The Ninth Ruin is counted as the final occurrence of the Cycle of Ruin, and the only one that didn't peak on the longstanding 2,300-year rhythm.
Though the Old Empires had saved the continent from the Eighth Ruin by pushing the Great Old Ones into dormancy, the fall in 1410 BA of both Ervuol and Lanst left the peoples of Addar anxious about whether the old gods would reemerge. Fearing their return, the Aspirants of Lumen spent centuries seeking the favor and protection of powerful new gods, while nations across the continent embarked on a massive program of fortress-building. The revelation in 487 BA of the Alaxaran pantheon brought hope to Addarans, but no certainty about the future.
Long predicted to occur in 404 BA, the dreaded year of the Ninth Ruin came and went without incident.
Some speculated that the Talus Assembly had put the Great Old Ones to sleep forever, while others believed the old gods had quietly fled after the arrival of the new. In fact Xor'urr and its fellow deities had devised their own means of freeing themselves from the effects of the Cycle, much as the Talus had millennia earlier, and were secretly preparing for their emergence, with the illusion-weaving T'Zzanti shrouding their preparations from detection.
In 1 BA the newly amassed armies of the Great Old Ones, marshalled for the first time by monstrous lieutenants, erupted from their haunts in southern Addar and swiftly spread outward across the continent, while evil and undead beings in every corner of the lands emerged to wreak havoc. A human alliance led by King Anharos of Aevinn and supported by the Alaxaran pantheon fought back against the dark forces, ultimately defeating them in the Great Battle of Darkness and ending the Cycle forever.
