The Imperial Realm

At the end of the 16th Century, the Kingdom of Goroth, which included the lands of Scandala and Iriiv, had steadily expanded to include Gallia and the northern half of theItalik penninsula. These aqcuisitions had come about through many layers of marriage and diplomatic agreement until two royal couples betrothed their eldest children--Prince Dauphin and Princess Ivanna--and brought the whole under one rule. Each land wanting to keep a separate identity, they became known as the Imperial Realm.

The immediate neighbors to the Realm, Yazorah and the lands of the Black Forest, took exception to this expansion and, when King Dauphin took the throne at age 24, desired a summit. Princes from Eshaira and Libain were also expected to come. The new king, eager to flex his muscles, refused, saying that the two kingdoms had no need to be concerned with the expansion of his kingdom.

Fearing an attack by the young ruler, the leaders of Yazorah, Eshaira, the Black Forest, and Zavak gathered on the island of Cormatia for council with their advirors and a select few generals. When all had arrived, however, they found themselves held captive on the island by ships of the Imperial Army, led by Admiral Fortwallin. In the ensuing months, several rebellions sporadically spread through Yazorah and the Black Forest, with the people crying out to join the Imperial Realm. Forced to abdicate, the King of Yazorah, King Juavo, committed suicide, shamed by the dishonor of his people, and the King of the Lands of the Black Forest, King Ishada, escaped the island and disappeared in his lands. Once the rebellions had calmed down, King Dauphin declared Yazorah, the Black Forest, the entirety of the Italik penninsula, and the island of Cormatia to be a part of the realm. The Boy-King's War, as it is commonly known, started almost immediately.

Holding aloft the images of the martyred King Juavo and the missing King Ishada, the people of Yazorah and the southern Italik rallied themselves into militia, fighting a guerrilla war against the Imperial Army. The Imperial Army, made up largely of men from Gallia, Scandala and Iriiv, saw a fare share of deserters, and a good amount of losses. They had stood in battle for centuries according to the rules of open battle, and few generals on the Imperial side were able to adapt at first. By the time the western cities of Zavak rallied to the aid of their Scandala brothers who were defecting, General Williom MacAllister, the first in a long line of revered Imperial generals, had developed several strategies to force the guerrilla troops from Yazorah and Italik into the feild. These involed geomancy and velocism, as well as militay mages commanding several nests of sulfer salamanders. These tactics causedthe Cult of the Friars, at the time flourishing in the land of Goroth, to largely withdraw from the area in protest, and the rops failed for three seasons afterward.

The lords of the Black Forest, meanwhile, met in a secret council, and declared that, if Ishara is not going to rule them, they shall each rule their own clearing in the forest, and forget the rest. By withdrawing into their own private clearings, the Black Forest became even more treacherous to travelers, for Oberon had only decreed it would be tame for those courts who submitted to him. With the Legion of the Black Forest disbanded, all lands held by the Court of Ishara were given in stewardship tothe WereCourt until such times as Ishara's heir returned.

Recent Years
In the early 19th Century an official peace was declared. Leading up to the peace were several notable atrocities, namely the diaspora of Porchiis, a small nation that lies between Scandala and Zavak. Famous among the porchisians who fled is the war hero Sir Bascot Gruber, of the House of Aevanna, who found himself at the head of a large troop of Dascian horsemen, and managed to check the advance of the Zavak troops into the Black Forest, though they ravaged his homeland.