Giants' Fall

The War of Knimehaud and Nisue

The conflict between the gods and powers of the earth has plagued the world indefinitely, culminating in a slew of bloody conflicts. Perhaps the most notorious and dramatic is the series of rebellions which took place all across Sunnyland-Aster in 1789 nicknamed the Giants' Fall.

The Stirrings of Conflict

It was the Age of Forgetting: agnosticism spread rapidly through cities like New Oriole and Pfinsk, the purges of the Holy Church of Helen had turned people away from the most popular faith, and the increasing interest in science and engineering pulled people from the pews and into laboratories and schools.
In Sunnyland-Aster, where the god Knimehaud and his faith of Olmede presided, there began a subtle campaign to reverse these effects and preserve the power of the Olmeda Priesthood. Laws were enacted in towns across the land and non-Olmedians began to face curfews, higher taxes, and barriers to enrollment in schools. Most egregious was when Knimehaud instructed his angels to whisper nightmares to the unfaithful, hoping to frighten them into belief.
This last act caught the attention of Knimehaud's father, Nisue, a minor though clever god who detested the "younger" generations of his kin. Nisue had made allies with the Gauthran peoples and even enlisted several Moungs as servants alongside his angels. He took action to block the efforts of his son, rallying his Moungs and angels in secret and spreading words of war among the clans of the Jiansdotter and other Giant races.

War Breaks Out

The very forests quaked and spilled out their fury.

-- The poet Hamish

In 1790, on the 5th day of Reckoning Week (a major Gauthran holiday), Nisue provoked Knimehaud to violence and the sky was filled with the blood of angels. Hordes of Jiansdotters and Moungs spilled from every forest to storm nearby towns. As the poet Hamish put it, "The very forests quaked and spilled out their fury." The target of their violence was typically those Olmedic churches though town halls and farmlands were also razed.
The skirmishes erupted into war as Knimehaud mobilized his paladins and the town garrisons. Conflict ensued for a little over 3 years with numerous seiges, setbacks, and victories on both sides. Nisue's forces were disorganized though had the advantage of physical might and earthen magic. Knimehaud's men were trained, however, and constantly outmaneuvered their enemies on the battlefield.
Starting in 1793, Nisue suffered a series of losses that led to his defeat. At the battle of Brighknaud, the last of Nisue's angels were captured or slain and the powerless god surrendered through not without a final last-ditch effort to storm the town's borders and break the seige.

The Curse of Knimehaud

You have achieved what I cannot: the hatred of your own worshippers.

-- Nisue, father of Knimehaud

Knimehaud spared no mercy for his father and slew Nisue before his crowds of captured Gauthran forces. But before his death, Nisue smiled and whispered to his son, "You have achieved what I cannot: the hatred of your own worshippers." In his rage, Knimehaud believed the war to be the work of the Jiansdotters and so cast a curse upon the entirety of their race. As the curse goes, their kind "will be made insignificant and be bound by iron until the days are done." And from that day onward, the offspring of every Giansdotter was a Troll: that reduced, twisted form of a giant whose arms are bound together in metal.
Exhausted of his strength and much of his priesthood dead, Knimehaud hid away and slept for many years. As Nsiue predicted, Knimehaud's worshippers resented the actions of their god which had destroyed their villages in the name of his religion. The influence of Olmede slowly faded and its Priesthood crumbled. What worship of Knimehaud remained was diluted into disordered cults and meager prayers.
The Sunnyland-Aster was scarred and many towns were abandoned. It was not until the 1880s did people begin to build again in those lands and when they did, it was in the name of Sulghury and its gods.

Conflict Type

War

Battlefield Type

Land

Location

Sunnyland-Aster