Years of Chaos

After the battle of Mount Deismaar were the years of chaos, when it seemed a hundred wars raged across Cerilia and anyone who could wield a sword declared themselves king of this hilltop or that, the beast-men of Azrai sought to carve out new realms in Cerilia now that they were cut off from Aduria, while soldiers returned to villages burnt to the ground by the goblins and Vos and turned brigand to feed themselves. In all this the priesthoods faced their greatest challenge ever; no god answered their prayers, disease swept the land and wounds went uncured save by the action of herbalists.
The chaos was caused by more than simply the seeming loss of the gods and clerical magic, and the aftermath of the war. The new bloodlines themselves caused much of the conflict, for those nobles who had not fought at Deismaar (the vast majority aside from the nobles of Anuire) found themselves severely outmatched against those who returned from Deismaar a scion. This rapidly led to scions founding new realms, declaring war on realms ruled by the unblooded, and generally seeking to overturn the existing order.
Nor was the conflict confined to realm vs realm, those noble families that had sent sons (and in rare cases daughters) to Deismaar found that they returned abruptly more able to rule than the older, less expendable heirs who had stayed to rule the realms and now found themselves competing against a sibling seemingly blessed by the gods. The years of chaos were rife with fratricide, patricide, and forcible marriages in many of the realms of the tribes of man.
Legacies of these days are ruins, often buried by the passage of fifteen centuries, blood feuds that have lasted down the generations (common amongst the elves), the occasional ?rightful heir? who discovers ancient texts stating that their ancestor was granted lands, and the odd beast or warrior magically imprisoned ? for in those early days many people feared that to kill one of the blooded was to inherit not only their power, but also their very soul and so become them. Loathe to be dominated by their victim many scions of strong bloodline were trapped by magic rather than simply slain.

Category: History