It is not known exactly how long the Red Mist lasted. Accounts from the survivors vary and are wildly inaccurate due to their fractured memories, but various environmental clues and deductions have led to an estimated duration between three and five hours for the event itself.
The Red Mist has resulted in the disappearance of the vast majority of the people and creatures of Lokren, including most of government in the capital, Mevron, including King Arryn. The earl of Piges is also missing in the wake of this event.
It is currently unknown what long-term effects the Red Mist might have had on the land, but in the months since the event a number of theories and observations have come to light from the shared experiences of the populations of survivors.
Origins
The present belief is that the Red Mist was caused by an attempted activation of the Valtian grid that caused that ancient structure to behave in a wholly unexpected way. The originator of this attempted activation is unknown, as are their reasons for the act, but it is likely that they perished during the Red Mist due to their lethal proximity to the grid (see below). The activation is thought to have occurred at the Valtian greathall at Mikromelo, due to the sudden appearance of a large volume of visible external damage to the building.
Extent
The event appears to have struck in every area that the grid passes through, which includes all of Lokren, though it remains to be seen whether the frontier provinces of Ormetland and Chasadon have been similarly affected. It is expected that they have been. The nearest satrapies of Lantaren may also have been affected if so, since the grid crosses the Aphieron and covers former Valtian territory in the northern part of Notios. Certainly every part of Lokren from Mevron to the Forest of Piges is confirmed to have sufferered the effects of the Mist.
Effects
The immediate effect of the Red Mist - that which occurred during the event itself - seems to have been the same everywhere: the Red Mist came down to fill all parts of a given area, everybody went mad and behaved in a wild and uncontrolled way, then some people woke up miles from where they had been when the Mist came. The most noticeable upshot for those who made their way to settlements was that almost everyone else was missing, now presumed dead after so long an absence in a harsh environment.
Most of those who survived the event have regained fragmented, feverish memories of the Red Mist. A theme common to all who remember their madness in the cataclysm is that every such person recalls meeting what must surely have been their own death, either due to their own foolish actions, or at the hands of another, similarly maddened person or creature. The broken memories always end with the subject suffering mortal injuries that must surely have led to their death in short order. This shared experience of death has given rise to much speculation as to the nature of the current situation that the survivors find themselves in, with a number of theories emerging, all of which as yet lack any real evidence to support them.
One of the most obvious aftereffects of the Red Mist seems to be the appearance of the Mists, which are thought to be a remnant of the event. Quite why the Mists have arisen and what they signify in relation to the event itself is still unclear.
One of the prevailing beliefs is that anybody who was anywhere close to the grid at the time of the event - within an estimated ten miles - was instantly killed by the activation of the grid. Whether they simply died and were vaporised by the huge release of energy, or were turned into undead by the grid, is unknown, but nobody has yet been found who was close to the grid during the Red Mist has yet been found, either alive or dead.
Rise of the undead
The Red Mist is believed to be responsible for the sudden sharp increase in the number of undead throughout the kingdom. After the event, all of the graveyards in the Old Kingdom were discovered to have been emptied of bodies, with the clear signs that the dead had burrowed out of their graves to walk the land once more. The mechanism that caused this and the reason behind it are unknown. The number of living dead is currently estimated to be at least twenty to one in favour of the undead, leaving the survivors in a precarious position.
It is unknown whether the ranks of the newly-risen dead were supplemented by those killed during the Red Mist, but given the sheer number of undead everywhere it seems quite likely. In any case, there have been few physical remains found of the very many missing people, and all of those that have been discovered probably died long after the Red Mist had abated.
Impact on wildlife
Comparatively few animals seem to have survived the Red Mist. Birds seem to be among the most common survivors, while livestock and other domesticated creatures are among the least. The Red Mist appears to have had two major impacts on the creatures of Lokren: ferocity and frequency.
With respect to ferocity, most creatures appear to be the same as they were before the disaster. No small number, however, have been twisted into more fierce versions of themselves, much more aggressive and prone to violent reaction to the presence of people. This appears to be fallout from the event, but there is no evidence of it within (demi)human populations so far.
The frequency of larger and more dangerous monsters has increased dramatically since the mist. Whether this is due to greater numbers caused by monstrous transformation of existing creatures or simply artificial inflation due to the mist spreading those creatures from very remote places to settled lands is unknown, but both theories have been bandied about without much to support them. Whatever the cause, the land is generally far more dangerous than it was due to the much-greater presence of deadly predatory beasts. It is also possible that the relative scarcity of prey animals caused by the mist in the monsters' normal environments has driven them to seek food elsewhere, but this seems unlikely, given the speed with which the monsters suddenly appeared everywhere. The Apertasis Plain is thought to be the most dangerous area at present, with the flatlands ruled by enormous and deadly beasts that only the most mighty can consider standing against. Mevron is walled off by these threats, but the indirect result is that the population of the capital consists now almost entirely of those who are extremely powerful and well-equipped to deal with them, for anybody weaker who woke up on the plains is now dead.