Great Strife

The Great Strife was a mighty conflict spanning almost of Stormbound from 1209 to 1226.

## Time before

The dwarves held most of the mana production, the Agrian Empire had more money than they knew what to do with.

## The Conflict Begins

The large woodlands known as the Deadwoods, large sections of northern empyreal midland , and the urban areas to the west of the Red Hills declared their attempt to unite under a new group, known as The Boreal Syndicate. This was generally unpopular with the remaining houses in sections of the Shadowfen, Ironhills, and Riverlands that suddenly found huge sections of previously settled alliances where dashed in favor of the new syndicate.

The Syndicate was not unmotivated with their actions, intending to move into the Keloid Mountains and moving in on the lucrative dwarven mana mines. While this would have helped the syndicate members, houses to the south would have been invoking the wrath of dwarves and their allies. Not only where the allies of the Keloid dwarves well equipped from the mana mines, but should the syndicate take over the production it would be a surefire way to gain the anger of every house in a wide range.

The earliest group to formally enter into war was the large urban forces within and to the east of the Red Hills that made up the Ironclad Union. With large armies of constructs that had been steadily growing over the last 50 years, the unions needs for Mana was great and their means to fight back was greater still. Historically not fond of any mountain dwelling dwarves, the Unions general stagey was to wait for the Syndicate to capture dwarven settlements, then drive out the syndicate and take the place for themselves.

This understandably lead the Keloid dwarves to categories the union troupes as less saviors and more vultures, an insult still used by some mountain dwelling dwarves against constructs to this day. The dwarves of the mountains called upon the Winter Pact and the entire forces of the north mobilized against not only the invading Boreal Syndicate, but also the north easterly regions of the Ironclad Union, half a cotenant away form the bludgeoning conflict in the Keloid Mountains.

The Union decided to call upon their own allies, and while they may have been bitter enemies in the Mage Wars, the Ironclad Union formally asked the Swarm to aid them in their fight against the Winter Pact.

By the time that the Boreal Syndicate was celebrating its 1 year anniversary in late 1210, 5 of the 8 kingdoms had been become involved in a growing conflict, and it was only set to grow worse. Over the next two years, the norther groups continued to fight each other, the swarm began moving their way to the north through the southern empyreal Riverlands and began unsettling much of the area surrounding the Deadwoods. This posed a problem for the locals of the Shadowfen, who where involved in a bloody and unpleasant civil war that would occupy their time for most of the remainder of the **Great Strife**. This saw the child King Balthazar II and supporting royalist groups, fighting a bloody gorilla war against a complicated network of houses that were independents. It is less accurate to describe it as two side, and more a case of several dozens of independent rebellions at once, powered on by the royalist faction attempting to pull resources towards the Syndicate much at the dislike of the historically individualist houses of the Shadowfen. Attempting to retain their control, the royalists and Deadwoods faction hired a truly great amount of forces from the Ashland Trust to attempt and quell some of these rebellions. As the Swarm had often found themselves allying with these independent Shadowfen rebels, it was not long before the Ashland Trust was known to be responsible for the death of a large number of swarm troupes. This bought the Ashland Trust into the war in earnest, as the Swarm began sending out warship into the Ashlands, which while historically unsuccessful the swarm had the numbers to pose a threat. In retaliations the Ashland Trust began landing ships in the Swarmlands themselves to take on their newly acquired enemies.

The Arid Frontier had no need to get involved into the war, strictly speaking, but after several years of war on their northern boarder, their long term allies the Marine Concordant decided to make moves against their long term enemy the Ashland Trust. Claiming they had violated the ancient Wave certainty prescription that bared Ashland ships from travelling in Marine Concordant waters, the Concordant called upon their allies the Arid Frontier to attack the Ashlands, and by extension their enemies, namely the Swarm.

With the first Swarm Desert incursion in the Massacre of Lost Hooves almost the entire cotenant of Stormbound was locked into combat. The year was 1214 and there would still be another decade before peace would be brokered.

## The Fall of the Syndicate

It was 1217 when the Syndicate finally fell. Three months before the boy king Balthazar II was deposed and the Shadowfen began the process of becoming the Tribes of Shadowfen known today, and it was not long after the establishment of the Greenheart Council saw the Deadwoods pull out of he syndicate, and while it had made some progress through the Keloid Mountains, they quickly fell apart without key magical support from the northern shadowfen.

The Sothern elements of Winters Pact saw the writing on the wall, and entered early negotiations with the Ironclad Union for a cease fire. While these negotiates didn't go far, they saw what was left of the syndicate crumble.

However, this was far from the end of the war. What was left of the Agrian Empire sided with the dwarves quickly, leaving that pair against the ironclad + swarm and Desert + Mareen all working against each other. Some call the time from 1218 to 1223 the wars of doubles, though the ashland and shadowfen working independently challenges this.

These where some of the bloodiest years of the war, fighting for alliances, grudges, history, and a range of other things distinctly not concerned with the future. It was a dark and troubling time for stormbound. It was early in 1219 that the Frostlings and much of the far north retreated from the conflict, leaving the dwarves and goliath to fight their own wars. The Winter Pact still stayed in effect, and the Frostlings promised to return if the mountains where threatened, but for a long time no Frostling forces where found south of Snowline.

## Those Last Troubled Days

Eventually, it came to slowdown. The Ashland and the Swarmland entered tense talks, and eventually a treaty was reached. The Ashlands joined the Ironclad Swarm alliance, and with this it seemed like the Empire and Winter pact had no choice but to surrender.

For reasons still unknown, and widely speculated upon, the Frostlings actually rejoined the war in 1224 extending the war a further two years entirely unexpectedly. What exactly happened is unknown, and the dwarves involved are by all accounts either uncanny secret keepers or, more likely, dead. The generally excepted theory is that the dwarves made a deal with the Frostlings of the north, known as the Midwinter's Acord it reunited the Frostlings of the far north with the rest of the Winter Pact, and resulted in Frostling magic that had not yet been seen in the war. This was seen for the first time since the mage war in what came to be known as the Avalanche of Sulllarus when the Ironclad City was all but raised by a contingent of Frostling war mages. However, this late stage gamechanger did little to stop the Empires losses. It mostly managed to slow reclamation of previous Syndicate lands,

It eventually came to an end, not with any bang but a whimper. several skirmishes played out around the cotenant when the peace treaty was signed. The exact end of the war is hard to say, and the Marine Concordant still continues all out warfare with the Ashland Trust, even if the Arid Frontier has mostly made peace with the Swarm.

## Aftermath

At the end of the war, the Empires boarders where moved a great distance inward from what they once where, they kept their Riverlands but much of the surrounding territory was given to other kingdoms to secure peace.