The Floods

The first 10 years of the floods were squandered by naively warring nations, fighting to retain boundaries and maintain control of lands that long since been swallowed by the Great Sea. It was this final failure of Man that led to the loss of most of the world’s knowledge and wealth. Libraries and museums were swallowed whole by the ocean, and the races of Terra Novus were plunged into the New Dark Age.

The survivors steadily moved to higher ground to escape the quickly rising oceans, but overpopulation soon gave rise to great famines and starvation. When the flood waters seemed ready to engulf the last bastion of land, something miraculous happened. A loud rumble began slowly, building over a period of a few days, until it was deafening. It continued to last for several days at this volume, and it is said that not even the stoic Dwarves could sleep in their deep cavern homes. When the tremors finally subsided, the rising waters had receded slightly, and then remained stationary. The frightened people of Terra Novus, huddled on their small island, barely a continent at less than 100 Miles in either direction, breathed a collective sigh of cautious relief.

For the next two-hundred years, the survivors began slowly rebuilding their civilizations, managing to eke out an existence that seemed bleak when compared to the technological paradise from before the floods. Scholars tried to transcribe what few books remained, and scientists hurriedly compiled their knowledge into numerous volumes, attempting to preserve what was left of the old sciences and technologies. Farmers had to learn to grow new crops in the strange new lands they now called home. And the men who crave power of others either committed themselves to rediscover the arcane arts, or began to establish themselves as the leaders of new governments.

It is now the year 1000 A.E. The first Antediluvian Millennium is coming to a close, and a spirit of cautious celebration has settled over Navis Solum, the singular remaining landmass rising defiantly from the churning blue, and it’s slowly recovering inhabitants.