Sundering of Ngavarr

There is no event which has shaped Ngavarrā culture like the Sundering of Ngavarr. What began as rebellion against Nimean authority—merely one of many—came to an abrupt and dire conclusion. When the reigning Summerlord learned that the Priesthood of the Verdent Green—predecessor to the modern Priesthood of the Sundered Green, with which it has essentially no difference in structure, only policy and doctrine—was intimately involved in the orchestration of the rebellion. The Summerlord was enraged, and unleashed the entirety of his arcane might upon the land, reducing Ngavarr to ash.

— from Twofold Armageddon: The Modern Ngavarrā, by Quondrus Betelon

The Conflict

Prelude

The Nimean subjugation of Ngavarr and the Ngavarrā was primarily through intimidation. The Ngavarrā had seen the crippling brutality of the Nimean subjugation of the Yarman civilization, and knew that the Nimean Myul Vorun, which involved a great deal of fire, would be unquestionably effective against the Ngavarrā Ngarrang Ghor, which would be their best chance at resistance if it didn't intimately involve eminently flammable plant life.
Nevertheless, the opportunity to take control of the region without expending military resources allowed the Kingdom of Ngavarr to negotiate favorable circumstances compared to the Summerland Empire of Nimea's former and latter conquests. It also left Nagavarr's economic and military infrastructure intact, making it valuable to its new overlords. It also left the ground fertile for rebellion.
Over the many years of occupation, dissatisfaction with Nimean military governance erupted into multiple armed insurrection. They were met with violent suppression, which did little to endear the Nimeans to the Ngavari, but would always cow them, for a time. One of the primary factors in primary factors in propagating the continued rebellions after each successive failure was the actions of the Priesthood of the Verdent Green, which was aggrieved both by Nimean meddling in Ngavarrā theology, and by Nimean disruption of local power structures, which favored the priesthood. Nevertheless, they kept the link between the insurrections and the priesthood as secret as possible, with only individual priests being fully implicated—which successfully limited broad reprisals from destroying the organization.

The Engagement

The different sides of the war had little opportunity to engage in battle before they were met by the Summerlord's ire. Unlike with previous insurrections, the Priesthood's direct involvement with the planning and logistics of the rebellion was discovered, and the Summerlord was alerted in short order.
Only a few garrisons had been seized, and no reprisals actually made, before the Summerlord blasted the entire region to ash. A torrent of flame consumed all of Ngavar, killing Nimean and Ngavari, native and settler, soldier and civilian. The Summerlord's fire would backfire, however, in a literal fashion. What is now called the Salted Earth coalesced and concentrated under the effects of the Summerlord's wrath, and proved powerful enough to reflect it back onto him. The Summerlord, along with a large portion of the city of Nimea itself, were consumed in fire before the power faded.

Outcome

The Summerlord's fire transformed the once fertile and fecund land of Ngavar into the Ashen Wastes, creating the Throne of Ash and its Ash Wraiths, which still haunt the region and making overland travel incredibly difficult and dangerous.
Additionally, it resulted in the destruction of the vast majority of the Spirits of the Green in the world. Being incorporeal, they were unaffected by the the throes of battle, and could flee underground to escape the fire. However, they rely upon and inhabit living plants, and their destruction made survival difficult. Some were able to flee abroad, and even more to the safe harbor being being built up in the city of Ghorratāndolirr, but most, left with no way to survive, ceased to be.
What few people actually survived the fire were metaphysically altered, their eyes paled, and their skin taking on subtle hints of greenish- or bluish- grey.
On top of all this, Ngavarr had previously been responsible a considerable amoun of food production, and its loss sparked deep famin across the Summerland Empire of Nimea, and lesser famines in its trading partners.

Aftermath

There were two groups of survivors, few as they were: those who fled the ruins of Ngavarr, and those who attempted to build something in what remained. Those who fled evolved into varied and divergent ethnic groups, with visible influences both from the original Ngavarrā culture and their various host cultures.
Many of those who remained found their way to the mouth of the river Grogh, at what would eventually become the city of Ghorratāndolirr. They discovered that the sea monsters which lurked around the nearby island of Lo Dokh now stayed clear of the coastline, the permanent ravages of flame proving to be the most powerful deterrent ever seen. They were, thus, able to create a massive trading hub, which was protected from overland assault by the harsh conditions of the ashen wastes, and from naval invasion by the gargantuan ocean beasts which lurked just beyond the region they controlled. The people of this city still called themselves Ngavarrā, and do to this day, but are referred to academically as Ashfolk, to distinguish them from the culture to which they are successors.
The famine caused by the loss of Ngavarr would eventually end, but would never be fully recovered from. It sparked further rebellions, which Nimea could not adequately combat because they could not feed their armies. This unrest would end with Nimea smaller than it had been, and began a period of decline which would inflict a similar fate upon the Nimean homeland as befell Ngavarr—remembered as the Folly of the Summerlords, which was the culmination of a bloody succession crisis—and ultimately in the collapse of the Summerland Empire of Nimea two centuries after the Sundering.

Conflict Type

War

Battlefield Type

Land

Belligerents

Nimean Military Government

Led by

• The Summerlord Malor Lavanaar III

Ngavari Rebellion

Strength

approx. 20,000 Infantry
approx. 3,500 Nimean Cavalry
approx. 5,000 Myul Vorun Infantry
approx. 1,000 Myul Vorun Cavalry

approx. 10,000 Infantry
approx. 3,000 Ngavang Ghor
approx. 150,000 Civilians

Casualties

approx. 10,000 Infantry
approx. 1,500 Nimean Cavalry
approx. 3,500 Myul Vorun Infantry
approx. 1,000 Myul Vorun Cavalry

approx. 9,500 Infantry
approx. 2,000 Ngavang Ghor
approx. 145,000 Civilians

Objectives

The subjugation and elimination of rebellious forces within the occupied regions of Ngava Zun, Ngava Gor, and Ngava Dal.

Eject Nimean military forces from historical Ngavar territory.