The Thrakian War
It was 2000 years before the reign of Ker'el the Golden and the
collapse of Goldencrest. Times were prosperous for most of the realms. I say most of them
because not all was peace and serenity. There was trouble on some of the realms. The Plane
of Thrakia was still reeling from a bloody civil war that had threatened to collapse the
gates leading out of Thrakia, so violent was the struggle.
Times were hard in Thrakia. A morsel of food was a treasure to be
horded. Indeed, many was the time that a large sum of cryl was traded for a moldy crumb of
nurishment. The Thrakians
were jealous of their more prosperous neighbors, the Spectrites. The Plane of Twilight was
no great acomplishment of wealth, its twisted landscape and harsh environment always
caught between night and day. Yet the the Spectrites were hearty and prosperous. And the
Thrakians blamed the Spectrites for inciting the bloody civil war. The fruit of all out
war was growing.
A leader rose from among the Thrakians, promising a return to
prosperity and the good things they had enjoyed before the civil war. These were words
that the Thrakians hungered for.
So they all united behind this one leader. They banded together to rebuild and regroup.
Yet the heart of the new leader's success at uniting the Thrakians was not his
promise of better things. It was his vehement hate for the shadowy Spectrites. He promised
vengence and destruction for all Spectrites. Spectrites were banned from entering the
Plane of Thrakia. All Spectrites in the realm were summarily rounded up and executed. The
moral and might of the Thrakians thrived at that time. The fruit of war was ripe for the
picking.
To say that the Spectrites were surprised by the attack would be
untrue. To say that they were surprised by the ferocity of the fighting would be
absolutely correct. The Spectral Army was massed and waiting as the first ranks of the
Thrakian Army came through the planar gates. That would be the only time that the
Spectrites would hold the advantage. The Thrakians fell on the waiting Spectrite troops
without care for themselves or their comrades. Death was the only thing on their minds.
Death for all Spectrites.
The Thrakian Army took control of the planar gates as the front lines
of the Spectral Army broke and fled in panic. Not even the all-powerful Eye could control
the fear that was in
the hearts and hive-minds of every Spectrite that saw the savagery with which the
Thrakians attacked. One saw a heavily wounded Thrakian rip the head from another Spectrite
and weild
it as a weapon. A Thrakian with only one whole arm left drove back a whole squad of
Spectrite soldiers, despite the horrendous wounds on his chest and head. While many a
Thrakian fell in
the fighting, ten times that many Spectrites fell.
The Thrakian army swept across the scarred, shadow-twisted landscape of
the Plane of Twilight. The fortress of solidified shadows were falling one by one. The
Spectrite Army was in full retreat. It all seemed lost.
It would have been the end of the Spectrites if it hadn't been for a
small band of courageous fighters that had snuck though the gate on the first day of
fighting. They escaped to the Plane of Kaos, the home realm of the Dryne. At first, the mighty
Drynes were unmoved by the entreaties of the Spectrite soldiers that came to them. It was
only after the Spectrites promised them that they could take over the whole Plane of
Thrakia and do with it as they wished that the Drynes
finally listened to the stroies that the Spectries brought with them. It was the first
time ever that an alliance had been reached between two different races in the dimensional
web.
The Spectral Army was moving. That much was certain to the Thrakina
Army, still advancing towards the far end of the plane. The Spectrites were still in full
retreat, but they were moving. The fighting was getting thicker and fiercer.
Something was afoot.
The Thrakians were taken by total surprise when squad after squad of
Dryne soldiers poured through the planar gates onto the Plane of Twilight. The powerful
Drynes smashed through
the rear ranks of the Thrakian Army. At the same time, the Spectrites stopped their
backward flight and turned on their attackers.
Within a day, the Thrakians had been routed and had fled back through
the planar gates. Tne carnage and defeat had not stopped there, though. The Thrakian found
their own Plane of
Thrakia in the throes of death. The Drynes were there, too, destroying every last vestige
of the Thrakian plane. The Thrakians now had no home and no refuge. The other realms had
been informed of the vicious deeds of the Thrakians, and they were turned away from every
planar gate, relentlessly pursued by the Dryne soldiers and the Spectrite soldiers. They
were
eventually driven into an unexplored region of the dimensional web, never to rise to glory
again.