Annales Riftarum: De Fracturis Mundi I–XI

The first eleven Rifts constitute the foundational chronology of Exilum Novum — a sequence of cosmic fractures through which entire nations, biomes, and civilisations were bound to our world long before the Imperium Novum ever existed. Though each event differs in consequence and character, together they reveal a pattern of celestial regularity unmatched by any natural phenomenon. Occurring at intervals of roughly two centuries, each Rift reshapes geography, redirects the course of peoples, and resets the arcane equilibrium of the world.

Pre-Imperial Rifts survive only through fractured elven memory, dour dwarven rune-records, and the myth-echoes of cultures long extinguished. Yet Imperial scholars, equipped with the exactitudes of cartography, astronomy, and arcane measurement, have reconstructed these events into a coherent doctrine. Their findings confirm what foreign traditions hinted at: the Rift is not chaos, but law — a cosmological mechanism whose precision rivals any Roman calendar.

With the arrival of the Imperium through Rift VIII, the study of earlier fractures became a matter of both scholarship and statecraft. Understanding past Rifts meant preparing for future ones, forecasting the tides of magic, and anticipating the upheavals that follow every translocation. From the Bronze Ruins of Rift IV to the towering artefacts of Rift VI, from the martial rise of the Warborn after Rift III to the seaborne traders of Rift XI, each fracture marked the beginning of a new epoch in the world’s slow, inexorable convergence.

The eleven Rifts preceding the current Age of Fractures thus form the backbone of global history. Their consequences — ecological, political, theological, and arcane — are still felt in every corner of the known world. These Annals record what is known, what is theorised, and what remains shrouded in silence, as the empire turns once more toward the uncertain horizon opened by Rift XII.

Rift I — The Dawn of Mana (−1400 BR)

Rift I stands as the earliest cosmic fracture for which coherent record survives, though no mortal civilisation of the time possessed written language capable of capturing the event. All knowledge of this primordial Rift descends through elven oral tradition, fragmentary myth, and the later comparative analyses of Imperial scholars. According to the Elder Courts, the world before the first fracture was a dim and muted realm, scarce in arcane potential and governed by silent natural laws. With the appearance of the Rift — described by elven seers as a “crack that sang with light” — mana flooded into the world like a rising tide, awakening dormant forces and reshaping the essence of life itself.

Through this breach arrived the Elder Courts, bearers of ancient magic and custodians of a luminous forest-realm now interwoven with our own. Their coming marked not merely the transplantation of a people, but the seeding of an entirely new magical order. Trees grew taller, storms carried sparks of aether, rivers glimmered faintly in moonlight, and certain beasts displayed abilities previously unknown. Even the land itself altered its hum; mountains resonated at new pitches, and ley-lines — invisible before — began to pulse beneath the soil.

Later Imperial analyses confirm that mana levels across the globe rose sharply in the centuries following Rift I, stabilising into patterns still measurable today. The Elder Courts described this as “the first breath of the world-soul,” though the Imperium prefers the more pragmatic term Primordial Arcane Infusion. Regardless of interpretation, all agree that Rift I transformed Exilum Novum from a quiet, low-magic sphere into fertile ground for all arcane phenomena that followed.

Though most physical evidence of the pre-Rift world has been overwritten by later upheavals, Rift I endures in legend as the moment the world awakened. It marked the beginning of magic, the dawn of ancient races, and the first turning of the great cosmic cycle that would, millennia later, deliver Rome itself into this stitched-together realm.

Rift II — The Mountains Awaken (−1200 BR)

Rift II is remembered as the fracture that reshaped the very bones of the world. Whereas Rift I altered the flow of magic, Rift II altered geography itself with a violence so precise it seemed almost deliberate. When the second great tear opened, entire mountain ranges materialised where none had stood before. Valleys were raised into jagged peaks, fault lines snapped into new alignments, and ancient rivers were forced to carve fresh paths through their abruptly transformed landscapes. The event is considered the earliest example of a megastructural translocation, a phenomenon in which the Rift replaces not only surface terrain but deep geological strata.

Through this fracture arrived the Dwarrow Clans, borne into Exilum Novum atop the very stone they called home. Their citadels, anchoring chambers, and rune-carved halls emerged fully intact, embedded within the newly formed mountains as though the world had always intended them to exist there. To the Dwarrow, this was no accident but destiny: they spoke of the World-Anvil, a mythical forge at the heart of creation, and claimed the Rift was but a crack revealing the work of divine smiths. Their runes recorded not terror, but reverence.

Imperial scholars, reconstructing the event millennia later, note that Rift II is the earliest fracture for which extensive archaeological remains survive. The geomantic shockwaves imprinted measurable distortions into bedrock, allowing modern Arcanii to date certain strata with surprising accuracy. The sudden appearance of high mountain walls also rerouted migration patterns, isolated ecosystems, and created the first natural barriers that later civilisations would come to treat as borders.

Culturally, Rift II established the second major pillar of sentient civilisation in Exilum Novum. The Dwarrow brought metallurgy, forge-lore, and the earliest forms of structured engineering. Their mastery of stonework and runic craft would eventually influence every power that arose after them — including the Imperium itself, whose engineers still study Dwarrow principles when designing fortifications, aqueducts, and monumental architecture.

Rift II thus represents the world’s first great act of reshaping — a fracture not of mana, but of matter — and marks the beginning of the long and intricate relationship between dwarven craft and the land they now call home.

Rift III — The Warborn Emerge (−1000 BR)

Rift III is remembered as the first fracture to bring large-scale conflict into the world. Whereas the Elder Courts and Dwarrow arrived with their realms largely intact and their societies cohesive, the third great translocation tore into Exilum Novum with a raw, furious energy that reshaped the political fate of the western continents for centuries. The tear opened amidst thunderous aetheric turbulence, and when the light collapsed, a vast expanse of harsh, wind-scoured highlands lay where fertile plains once stretched. From this rugged terrain came the Orcs, the progenitors of the Warborn peoples.

Elven memory describes their arrival as “a storm given flesh.” Bands of orcs surged across the new borderlands, driven by a culture shaped by scarcity, clan-loyalty, and ritual combat. They were not unified; rather, they were a constellation of rival clans competing for dominance in a world suddenly richer in resources than their homeland had ever been. In their wake followed the earliest forms of the war-rituals, bone totems, and storm chants that would one day define the Western Tribal Empire.

The First Wars began almost immediately. The orcs clashed with dwarven frontier holds, raided elven border groves, and asserted territorial claims with uncompromising ferocity. Their martial traditions, honed in a realm of constant hardship, overwhelmed early defences and reshaped the geopolitical balance of the west. Imperial scholars note that Rift III marks the first instance of a civilisation arriving already predisposed to expansion, conflict, and territorial assertion — a pattern that would echo in later centuries with the Brass Cities and, to a lesser extent, the Jotun.

Arcane signatures recovered from Rift III differ markedly from earlier fractures. The region shows irregular ley-line disruptions and residual storm-aether consistent with chaotic atmospheric conditions. Some Arcanii argue that the orcs’ tempestuous temperament reflects the nature of their arrival: a world wrenched into place through a more violent arcane oscillation than usual. Others suggest that the orcs themselves were the stabilising force — their collective will anchoring the foreign land long enough for it to fuse with Exilum Novum.

Whatever the nature of the fracture, one truth remains clear: Rift III irrevocably transformed the political destiny of the western lands. It birthed a martial culture whose legacy still shapes the faultlines of the modern world, and whose rivalries, alliances, and vendettas continue to echo across centuries of Imperial history.

Rift IV — The Bronze Ruins (−800 BR)

Rift IV is among the most enigmatic of all recorded fractures, for it delivered a civilisation that seemed to vanish at the very moment it arrived. When the fourth tear opened, it deposited an expanse of rolling hills, fortified citadels, terraced fields, and intricate roadworks — all unmistakably the work of a highly developed Bronze-Age culture. Yet not a single living inhabitant remained. Homes were left orderly, tools laid aside mid-task, granaries full, hearths cold but clean. It was as though the people had stepped away only moments before the Rift collapsed behind them, leaving an entire nation frozen in abandonment.

The architecture of the Bronze Ruins fascinates archaeologists even now. Their walls employ no mortar yet stand with uncanny precision; their metallurgical relics contain alloys unknown in any other civilisation; and the vast ceremonial plazas appear aligned to celestial patterns that do not match Exilum Novum’s current sky. The Bronze Script, a proto-logographic writing system found engraved on stelae and temple walls, remains only partially deciphered. What little has been translated speaks of an approaching “Sky-Door” and a “Cycle of Unmaking,” though scholars debate whether this refers to their Rift, another threat, or a religious metaphor.

Despite extensive investigation by the Elder Courts, the Dwarrow, and later the Imperium, no bodies have ever been recovered from the Bronze civilisation’s lands. No signs of violent death, plague, or natural disaster are present. Tools are placed as if paused mid-work, and pottery left cooling on kilns suggests a sudden and total disappearance. Some Arcanii propose that the population was seized by a Ghost Rift — a theorised, incomplete translocation that steals inhabitants but leaves their structures behind. Others argue for a metaphysical failure during Rift alignment, in which the living could not survive the transference. None of these theories have achieved consensus.

The discovery of the Ruins profoundly affected later civilisations, serving as the first cautionary tale of the Rift’s impartial and unpredictable nature. Unlike the harmonious arrival of the Elder Courts or the sturdy emergence of the Dwarrow, Rift IV offered no people to greet, no culture to negotiate with, no alliances or conflicts — only silence. This emptiness became a natural refuge for early tribes, a battleground during later migrations, and eventually a key site for Imperial study, leading to the establishment of the Collegium Ruinarum, the Senate’s dedicated institute for pre-Imperial archaeological research.

Rift IV stands apart in the history of the world-fractures. It is the only Rift whose people did not survive their passage, or perhaps were never meant to arrive at all. Its lands remain a testament to a civilisation lost at the threshold of worlds, leaving behind questions that may never find answers.

Rift V — The Goblin Warrens (−600 BR)

Rift V is remembered not for dramatic surface upheaval, but for the sudden appearance of an immense and disquieting subterranean world. When the fracture stabilised, the landscape above changed only modestly — a scattering of barren hills and shallow ravines. Beneath it, however, lay a labyrinthine expanse of tunnels, chambers, and spiralling burrows: the Goblin Warrens, a vast underground realm whose origins remain a subject of enduring debate among scholars.

From this network emerged the Goblins, a people wholly distinct from the orcs of Rift III in appearance, temperament, and culture. Where the orcs arrived with stormlike ferocity, the goblins appeared in furtive clusters, cautious of open sky and instinctively drawn toward the twisting architecture of their subterranean domain. Their earliest interactions with surface peoples were marked by curiosity, scavenging, and opportunism rather than outright aggression.

The Warrens themselves are among the most remarkable features ever recorded in a Rift event. They seem too extensive, too intricate, and too structurally sophisticated to have been carved in the moment of arrival, yet their geometry does not always align with natural geological logic. Some chambers are impossibly vast, while others twist back upon themselves in endless loops. The resin-like material reinforcing many of the passages is unlike any known local substance and resists both decay and conventional tools.

Cultural remnants found deep within the Warrens — clay plaques, etched figures, crude star-maps — suggest a people shaped by darkness, scarcity, and predation. The goblins organised themselves into shifting alliances known as clan-knots, practical rather than hereditary structures that formed and dissolved according to immediate need. Their art often depicts tangled patterns, distorted constellations, and the shadowy, long-limbed creatures scholars believe hunted them in their native world.

Thus Rift V introduced a civilisation defined not by open conquest or monumental architecture, but by the hidden depth of its presence. The goblins reshaped the world vertically, carving a secret continent beneath the soil, and leaving a legacy that continues to echo in every cavern, crevice, and shadowed pass beneath the lands of Exilum Novum.

Rift VI — The Tall-Walker Enigma (−400 BR)

Rift VI is perhaps the most baffling of all pre-Imperial fractures, for it brought into Exilum Novum a civilisation both monumental in its traces and utterly absent in its people. When the Rift stabilised, the land it delivered was an expanse of pale, windswept plateaus dotted with colossal stoneworks whose scale defied comprehension. Towering pillars, cyclopean causeways, and broken colonnades stretched across the region like the vertebrae of some long-dead titan. These structures were clearly fashioned with intent, yet no living beings — nor even remains — were found within them. All that could be inferred of their makers came from the artefacts and proportions of the ruined architecture itself.

Archaeologists named the vanished architects the Tall-Walkers, a term born from the extraordinary height suggested by their surviving relics. Doorways soared three times the height of a man; staircases climbed in vast, shallow steps as though meant for strides far longer than human legs could take; and tools and ceremonial items discovered within these structures seemed proportioned for beings of imposing stature. Yet, unlike the later Jotun of Rift X, the Tall-Walkers appear to have possessed a refined, almost ascetic aesthetic — angular, geometric, and imbued with subtle arcane harmonics detectable only through sensitive instruments of the Collegium Arcanii.

The arcane signatures within the region remain unlike any recorded elsewhere. Subtle resonant tones hum through the stone at specific times of year, as though reacting to celestial cycles no longer present in this world. Some scholars argue that these harmonics indicate an architectural language designed to manipulate aether itself, perhaps for ritual, communication, or even planetary-scale engineering. Others contend that the Tall-Walkers may have lived in a state partially out of phase with the world, their absence explained not by death, but by incompatibility with local magical frequency — a theory that remains controversial even among the Arcanii.

Despite centuries of study, no script, murals, or depictions of the Tall-Walkers have been found, leaving their appearance, culture, and intentions shrouded in speculation. What is known is that their world arrived already ancient, already crumbling, and already silent. Whether they perished before the Rift, vanished during the translocation, or departed through means unknown remains a matter of debate. Rift VI thus stands as a monument to uncertainty: a civilisation implied but unproven, vast yet voiceless, whose surviving works challenge every assumption about the limits of pre-Imperial culture.

In the long view of history, the Tall-Walker Enigma serves as a humbling reminder that not all Rifts bring answers. Some bring questions so immense they stand for millennia, carved in stone against the horizon, daring mortals to interpret them.

Rift VII — The Coming of the Horse-Lords (−200 BR)

Rift VII delivered a civilisation unlike any that had come before: a people who asked nothing of their neighbours, offered nothing in return, and required only sky and grass to sustain their world. When the fracture stabilised, an immense sweep of silver-green steppes unfurled across the land, replacing scattered scrub-country with an ocean of wind-tossed grasses. Herds of fleet-footed beasts thundered across this new horizon, perfectly at home in terrain that had not existed a moment earlier. And among them emerged the Centaurs — the Horse-Lords — a people bound to the rhythm of the earth and the arc of the heavens.

From the moment of their arrival, the Centaurs existed in a state of deliberate and complete separation from the wider world. Unlike the Elder Courts, the Dwarrow, or the Warborn before them, they made no effort to explore beyond the limits of their new steppes. They did not seek trade, conflict, or diplomacy. They acknowledged neither borders nor the societies beyond them, for they required none. The land the Rift delivered to them was vast, fertile, and spiritually resonant, and in it they found everything necessary for life, purpose, and continuity.

To the few who observed them from afar — often by accident and usually only briefly — the Centaurs appeared as a civilisation turned wholly inward. They roamed according to patterns inscribed in the stars rather than the terrain, following constellations whose meanings were known only to their shamans and sky-readers. Their camp-rings rose and vanished in cyclical harmony with astral positions, and their great herds moved in arcs that paid no heed to the presence of foreign peoples at the edges of the plains. Any outsider who wandered too close was watched, sometimes warned, but rarely engaged; the Centaurs simply did not consider other civilisations part of the order of the world.

Arcane scholars who later studied the region noted faint metaphysical peculiarities. The grasses brushed together in soft, whispering waves under moonlight, as if touched by unseen tides. The air on the steppes retained measurable harmonic frequencies that hinted at ritual resonance, though no Centaur rites were ever witnessed firsthand. These anomalies seemed woven into the land itself, reinforcing the sense that the Centaurs’ world had arrived intact — complete unto itself, self-contained, and spiritually whole.

Rift VII thus stands apart as the only major arrival in which a civilisation entered Exilum Novum and remained entirely unto itself. The Centaurs neither shaped nor were shaped by the wider history of the age before Rome. They lived beneath the open sky, answering only to the stars, and asking nothing from any kingdom, clan, or court beyond their endless horizon.

Rift VIII — The Nova Rift (0 NE)

Rift VIII stands as the most transformative fracture in the recorded history of Exilum Novum, for it marked the arrival not merely of another people, but of a civilisation already steeped in law, industry, military doctrine, and imperial ambition. When the tear opened at the turning of the age, it deposited into the world an entire Roman provincial territory: farmland, villages, townships, aqueducts, watchtowers, and — most critically — a full legion and its supporting infrastructure. With it came the governing apparatus of a provincial capital, later known as Novaium, which would become the beating heart of the Imperium Novum.

Unlike earlier arrivals, the Romans did not emerge as wanderers or refugees. They arrived as an ordered state — surprised, destabilised, but unmistakably cohesive. Their soldiers rallied first, forming defensive perimeters and assessing the strategic viability of their new surroundings. Their engineers and surveyors followed, mapping the strange lands and verifying that familiar celestial patterns had been replaced by an entirely new sky. Their civic leaders quickly realised that the Rift was not a temporary displacement but a permanent resettlement. In response, they enacted the earliest measures that would evolve into Imperial Integration Doctrine, laying the foundations of governance in an alien world.

Early encounters between the Romans and the older civilisations of Exilum Novum were marked by caution and mutual calculation. The Dwarrow perceived in them a disciplined people with an affinity for stone and metallurgy; the Elder Courts regarded them with wary curiosity, noting their lack of arcane tradition paired with an unexpected adaptability to its presence. The orcish clans, for their part, saw a new territorial force to test — a decision that would eventually plunge the region into the series of conflicts later known as the First Frontier Wars.

The arcane environment of the Nova Rift was unusually stable compared to earlier fractures. The land arrived with almost no metaphysical anomalies, and the arcane bloom that always follows a Rift manifested in a predictable, even beneficial pattern. Roman scholars were quick to exploit these new energies, laying the groundwork for the Collegium Arcanii, the institutional bridge between Roman rationalism and the arcane realities of their adopted world. Over time, Rome’s fusion of military structure, civic engineering, and arcane governance produced innovations unmatched by any earlier civilisation.

Rift VIII is thus recognised as the defining hinge of world history — the moment Exilum Novum became home to an empire capable of recording, analysing, and ultimately shaping the very phenomenon that brought it forth. The Nova Era (NE), counted from the year of the Roman arrival, marks the beginning of a new chronology in which the Imperium Novum stands not as a surviving remnant of another world, but as a dominant force within this one.

Rift IX — The Brass Cities Ascend (200 NE)

(Revised — negotiations ongoing, no pact)

Rift IX brought into Exilum Novum a civilisation as disciplined as the Imperium, yet wholly alien in its aesthetics, theology, and understanding of power. When the fracture ignited at the dawn of the bicentennial year, witnesses described a flare of sunlight brighter than the rising day — a golden radiance that stained the sky long after the tear sealed itself. In its wake stood a cluster of fortified settlements of immaculate precision: citadels of brass-clad stone, angular towers, and streets arranged in geometric alignments so exact that Imperial surveyors struggled to comprehend their purpose.

These were the Brass Cities, a civilisation whose architecture was not merely symbolic but functional, built upon solar harmonics and astral geometry. Their structures channelled light, heat, and arcane resonance through deliberate angles and calibrated sightlines. Even the layout of their plazas seemed attuned to celestial cycles. It was immediately apparent that this was a people who considered mathematics and cosmology not academic pursuits, but the governing principles of society itself.

The inhabitants who emerged from these gleaming strongholds carried themselves with ritualised discipline. Their armour reflected the sun in blinding arcs, their speech fell in clipped cadence, and their ceremonies revolved around the observation of solar thresholds. Their craftsmanship rivalled the Dwarrow in refinement, yet bore none of the latter’s organic intimacy with stone; it was instead metallic, severe, and exacting — a vision of order imposed upon the material world.

Initial contact with the Imperium was measured, tense, and highly formal. Both sides recognised in the other a structured, expansion-capable polity with little tolerance for unpredictability. Negotiations began almost immediately, though neither civilisation displayed urgency in pursuing alliance or conflict. The Brass Cities sent scholars and envoys rather than armies, and the Imperium responded with carefully selected senatorial observers and Arcanii adepts. Each side tested the other, probing for motive, capacity, and ideological compatibility.

To this day, the relationship remains in a state of controlled uncertainty. Both powers exchange limited diplomatic courtesies, but no treaty, pact, or formal alliance has been established. Where the Imperium seeks structured integration, the Brass Cities appear content to observe, calculate, and wait — operating on timescales and priorities still opaque to Roman understanding.

Rift IX thus introduced not a rival empire, but a parallel civilisation — one whose command of arcane geometry and solar resonance challenges even the most advanced work of the Collegium Arcanii. Their presence reminds the Imperium that not all arrivals are chaotic or primitive; some are deliberate, disciplined, and equal in their claim to power beneath the sun.

Rift X — The Glacial Rift (400 NE)

Rift X tore open under a sky already thick with winter stormclouds, as though the world itself anticipated the cold that was about to enter it. When the fracture sealed, the lands it delivered were stark, austere, and forbiddingly beautiful: fjords of dark stone, valleys choked with ancient ice, and forests of conifers twisted by perpetual frost. Glaciers carved pale scars across the newly arrived mountains, and frigid winds howled through the passes with voices that seemed to echo from another age. It was the most dramatic climate shift since the mountainous upheaval of Rift II.

From this frozen realm came the Jotun, a people of imposing stature whose presence reshaped the political and cultural imagination of the north. Towering far above humans, dwarves, or orcs, the Jotun possessed a rugged physicality matched only by their endurance. They lived in great timber-and-stone halls, decorated with runes whose meanings remain imperfectly understood, and followed traditions forged in hardship and deep communal bonds. Although their size inspired fear, accounts from early witnesses describe them as measured and honour-bound, guided by chieftains whose authority rested on strength, wisdom, and ancient law.

Their arrival transformed the northern oceanic routes almost overnight. The fjords and coastal shelves created by the Glacial Rift opened new fisheries, altered currents, and birthed natural harbours that would later become contested maritime chokepoints. The Jotun themselves proved formidable seafarers. Their longships — built with overlapping planks, reinforced ribs, and runic stabilisers — could cut through winter seas that crippled Imperial vessels. This gave them unmatched mobility and allowed their influence to extend far beyond their frigid homeland.

Cultural interactions in the decades that followed were complex. The Jotun raided at times, traded at others, and frequently tested the fortifications of neighbouring frontier powers in ritualised displays of strength rather than campaigns of conquest. Their oral traditions spoke of worlds forged in ice, of cosmic predators slain across frozen skies, and of omens carried on the aurora — ideas that challenged Imperial scholars unused to mythologies so entwined with climate and battle. The Dwarrow, whose own mountains bordered the glacial lands, maintained a wary respect for the Jotun, recognising in them a shared reverence for stone and endurance.

Arcane investigations revealed anomalies unique to Rift X. The air retained residual aetheric chill for decades, amplifying frost-related magics and suppressing fire-aspected spells. Some regions within the Rift Zone generated low, harmonic vibrations when struck by wind, creating natural “singing ice” that fascinated the Collegium Arcanii. These features, though not dangerous, reinforced the impression that the Glacial Rift had imported not only land and people, but an entire climatic identity.

Rift X endures in history as the arrival of a realm shaped by cold, hardship, and mythic grandeur. The Jotun, with their vast halls and thunderous longships, brought to Exilum Novum a culture equal parts austere and heroic — a northern force whose presence would define maritime politics and frontier lore for centuries.

Rift XI — The Oceanic Rift (600 NE)

Rift XI was unlike any fracture recorded before it. When the tear opened above the southern horizon, the world did not receive rolling plains, mountains, or forests. Instead, half of the Rift’s translocated mass was ocean — deep, shifting, and alive with currents foreign to local waters. Imperial observers documented an event more akin to the pouring of a second sea into the first: waves reared upward, the coastline convulsed, and distant tides surged in patterns the Collegium Arcanii would spend decades attempting to model. Where land did appear, it came in the form of coral atolls, black-sand beaches, volcanic islets, and sweeping archipelagos. The world had not gained a territory; it had gained a maritime frontier.

From these waters arrived the Halflings — a seafaring people whose entire civilisation had grown upon and within the tides. Their vessels emerged like schools of silver fish from the misted horizon, slender outriggers and broad-bellied trade ships alike. To the surprise of Imperial scouts, the Halflings displayed no fear, only cheerful curiosity. They navigated the chaotic post-Rift currents with astonishing ease, adapting instantly to seas that confounded even experienced Roman pilots.

Halfling society proved as fluid and resilient as the waters that brought them. Their homes scattered across atolls and island-chains; their lore spoke of storms that carried omens, stars that dictated routes, and sea-spirits that guarded travelers. They possessed no interest in conquest, nor any appetite for conflict; instead, they carried a deeply ingrained tradition of maritime diplomacy, approaching foreign shores with gifts, trade goods, and stories. The sudden presence of their oceanic world reshaped regional commerce, connecting distant lands in ways land-bound cultures had never imagined.

The ecological consequences of Rift XI were profound. Imperial naturalists recorded entirely new marine species entering local waters, from iridescent reef-creatures to predatory leviathans that required immediate naval attention. Coral structures grew where none had existed before, altering currents and creating hazardous shoals. The merging of two unrelated oceanic ecosystems forced rapid adaptation among native fish populations and fundamentally changed the geography of naval logistics.

Arcane disturbances added further complexity. The Oceanic Rift produced lingering anomalies in salinity, pressure, and aether flow. Certain regions displayed reverse currents detectable only by trained navigators; others generated low pulses of dream-aspected magic, later incorporated into Halfling ritual arts. The Collegium Arcanii concluded that Rift XI had not simply deposited water, but had transferred portions of the metaphysical identity of the foreign sea itself.

The Halflings’ arrival proved one of the most gently transformative in the history of the Rifts. Their good humour, adaptability, and unparalleled seamanship quickly made them indispensable intermediaries in trade and communication. Fleets expanded, new routes opened, and distant societies grew closer in a world newly bound together by water.

Rift XI thus stands as the arrival that reshaped the map, not by adding land, but by redrawing the oceans — and in doing so, establishing a culture whose influence washes upon every shore of the modern era.