Blackroot War: A Primer
Contents
Over a century ago, driven away by vicious beasts ravaging their homeland, Johannes Narsen led a large group of refugees across the ocean, settling on the edges of the Blackroot Jungle. Appointed as King, Johannes founded what became the Narsen Empire, and began to expand their territory into the jungle over the next fifty years.
Then the jungle struck back. See, a powerful tribe had already settled the Blackroot Jungle, and when the Narsen Empire tried to expand further, this tribe, the Tlaxans, sprung into action to defend their territory. War broke out, and the rivers ran red with blood. The Narsens, stationed at the town called Nyr, battled the Tlaxan armies streaming from a Ziggurat high on a hill. The Narsens used vicious tactics and alchemists to rain down hell upon the Tlaxans, while the tribe used their warped and vile magics to twist the very land into nothing but death and destruction. But finally after five years of battle, the Tlaxan Kingdom was forced to surrender, and the Narsen Empire pressed their expansion further into the Jungle.
Not every Tlaxan agreed to the surrender though, and the magics that kept the Jungle hard to explore also opened opportunities for the beastmen tribes of the past to reemerge. Hawk, Jaguar, and Serpentsia returned and stalked the trees, hungry for death. Eventually the Serpentsia tribe would be driven into near extinction, but that is a complex tale for another day, that involves the rise of yet another enemy we face in Narsen even to this day, the Sons of the Forest, and the foundation of the Mage Academy's High Council in Sierhaven.