THE CATASTROPHE

(What truly happened in Coffin Canyon remains unknown — and perhaps unknowable.)

Nobody agrees on what caused the Catastrophe.

There is no shortage of explanations.

Some say a massive earthquake split the canyon floor, shattering the deep silver mines and rupturing long-sealed pockets of poisoned breath. The land cracked. The air turned lethal. The sky itself seemed to sour.

Others claim the fault was simpler, and more human. Greedy miners dug too deep, piercing a pressurized cavern filled with noxious vapors. Within hours, the canyon flooded with choking haze that rolled downhill, filling every shaft, ravine, and hollow place.

There are those who whisper a different story.

They speak of a woman accused of witchcraft, dragged into the street and burned alive. They say she was a witch, and that her death scream, smoke, and agony fused into a final, terrible working. That the Storm is her last breath, still crawling through the canyon, still refusing to fade.

Monsterology records offer another explanation.

According to sealed reports, the renowned warlock Anton Vloin attempted a Great Working beneath Coffin Canyon. His goal was not destruction, but access — to tear open a conduit to Monstru itself and siphon power directly from the source. Something went wrong.

Or perhaps something answered.

There are older rumors still.

They claim that Coffin Canyon was never empty. That beneath its stone lay ancient Tzul ruins, sealed against grave-robbers and worse. When looters breached the buried vaults and pyramid chambers, those seals broke. The curse awoke. The land exhaled what had been trapped since before Manlings learned to name fear.

What is known is this:

The air changed.

A choking presence rolled through Coffin Canyon, descending into every side-canyon, slot ravine, mine shaft, and buried passage. Wood blackened. Skin burned. Eyes clouded and failed.

Animals died first.

Then miners.

Then towns.

When the Storm withdrew, Coffin Canyon was no longer safe to inhabit.

And it never would be again.

The Storm still comes.

Sometimes slowly.

Sometimes without warning.

Whatever caused it, Coffin Canyon bears the mark.

And whatever was awakened did not leave.