Event

Victory Day

CanonOfficial lore from the booksSSGp. 7, 12-14, 16, 24, 41

Victory Day is the battle in which the forces of the living defeated the Heralds of The Dark One outside Marble City. It brought the Third Age, which had lasted 2230 years, to its close.¹ Under the current calendar every date is recorded with reference to it: an event falls Before Victory Day (BVD) or After Victory Day (AVD).²

The stirring in the Void

So long had passed since the Dark One last intervened in the history of Teneris that even the wisest had forgotten their old enemy. When the Order of Chain claimed that something was stirring in the Void, it took a long time to convince everyone. As in ages past, creatures later known as voidborn began to appear in every corner of the realm.¹

Watching these events, the Chain Wardens realised that this time the voidborn and many other chaotic forces were controlled by powerful beings with dark wings, who called themselves simply "Heralds".³

For the first time, the Heralds bargained with the living. It seemed that the "Dark Father" was willing this once to settle for less than the absolute annihilation he calls "silence". Many scholars still believed such dealings ran against the Dark One's nature, and held that the Heralds were messengers for no one but themselves.⁴

The battle

The Chain Wardens travelled across Caligran, rallying an army. This union, the Grand Alliance, was the largest in the history of Teneris. The forces the Heralds had gathered, both living and voidborn, met it outside Marble City, and the world of the living stood on the brink of extinction. At that moment the Chain Wardens, supported by the Archon and the High Church, defeated the darkness through a ritual. Many of them paid for the victory with their lives.⁴

Victory Day made legends of Emperor Vaden I, High King Gilmor Ironbeard, Alliance Army Commander Marus Salinor, Lord Fangol Silvarel, Great Chief Uthag and Warlord Wolfar Winterwolf. It also marked the tragic death of Lady Nemarin.⁴ Crown Prince Vaden II fought honourably that day at the head of the esteemed cavalry unit Gladio Heredite.⁵

Aftermath

The Grand Alliance won, but its losses were so great that the balance of power was completely upset. The noble houses slowly regained power while the Emperor's central authority weakened, and those who had barely survived side by side turned quickly to political games and conflicting interests. The scars of the war ran deep in the political and social fabric of Teneris.⁴

As the noble houses competed for influence, alliances shifted and new rivalries arose. The unity of the Alliance began to fracture, and the power vacuum left by Victory Day led to a period of uncertainty and instability.⁵

Immediately after Victory Day, miracles and divine magic faded from the realm. Scholars took this silence in the heavens during Victory Day as a sign that a battle was being fought in the skies. The period is remembered as The Time of Silence.⁵

Legacy

Emperor Vaden I, the hero of Victory Day, was later found assassinated in his bed on a cold and grim night. Marus Salinor, who had commanded the Alliance Army on the day, did not believe the story told of the assassination.⁵

The Chain Wardens remain few after Victory Day and the civil war, yet in many ways mortals have no other refuge from the cosmic dangers behind the curtain.⁶ In 261 AVD the Cult of Void came to light, led by people who claimed to carry the souls of the Heralds from before Victory Day.⁷

In ancient times a paladin of Alarath falling from the sky like a comet often proved the saviour in the most desperate moments. It can still happen, but since Victory Day it has been seen only once.⁸

Notes

↑BookLands of Exile: Starter Setting Guide, p. 12
↑BookLands of Exile: Starter Setting Guide, p. 7
↑BookLands of Exile: Starter Setting Guide, pp. 12-13
↑BookLands of Exile: Starter Setting Guide, p. 13
↑BookLands of Exile: Starter Setting Guide, p. 14
↑BookLands of Exile: Starter Setting Guide, p. 41
↑BookLands of Exile: Starter Setting Guide, p. 16
↑BookLands of Exile: Starter Setting Guide, p. 24

Sources

This article draws on:

SSGLands of Exile: Starter Setting Guide(Bad Badger Games, 2024), pp. 7, 12-14, 12-13, 16, 24, 41

EventFourth AgeThe present age of Teneris, which began after Victory Day, when the Grand Alliance's costly win broke the old balance of power, weakened the Emperor and set the noble houses against one another.OrganisationOrder of ChainThe ancient order of the Chain Wardens, the only ones able to detect and destroy the voidborn, and the first and last line of defence against threats from beyond the world. It rallied the Grand Alliance on Victory Day, was outlawed by Vaden II and was helped to rebuild by Elatan I.OrganisationGrand AllianceThe union of armies rallied across Caligran by the Chain Wardens against the Heralds at the end of the Third Age, the largest in the history of Teneris. It won the battle of Victory Day outside the Marble City, but its unity soon broke apart.CharacterEmperor Vaden IThe emperor remembered as the hero of Victory Day, whose assassination in his bed in 24 AVD plunged the Empire into civil war, and who is still held to be the greatest emperor of recent ages.CharacterMarus SalinorCommander of the Alliance Army on Victory Day, who refused to believe the official account of Emperor Vaden I's assassination, led the skeptics in the civil war of 24 AVD and found the half-elf heir Elatan.

EventThe DesolationThe cataclysm that ended the First Age, when the Dark One attacked Teneris. Gods and whole civilisations died, the two continents were parted and more than half of Caligran became desert.EventDiscovery of the New WorldThe westward voyage of the ship Imperius, 285–289 AVD, led by the Archon wizard Castor Onerio, which found the continent of Canarque that most of the Empire calls the New World.ConceptPuppeteer's ultimatumThe demand that the Puppeteer laid on Kemp Corvus, Sarah and Ephorus in White City in the Sürgün Günlükleri campaign, giving them three days to bring him two stones and a man called Uzun, on pain of harm to all they loved.ConceptSickness of Sınır SapıThe affliction blamed for months of sudden killings in the Sınır Sapı district in the Zincirsiz campaign, said to make people see those before them as deadly foes; it brought a quarantine on the district and a joint inquiry by the Empire, the witch hunters and the elves.EventExodusThe flight north of the survivors of the Desolation, who escaped the hungry sands and sought refuge among the humans of the lands now called the Lands of Exile.