RECORDS OF RHUNEARTH
Record Five
The Great War
2100 - 2109 A.D.
Summary of Events leading to The Great War It has been 64 years since the worlds of Ehumera and Earth had fused together to create Rhunearth. And it has been twenty five years since forces of Avorene traveled North and a mechanical army from HAVEN (Pittsburgh) have set out to destroy the magical world. March 2100 The Cursed King Talek has long since desired to take over the entire realm of Rhunearth and all that stood in his way were a collection of cities in the Northern Continent. Behind the vale of his Tower in Nuvahl, he watched the city grow over the years. The government of NeoCity had long since assumed that the Cursed King was amassing an army with the intent of invading the Northern lands. They took a note from the silent metropolis of CITADEL and began construction of a massive wall to protect the borders of their city. That is when Talek saw his chances of victory growing dimmer. He gathered only a small portion of his army: a collection of 500,000 undead, necromancers and other abominations and began to march North. The NeoCity Military sent out a force into the deserts of Emnest to meet them head on. The Great War had begun.
What Talek did not expect was that other cities would rally to NeoCity's aid. The Kingdoms of Emnest sent their army. As did Amncrom's capital city of ECHONIM. The Cursed King Talek continued to send wave after wave into the defenses of the North. Now uniting under the banner of The Northern Alliance. For an entire year the battle is at a stalemate. With each passing day. The NA is forced to burn and bury their dead so that they don't get up and turn against them. In this one year, it became clear how dangerous this world has become. The death toll rose to nearly half a million. And then shrank when the undead came back to life. And then rose again. Nobody was quite sure how to measure the dead. But needless to say, it was the greatest struggle mankind had ever faced. July 2102 Almost a year had passed and the Northern's Alliances forces and resources were dwindling. The Kingdoms of Emnest were forced to return home to regroup. The forces of ECHONIM had a long journey South for every group of reinforcements and they couldn't send many. If they sent more of their army, they feared they'd be open to attack by the genocidal city of HAVEN. Eventually, the High Lords of Avorene, The Nadiar Lords that held the Rings of Darkness created a plague that began to sweep through the ranks of the Northern Alliance. It spread quickly. Finally, the NeoCity Military (NCM) was forced to retreat back to the city. The Wall was complete and the real war was about to begin. Talek unleashed the rest of his army. A force of at least 2,000,000 unspeakable horrors marched North unchallenged. Greater horrors than the undead. Inside NeoCity, citizens were forced to ration food and the factories ran non-stop to manufacture supplies. It was then the first signs of the plague had reached inside the city. That was when one of the ancient and powerful beings made herself known to the world again. The Church of Light had been built in the center of the city and while most simply thought it a cult. It was revealed that the Descendkin had returned. Lady Yunfahl had gathered as many former members of The Order of Light as she could find and while they could not use their powers to combat the enemy. They could use it to prevent a plague. While a war was waging outside the walls of NeoCity, they fought one to save its citizens from within. That is when a second enemy of NeoCity made themselves known. The long dormant and quiet metropolis of CITADEL had sailed across the ocean to wage war as well. For reasons unknown, they wished NeoCity wiped off the map also. It was then the Supreme Leader of CITADEL let himself be known. His existence had only been a rumor until this point. Captured enemies had made reference to him. A being that wasn't quite man or machine. He laid the foundation of a city to be known as CITADEL. It was the largest ever built. the size of the entire country of Mexico and still growing. He gave the people tools. Access to machines, great and powerful machines that could lift buildings. Factories that could produce a months supply of steel in a day. And he gave them a chance to make themselves better, stronger, faster and like him - immortal. CITADEL was a nation obsessed with technology and their armies proved it.
His name was Nine and he is considered to be the first Cyborg in existence. A machine that has become human. And now he was offering humans the chance to become machines. His tool was fear. He convinced them it was the only way to live in this world. That to not make oneself better, is to court death. So he gave them two choices. Acceptance.. or Banishment. One by one they fell in line and started to implant themselves with microchips to make them smarter, muscle implants to make them run faster and twice as strong as any man. They then went as far as replacing their human arms with bio-mechanical ligaments. He began his reign in the region days after the bombs fell. He made up lies about NeoCity and how they wanted to kill the citizens of CITADEL. They began to build an army. Since the fusion of the two worlds, the walls of CITADEL remained shut as the factories ran non-stop; building instruments of death and destruction. Into each of these machines was programmed one simple line of code. Destroy humanity and usher in the age of machines. Nobody is sure of the connection between CITADEL and Avorene, but the two armies did not attack one another. It's as if they believed the city was a bigger threat to their overall goal than each other. Many believed that a pact was made. That Avorene would get control of all the Americas and then they would help CITADEL take over Europe and Africa. It was the only conclusion that could be drawn from their union. A group of adventurers happened across the meeting of the leaders of these two powerful armies in the middle of the desert. The being known as Nine was spotted talking with a being known very well to the Naruen.
He was known among the Naruen and Evargeist. A being known as Radim, the former second in command to the Lost One himself. For years on their home world of Rhunearth, they fought the being known as The Lost One and this battle led to the destruction of Ehumera and the fusion of the two worlds. Radim was now aiding The Cursed King Talek for reasons unknown. Nobody was sure what would happen when these two armies from CITADEL and Avorene would meet. But nobody was expecting that they'd join forces. It was not known what these two forces had in common other than their apparent hatred of everything. But on a warm July morning, these two armies openly attacked NeoCity. A place where all were welcome; regardless of race and religious belief.
The Northern half of the city was left to fight off the combined tech-enhanced soldiers of CITADEL and their army of machines. While the South was left to defend the mindless hordes of undead and monsters of an ungodly nature, led by a gathering of mind controlled Dark Elf Necromancers. It was truly something that the Earth had never been through before. A war unlike any other. NeoCity was forced to defend against two armies. The recently constructed wall wouldn't stand for much longer. August 2105 The enemy had employed siege tactics and planned to win this battle through a war of attrition. Inside the walls, the city of NeoCity was starving. They were rationing. They were forced to work long hours in factories to build more weapons. None of them seemed to understand the fate of the entire world was in their hands, but they chose to strike out against their government. A civil war was brewing inside the city while the enemy was at the gates. And still the members of The Church of Light fought to stop the spread of The Sickness that was killing hundreds each day. A series of terrorist attacks allowed the enemy to exploit a weakness in the Wall and within days, the enemy managed to break through the Walls of NeoCity and the fighting spread from the desert to the streets and every citizen was forced to take up arms. When everything seemed it was nearing its end. NeoCity finally got a lucky break. The Pariah had returned. It was armed with weapons both ancient and new. On its decks, cannons were replaced with powerful mages and the old guns of World War 3 were retrofitted with new powerful technologies and it was followed by a fleet of the Solantans own army. The Pariah and its fleet sailed into what was once San Francisco Bay and together they cut off the enemy's supply lines from CITADEL. They hammered the enemy from the seas and forced them to defend on multiple fronts. And in the South, another break. One of the final few remaining Descendkin who did not submit to the rules of the Order of Light made himself known. His name unknown, origin unknown. He came to NeoCity and asked a favor. What that favor was was between him and the Order of Light, but the leader of the Order, Lady Yunfahl saw to his protection by making a group of citizens escort him to the borders of Avorene. As the old Descendkin and an armed escort left NeoCity in secret and traveled to Mexico, the land bridge that joined the Northern lands of Emnest, Wildlands and Angar with the dark Southern Land of Avorene. Witnesses say it nearly killed the Descendkin but he cast a spell so powerful it sunk the entire land mass once known as Mexico. It simply fell into the ocean and became The Ragener Marshes. As if the crust that was holding it up deep beneath the Earth's surface was removed. The forces of NeoCity were left to fight off what remained of Avorene and CITADEL's forces. The party that escorted the Descendkin to Avorene continued South to take part in a secret mission to kill The Cursed King Talek once and for all. January 2109 A.D. This group of every day citizens. Mostly common street thugs and adventurers led a campaign into Avorene and headed towards the Dark Tower of Nuvahl. There they came face to face with some of the greatest evils known in the world. And when they killed the last of his defenses. They met The Cursed King Talek himself in battle. Many of these heroes died in the conflict, but when the battle ended. The Cursed King, Talek and his Crimson Queen Miral, laid slain. It is rumored that they also killed his daughter, The Princess Celesta, but there have been many rumors of her escaping to the South in the years after the war.
With no reinforcements. The Second in Command, Radim was forced to retire himself and he vanished from the known world and would not be seen or heard of for another hundred years. The armies of CITADEL continued to attack and fought to the death. But eventually, the reinforcements stopped coming. Inside NeoCity, the citizens managed to stop the advance of the Sickness, but at a cost. Having personally treated so many infected. Lady Helenai Yunfahl had been infected as well and no magic was able to cure her. She passed away. And with that, The Great War had come to an end. Millions had died and the true intentions of the beings of this new world had come to be known. Nearly all forces had suffered and it would be a hundred years before either faction had enough numbers to mount another large scale war. The metropolis of NeoCity, which had been suffering before the war only became worse in the years after. The Walls built to protect it had turned the city into a prison which forbid its citizens from leaving. The crime rate increased and the morals and structure of the city's laws dropped off the charts. If a great evil chose to attack the city now. It would not even put up a fight. Luckily, a handful of citizens would keep the city alive for the next hundred years and in doing so would unknowingly save the world in the process a hundred times over.