The Flood of 684

Disaster / Destruction

Floods were never a stranger to Romnuchic, but after a little more than half a century after the world was created, a drought managed to lead to the worst flood in history.

Canlesiz were really starting to populate Romnuchic in the 600s, which was a problem when it came to providing all these people with water. The food situation was fine - most animals produced offspring fast enough to supply Canlesiz with all the food they needed. But water was in a limited supply. So, after a meeting with some of the most influential rulers on Romnuchic, they decided to tap into a previously unused resource - the ice caps in the mountains on the southern edge of Alpha.   These ice caps produced a steady stream of fresh water during the warmer months, but had been preserved by the original settlers of that area so that the ice caps wouldn't disappear completely - the water from this ice was very closely regulated, meaning it couldn't just all be melted and used as a source. So, the largest settlement near the ice caps, called Rownan Enfer, brought together a team of the best fire-wielders they could find and brought them up into the mountains, with permission from the settlements in the area.   The fire-wielders, instead of just melting the ice caps into water, heated them up so much that they evaporated, bringing the water vapor up into the atmosphere. The problem with that was in the way that the atmosphere in Romnuchic works - not only does it turn/clean evaporated water into fresh water and rain it back down onto the planet's surface, but it also stores extra water for each season, making it rain more in some seasons than others. Floods normally happen when something in the system breaks, causing too much water to be released.   However, in this case, way too much water was being introduced into the system, which the atmosphere couldn't handle very well. So, after a couple days, on the 18th day of the 3rd month, the rains began. They were so heavy that travel was almost impossible. Many houses were washed away or severely damaged in the rain, even if they weren't in heavy flooding areas. However, the hill and valley filled planet left many areas completely flooded, and in many places wearing away delicate sand that was keeping ocean water from flooding into valleys, expanding the ocean as a whole.   After nine days the flooding finally stopped, but the horrors weren't over. Thousands of people were killed when they were unable to evacuate their settlements. Many buildings were left to decay and turn to ruin under the new ocean. Settlers who made it to higher grounds were trapped on the hills that had turned into islands after the flood, and were unable to make their way back to the mainland because of the dangerous creatures that were now able to lurk in larger areas of the ocean, along with a lack of supplies to make a sufficient boat.   The flood was truly one of the greatest disasters Romnuchic had ever seen, changing inter-settlement relations and travel across the entire planet. It also led to reforms that prevented settlements from trying to fix problems quickly and without all the information they need.