Great Fracture

The Great Fracture was an immense cataclysm that rent the very mantle of the World asunder, forming the Great Rift, the Eastern Maw, and the various regions of aberrance scattered throughout the Realm. Few experts outright deny the idea, but its exact date and cause is still a matter of contention.

The Fracture is said to be the origin of regional aberrance, as the tears in the earth had released energies (and potentially creatures) of unprecedented magnitude upon the lands and seas closest to the Rift and maws.

The earliest sources for the concept of a pre-Rift planet were draconic wisdoms. Of the few drakes contact has been formally established with, many speak of the world as it was when whole, remnants of tales passed down through millennia of draconic generations. Quite a number of details have even seeped into the lores and mythos of early socieites, as evidenced in the creation myths of the Qirenni and the Laobhs. As compelling as these stories may be, the drakes' reputation as tellers of tall tales and relatively unreliable historians keep some scholars from fully embracing the theory.

A sizable population of historians and khasmologues (those studying rifts) have posited that the Fracture occurred after the emergence of the Hominids. The implications of an unrent world and a migrating populace are fascinating to many, with notable writers like Angeline la m'Arane and Litos Karo exploring the idea of civilizations beyond the Rift.