The Great War
The Great War was arguably one of the most important events in the entire history of Shinma. It was a time of great turmoil when the balance of the world shifted, landscapes changed, magic re-emerged in Shinma, and humans began their rise to power, eventually becoming the most dominant species in the land. Reports on the actual events during the Great War vary greatly and is a massive point of contention for most historians, but the most common understanding is that it ended about four to five hundred years ago, and had lasted for near on one thousand years.
At the beginning of the war, Humans were still a relatively new and primitive species in Shinma, relatively powerless compared to all of the elder races at the time. Creatures such as dragons had not been seen in several centuries and elves and dwarves lived in relative peace.
The war was considered to have begun when the first of the dragons started to reawaken. With their re-emergence, the dragon's strong connection to the Leylines of Shinma reawakened the magical power that lay dormant in the world. The force of the magical power that arose in the world had unexpected and disastrous effects. People of every species started displaying unusual abilities, such as creating fire from thin air, being able to heal mortal injuries within the space of hours, and a wide range of other inexplicable powers.
As more dragons awoke, these effects became more intense, the raw power of the leylines, having been bottled up and now suddenly released suddenly saturated the land like a flood. Being unused to these abilities, the other species couldn't control the power and so it became feared throughout the land. Those who showed the power within them were often persecuted, witch hunts became common. Some factions of the more aggressive species, humans included, decided to try and implement the strange power for their own gain. Unleashing the horrible power on their enemies lands rather than their own. Many lives were lost and many lands left destroyed and desolate as a result.
During this time some Humans with the power flowing strong through them banded together forming a secret organization called 'The Guild', where together they studied the power that they each had come to possess and aided eachother to avoid persecution by the paranoid masses. After many years and many reckless tests and lives lost, The Guild eventually managed to find a way to bring their rampant powers under control. As the years went on they gradually grew their organisation and within the first century of their formation they created magically imbued soldiers called Dragon Hunters, and at great expense they killed their first dragon, allowing them to creep back out of the shadows to be praised as heroes by the same people that had tried to destroy them only a century earlier.
After their first success, dragon hunting was turned in to a sport of prestige, needless to say, most were unsuccessful, though The Guild had a few more successes with their magically imbued soldiers, gradually refining the process and making them even stronger as time went on.
But eventually, as it was no doubt going to happen, the other dragons became aware of this attack and some of them struck back with a vengeance, burning towns and killing without descrimination. The Guild fought back with their small army of Dragon Hunters and with their own magic. It was a bloodbath on both sides, but the Dragons ultimately had the upper hand.In their indiscriminate slaughter, the dragons also attacked the other races on the land, making no distinction between human, elf or dwarf. So it was that all of the landbound races of Shinma rose to combat the Dragons.
Approximately Four hundred years in to the Great War came the Alliance between the landbound races of Shinma and a second faction of Dragons, a faction that disapproved of the rampant savagery of the rest of their kind. This faction, led by Teomrodyss joined the earthbound races to drive off their kin. The loss of life decreased dramatically by this point, for one condition of the Alliance put down by Teomrodyss was to not kill any more of her Kin, unless it were absolutely unavoidable. Still, despite this alliance, the fighting continued for another couple of hundred years, during this time new magics were invented, new creatures created, and some people even tried to start helping the aggressive faction of dragons, where some just used the confusion and chaos to further their own personal ends. Necromancy and other vile magics were invented during this time, bringing the dead in to the world of the living, which only further increased the chaos and prolonged the war even further.
Unfortunately, about seven hundred years in to the Great War, the world gained some extremely unwanted attention. The rampant abuse of the power provided by the Leylines had finally hit a point where the Napishtim took notice, directing their attention to the world that they usually ignored. The Leylines drew magic from their realm, and the massive drag and use of it was having negative effects on their own land as it was rapidly being depleted. Ramfiaus, ever the mischievous trouble maker, used his powers as a god to allow the Napishtim to traverse from their realm to Shinma. So it was that the skies darkened with the arrival of the Napishtim. The races of Shinma were aghast, never before had they seen or heard of such creatures. They were horrifying, even more so than the strange undead creatures and grotesque abominations that now roamed the lands.
No one knew what these new creatures were, except for Gyraidem, the leader of the aggressive dragon faction and one of the most powerful dragons throughout known history. With the arrival of the Napishtim, Gyraidem turned his attention away from the landbound races and opposing dragons and struck at the Napishtim with full force, for the war was a means to an end for Gyraidem. A plan to get back at the gods. A plan for revenge that had simmered within the dragon's mind for many millenia.
The Napishtim soared in, laying waste to all in sight with their terrifying power, killing and scouring the land as they sought out the leylines so that they could block the flow and retain the power within their own land. Whether the motivation was salvation of their world or greed to keep all of the power to themselves is as yet unknown.
For the first time in history, all of the races of Shinma, good, evil, winged, landbound, all worked together. All differences were put aside out of sheer necessity. No official alliance was formed, it simply became an unspoken agreement to aid eachother in driving this new, incredibly powerful army back to where it came from.
The force of the magical power that was exerted in this war against the Napishtim ripped the land the shreds anew. Cities were leveled, knowledge and technologies lost for eternity, and most of the masters of combat craft and magic craft were killed over the next hundred years of pitched battle with the Napishtim. Eventually the Napishtim returned to their realm, though it's unsure if they were actually driven off, if they'd been forced to leave by the gods, or if they left of their own volition because they had accomplished what they had set out to do.
One thing was for certain. The after math would leave entire species and nations crippled for centuries to come.
Gyraidem was killed in the fight with the Napishtim, and so with his death, the dragons departed to isolated lands to lick their wounds and try to save what little remained of their species after the millennia of war and death.Most of the elder races such as elves and dwarves receded in on themselves, closing their borders and going in to hiding. Humans rose to power, even with such short lifespans, they reproduced faster than most other races and over the coming centuries expanded out across Shinma, claiming land and rebuilding cities.
Most of the leylines were sealed by the Napishtim, stopping the majority of the magical flows in to Shinma, however the Napishtim aren't perfect, and they overlooked a relative few dormant leylines, small and weak as they are. So a small amount of magic power maintained its presence in the world of mortals, though it was never to be the same again. No one since has been capable of wielding magical power anywhere close to the great mages of that time and after the last century of war with the Napishtim, the old fear and distrust of magic was reignited, and that fear and intolerance of magic only grew worse as time went on and memories of these horrific events faded in to the past. No one wanted to remember the horrors of the Great War, so they never spoke of it, and eventually most knowledge of it was lost.
