The War of Extinction

The war was initially just a conflict between Arranox and the Royal government. However, in 1302, the Brother Islands alongside the forest clans of the Finger Peninsula rose up and declared for Daekelle, similarly unsatisfied with royal rule. In addition, while the Fire Priests were nominally neutral, there were widespread reports of monasteries providing shelter to rebel soldiers as payback for the Arkellian dynasty's impression of the church. Daekelle's forces made landfall on the western coast of the Central Island the next year, and crossing the mountains took two more. from 1305-1312, it was a long fight towards Reznok with frequent dragon raids on both sides. The royal forces, then fighting a multi front war, became more strained and strained, usually resorting simply to burning peaceful villages to try and crush morale, in particular Arranox Island in the hopes that Daekelle would be too devastated to keep fighting. The climactic River of Blood battle fought on the banks of the River Naelos in saw the defeat of the royalist forces and the killing of Edarron and the rest of his line, finally bringing the bulk of the war to an end.

1/5 of the nation is killed, and only five captive dragons are left alive. Not just this, but Arranox Island is left almost completely razed and has to be reharvested, leading to a refugee crisis. The first three years after the war's end are a de facto military dictatorship as Daekelle seeks to rebuild the political structure of the nation. Those three years also feature a good deal of skirmishes as sporadic loyalists throughout the nation carry out guerrilla attacks seeking to prevent the destabilization of Syloson.

The agricultural industry takes years to properly recover due to the devastation of the rural areas, and the years until then are plagued by food shortages. It has been said that the war didn't fully end until 10 years after it did, as only then did people stop dying from the effects. On one hand, there was a brain drain in following years due to many of the nations best intellectuals being killed in the battle, while on the other hand, the burst in technological progress during the war somewhat made up for this, although not in the humanities realm. Most significantly, regional pride increased not only in the outer islands, but in the regions of the central island, thus making Syloson seem more of a mosaic.

One debate in terms of legacy has been whether or not the end of the war should count as its own year zero. Proponents argue that the war was very much the beginning of Syloson as it is today, while opponents argue that the efforts to enforce it would be too large to justify what is, at the end of the day, just an aesthetic change. Historians have argued over whether the war was a necessary change or whether the Arkellian dynasty would have eventually reformed. As the years have passed, however, the extended peace has led many to accept that, for the lack of a better word, the time was right for a change in scenery.

Many novels have been written about the war. Romance novels, depicting lovers on opposite sides of the conflicts, have been popular. In most of these novels, one or both main characters die to add to the tragic theme. There have also been speculative fiction novels about figures in Edarron Arkell's regime, with a common theme of impending doom. Some of these books have portrayed Edarron as a near psychotic tyrant barely able to process reality and throwing more and more men into a pointless war. The historical literature has been more nuanced, though, and while Edarron was certainly cruel, he was certainly insane.

MIlitary technology increased dramatically during the conflict. The usage of so-called "exploding boulders", large masses of bundled bomb powder, led to the development of machines to create the powder more efficiently. Not only this, but food technology has been developed to better preserve food for longer periods. While this was done to better supply soldiers, this has had the long-term effect of increasing lifespan in rural areas due to the large decrease in the spoilage of excess food.