An Alternate Timeline for Alphatian Events After the Wrath of the Immortals:
By Geoff GanderOpening Note: The events described herein are to be considered alternate events to what was published in the Poor Wizard's Almanac (TM) series, and the Wrath of the Immortals (TM) boxed set. Under no circumstances should this effort be construed as a denigration of either of these works, or of the Mystaran Net Almanac. This is merely an effort to explore "what might have been", had events in Alphatia been slightly different following the Wrath War.
Fall, AC 1009: A great bolt strikes from the blue, touching upon Sundsvall. The entire city glows with a white-hot intensity, and explodes in a mighty pillar of fire. The tremendous shockwaves extend for 600 miles in all directions, toppling buildings, opening crevasses, and altering the courses of rivers. At the epicentre, a mile-wide crater sits where the imperial capital once graced the landscape, surrounded by broken lands, toppled boulders, and pools of magma. The explosion also hurls many tons of dust, dirt, and ash into the atmosphere, blanketing the region in a dark grey haze. The Doomsday Weapon created by Rad has been successful.
All over the empire, chaos ensues as news travels of the event, and as the total damage is estimated. Empress Eriadna and the Grand Council are no more, and a large portion of the skyfleet stationed over the mainland has likewise been destroyed. In the surrounding region, thousands have died due to collapsing buildings, explosions, and fires raging across the land. Many of the central kingdoms, suffering the brunt of the disaster, descend into anarchy. Those farther away try to close their borders to the strife. Alphatian soldiers outside the empire, who were engaged in a planned assault on Glantri, withdraw to Alphatia once news spreads of the disaster. Discipline breaks down as soldiers, eager to return home to ensure the safety of their families, find any means possible to leave. Those soldiers occupying Thyatian regions of the Isle of Dawn are quickly thrown out during the ensuing strife.
Winter, AC 1009: Due to the heavy dust clouds in the sky, the winter in Greater Alphatia is unusually harsh, with extremely bitter winds blasting over the land. Many more people die from exposure to the elements, especially those still living in the mostly-depopulated kingdom of Vertiloch. Elsewhere, some members of the Grand Council, who survived the disaster only because they were not in Sundsvall at the time, meet in Skyreach, Floating Ar, to try to rebuild the central government, and hopefully choose a suitable heir to the imperial throne.
Among the outlying kingdoms of the empire, Thothia alone is relatively unscathed. Having its own traditions dating from before Alphatian domination, as well as a high level of autonomy - even for a kingdom on the Isle of Dawn - the absence of contact with the Alphatian motherland does not cause very many adverse effects. The people simply carry on, and heed their pharaoh and his advisers.
Many towns throughout Esterhold
erupt in civil strife as Jennite slaves, hearing of the blow struck
against the empire, revolt in a bid for freedom. Although in some
places the revolts manage to displace the oppressive colonial
regimes, they are rapidly put back into place, and repercussions
are severe. Thousands of slaves manage to flee into the interior,
but thousands more are brutally tortured and executed, their deaths
made into examples to prevent such uprisings from happening again.