Lore:First Era Wars

thumb|A painting of Pelinal fighting Umaril
The following is a list of all known wars and conflicts during the First Era.

Skyrim Conquests
 

King Vrage the Gifted began the aggressive expansion now known as the Skyrim Conquests, which would culminate in the First Empire of the Nords. Within a span of fifty years, the descendants of Ysgramor ruled all of northern Tamriel, including most of present-day High Rock and the whole of Morrowind.

Alessian Slave Rebellion
   –   

Under the leadership of the Slave-Queen Alessia, the enslaved proto-Cyrodiils rebelled against their   overlords. The legendary nomad-warrior Pelinal Whitestrake dealt the final blow when he killed   in White-Gold Tower. However, Pelinal died along with the Ayleid king, cut into eighths in mockery of the Divines by the Ayleids, who were obsessed with this number. 

The victory, while extremely beneficial to the proto-Cyrodiils, signaled the slow decline of the Ayleid race's power, which would end around 1E 500, after the Late Ayleid Period. 

The War of Succession
thumb|Skyrim
   -   

After King Borgas of Skyrim was killed by the   in 1E 369, a civil war was sparked. Imperial scholars blamed the arbiters of the succession, the Moot, for not choosing   of Winterhold, who they considered the obvious choice.

The war was disastrous for Skyrim; it lost its possessions in the provinces of High Rock, Morrowind and Cyrodiil, and cities such as Windhelm were sacked. In 1E 420, the Pact of Chieftains brought an end to the conflict, and   was named High King.

Anequine Conquests
1E 5th Century 

A series of military expansions conducted by  , the Golden Beast of Anequina. The period is perceived as glorious by the Khajiit, with the loot from the Conquests used to advance the greatest of the Golden Beast's architectural projects. At the height of the Anequine Conquests the borders of his realm went as far as the Strid River in the west, with   being the westernmost point, to the Larsius River in the east, encompassing all lands between Arenthia and Rimmen. 

The War of the Crag
1E 7th Century -   

After the Snow Elves were defeated by the Nords during the Late Merethic Era  and driven from Skyrim, they sought refuge with the Dwemer in the caverns of Blackreach. The Dwemer agreed to help, but only if the Snow Elves would eat a toxic fungus which rendered them permanently blind. They betrayed the Snow Elves and forced them to serve as slaves. Generations later, the   rebelled against their Dwemer masters, beginning a long and bitter conflict that raged completely unbeknownst to the Nords living on the surface above. After decades of bloodshed, the war ended with the abrupt disappearance of the entire Dwemer race. The newly free Falmer spread throughout Blackreach and other Dwemer ruins, and eventually began mounting raids to the surface. 

The War of the First Council
thumb|Battle of Red Mountain 
~  - ~ 

Also called the War of the Red Mountain.  The secular   waged war against the   Great Houses, as well as the nomadic   of  , who had united under  .  The   of   under High King   also entered the fray, seeking to reclaim Morrowind amidst the chaos and restore the  .  In the aftermath of the final clash, known as the  , the Dwemer had mysteriously disappeared, Nerevar was dead, House Dagoth was dissolved and assimilated into the other Houses, and a new religion was born revering the living gods of the   and later cursing  , the former High Councilor of House Dagoth, as the devil incarnate. 

The war is said to have coincided with the   of  , a cataclysmic eruption of Red Mountain that devastated Morrowind, tainted the skies with ash, and blotted out the sun for a year.    Other sources claim the war occurred in or around  . 

The War of the Singers
right
~ 
 

Siege of Orsinium
  –  

Main article: Orsinium § The Siege of Orsinium 
In response to the Orcish threat to the Kingdom of Wayrest, a Breton–Redguard–Yokudan alliance was formed which, after a campaign of more than 30 years, destroyed the First   in the  .

The War of Righteousness
    -   

The War of Righteousness was a decade-long conflict that led to the dissolution of the   and with it the  . The main cause of the conflict is believed to have been internal strife within the Order itself, brought about by the unsustainable expansion of the priesthood. Several of the Empire's territories took the opportunity to distance themselves from the Order or break away entirely. When Western Cyrodiil isolated itself and established an autonomous government, the  , the simmering tension among the Order erupted into open warfare. 

While there is no information about how or by whom the war was fought, there are some details about the destruction it caused. Reportedly, half of the contemporary population of the   was wiped out in the violence, and the Alessian Order's great monastic complex at   was razed.   

First Akaviri Invasion
  

In the first major interaction between   and  , a large   armada landed on the northern coast and marched through Morrowind and Skyrim to the  , defeating all in their path.  However, by landing in Morrowind, the invaders had arisen the anger of  , who allied with the Trident-Kings of the   to attack from behind, cutting off the Akaviri supply lines and their route to the sea.  They were brought to a halt by lack of supplies and set up headquarters at the defensible  , where they were met by the forces of a united   under the command of  .

Reman's army had only begun to advance into the mountains when the entire Akaviri force abruptly surrendered, kneeling before him and saying they had found what they came to Tamriel to seek.  Reman integrated many of the Tsaesci veterans into his own armies, and his  , and used them to great effect in his subsequent campaigns which resulted in the  .  

The Blackwater War
thumb|Black Marsh
  -  

A military expansion ordered by  , which seized the northern and eastern marches of Argonia, resulting in the formation of the   Province of  . While the Imperial forces won several decisive battles in the early stages, their progress quickly stagnated due to the brutal terrain, endless raids, disease, and mysterious disappearances. After several failed campaigns, each employing wildly differing tactics, the conflict declined into a protracted and complex guerrilla war with no clear victor in sight. Ultimately, tribal infighting on the part of the Argonians finally brought the war to a close. Rather than an official armistice, the war simply ended when the Argonians abruptly buried their weapons and went back to their day-to-day lives.  

Major Events
Battle of Argonia, 1E 2811. A one-sided affair with  s suffering significant casualties. The survivors retreated to  , the impenetrable center of the Province.
Xi-tsei Massacre, Last Seed 14, 1E 2820. The remnants of General  's fourth legion were annihilated by a massive Argonian war party at the foot of an ancient Argonian pyramid.
Great Burn, Rain's Hand, 1E 2828. In an attempt to neutralize the inhospitable terrain,   ordered a unit of sappers to set fire to a peat bog outside of  . Unbeknownst to the Legion, the fire spread through a vast underground network and within months the entire province was ablaze. Hundreds of species of unique flora and fauna were rendered extinct and entire tribes of Argonians were lost. The Legion suffered significant casualties, this marked the end of their second campaign.

The Four-Score War
 

The War of the Uvichil
  -   

The Sload of Thras unsuccessfully invaded Summerset Isle. The Altmer remember the war as horrible, due to the use of infernal machines and necromancy by the Sload.
 
Notes
 

References