The War of Souls

Ethon's Advantage

Ethon worked with the exspiratis and gained powerful abilities. It conscripted every ashen who kept their sanity, and although calling the ashen soldiers is generous (loose cannons is closer), they brought Ethon to the brink of victory. Ashen raids burned whole villages, and the coastal fishing villages suffered worst.

The Machines Fail

Adryae answered with gigantic mechanoid war machines. They pushed the ashen back at first, but they only followed routines preset for specific situations and couldn't adapt. The ashen learned to exploit them and destroyed them.

Cutting the Rail

Ethon deliberately tore up the runekar rail where it crossed the Dryarwood Forest, the stretch between Sherfield in Adryae and Ashborne in Ethon. That one cut ended every rail journey between Adryae and the rest of the continent and broke trade between Staerhiel and Adryae. Trains were turned into troop transports, and the runekar swore off any more work on the system. Gilirak sent many Staerhielian soldiers to support Ethon, at a price.

The Airship

To keep alloys flowing from Staerhiel, Adryae invented the airship. Cargo ships grew to the size of small towns, and the privateers who would plague the gulf for generations followed close behind.

Usmon Stays Out

Usmon's Council of Arcanum brokered a treaty with Adryae. Usmon handed over a powerful artifact. In exchange, war machines stay out of Usmon and Adryae defends it abroad. Some say that artifact made the souldriven possible.

The Souldriven

The Tinkerer Guild created the first souldriven only in the final years of the war. Every one had to be raised and trained from an infant's soul, so they could never be built quickly, and only a small number reached the front before the fighting stopped. Those few were devastating. Unlike the mechanoids, souldriven could think, adapt, march without food or sleep and be repaired in the field. Small companies of them held lines that whole armies of war machines had lost, and the ashen could find no routine to exploit. Ethon was forced into terrible measures, and the war ended soon after.

The Rail. The rail still runs from Ashborne south through Wolfpine, Murkwell and Caerdydd into Staerhiel, so Ethon and Staerhiel remain connected. Adryae and Usmon still share their own stretch in the west. What's gone is the bridge between the two halves, and the runekar refuse to rebuild it.

The Land. Staerhiel took the whole south of Ethon, from Caerdydd up past Murkwell, including the rail line and the port. Ethon lost its best route to the sea in the south and now looks across a hostile border from Wolfpine.

Ethon realized the exspiratis were slowly taking over the nation. United under a watchful king, it drove them back into the Fiend's Chasm. During the struggle, Staerhiel moved its border north and took Ethon's southern lands.

Caerdydd and Murkwell passed to Staerhiel in a secret trade for steel. Their people still call it an invasion.

Veterans on both sides were pushed aside like a bad memory. Many ashen and conscripts were never officially released. Some drifted to Usmon simply because souldriven aren't allowed there.

Souldriven were still few when the war ended, but the guild never stopped making them. They found new work in law enforcement, rescue and private security. A mandate keeps them leagues away from Usmon's border.