The Starborn Codex: Entry III

For a time, it seemed there was peace.

From afar — and from the safety of distance — the Realms appeared balanced.
Each Court tended its domain. Each Regent guarded their piece of the Starfallen.
Trade passed quietly between borders. Messengers crossed without fear.

Those who recorded from the margins — as we did — noted harmony not because it was loudly proclaimed, but because nothing yet strained against it.

And yet, even in those early years, differences began to surface.

Not in the Starfallen itself — at least, not in any way that could be agreed upon — but in how the Courts spoke of it.

Some Regents described their shard as a gift freely given.
Others, as a force that demanded intention.
A few spoke of patience rewarded… while others murmured that power answered only to those willing to seize it.

At first, these were idle distinctions. Philosophies, nothing more.
Different ways of understanding the same… light.

But philosophies harden when repeated.
And when power is involved, belief has weight.

The Courts began to measure one another — quietly at first.
Comparisons were drawn. Conclusions formed.
What one Court had, another might lack.
What one Regent wielded with ease, another struggled to command.

From such thoughts came expectation.
From expectation, unease.

And so, while the Realms appeared harmonious, the Archivists noted a subtle shift — not in borders, nor banners, nor treaties — but in language.

Words like fairness.
Words like entitlement.
Words like balance — spoken now with an edge.

Still, there was no war.
Only watching.
Only wondering.

From afar, it looked like peace.

Entry IV — Fragment (Unsealed)

It is difficult to say when the line was first crossed.

There was no single moment the Realms could point to and agree upon.
No trumpet. No declaration.

Only a quiet act, carried out with conviction.

A shard was reached for — not one’s own.

Whether this was done out of desperation, ambition, or belief that the Starfallen had been wrongly divided… the records do not agree.

What is agreed upon is this:

Once the first claim was made, the Realms could not unsee the possibility.

And from that moment, harmony became memory.

The Starborn Codex: Entry II

The Star That Broke the Sky

It did not fall quietly.

The oldest texts claim the heavens split with a sound like a thousand bells shattering at once, light tearing the dark from horizon to horizon. Some thought it the end of their world. Others knew better.

A single star cracked loose from the firmament and plunged toward the earth, burning a path through cloud and ether. When it struck, it did not bury itself. Rather… It burst.

We call it the Starfallen now, though it was never truly a single thing.

In its death, it made many.

Five fragments tore away from the impact, arcing outwards, each veined with a different breed of power. They streaked across land and sea like meteors that refused to go out, embedding themselves in five very different places:

• In the mountains that would one day blaze with Ember’s forges.

• In the high, wind-scoured peaks that would become Sky’s dominion.

• In ravines the night would not abandon, where Shadow would one day make its halls.

• In gardens and forests so lush they seemed to hum, where Bloom would weave abundance.

• In the deep places, beneath moonlit waves and shifting tides, where Pearl would claim the depths.

Around each fragment, the land itself changed.

Fire burned hotter and cleaner in Ember’s domain, gold and steel bending like silk beneath the hammers. In Sky’s reach, the air grew thinner, clearer; thought itself seemed to sharpen. Shadow’s shard bled night into stone, carving hollows where light hesitated, and secrets learned to breathe. Bloom’s fragment fed root and vine until the earth erupted in colour. Pearl’s piece sunk into seabed and shell, and the tides above shifted as though answering a call.

The power did not create the Courts.

The Courts formed because power always demands a shape to live in.

And so, over time, Regents rose around each fragment — chosen by blood, or brilliance, or simple audacity — to tend, guard, and wield what the Starfallen had left behind.

For a time, there was peace.

Or something that looked like it, from far enough away.

The Starborn Codex: Entry I

The Night the Star Fell, and the War That Followed

Archivists’ Note
The Regents do not agree on how this began.

Ask Ember, and they will swear it was destiny.
Ask Bloom, and they will call it tragedy.
Ask Sky, and you will receive a lecture on inevitability.
Pearl will lower their gaze and speak of tides and consequence.
Shadow will smile, and say nothing at all.

We, however, are not permitted the luxury of myth.

We are the Archivists of the Realms.
Our duty is simple, and impossible:

To record what truly was.
Even when the Courts prefer what is beautiful instead.

What follows is the closest thing to truth we can offer about the Starfallen, the war it brought, and the pact that binds every Regent to the Veil you now walk beneath.

Some names have been lost.
Others have been erased on purpose.

But the scars remain, and scars are a kind of record too.