The Thousand Tragedies Period

The Thousand Tragedies period refers to the period of history which opened the nominal VIIth century of the Shogunate, and lasted until the destruction of the raksha armies by the Empress in RY -12. This period is characterized by sweeping devastation of humanity, terrifying swathes of murder and death, and the rise of localized powers following the apocalyptic Tragedies.

The Thousand Tragedies period should have, by all accounts, been the end of human history. Fallout of the period is estimated to have killed almost 90% of humans living at the time, comparable to the effect that introduction of foreign diseases by the Columbian Exchange had on Native American populations in real life. The combination of devastating plague and overwhelming invasion quickly destroyed the Shogunate infrastructure and left a devastated world.

The Thousand Tragedies are little remembered in the modern era; many people have a vague recollection of that it happened, but know little or nothing beyond that. Individuals able to afford a proper education have about as much knowledge of the era as we Americans do about the Black Death; those with less education know only that the world ended, the Shogunate fell, and the Empress rose up.

The Great Contagion

The Late Shogunate was wracked, at the dawn of the VIIth century, by a disease more virulent and deadly than any other that has been seen before or since. This strange plague, quickly called the Great Contagion, spread like a roaring fire through the Shogunate’s marcher-states, quickly eliminating the first line of defense against the periodic incursions of raksha and Anathema.

Symptoms of the Contagion are wild and varied in historical records. It is very likely that other dangerous diseases, such as tuberculosis and breath-eater, have been conflated with the Contagion during the period. Overall, however, the Contagion is noted to have jumped between species, leading to depopulations of fish and game species, and to have spread like root-rot among cultivated trees.

The Unraveling

The Great Contagion foretold the arrival of the raksha armies just a few years into the plague. As the Shogunate states struggled to deal with the sweeping devastation of the Great Contagion, a terrible army of raksha began to encroach from the southeast, sweeping across Creation like locusts. They devoured and murdered, hoarding whatever resources they could. Humans who managed to avoid the plague were killed in fighting, taken as slaves and killed as amusements, or suffered fates worse than death at the hands of the raksha.

The Shogunate had established networks of protective towers and armies which stood firm against the raksha, but the overwhelming force of the invasion proved too much for a dysfunctional system already dealing with internecine wars and mass deaths of its own people. Although the Dragon-Blooded made brave stands against the invading forces, the writhing tide of tentacles and goblins proved too much.

Apocalypse

Between the Contagion and the Unraveling, modern scholars estimate that roughly 90 out of 100 humans alive at the time perished as a result of the Thousand Tragedies period. Many died directly from plague or violence – many more died indirectly, from the starvation and societal collapse that the Tragedies left in their wake.

The Thousand Tragedies period was brief – by most accounts lasting only ten years or less – but probably the most impactful handful of years in human history. The Thousand Tragedies were, by all accounts, apocalyptic. Although humanity survived, it did so only barely. Verdant farmland turned weedy and dry, cities burned with purplish faerie light until only cinders remained, and the old power structures collapsed under their own fear and devastation, leaving only a handful of states, mostly on the Blessed Isle, able to retain a continuity from before the end.

The Blessed Isle

The Blessed Isle was the least touched by the end of the world. The stabilizing power of the omphalos, the remnant infrastructure of the Realm Before, and the established power bases allowed for the allodial-states to resist invasion by the raksha more effectively; they never managed to take the Isle, although some border parts of the Isle, especially the eastern coasts, were seized and liberated and re-seized and re-liberated during the war.

The Great Contagion, as well, did not take root as deeply in the Isle’s protective aura. Rates of death from the disease were noticeably lower, and crops proved more resistant to the root-rot. The Thousand Tragedies ended with the Blessed Isle in a more favorable position than the rest of Creation, setting the stage for the Realm to expand from strong footing.

The End of the End of the World

The Woman Who Would Be Empress was an officer of the Shogunate and a frontline commander during the Unraveling. She came from a respected gens and was known by her superiors as an up-and-coming political and military prodigy. Beyond these facts, nothing is recorded – the Empress destroyed the woman she once was when she became the Empress, and removed her from memory.

The Empress returned to the Blessed Isle and pushed into the raksha-controlled eastern coast with her hearthmates. There, they made their way into an abandoned fortress, a relic of the Realm Before. She knew that this fortress contained a weapon beyond compare, a thing older than things and a Sword to save the world.

Her hearthmates died, but she survived, and seized the weapon. The sky flashed with fire, and the raksha fell. Rains of iron needles wiped hobs and wights from the world. Sacred rain and healing violet winds swept over stricken communities, brushing away the Contagion.

And then she became the Empress.