The Great War

The Great War is widely considered to be the greatest war in the history of the server with virtually all factions sending forces to fight. The war started on July 8th 2015 and was waged until the 10th of August 2015.

## Background

The Great War was spawned from rising tensions between the Dwarves and Gundabad, between whom the Misty Mountains biome was, at the time, inconclusively divided. Though, in the days of High Chieftain SirWilsonGS there was mostly peace between the two sides, as Gundabad grew stronger in the spring of 2015, tensions began to rise. At the time, the faction was ruled by four War Chiefs - SirWilsonGS, Iluvatars\_Bane, Grievous1138, and Lord\_Morghash\_IV. Wilson was generally the dominant figure, but when the summer of 2015 began he went on a leave of absence, and Grievous effectively took his place.

Grievous was much less friendly towards the Dwarves than Wilson was, and wanted them driven from the Misty Mountains. At the time, there were two Dwarven clans that shared the range with Gundabad - the Kingdom of Khazad-dûm, which controlled the mountains south of Caradhras, and the Kingdom of Durin's City, which claimed the northernmost part of the Mountains, a claim contested by Gundabad.

Grievous began plotting and earned the support of Illuvatars\_Bane and Lord\_Morgash\_IV, as well as the rulers of Dol Guldur. These factions launched intensive raids against Dains Halls, and successfully baited the Dwarves into unanimously declaring war against Dul Guldur on July 8th 2015. While this war was initially called the War for Retribution, it evolved as Isengard, Angmar, and Near Harad honored their defensive pacts with Dol Guldur. All factions of the Free Peoples then joined the Dwarves to even the playing field. On July 13th the admins announced the start of the Great War, announcing that any faction could be attacked and that the entire world was at war.

## Participants

### The Free Peoples:

* Dwarven Empire
* Kingdom of Gondor
* Kingdom of Rohan
* Rangers of the North
* High-Elves
* Wood-Elves
* Lothlorien

### The Shadow:

* The Clans of Gundabad
* Dol Guldur
* Isengard
* Mordor
* Angmar
* Near Harad

## Rules

1. No enchanted armour.
2. Weapons of any kind, including enchanted
3. Maximum 30 units per player.
4. Bombs are permitted as long as they are not used to grief.
5. All Brews and Draughts are legal.
6. Mithril Crossbows are banned.

## War

Immediately following the declaration of war Lord\_Gimli\_ gathered the armies of Mount Gram and marched on Isengard, which was home to the strongest evil faction at the time. He was joined by lord\_ragna and his Methedres armies and they arrived at Isengard on July 13th 2015. Joetatoe led the armies of Isengard in quickly routing and anhillating the Dwarven army, however. Gimli fled north back to Mount Gram but was pursued by Joetatoe, who was joined by Gundabad armies along the way. Mount Gram was put to siege and taken on July 14th 2015. The defenders had unknowingly agreed to a Type B Siege, meaning that unlike a Type A siege ownership would officially pass to the victors (it was one of the only two Type B sieges in server history, along with the Siege of Umbar.) The city thus had its banners given to Gundabad. The furious defenders hurled homophobic slurs at Joetatoe, causing him to permanently ban all of the defenders.

Reeling from their losses that had been inflicted at Isengard and Mount Gram, 4 Free Peoples chose to attack an Uruk base in central Gondor on July 14th. Nevertheless, this attack failed as well at the hands of the 4-man garrison led by Ghash\_Max. Now with three victories behind them the forces of the Shadow prepared for their most ambitious move yet: a siege against Dain's Halls, capitol of a Dwarven Kingdom. Grievous1138 led forth their armies but King aidansebastian shattered the invasion force and put them to route.

Just as Joetatoe had pursued the Dwarven armies back to Mount Gram, the Dwarves pursued the shadow's host back to Caradhas. The fortress was too strong to be taken, however, and the defenders led by Grievous fought off the assault. Following this victory, Morishi, King of Mordor, joined with the Caradhas defenders to prepare to besiege Osgiliath, but Joetatoe fell ill and without his Isengard forces Morishi was forced to call off the siege.

### The War Dies Down

Following the Battle of Caradhras the war began to quickly die down. An orcish army approached Azanbulzar but it disbanded on August 10th following the Treaty of Moria. This treaty stipulated a permanent non-aggression-pact between the Orcs of Gundabad and the Dwarves, gave the Orcs control of half of Moria, and resulted in both armies withdrawing from the war.

An army of the shadow again approached Osgiliath on August 15th, but this assault did not occur. Without Gundabad or the Dwarves pushing for further conflict, the momentum of the war simply collapsed.

## Aftermath

The Great War changed the servers landscape dramatically. Gundabad reclaimed Mount Gram and much of Moria, while it spelled the end for the Kingdom of the Durins City. The Dwarven Council struggled to fill this seat, with both the Kingdom of Forochel and the Kingdom of the Winds filling it for a time.