Return to Eíre
When last we were in Eíre...
During a great battle the Druchii wizards had somehow activated the power of the wyrdstone and apparently transported themselves away. The occupants of the Druchii city appear to have voluntarily given their lives to power this spell.
Three days after the end of the battle, a large company of druids, accompanied by several soldiers and many others, set out to study the phenomenon. When they arrived at the site, the druids began incantations in an attempt to learn more about the great beam of light that pierced the clouds overhead. The armies of Eíre set up encampments around the site. Several parties ventured into the Druchii city of Sereg to investigate and possibly loot the belongings of the dead elves.
As the druids worked their magic, suddenly there was a flash of light and a great explosion. A shockwave spread from the place where the wyrdstone lay, spreading out quickly and destroying everything in its path. Great pillars of flame filled the sky and the forests began to burn. The blast killed every living creature, plant and animal alike, for hundreds of miles around the explosion. Those closest to the center, the druids and armies of Eíre, were obliterated, turned to dust by the power of the explosion.
It was days before the fires died out and weeks for the smoke to clear. A few survivors from the outer edge of the blast straggled into cities and told of the great devastation. Hundreds of miles of forest were burned and the area rendered uninhabitable. A majority of the Outlands – an area from Lake Arra and Drominere to Athy and Silme, from Riain up past Kraban – was laid to waste. The land itself became almost incapable of supporting life, growing only the strangest of plants and inhabited by monsters no one had ever seen before.
The personal loss was even more devastating to Eíre. The majority of the Druids and the armies of Eíre were lost in what became known as the Great Devastation. Some kings and other royalty were also lost, as they had traveled to Sereg to do battle with the armies of the Druchii. Many of those armies of beastmen and orc had been outside the area of devastation (which became known as the Wastes). They began raiding the nearby kingdoms, whose populations had little protection from their violence. Refugees fled to nearby kingdoms but the beastman-orc hordes, soon joined by humans and other creatures, followed. They spread north into the Kingdom of Midhe where they continue to raid villages and wage guerrilla warfare.
Those few druids who remained realized something that remained unknown to most people: whatever had happened, whatever the Great Devastation was, it upset the balance of nature on Eíre if not the entire world. Magic no longer behaved as it should, but was stronger than in the past, and oftentimes unpredictable.
The resulting social upheaval spread far beyond the Wastes and its nearby territories. Eíre is no longer the land it once was. Kings have been overthrown and kingdoms split into warring baronies. Cities have become crowded with refugees, the countryside all but deserted as people seek safety in numbers. Many towns and villages have come under the control of bandits and even orcs and beastmen. To make things worse, there is a rumor that the Holy Empire is planning to invade Eíre in the near future, seeking to take advantage of the disorder and unrest.