Could anyone describe the War of the Tap?

[Typheus]

I checked the history section, and to be honest, I thought the description sucked. It didn't say if anyone won, what tactics were used, etc. I saw that it was very long--2k years--, very boring--500 years between attacks--, and very interesting. Magical weapons, etc. I'd like to know more about it if you would kindly tell me, but if that's all there is to know, then I'll make the rest up as I go along.

I'm asking this because I'm thinking of making a character that has a connection with it, and I'd like to know what I'm talking about so that I don't make a fool of myself :P

Thanks.

[Call me J]

To an extent, things are kept vague so players can use the descriptions to better augment their stories. I do think the ending consequence of the war should be made known, but it isn't necessary to list tactics. If you want to say certain tactics were going used, no judge could tell you you're wrong.

However, you wouldn't make a fool of yourself by being creative. You'd make a fool of yourself by doing something foolish, so I wouldn't advise you to go and do that, but creativity is fine.

[Ataraxis]

I remember reading a lot of info on the Tap before, but they might've been removed since then. I paraphrased the info into excerpts from a book in a solo, and I think it's fairly accurate since I didn't feel the need add any flourish to it.


Betwixt 2060 and 4020, Coronari Estella.

Althanas is at war. The Forgotten Ones prove to be remarkable enemies. Raiaera remains uninvolved from the conflict, even when Denebriel, one of the Forgotten, attempts to win over the High Bards to side with their forces. However, the Forgotten Podë, inhabiting the Great Forest, leads many onslaughts against Raiaera, and he effectively draws the High Elves into the war, alongside the Mya. (…)

The Dark Elves deign the magic of their fairer blood too weak against the sheer power of their adversaries, and demand the opportunity to put their own plans into motion; this opportunity never comes, and the Dark Elves begin harbouring animus toward the High Elves. After many losing battles of Dark Elven soldiers under the command of High Elven leaders, the High Elves oust the Dark Elves from Raiaera, to the west. By then, the battle against Podë and Xem’zund appears to be lost. In Alerar, the Dark Elves fight the forces of Nyvengaal in hopes of recovering their pride. (…)

Salvar, largely underdeveloped and mostly barren, as it is devoid of any substantial population, becomes the ideal battleground for the Forgotten Ones and those who oppose them. Caradin is the location of the final confrontation between Aesphestos and the High bard of Raiaera. (…)

Ancient artefacts, the Masters of Light, are key components to a ritual (originally led by two Mya and the Bard himself) that would allow the metaphysical fettering of the Forgotten Ones. Aesphestos’ plan was to thwart the magical rite. He would have done so, his forces having weaved through Caradin’s defenses, were it not for the High Bard’s direct intervention: delegating his place in the ceremony to the Master Bard of Lissilin, he faces the Leader of the Forgotten head on and fights him to a stalemate using the nullifying magic of the Turlin. The High Bard’s voice is suppressed by one of the Forgotten’s spells; this should have logically equated a defeat, but the Bard claps on, casting his spells with the voice of his golden hands. (…)

In the end, the ceremony of binding is not completely successful, and the Master Bard of Lissilin is unable to buffer the flux of unbridled power, which nearly wipes all Mya from the face of the world and shatters the Eternal Tap. As for the fate of the Forgotten Ones, it is believed that the ritual has at least successfully sealed them away, if not erased them from existence. (…)

To this day, the repercussions of the War can still be witnessed, notably in the northernmost regions of Salvar, where magical rifts, frays in the weave of the universe as corollary to the supernatural deflagration that ended the War.

If anyone notices some discrepancies in this, do tell me. It'll be greatly appreciated!

[Sighter Tnailog]

As one of the originators of the idea, let me elaborate.

First, Damon is correct: information is kept intentionally vague so as not to inhibit characters from their storylines. Here is what is "official," in so far as we have official threads.

The Eternal Tap was a magical source that was once accessible to all. To touch one part of the Tap was to touch all others, and in some ways the Tap was magic. One notable exception was Raiaeran song magic, which for an unknown reason operated on principles vaguely similar to, but not entirely synonymous with, the Tap.

However, a group of magicians who had learned to plumb to the absolute farthest extent of Tap magic arose in Althanas. The nature of the Tap was such that to use vast amounts of the Tap was easy, to actually harness and understand that fullness of the Tap was unknown. But in some strange way, these magicians learned nonetheless.

These magicians are now known as the Forgotten Ones, and their number was five: Lord Aesphestos, their leader; Denebriel, his second-in-command and sometimes rival; Podë, the scheming Red Witch who is remembered for being more interested in regions like Dheathain than the power centers of Corone, Alerar, Salvar, and Raiaera; and then Xem'zûnd and Nyvengaal, two necrotically-inclined mages whose arts tended to be subtly different and who harbored a fierce interpersonal rivalry.

Their wars were far from "boring." Indeed, the 500-year or more gaps between the live wars were always periods of all-out intrigue and infiltrative warfare, as the main players, both Forgotten and Mya (a race of angel-like beings, few in numbers, who served as the primary marshals of the good side in the conflict), struggled against one another in what we could call Cold War. Lands passed in and out of control on both sides, but all this information is kept vague on purpose to promote individual storylines.

The final battle is the only one of note that we sort of consider as important. Called the Leaguer of Caradin, it was when all the Mya marshalled their forces -- a considerable number -- and drove from Alerar up into Salvar. It was a grueling, tortuous drive that took months to complete and cost untold lives. But in the end they waylaid Denebriel's fortress at Caradin, at a location now lost to time and memory. Their goal, however, was not to drive out Denebriel. It was to provoke Lord Aesphestos into coming to Denebriel's aid. At which point, they had a surprise in store.

Using powerful magical artifacts--Lightbringer, a magic sword; Lightbreaker, a shield made of ice-mold and adamantine; and Lightbinder, a brilliant crystal helm--the battle unfolded more or less as Ataraxis said, with the aforementioned repercussions.

EDIT: The story is intended to be more myth/legend than it is actual history. While this is not to say that it DIDN'T happen, it is to say that in interpreting it you should give more leeway to its truth value than you would a history textbook.

[Gideon]

Well, I made the character that has his connection to it. Now whether or not it was a foolish thing is up to the judges xD

This is Typheus btw.