The Inheritance War

"You wish to hear of The Inheritance War, yes? It is a well known tale, but few know it well enough to recant it properly. A favourite of boys because of its violence, and a favourite of girls because of actions of Hikis; a tale for everyone for sure. If you wish to tell it yourself, you need to hear it properly, so sit and listen, for it is worse than anything you can imagine."

Of all the wars in history, the Inheritance War was the most destructive, the largest in scale, and the longest, all by several orders of magnitude. It was between the gods of the Usurpers, led by Turbal, against their children, led by Yaltur.

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The Conflict

Prelude

After conspiring with Nexi, the Primae of strife and chaos, Turbal tricked and imprisoned the rest of the Primae in The Underworld, taking control of the material world in their place. After he and his siblings ruled humanity and gathered their worship and praise for ages long, one of the other Secundae, Tistal, visited Turbal and gave him the prophecy known as The Telling of Tistal.
The exact nature of the prophecy was unclear, but Turbal interpreted it as having his as-yet unborn children supplant him, but also being key to him retaining power. As his partner, Lykith, gave birth to each of his six children, he took them in their infancy and convinced Doyom, one of the Keepers of the Dead to hold them in sleep until Turbal could decide how to resolve the prophecy.
Jealous of her cousin Lykith, Turbal's sister Rhaxet seduced her brother, got pregnant, and birthed the twins, Sanul and Hikis, keeping knowledge of their existence from Turbal. As they grew, Turbal's elder siblings, already with three children of their own, offered to raise the twins as their own, to keep them from Turbal sequestering them away like the others. The boy, Sanul, accepted the offer, having grown close to their daughter Dicac, but the girl, Hikis, declined, unwilling to live a lie.
Seeking to free her half-siblings from their confinement, Hikis travelled the cosmos, attempting to contact the most ancient and powerful of all divine beings, the Primordials. Touched by her determination and resolve, the Primordial of Life, Hikis' great-grandmother, relented and spoke with her. Unable, or unwilling to directly interfere, Pande had sympathy for Hikis' cause, and instead spoke with Sis-retyr, Guardian of The Underworld, where Pande's Primae children were being held.
Sis-retyr was torn between the solemn and sacred duty placed upon him to keep the gates to the Underworld sealed, and the power and authority of Pande, who was one of those who entrusted his duty to him in the first place. As a negotiated compromise, Sis-retyr allowed the release of one of the Primae, expecting Pande to choose one of her own children. Instead, Pande released Saudo, child of the Primordial of Strife, Jonu.
Saudo travelled to Doyom's domain and, being vastly more powerful than the Secundae, released Turbal's children from their enforced hibernation. Consumed with anger at their treatment, the six imprisoned Tertae announced their intention to overthrow the Usurpers and free the Primae.
Each side gathered human forces to their side, reliant on the strength of human belief to enact their divine will, and before long, skirmishes and battles began to break out.

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The Engagement

From the beginning of the conflict, Yaltur and his siblings were sorely under-powered. Turbal had the bulk of humanity and their worship, buoying up the already significant power the Secundae possessed. Turbal also had the assistance of a Primae, Nexi, whose ability to sow discord and disruption amongst the rebel forces denied them the ability to form a cohesive front against the Usurpers. Although Saudo was unwilling to directly confront her brother, eventually she could not deny that the Inheritor siblings stood no chance whilst their portion of humanity remained divided.
With Nexi's malign influence occupied in fending off his more martially adept sister, the Inheritors were able to form their forces into a coherent whole, and begin to make minor advances on the Usurpers positions. Strategy from the start had always been to show humanity that the Inheritors offered true progression; new technologies in metal working and farming, domesticated animals, and perhaps more importantly, the chance to decide how to rule themselves. They lacked the power to confront Turbal and his siblings directly, but by starving them of their power base, perhaps one day a fairer confrontation could be arranged.
This portion of the war dragged on for untold years, perhaps hundreds. The proportion of humanity that followed the Inheritors grew steadily, but almost every battle fought was pyrrhic in nature, with Turbal far more willing to see everyone involved in the fight destroyed, even his own. Eventually, Yaltur's forces gained a substantial boost; Hikis convinced her twin brother to bring his wife and her siblings, the powerful Stewards of the World onto their side. With the land, sea and air now under Inheritor control, battles were far less indecisive, and they began to push into territory once considered firmly under Usurper control.
Despite this, the Usurpers were still far too strong to confront directly, and whilst they saw substantial loses of human followers, the area around Turbals giant fortress remained unassailable; within its walls lived uncountable numbers of human servants and devotees, unable to be reached to convince of the benefits of Inheritor rule. The Usurpers watched in smug contentment, waiting for the inevitable breakup of the Inheritor coherency.
Saudo recognised this danger, and broke off her struggle with Nexi, risking the total collapse of the Inheritor forces. Using her superior tactical skills, she captured his triplet children, and travelled to the gates of the Underworld, forcing the three to admit to Sis-retyr their role in deceiving him to imprison the Primae. Filled with righteous anger, he freed the rest of the Primae, begging for their forgiveness. With only one thing on their minds, the combined might of the Primae travelled to Turbal's fortress and smashed it open, using meteors pulled down from space to entirely obliterate the fortress and kill all remaining humans still loyal to the Usurpers.
With their power base gone, and the might of the enraged Primae opposed them, the Usurpers surrendered, although Turbal resisted to the very end; only the pleas of his wife Lykith to consider what might happen to the rest of humanity if the continued their fight convinced him.

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Outcome

The Primae's attack on Turbal's fortress had devastated the region, and left most of the Usurpers human following dead or fleeing. Without a large worship base to draw upon, Turbal and his siblings could not resist the Primae's power, nor flee themselves. They were captured and restrained, although none of them showed any signs of regret in their actions.

The one who felt most aggrieved was Sis-retyr, who felt shame in his actions in imprisoning the Primae, and fury that Turbal and Nexi conspired to abuse his power. He was more than willing to have the Usurpers placed into the Underworld instead of their Primae parents, and resolved to never let anyone allow the gate to be opened again, no matter the perceived righteousness of their cause.

Although the unrepentant Usurpers were removed, Nexi and his three children remained free, and the Primae were keenly aware that it was their wayward peer who was largely responsible for not only their own imprisonment, the rise of the Usurpers, and the beginnings of the war, but also its prolonging, seeking to gain much strength from it. The end of the war had been very destructive, and the Primae were unwilling to allow a conflict of such scale to ever occur again, and resolved to leave the material world. They could not do so whilst Nexi remained free to act in the way he was accustomed.
A solution was proposed by Saudo, Primae of Strife, and Nuico, Primae of Law, who over the course of the conflict had grown close. They begat a new god, one who uniquely combined the aspects of both Chaos and Order; Zal'jon-weil. The Primae imbued this new god with the ability to prevent one god from directly opposing the will of another, stifling Nexi's power to influence humans already following another deity.
Satisfied that Nexi's power was curtailed enough to allow the Inheritors to deal with him over time, the Primae took their leave and joined their parents in the ethereal, forever detaching themselves from the material world.

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Aftermath

With large part of the world that humanity occupied now desolate and infertile thanks to the efforts of the Primae in destroying Turbal's fortress, the Inheritors were faced with a large population that needed somewhere new to live. Using some of their now substantial power, they manipulated a new part of the planet to be an idyllic paradise, and moved the bulk of their loyal followers to this new land.
The foundation of the Empire, a nation unified in faith in the Inheritors soon followed, providing the gods with a strong human base, and the humans with a safety and security. 
Nexi's machinations over the next two thousand years almost caused the ultimate destruction of Yaltur's chosen nation, but the presence of Zal'jon-weil spared humanity of the worse of his abilities, and they were able to wrest back order and stability from the chaos that the wayward god attempted to bring about.

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Conflict Type

War

Conflict Result

Primae freed
Usurpers imprisoned
Inheritors assume control

Belligerents

The Usurpers

The Inheritors

Strength

Nine Secundae
One Primae

At the start
7 Tertae
Mid-way
13 Tertae
1 Primae

End of conflict
13 Tertae
11 Primae

Casualties

Objectives

Defeat the rebels,
Maintain control

Overthrow the Usurpers
Free the Primae