War in the West Begins

Military action

Start of the conflict raging in the northwestern area of the Great Continent, a slave revolt that has metastized into something far more destructive and destabilizing in the region.

The nation of Kylma was a wealthy and prosperous independent state, but its prosperity was founded on the work of a slave caste of humans and other races purposely bred as shapechangers for greater strength, resilience against harsh working conditions, and for other adaptations pleasing to the masters but abusive to the slaves. Under the headship of a wererat named Drowtuft, a revolt began in the capitol city of Aividais that brought the government down and flipped the not-insignificant military over to the slave side. Because of their inarguable moral high ground at the beginning of the conflict, neighbor states did not intervene.   However upon establishing himself as a supreme potentate and declaring that the shapeshifters were going to make everyone pay for leaving them to die, the neighboring realms became nervous and openly petitioned Dovalni, Minon and the Khazigiri Empire for help. Dovaln sent several divisions of Elven archers and infantry to hold the tide, but these troops were loyal to Dovaln rather than the lands they fought for, and refused to stand their groud and sustain casualties. Minon was already engaged in a perpetual conflict with Jungaeris since its societal collapse hundreds of years earlier, with no interest in spreading themselves even thinner. And Khazig was tens of thousands of miles removed from the conflict. As a result, support of any practical kind was meager and the armies of Drowtuft rapidly swarmed southward.   As the war entered its third year, with half of the venerable kingdom of Utheria overrun and the armies of Kylma swelling with new shapeshifters infected by the disease and the ideology that went with it, an insidious truth emerged about the fight that gave it more priority to the world powers than it had when it was more of a regional conflict: On a long enough timeline, the victory of the Kylmen against even the great empires was inevitable because the Kylmen were converting their enemies into their army. And unlike the occasional undead army raised by the necromancers of old, this one couldn't be blasted away by a determined cleric or a bit of fire. The shapechanger lycanthropy allowed its 'victims' to withstand harsher conditions, to do more work on less food and water, with greater strength and speed than humans or other humanoids. And by infecting rather than killing the soldiers and mercenaries, the Wererat Dominon was creating converts, not corpses.   As such, with great reluctance, eventually the Autarch Irena VII committed a token number of infantry and handful of ships to the cause, with the intent of culling the number of enemies more than winning a war in favor of far-flung states that had never wanted anything to do with the Empire in times of safety and plenty.   For more details, be sure to read the related article.