The Great Darkness was a punishment sent by
Pelor
to bring down the legendary
Pelorean Empire when the people
turned away from his worship.
The sun dimmed, the sea froze and it was perpetual winter. Crops failed and
domestic animals were quickly slaughtered for food. In brief periods when
the sea-ice broke up some braved the cold seas to sail away south but many starved unable to escape. Then
vast herds of deer, musk ox and mammoths began to appear from the north and the
people rejoiced thinking they could at least hunt for food. With the
herds, however, came Giants who claimed the herds for their own. The Giants slew many humans they
caught stealing from their herds and then enslaved all those who were left.
The people cried out to Pelor to forgive them for their sins and children cried themselves
to sleep in hunger and misery but for a long time Pelor could only remember the evil that humans
had done and he turned his face from them.
None now know how long the Darkness lasted (some say for hundreds of years, some say for thousands) but at last
Pelor relented and the climate began to warm. Many Giants moved north of their own accord
and as the sun shone again Mankind rebelled against the Giants and drove them from human lands.
After the Darkness it is said that the first farms and the first human settlements appeared in southern
Reetland.