Prologue: The War of Ascension

Sanguinar wanted more.

No longer was the man willing to exist as an equal to the other gods, whom he had considered beneath him. His lust for power, the same lust that had brought him to divinity in the first place, was no longer satisfied with what he had. The Lord of Suffering would not be satisfied until every being within the veil worshiped him, and him alone.

Sanguinar wanted more.

Before Sanguinar could conquer Silas for his own, he would need to handle his contemporaries. Zegadu and Sirae, the two other gods with the most at stake with what happened within the veil, would need to fall before he could turn his attention to bringing the nation completely under his control. The dwarven deity of creation and beauty was not a warrior, however, and his people were not soldiers. They lived to build and improve, and rarely dedicated themselves to violent struggle. The elves, however…

Caladwen had existed as a sovereign nation for thousands of years before the creation of the veil. It was used to protecting itself and, unlike the dwarfs, had a fierce and ancient military tradition. They had an ancient order of spell casters, the druids, who had forever practiced magical tradition all but unknown to the shorter-lived races. And Sirae, their goddess and queen, had ruled her people through millennia of struggle against forces far more ancient that Sanguinar’s church and armies.

The war was devastating.

Sirae reacted to the aggression with the same brutal efficiency that had seen her people through the madness of the untamed lands for unknown ages. She struck back at his forces with everything under her command. The skies roiled and the earth shook as the druids of Caladwen went to war for the first time since the foundation of Silas. Ancient mages dusted off spells of destruction that had not been practiced for centuries. Smiths that had made nothing but plows and horseshoes their entire lives turned their talents to forging swords.

There could be no victory in this war. The two forces were too strong. It seemed they would wipe each other out before either could rule. But then, Sanguinar received a visit from a man he had never seen before. A man who had many strange, fascinating ideas… ideas that appealed to the god.

The next day Sanguinar asked to meet with Sirae, to discuss peace.

After that day, the war would be known as the War of Ascension.