The Flowing Salt Incident

Shortly after the Great Reventine Expansion, on the newly established reventine-sarnian border, a curious magical anomaly took place, sparking a major war that would envelop the southern and central regions of the Continent.

Prelude

The Reventine empire's conquest of its southern border provinces caused a lot of unease in Sarnios to the south, now worried of encroachment from the north. Warning the Reventines that a further advance would result in the invasion of the sarnian sphere of influence that would be responded to by war, the expansion stopped and the sarnian elites thought that they have stopped the northern advance by the sheer power of their influence. Little did they know that the Reventines were merely working on taking control of the lesser countries allied to Sarnios by non violent means. The clandestine branch of the Reventine Sentinels were working on toppling and buying the loyalty of governments in these buffer regions and in a few months, managed to flip three of them, puppeting them and effectively creating a 400 kilometers long border with Sarnios itself.
Sarnian reaction to this unexpected treachery was fiery and the regnaros was barely able to keep his subjects in line. Asking the Reventines to leave the regions at once, he was told that the affected states decided to join their empire on their own, not breaking their promise of no southern advancement. This arrogant and clearly untrue response agitated the Sarnians even further, starting preparations for war.

The Flowing Salts

Despite the ongoing preparation for war, the Sarnians were reluctant to start it in earnest and the Reventines' excuse, whilst obviously a lie, did not give them the casus belli they needed to not come across as the aggressor. In this tense situation, with both sides ready to jump at any excuse to start a large scale war, an unexpected magical phenomenon nearly triggered the brewing conflict.
In a town at the border between the two realms called Haerna a trading post controlling the flow of goods between the two empires was located. There, merchants would have to go through a customs process, have their cargo inspected and in case of something elicit or suspicious being found, they would have to stay at the post until a decision to allow them to continue, to turn back or be detained would be made.
During this turbulent time, a sarnian trader's wagon carrying salt was stopped and the heavy bags inspected. A reventine official called Jonah Delond was commanding the post that day, famous for being more strict and thorough than any other official, always adamant on inspecting every caravan and wagon to the last straw of hay. This would often lead to breaking the flow of trade at the border during a busy day and it was no different on this warm spring day either. Due to the number and weight of the bags of salt on the trader's carriage, not all of them could be inspected in a reasonable amount of time and a queue was forming behind the wagon. Intent on not letting anyone through without a proper search, Delond ordered the salt trader to stay at the post until the influx of merchants falls down and a proper inspection of his cargo could be made.
A few hours have passed and the road became empty again, so Delond could finally dedicate time to inspect the cart. To everyone's surprise though, the majority of sacks were half empty, whilst they were clearly full when the wagon was pulled over. The merchant immediately blamed the Reventine official of theft and Delond did not lose any time investigating who has stolen the salt. After an hour of feverish investigation, the salt or its thief was not found and Delond and the trader have gotten into an argument, until one of his men pointed out something nobody has noticed before - the salt was indeed still there, black and partially melted, stuck on the roof ceiling of the trading post right above the wagon.
Confused as to what has happened, Delond would become speechless, whilst the trader would immediately escalate his behavior even further, immediately coming to the conclusion that Delond tarred his salt and stuck it to the ceiling in defiance of sarnian trade. The argument would rage at the post for hours on end and every merchant passing through would spread their version of it in their destination, where it would very soon reach the ears of both Reventine and Sarnian aristocracy.
Finally receiving the spark the ignite the sarnian war machine, the kingdom of Sarnios would declare war on the Reventine empire mere four days after the incident, citing their aggressive expansion, invasion of their sphere of influence and discrimination towards sarnian traders as their casus belli, starting the Great Sarnian-Revantine War, also known as the War of the Black Salts, which would become the greatest conflict the Continent has seen in centuries and would, with breaks, go on for nearly eighty years.

Conflict Type

Skirmish