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were immediately disastrous. The plasmic magma upon which the
great land-mass floated immediately began to extrude itself into that
vast split and to force the now-separated continental plates apart.
When the waters of the southern ocean rushed into the resulting gap
and inundated the rising magma, a continuous violent explosion
ripped from one end of the vast fault to the other, forcing the plates
even farther apart and setting off a tremendous, rolling earthquake
which soon encompassed the entire globe.
*This is probably a geological impossibility' Volcanoes do erupt under the
oceans of this
world, and that does not produce thermonuclear detonations.
Entire mountain ranges
quite literally crumbled into rubble, and colossal tidal waves raced
across the oceans of the world, forever altering coastlines a half a
planet away. The Sea of the East grew daily wider as the elemental
violence at its floor rudely shouldered the two continental plates
farther and farther apart. The explosive separation of the continents
appears to have continued for decades until it gradually subsided
and the two great landmasses stabilized in more or less their present
location. The world which emerged from this catastrophe was almost
totally unlike the world which had previously existed.
During this vast upheaval, the Angaraks retreated northeasterly
before the steadily encroaching sea, and they ultimately sought the
safety of the higher ground of the Dalasian Mountains in West
Central Mallorea. Once the movement of the continental plates had
subsided, however, the Angaraks found that the unstable weather
generated by the newly-formed Sea of the East made the Dalasian
Mountains too inhospitable a place for permanent residence, and
they migrated north into the reaches of what is now called Ancient
Mallorea.
NOTE: When speaking of this era, some confusion is possible. Modern
Mallorea encompasses the entire continent, whereas Ancient Mallorea
was limited to the northwestern segment of the land mass and was
bordered on the south by Dalasia and on the east by Karanda. It is in
part the purpose of this study to trace the expansion of the Angaraks
which ultimately led to their domination of all of Mallorea.
During the troubled times which accompanied the migration, the
presence of Torak, Dragon God of Angarak, was scarcely felt.
Although he had previously dominated every facet of Angarak life,
the mutilation inflicted upon him by CTHRAG-YASKA (which men
in the west call the Orb of Aldur) caused hhnhim such unbearable
suffering that he was no longer able to function in his traditional
capacity as 'Kal', King and God. The Grolim priesthood,
demoralized by the sudden incapacity of Torak, was unable to fill the
vacuum, and the leadership of Angarak fell by default into the
hands of the military commanders. Thus it was that the emerging
nation of the Angarak people was administered from the military
headquarters at Mal Zeth. By the time that the Grolims recovered,
they discovered that the military had established de facto rule of all
of Angarak. Shaking off their shock-induced paralysis, the Grolims
set up an opposing center of power at Mal Yaska at the southern tip
of the Karandese Mountains. Had matters remained so, inevitably
there would have been a confrontation between the military and the