02 - The War of the Gates
Despite its world changing nature, few details remain related to the origins and nature of the war or the nations involved in it. It is generally assumed that the people of that time had military knowledge that has since been lost, and it is equally assumed that there was civilian knowledge that has also been lost.
Before delving into the minuscule amount known of the war, an important tangent must be discussed. Our current lack of knowledge about the war is due largely to the actions of an organization, or a string of individuals (exactly which remains unclear), known as Gamble. This group has made a concerted effort to eliminate all knowledge of the prewar era and the war itself. The group was particularly active in the years immediately following the war, but it is known to have been active in the recent past on the few occasions when new information concerning the war has come to light. In the past few hundred years, however, discoveries regarding the time of the war and earlier have been very few indeed. Alternatively, it has been suggested that no one dares mention what they have learned for fear of invoking Gamble's wrath. There have only been three such public discoveries in the past century, with the most recent – a strange mirror – already 15 years ago and forgotten by all but the most dedicated scholars.
While what I've written seems to imply that Gamble is little more than a secretive group of assassins, the truth is more disturbing. Their primary activity actually seems to be thievery, as there are detailed reports dating all the way back to the final years of the War that mention historical artifacts being stolen and Gamble taking responsibility. In the years immediately after the war, Gamble's activities are known to have increased, with stranger and (oddly enough) larger items being stolen, and these thefts often occurred in places thought unreachable.
Coinciding with these theft reports are later confessions by the former owners that they were threatened with death should they provide detailed information about the stolen items. Some of these threats are known to have been carried out, always in very brutal ways. Indeed, of the three public discoveries in the past century, only the last was not one of those horribly murdered over an apparent trinket (my own knowledge about the most recent item came from that man on his deathbed, a truly noble and heroic scholar, though I have already said too much on this subject).
One particular example of Gamble's activities dates from TY 384. A paper describes the theft of a 600 stone item the size of a small table from the thoroughly locked and magically warded inner room of a fortified keep at the peak of that Daystar's brightness cycle. Gamble claimed responsibility the next day, with the remaining report being the last thing the researcher ever wrote. He was found torn apart in his locked room within hours of his report being given to the local lord, and even the parts of the report providing more information than I've given here were stolen inside of a day. While stealing items, and descriptions of items, Gamble seems more than happy to leave reports of their activities easily available, likely as a warning to others.
A second factor discouraging research into the War and pre-War era is the difficulty in reaching the potentially richest of historical sites. Most of the ancient ruins are in lands largely unreachable by the general public due to various environmental factors. Those scholars most dedicated to their research – and willing to risk Gamble's ire – rarely return from their expeditions. Even the longest lived among us, the elves, seem to have no knowledge of the time before the war, and the few dragons social enough to answer questions on the topic make the same claim. While there are claims of adventurers encountering strange underground ruins in their journeys, these ruins remain largely ignored due to the strange creatures that tend to inhabit these areas along with many scholars' tendencies to dismiss adventurers' tales as attempts at inflating their own significance.
It has been argued that, had there been a peace following the treaty, we would not have lost as much knowledge as we did about the time prior to the war. This author disagrees. As the major centers had all been eliminated by the time of the war's end, and with Gamble working to eliminate the past, there was little hope of salvaging any semblance of whatever order existed prior to the war. While certain mavericks have continued researching the past all along, it is only in the relative peace of the past century that the academic world at large has turned its attention to the mystery of the war.
Our primary source of information about the war is the Treaty of Praneya itself. From this document, we are able to ascertain a few details, though the document itself is not clear on a number of points. So, what is known of the war? It began sometime between 445 and 421 BTY (Before Treaty Year), though the primary causes of the war remain a mystery. Most scholars agree that Cremaia had earned the wrath of both Asuris and Haicon, though contradictory evidence suggests that it may have been Asuris that initiated the conflict. The former group finds in the treaty the phrase “Cremaian incursions into neighboring countries,” while the latter group finds the phrase “Asurisian aggression.” There is nothing to suggest that Haicon was responsible for beginning the war, though its involvement is indisputable. For the most part, the treaty is written in such a way as to blame all three nations, without being overly judgmental (the flowery language of a skilled arbitrator seeking to pacify all concerned). Whatever the truth, the war itself apparently lasted longer than anyone expected and had further reaching consequences than anyone suspected.
Even the name of the war, “The War of the Gates,” remains shrouded in mystery. Scholars of a serious nature suggest that the title simply refers to a place's name that has been lost in the mists of time. Other scholars suggest that it may be a reference to a family or families, some form of inter-familial dispute among the various intermarried monarchies of the time. This theory seems based more on current noble familial squabbles, especially in Haicon, rather than on any particular historical evidence, though the name Gates does occur in at least two of the remaining documents from close to that time. Some scholars of a more arcane persuasion suggest that the 'gates' may refer to some form of planar incursion that began after the war proper began. They suggest that an army of fiends may have come through numerous gates to invade our world and that the true devastation was a result of this. Religious scholars tend to hold this view as well, though usually associating it with some form of punishment from the gods. The theories are numerous, and we will likely never know the truth.
It is known that the vast deserts on each of the main continents were once populated areas, and we can only guess at the powers used to create such desolate wastelands. There is also underwater physical evidence suggesting that the vast Bay of Kafre'en also housed at least one large city at one point. While there has been some communication with the friendly underwater creatures near that area, few are willing to go too near these underwater ruins, as it has apparently become the home to some less friendly creatures of the deep. Whether the permanent fog in the Eastern part of the world is connected to the War remains unknown. There is no known land East of Asuris, but the Fog and the currents have thus far prevented any exploration.
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