The Great War

The Great War is the name of the devastating conflict that ravaged Phallica in the end of the Second Era. The conflict was primarily between the Orcs, the Gnomes, and their respective allies. After 3 bloody years, its conclusion at the Battle of Sugma marked the beginning of the Third Era.

Beginning
In the Second Era, Year 4200, race relations between the Orcs and Gnomes were at an all time low. Following a severe land dispute that escalated to violence, Orc and Gnome leaders met to sort out matters. The Orc leader at the time, Logros Skullfucker, was known for being particularly irritable, and his relationship with the Gnomes was shakey at best. The Gnome King, Pinkles Scufflenuts III, was notably rash and unpopular. His place of power was the result of a controversial, seemingly rigged election. His lack of professionalism and repeated pleas to "build a wall" caused other world leaders to view him incompetent and occasionally dangerous.

Logros met with Pinkles in the Orc capital of Orkadelphia. In the course of negotiations, Pinkles made repeated comments about the poor state of the city and its poverty, and he mentioned how the Gnome capital was "yuge" and, with a small loan of a million gold, he could help Logros improve Orkadelphia. As the conversation went on and no diplomatic conclusions were reached due to Pinkles' rambling, Logros became increasingly angry. Finally, Logros gave Pinkles' an ultimatum: leave the Orc land, or official war will be had. Pinkles took this as an immediate declaration of war. Pinkles immediately screamed "GO BACK TO THE BADLANDS!" and drew a dagger, going for a cheap shot. Having seen countless battles compared to Pinkles' inexperience, Logros immediately deflected Pinkles and decapitated him with a battle axe. Logros saw this as an invitation to exterminate the Gnomes that he hated more than anything. Logros officially declared war and marshaled an army to march on the Gnome homeland, Schitt-Stayne.

Preparations
The Forbidden Woods immediately allied with the Gnomes, citing the unnecessary violence as potentially damaging to Phallica as a whole. The Dwarves also sided with the Gnomes, calling the Orcs "sizist" for discriminating against the short races. The Humans and the Northerners opted to stay neutral in the coming conflict to avoid harming relations.

While the country of Florida had no official stance on the war, many human mages, in addition to mages who betrated their country on both sides of the conflict, offered their services as magical weapons during the Great War. All countries paid large sums of money for the services of the magical killers, and it was certain that their prowess would shift the tides of the coming battles.

Knowing a direct land invasion through the Forbidden Woods all the way through the Fields of Stayne, Logros sought other methods of eradicating the Gnomes. Using schematics acquired in secret arms deals with engineers of the Northerners, the Orcs quietly constructed a naval army. To maintain appearances, Logros ordered Orc scluptors to craft a massive fake army to place at the border of the Forbidden Woods. While the Gnomes and their allies carefully guarded the border, awaiting an assault from the Orcs, they were none the wiser of the coming naval invasion. A short time after, Logros made his move. With an army of over 59,000 Orcs in a fleet of large ships carved like wooden badgers, they made their unexpected touchdown. Still, the Gnomes and their allies had no idea of the surprise attack

That is, until, a skittish Gnome archer of unknown name was greatly started by the fake Orc warriors. Swearing that one of the statues fired upon him, the Gnome archer unleashed a single arrow across the battlefield. The arrow struck one of the Orc constructs, resulting in its collapse. When the forces at the border realized the army before them had no reaction, the Gnomes and Dwarves understood the deceit, and they rushed back to their homeland as a fast as they could.

Assault
Logros and his armies made touchdown in the port of Durin's Landing, beginning their surge into southeastern Phallica. The Orc armies attacked in all directions, laying siege to the Dwarven Fortress around the Schitt Peaks. Meanwhile, the bulk of the Orc army, led by Logros himself, pushed south and east towards the Gnome capital. Logros, set on destroying as much Gnome land as possible, separated his armies in a flooding Orc tide.

Numerous small to medium scale battles occurred across the Fields of Stayne, and many conflicts were especially bloody due to the inclusion of magic mercenaries on both sides. Some battles resulted in thousand of dead, and many Gnome towns were completed annihilated over the course of battles. Many civilians were often caught in the conflicts as well, with travel becoming dangerous as Orc raiding parties began to indiscriminately kill Gnomes.

It was during these small skirmishes that many notable warriors and mages rose to fame. At the Battle of Dawnburgh, Elvish ranger Keras Asmarithyl completed his infamous "3 Kilometer Nutshot," in which the Orc commander, Ogrim "Huge Balls" Spine-Eater, was felled from a single shot the testicles from over three kilometers away. Similar stories can be told of other battle and warriors, with new names reaching untold fame from their their exploits, whether they were acts of pure cruelty or sheer heroism.

Heroics aside, when the forces of both armies collided, untold devastation from the actions of the mages often arose. Indiscriminate killing of large numbers of combatants, careless destruction of towns, and the severe deformation of the Fields of Stayne's landscapes are lasting effects of the mages' inclusion. The legend of the Red Witch of the Battlefield, an extremely powerful human mage with little allegiance to either side, was one of many stories of the sheer loss of life caused by the untethered inclusion of magic on the battlefield.

The decision to carry out the invasion in multiple small conflicts was in favor of the Gnome reserves, however; while more than half of their forces were still teleporting or traveling from the border, the Gnomes and their allies carefully gathered their limited forces in calculated engagements against the increasingly spread thin Orc army. Within a few weeks, the progress of the Orcs had slowed, though half of the Fields of Stayne were conquered. Catching word that the Dwarf fortresses were nearly impossible to break, Logros ordered the blockade of the Dwarven cities in hopes of eventually exhausting their resources.

Logros realized he was running out of time, however; he needed a decisive victory against the Gnomes, and his ambitious spread of his army proved to waste too much time as more Elves, Dwarves, and Gnomes were rallying back to the country's defense. Logros eventually gathered the bulk of his army, preparing for a thunderous charge towards the Gnome capital.

The Battle of Sugma
The Chief of the Gnome Army, General Fap P. Underboob, organized a defense to force an engagement in a field near the town of Spindle. Both forces gathered their armies across the fields, with the army of the Orcs, led by Chieftan Logros, numbering over 25,000, and the Gnomes and their allies, led Fap P. Underboob and Dwarven King Hafir, numbered nearly 15,000.





Both armies met in a devastating clash, as mages tore across the battlefield, killing dozens with every spell. Craters over ten meters wide formed where many combatants once stood; untold hundreds fell every minute. The battle raged on for over an hour, with both sides searching for opportunities to flank or break apart the lines of the other.

Eventually, Logros and Hafir met in battle for a final fight to the death to end the Great War. The gods themselves were watching,