The Rebuilding is the thousand-year period from the end of hostilities to the present day. In common knowledge, it begins immediately after the Split. In truth, it begins after the Divine War’s conclusion, with the last of the Arcanum Divinorum—a dwarf named Galmir Lothiren—silently seeding the Elder Sage Council before retreating into obscurity for five centuries, and eventually erasing the war from memory entirely. The Rebuilding is the era in which the world put itself back together—slowly, painfully, and with a determination that defines both continents to this day.

The Rebuilding is divided into five broadly recognized eras. These are not precise calendar divisions but cultural shorthand used by historians to describe the character of different centuries.

The Ash Decades (c. 1–50 PS)

The immediate aftermath of the Split was devastation on a continental scale. Coastal cities were destroyed by tidal waves. Interior settlements were cut off by ruptured roads and collapsed bridges. The leyline network, which had channeled magical energy across Etherea for millennia, was shattered. Magic became unreliable in many regions—spells misfired, enchantments failed, and areas of dead magic appeared without warning.

Refugees flooded inward from the coasts. Food supplies collapsed as farmland was salted by seawater or buried under landslides. Communication between the two halves of the shattered continent was impossible; for the first generation, no one on Volaxia knew whether anyone on Osan had survived, and vice versa.

In Volaxia, the Runeswick monarchy survived. The royal family, though diminished, held the western half of the city together through a combination of personal authority and the institutional loyalty of the surviving noble houses. Runeswick became the nucleus around which Volaxian recovery slowly organized.

In Osan, there was no surviving central authority. The eastern half of Runeswick—now Runewick—was in ruins, and no single noble house had the power or legitimacy to claim leadership. The Ash Decades on Osan were defined by fragmentation, local strongmen, and the desperate improvisation of communities that had to govern themselves or die.

The Sundering Grief (c. 50–200 PS)

As immediate survival gave way to longer-term recovery, the two continents began to develop distinct identities. On Volaxia, the monarchy consolidated. Runeswick expanded outward, reconnecting with surviving settlements along what would become the Golden Road. The first post-Split trade caravans moved cautiously through Crownheart Vale, reestablishing supply lines.

On Osan, the surviving noble houses convened a historic summit that produced the Council of Lords—a governing body born of necessity and mutual distrust. No single lord would accept another as king, so they agreed to share power. The Council’s early decades were marked by bitter internal rivalries, but the alternative—civil war during reconstruction—was worse. The Council held.

The first confirmed sea crossing between the continents occurred during this era, roughly a century after the Split. A Volaxian merchant convoy, driven as much by desperation as ambition, sailed east and made contact with Osan’s western settlements. The discovery that both halves of the world had survived was met with celebration and grief in equal measure. Regular trade would not follow for another century, but the connection had been made.

The dwarven stronghold of Nin’Durahl in the Iron Mountains of Osan emerged as a stabilizing force during this period. Having survived the Split largely intact due to its mountain fortress construction, Nin’Durahl became a hub of craftsmanship, mining, and institutional continuity. Its influence on the early Council of Lords was significant.

The Rekindling (c. 200–500 PS)

The Rekindling marks the era when recovery became growth. Trade routes were formally established across the Great Sea. The Silverway, Volaxia’s east-west arterial road, was completed during this period, connecting Runeswick to the western coast. The Gilded Crossroads, where the Golden Road and Silverway intersect south of Sapphire Locke, grew from a muddy waystation into a thriving trade nexus.

On Osan, the Council of Lords stabilized into a functioning government. Regional capitals emerged: Runewick on the western coast, Nin’Durahl in the mountains, and the growing cities of the Golden Shores in the south. The Grand Desert, which occupied much of Osan’s interior, remained largely unexplored—a blank space on every map, hiding secrets no one yet knew to look for.

The Elder Sage Council grew into the preeminent authority on magical practice during the Rekindling. Its eight members—one for each school of magic—established individual Sanctums in major cities and institutions across both continents, operating from these bases to advise rulers, guide academies, and ensure the arcane arts served the recovery. Schools of magic were established in major cities. The eight schools of arcane magic were formalized into the curriculum still taught today.

Glowstone, the crystalline fragments scattered across both continents, was rediscovered during the Rekindling. Miners in the Iron Mountains region of Osan, particularly around what would become Wyndmoore, found veins of a green, faintly luminescent mineral. Jewelers prized it for its beauty. No one suspected its true nature. It was catalogued as a natural gemstone and integrated into the economy as a luxury trade good.

The Long Peace (c. 500–800 PS)

The Long Peace is the era most living people think of when they imagine Voxana’s history as a success story. Both continents were stable. Trade was robust. Cities grew. Magic was practiced openly under the Sage Council’s guidance. The Great Sea, once an impassable divide, became a highway connecting cultures and commerce.

Guildspire was founded during the early Long Peace, approximately six hundred years after the Split. Veteran adventurers, recognizing that the world’s recovery had created a new class of dangers—unexplored ruins, resurgent monsters, unstable magic zones—established a sanctuary settlement along the Crystal River in Crownheart Vale. The Firefly Brigade grew from a local defense force into a continent-spanning adventuring institution with outposts across the explored world.

The arts flourished. Bezarin’s temples became cultural centers. The Canvas Cathedral in Runeswick hosted competitions that drew artists from both continents. Literature, theater, and music developed distinct Volaxian and Osani traditions that nonetheless shared deep roots in their common Etherean heritage.

Religion adapted to divine silence. Theological traditions that had once struggled with the gods’ absence developed mature frameworks for worship through the Veil. The Temple of the Many in Guildspire, allowing worshippers of all twelve gods to pray under one roof, became a model replicated in other settlements. Faith became a matter of personal devotion and communal practice rather than direct divine interaction.

The Quiet Century (c. 800–Present PS)

The most recent two centuries have been stable—perhaps too stable. The Long Peace’s prosperity bred complacency. Institutions that were built to address crises now managed routine. The Elder Sage Council, once a vital steward of dangerous knowledge, became increasingly bureaucratic. The Council of Lords on Osan became entrenched, its seats inherited rather than earned, its politics calcified.

Cracks began to appear. The Rot—a fungal phenomenon that transforms living things into fungal hybrids—was first documented in Greenflower, a town in Volaxia’s Verdant Expanse. Initially treated as a local agricultural blight, it resisted every conventional remedy. Druid circles contained it but could not eliminate it. Its cause remained unknown.

The village of Wyndmoore, in northwestern Osan, grew around the Glowstone trade. Its jewelers’ guild became renowned across the continent. The village itself remained small and remote—a trading post that never quite became a city—but its Glowstone deposits made it economically significant and culturally distinctive.

In Nin’Durahl, one of the Elder Sage Council’s eight members continued his work. Galmir Lothiren, the Elder Sage of Divination, was known for his quiet wisdom and deep knowledge of the arcane. At two hundred and eighty years old, he was respected but unremarkable—a scholar among scholars, carrying out his duties with the steady competence expected of his role. His counterparts on the Council operated from their own Sanctums spread across Voxana—in Runeswick, Runewick, the wizarding school of Zumora, and beyond—each stewarding one of the eight schools of magic.

And then, without warning, everything changed.

The Present Day

All Glowstone across Voxana has reactivated. For a thousand years, the fragments of the shattered Arcane Stones were inert—a pretty mineral valued for jewelry and decoration. Now they glow brightly and crackle with magical energy. The reactivation occurred simultaneously across both continents, stunning scholars and common folk alike. Something fundamental has shifted.

The Elder Sage Council—whose eight members operate from individual Sanctums spread across both continents—has convened in emergency session. The Firefly Brigade has dispatched investigators. In Wyndmoore, where Glowstone is most concentrated, the local council is struggling to manage a situation that has attracted scholars, treasure-seekers, and opportunists from across Osan. In Greenflower, the Rot appears to be intensifying. And in temples across both continents, clerics report that their dreams have become more vivid, more urgent, and harder to interpret.

No one alive knows why any of this is happening. But the world is beginning to pay attention.