniformly towards the poles. What appears to happen is that waves of similar intensities run along the lines of latitude, i.e. east-west. The average for the world at the present appears to be in the region of 32 to 34 Magiks, but Hunelians calculations show that the average just before the disaster was in the region of 1268 Magiks. He put this value down to the quantity of high level spells and other magic being used at the time, but we have since demonstrated that this is incorrect.

Five years before The Disaster the magical flux average for the world was around 1109 Magiks, calculated using the same methods as Hunelian. And fifty years before The Disaster it was 1087 Magiks. We also know that the average magical flux two years after The Disaster was in the region of 50 to 60 Magiks. For probably two thousand years before The Disaster, the level of magical flux steadily increased, yet for the first 500 years after, the flux level slowly fell, and has remained pretty constant since then. This now leads us to change some of Hunelians original assumptions, and this puts some of his work into a new light.

We had known that magic was harder to perform after The Disaster, but until these calculations were made, we did not know why. Whatever happened during The Disaster changed the levels of magical flux in the world, and therefore made magic harder to use.

This change has been brought about by a number of factors. The sources of magical energy are more difficult to gain access to now, and so less magic is being used. Also we know that the gods were challenged by several powerful mortals at the time of The Disaster, and so they will have stepped in to reduce the likelihood that this could happen again. Part of the magical flux before The Disaster was residue from the worlds creation (or, possibly, from a previous time that the world was re-formed). This energy was trapped in the world, and the changes that took place during The Disaster have allowed this energy to dissipate back to its original sources.

Enough Magic to Break the World

The spells which caused The Disaster were all of a similar type. They took energy from the sources provided by the Evocation school and Summoning school and set it free upon the world. The fabric of reality which holds the prime material plane together can only withstand so much before giving way, and the huge amounts of magical force which were released clearly exceeded this.

Estimates of the breaking strain of reality range from 10300 to 10500 Magiks, but taking either of these estimates it shows that an awful lot of ninth level spells, each expending around 1012 Magiks would need to be cast simultaneously in the same place to even get close. But, given a particular set of circumstances, this could theoretically happen; and it apparently already has.

What appears to have happened during The Disaster is that the world began to unmake itself. Steps that occurred at the time the world was created went into reverse. As we already know, the gods were busy dealing with problematic mortals at the time, and so were not able to intervene. This means that someone or something else did.

We know that some wizards used their power to help hold the world together, and the work of the Pale Flame is well documented in history. But they could never have exerted enough of a force to cause the world to unmake itself.

Maybe the world entered a pre-defined sequence of events, a self protection mechanism built into the world to cater for this eventuality. Or maybe the world was thrown into this sequence by whoever made the world in the first place. Whoever did this either had the foresight to see this problem arising at some stage when they built the world, or was wise enough to read the signs and vigilant enough to protect the world when it did.

The signs indicate that similar problems have occurred in the world's past. Not just caused by magic, but by obscure combinations of some of the more powerful weather patterns, unusual planetary motions upsetting gravity and the worlds own structural issues with volcanic activity and earthquakes. If this kind of thing has happened in the past, yet the world is still here, that suggests that the world is capable of dealing with such issues itself.

To extend this line of reasoning further, it suggests that whoever created the world had foresight. The current realm of the gods is populated by immortal and immensely powerful beings that were not foresighted enough to predict a challenge from mortal folk. This means that whoever created the world is not among the gods worshipped in modern-day Arthea. They are more powerful than that.

Once the back-step of the creation of the world abated, the steps repeated themselves in the right direction once again. This caused a re-forming of the world; land masses were changed, and a huge loss of livelihood and culture was suffered among the free people inhabiting those lands.

ArtheaWiki: Causes of The Great Disaster (last edited 2014-01-29 14:37:22 by Neil)