The Traitor's War
The Traitor's War was begun a few thousand years after the end of the War of Undying at the Battle of Hadrian's Crossing. In that time, known as the Kingdom Period, the surviving remnants of The Dying finally recovered to the point where they formed into kingdoms in the dead lands where the foul lich once ruled. The eight kingdoms, each ruled by one of the ageless Genasi First Ones, the Genasi created to stop the lich king, were friendly and cooperative, a band of literal brothers, each helping the others to rebuild and recover the land for for thousands of years. Then came Betrayal Of The Blood, the time when the Traitor (none remember the traitor's name, for it was scratched from all records in the end), turned to a servant of The Corruption, brought all of the other First Ones together, and slew them. It is known that one of the First Ones was the Traitor, but which one is uncertain. With the original ageless leaders all dead, the kingdoms quickly devolved into chaos and war, each vying to conquer all the others and build a new empire on the ashes of the old. For uncounted years (as records were all but forgotten in those times) these successor kingdoms fought and hundreds of thousands of people died in the fighting. In the end, The Great Council of Wizards (formed to police arcane magic to prevent another Lich King) and the High Priest of the Source joined together to end the fighting. They brought the surviving kings together, and with thousands of wizards and clerics surrounding the chamber, bade them make peace or suffer the ire of every practitioner of magic in the known world.
The kings then made peace, signed the Treaty of Unification, and elected one from among their number to rule a joint empire, named the Lachendon Empire as an ironic reference to the evil that once reigned. They also asked that the Great Council of Wizards establish a ward or other protection to prevent another Traitor, or anyone else from ever making such a pact of corruption.
The Great Council of Wizards then set to work, and after centuries of study, research, and experimentation that claimed the lives of many wizards and clerics alike, created the Great Ward of the Empire, marking the final end of the Traitor's War and the beginning of the Lachendon Empire.
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