The Rending of Realms, or "the Rending" for short, was a large-scale spiritual event spanning the entirety of Haless from ~1751-1783 brought about by the Oni of Azjakuma's magic and Cannorian adventurers drilling out the hearts of High Temples.
As these Temples were rendered defunct, their wards weakened and ultimately fell, allowing spirits to roam free. Although it was previously unknown, evidence collected by adventurers and chroniclers who entered these Temples showed they were originally built by the Precursors in order to suppress Haless' spirits, most importantly the Great Spirits.
The Fall of the Temples[]
Even prior to the Rending, Haless was in disarray due to the continued campaigns of The Command and the arrival of Cannorian adventurers and imperial powers who had rounded Sarhal, both of which would play significant roles in starting the Rending.
The Command, who owned from North Dhujat and Ghavaanaj in Rahen to most of Yanshen in Haless Proper, including virtually all of Xianjie, was becoming increasingly threatening, and increasingly preoccupied with these multi-front campaigns. While The Command saw no benefit from the High Temples and disregarded them, their loyal Oni subjects offered their mystical knowledge to help with any issues that these Temple complexes may cause. With the Command's unprecedented expansion an increasing number of High Temples coming under their control, and as such Oni's.
However, thanks to their millenia-long tradition of deception, the horned ogres hid the fact they were not stabilizing them but secretly corrupting them to drain them of their power. These Oni rituals would tamper with and eventually "corrupt" the hearts of the Temples, granting the Oni the power of the contained spirits but in return wearing away at the suppressing wards.
Cannorians, such as the famous Indiboddo Jonesonn, on the other hand often sought the valuable relics and artifacts within these Temples, breaking through defenses with the novel invention of the "Korashi Drill". These black damestear tipped drills allowed adventurers to breach the inner walls of the Temples and reach the hearts, without need for Oni magic. The Cannorians gained access to a number of the High Temples through force, bribery of local lords, extortion, and various other techniques. These adventurers, noting the immense worth of the Temple's damestear cores, would take and sell many of them, destroying these Temple's wards and rendering them useless.
This, in tandem with the Oni's corruption, would continue to weaken the grid which barely stood thanks to some of its cornerstone temples; Smaraya, Tughayasa, and Tianlou. After Smaraya's fall in the Typhoon of Broken Vases in 1699/1700 came Tianlou in 1751, where a local rich man's son who gambled away his money hired a party and a drill to raid the temple during the peace talks between the Command and Tianlou in Shengdao. With two of the three corners destroyed, Tughayasa was blasted open to eventually cause it to fully break down the grid and allow countless previously suppressed spirits to awaken and wreak havoc, much like water from a dam bursting.
The Rending[]
- "It began as a great rumbling - not only a shaking in the earth, but a reverberation in the air, the mind, the soul. The sound of long-neglected timber snapping under the weight of its burden. Halann itself quaked as reality warped. Then everything changed."
- ―Kaloyan of the Wandering Heart on the beginning of the Rending of Realms
With the destruction of the High Temple's warding grid, a violent shake was felt across Haless which left most of the few remaining pristine temples damaged. In addition, what would come to be known as Great Spirits began to awaken across Haless in now unprotected zones without the High Temples' warding, each one capable of causing immense damage along with bringing waves of lesser spirits with them. These Great Spirits, previously either unknown or whose feats had been attributed to some other source natural or supernatural, now appeared in corporeal form, legends made manifest. Mountains such as Tughayasa are one such example of Great Spirits.
Many saw this as a sign that the barrier between the mortal plane and the spirit plane had been "rend" apart, forcing the two planes into each other and giving the event its titular name. It wouldn't be long before a connection was made between the destruction, or survival of Temples, and the frequency of spirit related events was made and the Temple's true purposes were realized.
For regions such as those under The Command, the Rending would be catastrophic. Without any remaining Temples to protect them the lands were quickly overrun by hostile spirits and the destruction brought about by Great Spirits, Kaloyan noted one such example in his writings such as the Great Catfish Spirit Kharunyana causing floods. Some, such as followers of the High Philosophy, saw this as a sign that the chi of the world had come unbalanced due to the plundering of the high temples, while others such as followers of Mystic Accord saw this as a good advent. Of course, regions that had preserved their High Temples saw relative safety from these events but other nations turned to quick responses.
The Reaction[]
Primarily, affected nations were forced to figure out ways to ward or suppress the spirits that had risen about their land. Those with non-ruined Temples, as in those not in total disrepair or had their hearts tampered with, focused on repairing the Temples after discovering the correlation between the Temples suppression and the rise of the spirits. When the Temples were repaired and restored, their wards were able to function in their respective zones and provide local protection, though the Haless-wide grid would not be restored so easily. Another option available to these nations was the rise of "spirit-hunters". In sufficient numbers these mystics were able to suppress spirits, and sometimes even Great Spirits, to a degree that the grid would be able to restore itself in the particular region so long as stability is maintained.
Followers of the Mystic Accord however, saw the Rending in an entirely different light. These followers believed it was only natural for spirits to live alongside mortals in the world, and that beings such as the Great Spirits were simply a larger part of the natural order. Many of these followers, who were focused in the Lupulan Jungles to the south, opted to instead attempt to appease or strike up accords with these Great Spirits. Yinquan, as written firsthand by Chronicler Aleyissa Wu, was famous for both having had a positive relation with spirits and having come under the leadership of the Great Spirit Huszien, reorganizing itself as Lingyuk ("Spirit Domain"). Those able to make accords with Great Spirits found themselves largely unaffected or even positively rewarded by these spirits.
Finally, as they had prior to the Rendering, the Oni and other followers of the Lefthand Path sought to scour the remaining temples for their hearts and corrupt them. The rise of these spirits also allowed for more sources of power for them, as they were able to manipulate and twist the spirits that rose as fuel for their magic. It is believed that they thought by corrupting the entirety of a Great Spirit's domain's Temples, the Great Spirit itself might be harnessed by them and subdued to their whims. This could not ultimately be tested or seen, as despite the various different approaches others took, all were adamantly against such "hostile" practices.