Andrew Michael Miller's Thought Backlog
Writer and working Agile professional. Author of Pancho's Fall.
The second major conflict of the era known as the Gifted Wars came about due to the failed betrothal of young Magia Moro of Ismar to Hannibal II, lord of Shalona. When Magia fled with Hannibal's son Hanin, they left behind a bewildered house, unable to explain their disappearances. Relations quickly failed between the two cities, eventually culminating in attacks on caravans from Shalona to nearby Renia, carried out by agents of Ismar.
Directly following the flight of the lordlings described in Part II (Part I here), panic fell upon the House of Alren in Shalona. With no hint of the whereabouts of 13 year old Magia Moro of Ismar, who was betrothed to Hannibal II, the lord of Shalona, as well as Hannibal II's third son of 15 years, Hanin, the situation quickly grew tense. What would follow in the wake of their disappearance would ultimately lead to the feuds that would fuel the fire of what we now know as The Gifted Wars.
As mentioned in Part I, the Gifted Wars was a period of time during the formative years of the settlements of the peninsula of Caelon during the early years of the Age of Kings. Before the conflicts started arising between the fledgling settlements and the Torian seat of power in the White Walled City, the country had seen a period of peaceful exploration and reclamation, thanks to the efforts of the First Son, his Ten Saints and the crusaders who vanquished the demons who prowled the land. Although the earliest conflict in the Gifted Wars happened as part of an uprising against the Torian command, many of the battles that were fought during these three bloody decades were not directly against the Torians at all. Perhaps one of the most famous cases involves a failed betrothal between two of the largest settlements of that time, known now as Ismar and Shalona.
Near the beginning of the Fourth Age, as much of the ancient settlements of Caelon were claimed by the earliest settlers of the post-demonic era, a problem of leadership arose. The men and women who set out to lay claim to the land were sent on expeditions chartered by the Prime Consul of the White Walled City, but at some point it became clear that the blood of the First Son would act as a chaos agent working against the order that the Torians sought. The plans to run a unified bureaucracy under Torian rule were met with the ambitions of men with unnatural powers who would fancy themselves kings, unbeholden to the command of the Torian leadership. The ensuing conflicts that came next would be remembered as the Gifted Wars.
Continuing Cantar I of the epic poem of Cantar del Primer Hijo, (Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4) the following lines describe the first major battle against a large demon with three heads. The significance of the battle is multiplied by the fact that the First Son, the leader of the band, was absent from the camp when the demon attacked.