War Over Haeven

Summary

The War Over Heaven is easily the most defining event of the last centuries, and served as the starting point of the two broad factions which dominate the geopolitical situation - the Crusaders and the Sanitorium. The regions of Canath, Mogxa and Galae saw most of the fighting, with the latter remaining particularly devastated even decades after the war.

While the war’s origins lies in a relatively humble set of inter-Titan conflicts in Canath, it was through a cascading series of events, opportunism and desires for revenge that the situation began to come out of control. Some trace the beginning of the story to the Ascension attempts of the Triumphant Successor. Eventually, a series of commoner revolts against being involved in the Titan’s wars began to spread like wildfire and gained the support of groups of soldiers and adventurers. In the end, a fiery anti-deity coalition successfully marched on a worn-out and defeatist coalition of squabbling titans. Perhaps having already accepted defeat, many Titans left behind their wills in the form of knowledge, power and commands as part of the New Creed, and prepared their exit plans. The climactic battle of the Rainbow Bridge saw the anti-deity army just about ebb out a victory, during which they destroyed the bridge causing the Titans to be exiled from this world.

Context

The Titans of Canath have often engaged in holy wars, in which they called upon their divine soldiers to help them secure objectives that would strengthen them against their rival deities. Many of these were fellow Titans, though the Titans were also quite willing to wage war against border regions not following titanic-deities. These wars were limited in scope, often not directly involving the governments or armies of the city states or kingdoms of Canath. Many adventurers were recruited to fight the enemies at specific locations such as temples, holy sites and private fortifications. Many viewed these acts as lawless and disrespectful, leaving destruction and corpses in their wake for the city folk to clean up.

Timeline

The timeline goes something like this:

• The to-be Triumphant Successor begins his quest to ascend, starting a war against another Titan, with allies, over a Mantle.
• Allegiances shift and escalation pulls in more Titans on both sides, which results in the mobilisation of supporters from across both Canath and Mogxa.
• Commoners revolt in response to being conscripted to yet another large inter-Titan war so soon after the previous one. Temples are sacked and holy men abducted or killed.
• A series of retributions by the Holy Armies of some of the Titans adds fuel to the fire, causing an Anti-Deist Faction to form across various villages and towns.
• A number of charismatic heroes from Canath and beyond, including important figures from the God-King’s Court, sympathise with the Anti-Deists and take up a leadership role. They convince many to mobilise after all, but to gather up so they can win a decisive battle against the Holy Armies to prove they won’t just be pushed around.
• The Anti-Deists enjoy some victories on account of the surprise of this rebellion, but suffer attrition and hear news of their home villages being occupied or burnt down.
• With nowhere to return to and yet in need of reinforcements to survive, the leaders plan a march to Northern Mogxa, where an ongoing peasant revolt against the Western Kobold Dynasty has indicated sympathies.
• Some Titans actually strategically back the Anti-Deists for some time, in order to keep what they viewed as their real Holy Army enemies occupied. This helps shield their rallying point and subsequent retreat out of Canath.
• Marching through Galae, the Anti-Deists are threatened by an army formed by the Firestorm, Guardian Angel of Haeven specifically to give pursuit and stop them.
• Thinking they have an intelligence advantage over the Firestorm and an opportunity to attack them while unprepared, a portion of the most elite warriors of the Anti-Deist Army (known as the Demonic Brigade) splits off and marches northwest.
• Meeting the Firestorm’s Army in the Red Desert, they are caught in a trap and swallowed up by a wound that cleaves the desert open, falling into an alternate plane of reality that would become known as Crimson.
• The remaining Anti-Deist Faction does continue on, and are viewed as a defeated enemy turned into refugees by most of the Titans and Canathi.
• Arriving in Mogxa, hostilities break out with the Imperial Kobold troops. Some are caught completely off-guard by what seems like a tenfold expansion of the peasant revolt, whilst others attack them while brazenly unprepared thinking they were worn out after the journey and had no fighting expertise left.
• Breaking the ranks of the initial Imperial Kobolds and earning mass recruitment from the Mogxan peasants, the leaders rally their army and reveal that the true objective is the long lost Rainbow Bridge that hides in the Mogxan Shenghi Break. They correctly predict that its destruction would sever the connection to Haeven, and thus force the Titans to stay out of earthly affairs.
• Continuing on the last march, all Titans have withdrawn their support for the Anti-Deists and some begin panicked planning to try to stop them. Others, however, seem like they’re making contingency plans for the worst case scenario already - leaving behind teachings that would later be called the New Creed. Some say the Titans were also gathering their most loyal supporters to usher them to Haeven with them.
• A tough battle takes place outside the gates of Philosophia, which in the end sees the Anti-Deists defeat the Imperial Mogxans and their limited Titan support. The army stays put and even opens negotiations with the autonomous city of Philosophia to receive supplies in exchange for leaving the city un-sieged.
• The most experienced heroes of the Anti-Deist army ascend up to the Lakes of Life, and engage in a climactic battle over the Rainbow Bridge itself. In the end, the battle is won by the Anti-Deists, the Rainbow Bridge is destroyed.
• As a result, the titans were exiled from Materia and the bridge to Haeven shattered. This started then in 1993 ADc the age known as The Great Silence.

Aftermath

The War Over Haeven had changed life for pretty much all people of Iduria and beyond. Many of the moderate and most holy men had either lost their lives, been disillusioned, or may have even joined the Titans to Haeven. In the immediate aftermath, a great series of social unrest and public grief gripped the important religious cities of Canath. As the traditional authorities in guilds and monarchs lost control of their populace, figures from the Titanic Armies filled the void. Declaring a great crime to have been committed upon the peoples of Canath, prominent figures vowed to one day return the titans and declared the beginning of the Eternal Crusade.

In Mogxa, the triumphant army needed a place to settle down free from retribution. Having proven the fragility of the Imperial Throne and even negotiated a truce with the city of Philosophia, the Anti-Deists oversaw the creation of a new government. The top brass of the army gathered at an old Sanitorium in the hills outside Philosophia proper, where they negotiated and agreed on the formation of the Principalities of Mogxa to succeed the empire - more commonly known as “The Sanitorium.” They promised the formation of this new state wouldn’t disturb the situation much, and promised great autonomy to various provincial leaders in order to buy their support. However, after a number of provinces and Draconic Tribes rebelled against the new order, the Sanitorium took on a more hard-line stance and began their long project of imposing a formalised Anti-Deist ideology upon the Mogxan lands.