Just as in our own world, the end of the Bronze Age came amid chaos.

The first act took place in the west, where the Targut Horde of the skatoi sought to move south into warmer and more fertile lands. At first they tried to invade the fringes of Zari territory, near the Standing Stones. An alliance of Zari villagers, Maras charioteers from the south, and the Elder Folk turned back this invasion at the famous Battle of the Plain. This turned the Targut aside, forcing them to stick to the eastern side of the Black River.

About a generation later, a civil war among the far-northern Akyat Horde caused about two-thirds of that people to move southward, pushing aside the Marut Horde. The Marut responded by allying themselves with the Targut, mounting a great war-migration into the Maras lands north and east of the Great Lakes. The Rudanai tribes who dwelt there soon found that they no longer had a military advantage over the skatoi, who had tamed horses and built war-chariots of their own.

While this was going on, the Korsanari of the south fell into a trap of their own. Using divine blessings and the power of a mighty Smith-folk-forged sword, one of the palace-lords unified most of the Korsanari for the first time in history. Unfortunately, his arrogance led to a war against the very Smith-folk who had aided him in his youth. This led to his downfall under a curse, and the collapse of his High Kingdom. After his death, his vassals turned against one another, fighting over the scraps until there was little left. His sword vanished from history, only to fall into the hands of Krava the Swift centuries later.

Like the fall of a cascade of dominoes, the migrations continued southward. Attracted by the chaos in Korsanari lands, the Rudanai moved southward, sacking palace after palace as they went. Some of them surged out across the narrows of the sea, capturing islands and carving big chunks out of the Nesali Empire. After a generation of this, the Nesali themselves collapsed, setting off a further wave of migration that rushed into Kurani lands.

The Second Empire of Shuppar had managed to hang on until this point, although much of its old territory had already fallen away by the time the wave of Rudanai and Nesali migrants arrived. Now the empire collapsed entirely, although the city of Shuppar itself survived the wave of destruction. The only beneficiary of this chaos was the kingdom of Anshan, which broke violently away from Shuppar early in the chaos, and managed to hold the Maras migrations at bay. Driven by their blood-thirsty god and a massive sense of racial superiority, the Anshani suddenly saw their own chance for empire . . .