Third Republican Civil War

The Third Republican Civil was is seen by many as the war that severed their connection to Aroden and led to the events of the sundering. The forces of chaos and destruction flowed from their corners and portals invading the nations of Gaulren ravaging the world. Without the interdiction from the Justicar the civilizations of the world may have been destroyed.
Before the conflict the Republic was hit by famines, disease, and unrest throughout the provinces even those that were generally peaceful. Both consuls blamed the other for the woes facing the nation and there was still lingering resentment from the previous civil war. The two churches were blaming the other saying their god had forsaken them for allowing the other to worship their patron god. Both Solden and Vernica had recovered from the previous wars and resecured their borders and set out to reignite the flames of war.

The Conflict

Prelude

Leading into the Third Civil War there was still resentment between the churches of Aroden and Abadar. The two cities has selected those gods as the patron deity of their city and has been a leading cause of both previous civil wars. During the second civil war the tension between the two churches was not resolved and festered under the surface while the two sections of the Republic dealt with the external problems that had assaulted their borders. The cities were distracted by their problems but the people never forgot nor forgave. When the outer provinces were retaken a number of problems began afflicting them. Droughts spread across the province of Luclana leading to grain shortages, Plania began to be afflicted by a strange plague causing the peasants to be unable to work the fields exacerbating the situation, Redwater began to have riots in response to the constant raids from Those of Gaulren and the Coalition of Hadasht and were angry at the lack of help from the capital, Albion was hit by several earthquakes destroying buildings across the province. These problems were slowly getting worse and worse and instead of solving the problems the twin capitals blamed the other.
Across the planet followers of the gods were feeling their connection to their deities waver and were unsure of its cause. The churches saw the others as the cause of this and even accused them of creating pacts with dark deities to cause these problems plaguing the world. Both cities began rallying their provinces for war so they could solve these problems. The consuls gave the other one last time to switch to their deity and when neither budged war was declared and the start of the Third Republican Civil War had arrived.

Initial Maneuvers

The portal on the arch that connected the two cities began to surge in intensity causing the two sides to be unable to go to or from the old world and since it was active crossing the bridge became impossible. Solden had the superior navy and immediately blockaded the port of Vernica. Solden anticipated Vernica to try to deploy their legions on transport vessels from the home province or north from the port of Velia, but in a turn of events they purchased mercenary vessels originating from the Adal Caliphate who landed on the southern shore of Luclana. These ships were well crafted and protected by magical wards capable of crossing the raging sea even with the increased number of storms hitting the ocean. The legions boarded these ships and crossed around the southern Ferax Grasslands past the ships blockading the ports and landed on the Stippled Coast. They immediately marched on the port city of Egeria quickly dispatching the city guard and began ransacking the city and taking control of the massive port. Solden was taken off-guard and began mobilizing their legions to react to this invasion.
Vernican legions began to fortify the city to defend it against the coming counter attack. Solden's legions lay siege to Egeria and consul Naevius Aviola of Solden took the ships blockading Velia and moved them down to Egeria. Consul Altalune Vernicus of Vernica was planning on keeping them in Egeria until the legions in Albion were finished snuffing out a minor rebellion before it grew in size and received support from the King. She planned on taking those legions and bringing them to break the siege so they could spread out and begin to take the surrounding towns and villages cutting of the land route to Plania. The Vernican branch of the Evocati was still finishing their maneuvers to ensure Albion was afraid of another War of the Broken Vases was about to break out and the blockade was preventing supplies from getting to the legions stationed in the city. The mercenary ships used as transported were just enough to get the legions across, but were unable to carry a significant amount of supplies, they planned on returning to Luclana and filling up on supplies to bring back to Egeria, but Solden's navies arrived much quicker than anticipated and the mercenaries were ill-equipped for a naval battle with Solden's fleet. Altalune sent Viira Nereus as legatus Res Publica of the legions sent and she began planning with the Legates under her command. Legate Firrim of suggested that he take his legions out of one of the gates and engage them on the land before more Solden forces arrived. Viira was cautious at the plan at first, but after seeing the fleet blockading the port and realizing they only had half a months worth of supplies the longer they waited the harder it would be to break out of the city starting the batte of the Gates of Egeria. 
When Viira managed to get her legions into the province of Plania the Legatus Res Publica of Solden's legions Pharus Morik scouted the legions in the province and realized his blunder in the most recent battle. He immediately marched his legions out to harass Vernica's legions and prevent them from gathering the supplies needed to keep their legions fed. Viira continues to outmaneuver Pharus by constantly feigning attacks forcing Pharus to consolidate his forces allowing Viira to fall back quickly and forage the area to keep her legions fed.
Viira planned on keeping this game of cat and mouse going until Consul Altalune of Vernica could send the reinforcing legions from Albion. Altalune finally reported that the legions boarded ships in Velia and were on the way. Viira planned on reacting to whatever Pharus did, if Pharus took his legions back to Solden to protect the home province then she would hound his heels as he fell back, but if not she would continue to keep their legions in the dance she had created and allow the fresh legions to wreck havoc in Solden.
Pharus received orders from Solden that he was to take out Viira's legions and not worry about the newly arrived legions in Solden. During the time Pharus was chasing Viira's legions they managed to raise several new legions they intended to move to help Pharus and encircle Viira's forces, but instead were redirected to blunt the reinforcing armies. The two new opposing legion groups were much rasher and immediately got themselves into a battle as many of the citizens from the capitals were annoyed at the two years of Viira keeping out of an all out battle with Pharus. The two new legion groups immediately engaged the other and fought the Battle of the Drifting Legionnaire.

Years of Skirmish

The next few years saw Viira constantly traveling around Solden's lands with her army surviving off of forced tribute from the cities and towns dotting the landscape. Pharus after hearing what happened at the Battle of the Drifting Legionnaire didn't want to get into a full engagement and risk putting both Solden and Vernica's almost entire military force out of action leaving only a few garrisons to defend against the enemy nations. This lead to both head legates dancing around each other and occasionally getting into small scale skirmishes a couple times a month barely leading to anything of note. Intelligence suggested that Vernica was about to strip garrisons from Albion and Luclana even more to try and get the upperhand in the fighting. Solden's consul Naevius Aviola was considering taking garrisons off of the border of Those of Gaulren, but received such kickback from his senate that he had to put a stop to those plans. Altalune, however, in Vernican lands was able to get a significant amount of her garrisons out and send them to reinforce the troops over in Plania. There were six still stationed in Albion and five in Luclana so she decided to take three legions from each province and rehired the Adal Caliphate ships and transported them over to the Stippled Coast.
Word got to Viira of the reinforcements and Viira was honestly hesistant to whether or not this was a good idea to put so many of their resources in this war greatly weakening the Republic. She had no choice in the matter as orders were to subdue Pharus and his forces as well as make Solden sue for peace favorably to Vernica. Viira prepared to receive the reinforcements and prepare to begin finding a battle favorable to her forces.
Pharus obtained reports of the reinforcing Vernican legions and had to make a decision quickly. He would now be outnumbered, but even now he didn't have enough troops to create an easy decisive victory. Pharus attempted to buy the help of mercenary armies from the Adal desert, but was receiving strange reports of a disease spreading across the desert decimating many of the armies and most were in no state to be of any help. On top of that Pharus didn't want the disease to spread and even sent word to Solden to cut off trade with cities in the Adal desert for the time being. Pharus began to take his troops and retreat back to the province of Solden and hope to cause the war to come to a standstill until Vernica is forced to leave the province when enemies inevitably come knocking at their door again.
On top of this they were beginning to receive word from their garrisons in Redwater of strange beasts beginning to assault their positions and need reinforcements. Viira in the meantime was about to strike Pharus and his retreating troops when she began getting strange information coming from Vernica. In Luclana there were sightings of metal creatures attacking the outskirts of farms and attacking patrols. At the same time there were people who said they witnessed significant numbers of dead rising from their graves in Albion and the Vostok forest who were beginning to attack their villages.
When the reports began to increase in numbers and the Evocati confirmed many of the reports saying it has escalated to a significant problem Viira had managed to chase Pharus' legionnaires back to Solden and linked up with her reinforcements. Pharus had a fresh legion raised in the area just to build fortifications and hunker down to receive the attack. He got to his freshly constructed defensive line and waited for Vernica to strike.
Viira began asking if she should return with her legions to help defend the provinces, but she got word back from Altalune saying to first defeat Pharus before returning to Vernica. She began looking for an opening to attack starting the Battle of the Fallen. 

Fall of the Arch

Firrim took the remaining troops of Vernica's legions and sailed back across the calm sea to Velia and began reinforcing the the outer provinces to defend them from the attacks from the undead and metal creatures. Solden and Vernica wanted to finally put an end to the conflict that continued sparking between the two churches and decided to have a duel between the two most powerful paladins of their orders to determine the conflict.
During this time the portal to the old world was slowly losing strength and it had been almost a year since the last settler came through as well as no trade occurring due to the events of the war. A week before the duel the portal finally entirely shut off and the green hue that constantly filled the portal was gone. The forces of Vernica and Solden began stationing their troops at the edge of the arch to make sure the other didn't try anything before the day of the duel.
While the event was being setup up and the conditions for winner were established the provinces were slowly falling apart with many of the outer and undefended settlements being raised. Undead were marching through the Vostok forests, the machine creatures in Luclana had begun attacking the walls of Shovak, one of the major cities in the province, beastmen were pouring from the Sanctuary attacking the farms and logging communities in Redwater and armies of zombie like creatures who would become known as soulless began marching from the Adal desert. The senate was too focused on who would come out victorious in this conflict though and left the defense of the outer provinces to Pharus in Solden and Firrim in Vernica. Their legions depleted they constantly had to fall back from battles as they tried to refill their ranks with the refugees from these destroyed settlements.
The day of the duel known as the Adjourning of the Gods came and the two paladins of their respective order approached each other on the arch followed by the senate and as many people who could fit on the bridge as possible to see the coming fight. The Paladin of Aroden, Ade the Titan, marched on the bridge to face the Paladin of Abadar, Aurrin the Fierce. The two faced each other and began making moves to strike each other. The senate and people from both cities watched with bated breath watching the two size each other up waiting to see who would be the one to strike first. Ade finally tired of the dance they were doing and brought her great down her great mace on Aurrin who responded by bringing his warhammer to try and crack her mace. The two weapons collided with an enormous burst of sound sending a shockwave rippling outwards from the strike. The portal they fought underneath began to crack and the arch began to fissure spidering outwards. The crowds panicked and began fleeing, but the arch finally buckled and fell into the ocean below drowning most of the spectators as well as the duelists under chunks of falling rock.
The world shuddered as a massive pulse of blasphemous energy reverberated through the planet. Unsure of what happened and finding all clerics had lost their divine powers granted to them by their gods the surviving senators began accusing the other of working with blasphemous gods to get an upperhand in the duel and that is what is causing all the troubles in the world to begin appearing. As this was happening everyone watched in horror as all the dead across the cities as well as throughout all of Gaulren began to rise some being picked up in a massive vortex floating through the sky eastwards towards the isle of the dead. Pharus was stationed in Redwater assuming that was the greater threat of the two watched as massive pillars of blasphemous energies began appearing over the horizon in the Sanctuary as well as the Garot Forest. His forces were quickly attacked by newly spawned hordes of beastman. In the West Firrim stationed in Albion watched the dead rise from their graves and the ones not sucked into these massive vortexes of bodies began attacking his forces with renewed vigor. Reports came from Luclana that cultist from Endronia began marching from their seclusion at the head of massive metal monstrosities and armies of what would later be known as soulless began marching from the Adal desert in massive columns under the command of the Glass Shaper. The events of the Sundering had begun

Included Conflicts

• Battle of the Drifting Legionnaire
• Battle of the Fallen
• Gates of Egeria

Start Date

32 C.E.

Ending Date

12 C.E.