The Elegy of Emberfall

The Elegy of Emberfall marks the most devastating betrayal in the history of The Sun Realm—when Malekith, a mysterious magus whom "fled" the Second Continuum Crisis in Tolria, enacted a cataclysm that shattered the civilization of the Solir and forever scorched the lands of Itela. It was not merely the fall of a people, but the rapture between elemental realms, the corruption of divine power, and the silent genesis of accursed life beneath the shadow of the sun.

What began as a Solir expedition beneath the searing dunes of The Sands of Serrakhan ended in a maelstrom of fire and ash, as Malekith stole the light of the Sun and twisted it to his will. The day the sun was pulled on its gravitational axis, the day forests turned to flame, the day Avatar Lumina vanished into firelight—this was Emberfall.

Origins & Prelude

In the late Fourth Age, after the twilight of the Elven Epoch (Third Age), Alistair Emrys (aka Altair Emris), trusted advisor to Avatar Lumina, journeyed southward into the Sands of Serrakhan, seeking truth behind whispers of a primordial predator. His quarry was The Great Serpent, a Revenant Titan from the Second Age said to harbor an Infinity Shard and ancient hatred for the Solir, whose Paladins had begun to encroach upon its ancestral territory.

Near the ruined Serpent's Shrine, Alistair and his six companions were ambushed. The Paladins were devoured, one by one, and Alistair stood alone beneath the writhing shadow of the beast. But it was another shadow that fell across the sands—Malekith, resplendent in golden hair and sun-washed robes, arrived not as savior, but conspirator.

The Pact & the Betrayal

Malekith offered the serpent a grim accord: he would see the Solir cast down in exchange for Alistair’s life—and for the Ebony Amulet lodged in the creature’s molten-black heart, a hidden Infinity Shard shattered from The Continuum Crystal during the First Continuum Crisis. The beast, hungering for vengeance, accepted.

Drawing upon the amulet’s dark energies, Malekith shattered Alistair’s mind, unspooling his memories and reweaving them with commands. Alistair was forced to betray Lumina, revealing her most sacred secret: that she and Avatar Rok, the second Avatar of Earth, had borne a son—Talyen—whose very existence had been hidden to preserve the fragile accord between elemental realms.

Thus armed with leverage, Malekith ascended the Avatar’s Tower in Itela, as a storm raged over the eastern sea. There, he demanded the secrets of the Sunstone, threatening Talyen’s life. Lumina, radiant and desperate, relented (see: The Light of Lumina). But the true betrayal was still to come.

Malekith bound Lumina’s essence to his own, severing the sacred Avatar line and twisting her power into himself. With a wordless invocation and a flare of blackened sunlight, he pulled the sun toward the Prime Plane, igniting the skies in a blast known to history only as Emberfall.

Sundering the Sun Realm

The aftermath was indescribable and indiscriminate.

Three-quarters of the Sun Realm was incinerated in moments.
Verdant woodlands were reduced to the haunted Burned Woods, where the wails of wraiths echoed for centuries.
Southern peaks were scorched into The Barren Badlands
The Fields of the Frenzied Flame to the north erupted in volcanic geysers and flame-riven fissures.

Those Solir unlucky enough to survive the initial sunburst were divided by accursed fates of Malekith's own cruel machination:

Some were dragged into The Netherveil through The Umbral Gateway torn open by the cataclysm. These became the cursed Shade who would eventually found the City of Evernight.
Others, trapped near the southern frontiers of Malekith’s newly founded Serrakhan Sultanate, were irradiated by the sun, their bloodlines degenerating over generations into the Kroot, linen-wrapped desert scavengers cursed to wander forever under the sun that betrayed them.

And when his conquest was complete, Malekith turned once more to the Great Serpent—and betrayed it, slaying the ancient beast and tearing from its ribs the raw material to forge the Primarchs of the Sun, his divine enforcers in the Holy Order of the Sun that would dominate the Sultanate for centuries to come.

Legacy

Two alone were spared:

Alistair Emrys, memories shattered and identity fragmented, re-emerged under a false name: Altair Emris, a wandering scholar cursed by grief and guilt.
Talyen, memory-wiped and hidden from the world, would one day rise again—his lineage, his destiny, and his fire all stolen by Malekith’s ambition.

When Malekith attempted to extend his dominion into The Earth Realm, he was confronted by Avatar Rok and the Runewrights led by Talus. Their battle erupted upon what is now The Isle of Ember, where gravity twisted and floating shards of land hovered above a volcanic core. There, Malekith was sealed within the Tomb of the Twin-Spirit—but the damage had been done.

The Sundering of the Realms followed, splitting Earth and Sun across The Severed Sea and The Skybound Shardlands, fragmenting the once-unified Prime Plane. The balance of elements was lost. The Avatar line was broken. And a wound was cut into the very memory of the world.

The Elegy of Emberfall is still felt across the plane:

The Burned Woods remain a sundered, haunted graveyard.
The Evernight Shades trace their origin to the sun’s betrayal, yet they begin to forget their accursed genesis.
The Kroot live in suffering, broken tribes hunted indiscriminately by the Sultanate.
Talyen, heir to Lumina and Rok, still bears the consequences of a war he never knew he began.