Loading...
Loading...
The War of Broken Towers erupted during the Age of Competition when the nascent nations of post-Calamity Aethoria began testing their boundaries and challenging one another for resources and influence. While conventional historical accounts often attribute the conflict to territorial disputes between the Empire of the Golden Dawn and the Kingdom of Bandalor, its true catalyst was far more insidious: the first organized attempt to weaponize magical practitioners on a national scale.
In early 1523 PC3, Emperor Jareth II of the Golden Dawn issued what became known as the "Mage Conscription Edict," demanding that all practitioners within imperial borders register with the Royal War Office. The Imperial Academy of Mystic Arts, which had until then maintained political neutrality, found itself facing an unprecedented threat to its independence.
When Archmage Elowen Brightspark publicly denounced the edict and barred imperial officials from academy grounds, Emperor Jareth ordered troops to surround the Academy's five towers. What was intended as an intimidation tactic quickly escalated when an untrained imperial battlemage accidentally triggered defensive wards, resulting in a magical discharge that collapsed the northeastern tower, killing seventeen students and three masters.
News of what became known as the "Dawnspire Incident" spread rapidly through magical communication networks. The Kingdom of Bandalor, already uneasy about Golden Dawn's expansionist policies, seized the opportunity to position itself as the defender of magical independence, formally offering sanctuary to any mage fleeing imperial conscription.
The Free Cities of the Crystal Coast, the Sultanate of the Golden Sands, and the Maritime Republic of Tidereach quickly aligned themselves with Bandalor's position, fearing the military advantage Golden Dawn would gain through forced magical conscription. The Empire responded by declaring these actions "hostile interference in internal affairs" and mobilizing troops along its borders.
The conflict's name derives from the five magical towers destroyed during the two-year war:
Each tower's destruction released catastrophic magical energies that devastated surrounding areas, killing thousands and creating magical anomalies that persist to this day.
What began as a political dispute rapidly evolved into history's first true magical arms race. Both sides pressured their respective magical institutions to develop increasingly destructive spells and artifacts. The Golden Dawn focused on direct offensive magic, creating battlemage units capable of devastating conventional forces. The Bandalor alliance instead emphasized defensive enchantments and magical disruption, seeking to neutralize imperial magical advantage rather than match it directly.
The conflict reached its horrifying apex during the Battle of Shimmerfield (1524 PC3), when imperial battlemages unleashed a previously untested spell designed to disable enemy enchantments. The spell interacted catastrophically with Bandalor's defensive barriers, creating a cascading magical reaction that transformed the battlefield into what is now the heart of the Kinetic Badlands – an expansive region of piezoelectric crystal formations where magical and electrical energies flow in unpredictable and dangerous patterns.
The devastation shocked both sides. Over 30,000 soldiers and an entire town of civilians were killed or transformed in an instant. Survivors reported seeing people crystallize before their eyes, their bodies transformed into living conduits for magical energy. The transformation spread for days afterward, threatening to expand indefinitely until an unprecedented joint effort by mages from all nations contained it, though they could not reverse the fundamental alteration of the landscape.
The Kinetic Badlands catastrophe prompted extraordinary action from parties previously neutral in the conflict. The Founders School, that most secretive and powerful of magical institutions, broke its traditional isolation. Seven archmagis, their identities concealed by elaborate enchantments, appeared simultaneously in the throne rooms of every warring nation's ruler.
Their message was identical and unambiguous: "End this madness, or we shall end it for you. Magic will not be your weapon."
Simultaneously, the Temple of Verath issued a formal judgment, declaring that any ruler who forced unwilling mages into battle violated divine law. The judgment carried particular weight as Verath's priests had previously avoided political entanglements, making this declaration all the more significant.
Faced with the combined pressure of the Founders School's threat and Verath's divine condemnation, Emperor Jareth II and King Tholden III of Bandalor agreed to an immediate cessation of hostilities and committed to peace negotiations at the neutral ground of the Nexus Conclave.
The negotiations lasted six months, bringing together representatives from all major nations, magical institutions, temples, and guilds. The resulting Treaty of Five Towers established principles that continue to govern the relationship between magical practitioners and political powers to this day.
The Treaty's enforcement mechanism proved remarkably effective. The combination of divine oversight through Verath's priesthood, the credible threat of intervention by the Founders School, and the mutual interest of all magical practitioners in preventing further disasters created a self-reinforcing system that has largely withstood the test of time.
The Conclave of Five Towers meets annually at a rotating location, reviewing potential violations and recommending adjustments to the Treaty's implementation. While minor infractions have occurred, the specter of the Kinetic Badlands remains a powerful deterrent against serious violations.
The Treaty effectively removed battle magic as a strategic advantage for ambitious nations, forcing rulers to return to conventional diplomacy and warfare. This rebalancing of power is credited with the relative stability of international relations in subsequent centuries, despite ongoing tensions and occasional limited conflicts.
Some historians argue that the War of Broken Towers, despite its terrible cost, ultimately saved Aethoria from a far worse fate – an endless cycle of magical arms races that might have eventually matched or exceeded the destructive power that caused the original Cataclysm. The restraint imposed by the Treaty allowed magical research to focus on beneficial applications rather than increasingly devastating weapons, potentially avoiding another world-breaking disaster.
In the words of Archmage Elowen Brightspark, who survived to sign the Treaty: "We stood at the precipice of repeating our ancestors' greatest mistake. The towers fell so that our world would not."
Today, five crystal spires stand at the edge of the Kinetic Badlands, each containing a preserved fragment from one of the destroyed magical towers. They serve as both memorial and warning, their enchantments redirecting and calming the chaotic energies that still pulse through the transformed landscape. On the base of each spire is engraved a section of the Treaty's preamble:
"Let these towers stand where others fell,
A testament to pride's terrible cost.
May we remember what was lost,
When magic's might was turned to war.
Five towers broken, five restored,
To guard the peace forevermore."
The site has become a traditional pilgrimage for magical students upon completion of their formal education, a somber reminder of the responsibility that comes with their power. The constantly shifting energies of the Badlands beyond the memorial serve as a visceral reminder of magic's potential for both creation and devastation when wielded without proper understanding and respect.