The Third Riftspawn War

The Third Riftspawn War—often called Oryndriel’s Crusade—brought the Rift’s horrors into the heart of the continent. Unlike earlier wars, which had leaned heavily on frontier and scarred regions, this conflict tore through established, populous realms of what is now: eastern Ravenna, southeastern Eldenvale, southern Auralea, western Greymoor, and northern Netherion.   Its guiding entity was Oryndriel, a Rift-twisted Empyrean whose rhetoric cloaked annihilation in the language of purification and elevation. Oryndriel proclaimed the existing order weak and diseased, promising to “lift” worthy mortals into new, monstrous forms. Its armies moved like a crusade inverted:

• Cities were given a grotesque choice between “uplifting” and erasure.
• Temples and libraries were targeted as eagerly as keeps and forts, seen as fonts of “false truth.”
• Regions that had escaped the worst of prior wars suddenly found themselves on the primary front.

For mortal powers, Oryndriel’s Crusade was both spiritual and political shock. The war:

• Devastated urban centers long considered secure.
• Forced often-hostile realms into uneasy coalitions under pressure.
• Shook confidence in the idea that the heavens themselves were untouched by Isendir arrogance and Rift Corruption.

The Rift Wardens, by now deeply embedded as an extra-national force, had to adapt to dense urban warfare and mass civilian evacuations. Defending living, crowded cities while trying to seal Breachpoints and strike at Oryndriel’s manifestations pushed doctrine to its limits.   The war ended in a catastrophic series of converging battles across Eldenvale, where Warden Hunts, allied armies, and powerful casters together shattered Oryndriel’s physical form and severed its Rift-born apotheosis.   In the aftermath, central realms were left traumatized and reshaped. Many historians point to this era as laying emotional and theological groundwork for the later prominence of the Church of the All-Father, whose message of singular divine order found a receptive audience in societies that had watched something “holy” turn against them.