War of the Living and Dead

Year One: The Silent War Begins

  Cehbris and Jergal made their first apperance near the abandoned fortress of Vel'Ator near the border. They arrive not as warriors at first, but as mourners. Vel'Ator was once a place of quiet contemplation and study into life and death, but Kymosian agents had begun collecting and transferring bodies from nearby burial sites to to neutral zone between the two nations. The two godfallen spent much of their first few months destroying necromancers and performing funeral rites for thousands of desecrated corpses.   Cehbris denounces Kymos and the Undying Council, saying   “We are the meant to be the peace after breath. You have ruined even that. The price is death, final and true.”   The First Followers gathered around Cehbris and Jergal to aid in their campaign. While armies had not yet clashed on open battlefields, undead outbreaks and rogue necromancers were swiftly and mercilessly put down by those who had first come to the Living Host. These Followers were mostly locals—escaped Kymosian slaves, clerics, and desperate citizens driven to take up arms out of necessity. They were survivors, not saints, drawn by conviction rather than blind faith. In the east, Damara’s Holy Synod declared its support for Cehbris’s cause, and the Living Host began to coalesce, backed by the faiths of Harrus, Molotl, and Shelyn.    

Year Two: Wards and Provocations

  The First Followers established themselves officially around Cehbris and Jergal. There were no pitched battles yet. Instead, they laid siege to ruins overrun by wights, necromancer cults squatting in rotting towns, and Kymosian enclaves meant to keep necrotechnical infrastructure running. These battles mostly occurred near the edge of the border zone, meant to test for a major push later on. Kymos retaliated in turn, with wizards conjuring storms of dark energy to wear down the morale and physical strength of the invaders, and the armies of the Living focused on destroying anything with ties to Kymosian doctrine or origin.   The Cult of Shelyn and the Churches of Molotl and Harrus officially committed military forces to the Living Host, and warded fortresses begin to be set up in the border zone. Political pressures in Damara's Synod lead the the breaking of all major treaties with Kymos, and the Living Host becomes an official crusade under Cehbris's leadership. Although war hadn't been officially declared, both sides understood what was going to happen.    

Year Three: The Cradlefront Begins to Burn

  By the third year, the war had officially exploded into the border zone, soon to be called the Cradlefront. Living armies bearing flames and holy light marched west, seeking to reclaim holy grounds and destroy necrotechnical devices empowering undead. Battles against Graveknights and armies of slaves began in full along with any monstrous undead the Kymosian Wizards could create. Kymos focused on strategic containment of the invaders, underestimating the amount of force this Living Host could project into their territory.   In the war’s early years, Cehbris and Jergal served more as generals and tacticians than as divine figureheads. In Damara, the Synod declared a second crusade against Kymos, legitimizing the war and orginizing its own armies to aid the Living Host. The war had officially began, and both sides fed corpses to the Cradlefront as it burned.    

Year Four: Opening the Black Veins

  Year Four was the bloodiest year so far for both sides, with even the mortal Jergal almost perishing in conflict against the Tharchioness Azhir Kren. In an effort to weaken divine magic in the area, Kymos began its campaign to taint the Cradlefront’s leylines using energy drawn from the Shadow Weave. It was the year of a full-scale counteroffensive, sending undead legions marching down the First Escarpment to halt the advance of the Living Host. Controversially, the Living Host began to employ volunteer animancers and white necromancers to battle against more complex and powerful undead, especially incorporeal ones.   "The gods may walk beside us, but it is still mortals who dig the graves." - Sister Vel Atris, Mourner of the Pale Veil    

Year Five: The Weeping Summit

  The fifth year of the war begins with a dedicated spring offensive into the badlands of the First and Second Escarpments of Kymosian territory, accompanied by naval assaults along the northern coasts near Tantharnam and Thelnam. As the armies march, they free slaves and encourage uprisings across the outer lands of Kymos proper. The Host is halted at the Weeping Summit, a volcanic caldera on the Second Escarpment. Trapped by toxic rain and soul storms, the Living Host remains encamped for nearly three months, after which Molotlan clerics sacrifice their lives to summon sunlight and dispel the magical tempests. Before the year's end, Cehbris is gravely wounded by a Kymosian Death Knight, losing many of his closest comrades in the battles at the Weeping Summit.    

Year Six: The War of Ghosts

  Year Six marks a stalemate and a subtle ideological shift within the Living Host. At the turn of the year, several Kymosian Tharchions attempt to cede their territories and resources to Damara in exchange for amnesty and protection from retribution by the Undying Council. Few of these offers are accepted. Soon after, volunteer forces arrive from the Tuskbreaker Clanlands and other nations allied with Damara. With the leylines damaged and the ethereal plane overflowing with negative energy, the passage of souls is disrupted in several regions. This sometimes causes the ghosts of fallen soldiers to linger, retaining their memories instead of passing on. Many of these spirits seek to fight alongside their living comrades once more, prompting Chebris and Jergal to offer them a Rite of Binding. Those who choose this Rite are permitted, under Jergal’s oversight, to remain and continue fighting. This act is considered scandalous among the more hardline faiths and sects of several allied churches.    

Year Seven: The Black Horizon

  The seventh year of the war begins with an ill omen: for five days in early spring, the sun fails to rise over eastern Kymos. Despite numerous divinations, the cause of this phenomenon is never fully explained. In western Kymos, a necrofortress ruled by Druxus Rhym, the Anarch of Transmutation, implodes after a ritual gone awry, consuming the entire fortress and its surrounding valley into The Nightmare. The explosion kills the Anarch and most of his senior command. Despite Cehrbis’s objections, several commanders of the Living Host, particularly those of the Molotlan and Shelynite faiths secretly forge a ceasefire with a prominent Kymosian knightly order known as the White Spire Knights, who claim to have turned traitor and now seek to contain the Undying Council’s influence.    

Year Eight: The Wound that Would Not Close

  Year Eight is defined not by a single fall, but by a slow collapse, more like bleeding out than breaking. The Kymosian Border Zone's borders begin to expand, with the unbound dead wandering more freely than before. Without the necrotechnologies once used to control them, the unshackled hordes spill outward, overwhelming villages and forts on both sides of the war. Within Kymos, the Undying Council fractures and turns upon itself. In this chaos, a secret envoy of the White Spire Knights, speaking for several Kymosian military factions, reaches out to Damara, pleading for peace. Their proposal is astounding: Kymos would surrender its holding held by these military factions in the neutral zone, ceding them to the Living, and both sides would unite against the Undying Council. Yet this peace offer is shattered when Harrusian knights intercept and destroy the envoy. Word of the betrayal of the White Spire Knights spreads, and the knowledge that the war might have ended this year breaks the Host’s spirit. Cehbris exiles the order responsible. In the same season, the godfallen Vecna unleashes undead plagues across the continent. A portion of the Living Host marches to Devoutdale to confront his cult, and Cehbris himself leaves the front to face his undead brother, an act that drains the Host’s dwindling strength and time.   "Kymos may not win, but we will survive." -Zer-Koh Huelahr    

Year Nine: The Long Retreat

  Year Nine opens with the final collapse of the Undying Council; only the three Lich Lords remain. Kymos begins a bitter withdrawal into the volcanic heart of the nation, and the Kymosian Border Zone becomes known simply as the Deadlands. As they retreat, Kymosian armies burn their own cities and fortresses, leaving behind undead sentinels and enchanted traps. The scorched earth policy is enacted in full. The war against Kymos is, in all but name, over. Its armies are shattered, and its territory lies in ruin. The return of Jergal and Cehrbis to the front lines stirs new strength within the Living Host, yet only the innermost cities of Kymos still bear the nation’s banners.   Once-defended strongholds have become choked refuges and slave-filled ruins, patrolled by rogue necromancers and the last Tharchion governors. With Kymos’s command structure destroyed, a second wave of undead floods outward, uncontrolled and mindless, armies of wraiths, starving bone horrors, and corpses without masters. In time, they are named the Unbound, and the final years of the war are spent in retreat from them. Neither loyal to Kymos nor to the Living, they destroy all they encounter. Within the Host, heretical sects are purged and exiled by Cehbris, who steels his followers to withstand this second tide of death.    

Year Ten: The Unbound

  Year Ten begins with the swelling of the Unbound, who now turn their fury upon the Living Host. They move as if guided by an unseen will, yet no master reveals itself. Their attacks grow precise and deliberate, striking supply lines, healing centers, and consecrated burial grounds. In response, the Living Host establishes a vast defensive line stretching from the shattered border of Kymos to the edge of the Deadlands. Within months, half of this line collapses beneath the relentless assault of the Unbound. Desperate, the Host sends word across Ekrune, calling for aid from any willing power. The plea is answered, and reinforcements arrive from many nations and faiths. Western Damara becomes a frontier of war, where towns and temples are transformed into consecrated fortresses manned by armies of clerics. The Church of Harrus declares that the war is no longer holy, but a struggle for mortal survival itself.    

Year Eleven: The False Dawn

  Year Eleven begins with the formation of a new coalition of militant Shelynites, Harrusians, and Molotlans who rally behind a single plan known as the Dawnbreak Push. Their goal is to reclaim the lands lying between Damara and the Deadlands and to construct a permanent divine bulwark, consecrated by their newly reascended gods. At this time, Cehbris and Jergal remain among the last of the unascended. For three months the campaign succeeds. A dozen holy sites are reclaimed, and the Unbound are driven back. At the ruins of an early war fortress known as the Spine of Jorah, the Unbound reveal a new horror: the corpses of paladins and clerics once lost in the Deadlands rise again, bearing inverted holy symbols and retaining their intelligence. It becomes clear that a force within the Deadlands commands immense power over the Unbound. Cehbris and Jergal declare the holy war ended. In the aftermath, animancers and wizards turn to grim experimentation, developing sacrificial amnesia; spells that erase a soul’s memory at death, to deny the Unbound their fuel and secrets. The Damaran Holy Synod suspends the crusade, declaring that the Unbound cannot be defeated, only contained. Great works begin to rise along the frontiers, walls of consecrated earth meant to seal the infected lands. Within the mountains of Kymos, surviving remnants bind the undead for their own defense, fortifying what remains of their homeland. Across the front, Mulani refugees are met with growing suspicion, and in some places, Living Host patrols execute them on sight.   "We are done with this crusade; we are the caretakers of a truly wounded world.” - Cehbris.    

Year Twelve: The Wall

  Year Twelve marks the beginning of construction on the Warding Line, an immense network of magical and physical fortifications stretching across the frontier. The effort is led jointly by Damara, the Living Host, and defectors from Kymos who serve under binding oaths or in exchange for commuted sentences. During this time, Cehbris proclaims the Doctrine of Remembrance, teaching that the souls of the dead must be remembered and anchored to prevent their consumption by the Deadlands. The remaining First Followers settle along the growing Warding Line, serving as ritual stewards and archivists of the fallen. Cehbris resigns his command of the Host to begin a solitary pilgrimage along the Line, blessing each mile of soil by cutting his own flesh and offering his blood to the earth. Debate spreads among philosophers and animancers regarding the true nature of the Deadlands; some claim the Unbound are the world’s own memory of war turned against it, while others insist a hidden intelligence commands them. A minority place blame upon the Darakhul said to dwell in the Underdark beneath the Cradlefront. In Damara, Jergal’s clergy petition to resume the sanctioned study of necromancy, arguing that understanding death is the only path to survival. Though officially outlawed, their work continues in secret among isolated colleges and frontier enclaves. Kymos endures as a fractured remnant, its surviving Lich Lords ruling over scattered strongholds and hidden necropolises deep within the mountains.

Year Thirteen: The Last Vigil

  Year Thirteen opens in solemn quiet. Cehbris, gaunt from his long pilgrimage and sustained by magic between ritual fasting, reaches the heart of the Warding Line. There he performs the Final Rite of Mourning, a ceremony said to bind the souls of the fallen to the consecrated earth, sealing the last enchantments into the Line’s foundation. When the rite concludes, witnesses claim the air itself grows still and the ground hums with divine resonance. In the days that follow, both Cehbris and Jergal complete their trials of mortality and ascend once more to godhood, leaving behind only relics and silence. With their departure, the Living Host formally dissolves. Its armies scatter across the borderlands, some returning home, others remaining as wardens of the Line they built. The long war, though unresolved, passes into memory.   "So I bleed that memory may live, and I live again that life may remember." - Cehbris