Pillager Wars

The **Pillager Wars** are a series of wars fought mostly in Goruid and southern Aphthonis between Great Thornia and pillager forces or strongholds. The initial phase of the conflict could be split into two major wars, the First Pillager War and the Second Pillager War. Insurgencies across Aphthonis and North Goruid continued on from the Second Pillager War.

The largely political Xandu Crisis is considered a part of the Pillager Wars due to how events in the country led to the First Pillager War and how its fate has become largely intertwined with the armed conflicts. The war against pillager forces has been expanded across nearly all hostile mobs in a huge range of environments.

## Conflicts

* Xandu Crisis (December 2019 - April 2022)
* First Pillager War (8 December 2019 - 7 May 2020)
* Second Pillager War (29 August 2020 - August 2021)
* Pillager insurgency in Aphthonis (16 April 2022 - Present)
	+ Pillager raids on Petrodis (16 April 2022 - Present)
	+ Battle under Petrodis in deep caverns (16 April 2022 - Present)
	+ War in the Dobresian Lowlands (18 April 2022 - Present)
* Pillager insurgency in North Goruid (August 2021 - Present)

## Impact

### Military

The Thornian Army, and later the Territorial Defence Forces, has expanded its areas of expertise from amphibious warfare, pitched battles, and intelligence operations to underground and urban warfare. Thornian troops have steadily increased the amount and variety of supplies carried; assuming they end up getting stuck in a remote region or trapped underground.

### Political

Although the wars were fought against mobs, it only hastened Thornia's cultural and political separation from its fellow post-Umic states and led to the weakning of the League of Palus (the de jure successor of the original Umic state). Instability caused by the decline of almost every nation as a consequence of the wars has led to the rise of new political groups such as the Northern Revolutionary Socialist Party and the Order of the Golden Trident. This culminated in the cataclysmic Thornian Civil War in late 2021, eventually leading to the formation of the short-lived Thornia-Aphthonis, and eventually the rise of the Reformist Party.

The effective collapse of the Chen dynasty's authority in Xandu led to Thornia's intervention in the region. The First Pillager War forced Thornia to withdraw, leading to anarchy. The Second Pillager War has caused its to intervene intermittedly and has also encouraged it to seize control of territories in the north as part of operations to capture all pillager strongholds. Great Thornia occupied Shanjing between 2020 to early 2021, leaving behind a new Thornian-ised state known as the Free City of Shanjing.

### Cultural

The conflict's destructive economic impact caused Thornia's technological development to stall, and consequently leading to a global stall in innovation. The dire circumstances towards the end of the first war led to the demise of the monarchy and to the rise of a more egalitarian society.

Nationalism grew significantly as Thornians viewed the war as an existential crisis (due to the lack of help from its allies in the west). This was also viewed through a religious lens, leading to a significant growth in the popularity of the Faith of Aiwa (or more specifically, the more popular Black Sun Cult) not seen in the history of Thornia.

Aphthonic nationalism also grew significantly as Thornia began exploiting Aphthonis' resources with little in return. In the aftermath of the Thornian Civil War, religion largely disappeared throughout Thornia and Aphthonis as nihilism took ahold. The rise of moderate political forces like the Reformist Party has allowed the economy to recover rapidly with significant investments in technological innovation.