The Swelling

Geological / environmental event

Magic made manifest exploded across the land. Couple that with a population boom, and you get the Swelling.

If the rising of Navarog left scars on the world, his destruction rent the weave of magic. While Valencourt was considered the hub of magic on Melia, Imaruth blew them out of the water. A sudden rush of magic flooded the Archipelago, poking through reality and manifesting as physical outcroppings of crystal that was blood red and glowed with an almost black light. As soon as word got out that the crystals had power (discovered by the native nomadic tribes and spread from traveling merchants), people flocked to newly-named "Cimmeria" harvested the crystal for its power enhancing ability. With it they terraformed the land, established dictatorships, constructed massive architectural feats, and divided the land among themselves. Indeed, an entire country was carved out of an island that used to be attached to Roijan. This surge of magic and the resulting boom has come to be known as the Swelling.