The Age of Vog

The Age of Vog
Half the race of Man had perished during the Time of Vogs Fury, and the world was forever changed. Now, after the fiery explosions of the earths volcanoes had at last subsided, Man truly entered an era of nightmare, for something far worse than fire and destruction had now dawned, the Breath of Vog had covered the skies. The ash, smoke, and detritus had formed a gray ring around the earth, masking the glow of Oluu Sun-Disk, and plunging Man into a new dark age. Neither Oluus light nor warmth could reach the earth, and an apocalypse occurred. Beasts and Plants of the earth perished from the cold and lifeless air. Man struggled to survive and civilization halted. The Age of Vog was upon them. The Unending Winter of Discontent, the Epoch of Smoke and Ash, The Time of Gray Skies...the Age of Vog.

Under the Mantle of Vog
The skys were darkened, and the rains were bitter. The winter came early, and for a generation it seemed that it would never surrender it's hard clawed hold on the world. With the population decimated by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and the seemingly endless poisonous exhalations of the tremulous earth, it seemed that the Twilight of Man had come. Farms and cities were abandoned, rivers were unfished and the windmills creaked in the wind, no grain in their grist.

During this brutal time the white cloaks of the mountains surged in size, their icy jackets growing more daring as they slipped down past the old snow line crushing stone walls, forests and towns in their wake. Blizzards came and mixed with the blankets of ash that seemed to be everywhere. Almost all crops except the most hardy failed with the change in ecology.

Some remember this as the birth of the tribes, others call it the age of polished teeth. The silicates and grit deposited on the earth bonded themselves to the flesh of plants, grinding away the enamel of teeth, human and animal alike. In the first few years, eating an unwashed fruit could cause lacerated gums, internal bleeding and even death. Many livestock perished during this time, ending entire species of grazing mammals. It was also during this time that the Rain of Feathers was recorded, the massive near-extinction of almost every avian species.

The Tribes
Those hardy souls who persevered wore protective garments and filtered their air through cloth masks. They washed all of their food and followed the herds of elk, and caribou who managed to survive in areas of steady rainfall. Living on one place invited death from the slow accumulation of the deadly silicate spears that were all but too small to see.

These tribes would wander for generations, remembering the cold times, and the rain of feathers, and the bleeding gums, and the slow death of poisoned water and choking clouds. Eventually, the humans would rediscover the basics of farming, and building homes and society.

Voice of the Ocean
The world cooled, shrouded in Vog's Mantle. Rainfall began to decrease as less and less water was evaporating into the air, and cloud cover was lessened. But there was a balancing factor, the weight of the oceans, and the heat that was held in those waters. This heat rose from the ocean into the cooling atmosphere, in places creating banks of fog that lasted for weeks and even months as the heat was exchanged.

Nearly three generations gone the scales tipped back in favor of man as the atmosphere began to warm again. It would be nearly a millennium before the old climate would be reached, but the coldest of Vog's Winter had been reached and the world mounted a new rise in temperatures...a fraction of a degree a year.

Ice Age Facts
The last ice age was a 10 degree F decrease in global temperatures, which spawned the formation of massive glaciation, the expansion of the ice packs, and all of those furry cave men bashing saber toothed cats in the head. The Age of Vog would be a 7 to 8 degree drop that would be shorter than previous Terran Ice Ages, possibly only lasting 1000 years at the most before the restoration of the previous climate. 'Ice Age' conditions would likely be discarded in favor of cold-temperate conditions roughly 500-600 years through the millennium.