The Great War

A war with orcs that resulted in the end of magic on Auire, known as the Magic Crisis.

The Earthborn Empire had been colonizing and enslaving orcs casually in Zjik for hundreds of years, though most of the continent remained totally free of human influence. Eventually, independent kingdoms broke off from the empire and began warring with the orcs for territory. Generations later, these northmen felt their home truly was this northern continent, and they continued oppressing orcs, coordinating with each other and even pitting rival orcs against each other, offering help in divide and conquer tactics. This was known as the First Crusade of Zjik.

At some point, whispers of a new orcish god began to spread, a god of vengeance and creation, the true god. This rivaled and mirrored other theories at the time such as the prophecies of Pterema saying that all the gods were either avatars or angels of the one true god of all creation, which the humans worshipped as Atothis. But this orcish god became known as the Dark Lord due to his vengeful nature and opposition to the human powers. Soon, the orcs began to get organized and easily defeated humans in open war. The Earthborn Empire spent hundreds of years supporting the Northmen even though they had broken from the Empire, all while the legend of the Dark Lord grew. These conflicts were known as the Second Crusade of Zjik where the Empire hoped to get control of their colonies back, but they lost the war.

When the Northmen and Imperials were completely chased out of Zjik, the orcs began their own crusade across Zjik, where the independent human kingdoms in the northeast were completely destroyed, sending more refugees to the Empire. The human kingdom of Herodia allied with the orcs and began worshipping the Dark Lord and helped slaughter any humans who stood in their way. The elven kingdom of Ikthalia endured minor attacks but held firm in defense and made no move to stop the overall progression of the orcs, and refusing all human refugees, taking them on safe rides to Imperial shores.

This process only took a few decades, and without stopping, the orcs surged forward and attacked the Earthborn Empire, using the Herodian navy. This was the official start date of the Great War, which would last for almost 200 years. By this time, the Dark Lord's shadow loomed large over the world of Auire, and most were afraid to speak his name, some even going insane and joining cults that betrayed the humans to the orcs in the name of their one true god.

The war was a mess of shifting borders, often ending in naval battles to stop each other from crossing the sea, and the elves just stood by and watched, convinced the orcs would not target them. When the orcs had tried to crack the Imperial defenses for about 5 years, they turned to Ikthalia finally and successfully invaded parts of it, putting the elves in a position where they could no longer help the humans or wage an offense.

When the war in Ikthalia reached a stalemate, the orcs decided to attack the Empire once again, at a place they knew should have been one of the strongest points in their defense. The Dark Lord's lieutenants figured that the Empire would spread their defenses to weak points, leaving Mythgar with a skeleton crew. Even if the majority of the naval forces were present there, the orcs could break through the lines and into the city and establish a nigh impregnable foothold, which is exactly what they did. The secret to the orcs' neverending numbers started to become apparent at this stage of the war, as they sent out legions of goblins from Mythgar to raid the countryside, unaccompanied by orcs, perhaps saving orcs for tougher battles, or running out of them entirely. Goblins reproduce up to 4 babies in less than 2 months, and they can be fully grown in less than 4 years, so they began to be seen swarming battlefields and villages across the Empire. Nowhere was truly safe except for a few walled cities which became clogged with refugees trying to escape the invading greenskins.

In one of the most famous battles of history, the orcs besieged the city of Glasston Deep, managing to capture it for 10 hours, during which they executed thousands of humans, before the elven armies and the emperor's grand armies, newly recruited young men from all over the empire, trained and armored, numerous due to the Imperial scheme to lower defense spending and spend on breeding. This combined army would convince the dwarves to join in and kick the orcs out of Rielli once and for all. This resulted in tremendous casualties on all sides, with the dwarves notably taking the least by far. Every goblin was exterminated to make sure none survived in the hills.

In the north, experiments were being done on goblins to try to make them breed even more and even faster, which ended in horribly scarring and handicapping the majority population of goblin society, with scattered goblin tribes left as a minority of healthy, true goblins.

The orcs did not let up, however, and continued to raid the empire, avoiding open battles now, but harassing and terrorizing the people nonetheless. This process lasted for decades, and it was eventually decided, with the help of the elves, to take back Zjik, and subjugate the entire orcish race. Over the course of this part of the war, deemed the third crusade, it became increasingly clear that the Dark Lord was not just some tale or even a sorcerer, but truly a being of god-level power. Little progress was made in the north, with the humans holding a few key fortresses but losing men at an unsustainable rate.

Several heroes of men and elves figured out that they would have to attack the Dark Lord himself. They figured out his seat of power and several plans to defeat him. Knowing they were about to lose all their positions in the north, the Alliance decided to make one push and just bulldoze their way right to the center of the Dark Lord's fortress, defeat him, and then fight their way out of Zjik, and hopefully after regrouping, then either defeat the orcs or make a truce with them.

The war was marked over when the Dark Lord was defeated, but several skirmishes occurred to subjugate the orcs finally. Most orcs present at the final battle fled and hid, while some loyalist factions continued to attack men and elves and the dwarves, to the point of just throwing themselves into suicide battles just to kill as many men and elves as possible as they went out. This fizzled out and the remaining Imperial armies enslaved the remaining orcs to help rebuild and cope with the magic crisis. The elves ignored taking back Ikthalia and pulled out completely from their remaining holdouts and sealed themselves in Ithiliel for 100 years.

In the current day, the Northern kingdoms are restored, and kept their independence as the Empire licks its wounds without an ounce of magic. The Northmen and their ancestors returned to Zjik and sold orcish slaves to the Empire so the Imperials could rest and stop fighting. They agreed to let them keep their independence from the Empire so they could focus internally. Riellin and Kadesh had nearly been destroyed, and so had countless forts and cities in other kingdoms.

The Genarctani people sat out of the Great War, unaffected by it on their isolated island nation, but they tried to invade the Empire twice in the early days after the end of the Great War, which ended in success, but it was too expensive, for the Imperials fought hard, so they abandoned the effort, and took simply to raiding the shores and trade routes.

For their mistakes in the early parts of the war, the Elves feel very guilty and have decided to re-open Ithiliel and come to an early defense this time, to warn everyone that orcs are on the move again.