War of the Schism

Was a short yet devastating war which occurred following the assassination of the Emperor Hannibul Washtenaw in a coup staged by his son Darrus and the Zealots of Korihyr, resulting in a civil war between his two children Irene and Darrus, both claiming to be his rightful successor. The war also resulted in the division of the recently created Archivist Order, the first organized Archivist priesthood since the death of the prophet Damian.

## History

### **Background**

For around one hundred years, The Empire of Chikago was engulfed in the chaos of the Century of Anarchy, where multiple warlords and ineffective Emperors fought for control of the vast Empire. This crisis ended with the ascension of the Emperor Hannibul Washtenaw, who had been the first Emperor to convert to Archivism after being influenced to do so by his closest adviser, the Monk Zeth. Zeth was a humble and rational advisory, who saw great intellectual potential in the Emperors mutated daughter Irene, whom had previously served as an embarrassment to her father, the result of his affair with a Dupe concubine in his court.

With the advice of the Archivist and his great knowledge of ancient texts relating to warfare and strategy, the Emperor successfully annihilated his usurpers and re-united the Empire by the end of the Century. After his victory, Hannibul had begun to realize that the peoples of the Empire had become unruly and hedonistic due to the previous centuries of indulgence during the pax Chikagoa, and needed a uniting force for his Empire to prevent further rebellion and instability. The Emperor sought to use Archivism as a unifying and moral force for his Empires diverse subjects. He then secretly called all the prominent Archivist clergy of its various sects to the Council of Chikago, where he would form the first Imperial Archivist Order.

At the council, the Emperor and the various priests of both the Pragmatic and Zealot denominations gathered in the capitol of Chikago to devise a new universal order. They planned to create a sort of religion which would make the Archivists often complex teachings easily understandable to the common subject of the Empire, by using a religion as its guise. At the top of the order would sit the Primate of Chikago, who would be elected by the college of High Priests, one representing each of the Empires provinces, and the only ones in the order informed of the actual reasons and motives for the new religion. Below them would sit the local Priests, who were literate yet uninformed of the true nature of their religion, having an only empirical knowledge of what they knew. The Order created a new God known as Acumen, Acumen was to be the embodiment of the human learning spirit and main deity of the new Order. Acumen would be marketed to the masses by the priesthood as an omnipresent deity which would be understandable to the common man or woman, but whom would still motivate them to embrace learning.

However, when the Emperor declared he would appoint the Pragmatist Zeth to be the first Primate of Chikago, the Zealots of the council were infuriated. They were even further enraged when the Emperor named Irene the Faceless, his mutant daughter, as his successor; due to her superior intellect and rational attitude. This offended the Zealots and their fiercely anti-mutant stance. The Zealots rallied around Korihyr, a prominent Zealot from N'Orc, and made him the leader of their party. The divisions among the Orders two parties began to grow and grow in the months following the council.

When the Emperors son Darrus learned from Korihyr of his fathers decision to make his disfigured sister Empress, he quickly sided with the Zealots and incited riots in the streets of Chikago by rousing the anger of the uneducated and largely anti-mutant masses. The furious mobs surrounded the imperial throne at the Tower of the Emperors, demanding the Emperor change his decision and name Darrus as successor rather than Irene, but the old Emperor refused, and a siege began.

At the advice of Korihyr, Darrus secretly bribed the palace bodyguard to kill the Emperor, Irene, and Zeth, so that he could take the throne. They agreed and Hannibul Washtenaw was stabbed to death on his throne by his own guards. Zeth narrowly escaped the bloodbath and quickly alerted Irene that they must flee the city with those still loyal to them. She agreed and the true Empress and primate were escorted to ships in the harbor by the legions in the city still loyal to her. After fighting their way through the streets against thousands of rioters and Zealot supporters Zeth and Irene were safely escorted out of the city, and they sailed west to set up resistance against her brother and the Zealots. Shortly after Darrus entered the tower and took the throne, where he immediately appointed Korihyr the Primate of Chikago.

Irene's fleet arrived at the Texun city of Awzstyn, where they set up a new capitol and pragmatic Archivist Order under the Primate in Exile, Zeth. She quickly gained the allegiance of all the mostly Pragmatist western provinces, where people we much more tolerant of Mutants. The Empire was now divided once again and in a state of civil war. Irene quickly began to rebuild her forces to fight off her brothers expected offensive to take full control of the Empire. She ordered her Archivist priests to begin to devise new secret weapons to defeat this attack.

Darrus took command of a massive armada and sailed west to defeat his sister, while Korihyr remained in Chikago to devise the future of his new position.

### **War Begins**

The war began when eastern and western legions and auxiliaries under the siblings engaged in skirmishes and small battles across the provinces of Ozarka, Kanzus, and Nubraskia; which would later become the contested ground between the Eastern and Western Empires. No ground was gained and the regions between the Misery and Arkanzus rivers would remain a war-zone for the centuries to come.

Meanwhile in Awztyn, the pragmatic Archivist priesthood re-discovered an ancient chemical known as Napalm, which was highly flammable, and began to experiment with its use in warfare, discovering it to be extremely effective at destroying wooden ships. Irene ordered napalm throwers to be mounted on many of her warships so that the devastating new weapon could be used against her brothers fleet. The citizens of Awztyn were skeptical of their new Empress in exile, and worried that she would not be able to protect their city from her brothers forces, yet Irene persuaded them to remain confident in her strength after showing them the destructive power of her priests new discovery.

Back in Chikago, Darrus and Korihyr continued to spread anti-mutant propaganda to the masses, convincing them that the Pragmatists were degenerate mutant lovers. They labelled Irene the "Freak Queen" and demonized her image constantly. Meanwhile, Korihyr further manipulated the naive new Emperor, who was now essentially his servant, and convinced him that they would together rule over the entire Empire following his sisters defeat. A massive massacre of all the Easts remaining Pragmatists and mutants was carried out until they were almost completely wiped out in the region. Darrus commissioned the construction of a massive armada which he was confident would overthrow his sisters hold on the western provinces, and bring the entire empire under his control.

### **The Battle of the Arch**

Irene received word of her brothers fleet from her agents a weeks before his fleet was scheduled to sail to Texus, and immediately made preparations to sail north to intercept him. Her fleet left Awztyn and waited several days for Darrus at his expected route along the coast of Ozarka, changing the fleets position every night to avoid detection.

The two armadas met just off the coast of Arch city, Ozarka; near the looming ruins of the ancient great arch itself, which peered above the waves. The weather was extremely stormy initially, denying Irene to use her new weapon initially. The two fleets engaged in bloody hand to hand combat across the decks of hundreds of war barges as deck mounted catapults launched missiles between the opposing fleets. Darrus initially gained the upper hand in the battle due to his superior numbers, almost forcing Irene to retreat. But the storm soon receded and Irene's napalm throwers spewed flames onto the decks of her brothers ships, setting his great fleet alight. Darrus's flagship was engulfed in flames, killing the false emperor and his best commanders almost instantly.

After the death of their Emperor, what was left of the Eastern fleet sailed in retreat back to Chikago; Irene had won the day, but her fleets power was diminished and she was forced to return to Texus. The victorious Empress did not celebrate her victory however, and rather wept at her brothers death, cursing the manipulation of Korihyr on his soul. When she returned to Awztyn the citizens celebrated her as a hero, and went as far as to name their city Irenopolis after her, despite the Empresses pleas for them to not.

### **Aftermath**

Not long after a truce was signed between Irene and one of her brothers surviving commanders sent by Korihyr, and the war was officially over; but the Empire remained divided into western and eastern halves and would never again stand united. The short lived Archivist Order was now also divided, between the Pragmatic Order of the West under Zeth, and the Zealot order of the east under Korihyr.

Back in Chikago Korihyr declared Darrus's eight year old son the Emperor of the East, although he would essentially be under the control of the Primates influence, a trend that would continue in the East until its fall to Canuck invasion.

The western empire shortly thereafter became known as the Texun Empire due to its position as the center of the new Empire.