What I'm about to say comes from mostly theory crafting. I haven't actually gone to Thunder Junction explicitly to look into this yet, but my interest was piqued when I last was there. It's going to be rambley, so watch out.
I think something happened to Thunder Junction.
Why did the Cactusfolk, the only folk native to Thunder Junction, sprout after the Omenpaths open up?
Why did Thunder also only appear after the Omenpaths?
Speaking of, why do so many Omenpaths lead to Thunder Junction?
Why is the oldest folkmade thing there a Vault from the Coin Empire?
So, for those who don't know, there is a massive Vault called Maag Taranau on Thunder Junction. It is believed to be the product of an ancient empire, dubbed by my colleague as the Coin Empire. It's the oldest structure on the plane as far as their records go. Which isn't very far, but it's still noteworthy.
The rumors about what is inside this Vault are rabid. If you've ever spent any time on Thunder Junction after the Vault fell, you've probably overheard one of these rumors. They range from weapons of mass destruction to full collections of Moxen. You'd think these rumors would be unfounded, but I've seen immensely terrifying weaponry and ancient artifacts on Thunder Junction with the exact same style of metal craft as the Maag Taranau. I've even touched one of these artifacts, it was called a Torpor Orb. There was an inscription engraved on it that started me down crafting this whole hypothesis. “Devour the hope of a world and it will bow before you.”
The Coin Empire was an ancient and cruel empire. From what I've been told by Quintorius Kand, another Lorehold mage who's been primarily researching the empire, the empire itself was multiplanar. They would trick and force their will over others, colonizing an unknown number of planes. I won't dwell too deeply on it, mostly because that's Quint's project, but the Coin Empire is relevant to my theory about Thunder Junction's history.
I believe that the Coin Empire did something to Thunder Junction to secure a location for their Vault.
It would make sense. The biggest rumor surrounding the Vault is why it was originally opened. The rumor goes that there was a living member, probably the last living member, of the Coin Empire frozen in there. Making this Vault immensely valuable to the Empire back when it was first created.
In order to prevent meddling, either the Empire could've killed all folk on Thunder Junction and somehow prevented the Plane from developing further or caught the Plane before it would birth folk and somehow stopped it. The Inscription of the Torpor Orb, the Orb itself, and the other powerful artifacts in the vault could support that they might be able to do this. Of course, the inscription could've been written to be less literal. "World" represents the folk of a plane and not literally the plane itself.
However, it would help answer my questions. The reason why Thunder and Cactusfolk showed up only after the Omenpaths and not before could be because the Coin Empire put the plane in some kind of sleep state. As folk moved into the plane, it woke up.
The reason why Omenpaths are so common could be a mixture of the Coin Empire's planar transportation methods, what the Empire did to the plane, and maybe even the plane itself.
Of course, I have very little to back this up. The motive to harm Thunder Junction in some way makes sense, but I don't have any evidence beyond inscriptions and potential capabilities. And, sadly, I don't know if I ever will. There's very little history on Thunder Junction. If there were any evidence of planar devastation, it would be long gone by now.
All of this also could be completely coincidental. The Thunder and Cactusfolk sprouting when they did, the Omenpaths, the Vault itself. They could all have completely separate reasons to happen the way they did, but I personally believe that the Multiverse rarely works in coincidence.
Sorry about rambling and probably overthinking this much about something that probably doesn't matter to most of you. I couldn't focus on my work while this was in my head.
