In the year 965, a book called “The Revelation of Tka-rik” came in the hands of Skrakan.
Inside its covers, it said that the demons were creatures from another world, that they were evil spirits and that their fundamental purpose was destruction. Tka-rik had unleashed the demons during experiments by the Junes civilisation when he was researching new sources of magic. He discovered that the only way to stop the invasion was to shut the gates to this other world which had inadvertently been opened by the Junes. Tka-rik had found a way to do this, and explained how to close the gates in his book. Skrakan went public with the revelations and the war between the factions ground to a halt.
The following year in 966, Skrakan and Nezeb signed a peace treaty and sent scouts on a combined mission to discover the location of the Junes gates. Several gates to the Astral Demon’s world were discovered shortly after the expedition began, and two Great Mages were dispatched to seal them forever. After a pitched battle with the demons, their army captured the allods where the gates were located.
The Great Mages attempted to seal the gates, failing to do so, on their first three attempts. They persisted and on their fourth attempt, the two Great Mages successfully sealed the gates. It was a bittersweet victory though, as a massive Astral storm appeared over the gates and destroyed their great army. Only the ships on the periphery of the storm escaped, returning to their allods with the news of their victory and subsequent tragedy.
Both factions had lost their leaders, leaving a greatly changed political situation.
The League was ruled by The Conclave of the Great Mages, and comprised the Five Great Mages. It was led by Aidenus, the Great Mage of Kvatoh.
The transition of power in the Empire was less fluid, as the power vacuum in the Empire’s leadership erupted into a bloody confrontation. Two Great Mages went head-to-head to become the new leader of the Empire: Gurluxor, an old and experienced mage who nonetheless was a mere shadow of Nezeb, and Yasker, a young hero of the war of Kvatoh.
Yasker parlayed with both the Orcs and the Arisen, promising them full equal rights in return for supporting the new Empire he would create. Overwhelmed, Gurluxor was defeated and fled to his allod, where his hiding place remains a mystery to this day. Victorious over his rival, Yasker proclaimed himself a Great Mage of the Empire and ruled alone. He kept his promise to the Orcs and the Arisen and granted them equal status as citizens of the Empire.
Despite the success of the Great Astral Campaign, the Astral was still a dangerous place, hiding demons and other terrible Astral creatures. These risks did not stop travel and trade from taking place, on the contrary it flourished. With one threat gone, a new threat naturally appeared, this time in the form of the Astral Pirates. They prey on independent traders, as well as League and Imperial caravans.
In the meantime, the uneasy alliance that had formed under the threat of the Astral Demons began to crumble and relationships became more and more hostile. Small conflicts flared here and there, while overpopulation on the allods, combined with dwindling resources and fundamental ideological differences, caused the differences between the two factions to become more apparent. These all combined to produce the first hints of a new war.
In the year 1008, after many skirmishes, war was officially declared between the two great powers. The cause? A new allod was discovered which lay between Kvatoh, capital of the League, and Igsh, capital of the Empire. Its name was Holy Land.