The Rift:
A region laid waste by powerful spells in the last great "world" war, which ended in 1893 CR. The Rift is an enormous fissure torn in the earth in a place that once housed, among other things, the capital city of an aggressively expansionist nation-state and the bulk of that nation's manufacturing infrastructure. The spells that created the Rift brought an end to the war, the nation-state, and the lives of about 6 million people. (See the article on Yamato for more information on this war.) After that, international peace accords forever banned the use of the spells that created the Rift.The Rift itself is 3 miles wide, over 40 miles long and well over 10 miles deep (though its full depth has never been measured). Both the Rift and all land within twenty miles of it in any direction are saturated with residual magical energy. Most of this land was reduced to bare ground at the time the spells were cast, but in the last century the native flora and fauna have reclaimed the region, forming a lush forest that extends up to the very brink of the Rift itself. The creation of the Rift apparently opened up a mana spring, which aided in the regeneration of the local biota, but the residual energy from the spells seems to have "twisted" its effects, producing strange and outlandish plants and animals that are like nothing else in the world. The entire Rift area is a natural preserve under the jurisdiction of the Metamor Empire, which brokered the peace accords and took responsibility for the region during the reconstruction era that followed the war.
The location of the Rift has not been set on the world map, but it is located somewhere in eastern Irombi.
The Rift became an object of global fascination in the 1950s, when it was discovered that the magic unleashed there had led to unexpected changes in the local ecosystem. This led to the creation of Project Lightpath, a scientific expedition that captured the imagination of its generation in much the same way as the Apollo Project did in 1960s USA.