The Great Grief
Event
The Great Grief was the single most destructive event in the world's history, destroying most of the known world. It was also the violent end of the Second Era.
It happened after the Redstone Alliance between the three kingdoms had collapsed, resulting in Redstonia and Helmsdeep invading and succesfully conquering Kythira. After this event, the Helmsdeep forces marched into the Riverlands to raid the now defenseless city of Oldspawn.
However, the forces of Redstonia stabbed the Kingdom of Helmsdeep in the back by marching back to set fire to Helmsdeep, after which the Helmsdeep forces moved back into their city to turn off the fires, only to be blown apart by hidden caches of TNT placed by Redstonia.
In the end, the only place in the world not effected by the Great Grief was the Kingdom of Redstonia. But, being a service based economy, without nations to trade with it swiftly collapesed economically and over time was left abandoned.
Aftermath
At the dawn of the Third Era, the former King of Kythira, Coetzeeclan, retook his fallen Kingdom, and after restoration of the old Kingdom he began slowly unifying all former territories of the Second Era, eventually annexing the entire Continent of Westeria. The Continent of Easteria was given to Peppered, former ruler of Blackwater Base, a castle in the Riverlands that survived the Great Grief without any damage. Here, this Peppered soon setteled on the Isle of Dorwall, and eventually the Empire of Imperius grew from this.