Great Reckoning I

The first Great Reckoning came in the year 5 BC during the Age of Heroes, when the Queen of Chaos capitalized on the stabilizing conditions post-Holy Wars, and persuaded her followers, as well as the other Deities of Chaos, to wage war on the Material Plane and summon her to it. As the first instance of a war this widespread, one encompassing all of the continents of Gaia, the battles fought during this time had great impact on the future direction of the Material Plane and forever changed the way future wars were fought. Battles today are carried out with many of the same tactics and weaponry, if not close derivatives of their earlier predecessors. Destruction, death, and heroism were major themes during this time as fields of creatures, chaotic and orderly alike, fought tooth and nail to gain ground on one another.

Below are the series of events as recorded by primary and secondary sources synthesized and put in order by the scholars of the Lyceum of Lidonia.

An Unstable Foundation

In the centuries following the Holy Wars, starting as early as 50 BC, the Material Plane found itself heading towards some form of an equilibrium, at least in terms of the power the Divine Deities garnered from their subjects. While most of the world was inhabited by the First Men and their descendants, the remaining pockets of First Ones clung together in the far reaches of the continents, keeping to themselves and remaining isolated out of fear and experience.

Due to the conversion of some of the First Men to the side of Order, and vice versa, the world found itself in a strange limbo wherein the creatures of the Material Plane were comprised of an uneven and random mix of attributes from each side of the Pantheon. Being comprised of this heterogenous mix, the creatures of the Material Plane were thrust into an identity crisis where, for the first time, they were largely left to their own devices, without much interference from the Gods above. In this time of solitude, they had to decide which sect of the Pantheon they wished to belong.

This made it prime for the taking for those Deities willing to put in the ground work and persuade the masses to their side. The first to capitalize on this was the Queen of Chaos, a now deceased deity, or at least thought to be, as she begun converting large swathes of Goblins, Orcs, and their kin to her side. Preying on their extremely primal instincts and lack of moral judgement, she used her silver tongue to whisper great prophecies and promises of power to them. With these great promises of power and prestige, these creatures flocked to the side of the Queen of Chaos, and began to prepare for an impending conflict: one that would see their status raised and everyone else's forced into that of servitude.

And So It Begins

After nearly 45 years of planning, careful building, and acting in secrecy, the armies of the Queen of Chaos, known as the Armies of Chaos, prepared to launch their first attacks on the unsuspecting people of the Material Plane. Focusing most of their efforts on the continents of Caldron, Tal'Dorei, and Tammemar due to their population size, the Queen's army began their ascension from the depths below in a few key locations. What followed was a war fought on three fronts, one on each continent listed above, all controlled by the Queen of Chaos and her champions on the Material Plane.

The Caldron Front

On Caldron, the vile and retched Armies of Chaos came forth from the Carquet Peaks in the area known as Serpent's Kiss. Having dug tunnels and large barracks into the mountain range for the last few decades, the Armies of Chaos found themselves in a great position to silently and systematically expand their ranks into the subterranean portions of Caldron. Due to the remote nature of Serpent's Kiss, the nearest bastion of civilization being Rehdiff, the Armies of Chaos intentionally picked this location to start their campaign into Caldron since it provided not only a very formidable and defensible location, but it also provided the perfect cover under which enormous ranks of soldiers could move in secrecy.

Led by Rhag the Conqueror, a ferocious, feared, and murderous Orc, the First Army of Chaos marched forth from Serpent's Kiss in the dead of night on the 7th of Misuthar. With great haste and with malice at the forefront of their minds, the First Army arrived at the gates of Rehdiff early the next morning, bringing with them great weapons and machines of war they had spent so much time building, and an army so large it's said that their march made the ground beneath them quake.

The Tal'Dorei Front

Just as Rhag was moving his First Army into position in Caldron, Dogor the Crusher, was moving his army, the Second Army of Chaos, into position in Zordam Haar in the very south of Tal'Dorei. Similarly to the Carquet Peaks, the Beynsfal Plateau made for the ideal cover and location for an army to form in secrecy. Having prepared their army for the better part of 30 years, the Second Army readied their siege weapons and berserker units to carry out their assault on Kymal, one of the largest cities in Tal'Dorei, on the 7th of Misuthar. Once the day hit, the great Second Army of Chaos marched through the Rifenmist Jungle and set siege on the unsuspecting city of Kymal, the very same day that the First Army of Chaos attacked Rehdiff.

The Tammemar Front

The last of the fronts, and the final piece of the plan, the Third Army of Chaos, led by Nogar the Invincible, prepared their assault in the Ashkeeper Peaks in the very center of Tammemar. Their target destination would be to take control of the Wuyun Gates that provided entrance to and from the Tammemar Dynasty (the predecessor to the Dwendalian Empire). Using the same 40 year period to prepare, the Third Army of Chaos lined their units, and under the cover of night, viciously attacked the Wuyun Gorge, easily thwarting the forces that guarded the walls.

An Enemy Divided

Surprised by not only the size of the Armies of Chaos, but also by the time and locations in which they attacked, the civilizations on these continents quickly brought up arms in defense of their lands. Not able to strategize on the best means to retaliate, and constantly being on the defensive, the early months of this war saw death tolls on the Armies of Order reach some of the highest levels of the entire war. Quickly, the Armies of Chaos moved on from their initial siege-points to the various choke points that were identified during the preparation of the war. In other words, everything was going according to plan.

Being raided and pillaged quickly and ferociously, the kingdoms and empires on the affected continents reached out to their neighbors, both on the same continent and across the vast seas. Unfortunately, these requests fell on deaf ears as this multi-front assault proved to be extremely effective in wrapping up the other nations of the world in their own affairs and defenses. Now isolated, the continents found themselves suffering high death tolls, ravaged cities, and displaced peoples.

Help From Above

Knowing that if they didn't figure something out soon, the Armies of Chaos would be at the doors of their capitals, the Armies of Order looked to their patrons, the Deities of Order, for aid in these battles. Their salvation came in the form of Divine Weapons, hand crafted by the Gods themselves, only to be wielded by those that were most worthy. These weapons and the warriors to wield them were to be unleashed on the Armies of Chaos, battling them back away from the important areas of the continent. The Divine Weapons given during this time can still be seen today, at least in part, in the various archives and collections of individuals around the world.

The Divine Weapons

These weapons were gifts to the followers of Order on the Material Plane to help combat the immense Armies of Chaos and help protect their cities and people. The weapons were of legendary caliber, channeling power directly from the Deities that created them. Only the most capable and devout warriors would have the strength to wield these weapons, and their use would be purely to even the playing field. Once the war was over, these weapons were to be stored away or destroyed so as to prevent their influence from being taken advantage of by those that were unworthy.

These weapons included Danoth's Visor, Spire of Conflux, Gurt's Greataxe, Bookmark, just to name a few, and were given to the Armies of Order with the sole purpose of slaying the Armies of Chaos. The Divine Weapons helped swing the scales of the war back towards an even playing field, largely preventing the further spread of the Armies of Chaos farther into these continents, and preventing the complete collapse of the kingdoms and empires that called these continents home.

An Escalation

Seeing her forces thwarted by the influence of the Deities of Order, the Queen of Chaos began to recruit her fellow Deities of Chaos, uniting them under her banner to claim the Material Plane and finally put an end to the hubris and power of the Deities of Order. During this period, the Queen of Chaos began to make allyship with the various Deities of Chaos, including Asmodeus, Torog, Vecna, and many more. She promised them each a part of the planes to rule over once they seized the Material Plane from the Deities of Order.

Buying into these promises, the other Deities of Chaos lent their aid to the Queen of Chaos and gave her champions that would harness small portions of their powers and would lead these armies into battle. These champions too, would wield special weapons forged from the power of these Deities. These were known as the Arms of Chaos, and were the Deities of Chaos' response to the Divine Weapons created by the Deities of Order.

The champions that wielded the Arms of Chaos ravaged the battlefields, and coupled with the demonic and fiendish creations of the Deities of Chaos, proved to be very challenging to take down. The increase in power on both sides quickly turned an already bloody war into a full-on series of disasters, each happening one after the other. Each battle fought in this phase of the war turned up more and more deaths and destruction in the world. Entire cities were leveled, villages razed, and death counts sent sky high. These battles, while not individually important in the outcome of the war, left huge scars on the surface of the Material Plane and shaped the landscape for centuries to come. Craters and pools of magical essence left behind by these battles, chaotic or otherwise, can be seen today marking the sites of some of these battles, with varying degrees of effectiveness and potency.

The Turning Point

After nearly five years of fighting, both sides of the war were feeling the pains of conflict and were growing tired and worn down from fighting so often. Just out of sheer discipline and willingness to cooperate, the Armies of Order were able to leverage their unity against the now fracturing Armies of Chaos. Being savage and impulsive by nature, the Armies of Chaos were short-sighted in that they expected the war to end quickly. Being comprised of unified clans and factions of once-warring orcs, goblins, and their kin, this army, after years of fighting, started to show signs of possible mutiny.

Classist and racist dividing lines that have been in place since the inception of the clans started to peak through, and soon large ranks of the Armies of Chaos were at each other's throats. This weakened front created a unique advantage for the Armies of Order, and they soon began to push back the fractured Armies of Chaos even further. After some months of this retaliation, the beaten down, disjoint, and angry ranks of the Armies of Chaos began to disintegrate until only a small portion of the actual armies remained.

On their heels now, and with most of their champions slain, the remaining forces of the Armies of Chaos were cleaned up with little effort from the Armies of Order, and the Queen of Chaos unsuccessfully resurrected to the Material Plane. The rest of the Deities of Chaos, who didn't have much skin in the game anyway, withdrew their support and left the Queen to her own fate.

Soon after the last battles were fought, and the remainder of the Armies of Chaos were wiped out, the Armies of Order, with the help of their Divine Weapons, banished the Queen of Chaos once more to the far reaches of the Planes of Existence, where her influence would be next to nothing. This banishment effectively ended the war and saw the conclusion to the First Great Reckoning.

Picking Up the Pieces

The aftermath of the First Great Reckoning was that of catastrophic proportions. Much of Caldron, Tal'Dorei, and Tammemar had been a battlefield in which devastating and violent battles were fought. The remnants of these battles scarred the land, making much of it largely uninhabitable. The lands that were still habitable were rebuilt, and the founding of many of the modern Empires, such as the Dwendalian Empire, the Krynn Dynasty, Ostanza, and the Republic of Tal'Dorei, formed out of the ashes and remnants of kingdoms fractured or destroyed by the war.

The now barren and desolate wastelands that marked these battlefields were left alone to fester and mutate. Powerful magics remained, leftover from these cataclysmic clashes, and the Material Plane itself was warped under the immense energies of these sites, morphing and mutating the living creatures and geography therein. Today, many of these sites are still largely inhospitable to the commonfolk of Gaia, with some of the largest of them being the Wastelands of Xhorhas on Tammemar.

For the next 1000 years, the civilizations of Gaia would thrive, compete and fight each other for control, and expand their reaches. This is until the Queen of Chaos makes her return during the Dragon Age, where fate of the Material Plane is once again in question.