The Zelosian Schism
| This is an article on the History of Feyworld | |
| Years: 2002 NC to 2012 NC | |
| Age: The Third Age of Man | |
| Continent: Duria | |
| Main Article | |
| Cambrecia | |
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| Cambrecia and the Mage War | Cambrecia and the Recession of the Gods |
After Potentate Horatius IV declared his allegiance to Lucasa as the Imperial Emperor, he commanded renewed attacks against Koramia. Nearly a third of his generals, all priests of Zelos and formerly loyal to Cambrecia, refused. They withdrew their troops to the city of Trias in northern Cambrecia and called the Council of Trias. Though they invited all priests of Zelos to this Council, those who remained loyal to Horatius IV refused. Somehow, the few priests of Zelos who followed the Koramian Heresy in Koramia made it across the Cambreican Front and attended the Council.
Three weeks of heated debate followed, with those in attendance alternatively calling for unity in the Church of Zelos and for separation from the Office of the Potentate. After three weeks, Dorakian Mages arrived at the Council with documents in hand from the Potentate ordering the Priests to Zelosia City for trial as heretics and traitors, while they would assume command of the wayward armies. The Priests were furious, both at the unilateral decision of the Potentate and at the audacity of the Lun Dorakian Mages. Their decision was made... they would no longer obey the Potentate. The Dorakian Mages were subdued in a pitched battle within the Cathedral of Trias itself, quickly tried and burned at the stake for Heresy. The Council met for one more day... by noon, it had declared Lucasa and Horatius IV both Heretics.
Word of the Council of Trias spread like wildfire throughout Cambrecia. More priests declared their support for the priests, bringing their flocks with them. In the midst of one of the largest wars the world had ever seen, Cambrecia erupted in Civil War. Koramia assumed a policy of containment... they pushed Cambrecia back to their traditional borders and stopped there, instead concentrating what forces they had left against the Empire in central Koramia.
The civil war in Cambrecia eventually coalesced into three main factions. The Imperials were those who remained loyal to Horatius IV and the Mage-King. The Sacerdosi, under the Episcopus of Trias, Cyril the Scholar, declared for the Council of Trias. The third faction were the Royalists, lead by an underground amalgam of dissenters who believed that the people were lead to ruin by the lack of a hereditary monarch. The fighting between the three factions was so intense that few seemed to notice when the Mage-King was defeated in 2003 NC and his continent-spanning Empire collapsed.
For much of the early action in the war, the main conflict was between the Imperials and the Sacerdos, with the Royalists forces skirmishing from time to time with both. No one really took the Royalists seriously until The Freecity of Neptaris unexpectedly entered the fray on the side of the Royalists. Despite having a long and bloody history of fighting against Cambrecia, the Council of Neptaris decided that it would rather have a belligerent Monarchy than a fanatical theocracy as a neighbor. With new troops to bolster their ranks and arguably the world's most powerful navy at their disposal, the Royalists began to make ground against the other two faction or, at least, hold their own in battle.
By 2012 NC, the fighting had reached something of an apex. No faction was prepared to give way or compromise with the other. It seemed that nothing would end the wars. Only the impossible would end the conflict.
That is the year the impossible happened.
