Anyone looking at a modern map of Einarth can still see places where the Age of Magic left wounds deep enough to become geography. The Shadow Steppes and the Black Prairie are among the largest. Both trace their beginnings to Kal’thalas.

In the early Age of Magic, Kal’thalas became the first center of magical study. What began as a place of learning eventually ended in conflict between differing schools of thought regarding the proper use of magic.

The surviving accounts differ on many of the details, but they agree on the scale of what followed. Magic was unleashed against magic. The battle ended with a backlash powerful enough to change the land around Kal’thalas itself.

The land closest to the city suffered the worst of it, while the effects diminished with distance. The surrounding plains were twisted into what later became known as the Shadow Steppes. The land was saturated with the effects of the catastrophe. Dark magic lingered. Spirits and fell creatures appeared where ordinary life had once existed.

But the damage did not stop there. It spread outward from Kal’thalas. The farther it traveled, the weaker the effects became, but weaker did not mean harmless.

Beyond the Shadow Steppes lay the Silvannor Fields, once broad grasslands crossed by herds, travelers, and settlements. The magical backlash reached them as well. The fields survived in a form, but they did not remain what they had been.

Water became scarce. The ground hardened and cracked. Vegetation struggled. Strange creatures and fiery elementals appeared in places where they had never been known before. Eventually, the Silvannor Fields disappeared from common use as a name and the region became known as the Black Prairie.

Together, the Shadow Steppes and the Black Prairie became a wide scar stretching out from the ruins of Kal’thalas. Roads shifted, trade routes were abandoned or lengthened. Settlements that had once been connected found themselves separated by dangerous country.

Travelers learned to go around when they could but some did not have that choice. When the Naga drove the Rith’yar from the Jungaran Peninsula, the exiles were forced northward through the Black Prairie and then the Shadow Steppes.

Crossing those regions was not a journey that could be completed quickly. Families stopped where they could. Children were born along the way. Those children grew old while the Rith’yar continued moving.

Their journey stretched across generations. For the Rith’yar, the Shadow Steppes and Black Prairie became more than dangerous places on a map. They became part of their cultural memory, places remembered in family histories long after those who first crossed them were gone.

The catastrophe at Kal’thalas had begun as a conflict between powerful magic users. Its consequences reached people who had nothing to do with the battle that destroyed the city.

The people of Einarth learned magic did not always end where it was cast, sometimes it remained. And generations later, people are still walking through the consequences.

Next week, we will look at the first magical practices mortals began to fear because they worked too well and crossed boundaries that were becoming harder to ignore.