The Iron Kingdoms Era

Era beginning/end

Saying that the years following the defeat of the Orgoth were relatively peaceful simply emphasizes how war-torn the history of western Immoren truly is. The signing of the Corvis Treaties established borders that would hold for centuries and ushered in an era of reconstruction, but numerous conflicts were on the horizon.

New arcane orders were established to study the nature of magic and the secrets of alchemy (see Alchemist), and great advances were made in Mechankia technology—including the invention of the first Steamjacks, smaller and more versatile versions of the massive colossals. At the same time, Cygnar was beset by Trollkin uprisings in the Thornwood and the Gnarls, while the newly formed nation of Khador accumulated power with an eye toward conquest.

In 482 AR, a charismatic Menite priest named Sulon began calling for pilgrims to come to the eastern part of Caspia. By this time, worship of Morrow had become the dominant faith in the region, and Menites had begun to see themselves as a persecuted minority. As Cygnaran Menites gathered in the thousands to hear his words, Sulon declared himself hierarch, a title associated with the ancient priest-kings of the Lawgiver. The result was the beginning of the First Cygnaran Civil War, a conflict that would split the young nation in two.

The fighting raged for two years, devastated the Cygnaran capital Caspia, and claimed the life of Hierarch Sulon.

Ultimately, a Morrowan priest named Shevann—who later ascended to join Morrow upon her death—brokered a tenuous peace. These negotiations led to the creation of the Protectorate of Menoth. Caspia was split in two, as Cygnar ceded the portion of the city that lay on the eastern banks of the Black River. The Menites renamed the city Sul in honor of their fallen hierarch, and it became the first capital of the new Protectorate, which covered the lands to the east between the Bloodstone Marches and the Meredius.

 The harsh and inhospitable nature of these lands was seen by the Menites as a challenge from their creator, and as they brought the native populations to heel and discovered numerous previously unknown natural resources within the forbidding landscape, they came to perceive the hand of divine providence in their lot. Among these resources were plentiful diamonds that could be traded to foreign nations, as well as underground deposits of flammable oil, which the faithful refined into the incendiary weapon known as Menoth’s Fury. Although the conditions of the accord that had ended the civil war prohibited the Protectorate from assembling a standing army, the Menites were building a secret force and outfitting it with all the tools and weapons at their disposal.

Internal division was not the only threat to Cygnar during this time. In 520 AR, King Vygor of Khador sent a diversionary force against the borders of Llael, forcing Cygnar to commit military resources to defend its ally. At the same time, Vygor sent a much larger force of soldiers and warjacks (Steamjacks) through the Thornwood toward largely undefended Cygnaran territory, chopping a miles-wide path ultimately called the “Warjack Road.”

So began the First Thornwood War, which was only the earliest of many expansionist maneuvers by Khador, culminating in its invasion and occupation of Llael in 604 and 605 AR. Khador would hold much of Llael for years despite the combined efforts of the Llaelese Resistance, Cygnar , and the Protectorate of Menoth. Not until the Claiming did Llael finally throw off the Khadoran occupation entirely, and even today, the former Llaelese city of Laedry sits entirely within Khador’s borders.

Prince Vinter Raelthorne IV of Cygnar was a hero of the First Thornwood War, and when his father perished with suspicious suddenness in 576 AR, he ascended to the throne. This event marked the beginning of a dark age for the nation, as the paranoid and tyrannical Vinter Raelthorne implemented the Cygnaran Inquisition.

The Inquisition was ostensibly tasked with rooting out suspected witches, but its actual function was to persecute or otherwise eliminate any dissidents or perceived threats to the king’s rule. Vinter IV’s Inquisitors often struck even those who were innocent of these transgressions, sowing a sense of fear that cast a pall over the kingdom. These unpopular actions eventually drove Vinter IV’s younger brother, Prince Leto, to stage what became known as the Lion’s Coup in 594 AR. With the aid of the Church of Morrow, Leto ousted his tyrannical brother and established himself as monarch. Before Vinter IV could be captured, he escaped in an experimental airship and disappeared over the Bloodstone Marches.

Leto proved to be a capable and popular ruler, and he ushered in what many see as a golden age in the history of Cygnar. His elder brother was not gone for good, however. In 603 AR, Vinter IV returned to take Corvis at the head of an army of monsters and unfamiliar beings known as skorne, who hailed from across the Stormlands. The invasion probably would have succeeded if not for the intercession of Alexia Ciannor, a young sorceress whose mother was unjustly executed as a witch. Alexia had become the guardian of a powerful artifact known as the Witchfire, and she used this dread blade to summon the exalted dead of the Legion of Lost Souls, who repelled Vinter IV and his allies on the Longest Night. Alexia and the Legion would later play a pivotal role in the Battle of Henge Hold during the Claiming.