<div class="top-nav"> <a href="/mydndgame/publish/pages/Home">Home</a> <a href="/mydndgame/publish/pages/Character Main Page">Characters</a> <a href="/mydndgame/publish/pages/Factions Index">Factions</a> <a href="/mydndgame/publish/pages/Locations Index">Locations</a> <a href="/mydndgame/publish/pages/World Lore">Lore</a> <a href="/mydndgame/publish/pages/Map">Map</a> </div> Many centuries ago, the wasteland that's now known as [[The Scorched Lands]] was not the wasteland it is today. It was created acciddentally by mages in [[Timaeus]]. A group of mages that belonged to [[Order of the Obelisk]] were attempting to control the power of the sun itself, to harness and use as a power source for their own spellcasting. They overestimated their abilities and the resulting catastrophe threatened to destroy the entire planet. To rectify their mistake, the mages created a pseudo-sun, a powerful magical artifact, known as [[The Shard of the Sun]], infusing it with the essence of a star. This required a tremendous amount of energy. They attempted to place it high above the surface of the surface of the continent. Unable to handle the enormous amount of energy produced by an actual star, it began to plummet back to earth. They were unable to halt the decent completely, but they were able to deflect it. The deflection sent the star into a skewed oblong orbit around the planet. The skewed orbit resulted in the pseudo-sun orbiting the planet, and threatening to crash into the earth once again. The orbit takes 57 years to come back around again. Every 57 years, when the shard returns, The [[Order of the Obelisk]] must gather together again and using massive amounts of energy stored in magical crystals, they essentially deflect the object once again, preventing the impact and sending it back into orbit. When the sun shard passes, reentering the atmosphere, it sheds magical energy known as **Sun Magic**. This event is known as **The Shedding**. During this time period, while the shard scorches the land along its path, the mages also are able to harvest some of the magical energy that is shed by the magical artifact. The next cycle is roughly a decade away, so there's no immediate threat. In fact, [[The Scorched Lands]] are currently in a period where the lands are starting to show regrowth of the plants in the area (although the effect is somewhat limited.)