The Settling Wars

Starting of as Small-scale skirmishes over farmland or infrastructiure, the first battles of the settling wars often amounted to hundreds of fighters. As wealth and power began to grow in the enclaves of successful City-States lords and regents would send ten scores of soldiers to settle even menial conflicts.

The battlefield spanned shore-to-shore for nothern Cinder's Hope and even today sites of undescovered conflicts are being uncovered .

While the conflict evolved mostly of natural demand and geography, there was a specific Powerhouse among these new settlers. The Gray Order and their Spirefell City, armed with the unearthed technologies of Spirefell and the legends behind The Gray War were the foremost Civil and Military Power of the age. In an open treatise known as the Errata Accords, The Gray Order vowed to remain neutral during the Settling Wars, only working towards trade routes and foregoing any civil or military expansion. With the great exception, that if a power were to directy threaten the Gray Order or its tennants, the agressor would be "Destroyed with extreme Prejudice". All records of the Settling wars tell of Four Seperate deployments of the Errata Accord, the last of which being used against a cooperator of the first Accord.

Open conflict seldom lasted for more than weeks at a time, the conflict manifesting as short bouts between powers. While the overall Theatre lasted over 200 years, this wasnt a continuous battle and rather a complecated series of fronts and proxy wars. While powers often raged offensives against eachother, most military conflict during this period was less direct.

Immedatly after the myriad conflicts were made obsolete and the original agreements of engagement expired, what was left were the City-States that continue to hold today. What was left were spaced far enough to remove border threats and with good enough relation that conflict no longer seemed necessary. A shared military culture also formed across the lands of northern Cinder's Hope

After some scruiteny and critisizims, over time, The Gray Order was further Demilitarized and specialized into more research, diplomatic and Academic areas. This also led to the dissolusion of the partnership between the Gray Order and Wolfram Monks. Grandmasters of the Order at the time described the actions of The Gray Order as "Sculpting with Clay that does not belong to them".

The long period of war caused many of the common folk to malaise from the idea of it, fatigued from the horros of conflict and survival, and choosing to focus on the latter.