The Weeping War

Tenions heighten between neighbouring nations - elves, and settling humans - threatening to bring an entire continent to the doorsteps of war. The Weeping War refers to the long period of aggression between the Amnestrian nation of elves and the human realms of Lordimere and Corwynth. The war spanned five centuries, reshaping the very land of Andeir and was responsible for countless deaths, and untold bloodshed.

Uneasy Expansion

Humankind came to Andeir during the era known as the Days of Flight. It was an age of expansion for the seafaring humans, traveling from Vos, hoping to find peace and prosperity. Initially settling on the eastern coasts of Andeir, the human explorers flourished and their kingdoms and settlements expanded across the continent, and as they did, the native population of elvenkind withdrew. Abandoning their wilderness villages, the Lunara elves, referred to as moon elves by the humans, retreated deeper into the interior of the vast forests that covered much of central Andeir. Both cultures were initially untrusting of the other and often had no choice but to interact, either through sheer accident or one side attempting peaceful outreach. Sometimes it went well, other times it did not. Skirmishes against the elves happened occasionally, and what was rare became increasingly common as humankind cemented its foothold on the banks of western Andeir and continued to spread north into the land of Lordimere, and beyond.
Roughly around the same time, the Lunara elves living within the Orar'Shilmista (known today as the Spiderhaunt Forest) suffered setbacks unrelated to humankind, forcing them from their ancestral home and bringing them into further contact with the settling humans. As contact between the two migrating races excelerated, incidents of killing over territory and slaughter of innocents exploded; sounding the horns of what historians would call the beginning of the Weeping War.

Waning of the Moon

As clashes began to intensify, those on either side who had no taste for war became swept up in it, whether they liked it or not. Each skirmish fueled the flames for the next, and so it was not unusual for patrols to find whole villages burned or caravans butchered. The elves were not a prolific people, and it became aparent to the leaders of the Lunara, who at the time were without home, that their best course of action was to make peace with the settlers. Once a bond of peace was formed, the Lunara could finally lay down roots in a new forest realm, and then further negotiate from a position of strength.
The Lunara were not the only elves affected by human encroachment. Further to the south, the Nandari, or wild elves, who desired nothing more than to be left alone in their forest realms, were under attack. Human loggers, and woodsmen, seeking the riches of the forest to build cities and naval ships were scarring the land with their axes and equipment. There was no parley for these humans; the Nandari roused the wilds against the intruders and they were spared no quarter. In reprisal, the humans burned whole swaths of wilderness, cut down trees with an increased furver and killed any creature of fey nature without hesitation. The Nandari abandoned their scared homes, fearing for the safety of the creatures they had sworn to protect and moved northward.
The years passed on and loss of life had escalated. And so it came to pass that the Lunara elves, carrying banners of truce, approached the men of the west in the area to the east of what is known today as the Whispering Plains. Scouts and runners were dispatched to the leaders of both people; the Speaker of the Moon and her retinue would meet personally with the rulers of two nations of men; Roghal Umbar of Lordimere and Erdric Reldane of Corwynth.

The meeting took place several weeks later, only the leaders and three trusted individuals were permitted. Reldane, Roghal, and three men-at-arms met with Larenleis - Speaker of the Moon, princess of the Lunara, and three of her closest advisors. They were to meet west of the Glenglade Basin, in a small pavilion close to the water built specifically for this meeting. Upon arrival of the two parties, they exchanged words of greeting and token gifts, Reldane presenting a bottle of spirits distilled in the fashion of elven brandy.

Honored Speaker, I present a token of peace - may our meeting here, today, bring to an end the needless killing of both our people.
- Erdric Reldane.

All the assembled guests partook of the drink, at the Corwynthian kings behest, with Reldane imbibing first to disuade any suspicions. Several minutes after the assembled group toasted and drank deeply of the gifted wine, Erdric Reldane stood up and dabbed away the small amount of blood from the corner of his lips. He looked down at the poisoned bodies of friend and enemy alike before setting flame to the pavilion and riding back to Loreidell, pausing only to cause self-inflicted injury, already concocting the tale of how the elves had betrayed them all.
Far to the north, in the Tower of the Stars, in Elladrel, the Speaker of the Sun was forced from peaceful reverie. The Speaker of the Moon was dead.

An Eye for an Eye

Within days, the Lunara elves learned of the events that had occured in Glenglade. High magic confirmed what had exactly transpired, but by that time the murderer had long fled back to his waiting kin. A small band of Lunara hunters broke off from the main group of migrating elves and headed southward back towards Orar'Shilmista, skirting the edges of the woods and set out to gather reconnaissance.
Back in Loreidell, Erdric Reldane rallied the nation of Lordimere to his cause, presenting a tale of elven blackmail and treachery. Reldane and the crowned prince, Jonald Umbar, solidified the alliance of men by signing an official declaration of war, and set to work dispatching batalions throughout the realm. Any elf spotted was to be given no quarter, for the honor of the fallen Loreidite king.
During the months of northward travel towards the Amnestrian borders, the Lunara were harried by the warriors of Lordimere and Corwynth. When things looked most dire for the moon elves, it so happened with blind luck that their northward trek lined up with the Nandari who were also moving north. The newly combined forced of the two elves bolstered the ranks sufficient that the humans were no longer able to easily ride down straggling elves. In the last weeks of travel towards the elven border, the armies of the Sunari elves met their kin and escorted them across the last legs of the journey. Once the three armies of elves had come together, they were strong enough to push back any attempt at engagement by their human enemies.
Once in Elladrel, the Speaker of the Sun, Lord Sammaster Ancathildin, mourned for the fallen Speaker of the Moon alongside the Lunara, and with grandiose summation stated that all elves stood above the lesser races of Verridia, and a slight against even the loweliest wild elf was a grave wound against the Speaker himself. War was declared formally against the human nations and any races who stood with them. There would be no prisoners.
The Lunara people came together and elected a new Speaker of the Moon, the brother of their fallen princess, a man named Tanthalas. Once he was officially granted the powers of the Speaker, he and Ancathildin set to work preparing to engage the nations to the south. Griffons were saddled, and eagles were summoned. The First Children would bring vengeance against their enemies.
Far to the south, many months after the Glenglade Massacre, the Lunara Wildrunners who scouted the edges of the forest realm, caught wind that Erdric Reldane and his generals would be meeting in the fortified camp of Narcsent, south of Silversky Rock, within the week. The Wildrunners silently infiltrated the camp and laid in wait. Sure enough, the Corwynthian king and several of his military leaders entered the fort unaware of the assassins laying in wait. As the Corwynthians prepared for an evening of war preparation, the elven assassins struck; poisoned arrows claiming the lives of many of the men before they had a chance to even draw weapons. For Reldane, the Lunara used a special toxin, harvested from the giant spiders of the neighbouring woods. It is said, that as he lay still-conscious in a paralytic state, Erdric Reldane was alive as the elves carved him up.
Erdric Reldane's body, what remained of it, was hung over the fortified gate at Narcsent, where it was found several days later by a Corwynth military patrol. Leadership of the kingdom, and all its military, fell to his oldest son, Erdric Robert, who was just ten years old at the time. A lord regent was given temporary authority to hold until the king's fourteenth birthday.

The Fury of the First

War came swift and terrible to the humans of Lordimere; the closest human nation to Amnestria. Although they outnumbered the elven attackers ten to one, they were no match for the skill with sword and sorcery that the elves possessed. As the settlements were razed and the humans slaughtered, other races were pulled into the great war. Halfling and gnomes, both peaceful by nature were forced into the conflict as the Amnestrian elves began to purge the northern continent of any non-elf. Many of the small folk settlements were razed as well, and their inhabitants forced to fight or flee to the southeast.
As the land war got underway, the Golden Armada - the name given to the Sunari navy, sailed southward around the Blackscar mountains, through the strait of teeth and into the bay where the capital city of Corwynth lay unsuspecting. Almost four years to the day of his father's death at the hands of the Lunara, Erdric Robert watched in horror as dozens of ships opened fire upon Stonehaven. Docked galleons sank, walls were decimated, and hundreds of innocents were slain as the elves fired cannons of arcane fire and lightning into the exposed city. At his young age, he was inexpericed in military leadership, and the Corwynthian military stationed within the city was not at its finest. Most of the battilons had been moved northward to support the Loreidites, who were in dire need of aid against the Amnestrian troops assaulting there. And so, the lightly fortified city of Stonehaven was overrun by invaders. The Sunari slaughtered everyone in their path, soldier, peasant, priest, it did not matter. The royal famility was hastily moved out of Castle Erdirc as the armada cannons turned their attention towards its high walls. Regent Lord Winford and Erdric Robert were crushed by falling debris as they attempted to flee into the secret passages leading to safety. The kings younger brother, Thomas, was safety taken from Stonehaven and moved to Erdricton, where the vast number of commoners and militia fled to as well. What remained of the Stonehaven guard, and Corwynthian military in the immediate area set up fortifications and the men of Corwynth dug in to defend their new king.
Years passed by, the elves being long-lived, favored tactics that minmized their losses and provoked their opponents into making grave tactical errors. The Sunari who sailed with the Golden Armada occupied the city of Stonehaven, burning and looting most of it. The elves fortified themselves, and waited for the human fighters at Erdricton to move to them. Constantly in communication with the northern armies, the Sunari were aware of the situatons on the front lines. They dispatched half of their force to move north, cutting off supply routes and attacking the human armies of Lordimere on two fronts. The city of Loreidell, and soon after Lordimere, fell in a matter of months, their citizens forced to flee into the moors and mountains to the far east. A few dwarven settlements, fearing the elves would not stop at the edge of mountains, pledged to defend the human refuges.

The Lunara/Sunari butchery continued and they pressed southward from Lordimere into Corwynth. The Lunara fought for their fallen princess, and Sunari for elven dominion. Both human and elf were not simply content to defeat their enemy, but humiliate and desecrate them. Eventually the war atrocities committed on both sides grew so severe that the Nandari could not justify participating any longer, the final straw being the discovery of several villages of butchered Firbolg and their fey flock. The Nandari has never been wholly sold on the prospect of war, and certainly not on the level the the Sunari wished. In fact, the Nandari had never been overly fond of their sun elf kin; the Sunari often using their wild cousins as indentured servants or forced laborers in centuries previous. Fearing reprisal from their kin, the Nandari abandoned the war and fled far to the south, beyond places the conflict had touched. Some chose to sail to the lands in the far east. Even with the wild elf desertion, the remaining sun and moon elves were more than a match for the combined armies of human, and other free folk.

A Breaking Point

Years passed on as the Amnestrian elves continued to press southward through the Vauldland province of northern Corwynth. Here the land advance slowed, the elves forced to press through the plains between the Cobalt Deep and the forests to the east. At first the Sunari thought to simply meld into the forest and move around the fortifed human resistance, against the recommendations of the Lunara to avoid traversing the dangerous swampland. Several failed excusions into the Maelmord showed the Sunari the error of their ways. The Amnestrian army once again split; a small contingent of sun and moon elves traveled by sea and landed on the broken shores of west Nacsent. Many of elves fell in battle while landing, but eventually they broke through human defenses and pressed onward to the forward elvish lines; the ruins of Stonehaven.
In Erdricton, simply waking up each day was a dour affair for the citizens. After ten years of skirmish, knowing their enemies were only testing their defenses weighed heavy on the hearts and minds of the people. Erdric Thomas, referred to in whispered tones as the Crownless King, suffered in silence. Plagued by visions of his brother being buried alive, tormented by the tales of his father's demise, the young ruler was a shell of a man, and a king in title only. Denied a regent, he was untrained in leadership and military strategy, and it showed. The garrison at Erdricton was poorly supplied, and the men were mostly drunk, having given up hope long ago.
It came as little surprise one early morning, when the bells tolled in the small town. The elves had attacked before the sun rose, exploiting the poor night vision humans possessed. Within hours, the garrison was overrun and the Amnestrians callously walked through the town, killing anything that moved. Erdirc Thomas led a small group of common folk through the nearby woods to safety. He gave them what little money he carried, some food he'd had the sense to take with him, and sent them along the road to the south. There he waited until the screams of the dying subsided. He hid in the woods for two days, before thirst and hunger drove him back towards the smoldering town. When he arrived, the elves had long since departed but the smell of burning meat hung thick in the air. As Erdric Thomas stood in the once beautiful town square of the birthplace of his family, he looked arcoss the piles of bodies; his mind breaking. His people, the ones who looked up to him and whom he had failed as a ruler, lay in savaged piles, smoldering in the streets of Erdricton. His hand fumbled around the small dagger he carried at his waist as he pulled it from sheath. There, in Erdricton square, the Line of Kings shattered, as Thomas plunged the blade into his own eye - unable to cope with the horrors he had witnessed in his twenty six years alive.

The Long Road

With no ruler to keep them united, the separate provinces of Corwynth were left to their own devices. The Amnestrian army slowly advanced through Vauldland, razing town and village as they went. With word of the slain king now spreading, the human resistance was paltry and the elves were left to conqueor at their leisure. The Sunari and Lunara chose to advance slowly; taking ample opportunity to scout and bait out their opponents. The slow advance would prove to be their undoing in the decades to come, but for now, they basked in victory. Throughout the next seventy-five years, the elves pressed further into what remained of Corwynth and defeated the armies of Vauldland, Ravencrest and Ashenmarch.

Engines of War

As the available Amnestrian soldiers and workers in the lead formations stretched thin, the Lunara allowed human commonfolk to live, using them as laborers to assist in the building of fortifications, travelways and other menial taskes. The human prisoners were fed and provided bedding, and so many of them welcomed servitude to living at the mercy of the elements. Initially the Sunari disapproved, but grew to see the wisdom of the Lunara decision. Small groups of humans led by their Lunara masters often moved far ahead of the main column of soldiers, as they made their way towards the borderlands of Hellingridge. The "Ridge" would be the next territory to fall to the elves, and the final stronghold of the human nation. If the Amnestrian army was successful, they would quite literally push their enemies into the sea. Here the terrain changed from the plains and forested regions the elves had become used to in the near century of fighting; the earth became rocky, the trees more sparse and mountains appeared on the horizon. As the small scouting parties made their way through the hillocks in advance of the main army, their enemy revealed their greatest surprise to date. The ground opened beneath them; a chasm split the through the earth, from south, originating from the mountains, northward, swallowing some of the advance scouts. Soon after the elven battalion arrived, it was confirmed that the lax pace at which they advanced had given their opponents time to prepare.
Gnomes from the north had made their way to Harrenfal years ago, bringing news of the tides of war. The dwarves of Harrenfal had joined the battle.
After nearly a century of being routed, pressed and pushed back, losing rulers and bastions of strength, the men of the west had a glimmer of hope. The dwarves of Harrenfal were no strangers to conflict, and though late coming to the aid of their neighbours, they vowed to press back the elven advance. The surviving human fighters were not niave though, they understood the dwarves did not fight solely for their liberation; the Thanes of Harrenfal were concerned that should the Amnestrians succeed in removing one race from Andeir, they may move against the dwarves next.
The stout, bearded folk fought with a ferocity and skill that they elves were unaccustomed to. Their military strength rivaled that of the elves, but more importantly, their warriors were fresh. The elves had seen conflict for ages and there was a weariness afflicting many of their kind. The dwarves stopped the elvish advance dead in its tracks in Hellingridge on the plains beneath the mountains. The land would eventually become cracked and scarred; earning the name "The Dividing Plains". Dwarves did not possess an affinity to magic, and so their elvish opponents used this deficiency against the short folk. The ground burned away, hills and mountain pathes were shattered by high magic but still the dwarves pressed on, unwavered in their defense of their great halls. As the war stagnated, elish soothsayers devised new magics to cripple their enemies. They brought new weapons of war; great balistas and bolt throwers capable of launching arrows the size of trees through the air. They sent giant metal whirling blades of death at their dwarven enemies, cleaving whole formations asunder. For a time it appeared as though the dwarven line might break under the force of elven high magic.

But the dwarves did not break - they merely stalled for time. Great gnomish devices rolled into battle behind the dwarves, their construction finally complete. The brave dwarves had delayed the Amnestrian army sufficently for their crafty cousins to complete the last of their steam-powered and clockwork weapons of war. The war became pitched, as the gnomes countered the elves magic and used their creations to out range and ruin the elvish artillery. Once again the elves were held at bay; the war dragging to a halt and neither side gaining ground. For decades the line of battle barely shifted, the elves gaining slight footing deeper into Hellingridge. All that was about to change in the coming months. Across the sea, decades earlier, Corwynthian agents moved deep into Ravosa seeking out the hidden great grandson of Erdric Vecken. A fire was awoken in the heart of a man named Kevan Sands, and he pledged to liberate his people in the west, like his great ancestor before him, Corvis Yanth, had done centuries earlier. Kevan rallied the banners of Ravosa, convincing the eight lords to lend aid to the men of western Andeir. The Ravosan fleets set sail for Ironbank, the closest port still open near the battle line.

Return of the King

In 29 BCR, the man who would become known as Erdric Kevan, High King of Corwynth, landed in Dagger Falls with an army at his back. Months later, thousands of foreign soldiers formed lines, donned sword and shield, and strode forward into battle for king and country; joining with the Harrenfal dwarves and Taverick gnomes.
The Ravosan army led by Erdirc Kevan met up with the Harrenfal warriors and the remaining Corwynthian force, battered and beaten as they were. The mere sight of Kevan, the very image of the Erdric kings of old, inspired the soldiers who had known so much defeat over the course of the war. The resistance fighters from the occupied provinces of Vauldland, Ravencrest, and Ashenmarch formed once more under the joint banner of Corwynth; bolstered by the military of Hellingridge and Goldshen. The allied forces engaged the Amnestrian elves in countless skirmishes and campaigns over two decades; each side sustaining heavy casualties. Each year more human reinforcements arrived from Ravosa, bringing with them horses, seige equipment and fresh supplies. The elves, on the other hand, were losing numbers by the day. With each loss of elvish life being keenly felt, the Amnestrian battle line wavered; as the unfavorable ground on which they fought aided their opponents and inhibited them. Most of the Amnestrian artilery has long since been destroyed by gnomish superior ingenuity, and for the Lunara elves, the lust for battle was all but sated.
The elvish line finally broke in 15 BCR, after a successful press by allied forces on two fronts; the dwarves springing up from hidden tunnels as calvary led by Erdric Kevan himself crashed into a weakened flank. As the Amnestrian front collapsed, the elves fell back for weeks before digging in once again closer to the forests they once called home. As the elves waited on their enemies to strike again, a conversation between sun and moon elf took place; the topic of surrender being discussed for the first time by the Children of Isha. The Sunari would have none of it, angered at the mere mention of such a thought. They accused the Lunara of purposely sabotaging their efforts; calling them human sympathizers. The Lunara balked at this, for it was their people, not the Sunari, who had seen more bloodshed. They would not, however, leave their kin to die at the hands of the human alliance, and so there would be no surrender... yet.

Years passed by, the tables now fully turned. In four years of continued fighting, the human armies had pushed the Amnestrian forces out of Hellingridge and southern Ashenmarsh. The skirmishes in Ashenmarsh were particularly brutal, as the terrain bogged down any attempt to move quickly and negated the use of heavy artillery on either side. Still, the humans held advantage here, as this was their home - they knew the land and how navigate it. In the spring of 9 BCR, the Corwynthian armies fought to reclaim the town of Ashendale from the elves. The third battle of Ashendale was another attempt to gain ground around the town by human forces. Heavy rain had turned the land into a quagmire, making movement difficult. Allied troops were exhausted and morale had fallen. The battle had become a locked, mud-drenched stalemate for a month and a half. Hundreds of soldiers on opposing sides attacked and counterattacked across sodden, porridge-like mud, in an open gray landscape almost empty of buildings or natural cover, all under the relentless harrowing rain of flying arrows and arcane fire.
Erdric Kevan had spent his youth training in the arts of war, and had honed his skill beyond most men in the twenty year campaign thus far; but even he found himself at a loss when staring at the nightmare landscape before him, at Ashendale. On the 12th of Bloomhigh, in the late afternoon, Kevan gave the command to charge the elvish combatants and drive them back into the sea of mud. As he and his men charged forward, the elvish defenders struck back; releasing volley after volley of arrows into the attackers. The human allies were prepared for this, prior to combat the gnomish arcanists casted spells of missile protection on the brave soldiers. Seeing their enemy unfazed by the hail of doom, many elves broke lines and fled; weary of combat under such horrid conditions. One Sunari wizard did not flee but instead used his magic to shift the flowing mud into solid jagged spear-like rock. It was there in Ashendale, that Erdric Kevan fell; his horse killed by the magic of the Sunari. He was thrown, steed landing atop him, and was swallowed by the mud, along with many of his loyal men.

If the elves thought that the death of Erdric would break the Corwynthians, they were sorely mistaken. After generations of sorrow and defeat, the death of the returned king, of the man who had given them hope, unleashed a fury within them. The human attackers rushed forward with a vigor and hatred yet unseen by the elves. Many Sunari, though fleet of foot, were run down and butchered as they attempted to flee from the quagmire of Ashendale. As their bloodlust diminished, and weariness took over, the human combatants retreived the body of their fallen king and brought him behind lines to receive a hero's funeral.

The Stone Trap

The allied forced of Corwynth, Harrenfal, and Ravosa, though saddened by the passing of Erdric Kevan, would not squander his sacrifices. Stopping only for a quick funeral to honor their King, and to coronate Kevan's young son, Cristoph, as new ruler, the Thanes and men of the West formed new battle plans and appointed new generals, unwilling to give the Amnestrians any respite.
The Sunari and Lunara had lost many in the Ashendale campaign, their lines were stretched thin and the supply lines had begun to suffer disruptions. The Lunara again broached the subject of retreat to the Sunari, the war was lost - they knew it. Again, the Sunari, in their arrogance, refused to surrender - they were the First Children, and would not bow before the lesser races.
Routed over and over again, the elves continued to fall back, losses mounting and yet still the Sunari would not surrender. The Lunara numbers dwindled as more and more of the moon elves retreated back to Amnestria. Eventually the supply lines faltered entirely, no word coming from the rear guard. The Sunari sent scouts to investigate, only to discover that another trap had been sprung by their enemies. The mountain dwarves from Mur'duin, long assumed to have little interest in the affairs of the surface dwellers, had come to aid their kin to the south. Now caught between two armies, and facing possible extinction, the Sunari elves fled back to Amnestria.

Victory at What Cost

The allied armies marched northward, pursuing the fleeing elves, and arrived at the border of the Elthiel'estria - the forest realm of Amnestria. All parties, save the mountain dwarves, were tired of conflict and had little desire to move into the elven homeland. They made camp at the border and waited for a time; it did not take long before the Lunara elves came to them, waving banners of peace, as they had in the days of Erdric Reldane.
The Weeping War officially ended when the Lunara elves signed the treaty of Lordimere, alone - for no Sunari would show themselves at the peace negotiations - agreeing to end all hostilities and allow the humans and dwarves to construct and man outposts along the Elthiel'estria border. In exchange, the sun elves would become wards of their kin, the moon elves, and would possess no army or machines of war. The people to the east, from the nation of Ravosa, despite entering the war late, suffered terrible loses as well. The men of the west agreed to pay reparations to ease their suffering and allow them to rebuild their nation.
Corwynth and surrounding other nations formed a great alliance known as the Cordimere Union, and began settling once more across the continent of Andeir. As a provision of the treaty, they did not settle within two hundred miles of the elven nation of Amnestria. Those lands, with the exception of the manned outposts near the Amnestrian borders, would remain unsettled.

The Conflict

Battlefield

The Andeir continent, spanning from the border of Elthiel'estria and southward to the most southern region of the helmlands. The region which would become known as the Whispering Plains, just north of Loreidell, saw some of the most brutal fighting.

Aftermath

The Armies of the Free Folk and the Amnestrian military signed the Treaty of Lordimere; agreeing to end all hostilities, withdrawn all military troops to the Amnestrian border, and allow the construction of three outposts, spanning the Elthiel'estria border. These outposts would be manned by men and dwarves. The Sunari would be allowed to become wards of the Lunara, and possess no army or machines of war. Corwynth and surrounding other nations formed a great alliance known as the Cordimere Union, and began settling once more across the continent of Andeir. As a provision of the treaty, they did not settle within 200 miles of the elven nation of Amnestria. Those lands, with the exception of the manned outposts near the Amnestrian borders, would remain unsettled.

Historical Significance

Legacy

The Weeping War has fostered a lasting mistrust, and in cases, open hostility, between the Amnestrian peoples and the Cordimere Union. Though the outpost settlements near the Amnestrian border have come to accept, or tolerate, the elven people, the same cannot said of those further to the south.

Conflict Type

War

Battlefield Type

Land

Start Date

312 BCR

Ending Date

1 AR

Conflict Result

Allied armies of men, dwarves and free folk emerged victorious. Elves suffered a major defeat.

Belligerents

Elven Nation of Amnestria

Corwynthian Alliance

Strength

Combined armies of Sunari, Lunara, Nandari elves and their mastery of sword and sorcery.

Tens of thousands of soldiers, from kingdoms of Lordimere and Corwynth. In later years, the dwarves of Harrenfal, gnomish allies, and the Ravosan navy.

Casualties

Elvish soothsayers estimate two thirds of the first children perished in the conflict, with the most Sunari lives being lost.

Tens of thousands of human lives, as well as hundreds of dwarven and gnomes perished in the conflict.

Objectives

Reclaim their ancestral lands taken by the human settlers and expansionists, justice for the murder of the Speaker of the Moon.

Defeat the Amnestrian army at all costs; avenge and deaths of thousands of innocents.

A people who had, for millennia, lived their exceptionally long years in service to nature and their deities. The Amnestrian elves had settled beyond their forest realm of Elthiel'estria, becoming two seperate, yet joined, people knowns as the Sunari and Lunara. As humankind expanded westward from the continent of Vos, they settled the new world of Andeir - changing the landscape through farming, mining and logging. The elves were content at first to share the earth with other goodly people, and the humans initially seemed harmless enough. As they settled further north, things changed; the human expansionists took more and more of that which was not theirs to take. It was only a matter of time before the elven nation pushed back.

Larenleis Aerabor, Speaker of the Moon, accepts the gift from
King Erdric Reldane. A token of peace between the two nations.

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Retribution for the killing of their beloved Speaker, the Lunara Wildrunners attack the warriors of Corwynth as they patrol the wilds near Fort Narcsent.

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With most of the Corwynthian army sent to reinforce the Loreidite lines, Stonehaven was an easy target for the Golden Armada. The attacking Sunari easily overwhelmed the defenses of the city before moving ashore to pillage and raze. Prior to the war, the city had never seen an attack from sea, and while it did possess a small navy, the people of Corwynth were not a seafaring people. In the aftermath of the war, the harbor and royal dock ward have been fortified, and the navy expanded to prevent the city from falling due to naval bombardment again.

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The elves pressed onward from the Corwynth capital, sending a whole company northward, past the now-ruined fort of Narcsent and catching the Loreidites in a debilitating pincer attack. The battle on the planes outside Loreidell remains one of the bloodiest battles ever seen on Andeir. The region is, in current day, known as the Whispering Plains; where it is said the dead still linger.

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After decades of human suffering, the Thanes of Harrenfal finally agree to join the war. In ages past, the dwarves and human nations had established trade routes and shared in prosperity. Though it pained the dwarves to watch the neighbouring human nation succumb to elven aggression, dwarven leadership thought it best to stay out of the affairs of the warring nations. It was the rock gnomes who finally convinced the stubborn hill dwarves to bring the fight to the elves, fearing that should the humans fall to the elves; the mountain dwelling peoples might be next. History shows that the courage of Harrenfal signaled the turning of the battle in favor of the allied nations.

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Victory would not be assured, however, until the line of Corwynthian kings was reforged. When Erdric Kevan and his foreign backed army made landfall in Dagger Falls, they were met by the gnomes of Port Taverick. The gnomes, human and dwarven allies combined to win a pivotal battle upon the Dividing Plains - pressing the Amnestrian legions back towards Ashendale; a sinking quagmire of mud and water.

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Decades of accepting refugees, the isolationist clan of mountain dwarves of Mur'duin faced the moral dilemna of allowing such suffering to continue unabated upon the surface. The tipping point was when dwarven emissaries from the southern mountains were slain by Sunari elves for protecting human women and children. Word of the deed reached Mur'duin and the citadel readied for war, moving westward to cut off the elves supply lines, before joining up with the pursuing allied armies.

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In the twilight years of the conflict, the Speaker of the Sun was assassinated. A mysterious organization known as the Harpers at Twilight infiltrated the Tower of the Stars, in Elladrel, somehow bypassing the protective glyphs and wards. Lord Sammaster Ancathildin was the ethnocentric leader of the Sunari, the engineer of the Amnestrian war machine, and it was he who tugged the puppet strings of war; encouraging brutalism and savagery against "lesser races" to continue unabated, even rewarding it, during the Weeping War's three hundred year lifespan.

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