For many centuries the Old Empires of Lanst and Ervuol grew together as partners, but beginning around the 17th century BA the two started to become distrustful and competitive. Espionage and border skirmishes began, and the empires increasingly turned their energies toward the development of exotic weapons.
In 1412 BA the empires and their satellite states formally entered a state of war, and in 1410 the conflict reached its calamitous peak. Weapons of mass destruction, derived in part from secrets gleaned from the Great Old Ones by the Talus Assembly, killed millions on both sides, shattering both empires and wiping out a tremendous amount of accumulated knowledge, much of which has yet to be rediscovered.
