Shadow Court Triumphant

The emergence of untold supernatural horrors reignited mankind's primordial nightmares. With them, the Fomorians stirred. Soothsayers spoke of the Silver Ban fading, and trods overrun with nightmarish chimera. The Seelie courts moved to fight such monsters, even as their kingdoms crumbled. The Shadow Court sabotaged Seelie rivals, inciting rebellion among the commoners. They reveled in the violence they provoked. The Seelie court collapsed in the absence of leadership from the missing High King David. Black Court Thallain toiled to hasten Endless Winter and extinguish the Tuathan Dream. They destroyed freeholds in droves.

With the loss of Freeholds, the dreaming was slowly severed from the world. Cut off from their inspiration, Dreamers dwindled until their spark too faded. The flow of Glamour slowed to a trickle, and Changelings were at the mercy of banality of the Autumn world. Many did not survive.

Meanwhile, In the Dreaming... (The Slaughter of Arcadia)

Even as the Dreaming was cut off from the Autumn World, Arcadia was plunged into war. The Thallain, Dark Kin, and their Fomorian masters laid siege to the legendary city of the Fae. Devil Anse Hatfield, Squire to Knight Balor, personally led the assassination squads against the Guardians of the Gate, and held open the gates for Balor and his Fomorian allies to storm Arcadia. The Fae within fought for their lives against the Tuatha's ancient enemies, but the Tuatha did not return to aid their children.

The Eye Opens

Without warning, a tremendous wave of dark, nightmarish Glamour burst from the depths of the Dreaming and flooded across the globe. In Freeholds, embers of Balefire thought extinguished suddenly flared back to life. The barely-contained columns of energy filled fae with the power of ancient dreams. As the Kithain staggered from this infusion of Glamour, the world changed. The Dreaming poured over and into the Autumn world, and the chimerical world and the mortal realm merged. Chimerical creatures and bygones accompanied them into the world, free of the sting of Banality. Glutted on raw dreamstuff, the autumn Changeling's mortal shells could no longer contain their Fae Mien. The abandoned their human hosts en-masse, walking free as their true selves for the first time since the Shattering. Ancient Trods flung open, and a host of Fae emerged in numbers not seen since the Resurgence. 

At the fore of the column of nightmares rode Balor of the Evil Eye.