Sunken God's Reign of Terror
A year-long conflict when a monstrous deity known as The Sunken God took root inside the former Elflands Empire and began terrorizing the adjacent nations and cities. With a death toll numbering in the millions, the Sunken God's reign of terror would go down as the most cataclysmic event in the industrial era.
The Conflict
Prelude
With the death of its longtime Emperor Polonius Avon III in the spring of 896, the Elflands Empire was vulnerable to internal division and collapse as Empress Ophelia prepared to take the throne. The Characters Revolution, a freedom-fighting movement composed of the Empire's minority races, waged a months-long civil war against the Empire fighting for independence from elven oppression. The Revolution culminated in a surprise attack on the Elflands capital of Kassædeia on New Year's Day 897, but other forces appeared to have plans that night. The Sunken God, a monstrous deity defeated by The Ageless One centuries ago, was gathering power in the world's oceans after the death of The Kraken in 875. The Sunken God quickly amassed an army of sahuagin under its control, and he used double agents like The Mariner to infiltrate the Characters Revolution and use the group as a means of destabilizing the world's largest government. The Sunken God's strategy proved a success, flooding the sewers of Kassædeia with a horde of sahuagin that slaughtered every elf in sight. The New Year's Massacre would lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of elves, a merciless beginning to the Sunken God's yearlong reign of terror.
Deployment
Forces in Southern Pescat and Liat were slow to react to the Sunken God's devastation and the collapse of the Elflands. Members of the Characters Revolution who survived the New Year's Massacre retreated to cities like Thork, Hedgpeth, and Noggin, sometimes banding together with soldiers from the Elflands Empire to fend off the sahuagin horde. With supply chains in chaos and the Karaga Sea shrouded in tumultuous storms by the Sunken God, each city was forced to fend for itself for months on end until the Fireheart Fleet managed to organize itself.
Hedgpeth would be the first to fall to the Sunken God's forces, followed not long after by Oridelfa in the spring and Galway that fall. Thork survived through a combined coalition of orc and dragonborn fighters, Silvio held off the sahuagin horde by some miracle, and Noggin lasted long enough to become a vital supply point for the Fireheart Fleet in its campaign against the Sunken God.
Battlefield
Despite the Sunken God's control over storms and aquatic beings like the sahuagin, coalition forces under the Fireheart Fleet determined that a naval campaign would be the most effective way to defeat the monstrous deity. While the sahuagin horde was laying waste to the remnants of the Elflands Empire, the Sunken God's armies were penned in by the Bahamut Mtns. and the mystic powers of the Golden Forests. A naval campaign from the Karaga Sea would pin the Sunken God's armies into the interior of the Elflands, preventing further destruction or Sunken God expansion.
Meanwhile, a small band of elite heroes known as the Royal Knights Brigade would travel behind enemy lines to confront the Sunken God directly at the Globe Palace in Kassædeia. The group would manage to contain and defeat the monstrous deity with a powerful magic item known as an Iron Flask, but not without some casualties like the dwarven paladin Asdis Loderr.
Conditions
The Sunken God, with incomprehensible powers drawn from the Far Realms, seemed to warp the atmosphere around Kassædeia and wherever his sahuagin forces marched. By the end of the monstrous deity's reign of terror in the winter of 897, the center of the former Elflands Empire was shrouded by a dense cloud of rain and fog while Kassædeia became flooded by several feet of brackish water.
The Engagement
- New Year's Massacre (Month 1, 897): Sahuagin forces under the command of the Sunken God rose up from the sewers of Kassædeia and laid waste to every living creature in sight. By the end of the week, over 200,000 elves would be slaughtered by the sahuagin horde.
- The Fall of Hedgpeth (Spring 897): With the Sunken God on the warpath, the monstrous deity's sahuagin marched west towards Hedgpeth and overwhelmed the city in a matter of hours. Recent floods gave the sahuagin the upper hand in a vicious siege, leading to the deaths of prominent Characters Revolution leaders like Father Goodberry.
- The Fall of Oridelfa (Spring 897): Full of bloodlust after the fall of Hegpeth, the Sunken God split his sahuagin forces in two directions to seize former Elflands territory near the Bahamut Mtns and the Karaga Sea. The sahuagin marching towards the sea found Oridelfa an easy target, weakened by heavy fighting during the Characters Revolution and composed of islands easily accessible by sahuagin forces.
- Thork's Survival (Summer 897): The monstrous deity's sahuagin were repelled outside the gates of Thork, forced to retreat and assist with the sieges of Galway and Silvio. Brogg the Accuser, one of the leaders of the Characters Revolution to survive the New Year's Massacre, formed an alliance between orcish forces and dragonborn armies from Bahamut to fight back against the Sunken God's invaders for several weeks of brutal fighting. A small garrison of elven soldiers, after initial conflict with Brogg's forces, agreed to assist in the fighting and would later become advocates for an independent orcish kingdom with its capital in Thork.
- The Miracle of Silvio (Summer 897): For centuries a merchant town owned by the human kingdom of Sardivelia, the city of Silvio managed to survive weeks of siege and attacks from the Sunken God's sahuagin forces. 'The Ageless One smiled on us that summer' Sardivelia's leader Paoli Piedmonte said at a speech commemorating the 10-year anniversary of the siege, but conspiracy theories have proposed that Paoli had access to a powerful magic item that shifted the tide of battle at the last minute. Frustrated and disorganized, the sahuagin horde advanced towards Galway seeking vengeance for its humiliating defeat.
- The Fireheart Fleet Takes Shape (Fall 897): With the Sunken God threatening the global order and international trade, nations all over Southern Pescat and Liat banded together to defeat the monstrous deity. The movement was spearheaded by the human kingdom of Gameth, whose adventuring team the Royal Knights Brigade had already assisted with a coup in Myltev to make the pirate kingdom more willing to assist in the fight against the monstrous deity. Other nations like Avicenna and Sardivelia quickly joined, but it wasn't until the port city of Poroshenko in Glace was invaded by sahuagin forces that nations in Southern Pescat joined the coalition. By the start of winter a fleet numbering in the hundreds with ships from more than half a dozen nations would be setting sail for the Elflands.
- The Annihilation of Galway (Fall 897): A monthslong siege of the gnomish city of Galway ended when a powerful aberration under the control of the Sunken God broke through its fortifications and laid waste to the cities. Elves and gnomes were massacred en masse, and only a few dozen escaped to cities such as Silvio or Noggin. A large band of elven refugees had settled in the city, adding to the elven genocide since the start of the Sunken God's reign of terror.
- Victory at Noggin (Fall 897): With assistance from the Royal Knights Brigade, the halfling city of Noggin was secured against further attacks from the sahuagin horde and became a vital hub for ships in the Fireheart Fleet to resupply and prepare for the final battles of the campaign.
- The Battle of Elwood (Winter 897): After small skirmishes with Sunken God forces, the Fireheart Fleet committed to a land invasion of the Elflands just days before the Royal Knights Brigade fought the Sunken God head-on in Kassædeia. The battle left tens of thousands dead on both sides, but Roland's plan proved a success and secured the coalition with a direct line of attack towards the former Elflands capital.
- The Battle of Kassadeia (Winter 897): With less than a dozen adventurers in tow, the heroes of the Royal Knights Brigade marched into the center of the ruined metropolis and fought the Sunken God's eldritch form head-on in an epic battle for the ages. Assisted with supernatural powers from deities like Erivo and Yo-Na, the Royal Knights Brigade contained the monstrous deity inside a magic Iron Flask and saved the world for generations to come.
Outcome
With millions dead and cities razed to the ground, the nations of the world were forced to convene an emergency meeting to redraw the map of Southern Pescat. The Treaty of Iverburg, signed in the spring of 898, created new nations from the remains of the Elflands Empire and allowed existing nations like Sardivelia and Bahamut to annex and rebuild some of the cities most affected by the Sunken God's reign of terror. Desperate for a return to normalcy, it would take years for international trade in the Karaga Sea to reach pre-Sunken God levels.
Aftermath
Ten years after the Sunken God's defeat, the new global order has survived and cities around the former Elflands have begun to rise from the ashes. International trade flourished thanks to nations like Sardivelia, exporting industrial-age technologies like trains and firearms to the furthest reaches of the world.
Pescaliat's global population has yet to recover to its to pre-Sunken God levels, and wars in the Northern Territories have only further exacerbated the precarious situation elves face in the modern age. International borders at this time remain secure, but conflict seems inevitable as nations seek to fill the power vacuum left by the Elflands Empire.
Historical Significance
In Literature
- Chronicles of the Continent: The Drowning World by Tarpin was published in 906 to mixed reviews
Conflict Type
Military Campaign
Battlefield Type
Naval
Start Date
Month 1, Week 1, Year 897, 4th Cycle
Ending Date
Month 12, Week 3, Year 897, 4th Cycle
Conflict Result
Sunken God defeat and containment
Location
Belligerents
The Fireheart Fleet
Led by
Strength
Hundreds of thousands of sahuagin and aberrations from the Far Realms
Hundreds of vessels from almost every nation of Southern Pescat and Liat
Casualties
Objectives
To flood the world of Ekal and establish an empire of storms and chaos.
To defeat The Sunken God and put an end to the monstrous deity's reign of terror
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