“
First they noticed the soil had turned. Then it was the water. Then it was the dead walking, the ground slipping away. Then they got afraid. They call it "the panic," I think because it's easier to swallow than facing it head on and calling it what it is: "The Truth."”
The Panic was a period of time, around 200 years prior to the events of Sangfielle, when the people of Sangfielle took notice of the illness of the land and fled.
Those peoples who fled tend to believe that this period is when the Heartland first became ill, but in reality, that happened long before the Panic.[1]
History
Storms and dust came, the soil turned barren, animals became twisted, the dead walked, reality left. And then the Shape came.
As many people as possible fled, trying to escape curses, ghosts, and spoiled crops.[2] Primarily the wealthy (particularly Aldominans) succeeded in this, often leaving behind the people that they had exploited or enslaved. The moniker Sangfielle, already in use by some of those exploited and enslaved people, stuck and became the widely accepted name for the land.[3]
Not all parts of Sangfielle were impacted equally. Sapodilla, for example, largely withstood the Panic and transformed into a refuge for those the petty local lords left behind.[4]
Around the time of the Panic, the Mother-Beast first began to worry.[5]