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The Iron Wars




WHAT WENT BEFORE . . .

F IVE centuries ago two great religious faiths arose which were to dominate the entire known world.
They were founded on the teachings of two men. In the west, St Ramusio; in the east, the Prophet
Ahrimuz.

The Ramusian faith rose at the same time that the great continent-wide empire of the Fimbrians was
coming apart. The greatest soldiers the world had ever seen, the Fimbrians had become embroiled in a
vicious civil war which enabled their conquered provinces to break away one by one and become the
Seven Kingdoms. Fimbria dwindled to a shadow of her former self, her troops still formidable, but her
concerns confined exclusively to the problems within the borders of the homeland. And the Seven
Kingdoms went from strength to strengthтАФuntil, that is, the first hosts of the Merduks began pouring
over the Jafrar mountains, quickly reducing their numbers to five.

Thus began the great struggle between the Ramusians of the west and the Merduks of the east, a
sporadic and brutal war carried on for generations, which, by the sixth century of Ramusian reckoning,
was finally reaching its climax.

For Aekir, greatest city of the west and seat of the Ramusian Pontiff, finally fell to the eastern invaders
in the year 551. Out of its sack escaped two men whose survival was to have the greatest consequences
for future history. One of them was the Pontiff himself, MacrobiusтАФthought dead by the rest of the
Ramusian kingdoms and by the remainder of the Church hierarchy. The other was Corfe Cear-Inaf, a
lowly ensign of cavalry, who deserted his post in despair after the loss of his wife in the tumult of the
cityтАЩs fall.

But the Ramusian Church had already elected another Pontiff, Himerius, who was set upon purging the
Five Kingdoms of any remnant of the Dweomer-folkтАФthe practitioners of magic. The purge caused
HebrionтАЩs young king, Abeleyn, to accept a desperate expedition into the uttermost west to seek the
fabled Western continent, an expedition led by his ruthlessly ambitious cousin, Lord Murad of
Galiapeno. Murad blackmailed a master mariner, one Richard Hawkwood, into navigating the voyage,
and as passengers and would-be colonists they took along some of the refugee Dweomer-folk of
Hebrion, including one Bardolin of Carreirida. But when they finally reached the fabled west, they
found that a colony of lycanthropes and mages had already existed there for centuries under the aegis of
an immortal arch-mage, Aruan. Their exploratory party was wiped out, only Murad, Hawkwood and
Bardolin surviving.

Back in Normannia, the Ramusian Church was split down the middle as three of the Five Kingdoms
recognized Macrobius as the true Pontiff, while the rest preferred the newly elected Himerius. Religious
war eruped as the three so-called Heretic KingsтАФAbeleyn of Hebrion, Mark of Astarac and Lofantyr of
Torunna, fought to retain their thrones. They all succeeded, but Abeleyn had the hardest battle to fight.
He was forced to storm his own capital, Abrusio, by land and sea, half-destroying it in the process.

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 The Iron Wars