Leading Arcane Theorists

Leading arcane theorists have existed in every age, and they have generally been pretty spot-on about predicting tragedies and catastophes. People tend to ignore their advice, and then the entire world faces a massive crisis. Do not ask how they know what they do. Simply heed their advice.

The Crisis of the First Age
Circa 1000 FsA, a contingent of angels expressed to the Pantheon the probability that the dwarves and humans would likely starve on the planet of Istria, due to lack of foresight in properly installing a sun before populating its surface. Unfortunately, their advice was ignored until both races bordered on extinction, whereupon Borias and Austral were forced to commit suicide to propogate their respective creations.

The Crisis of the Second Age
By 344 SA, leading dragonborn and tiefling mages began investigating the buildup of magical armaments among the two principal empires of Arkhosia and Bael Turath, and came to the conclusion that a situation of mutally-assured destruction had developed, wherein if either race declared war on the other, the resulting cascade of offensive and defensive spells would be sufficent to eliminate all life on Istria. However, their advice was ignored, and the inevitable conflagration resulted in near-mutual genocide of the two warring kingdoms.

The Crisis of the Third Age
Most civilized races found the third age remarkably devoid of catastrophe, with the exception of the genasi, whose crisis involved the failure of a year's grape crop. Even in this case, genasi arcane theorists had speculated that soil rotation was essential to proper grape production, and they were completely ignored until after a devastating year of no wine.

The Crisis of the Dark Age
A report published by a think tank of arcane scholars concluded in 232 DA that, barring some collossal shift in resource management, all access to residuum from the war in the Second Age would be completely dried up as early as 256 DA, and that magical constructs and systems would accordingly fail. They were publically mocked, tarred, and feathered. However, exactly as predicted, the residuum mines dried up in 256 DA, and humans immediately began looking for a scapegoat, true to form.