0 ASF

In the beginning, the stars fell.

If we are to speak of fantastic lore, we must first understand this fact of history. Of course, it wasn’t the true beginning of our world, much as certain kings, priests, and your local madman might want you to believe. But it certainly was a beginning … and an end.

When the stars fell, they brought strange and wondrous things to our world. It was an event that shaped every life, then and now. It became a blackened crater in the written record, an opaque barrier that created a distinctive “before” and “after”. It is a word that, even to this day, 1643 years later, can inspire sheer wonder and biting dread.

Starfall.

Half the world saw it happen. From those who were far enough away, we know that it began with light, with color. The sky flared as a star fell from the heavens, igniting in flames of many colors. Midway through its descent, as thousands of heads turned to watch, the star shattered with a deafening boom. Pieces of all shapes and sizes streaked through the skies.

The star’s glowing heart, which some speculate was as large as a mountain, remained intact. Trailing flame and smoke and color, it slammed into the earth.

The Broken Star did not fall on some remote desert or forlorn sea. It struck square in the core of human civilization. No accounts, of course, exist of what sheer destruction was unleashed at the site of impact. The only stories that survive are from people who were far enough away. Even these are varied, but most describe a firestorm of a thousand colors rising into the heavens, followed by the Thousand Rains, then by the Thousand Fires, then by the Thousand Starry Nights.

Every known culture and religion attempts to explain why Starfall happened. Some ascribe it to divine punishment. Others, the start of a new cosmic cycle. In some cultures, it is said that nameless gods crawled from the smoking crater. Many hold that the Broken Star was a womb for monsters and magic that permeate the world to this day.

In any case, everyone agrees that Starfall marked the beginning of a new age of the world. My fellow Lorekeepers agree, allowing Starfall to split the historical record, dividing it in two: Before Starfall (BSF) and After Starfall (ASF). As I pen this, it is 1643 ASF.

Even to this day, I am not sure who is right about Starfall. Perhaps none. Perhaps all. Regardless of who has the whole truth (if such a thing is even possible), we can be certain that something was unleashed with Starfall. Something that goes beyond mere forces primordial and earthly. Don’t just take my word for it. Simply read descriptions of what people have encountered in the Star-Scarred Lands, even to this day.

Why the Broken Star fell and what it unleashed are among the great mysteries of our age. We may never know the former, but as the for the latter… well, we’ll see what one Lorekeeper can do.