Look not to the sky to hear it,
But to the face of the world.
The voice of war, of chaos, of punishment
Is the same
As the voice of silence
—from The Book of the Heretic
Faelix’s heir, Alexa I, was very young at the time of her ascension—twelve in fact—and as such, ceded much of her rule to her adviser and leader of the Royal Army, Grand General Muharrik. The First War had raged on for years, and when Faelix’s final decree was issued, Grand General Muharrik was there to ensure that his dying king’s will was carried out. Muharrik enacted the command with reckless zeal, beginning a campaign of scorched earth tactics with the intention of destroying every trace of the Wase-ru Empire. Muharrik circumvented the front lines, instead opting to strike deep into the heart of the Saigo’s Empire. He entrusted the Third Contingent, a small deployment of young soldiers, to slow and distract Saigo’s army in the Stonegrace Mountains. Little more than harriers, the Third Contingent sent small raiding parties nearly every night to disrupt Saigo’s lines of communication and supply. These tactics turned out to be very successful. The Gunryo had made a grave mistake, and Muharrik was going to make sure they felt every small measure of their advantage disappear.
Grand General Muharrik was not well-liked, but he was loyal to the monarchy. He was respected above all as a devoted leader and warrior—equal parts ruthless and effective. It took Muharrik and his men more than a month to travel above and around Saigo’s Gunryo. They met pockets of resistance, but nothing large enough to halt the marching army. Employing the ruthlessness he was known for, Muharrik attacked and utterly destroyed every settlement he came upon.
In the end, men, women, and children were slaughtered; whole towns and cities were burned to ash. Budoka were no match for men with hatred in their hearts, and by the third month of Muharrik’s Invasion, the only traces of Imperial settlements that remained in the eastern half of the Wase-ru Colonies were smoldering ruins.
It took a five months for the Royal Army to declare victory and return home. By the time the first bannermen crossed the border to face the remnants of the Wase-ru army in the Stonegrace Mountains, Saigo and his once “undefeatable” army were but remnants of their former glory. Saigo surrendered to Muharrik on first Chorusday in the month of Vimara, 419. He was promptly executed.
As a result of the First War, all traces of Wase-ru histories and lineages were stricken from the record. Names as they appear today are merely placeholders for those lost—including the name “Wase-ru” itself. Royal propaganda spun the victors into mythical heroes and the losers into little more than animals. Today, Muharrik himself is lauded as a hero, but it is unclear how much of his story is based on fact. But Belief has a way of becoming Truth when enough voices proclaim it so.
Outside of the central territories where much of the First War was fought, the Uhrstadt Regime did more than watch as the war raged, and what would eventually become the province of Ovog was seeing the first seeds of a new civilization flourish. Though neither of these nations were ever officially part of the war, pacts were made between them and the two major powers in the conflict.
The Uhrstadt Regime had secretly begun supplying the Magnan armies with weapons—most notably gunswords. Backroom treaties were formed between the two nations, and before the war began, both armies had agreed to peace with one another. Throughout the war, the Uhrstadt Regime supplied and bolstered the Wase-ru Empire’s armies, but this supply was barely a tenth of the support they offered the Royal Magnan Army. Though Wase-ru was their closest neighbor, the Regime saw little hope in allying with the Empire.
The Clans of Ovog were a different matter entirely.
Ovog was divided into Clans, each led by a khan and advised by an Oracle. The Oracles of the Circle were powerful seers and prophets who advised the khans of each Clan, but who had no masters themselves. To the Circle, no clan and no gerel mattered more than any other. No one outside of Ovog knows exactly how these oracles came to have this power, but to the rest of the world, this ability was seen as a major threat.
The strongest of the Clans, and the leaders of the Ovogiin, was the Tavanjad Clan. Led by Khan Ayanga ne’Uchuluu, the Tavanjad were a proud but pragmatic people. When the Magnan emissaries first made their way to Ikh-Baishin, the capital of Ovog, they were invited in as guests, but were watched with a careful eye. For eight days, the Clans feasted with the emissaries before their terms were heard. To prevent the Clans of the North and the Magnan Dynasty from descending into another war, they argued, the Dynasty demanded the Clans do one thing: destroy the line of the Oracles in exchange for an affirmation of peace. The Khan Ayanga spoke for all Clans, and he agreed unceremoniously, much to the surprise of the Royal Emissaries.
In reality, the Clans had already seen their destruction at the hands of the Magnan armies. The Circle’s prophecies foretold that if they fought the foreign invaders, they would be slaughtered to the man. Instead, the Oracles of the Circle made a secret pact to flee to north—to disappear among the endless wastes instead of sacrificing themselves as was demanded. One of their youngest, a man named Talaam, pleaded with them that their death was the only way they could ensure the survival of the Clans. His pleas fell on deaf ears. On the night that was to be their exodus, Talaam slaughtered them all. Soon after, Talaam fled to the northwest, far from the territories claimed by the Ovogiin. The Dynasty, believing that their demands had been carried out, left the Clans in peace. Though weakened, the Clans persevered, and the Circle has been reformed in the secret crags of the northern steppes.
The First War changed the world, not just geographically, but politically as well. Later generations began to view the destruction of the Wase-ru Empire with disdain, and by the time Queen Alexa I was in her final years, the Magnan Dynasty’s influence had waned considerably. A young politician named Samira was the first to publicly denounce the monarchy with the support of the populace. She was a member of the Phoenix Rise—a small but growing political party that had begun to turn on the imperialistic ways of the past. Ultimately, Samira’s campaign to end the sovereign’s rule was successful, and after a brief but brutal coup, Alexa’s rulership was overthrown, and she and her entire family were exiled across the Orphan Sea to Vehenna. But the coup had its consequences. Mere weeks after the newly formed Capulan Province took its first breaths, it fractured into civil war. Samira was killed in the violence, and after all was said and done, the Province was broken into 6 independent city-states and the Phoenix Rise was no more. A new war loomed on the horizon, but it would be another several decades before it would erupt into chaos.