Shrub's backstory. After being banished by the people of Rivendell, Xornoth ended up in her home dimension, which was quickly overrun by the Corruption. Shrub was one of the few gnomes to make it out of her home dimension alive, and arrived in Empires with nothing but the clothes on her back. She built the Undergrove as a new home for her people, but as time passed, she slowly began to realize that nobody else was coming, and was forced to accept that she's most likely the Last of Her Kind.
Scott's backstory is perhaps equally as sad. He grew up in Rivendell as the youngest of two princes, with his older brother Xornoth slated to take the throne once their parents retired. However, Xornoth somehow got involved with the Corruption, turned into a demon hell-bent on destroying the world, and murdered both of their parents before the people of Rivendell managed to banish him to another dimension. Scott lost his entire family in a single day, and was then forced to become king of Rivendell before he even had a chance to grieve properly.
Joey falling in love with Xornoth is tragic in its own way, because he does not realize that it's not only unrequited, but that Xornoth is actively using him to get his own way. Joey lets himself get corrupted, hurts everyone he's ever cared about, even kidnaps and tortures two of his friends, just to earn Xornoth's love, and in the end it's all for nothing. When Xornoth is trapped in the crystal, Joey is the only one mourning, and even with Xornoth out of the picture, he still struggles with his feelings for the rest of the season.
Scott's cryokinesis very quickly gets out of hand, to the point that he goes from living a normal life to isolating himself in his castle for fear of hurting people, turning all of his friends away. Eventually he gets so desperate that he goes to Gem for help, but she pushes him too hard, he lashes out... and he seriously hurts her. The stress and guilt causes him to completely break down, and he flees. All the while Gem is weakly trying to reassure him, and begging him to let her help.
Scott: Gem, I told you I would hurt people, I always hurt people! Gem:(weakly) I'm okay! I promise... I'm okay... Scott: Gem, you're NOT! I... I need to go. I need to get far away. Gem: Scott– Scott: Gem, no, I need to go. (takes off towards Rivendell) I ruin everything! Why did I think it would be okay to go there?!
After this, Scott barricades himself inside his house, before coming to the realization that his mere presence in Rivendell is putting his own citizens in danger, and that he's unfit to rule. He packs some essentials into a shulker box, officially steps down as king, and flies off to a faraway ice spikes biome in a Self-Imposed Exile, while expressing some serious self-loathing.
Scott: I'm not... fit to wear this Rivendell Armor anymore. It was designed for a ruler who could lead his people, a ruler who could... protect his empire. But... That's not me. So I need to take it off... And I can't wear this. Not anymore. [...] I'm not sure if I'm gonna come back. I had fun times here, but... I'm not fit for that throne anymore. I'm not fit to rule people. (to his citizens) I'm sorry I failed you all. (to the church) I'm sorry I failed you, Aeor. But I need to go. I need to get as far away from here as I can. Somewhere where I can't hurt anyone else.
While in exile, Scott resolves that he'll return to Rivendell as soon as he's got his powers under control, and that he's going to take a few centuries to figure it out. He then comes to the realization that humans don't live that long, and that by isolating himself like this, he's likely going to outlive most of his friends. By trying to protect them, he may very well never see them again...
Jimmy being forced to give up the title of the Codfather for being deemed not having done "enough for the greater good of cod" by the Council of Cod. While the mess started because he killed one more cod-fish than salmon at the time, the Council essentially summoned him in, told him he hadn't shown enough "dedication" for the cause and that he was no longer worthy of the title, demoted him to "Codboy" on the spot, and disappeared while his back was turned. The episode ends with him barricading himself in his starter house, showing not just heavy resentment towards the situation, but flashes of insecurity and self-esteem issues.
Jimmy: At the start of this adventure, all the other empires, they called me weak. Maybe I am now. Maybe this is my weakest moment. Maybe they were right. Maybe I am a weak boy. Yeah, you heard me, boy, because I am "Codboy" now. I dunno what to do but eat cake [as mandated by Lizzie's Emperor's rule]. The cake is even in front of my starter shack! Maybe it's a sign. [...] I don't know who placed this cake, but maybe they thought, he'd be better off just staying in this shack as Codboy– This little starter shack, as little old Codboy, and just eating away slowly at all the cake. Maybe that's my destiny as Codboy– (destroys a cake and enters the starter house) Forget the cod, forget the salmon, me, just sitting in here, eating away at cake, minding my own business, and just staying in here for the end of time.
After spending all of her time trying to figure out how to cure the Corruption, and then trying to find a way back to her home world, Shrub is confronted with the harsh reality of her situation: she's the Last of Her Kind. Her family, her friends, the entirety of the gnome race is dead and gone, and there likely wasn't anything she could've done to save them by the time she escaped to the world of Empires. Her response is to destroy the portal that led to her old home once, destroy her home in the Undergrove, and set off into the woods with her wolves, feeling unworthy of being the leader of her kingdom.
Shrub: I worked so hard to build my home again! But it's a lie. None of it's real. I don't have a home. I don't have any people. I don't have any family. I don't belong here... These aren't my things! This isn't my house! This isn't my bed! This isn't my castle! None of this– none of this really belongs to me! It was never meant for me! I was never a ruler, I was never royalty. I'm just nobody.
The way she finds out is even more heartbreaking. After hearing the Xornoth-crystal whispering to her, she takes it to Katherine, thinking Xornoth may be breaking out. Katherine checks the crystal over, and finds nothing wrong with it, which Shrub refuses to accept. She then goes to Scott to have him check the crystal over, but Scott doesn't find anything wrong with it either, and tries to tell her as gently as possible that her people may just truly be gone. Shrub then quickly makes an excuse to leave and flies back to the Undergrove, even as Scott tries to call her back from the doorway.
After getting the Xornoth-crystal back and discovering some prophecies, Scott has a very calm few weeks, wherein nothing major happens and he finally gets a chance to relax. And then he finds the Rune Blade embedded in an ice spike in Rivendell, and learns that it's easily the most powerful and dangerous weapon in existence, with the power to rend souls from the bodies of its victims and damn them to whatever hell its wielder can come up with. Scott is at first confused and scared of the Rune Blade's power and frantically hides it, before the frustration at potentially being thrust into the middle of some magical conflict again finally boils over.
Scott:(close to tears) I just wanted to have my road checked! I just– I had a nice couple episodes, where I was like... y'know, everything was fine! I built some flowers, I built a road... I had a nice couple weeks!
The Grimlands are reduced to slag, to the point that none of it is even remotely salvageable. Fwhip's home is gone, his people are dead, he's responsible for the destruction of multiple other empires and the deaths of two of his friends, and he winds up fleeing the server to live with Gem on a faraway sky island.
Unlike Fwhip, who doesn't believe it's his fault at all, Jimmy blames himself entirely for the explosion, since it happened because he wanted a new Codfather head. When he arrives back at his kingdom and finds that all of the water in the Cod Empire has dried up, he breaks down and flees, taking off the Codboy head and vowing to never return. The irony is, the Council of Cod had already given him the Codfather Head back, as seen in the final shot of the video, where it sits on a pedestal in the church...
Katherine, Pearl and Shrub's empires become the victims of wildfires sparked by the explosion. Shrub's ending is the most hopeful, as she quickly evacuates all of her wolves into the Nether before the Undergrove is completely consumed by flames, and prepares to trek through the Nether in the hopes of finding her people. The Overgrown dies as rifts in the ground crack it apart, and Katherine is forced to flee, but plants a Life Seed in the ground before leaving in the hopes that life can return to her kingdom again. But Pearl... Despite all of her strength, her lifeforce is tied to Gilded Helianthia, and as it burns, she slowly starts to wither away herself. Sausage tries to help her, but he can't do anything except watch as she slowly dies.
Poor, poor Scott. While Rivendell was mostly spared from the damage of the explosion, the earthquake was enough to break the ice containing Xornoth, who subsequently breaks out and destroys everything. Scott returns to his home to find that it's burning, with Corruption everywhere and Xornoth once again on the loose. Scott tries to fight him, but is subsequently captured, and while Xornoth can't kill him, he gloats to Scott that he's going to imprison him in a crystal like Scott and Gem did to him, and then force him to watch as all of his friends are tortured to death in front of him. With no other options left, Scott takes out the Rune Blade and drives it into his own chest, killing Xornoth as well as himself.
Because the Rune Blade allows its wielder to choose the afterlife of its victims, Scott gets to choose where his soul goes after death... and all he wishes for is to go to a world where Xornoth was never corrupted, where he gets to live in Rivendell with his brother, his parents, and Jimmy. Scott could've made himself the most powerful creature in existence, he could've lived an afterlife of luxury and unimaginable wealth, but in the end, all the guy really wanted was his family back.
Related; Xornoth's fate is also incredibly tragic after we see the uncorrupted version of him in Scott's afterlife. Before being corrupted, he was a normal guy who liked to tease his younger brother and enthusiastically tried to prove to his parents that he was capable of being a good ruler. That man was twisted into something completely unrecognizable, both physically and mentally, and went from a kind, loving brother and son, to an absolute monster who tortures and murders people for fun, including his own family, and wants to destroy the entire world.
After the destruction of the Lost Empire, Joey goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, blowing up parts of other people's kingdoms... not knowing most of them have been abandoned already. Returning home with the head he stole from Jimmy's base, he starts suffering some Sanity Slippage as he climbs up to the throne at the top of the ruined Fire Temple and declares himself the ruler of all rulers, before he slips and falls into the ruins of his own home. What follows is a montage where Joey is found by Xornoth, and the two do various romantic things together, ending with them getting married... but considering Xornoth never requited Joey's love, and is also dead by this point, it's safe to say this was either a Dying Dream or a hallucination brought on by some serious brain trauma.
Lizzie returns to the Ocean Empire to find that all the water has been drained from it, and looks around in confusion... before she starts taking damage. Because the ocean is gone, the blessing that made sure she regained her memories disappears as well, and she turns back into a human woman, utterly confused and lost, with all of her memories once again gone. While Scott and Pearl died for real, Lizzie's fate may as well be a Death of Personality.
Lizzie's fate is slightly mitigatedin The Musical, where it's revealed that she's the Narrator All Along and managed to record her story down before she loses her memories, but it really doesn't take away much from the tragedy.
While it technically takes place during the Season 2 Hermitcraft crossover, xBCrafted attempts to repair the broken Rift after many of his fellow Hermits crossed the portal into another dimension (AKA Empires Season 2, taking place at least a thousand years after Season 1), but ends up crossing over into the ruins of Empires Season 1 following the Rapture. Watching a world built from the ground up being left bleak, desolate, and completely devoid of sentient life (excluding perhaps the Blood Sheep) evokes nothing short of tragedy and despondency.
Season 2
Shelby's expulsion from the Great Witches Academy. The reason the school cited was that Shelby was too much of a "danger of society" after "bumping the entirety of reality into a parallel universe through simple potion making" to continue being allowed to practise magic. The issue? The incident was, for the most part, a complete accident.note Out-of-universe, it was caused by a glitch in the game. Even if Shelby had been mostly an Apathetic Student during classes, she still demonstrates a passion for the art of magic and the ability to help her community by supplying potions to help them cure Zombie Villagers and build infrastructure, and to deny her the opportunity to continue doing so or to refuse to allow her to develop her potential and abilities over an accident (albeit a severe one) seems outright cruel. Plus, if Shelby has strong enough magical ability to warp reality via parallel universes, why isn't she trained to master these powers and abilities?
, xBCrafted attempts to repair the broken Rift after many of his fellow Hermits crossed the portal into another dimension (AKA Empires Season 2, taking place at least a thousand years after Season 1), but ends up crossing over into the ruins of Empires Season 1 following the Rapture. Watching a world built from the ground up being left bleak, desolate, and completely devoid of sentient life (excluding perhaps the Blood Sheep) evokes nothing short of tragedy and despondency.