Collapse

Exact details are hard to come by but a number of things can be said for sure about this event.

The Magus (dwarven arch-wizards) of ancient Baltur developed magic the kind of which has never been seen since. They named it Shathûr Magic and though it was hard to control and could be fatal to the wielder, it allowed for feats that other magic could never equal.

Still not satisfied with all they could do, they now desired the power of the gods themselves. Many decades of research culminated in a massive ritual that was to unlock the powers of the universe and bring the Magus dominance over existence.

We will likely never know what happened, if this power even existed, or if anything could control it. But something did happen, witnesses at the time described it as the sky falling down. The capital city of Banad Gathol, where the ritual took place, exploded outwards in a wave of destructive magic that did not stop for hundreds of miles and obliterated everything in its way.

But the destruction on the ground was nothing compared to that of the home of the gods. According to priests at the time of the event, all gods' divine essence was snuffed out in an instant and the gods were no longer. The same was true for magic; it either left the world entirely, or at the very least stopped functioning.

Ever since, sages have been speculating as to why, but the fact is that magic started working again almost immediately but not after causing a lot of horrible accidents all over the world. Shathûr Magic no longer worked and though many have tried over the ages, it has never worked again. Certain permanent spells and artifacts created by Shathûr Magic reportedly still work, though always erratically.

Divine energy took longer to coalesce again, but over time new gods introduced themselves to the world. Not as many as there had been before, and the new ones were quite different, with other spheres of interest.

Over time the survivors started to rebuild what was left of their country. With many leaving and so much damage to the remaining cities, not to mention the scorched earth, it took a lot to come even close to the nation it had been before. The center of the explosion is now the Haklur Desert, a vast emptiness and around it we now find the nation of the Godfall, a shade of Baltur's former glory.

See A short-ish history of the world from the Collapse till now for a greater historical perspective.