The Winter War was a war that was fought between the forces of good and the Wicked One, Winter and her forces of evil. This occurred between the Years 2499 until 2649. This time was known as The Age of Ice.
About
Beginnings
The Wicked One Winter had deserted Oskan Father of Lies before the The God War and took no part in it. Instead she bided her time far to the north, developing her own plans for Pannithor.
In 2499, an unnatural winter fell upon the land. The great Mammoth Steppes expanded in range, and land previously suitable to cultivation became uninhabitable. The seas withdrew as they were taken up into the ice; the lands by their shores became poisoned by windblown salt, and multitudes starved. Fed by the dying seas, the ice covered great tracts of Pannithor, including the grand plains of Ardovikia, where much of the latter-day glory of Primovantor was; the republic was slowly brought to its knees.
This cooling of the world was far from natural: Elven seers discerned that Winter was behind the chilling of Pannithor.
Winter's War
Men, Dwarfs and Elves stood shoulder to shoulder once more against the threat of the Wicked Ones. This time there was only one divine enemy, but all three peoples were far weaker than they once had been.
The aid of the Shining Ones was erratic and could not be relied upon; for they too had lost a great deal of their power, and their minds had become unfocused since The God War with the exception of Valandor the Great who later would be regarded as to have been heavily involved and considered to be everywhere during the war.
Valandor the Great was regarded to have being everywhere. He fought shoulder to shoulder with the Elves as they battled the Ice Giants from the north at Lethuia, he commanded the garrison at Sathoi and repelled thousands of Ice Sprites and helped the bulwarks at Dolgarth against the encroaching glaciers (note Dungeon Saga and Tome of Valador). Valandor knew this was required to hold back the forces of Winter however was just bidding his time as needed to face Winter himself to end the war.
For one hundred and fifty long years of unending cold, the war dragged on. There was some successful resistance:
- The Ice Elves of the Bitter Lands remained there even when Winter was at her height, surviving by taking her magic and turning it against her.
- The Sylvan Kin of the Forest of Galahir called upon the power of the The Green Lady and despite their realm being surrounded, isolated by the ice it was not crushed. For three hundred years the trees slept, bare of leaves, but they did not die.
Winter's Defeat
Finally in 2649 at the The Battle of Ileuthar, after 5 days of battling hordes of Ice Demons Valandor the Great was close to collapse but then Winter appeared. Valandor and Winter battled hand to hand with the occasional use of magic throughout. Valandor got the best of Winter eventually after an intense battle. Winter glared at Valandor as he shoved his blade into her and she shattered in a flurry of ice shards behind a blinding flash. After a moment, Valandor heard a laugh echo across the field, confirming that Winter had bound herself to the ice however the Great Inundation had begun with Ice melting at an unnatural speed.
Valandor raced to stop the flooding that came from the ice and diverted as much as he could, however eventually he was lost to the onrushing tides.
Great Inundation/Winter’s Last Gift
Even though they were victorious, the wisest Elves and Men could not foresee that the ending of Winter’s Age of Ice would drown so many lands under the thawing ocean and reshape the map. As the glaciers of Winter melted with magical rapidity, the sea came crashing back, and it did not stop once it had reached its original extent. The waters surged onward, inundating much of the lands of both Elves and Men. Valandor used his magic to hold back the waves, and although he managed to save vast swathes of the old lands, ultimately he was lost to the limitless power of the cold sea.
The Grand Republic of Primovantor was shattered forever, the northern provinces crushed under the ice, the colonnaded cities of the south empty of inhabitants now but for fish and kraken. The Infant Sea was created from the ruins of what had once been Primovantor. Only the province of Basilea was spared; from this would spring its successor state, the Basilean Hegemony.
Destroyed too was much of Elvenholme, the kindreds of the Elves scattered, the Sacred Groves of Elvenkind lost. Winter’s Final Gift, they call it, the sinking of much of Elvenholme under the raging sea, an inundation so swift and terrible it slew fully half of the Elven race. Only the city of Therennia Adar survived, saved by Valendor, who used his arts to raise walls hundreds of feet high around it to protect it. This has led to the city becoming known by another name, Walldeep. Aside from the Brokenwall Islands, it is the last piece of the ancient heart of the Western Kindreds that exists today. Those that survive are known as the Sea Kindred now, and their ships skim the waves that cover their lands; Therennia Adar has remained the capital of the Sea Kindred since that time.
Winter’s flood swept into the holds of the Dwarfs, killing thousands. Anguished and mourning their dead, the Dwarfs sealed shut their holds for many centuries, turning their backs on the world.
The Mouth of Leith was spared the flooding that ravaged much of Elvenholme and only the farthest outposts of the Twilight Kin suffered in the watery apocalypse however opened new opportunities to obtain more slaves to use to dive deeper into the void. Queen Leithindyr ordered their Nightships set loose upon the coasts of Pannithor. Caverns that had been closed off for centuries were reopened again and Twilight ships sailed the mortal seas in search of prey.
The Nightships ranged farther than they ever had before, exploring new lands both above and below the surface of Pannithor. The Twilight Kin established emissaries in the courts of the distant east, studying the mystic knowledge in Xiryan of the Xirkaali Empire and Yamatero of the Tetsumo Shogunate, exploring the ruins of Kong and Mughaal, even probing into the secrets of the infernal fractures that had opened in these nely found lands.
Many underground channels now opened directly upon the newly created sea which would be named the Infant Sea and new ones were found. In the farthest reaches of the underworld, they encountered the malignant Mhurloks, a breed of bestial dwarf-like beings whose profane technology defied every magic known to the elves.
After the War
After Winter’s defeat, her ice retreated back to the pole of the north, and in the south up to the peaks of the Dragon’s Teeth mountains. As this occurred, the Ardovikian plain was uncovered after ages pressed under cruel glaciers. Once home to the richest nine provinces of Primovantor, the ice had wiped it clean.
Winter’s time may be long past, and her chill grip receded from the world, but at the poles Pannithor is clad still in great caps of ice. Huge frozen cliffs of blue ice as tall as mountains stand sentinel over the world. By day they are visible for a hundred miles, by night the ice groans and roars. Some say this is Winter, that she lives still, and shouts her defiance at the warming sun once it has safely set.
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