A worldwide interruption in which machines, prophecies, long-distance magic and parts of written memory ceased to function.
Overview
The Silence was not absence of sound. Ordinary life continued, but systems that carried intention across distance stopped responding. Sending spells failed, prophetic dreams ended and complex engines waited without accepting commands.
Written records lost lines, names and sometimes entire subjects. People remembered that information had existed without remembering the information itself.
History
The event began everywhere within the same hour. The Pilgrim Engine knelt, the Singing Gates closed and Gizmagrad's lesser paradox machines became ordinary metal.
Eleven years later function returned unevenly. Some records restored themselves with altered details. Others remained blank. The Age of Reason grew from the effort to rebuild knowledge through repeatable observation rather than inherited authority.
The present record
No explanation commands consensus. Theological accounts blame divine withdrawal; artificers propose collapse of a shared magical medium; Orunai rain memories imply someone deliberately removed a word from the world.
That missing word has begun appearing in the dreams of children born near Deep Road entrances.
Notes and record
This article combines campaign record, spoken lore and the mythic account preserved in the Earin archive.