Editing Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings (section)

===The Fall=== 


As the Dweghom infused themselves with the essence of War itself and the Exiles played God, far to the east a tribe of humans started worshipping a magic battery and invented religion. Something that would totally not have any negative consequences. Trying to find shelter from the elements, this tribe started exploring an abandoned Dweghom hold and began gathering around an old furnace for warmth. Soon enough, they discovered that the power source for the furnace was a tiny of sliver of Creation, fractured from the big guy during his fight with Destruction. The more it was worshipped, the stronger it became, in time becoming a full on deity named Hazlia who led his people out of the ground and into the world to found a civilisation called the Old Dominion. 

For a while, things were pretty good and in time, humanity under Hazlia was starting to match the elder races in power. A government was formed with Hazlia at its head, who created a pantheon of his own budding personalities and a couple older deities who were invited to join him. Hazlia built a floating celestial palace above the Dominion's capital from which he would occasionally trot down and do a magic trick or two for his fans. A breed of half-humans were designed by the Exiles to do the Dominion's general labour, leaving citizens time to do other things, such as worship Hazlia. 

Then one day Hazlia decided that the humans in the far north, the Nords, should be conquered for....reasons? Tens of thousands of men were thrown into the snowy wastes for no gain and three entire legions were wiped out in the Dominion's land war in Asia. For the Nords this was their Ragnarok, the ultimate war, and even without their superpower Exile-enhanced Einherjar, they fought the Dominion to a standstill. Then Hazlia decided to go to war against the Spires for....reasons. The Dweghom, needing no real excuse to fight, jumped in as well and now the Dominion found itself fighting a three front war. Sure enough things started getting crazy: leaders blamed the half-human workers for their woes and the resulting pogroms meant no-one could work the fields. Crop yields dropped, people starved and any 'criminals' were rounded up as slave labour to try to fix the labour shortage meaning more legions had to be taken off the front lines to deal with the constant slave uprisings. 

The XII Legion however refused the call back to the capital. Longtime worshippers of Cleon, the God of Soldiers and Honour, they had been effectively banished to guard the western passes of the Dominion's frontier. The first clue that things back home weren't right was the growing hordes of refugees fleeing the Dominion. A trickle became a flood and anyone with brains that could see the end coming had taken the gamble to cross the Wastelands and over the mountains. The XII took on the job of protecting the refugees, majorly pissing off Hazlia. Out of spite more than anything, another two legions were sent to deal with them, only for one of the legions to join the XII and betray the other. 

Back at the capital, the human government figured out pretty quickly that Hazlia had gone mad. Two initiatives were made: first was to get all men of science and knowledge out of the Dominion ASAP, down towards the southwest. The second was to kill God. Operation Kill God worked but Hazlia was so triggered by the whole thing he had a tantrum and crashed his palace into the earth, wiping out the Old Dominion and bringing on a mini Ice Age, henceforth known as 'The Fall.'

For the lucky refugees that had fled west and crossed the mountains, they would eventually settle in the expanse beyond, founding what would become the Hundred Kingdoms. The XII Legion, now the Last Legion, stayed in the mountain passes, fighting back whatever nightmares were creeping out of the magical radiation from The Fall. This was apparently so traumatic, no survivors would say what happened during that winter. Instead they would form 'Orders' to help guide the survivors and try to stop them from murdering each other.