The Shattering Event

“The Day the World Broke” / “Year Zero” / “The Cataclysm”

“We reached for the stars. The stars reached back. And everything shattered.”
—From The Last Chronicle, author unknown

Quick Reference

The Shattering Event - The Moment the World Broke

Overview

The Shattering was the catastrophic event that destroyed Terrum Solidus—the solid world—and created the Aetherium. In an instant (or over days, accounts vary), the ground beneath humanity’s feet shattered like glass, mountains were torn apart, oceans evaporated into mist, and cities were cast into a luminous void that had no name until survivors called it “the Aether.”

It was not a gradual process. It was not a natural disaster that could be predicted or prepared for. It was reality itself breaking, physics rewriting, and the fundamental nature of existence changing. Those who survived describe it as the moment when everything they knew became wrong: up and down lost meaning, solid ground became fragments, the sky became everywhere, and the stars began screaming.

Three centuries later, the Shattering remains the defining moment of human existence. The calendar counts from it (Year 0 S.), culture is shaped by it, and every person alive is descended from those who survived it. But despite 287 years of study, debate, and desperate searching through ruins, no one knows for certain what caused it, whether it could happen again, or if it was the end of the world or merely the end of that world.

The Apogee Working

Background

The Luminar Council’s Ambition: - Pre-Shattering, humanity was ruled by the Luminar Council—philosopher-kings who claimed to hear the voices of the constellations - For centuries, they had practiced Astral Geometry: channeling stellar power through precise architectural forms and rituals - The greatest achievement of this art was the Nexus Spire: a tower so tall it pierced the clouds, built at the exact center of Terrum Solidus

The Plan: - The Apogee Working was an attempt to physically ascend humanity into the realm of the constellations - The Luminar Council believed that if they could touch the stars, they could become immortal, transcendent, divine - Seven years of preparation - Thousands of scholars, architects, and ritualists involved (many Veil-Born) - The most complex ritual ever attempted

The Ritual: - Duration: Seven days and seven nights - Location: Nexus Spire and seven satellite observatories - Participants: 144 Luminar Council members, 1,000+ support staff - Method: Synchronized prayers, geometric alignments, channeling of stellar energy - Goal: Open a pathway to the constellation realm

The Warnings: - Some Star-Readers warned the ritual was dangerous - Lyanna Starwhisper (greatest Veil-Born Star-Reader) predicted catastrophe - She was ignored: “Progress requires risk” - She died in the Shattering, vindicated but too late

The Eighth Dawn

Day 8, Dawn (The Moment):

Survivor accounts describe the moments before the Shattering:

“The sun rose black. Not eclipsed—black. Like a hole in the sky.”
—Survivor testimony, recorded 2 S.

“The stars were screaming. I don’t know how else to describe it. We heard them. Everyone heard them. A sound that wasn’t sound, in our heads, in our bones.”
—From The Last Chronicle

“The ground beneath my feet felt wrong. Like it was vibrating at a frequency that shouldn’t exist. My teeth hurt. My eyes hurt. Reality hurt.”
—Elder testimony, recorded 15 S.

The Shattering Itself:

What happened next is described consistently across hundreds of survivor accounts:

1. The Sound: A noise beyond description—like reality tearing
2. The Light: Blinding, wrong-colored, coming from everywhere and nowhere
3. The Breaking: The ground cracked like glass, spreading from the Nexus Spire outward
4. The Fall: Everything fell—not down, but in all directions at once
5. The Void: Where solid ground had been, luminous emptiness
6. The Silence: After the chaos, absolute silence. The stars stopped screaming. Everything stopped.

Duration Debate: - Some survivors say it happened in an instant - Others claim it took days - Time itself may have broken during the event - Clocks from that period show wildly different times - Consensus: “Time didn’t work right”

Eyewitness Accounts

From the Nexus Spire

No survivors from the Spire itself. The tower and everyone in it vanished completely. Not destroyed—vanished. To this day, the Nexus Spire has never been found.

Last Transmission (recorded by distant observatory): > “Day eight. Dawn approaches. The alignment is perfect. We begin the final invocation. The constellations are responding. I can feel them reaching toward us. We are ascending. We are—”
> [Static. Silence. Nothing.]

Observation from 50km away: > “The Spire was glowing. Brighter and brighter. Then it just… stopped being there. Not collapsed. Not destroyed. Just gone. And where it had been, the ground was cracking, spreading like ice breaking on a lake, but in all directions, and then everything was falling and I don’t remember anything after that.”
> —Survivor testimony

From Major Cities

Luminara (Now The Hollow): > “I was in the market. Morning shopping. The ground started shaking. Not like an earthquake—like it was trying to decide whether to be solid. People were screaming. Buildings were leaning at impossible angles. Then the ground just… opened. Not a chasm. It opened like a door, and there was light underneath, and we were falling, and then I was on a fragment of the market square floating in nothing and everyone else was gone.”
> —Survivor, recorded 5 S.

Ironhold (Survived mostly intact): > “We were lucky. The fortress was built on solid bedrock. When the Shattering came, the entire plateau broke off as one piece. We fell—or the world fell away from us—and then we were floating. We lost maybe 20% of the population in the chaos. The rest survived because the walls held. The walls always hold.”
> —Military record, 1 S.

From Rural Areas

A Farmer’s Account: > “I was in the fields. Sunrise. Normal day. Then the sun went black and I heard singing—no, screaming—no, both—from the sky. The ground cracked right through my field. My house was on one side, my barn on the other. The crack got wider. I jumped. Made it to the house side. Watched my barn fall into nothing. My wife and children were in the house. We survived. But we watched our barn, our animals, our livelihood just fall away into light.”
> —Recorded 10 S.

From Ships at Sea

A Sailor’s Testimony: > “We were at sea. Felt the ship lurch. Looked up and the sky was wrong. Looked down and the ocean was… breaking. Like glass. We could see through it. Light underneath. The water was falling away from us, or we were falling away from it. We ended up on a fragment of ocean—just water, floating in the void. It evaporated over the next week. We would have died of thirst but it rained. Where did the rain come from? There were no clouds. Nothing made sense.”
> —Recorded 3 S.

The Immediate Aftermath (Year 0-1 S.)

The First Hours: Chaos

Disorientation: - Survivors found themselves on floating fragments - No understanding of what had happened - No way to reach other fragments - Gravity still worked (locally) but nothing else made sense

The Falling: - Many died in the first hours from falling off edges - No one understood the new physics yet - Children, elderly, confused—just walked off edges into void - Estimated 10-20% of initial survivors died this way

The Panic: - Mass hysteria - Some went mad immediately - Some catatonic with shock - Some tried to maintain order (often failed) - Violence erupted (food, water, blame)

The First Days: Survival

Immediate Needs: - Water: Some fragments had springs, most didn’t - Food: Whatever was on the fragment when it broke - Shelter: Buildings damaged or destroyed - Safety: Edges had to be marked, guarded

The Isolation: - No communication between fragments - No way to know who else survived - Each fragment thought they might be alone - Psychological impact: devastating

The Deaths: - Starvation (fragments without food) - Dehydration (fragments without water) - Injuries (no medical care) - Suicide (despair) - Murder (resources, blame, madness)

The First Year: The Silence

The Constellation Silence: - For the first year post-Shattering, no constellations appeared - The “sky” (Aether) was empty - No stars, no sun, no moon - Only the luminous void - This was almost worse than the Shattering itself

Psychological Impact: > “We had lost the ground beneath our feet. We could adapt to that. But then we lost the stars above. That’s when people truly gave up hope.”
> —From The Survivor’s Chronicle

The Despair: - Many believed the gods had abandoned them - Or that the gods had died - Or that humanity had been cast out of reality - Suicide rates peaked in months 6-12

Population Decline: - Year 0: ~500,000 initial survivors (from 2-3 million) - Year 1: ~300,000 (40% died in first year) - Primary causes: Starvation, despair, violence, accidents

Theories on the Cause

The Wound Theory (Clergy Position)

Claim: The Apogee Working tore open reality itself

Evidence: - Ritual was happening when Shattering occurred - Nexus Spire vanished completely - Constellations went silent (wounded?) - The Rot (corruption) is reality trying to heal

Explanation: - Reality has layers, like skin over muscle over bone - The world (Terrum Solidus) was the “skin” - The Aether is the “muscle” beneath - The ritual tore through the skin - Everything fell “through” into the Aether - The Rot is the universe’s immune system trying to close the wound

Implications: - The Shattering was humanity’s fault - It might be reversible (if wound can heal) - But healing might mean destroying what fell through (us)

The Punishment Theory (Folk Belief)

Claim: The constellations shattered the world in anger

Evidence: - Stars were “screaming” during Shattering - Constellations went silent afterward (anger?) - Humanity’s hubris (trying to reach stars) was obvious sin - The Rot is divine judgment

Explanation: - Humanity grew too proud - The Apogee Working was blasphemy (trying to become gods) - The constellations punished us by breaking our world - We’re living in the ruins of our punishment

Implications: - We deserved this - Only through piety can we be saved - The Rot is test or cleansing - Redemption is possible but requires humility

The Dimensionality Theory (Scholars/Alchemists)

Claim: The ritual succeeded too well—pulled us into higher dimension

Evidence: - Physics changed (gravity, space, time all different) - The Aether has properties unlike normal space - Time distortions in certain areas - Impossible geometries exist

Explanation: - Terrum Solidus existed in three dimensions - The Aether is four (or more) dimensional - The ritual pulled us “up” into higher dimension - We’re stuck between dimensions - The Rot is friction between dimensional states

Implications: - We’re not in our universe anymore - Physics will never work “normally” again - Might be other beings in this dimension - Might not be able to return

The Horror Theory (Whispered in Taverns)

Claim: There was something below the world. The Shattering freed it.

Evidence: - The Voice Beneath (Rot-Touched hear it) - Things emerge from the Deeps - Pre-Shattering legends of “the Underneath” - The Rot feels alive, intelligent, hungry

Explanation: - Terrum Solidus was a lid on a prison - Something ancient and terrible was sealed beneath - The Apogee Working cracked the lid - The Shattering freed it (or woke it) - The Rot is that thing, slowly consuming everything - We’re not survivors—we’re its food

Implications: - The Shattering wasn’t the disaster—it was the beginning - The real disaster is still happening (the Rot) - We can’t win, only delay - The Voice Beneath is real and it’s coming

The Accident Theory (Optimists)

Claim: It was just an accident—no malice, no punishment, just bad luck

Evidence: - Rituals had worked before (smaller scale) - No evidence of intentional destruction - Constellations seem confused, not angry - The Rot might be natural phenomenon

Explanation: - The ritual had an unexpected side effect - No one meant for this to happen - It’s not punishment or attack - Just a terrible, tragic accident

Implications: - No one to blame (or everyone to blame) - Might be fixable (if we understand what went wrong) - The universe isn’t malicious, just indifferent - We have to save ourselves

Long-Term Effects

Geographic

The Aetherium: - Floating islands (thousands) - Luminous void (the Aether) - No solid ground (anywhere) - Gravity works locally (on islands) - Physics partially broken

Lost Lands: - 90% of Terrum Solidus lost - Oceans: Evaporated or fell away - Mountains: Shattered - Cities: Destroyed or fragmented - Wilderness: Mostly gone

The Deeps: - Below the islands, darkness - Unknown depth - Few return from exploring it - Might be the “bottom” or might be infinite

Technological

Lost Knowledge: - 90% of pre-Shattering technology lost - Libraries destroyed - Scholars dead - Astral Geometry: Partially lost - Manufacturing: Collapsed

What Survived: - Some airships (pre-Shattering tech, still work) - Some books (fragments, incomplete) - Some tools (basic) - Oral tradition (stories, knowledge)

What Was Gained: - Aether-navigation (new skill) - Survival techniques (floating world) - Rot-resistance (alchemy, prayer)

Demographic

Population: - Pre-Shattering: 2-3 million - Year 0 S.: ~500,000 (initial survivors) - Year 1 S.: ~300,000 (after first year die-off) - Year 50 S.: ~500,000 (recovery) - Year 287 S.: ~180,000 (declining)

Ethnic Mixing: - Pre-Shattering: Distinct ethnic territories - Post-Shattering: Scattered, mixed - Some groups maintained identity (Veil-Born, Iron-Blood) - Others merged (Bright-Folk = mixed group) - New group emerged (Void-Kin = post-Shattering born)

Psychological

Collective Trauma: - Every person alive is descended from survivors - Trauma passed down through generations - Cultural identity defined by catastrophe - Calendar counts from disaster (Year 0 S.)

Cultural Changes: - Value survival over everything - Fear of hubris (reaching too high) - Respect for the unknown - Acceptance of impermanence - Dark humor (coping mechanism)

The Question: - “Could it happen again?” - No one knows - Shapes every decision - Prevents certain research (too dangerous)

The Unanswered Questions

What caused it?
No one knows for certain. Theories abound. Evidence is contradictory.

Where is the Nexus Spire?
Vanished completely. Never found. Might hold answers.

Can it be undone?
The Returners believe yes. Most think no. Would undoing it erase everyone born post-Shattering?

Could it happen again?
Unknown. Terrifying possibility. Prevents certain research.

What happened to the Luminar Council?
All dead or vanished. None survived (that we know of).

Why did the constellations go silent?
Were they wounded? Angry? Confused? They returned but changed.

What is the Rot?
Related to Shattering? Consequence? Separate phenomenon? Unknown.

Is the world still breaking?
The Deeps are expanding. The Rot is spreading. Is the Shattering ongoing?

Legacy and Commemoration

Remembrance Day

Annual observance (Day 8, Year 0 S. anniversary): - Solemn day across Aetherium - Work stops - Communities gather - Names of the lost spoken (takes hours or days) - Moment of silence at dawn (when it happened) - Not celebration—remembrance

The Memorial Gardens (Skyport Eos)

Largest memorial: - Garden with stone markers - Represents major losses - Names carved (thousands) - Flowers planted (symbolizing hope from tragedy) - Pilgrimage site

Cultural Impact

Sayings: - “Since the Shattering” (means “forever”) - “Before the world broke” (means “long ago”) - “Solid ground” (means “impossible security”) - “The stars screamed” (means “disaster”)

Art: - Paintings of the moment - Poems about loss - Songs of survival - Sculptures of broken world

Education: - Every child learns about Shattering - Survivor testimonies preserved - History taught as warning - “Never reach too high”

Related Topics

• The Apogee Working - The ritual that preceded the Shattering
• The Nexus Spire - The vanished tower
• Year 0 S. - The defining moment
• The Luminar Council - Those responsible
• The Constellations - Changed by the event
• The Rot - Possible consequence
• Terrum Solidus - The world that was

In-World Documents

From The Last Chronicle (Author Unknown, Written 1-5 S.)

I write this so someone will remember.

The world broke. Not slowly. Not with warning. Just broke.

One moment, I was standing on solid ground. The next, I was falling. Not down—just falling. And when I stopped, I was on a fragment of my street, floating in light, and everything else was gone.

My family was gone. My home was gone. The world was gone.

I don’t know why I survived. I don’t know why anyone survived.

But we did. And now we have to live in this.

So I write this. So someone will know. So someone will remember.

The world broke. We survived. That’s all.

Inscription at Memorial Gardens

IN MEMORY OF THE WORLD THAT WAS

Terrum Solidus
The Solid World
Lost Year 0 S.

2-3 million souls
Countless cities
Infinite stories
All gone in an instant

We who remain remember.
We who survive honor them.
We who live carry their memory.

The world broke.
But we did not.

Elder’s Testimony (Recorded 50 S., Speaker was Child During Shattering)

I was five years old when the world ended.

I don’t remember much. Flashes. My mother screaming. The ground cracking. Falling. Light everywhere.

I remember my father holding me. Telling me it would be okay. Lying, because what else could he do?

I remember the silence after. No birds. No wind. No sound at all. Just us, on a piece of rock, floating in nothing.

I’m fifty-five now. I’ve lived my entire life in this shattered world. I’ve never known solid ground. I’ve never known the world before.

But I remember that moment. When everything changed. When the world broke and my childhood ended and survival began.

I remember.

We all remember.

That’s why we’re still here.

“The Shattering broke the world. It broke civilization. It broke the voices of the gods. It broke everything we knew and trusted and believed in. And yet, somehow, we survived. Not because we were strong. Not because we were prepared. But because we refused to let that moment be the end. We adapted. We endured. We built new lives on the fragments of the old world. Three centuries later, we’re still here. Still surviving. Still remembering. The Shattering defined us. But it did not destroy us. And that, perhaps, is the only victory we can claim.”
—From History of the Aetherium by Historian Elias Stormchaser