The Sixth Major Civil War of Drifeyer

The Conflict

Prelude

Queen Naharen's rule had been going on for a long time and the dwarves were becoming more and more dissatisfied with her policies. They claimed Queen Naharen was ruling unjustly, and strongly in favour of the elves, lessening opportunities and rights of the dwarves.
It was also a known fact that Queen Naharen and the religious leader of Drifeyer, Thear Morydanyr, couldn't stand each other. This led many dwarves to believe that the Queen was secretly trying to get rid of the dwarves in Drifeyer and make it an elvish country instead.
In addition, a horrible accident at Karmiril, School of Magic Arts, had caused nation-wide earthquakes and storms, which ruined a big part of the mines in the Silver Slopes, causing the death of a great number of dwarfish workers. In many dwarves' opinion, the Queen had not been reacting appropriately.
They claimed the families of the dead workers had not been compensated accordingly and reparations of the mines were under-prioritised, thus forcing dwarfish workers to work in unstable mines.
This mishandling of the situation sparked more and more unrest and caused many to speak out against the government that only prioritised elvish needs and interests, and never paid the dwarves much mind. Voices started to ask for a dwarfish Queen, or more seats on the Royal Council or Court, and some even demanded the elves to step back from the royal palace altogether. Even others demanded for an alternating reign between elves and dwarves, as well as a strict term length, after which a new Queen should be elected.
All these demands fell on deaf ears at the Royal Court and Queen Naharen dismissed the dwarfish concerns, claiming that they were being irrational and that the heavy storms and earthquakes hadn't only demolished the mines and that reparations and compensations were due in the entire Queendom. According to her, the treatment of the dwarves had nothing to do with prioritising elves over dwarves.
The dismissal of Queen Naharen infuriated many of the dwarfish miners and they started spreading word of an unjust Queen, demanding to take her down. More and more dwarves joined the movement and started protesting in front of the palace, but to no avail. In frustration, they started planning the assassination of Queen Naharen and the rest of the royal family and to take over the Royal Palace.
The elves, meanwhile, had gotten wind of the dissatisfaction of the dwarves, but their opinions on how to proceed were divided. Some tried to appeal to the Queen to give in to the dwarves' demands and to compensate them for their losses, as the mines had been hit quite strongly. Others argued to put the leaders of the protests behind bars and assert dominance, fearing that otherwise the royal institution would be weakened and other nations might consider attacking Drifeyer.
The stance of most elves changed towards retaliation however, when the dwarves first attacked.

Deployment

Feeling unheard, disrespected and devalued, the leader of the dwarfish protesters, Aertyar Zerveryr, decided to give the elves a taste of their own medicine. He ordered his group to kill some of the students attending Karmiril, not only to show the elves what it was like to have loved ones die and no one caring, but als because in Aertyar's eyes Karmiril was at fault just as much as Queen Naharen. After all, the accident at Karmiril had been what had caused so much death in the first place. The dwarves killed 46 elvish students of Karmiril, which opened a conflict that would last 24 years.
Many battles were fought in these years, but in between were periods of truce, where both sides regrouped and even tried to negotiate with each other but to no avail.
It was a bloody war that cost many lives and changed Drifeyer forever.

Battlefield

In the beginning, the battle was mainly carried out in the Capital Viëndyr, where the palace was attacked and partly destroyed as well as many residental buildings, shops and cultural facilities. The statues of the founding elf and dwarf were also demolished and parts of the city wall were destroyed. At the end of the war, large parts of Viëndyr lay in ruins.
Later on, the war also spread to smaller towns and cities and even the countryside got involved at one point.
Because of the damage to the harbour during the earthquake and storms, the battle never transferred to water.

Outcome

Queen Naharen died in the war, which left the throne vacant, but it was claimed by Queen Naharen's daughter, Findera, not without protest from the dwarfish fraction. They demanded more political influence, and Findera promised to change legislation to open politics up to dwarves, which so far had not been the case. She also promised to pay proper compensation to the victims of the earthquake.
Even though elves and dwarves had been living together in relative peace for a long time, their areas of influence had been relatively segregated. Almost all political power had been held by the elves, and almost all religious power had been held by the dwarves. Queen Findera changed those policies and made it law that the Royal Council needed to have at least three dwarves in it at all times.
This and other treaties established a fragile peace between the fractions.

Aftermath

The opportunities for dwarves and elves had been made more equal and the dwarves finally had representation in the royal court at all times. The methods of Drifeyer also became a lot more diplomatic after the bloody civil war and when Ebyerel ascended the throne just 180 years later, she vowed to prioritise diplomacy and negotiation at all costs and that conflict would only be a last resort that should never be used lightly.
Ebyerel also changed the terms for the monarch. She introduced a set term-length of 150 years, after which the public would vote on whether the current monarch should remain or be replaced by someone new, thus eliminating heritability of the throne.
She also terminated lower aristocracy, which had been overwhelmingly elvish, and replaced them by elected administrators of the different regions of Drifeyer. This upset many of the elves, especially older ones, but it earned her the favour and support of the dwarves.
With Ebyerel's reign also came a campaign for the rights of the Bàhyir, which so far had been largely overlooked because they were always in between fractions. She changed the requirements for the seats of the Royal Council to three elves, three dwarves and one Bàhyir among other things.

Conflict Type

War

Battlefield Type

Land

Start Date

7092 AR

Ending Date

7116 AR

Conflict Result

Peace could be re-established between the elvish and dwarfish fractions.

Belligerents

Dwarves

• Drifeyer
• Pyktyrr

Elves

• Deya
• Drifeyer

Strength

Even though in the beginning the group willing to fight was small, clocking in at about 50 people, the movement grew over the years and with reinforcements from Pyktyrr, the dwarves had a manpower of (to be added).

In the beginning most elves, including the Queen, were trying to de-escalate the situation, only few wanted to fight back. The numbers of the elves grew, however, after the first acts of violence had been committed by the dwarves, and even more joined the side of the Queen after the first elvish civillians had been killed. Later Deya sent out a support troup to help Queen Naharen. All in all their manpower was (to be added).

Casualties

There were many casualties

There were many casualties on the side of the elves as well. One of the major casualties was Queen Naharen. Firiyé Laëryr survived, but was exciled for war crimes.

Objectives

Many dwarves, especially those living close to the Silver Slopes, felt overlooked and insufficiently compensated for their losses in the big earthquake and storms. They demanded Queen Naharen to compensate them fairly at first, but when the Queen didn't see anything wrong with how she had handled the situation, many grew frustrated, angry and in need for change. They demanded more political power for the dwarves and better opportunities, but as those demands fell on deaf ears as well, they demanded for Queen Naharen to step down and many wanted to replace her with a dwarfish Queen.
It didn't take long for the protests in front of the Palace to turn violent and voices grew louder asking for the Queen to be taken down by force.

Queen Naharen wanted to prevent an all out conflict, but couldn't give in to the dwarves' demands because of missing resources and the heavy damage done to the harbour, which had first priority, as well as rebuilding Karmiril after it had been utterly destroyed by the blast of magic that caused the earthquake in the first place.
When it became evident that a peaceful resolution wouldn't be possible, Queen Naharen found herself the head of a furious mob of elves who wanted to put the dwarves into their place. Even though Queen Naharen tried to calm the upset elves down, there wasn't much she could do and her family had to go into hiding. The elvish fraction soon had nothing to do with the Queen anymore, even though they made the dwarves believe that it was so. In fact, a young elf, Firiyé Laëryr, who had lost her family to the attacks of the dwarves, was leading the elvish fraction. Her goal not only ending the conflict, in fact it became less and less about that, but revenge , which caused her to order many cruel attacks on innocent country folk, but the elves in her company were so blinded by rage and the desire to avenge their loved ones that her orders were never questioned.
When Queen Naharen came back from hiding, she took over the lead again, with the only goal to end the conflict with as few more casualties as possible.

Maps

• 

  Drifeyer

  A close up-map of Drifeyer with all the cities, towns and villages.
• 

  Viëndyr

  A detailed map of the entire city of Viëndyr, the capital of Drifeyer, plus its surrounding regions.