Bear Civil War

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## Bear Civil War

### Characters Involved

Icebears* Icestrike (Deceased)
* Inika
* Ike
* Iceslash
* Iroquois

Bears

* Baton Bridger (Deceased)
* Bison Ottomotoro (Deceased)

Other:

* Aether Gulikovsky (Deceased)

### Factions Involved

* Bear Tribe
* Icestrike's rebel Bears (retroactively the Icebears)
* Saviorites (to a small extent)

### Locations

* Bear Cave/Forest
* Unclaimed Land (retroactively Southernfell)
* Aether Island (to a small extent)

## Next

Icebear—Leopard War

A war lasting from the years 128-125 BR (Before Roleplay), that saw the schism of the Bear Tribe. The war resulted in one half of the tribe staying in the Bear Cave and retaining its original leadership, while the rebelling half of the tribe went north, and would eventually be transformed into another race, the Icebears. The Bear Civil War was a result of the earlier Liberators Conflict, and directly led into the Icebear—Leopard War.

## Catalysts

* Civil unrest and support for Barriss' ideology growing among the Bears since 167 BR.
* Icestrike's attempt to takeover the Bear Tribe in 128 BR.
* The Bear King stopping this attempt.

## Goals

### Icestrike

* Take over the Bear Tribe, to "revitalize" his people and have an army to lead in a war against the Leopards.
* Assassinate Aether Gulikovsky to prevent the Saviorites or Gorillas from joining the war on the Bear King's side.

### Inika

* Free the residents of Catalan and the Bears in general from the original monarchy; put Icestrike on the throne.

### Bear King

* Put an end to any rebellion within the tribe.

### Aether Gulikovsky

* Persuade the Phoenix and Gorilla tribes to join in the war effort against Icestrike.

## Results

* Icestrike's failure to take over the tribe, and success in taking over half of it, causing a schism in 128 BR.
* Iceslash infiltrating Aether Island and successfully assassinating Aether Gulikovsky in 126 BR.
* Bear Tribe claiming the formerly unclaimed land west of the Bear forest in 125 BR.
* Icestrike's faction becoming large enough to be considered a tribe by 125 BR, and allying with the Brotherhood of Vultures.
* The Bear Tribe heavily militarizing after the Civil War, now wary of future wars, in 124 BR.

## Summary

In the year 128 BR, Icestrike, a mysterious bear with white fur (due to being born in the Arctic), attempted to usurp the Bear King, after having infiltrated the Bear Tribe in 130 BR in wake of the Liberators Conflict. Icestrike ultimately failed in the attempted assassination, but he was rescued from execution by the former followers of Barriss who'd moved back to the tribe in 167 BR. Icestrike appointed them as his elders/advisors, after which he, along with the next generation of followers he'd amassed over the prior two years, managed to convince almost half of the Bears to follow his philosophy. This surprised the Bear King, who went to war with Icestrike's splinter faction in order to reunite the tribe. Icestrike was already planning on defeating the king with his army and absorbing the remaining half of the population into his new Bear Tribe, so the two sides attacked each other simultaneously, in the middle of the Bear Forest.

### Foreign Powers' Responses

In the year 127 BR, Aether Gulikovsky, the colonizer and Governor of Aether Island (and secret founder of the Saviorites), attempted to use his public influence to persuade the Gorilla King to join the war, against Icestrike's rogue Bears. The same year, Gulikovsky and his bodyguard, Baton Bridger, were contacted by supporters of Set-Ra, who requested that the Saviorites break out the wrongly imprisoned phoenix, and promised to have the Phoenix Tribe join the war effort after clearing Set-Ra's name and usurping their current Emperor. Aether agreed to send a Saviorite task force led by Garland, who successfully broke out Set-Ra, escaping from the Phoenix Islands with him and his supporters. However, Set-Ra wasn't able to obtain enough evidence to clear his name by the end of the Bear Civil War.

The Lions, meanwhile, took a completely neutral stance toward the conflict, granting the regular monthly chi supply to whichever Bears arrived to pick it up first, regardless of allegiance. While this angered the Bear King and his followers, others, such as the Luggingtons, praised the Lion King for this approach, arguing that cutting off the chi supply to one or both factions would've been tyrannical.

### Battles in Southernfell

In late 127 BR, Icestrike's faction was eventually driven out of Bear territory, and they migrated west into the neighboring land, claiming the territory (which would be named Southernfell over a century later) for themselves. In early 126 BR, after less than a month of peace between the two neighboring Bear Tribes, Icestrike's tribe, now calling themselves the "Ice Bears" (in reference to Icestrike's unique white fur), attacked the original Bear Tribe in one last attempt to take over the entire Bear population. They were quickly pushed back into the west, and the Bear King, now fed up with the rogue faction, ordered his army to attack the Ice Bears' land.

### The Icebears' Brief Advantage

During this campaign, Baton Bridger, who'd left Aether Gulikovsky's side in order to join his tribe's war effort, pushed on the assault, only to be killed in a duel with Inika. In light of this, Icestrike, who'd grown wary that his rival Aether would succeed in persuading the Gorilla King to join the war, sent Iceslash to assassinate the Saviorite founder. Iceslash succeeded in infiltrating Aether Island and eliminating Gulikovsky, in addition to framing the Leopards for the murder by using a leopard-made sword, preventing the Gorilla King from being spurred to fight the Icebears.

Despite having eliminated prominent enemies, Icestrike didn't gain much in the way of territory or allies afterward. After another year and a half of brutal battles in the territories of both Bear Tribes, Icestrike finally gave up trying to conquer the entire Bear population, and had his army evacuate the now unclaimed land, which had been rendered almost uninhabitable after the war. Despite this, the Bear King soon annexed and colonized the land in order to expand his tribe's territory (and its population, back to its original size).

### Aftermath and Long-Term Results

After the Civil War, the Bear Tribe and the Icebear Tribe would not come in contact with each other again for over a century. Having claimed his substantially large army, Icestrike took the Icebears to The Iron Mountains, where they would ally with the Brotherhood of Vultures against the Leopard Tribe, beginning the Icebear—Leopard War. When Leodus used his spell at the beginning of 121 BR, all memory of the Icebears, and of the war by extension, were erased from the minds of the southern Bears.

The Gorillas were left in bafflement following Aether Gulikovsky's assassination, even more so after Garland used the distraction of the Icebear—Leopard War to conquer Aether Island with the Saviorites in late 122 BR, and made his intent to go to war with the Gorilla Tribe very clear. However, all memory of the Saviorites, the details of Aether's assassination, and Garland's own goals for warmongering were incidentally erased by Leodus' spell due to its parameters.

The Bear Tribe would firmly control the future Southernfell (despite being unaware of how they'd obtained it) until losing it in the Gorilla—Bear War, 65 years after the Bear Civil War. Soon after the Bear Civil War, Baton Bridger's unique sword, the Black Valious, was recovered by the Bears and given to Bridger's pupil, Bison Ottomotoro. The blade was passed down through Bison's family until his descendant, Bismarck, gave it to Gorbav during the Gorilla Civil War in 29 BR. Inika's mask and armor, meanwhile, were some of the many mystical artifacts left behind in Southernfell after the Bear Civil War, which would serve as catalysts for the Gorilla—Eagle War of 31 BR.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Rupture: A Chima Roleplay Prequel Story
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 The Three Warlords