Battle of the Ebon Plains (circa 90, 0 NT)

Long ago, Ald Cyngric was one of the most fertile areas in Gnosit, and seat of the widespread Sakxani civilization. An ecological disaster in Dokeen province completely overturned this situation.
Sudden and violent eruptions from Shelod, a great volcano, caused the ice sheets of mountainous Dokeen to melt, making its lush valleys increasingly unlivable. The elves who called Dokeen their home pled to the Sakxani King to allow them to settle in the lands of Grinfaldar (modern day Bluepool), near the base of the mountains. He denied their request.
The environmental calamity worsened. Soon, the elves had no choice but to migrate south regardless of the King's decree, and in so doing began to encroach upon Sakxani borders. Opposed to the idea of elven "filth” living together with humans, the King marched an army to meet their straggling masses of refugees at the Ebon Plains. Modern elves consider it poetic justice that hundreds of the King's soldiers were killed en route by huge ice shards plummeting from the mountain passes. It was the event that gave their kind the decisive advantage they needed to win the battle that later raged there, though the elvish people had never wished to cross swords.

by Midjourney

Above: Sakxani forces clash with the Dok

The battle was won, but victory carried a steep price: the lives of every member of the Snowstar Monarchy, the rulers of elven civilization since time eternal. Their loss was much more than a tragedy. It posed a full-out cultural crisis. The structure of elven society is extremely rigid and caste-based, with monarchs positioned at its height. Deep laws and traditions depend on a king or queen's decisions. This caste's eradication was like severing the head from the body. Druids - the caste closest in stature to the monarchs - along with other traditionalists stayed near the site of the battle to provide proper rites to the dead. The majority of other elves in a great wave swept across Grinfaldar in search of a place to live. Once the Druids had buried the war dead, they strove to establish a community intent on preserving the old ways. Their efforts would finally result in the establishment of Bonicaroo, whose tangled history may be reviewed here.
Elves with more utilitarian leanings sought first and foremost to make a living. Most travelled to the Sakxani city of Narthis, a successful trade port. Here, they were largely shunned by its fearful and prejudicial inhabitants. The struggling elven community ended up at the fringes of the city in shabby makeshift dwellings, and lived this way for many years. It is a time still held in memory by many elves of the older generation.
At the height of the elves’ mistreatment in Narthis, the mammoth ice sheets of the Dok finally gave way completely, resulting in devastating floods which overtook the Sakxani Empire's capital, Cyng-Tun, and turned Ald Cyngric's previously rolling grasslands into a giant swamp. (Not long afterwards, locals began calling the area “Floodthrone”. The name took.) Its human population had no choice but to seek refuge on higher ground, migrating to elevated outposts like Valerond and Sibillian. Most were poor and hungry, and Sakxani cities struggled to accommodate their numbers. In the end, the deluge spelled the end of the Sakxani Empire. In the absence of centralized leadership, individual settlements scrambled to find workable models of self-governance but devolved into political chaos. By this point, the elves of Narthis had developed a solid reputation in the region as peerless craftsmen - a reputation that had also helped them consolidate considerable wealth, and, little by little, gain ground over their human peers in the bid for regional control. The decades that followed transformed Narthis through elvish innovation into the mighty city of Rigo, a testament to the culture's perseverance and forward-looking vision. The story of this epic climb is detailed here.
Although the battle itself has been little described in this article, as one hopes to impress upon the reader, the significance of the Battle of the Ebon Plains cannot be overstated. It is the single defining event behind elvish ascendancy in Bluepool, and source of the two dominant branches of elvish thought - traditionalist and progressive - as exampled in Bluepool's two most bustling cities, Bonicaroo and Rigo. For this reason, the Battle marks the beginning of "New Time" (NT), which breaks from the old Druidic charts and astrological markers to count steadily towards a new elvish future.

Royal Insignia of the elven Snowstar Monarchy