Chaos wars

The Chaos wars, Chaos war or Commonground Discord was a serf uprising that turned into an armed conflict among many parties. It resulted in the downfall of the state of Toor, establishment of Commonground and the rule of the Five Kings.

Summary

Toor became exceedingly wealthy due to its subjugation of the Laeooy Coast, which allowed it to take advantage of abundant metal deposits. The country quickly experienced a rise in wealth inequality, with the mines being served by families who were forced to sell themselves into serfdom to mine owners, in order to make a living.

A community leader by the name of Keetoh tried to ignite a freedom movement for several years, when one of his loyal followers, a miner named Gened, discovered that he can wield belequel as if it was a piece of cotton. Gened pledged to use his powers not to enrich himself and his family, but to free his people from Toor's yoke.

Toor had two major cities in the area: a military fortress called Hohned and the seat of Toor's royalty, Chusoh. Using his powers, Gened quickly freed many of the local miners, by using surprise attacks with belequel stones against mine guards. News of Gened and his powers allowed Keetoh to quickly assemble a sizeable army and being the uprising.

The army attacked Hohned, with Gened using belequel stones to destroy city gates and induce panic in Hohned's army, killing dozens upon dozens of soldiers by throwing belequel stones at them. Hohned was defeated, but the battle ended up lasting for several days, with heavy rebel losses. With most of the Hohned army still being intact and simply retreating to Chusoh, Gened believed that they must follow it and finish it off. Otherwise, he believed, Toor would regroup and return with a bigger force to quell the uprising. But Keetoh disagreed, citing heavy rebel losses and saying that they are not conquerors, but people defeating their land.

Gened continued to disagree, very vocally. Keetoh was afraid that Gened, whose standing in the community was that of a hero, would sway people's opinion on the matter, and had him imprisoned. He then proclaimed the sovereignty of the whole area and called it Commonground, describing it as a land of free people. His close aide, Gozodōroh, became the general of the Commonground and began recruiting and training the army.

Meanwhile, King Tōrmoh had indeed organized his forces to suppress the rebellion and sent a 40,000-strong army under the command of Lord Oroat. Lord Oroat decided to attack the miners from behind and maneuvered around the area to emerge from the Yassa-pao valley. He quickly reclaimed several territories, but got bogged down in guerilla warfare with the decentralized communities of miners, who knew the area better and were willing to retreat and then come back to their mines. Lord Oroat then set up camp at one of the pro-Chusoh mines with the intention to resume his conquest in spring.

Wanting to speed up their victory, Tōrmoh's court managed to get the support of Agzor, a young superhero warrior who lived in the cold plains to the east of Quoon River. Agzor was tasked to use his powers to incinerate Keetoh's camp.

And this is where the simple "rebels against mine owners" narrative began to fall apart.

First, some miners began local wars with each other, trying to use the situation to fight out old rivalries or simply gain more land. In some cases, mine owners would provide money and even troops to their former serfs in order to maintain some sort of ownership in the land. One of the most aggressive was Rolee, a mine which belonged to the wealthy courtier Noana Rolee. So by the time Gozodōroh was ready to march on Lord Oroat, she had to first establish the dominance of her own forces against several of the other rebel armies. She was successful at first, but was eventually killed, with her army decisively defeated by the Rolee.

Second, a small group of Gened's followers found out about his imprisonment and helped him escape. Gened then abandoned Keetoh, who would later perish when Rolee would overtake Koalderood, the mine where Keetoh's camp was based.

But while this could have been good news for Chusoh, by this time Chusoh did not exist: as Agzor approached Keetoh's camp, he found out that he was known among the populace as Tōrmoh's Pet Destroyer and that King Tōrmoh and his court used Agzor's loyalty to the King as a weapon against the miners for many years now. This angered Agzor, so instead of destroying Keetoh's camp, he turned around, came to Chusoh and set fire to the palace. As Chusoh was mostly built on wood, fire quickly expanded and destroyed the whole city, killing many people. This had effectively dissolved the state of Toor, as this set of unexpected events - the destruction of Hohned, the prolonged violence at Commonground and then the destruction of Chusoh and the death of most of its court - had Deeras and Gaskal secede and stay away from the events at Commonground.

Not only that, but an army from the west led by a superhero warrior Jolder attacked Floroh and then Jhet. Lord Oroat confronted Jolder at Jhet, but lost. He managed to save part of his army and retreat to the east, bringing worrying news of this conqueror to the miners and uniting forces with some of them.

News of this mess had reached the Empire of Barud and it began preparing for a campaign to the north.