The Dawn War is an ages-long battle between the gods and primordials, marking the end of Ddaear as anyone could recognize it. A new world was born from what remained,
Talamh, with the ancient ruins of Ddaear forgotten during the chaos and destruction.
The Shard of Evil
Long before the war to end (and begin) time, a race of vile entities presided over the remains of a dying universe lost to the Far Realm. These beings of evil incarnate were known as the obyriths, and as their hunger drained their realm of all life and power, they knew that their days were numbered. So it was that in the last age of their race, the obyriths breached the barrier between their realm and another, pushing a shard of uttermost evil through the fissure between realities. With the power of the shard, they hoped to corrupt the most powerful beings of this new realm. After bending and eventually enslaving these creatures to their will. the obyriths would exert their control over a new realm, reshaping it in their own vile image.
Eons passed as the obyriths slowly died. When only a handful of their kind remained, the plan they had enacted so long ago finally came to fruition. It is unknown how the god Boccob came into possession of the shard, but he found his mind and spirit opened to the obyriths trapped in their dying darkness. The link to those foul beings corrupted him in an instant, driving the deity to madness. Tharizdun was born.
But the obyriths' plan to seize the celestial realms controlled by Tharizdun and his kind was met with resistance and a twist they had not anticipated. The obyriths demanded that the deity plant the seed of evil within the Astral Sea, promising him total dominion of that realm in exchange for his fealty. He chose the Abyss as resting place for the shard, a realm long abandoned since its creator was killed during the
I - War of Creation. However, in a fleeting glimpse of sanity, Boccob realized what he had done and did the only thing he could to prevent the distruction of this universe. The mad god ripped the Abyss from the Astral Sea and traveled to the farthest reaches of the cosmos, planting this corrupted realm and its seed of evil in a primordial expanse of the churning Elemental Chaos.
Birth of the Maelstrom
The planting of the seed of evil in the Elemental Chaos unleashed power like that realm had never seen before. The nascent evil of the obyriths' realm flared one last time as black flame, exploding through a yawning vortex that formed where the seed was cast down. Forced to act even though their plans had gone astray, the obyriths allowed themselves to be drawn through the vortex as their own realm was consumed and finally destroyed.
The obyriths had seemingly won their prize - a realm in which their evil could be spawned anew. But as the tear in the fabric of reality closed, Tharizdun faced off against his would-be masters. Beholding the obyriths in their horrific grandeur, the god was shielded from their wrath by the link they had forged with him. At the same time, the evil and madness of the shard blessed Tharizdun with great power of his own. The vortex that formed around the shard of evil in the Abyss was growing within the Elemental Chaos even as Tharizdun and the obyriths fought to control it.
The shard of evil had granted the mad god far more power than the obyriths could ever have predicted. Instead of a puppet, they faced a being of unmatched strength and absolute evil. Only by working together did the last twelve obyriths stave off destruction and, over the course of endless battles, force Tharizdun into a stalemate. As both sides withdrew to plot the other's destruction. the growth of the Abyss settled and slowed. Beings outside the newly created realm took notice of it for the first time.
The Demon Princes
Drawn by whispers promising power and dominion over the unfolding realms of creation, the first primordials entered the Abyss. The shattered realm they observed within the vortex was thoroughly corrupted, but these creatures were unconcerned with morality as they pressed on, beckoned by the whispering of the Abyss's evil heart. As they explored farther into the desolation, they came upon a great, blood-red ocean, and they knew they had reached that heart at last. Floating there in the shallows of the nascent Blood Sea, the shard of evil called out for one strong enough to step forward and claim it.
The first to set forth was a petulant primordial of unbridled fury named Demogorgon. As Demogorgon waded into the turbulent surf, however, another being rose up from the darkened depths beneath the sea. The interloper Dagon challenged Demogorgon for the right to claim the shard, the mighty primordials clashing in a battle that turned the sea to a bloody storm. But as they fought, a third being crawled up from a hitherto unseen pit to claim the shard as his own. Obox-ob, a loathsome obyrith of putrescence and filth, had become the first Prince of Demons. But he would not be the last, as Orcus, Baphomet, and many more followed and became corrupted.
The War Begins
The intrusion of primordials into the Abyss pushed Tharizdun to act. He strove to marshal the power of the Elemental Chaos and its denizens in his bid for universal domination. The primordials, already angered with the gods' meddling in the affairs of the world, were easily swayed by Tharizdun's call to arms. They believed that if the mad god could reclaim the shard of evil now buried in the heart of the Abyss, it would ensure their triumph over the gods of the Astral Sea. Calling himself the Elder Elemental Eye, Tharizdun attracted powerful followers, only a few of which knew him as the god he was. The deceit he fomented rallied other elemental creatures to his banner, and the Cult of Elemental Evil grew.
Chief among Tharizdun's lieutenants was a powerful primordial named Miska the Wolf-Spider. It was Miska who was charged with assaulting the Abyss to find the shard of evil. But the attention of the gods had been drawn to the Abyss and the primordials that entered it. When Tharizdun's plans were discovered, his immortal kin attacked. Though a powerful foe, Tharizdun was overcome by the combined might of the gods. Locking him away in a remote abyssal layer, they called him the Chained God and struck his name from history. Tharizdun's armies were scattered, but they were not yet defeated. Marshaled by Miska and the Princes of Elemental Evil, the host fought on.
The obyriths took advantage of this brewing war and forged an alliance between Miska, the Demon Princes, and all other primordials. This began a climactic epoch of the Dawn War.
Shift of the Pantheon
The gods became desparate and apotheosed many to join their ranks. Amoth chose his children Erathis, Ioun, and Pelor. Khala raised her son Kord and consort Zehir. Yondalla gave power to Avandra and Melora. And Tuern promoted his most trused general Bane. Many more were apotheosed, but none of them survived the war. Through the centuries of fighting, Amoth, Garl, Gorellik, Khala, and Tuern all were slain, their corpses left scattered throughout the cosmos. Io was cut in half, though miraculously his two sides formed into Bahamut and Tiamat and joined the ranks of the gods.
The most tragic story of all is that of Yondalla. She pursued the primordial Gargash deep into the Underdark over the course of the war. The ensuing battle shook the tunnels and broke open vast crevasses, with both powerful beings scoring massive hits on the other. But Yondalla steadily gained the upper hand, and as Gargash felt his strength disappearing, he cursed the god. With his last words, in guttural speech that Yondalla could not understand, Gargash achieved a final spiteful act by sealing her fate to the Underdark. Under this curse, the god's wounds would never heal, at least not until the gods and the primordials lived in peace ... and Yondalla could not leave without dire consequence. The goddess of freedom and journey found herself trapped and tortured for the rest of time. Separated from the energies of the positive plane, she began to draw on the Underdark for strength and power. Her mind warped in the darkness and her nature turned cruel and spiteful. Torog had been born.
With the combined forces of chaos battering its deities, the Astral Sea seemed lost.
Victory and Defeat
Even as the gods' bastions fell, an exarch of Moradin and seven angels of Bahamut known as the Wind Dukes of Aaqa worked in secret with Torzak-Belgirn, the Soulforge of Moradin, to craft the Rod of Law. With this powerful weapon, the gods hoped to defeat the hosts of chaos once and for all.
The Rod of Law turned the tide of war in the Astral Sea. In the end, it broke the will of the invaders when it was used to strike down Miska the Wolf-Spider and then banish the Princes of Demons back to the Abyss. Miska's armies retreated to the Elemental Chaos, and the obyriths faded into shadow to find other ways to corrupt this realm. The most powerful of the primordials were sealed away as punishment for their war.
The gods tried to destroy the Abyss, but the power of the Shard of Evil was too much to overcome. The Demon Princes repelled the forces of the Astral Sea, and to this day both sides remain vigilant.
A New Dawn
The battles of the Dawn War raged across the cosmos for uncounted centuries. The gods eventually gained the upper hand, successfully imprisoning or banishing many of the primordials, but with much cost to the mortal realm. Ddaear became but another battleground between the cosmological powers, with mortals able to do little more than watch in terror and pray. The world saw the introduction of seasons, a weapon wielded by the gods to try and hinder the elemental-based primordials. In retaliation, whole islands were thrown across the sea, killing many a divine creature.
In the last years of the war, a new force made itself known in the cosmos: the spiritual expression of the world itself. These primal spirits declared an end to the conflict, asserting that the world would no longer be a battleground for the two opposing forces. The gods and the primordials were banished from the material plane, and the primal spirits of the world decreed a balance; the world would remain a place where matter and spirit mingled freely, where life and death proceeded in an orderly cycle, where the seasons changed in their unending wheel without interference. The gods and the primordials could still influence the world, but they could not rule it.
A new light dawned on a new world.
Talamh was born.
