Artifice Wars

## Combatants

**The Ascendancy*** Borealan Noble Houses
	+ House Lafayette
	+ House Stone
* Wishian Crown
* Kingdom of Cascade
* Kingdom of Phaethon
* Kingdom of the Altar
* Jagattu Empire
* Dukedom of Kovas
* Sự Phồn Dynasties

**The Deliverance*** Leftherian Praetorium
* Apan Tribal Confederacy
* Kyn'yaz Host
* Tinercian Trade Empire
* Praeliorian Empire

The **Artifice Wars** (0 - 5 ASA), occasionally referred to as the **War on Magic**, was a major, six-year war between the Ascendancy and the Deliverance—two massive political alliances that disagreed on how magic should be used throughout the Cassiopeia Galaxy. The war was named after the infamous use of Artifices during the final years of the war.

## Prelude

In the decades leading up to the Artifice Wars, the Cassiopeia Galaxy witnessed a time of great tension between the different worlds found throughout the cosmos. These worlds argued over the will of magic and how it should be used by the people of Cassiopeia. This issue regarding magic was particularly heated among the Human Worlds, where a variety of differing viewpoints on the role of magic in the galaxy existed throughout countless inhabited worlds. Some worlds like Borealis and Wish believed that restriction and order was the only way to ensure that magic would not consume the galaxy in darkness. Other worlds like Leftheria and Kyn'ya thought differently, having believed that unregulated freedom to use magic would prevent corrupt galactic powers from becoming the restrictive tyrants of the galaxy.

Many worlds and polities throughout the galaxy prepared for the possibility of war. King Alphonse V of Borealis brought together the different Borealan Noble Houses in order to address the growing tensions regarding magic usage throughout the galaxy and the chaos and conflicts that arose because of these tensions, having asked his people that the news not reach the common people of Borealis so as to prevent panic from destabilizing them all. The Wishian Crown, under and Sentinel and Sovereign Seren Deziras, made plans to prepare an army of sorcerers equipped with powerful miragestones as weapons. Many other governments found throughout the galaxy began to take similar measures as the tensions only continued to rise.

### The Borealan Summit: The First Assassination

In order to have a civilized discussion between the different leaders of the Human Worlds, given the rising tensions regarding magic usage throughout the galaxy, a Human summit was held on Borealis at the First King's Fortress. The summit immediately went south as the Human leaders could not agree on a suitable compromise for their different beliefs on magic. In particular, King and Sentinel Alphonse V of Borealis and Praetor Fal'onthra Machtis of Leftheria were at complete odds with one another in terms of ideology and were arguably the most heated individuals during the summit. Once a recess was in order, Alphonse V and Fal'onthra Machtis—along with the Praetor's sister, Fal'euma Machtis, the Sentinel of Leftheria—were left alone in the First King's Fortress' meeting room.

A duel began between the two Human leaders, eventually leading to the unintended murder of Alphonse V. The King's allies—the Borealan knights Charles Raleigh and Demetrius Stone, as well as the Wishian sorcerer Anwel Armilas and the Arkhanian Fen of Gallantis—rushed to his side during his final moments, while the Praetor and Sentinel Leftheria made their hasty retreat off-world. Once Alphonse V died from his injuries, Charles Raleigh was chosen as the newest Sentinel of Borealis.

The sudden assassination of the Borealan king was the first major spark in the beginning of the Artifice Wars. The first major battle of the Artifice Wars—the Siege of Aethra—began not too long after King Alphonse V's demise.

## Aftermath

The immediate aftermath of the war saw a mass technological regression in countless worlds around the Cassiopeia Galaxy which had been ravaged by the war. The destruction caused by the war left many once-powerful worlds in states of disarray and ruin. This, in turn, left open a window of opportunity for pirates, mercenaries, and other such marauder groups, inviting chaos to a galaxy that was not able to defend itself, in what became known as the Cry of Havoc.

### Legacy

Even thousands of years later, the Artifice Wars were remembered as one of the most tumultuous, destructive, bloody times in galactic history.