next »

The War of Elders


The fall of Dacadrin had happened over two hundred years prior to the war of elders.  The lands of Maridacan were in chaos for this period.  Despite the attempts of the three towers to assume some semblance of order, no power structure seemed to stay in place for very long.  Allegiances shifted, weaker powers were assimilated, stronger ones were fractured, and a state of peace became a hopeful dream.  Upon the fringes of Maridacan, a new hope began to attract the attention of displaced people.  They were called the druids, and they brought with them protection.  They brought to the people their spiritual code, and took them under their protection.  As the druids operated far from central Maridacan and made no sudden moves for power, the three towers were less interested with their operations.  In a short time, the fractured druidic order controlled much of the wilderness outside of the main urban centers, which continued their endless infighting and bickering.

The druids, much like Nisyrra, were quite benign at the time.  They had little interest in the massive cities of humanity which seemed to spawn only poverty, disease, and war.  However, their actions along the rim of the central lands brought the wrath of the old religeon.  The Huradan, as it was called, was horrified to see its followers converting to the druidic beliefs, and began an inquisition in the cities to 'root out' the evil.  Ironically, the druids had very intentionally been avoiding the cities, and the vast majority of people killed by this inquisition were quite innocent of any wrong doing.  All the Huradan succeeded in doing was consolidating the druid hold over the outer fringes.  Feeling that they had purged their strongholds of heretics, the Huradan sent their agents to the surrounding lands, and began capturing anyone who was caught or suspected of practicing druidism.  Some of those captured were executed as examples, others received re-education at the end of a whip.  Rather than driving off the druids, the Huradan had succeeded into awakening them from their complacency.

It was only during this time that the three towers became interested in events.  The druids, it seemed, were very accomplished wizards, but their magic was fundamentally different than that practiced by the towers.  In normal wizardry, the caster absorbs the energy of his environment and subverts it to his will.  The druids, it seemed, meshed their will with their environment and conducted its energy freely.  Believing this an alternative to blood magic that would not destroy the body, many of the wizards began to study the druids in great detail, but their understanding of the druid's art was too meager at that time to prevent the coming disaster.  Despite the power of the druids, the Huradan had managed in focussing all the bent energy and rage of the cities against them, and proved to be a match.  However, the cities had a nigh limitless well of eager recruits to draw upon, whereas the druids dwindled in number until they were forced to retreat deeper into the wilderness.  But the Huradan did not cease their persuit at this.  Rather, they pressed onward in a holy war to purge the druids from the world.  In their path, they razed many of the towns and sanctuaries that had been protected by the druids, leaving only the strife and misery behind.

Naustoros was the last of the major druid strongholds in Maridacan, and its siege was the largest battle seen since the Dacadrin invasion.  The magic of the druids seemed to have grown stronger, and storms were sent at great distances to ravage the lands which fed the armies of the Huradan, but this did not deter them from continuing their siege.  The storming of Naustoros came in the mid-summer with a great barrage of catapults and an advance of thousands upon thousands of warriors.  The gates were cast down, and the walls collapsed, and further and further back the druid defenders were pushed.  Yet, suddenly the armies under the Huradan were stopped by the strangest of creatures.  It had the legs of a goat, and had horns which curled above its head.  It stood twice as high as any man, and its eyes burned with fire.  It named itself Satyr, and single-handedly it drove back five hundred men from the pass it held.  It weilded druid magic, but at a level of unimaginable proportions.  The fight, which moments before had seemed a forgone conclusion, had suddenly become uncertain.  Realizing the danger that Satyr represented, the wizards present at the battle suddenly joined on the side of the Huradan, and only by their interference was it narrowly won.  Satyr spirited itself away before it was overrun by the combined might of the wizards, but before it did so it left many of their kin dead.  Naustoros had become a tomb, both for the last of the druid followers in Maridacan and for those which had sought to destroy them.  The city was converted into a graveyard, and remains a haunting necropolis on the edge of the desolate span.

Although the long holy war was over, the wizards were quite disconcerted.  Satyr represented a complete unknown, something they had no way of forseeing, and no way of understanding.  Clearly it was a product of druid magic, but at the same time the strength of that magic was worlds apart from even the mightiest of the druids.  The debate and research went on fruitlessly for weeks as the wizards struggled to understand what Satyr was, but the discussion was ended with news from the desolate span.  The entire garrison army left in the region had been destroyed by an army of druidic followers lead not just by Satyr, but five others like him.  So began the War of Elders.


No one before this time had truly understood the power of the three towers, but faced with such an unimaginable foe, they took the reigns of all central Maridacan with ruthless precision, undermining any lord and priest of Huradan who got in their way.  Understanding that a mageocracy would not be appreciated by the people which had little trust for the towers which were so removed, they installed a puppet feudal state which ultimately responded to them at every level.  They withdrew from the outer lands and consolidated their defences, even as the armies lead by the unknown creatures advanced across them.  Attempts at parlay proved futile, and those who were allowed to return were horribly mutilated, repeating only what they had been told to, that this was a "return of what was given,".  So the merciless slaughter and persecution of the druid kin was turned upon their foes in an irony not lost upon the wizards of the towers.  They did learn something of their enemies; they called themselves the "Elder Gods", which had come to the earth to bring vengeance upon humanity for the evils it wrought to the peace-loving druids.  Many believed they were indeed gods, and turned to them with worship.

The first battle which the wizards dared to fight was at Junlad, a critical farming community which would be needed if the surrounding regions were to survive the coming winter.  The battle was best described as a disaster.  If it was not for the wizards themselves, none of the warriors would have escaped.  Turning the very river of Jun into their weapon, they flooded the fields and swept away the soldiers resting in them, and turned the waters to circle the armies.  Then, the elder gods and their followers descended upon the trapped, seperated, and confused soldiers.  With their magic, the wizards managed to buy some time before the flow of water exhausted itself, and then when it weakened, created a shallow crossing for the army to escape.  Despite this brilliant and well executed maneuver, the army had lost nearly a quarter of its manpower with little to show for it.  It was decided by the high towers that never could they engage any enemy when more than one Elder God was present, or could be present.  The loss of Junland and many other surrounding regions lead to a difficult winter, but from the cruelty of their enemy, the people drew resolve to continue fighting, and by the trickery of the wizards many isolated and besieged communities were supplied.

It was in the coming spring that a strange company was granted an audience with the Noble House, the first tower of wizards.  They were the archdruids from the eastern lands, and they had much to tell of the Elder Gods, and first and foremost that the claim of their name was false.  These archdruids, which knew their art much better than the wizards, explained that their magic had a limit just as the wizard's magic had it's.  Where a wizard that exceeded that limit would find that his body would bleed and burn, a druid that exceeded his would find that his spirit would stretch and sunder.  Where a wizard would destroy his body, a druid would destroy his spirit.  But the consequences of this lack of control proved dire, for the fragments of the dying druids' thoughts and emotions survived upon the ebbs and flows of magical currents, and in time they grew together and merged into a coherent personality, and by some unknown catalyst into a conscious mind.  These were the elder gods, born of the fragments of those that had sacrificed everything, and they remembered only the hatred and despairation with which those sacrifices had been made.  Deluded by the half-waking dream of their assembling personalities, these new creations believed they were gods who had come to the earth to purge those which had caused so much suffering to the druids.  It had been a little over a year since the first had appeared, and the archdruids had only narrowly escaped the wrath of these Elder Gods after condemning them.

Understanding now the true power of the Elder Gods, the wizards held a conference of their own kin, and three decisions were made.  The first was the lifting of the ban on blood magic, for if the elder gods weilded the druid equivilent of it, the wizards would need a counter-balance to that advantage.  The second decision was a conversion of all their resources to fighting this war.  The third, and hardest decision, was a condemnation of all druid magic, and those that practiced it.  They shunned the archdruids, who may have otherwise been allies, for fear that their own power would only serve to create more Elder Gods.  The archdruids left the company of the wizards solemnly, but they were not idle in the coming wars.  The high druids felt responsibility for the actions of the Elder Gods, for they had not practiced diligence in the teaching of their students, whose hatred in death now made these engines of destructive power.

In the spring, the wizards had perhaps their first bout of luck.  A reckless elder god had besieged the castle of Norvalk and allowed his brethren to pass him by.  Secretly maneuvering a large host around the main body of the druidic army, the wizards attacked the lone elder god at Norvalk.  Using methods detailed by the archdruids, they subdued it and prevented his retreat, and then destroyed it utterly.  The explosion of druid magic which came from the dying Elder God could be felt from across the world, and the archdruids knew that the wizards had met their first success.  However, like a ping each other Elder God then convulsed and sent out its own signature.  To their horror, the archdruids counted not five others, but fifteen others.  Unknown to the wizards and druids, the dwarves in the mountains had long been fighting a splintered sect of militatant druids, and in this long conflict their own Elder Gods had come into being.  This disturbing revelation would only be made clear later that year when the archdruids received word from the pupils sent to the region, but the consequence was undeniably dire.  Moreover, from that point on the Elder Gods were much more cautious with their movements, and were seldom found alone.

Not long after Norvalk, the wizards found themselves subject to an ambush by two of the more powerful Elder Gods.  One was named Chimaera, and the other Manticore.  They comprised the least human in appearance of all the dlder gods, and were seldom found apart.  Realizing the sheer furocity of this enemy, the wizards abandoned the soldiers in their care, leaving them to die as fodder while they escaped.  Perhaps it was good fortune that only wizards survived the battle, as news of their cowardice would have only served to splinter the resolve of their allies.  Still, the defeat proved that the concealment magic of the wizards could be breached by the elder gods, and greater diligence was required.  While there were no other disasters quite as ominous as that, the wizards and their allies found no victories in the early months of that year.  It seemed as though their doom was at hand when an unlikely twist changed the course of the war.

One of the more reckless elder gods, which was called Cyclops for the one eye he wore, suddenly turned his army towards Nisyrra.  What drove him to do so will never be known, for the Nisyrrans reacted with frightening conviction.  Calling two lesser Elder Gods to his side, Cyclops pressed harder against the Nisyrrans, but in the end he was overwhelmed and destroyed by them.  One of his subordinates escaped, the other did not.  Originally, the king of Nisyrra was unmoved by the Elder God, until he heard word that the fallen warriors had failed to ressurrect.  So great was the presence of an Elder God that the slain warriors were destroyed in both body and spirit, and never could return to this world.  Understanding that the elder gods represented a threat unlike any other to Nisyrra, and under pressure from the high council, the king declared that Nisyrra would join in the human war against these elder gods. 

It was in the late summer of that year that Nisyrra first came to battle, uncalled for, to the aid of the humans.  In this time, the wizards had never given up their resolve, and had avoided any repeats of earlier catastrophes, but had also been devoid of any victories.  When suddenly the Nisyrrans cut off the movements of their enemies, the second battle of Norvalk became a glorious victory.  While none of the Elder Gods were slain, their armies were vanquished, and for one brief moment in history man and elf were brothers.  Realizing that the surprise of this development was a potent weapon, the wizards and Nisyrrans immediately began a series of offensives, but these proved ineffective.  Devoid of the decisive force at Norvalk, even the disorganized armies under the Elder Gods were able to withstand the Nisyrrans and the wizards.  It was at this time that the wizards were forced to admit what they had been loath to; that the future of these lands rested upon the shoulders of their denizens.  It was at this time that the wizards returned to their original role as advisors and guides, and left the hearts of lesser men to be inspired by the leaders among them.

To detail all the long years of the Elder War would be a great task, but slowly throughout them the gods dwindled in numbers.  The dwarves of the north were slowly winning by sheer attrician, and the elves and men of Maridacan killed one by one each of the supposed gods.  In the final hours, the Elder Gods sought to make a decisive push into Nisyrra.  They deemed that should the Nisyrrans lose the ability to ressurrect their dead (for any Nisyrran killed far enough from an elder god would be revived), they might be made to withdraw from the war.  This opportunity was taken to surround and destroy the last of the Elder Gods.  In the end, a final suicidal attack was made by a host of humans and elves to prevent the last three gods from escaping.  All but thirteen who fought in that battle - called forever the Immortal Thirteen - died, but each of the elder gods was slain in turn, and the war was done.

Yet in the end, there was a disturbing final tally.  The archdruids had counted fifteen other elder gods after the wizards slew the first.  Yet, in total, they had killed only fourteen.  Whether the druids miscounted or one Elder God survived is unknown to this day.  The wizards kept this knowledge hidden, wishing instead to bury the past and the fears, and instead welcomed a new age of prosperity and unity.  No man had any taste left for battle, and it seemed a new order was on the verge of coming into being.  It was true, for the remainder of that generation Nisyrra's doors were open and the men who had bled beside their warriors were greeted as heroes.  Such days came to a sad end, however.  The men who fought in the battle grew old before the elves, and they passed away.  The grief of that age died in the hearts of men, and kinship felt between them and the long-lived elves faded.  The newer generations did not understand the significance of their bond, and in time things returned to the way they were.  The Nisyrrans closed their gates, and their numbers no longer wandered abroad, for they no longer felt welcomed by the men who no longer remembered their sacrifice.  The four towers (as the fourth had been founded shortly after the war) retained some semblance of connection with Nisyrra, but always this was regarded as a formality, and never as a gesture of true friendship.  For the elves, it was a reminder of why humans and elf should not mingle; the short lives of humanity brought only grief to the long-lived elves.  Despite this, those who fought alongside humanity would never forget, nor betray, the sacrifices made.  For as long as that generation of Nisyrran elves lived, they would watch over the children of humanity, but always from a distance.

Yet even the life of Nisyrran, in the long spans of time, is but a short strand of history.  In time, even the elves who fought in that war began to age irrevocably.  To their children they passed the task to watch over humanity, to guard the descendants of those who fell alongside the warriors of Nisyrra.  Such, they deemed, was the responsibility of Nisyrra, blessed with long lives and the forsight and wisdom granted by them.  When the last of the heroes of the War of Elders died, he was laid to rest in the Garden of Heroes.  It was a place built shortly after the war to commemorate the courage of all involved.  It lay upon the border between the lands of human and elf, and in those later days it was overgrown and forgotten.  So the last hero was laid to rest in the last tomb awaiting him, and the Nisyrrans left the garden as it was.  The grief it symbolized was left behind, and its location was forgotten, a hidden sanctuary in the mountains unseen by passing eyes.

oh my, are you going to Copy-Paste ten more topics like this from some documents on your PC?

*goes to read*

I actually wrote that between now and when I posted the last one.  I've got four hours between classes, you see, and there's NOTHING to do.

oh i see
for me it just seemed like you were mass-posting the stuff because I just saw the first one

btw, whenever I read about those wizards, I get the picture of this guy in my head

With the exception of the most powerful among them, wizards must rely on cooperation for their power.  As such, they come off less as social misfits and more as a very exclusive club, or better yet, a guild.  Successful wizards also live considerably longer than a human, more on par with a half-elf.  The life expectancy increase is also seen in accomplished druids.  Nisyrran elves, however, have unparalleled life spans, living more than twice as long as regular elves, which already outlive the other races.  They don't live anywhere near as long as the elves of Middle Earth.  They live between 350 and 450 years, which is a lot compared to humans.  I wanted to address Nisyrran life expectancy because understanding how long it takes for a generation to pass is important for historical context, since Nisyrran aggression is one of the primary driving factors in the story.

so I read the full post yesterday before going to sleep (i printed it) and I must say it's very good. It didn't at all feel like it was written by some amateur and/or was full of clichés

anyway, when I printed it, with normal font size, on A4 paper, it was still 5 pages long -> that's a lot
if you have more stories like these, we could make a mediocre-sized e-book of it

will the last remaining Elder God (I'm assuming the archdruids dit not miscount) play a role in the story of the game's present?

The last remaining Elder God does not directly come into the story.  However, the fear that its will is driving some of the recent events will be one of the primary underlying story arcs with regards to the wizards (who alone among all the members of any faction - even Nisyrra - aware that an Elder God survived.  The archdruids never confided in anyone else, and the knowledge they had of it was lost as it turned from history to legend). 

You see, one of the few story arcs I'm actually willing to totally confirm at this point is a renegade group of wizards whose motives are unknown.  What's worrisome is that they have a deep interest in druid magic, which is banned.  Naturally, the old texts on the elder gods are brought out of the vaults, and the revelation that one was never accounted for immediately becomes a panic point, since the the armies of Varnost seem to be following the old druidic religeon and practicing its magic.  The threat of the resurgence of an elder god will be used by those renegade wizards and their agents which they left behind in the towers in order to manipulate and confuse the movements of the wizards.

However, I fully intend to leave near the end of the story (no confirmation on how yet) an indication that maybe some of the events of many of the storylines were guided by a greater will.  I will go so far as to confirm that the elder gods in the time of the elder war were only in the infancy of their power, less than 15 years old when they were destroyed.  Imagine the potential of a thousand years of honing those astronomical powers.

I will also confirm that the surviving Elder God was never directly seen in battle (at least by anyone who survived such an incident), since every Elder God encountered was documented, and each Elder God documented was inevitably destroyed.  As far as the wizards are concerned, there is a contradiction at hand.  The number of elder gods was confirmed - very accurately - by the druids when the first died.   So why could they not sense the location - or at least the existance - of the final elder god after the last of its brethren were dispatched?  The wizards came to two conclusions; one that the druids were utterly unreliable, or two that the final god had either found a way to hide itself from detection, or had moved too far away to be detected.  Either way, unless the elder god one day revealed itself, it was no longer their concern.

do you have more of this story in your mind? if so, when are we going to see it?

As it so happens, the next piece is entitled "The Rise of Tharwain".  It's told from the wizard's point of view (because, as you will see, there are many 'unrelated' events which were actually orchestrated by them), and the most major character in it is "Ryus Balkurn", the founder of the Balkurn nation.  Naturally, the article ties in heavily with the "Rise of Balkurn", which is going to be my fourth addition.  I want to have both done so there are no contradictions between them before I post.  That should be some time tomorrow.

good

I'm printing this story, I'm going to read it tomorrow in the bus.

Then I hope your bus trip is long

3hours came, 3hours back, 6 in total for taday

then I hope that was a special trip, not every-day travel?