The Collapse of Aelwyn Practice did not arrive as a single catastrophe. It unfolded slowly, almost gently, through absence rather than destruction. The Aelwyn were not erased from the world. They withdrew from it, step by careful step, as the conditions that sustained their way of living began to fail.
For generations, Aelwyn practice depended on shared burden. Sorrow was named, carried together, and released before it could deepen into despair. As grief grew heavier across the world, this balance became harder to maintain. Listening Circles fractured under uneven strain, and the emotional harmony that anchored their rituals weakened. What had once flowed naturally between people, land, and purpose became uncertain.
Differences in belief widened these fractures. Some Aelwyn sought new understanding, others retreated from human suffering altogether, and still others believed withdrawal was the least harmful choice. With no shared path forward, consensus dissolved. Sanctums were left untended. Songs were sung less often. Teachings passed incompletely or not at all.
Over time, the practices themselves began to fade. Wards failed quietly. Rituals lost coherence. Guardians found themselves without guidance or renewal. What remained of Aelwyn knowledge survived in fragments, preserved by memory rather than institution, and carried forward by lineage rather than community.
By the end of the Aelwyn Age, there was no unified order left to fall. Only individuals remained, scattered and diminished, choosing obscurity over instability. Their disappearance was not marked by conquest or fire, but by silence.
The collapse left no clear ending, only absence. What was lost cannot be reclaimed through tradition alone, and what endured did so because it adapted. The legacy of the Aelwyn persists not in formal practice, but in the quiet understanding that balance cannot survive when sorrow is borne alone.