The Windstone Era

History
The Grand Kingdom's University Department took 6 years of lobbying from the Kingdom to field a full-funded expedition to the extremely dangerous, mysterious distant island known as Faro. 760 experienced scouts, dangerous mercenaries, professional cartographers, master survivalists, renowed explorers and some of the brightest academic minds in geology, history and science were all recruited to explore and map this island. They discovered something different. A mysterious glowing vein of a strange ore. It gives those who's skin comes into contact with the powder within the vein magical powers. The base unrefined magic ability given is a light blue flame that envolops the user's hand. This was discovered by surveyor Maldrin Westbank after being cut off from his party in a cave. His new power gained from the vein allowed him to defend himself against swarms of spiders pouring into the cave after the cave-in. He catches up with his party but denies finding anything. Later, when the party finds more windstone, Maldrin slaughtered all of them before they could have the power. While Maldrin's efforts prevented his pocket of the expedition from finding it, soon after, most of the nearly 800 people eventually discovered it as well. The potential of this dust ravaged the collective sanity of this expedition, causing everyone to turn on each other and turn Faro into a burning battlefield. Shortly before windstone was even discovered, a cluster of relatively common super-hurricanes began patrolling the oceanic borders of Faro, preventing most from escaping. Bedouinistic opportunists of all stripes were able to slip through the cracks and escape Faro, leaking small amounts of windstone powder into the Grand Kingdom markets, however. It was first viewed as a parlor trick, typically used and sold by travelling transients collecting tips for entertaining with it. While the newspapers were covering the horrific tragedy happening in Faro and everyone was trying to figure out how to get them out of there, someone else was wondering how to get in. The Tinkmaster, a loud and irritable dwarf, from academia, was incredibly intrigued by the scientific implications of windstone. He found a way to Faro on a cargo ship coming from the east and set up shop. He began workshopping, experimenting and testing all kinds of new applications for windstone, which inadvertently fueled the violence in Faro tenfold. New factions sprung up. Those who use windstone for intelligent and tactical purposes, The Nomads, those who use it for sheer shock and awe, The Desert Marauders and those who see it's use as physically and spiritually corrupting, The Faran Order. Several other unique individuals placed their mark on the era and on windstone, creating devastating new tactics and new windstone elements. These rogue elements are extremely dangerous, causing much of the larger scale destruction seen in Faro.