What follows is the history of Voxana as understood by its inhabitants. This is what scholars teach, what bards sing, and what parents tell their children. It is incomplete—five hundred years are missing from it—but no one alive knows that.
The Creation and the Age of Unity
In the time before recorded history, the Twelve Gods shaped the world of Voxana from the threads of the Loom. They created a single vast continent called Etherea, with the city of Runeswick at its heart. During this era, known as the Age of Unity, the gods walked openly among mortals, nurturing and guiding their creations. Civilization flourished under divine stewardship.
The common people remember this era with reverence but little specificity. No mortal records survive from the Age of Unity itself—only mythic accounts passed down through oral tradition and eventually transcribed by temple scribes. The Creation Myth, recited in temples and schools across both continents, is the most widely known version of these events.
From the Common History of Voxana
Eons ago, in the dawn of our world, the realm of Voxana was nurtured into existence by twelve divine entities. Each deity offered their unique essence, weaving the fabric of our world. The gods created Etherea, a beacon of tranquility, with the grand city of Runeswick at its heart.
— From a common history taught in schools across Volaxia
The Divine Concord
At some point during the Age of Unity, the gods recognized that their direct presence was shaping mortal life too completely. Rather than allow their creations to become dependent, they chose to step back. This decision is known as the Divine Concord.
The gods wove the Divine Veil, a metaphysical barrier between the divine and mortal realms, and withdrew behind it. From that point forward, they communicated with the faithful only through dreams, miracles, omens, and chosen champions. The common understanding is that this was an act of love and trust: the gods believed mortals were ready to guide themselves.
In common knowledge, the Divine Concord is the last major act the gods performed. After it, they simply fell silent. The faithful pray, receive signs, and trust that the divine is present even when unseen. There is no widespread awareness that the silence was ever broken.
The Split
Approximately one thousand years ago, a catastrophe of unknown origin tore the continent of Etherea apart. This event, known as the Split, is the defining moment in Voxana’s recorded history. The land ruptured along a massive rift. The western portion became the continent of Volaxia. The eastern portion became Osan. The rift filled with water, forming the Great Sea.
Runeswick, which had stood at the heart of Etherea, was divided. Its western half survived and was rebuilt as the capital of Volaxia. Its eastern remnant, now called Runewick, became a major city on Osan’s western coast. The two cities share architectural roots, cultural memory, and a name that differs by a single letter—a daily reminder of a world that was once whole.
The cause of the Split is, in common knowledge, unknown. Scholars have proposed natural theories: tectonic instability, leyline collapse, a convergence of elemental forces. Theologians have suggested divine causes: a test, a punishment, or simply the natural consequence of a world without divine hands to steady it. No theory has achieved consensus. The Split simply happened, and the world has been rebuilding ever since.
DM Truth: The Real Cause of the Split
The Split was caused by Erruuth the Deceiver, a mortal born in the village of Threndor in the Iron Mountains. Erruuth was exceptionally gifted—a scholar who studied in Runewick, a mage who joined the Arcanum Divinorum, and ultimately a man consumed by the ambition to ascend to godhood. He traveled across Etherea gathering followers, drawing on their collective belief to fuel his power, and eventually attempted to physically breach the Divine Veil.
The attempt tore the fabric of the Loom itself. The resulting rupture split Etherea in two, triggered earthquakes, tidal waves, and arcane surges that reshaped the globe. Leylines were severed. Geography was permanently altered. The Fray bled into the Material Weave at the wound site. This was not a natural disaster. It was the consequence of a single mortal’s hubris.
The Missing Centuries
In common knowledge, the Split was immediately followed by the Rebuilding—a long, slow recovery that continues to the present day. There is no gap. The timeline moves directly from catastrophe to reconstruction. The Rebuilding is understood to span the full thousand years since the Split.
Historians occasionally note that certain pre-Split references don’t align with post-Split timelines, and that some ruins show evidence of conflicts that no written record describes. These anomalies are generally attributed to the chaos of the Split itself: records were lost, dates became unreliable, and whole communities vanished. The idea that five centuries might be unaccounted for has never gained serious traction, because no one has reason to suspect it.
DM Truth: The Divine War (500 Years)
The Split did not end the crisis—it began it. Erruuth survived his breach of the Veil and continued to wage war against the established divine order. The gods, confronted with a threat that imperiled reality itself, broke the Divine Concord and re-emerged from behind the Veil.
They could not defeat Erruuth alone. Working through mortal intermediaries, they empowered the Arcanum Divinorum—a secret order of mage-clerics—to forge the Arcane Stones: eight artifacts, one for each school of magic, channeling divine power through arcane frameworks. The war raged for five hundred years across both continents, reshaping landscapes, destroying cities, and straining the Loom to its limits.
The climax came when the gods channeled their combined might through the Arcane Stones to banish Erruuth to a realm of non-existence—a dimension crafted from the essence of banishment itself, beyond the reach of mortals and gods alike. The strain shattered the Arcane Stones. Their fragments scattered across Voxana, eventually becoming the mineral known as Glowstone.
The gods, exhausted and weakened, withdrew fully behind the Divine Veil to recover. Their silence resumed—but now it was the silence of exhaustion, not choice.
DM Truth: Galmir’s Long Vigil
Galmir Lothiren, the last surviving member of the Arcanum Divinorum, did not act hastily. When the Divine War ended, he sealed the Sunstone Temple beneath the sands of the Grand Desert to protect its secrets, then stepped into the broken world—not as a public figure, but as an invisible hand.
In the war’s immediate aftermath, during a period he called the Verdant Rise, Galmir recruited and mentored the founding members of the Elder Sage Council—a body of eight powerful magic users, one for each school of magic, modeled on the Arcanum Divinorum but without its divine secrets. He shaped the institution’s purpose, then continued to guide it through ‘surreptitious counsel’ over the centuries that followed. His role was diverse: mentor, advisor, wanderer. But his true identity remained shrouded. The Council’s members knew they had a benefactor of extraordinary knowledge; they did not know who he truly was or what he carried.
For approximately five hundred years, Galmir journeyed across Voxana as a silent sentinel. He ensured the Arcanum’s secrets stayed buried. He witnessed the rise and fall of heroes, the birth and death of empires, and the slow knitting together of a shattered world. He also had a quiet hand in events along the way—small interventions, carefully placed, always from the margins. The Sunstone Temple, hidden and silent beneath the desert, remained the only constant in his long life.
By the time five centuries had passed, the Elder Sage Council had become a revered institution. Galmir had taken a seat within it—the Elder Sage of Divination in Nin’Durahl—hiding in plain sight within the very body he had created. When he was finally satisfied that the Council could endure without him, he performed his great spell: a single act that erased the Divine War from the world’s memory and his own memories along with it. Erruuth, the Arcane Stones, the Arcanum Divinorum, the gods’ return—all of it dissolved. In the modified history, the gods never returned after the Concord, and the Split was a catastrophic natural disaster of unknown cause.
Galmir then walked among the pages of history unknowing of the profound impact he had made—an Elder Sage in Nin’Durahl, respected for his quiet wisdom, unaware that he had built the institution he served, guided it for centuries, and then erased the reason it existed. His journal, consigned to the sealed Sunstone Temple, remains the only record of these events.
From the Journal of Galmir Lothiren
5th Day of Frostveil, Year of the Silent Comet
In the quietude of the Sunstone Temple, I pen these words as the Divine War has drawn to a close. As the last guardian of the Arcanum Divinorum’s lore, I have enacted a spell of great power, consigning our temple to the forgotten sands beneath the Great Desert. In the aftermath of war, I found solace in the Elder Sage Council’s formation, a bastion for the preservation and guidance of arcane knowledge.
14th Day of Bloomwind, Year of the Whispering Forest
Decades have swept past. In solitude, I have journeyed across Voxana, a silent sentinel, ensuring the Arcanum Divinorum’s secrets remain a buried echo. The Elder Sage Council has become a cornerstone of arcane study. I have beheld the rise and fall of heroes, the birth and death of empires.
3rd Day of Moonbask, Year of the Emerald Sea
Half a millennium has passed since I concealed the Sunstone Temple. The Elder Sage Council, under my surreptitious counsel, has become a revered institution of arcane knowledge. My role has been diverse: mentor, advisor, wanderer—yet my true identity remains shrouded in the mists of time. The weight of my secret history grows with each passing Stormsong, a burden I bear alone.
21st Day of Harvestmoon, Year of the Gilded Phoenix
The world has evolved, and with it, so must I. Tonight, under the cold gaze of Starlight’s End, I shall cast a spell of oblivion, erasing the world’s memory of Erruuth, the Divine War, all of it, and my memories along with it, severing my ties to this ancient identity. My past, laden with secrets and duty, will dissolve into the ether. This journal, my final testament, I consign to the depths of the Sunstone Temple.
— Galmir Lothiren, Last of the Arcanum Divinorum