The Voidgate War was a worldwide conflict between the Elves of the off-world Novagleam Empire, and the various nations and peoples of Aramanth along. The war began in year 9231 of the Commonwealth Era and it's ending marked the turning beginning Fallowed Era, named as such for the damage done to what had been the dominant power on Aramanth,
The Eternal Commonwealth V1 . It's ending would lead to the creation of several new nations and the liberation of over 100,000 slaves of the elves.
The war had multiple fronts, owing to the multiple Void Gates through which the Novagleam Elves had open upon Aramanth's surface. Much of the war's length was marked by the slow, grinding destruction of the Eternal Empire's vast armies, armies that were once considered indomitable. Though the lands of the Commonwealth were the primary theater of the war, the Ashfall Desert and the forests of
Kduur V1 on
Falen , and the marshlands of
Thaden V1 on
Guuran.
The war ended when an assembled group that included dissident elf soldiers and sorcerers rebelling against Novagleam, Magisters trained in manipulating Aramanth's reality-warping Deep Field, and the begrudging partnership of dwarves and gnomes with their combined knowledge of Ancients lore. All together these groups were able to sever Aramanth's Voidgates, cutting the world off from the Ageless Empire. With the source of near-limitless forces gone, the diminished forces of the Commonwealth were able to finally bring the remaining elven invaders into submission.
The Conflict
Prelude
The Voidgate War was a conflict millenia in the making. The Novagleam Elves had established the first Enclaves in 3000 CE, arriving through the elven Void Gates that had been opened across the world. These enclaves remained hidden deep within the densest forests, jungles, and mountains, allowing the elves to study and learn what they could of Aramanth and the Ancients who once shaped it so thoroughly. Their findings were notable, and the seemingly endless number of caches of relics and relatively intact installation sites eventually brought the world to the attention of House Aramanthay and it's Matriarch Bel'asan. Aramanth was one of many worlds they had been given claim to over the centuries by the God-Empress, and this was the first to show any promise for discoveries that would earn her House the favor she felt it deserved. Over the next century, she arrayed her armies in preparation for the full-scale invasion and subjugation of Aramanth and its peoples.
By now there were generations of Elves who had been born and raised on Aramanth. While the most favored of the families were given taken back through the gates and thoroughly immersed in Novagleam culture, philosophy, and magical instruction. Often these High Elves would return with dozens of mind-locked halfling slaves in tow, using them for labor and sport in and out of the Enclaves. Still, many more elves found themselves raised and shaped by the strange world as any other of its peoples.
Using illusionary sorcery thousands of elven spies were able to learn a considerable amount about the nations and peoples of the world they were inhabiting, even going so far as to kidnap a number for experimentation and study. Using their flesh-warping sorceries the elves formed magical hybrids of the Aramanth peoples to serve as fodder and shock troops, creating what is now known as the goblinoid races.
But through all this, there was growing dissent. Many elven families, especially ones who had spent entire human lifetimes hidden among the native peoples, had begun to sympathize and relate to the people they were supposed to be spying on and sabotaging. Despite the harshness of their existence, the elves found themselves admiring concepts that had no correlation in elven society--ideas like mercy, or romantic love, or even something as simple as honest friendship. These early forms of dissension conflicted with the ever-present voice of the elven God-Empress in their minds, ever influence their thoughts and muted emotions.
With decades of preparation, when the invasion began, it moved like wildfire. The elven forces put most of their focus on the Eternal Commonwealth, a sprawling empire that covered the majority of the world. The Empire could field a staggering number of soldiers, across dozens of legions and governmental organizations, but time and size had rendered the Empire sluggish and disorganized in the face of a Empire bigger still than even it, and one that made sport of conquering entire planets.
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers died, but to Novagleam's considerable surprise the peoples of Aramanth held up considerably better than the elves expected them to. Much of this was due to their underestimation of the Aramanthian wizards and psions, who were skilled in the use of Aramanth's Deep Field and granted them power equivalent even to their arcane sorcery. For all the years of planning and subterfuge, the elves never bothered to consider the threat of Aramanthian "parlor tricks", and this miscalculation turned the conflict from a short bloody lasting years to a grinding devastation that lasted centuries.
The most immediate effect of the war was the severing of the link between Aramanth and the greater Novagleam Empire. Without access to what amounted to a limitless supply of soldiers, the era of elven influence over Aramanth was at an end. The dissident elves did not escape this unscathed, however, for every elf is psychically connected to their God-Empress, even across the endless void. In her anger at their betrayal, Lorastraiya spurned her rebellious children with a mental lashing that would have killed them all were it not for the defensive actions taken by their psion allies, who in the moment of the strike granted their mental defenses to their elven allies, saving most of their elven allies.
The elves were not the only ones who had earned their freedom. Entire communities of halflings found the locks placed upon their minds suddenly gone, and they quickly fled the forced service of their elven masters. The Hobgoblins likewise found freedom through a charismatic leader who had forged a mental pathway to break the elven chains on their minds. The halflings would eventually spread out among the other communities of Aramanth, while the hobgoblins would found their own nation of Dunlaw in the deserts where they had been sent to fight.
While the Eternal Commonwealth survived the war against the elves, it was irreparably damaged, and centuries later is still in a state of decay and decline. Over and over it has seen it's territory dissolve into lawlessness or wilderness, or otherwise break off into new nations of their own. In an empire whose golden age was already a memory of a memory, it seems that the world-spanning order and control they had once tenuously held over Aramanth has long since fallen apart.
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