The Purge of Ayelette

The catastrophe known as The Purge stands as the turning point of Ayelettean history—an era in which the world nearly tore itself apart after centuries of exploitation, imbalance, and unchecked ambition.

For generations, countries such as Gokia, Lintiumia, the Huatlan Empire, and certain industrial circles within Ayeleen mined, siphoned, or manipulated the world’s elemental veins. The Bright Sea saw the construction of weather-redirecting devices; Laurum launched expeditions into the Endless Ocean using experimental aether engines; and Gokia carved too deeply into the planet’s crust for machinery far beyond safe limits.

While nations like Paxatan and Norum remained peaceful or isolationist, the superpowers expanded relentlessly. This global overreach drained not only the environment, but Ayelette’s life-force itself.

The Breaking of the Balance

Centuries of imbalance culminated in a single, apocalyptic night. The planet’s core—known as Ayelette’s Heart—splintered under the pressure of elemental abuse. Where the world was weakest, Tears erupted: rifts in reality where the planet’s suppressed fears, ancient memories, and shadow-born entities spilled through.

The first and largest ruptures appeared in:

The Hollow Meridian – a convergence of ley-lines beneath former Gokian territory
Ashenreach – a volcanic crucible between Huatlan and the Ironcrag belt
The Sunken Gorges of northern Norum
The Spire of Winds, near the Aerisfall Heights
Deepwater Chasm, off the coast of Laurum
The Frozen Maw, in Lintiumia’s glacial valleys

Secondary Tears bloomed across the Carnuba Sea, the Boundless Mountains of Svigia, and abandoned research stations in Gokia. From these fissures emerged the Shadows, creatures buried deep within the planet to maintain its equilibrium. They spilled into the world each night, retreating only when dawn forced the Tears to constrict.

The Wars of the Shattered World

Global panic ignited warfare. The Aurelian Dominion, Huatlan Empire, remnants of Gokia, and splinter factions in Ayeleen battled for dwindling resources.

Huatlan marched into Norum and Laurum seeking farmland, while Ayeleen’s zealots attempted to “purify” territory they believed had offended Ayelette. Fawna refuges in Paxatan sealed their borders. Svigia’s roaming tribes splintered as entire clans vanished into shadow-drenched valleys.

Cities fell rapidly:

Vaelost collapsed in two nights
The Opal Halls crystallized under elemental surges
Crownspire sank when its ley-lines folded inward
Huatla’s Passage became a refuge choke-point
Norum’s plains turned into echoing wastelands
Laurum’s harbors were swallowed by abyssal rifts

Even Ayeleen, though spared widespread destruction, saw many shrines and highland temples crack under chaotic elemental backlash.

The Dawnbreaker Trials

Amid the ruin, Pyrrhus Menethil—last of the Menethil bloodline—emerged as the world’s final hope. Guided by visions received beneath Ayelette’s Landing, he journeyed across the shattered nations: through the ruins of Crownspire, across the mist-shrouded Bright Sea, and into the remnants of Gokia’s reactors.

His pilgrimage ended in a sanctified basin where the elemental flows still whispered. This place, later known as the Dawnbreaker Sanctum, became the site of the Dawnbreaker Trials. There, he beseeched Ayelette for the means to restore balance.

From these rites emerged the Dawnbreaker Blade—a weapon of crystallized elemental harmony capable of sealing the Tears from within.

The Final Sacrifice

Each night the Shadows swelled. Tears widened. Entire regions threatened to collapse into the Shadow Realm. The greatest rupture—the Hollow Meridian—grew to miles across, its edges dripping with devouring darkness.

Pyrrhus Menethil led a united host: warriors of Menea, scholars of the Mantodean Academy, defectors from Drexa Academy, Fawna channelers from Tallberda, and nomadic survivors from Svigia.

At the Meridian’s edge, Pyrrhus entered the Tear, knowing he would never return. Within the Shadow Realm, he drove the Dawnbreaker Blade into the corrupted heart. The resulting burst of elemental resonance sealed the Tears across the world.

From Gokia’s ruin… Through the Carnuba depths… Across Lintiumia’s frozen corridors… Into Norum’s valleys… Over Svigia’s mountains… And along Laurum’s cliffs… Every Tear snapped shut.

Pyrrhus Menethil vanished with the collapsing rift. The Dawnbreaker Blade remains lost beyond the sealed realm.

Rebirth From Ashes

With the Tears sealed and the Shadows gone, the nations of Ayelette began to rebuild.

Ayeleen imposed strict magical and technological limits
Huatlan claimed reformation, though tensions remain
Paxatan cautiously reopened to outsiders
Norum survived but remains wary and isolated
Laurum scattered into small communities
Svigia became wild and fractured, prompting the founding of the Svigia Guard Post
Gokia and Lintiumia were utterly destroyed by elemental collapse
Menea, Palotia, and Ayelette’s Landing rose as new centers of diplomacy and restoration

The Mantodean Academy and Drexa Academy emerged as rival pillars of philosophy in the new era.

Though the world heals, its scars remain—blackened valleys, crystallized plains, dormant rift-lines, and the silent memory of the Meridian Tear.

The Dawnbreaker.
The Sealed Hero.
Pyrrhus Menethil—who stepped into the darkness so the world could see another dawn.