Attributes
Scaleworld
Start Year H0
Start Year CE0
Related Eventsrise-of-the-river-lordstrayalon-cityshowdown-at-castlecliff
Historical Importanceworld-defining
Adventure HooksThe true cause of the Folly is unknown — multiple in-world legends contradict each otherThe obsidian shelf at Cliffhaven draws pilgrims and tour guides; what lies within it?Lost Hesh secrets of immortality and godhood are buried beneath former Hesh cities (e.g. Vadesh under Trayalon)
Legendary AccountsSimon Fairbreeze's telling: Terek believed the Pilotstar held the key to all power and tried to pull it down from the sky for himself; what came down instead shattered the land and left the obsidian scar. (In-world legend, not confirmed.)The Traveller's 'Three Kings' tale: Terek the Redeemer, Saldaman, and Onyx were once friend-kings; Terek's relentless pursuit of freely-shared power — against Saldaman's and Onyx's warnings — led to the fall, though 'no one knows for certain why the sky fell.' (In-world legend.)The 'Song of the Fool': a travelling fool's question — 'in an imperfect world, shouldn't those with power strive to make it better?' — is what drove Terek to seek power and birthed the Hesh Empire. (In-world song.)
SummaryThe world-defining cataclysm that ended the previous era and marks year 0 of the h-calendar. The Hesh Empire and its living god Terek the Redeemer were destroyed in a battle of the heavens, killing roughly 36 of the world's gods and scarring the western coast with a sheer obsidian cliff nearly 200 miles long. All history divides into Before and After 'the Folly.'
Event Typecataclysm
Detailed DescriptionTerek's Folly (commonly 'the Folly') is the central event of world history. The Hesh, the greatest empire of the previous era, worshiped Terek the Redeemer — a living god said to be on the verge of elevating all mankind to immortality. In a cataclysmic conflict among the heavens, Terek and nearly all his faithful were destroyed, and the divine order was gutted: roughly 36 gods died (the survivors are flagged survivedTF=Yes on the deity records), among the fallen being Sorin Deepshadow and Helmar the Mighty. The physical scar of the event is a sheer cliff of obsidian that runs nearly 200 miles along the western coast (the 'obsidian shelf'), which wiped out many Hesh coastal cities; the city of Cliffhaven later swelled with refugees who fled there. Mechanically, the Folly is best understood through the planar cosmology: gods are powerful beings who bound their own plane to the material plane, and a bound plane's collapse releases catastrophic stored energy. The Folly was such a release on an enormous scale. The PRECISE CAUSE is unsettled in-world and survives only as competing LEGENDS (see legendaryAccounts) — no source confirms why 'the sky fell.'
RegionWestern Continent (and worldwide divine fallout)