Second War of the Elf Princes
The Second War of the Elf Princes, one of several so-called "Wars for Corsovia," which lasted from 881 SA 5 to 902 SA 5, produced the conditions that would go on to define the Regency Tribunal period of Eabrathan history.
Background
The holy wars against elvenkind led by Luciano Junast and his Order of Sun Knights, left indelible scars in the psyche of the high elves of the Faerfolken Wilderlands. As younger generations communed with the Waters of Memory, they felt these traumas of war, and increasingly pushed for vengeance for the wrongs done to their people by an enemy revered as a saint in western Corsovia. Finally, the courts of the elf princes could neither quell nor assuage this fervor, and began preparations for war on the western realms of Drakovar, Junast, and Vandocia in 802 SA 5.The War
The elves of the Wilderlands had spent centuries recovering from the damage inflicted during their last major period of war with the Corsovians, and though the younger generations were generally more eager to avenge their people, the wise among them were not so anxious to see more bloodshed. In preparation, the elves cultivated leaders for generations among the Gaeldric tribes, and renewed diplomatic efforts with people from Norskand and giantkin tribes of the mountains. With the Corsov house destroyed in 828 SA 5, during the Blood Horde invasion, the elvish leadership redoubled their efforts. By the time they launched their offensive, the elves made up only thirty-eight percent of the number gathered for war.As the elves built up their strength, the various realms of Corsovia broke up without a strong imperial claim to bind them. Briefly, the empire was divided into four parts, ruled by houses with strong Corsovian lineage, but with the fall of the southern quadrant of the empire to the Blood Horde in the next decade, and several wars between the others as each attempted and failed to reunify the empire under their banner, the Corsovian realms were more divided and weakened than ever.
The elvish campaign was multi-pronged and brutal. Norsgaeld pirates pillaged the coasts of Drakovar as Gaeldric tribes, along with mercenary trolls and ogres, crossed the northern Ettinmounts frontiers of the Old March into western Junast. Meanwhile, the elves divided their own forces into two armies: one which aggressively besieged the forts of western Junast in order to reinforce their auxiliaries and mercenaries, while the larger of the two, led by Princess Gwylan, marched along the northern bank of the Elfwater and put several villages to the torch before razing the Black Keep.
Ripples of War
So swiftly and furiously did the elves come that the Junastians scarcely had time to muster, and many were forced to flee for their lives. This sudden disaster led the lords of Eabrath to take notice. Fearing a great elvish conspiracy to overtake mankind arising from elvenkind as a whole, in some corners of the post-Corsov world which abutted elvish realms preemptively took up arms to strike first. These skirmishes and raids often opened new fronts as the local elves retaliated against such use of force.The Regency Tribunal
When in 887 SA 5 the Norsgaeld raiders hauled their ships across southern Drakovar and into the river Antigonie, they were able to quickly threaten the inner coasts of the Corsovian world as well. In response to this, then King of Eglain, Renodus II, called for all of Corsovia to stand united against this threat, though it was not until 892 that this would see serious support.A decade into the war, King Renodus was killed while trying to lead an army in crossing the Antigonie to retake land in Junast. With his death, Jean Bélanger seized command of the army and ordered a retreat to Dragonrest, sending riders to the other major lords of the region to try once more for a unified approach to the war. While en route, he fell ill and he died four days after arriving at his destination. The houses of Toldain and Justire had dominance in Acrad and Odrad respectively, and seeking to win the war, began to negotiate among themselves and the advisors of the Eglanish prince Vermundus. This culminated in 894 with the creation of what would become the Corsovian Confederacy of Lords and Regents, better known as the Regency Tribunal. However, the young prince would not live to see the formation of the tribunal as he fell from his horse in the spring of that year, and died of his wounds.
To preserve the power of the Tribunal, the Justires and Toldains looked for someone to support in accession to the throne and settled on Petar Badrick, a count who had once been the ward of Arslan Justire, snubbing the powerful Viernoit family of Les Rivières. Thus, the Regency Tribunal was formed and constituted of the most powerful realms of Eglain, Acrad, and Odrad. Part of this agreement was the reformation of each realm as a grand duchy and the respective lords, Petar Badrick, Arslan Justire, and Galter Toldain as grand dukes so that none could claim supremacy over the others.
Outcomes
The war raged for twenty-one years from start to end before the elves were finally spent and forced to withdraw. Though neither side was in a dominant enough position to claim a true and total victory, the war did produce lasting change in the politics of the continent. Not only did it cause the increasingly fractious realms of the former imperial territories to largely unify, but it also instilled in them a common sense of belonging to a shared identity of "Corsovian" civilization despite their unique cultures. The war also further cemented the Eabrathan distrust of elvish culture, which replaced the Norskans as the primary threat to this Corsovian civilization.Among the Elves, the war was so pyrrhic as to be a loss. Though the Corsovian realms might eventually recover, the elves have not marched on their enemies since, lacking the strength to do more than preserve their remaining borders. Though this war laid the foundations for Riagad's war, the elves would play an even smaller part in that conflict, and ultimately help broker the peace between the Gaelds and Corsovians.
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