Origins

The conflict began before either the Geban Empire or the Thazvaari Dominion had any involvement in Ngorrhal. Four groups of Ngorrhali occupied the mountain passes: the Northern Pass, the Western Pass, the Central Pass, and the Northeastern Pass. Each had developed differently based on their terrain and temperament. The Northern Pass cultivated fields and built structures suited to their environment. The Western Pass hunted and explored, pushing into new passes and expanding their range. The Central Pass was the most advanced group in Ngorrhal. They had built paths through the mountains to the southeastern coast, established minor trade with outsiders, and learned to hunt massive sea creatures en masse, giving them access to resources no other pass could match. The Northeastern Pass, occupying the harshest terrain, refused to cooperate with any of them.

The Northeast's isolation was self-imposed. They could not build like the North, could not hunt and explore like the West, and refused to work with the Central Pass despite the fact that the Central Pass had already solved the resource problem the Northeast claimed to suffer from. If they had simply asked for help, there would have been no war.

Instead, the Northeast began raiding the other passes for resources. The Western Pass responded by tracking the raiders to their camps and killing them to prevent their return. The Northeast assumed this response came from the Central Pass and retaliated immediately. The Central Pass was wiped out. The majority of their population had migrated southwest centuries earlier, and it was learned in later eras that they eventually reached Manalheim Minor after decades of drifting and surviving on uncharted islands. Those who remained in Ngorrhal were killed, their structures destroyed, their animals taken.

Declaration of War

The Tharyn clan sent members in all directions to warn the other passes, only to discover that the Central Pass had been eradicated. War Chief Tharyn'Bregun traveled personally to the frozen reach of the Northeastern Pass to speak with their Chiefs and find a peaceful resolution.

The Northeastern demands were not about survival. They believed they had suffered for so long that they deserved to thrive at the expense of everyone else, as Ngorrhal had made them the strongest. Bregun found no willingness to negotiate. The meeting ended in an official declaration of war when the Northeastern Chiefs attempted to kill him on the spot. Bregun and four clan members fought their way out. Two were wounded. In the escape, they killed the son of the Northeastern High War Chief, which prompted an immediate response.

When Bregun returned to the Western Pass, he was met by several Chiefs of the Northern Pass who had already brought men south to begin building fortifications. The North asked only that the West send hunters to serve as warriors, as the Northern Pass was closer to the Northeast and outnumbered. They did not want to join the war.

The Northeast attacked the North directly. Women and children were killed. Fields were burned. This was the act that forced the Northern Pass into the war alongside the West.

The War Before the Empire

The Northern and Western Passes knew they could not match the Northeast in sheer physical force. Their strategy was asymmetric. They hollowed ground, built traps, set ambushes, and placed their warriors in formations designed to fire and escape while forcing the flanks open. Both passes had warriors who had undergone the bonding trials. This approach worked for years, enough to take some encampments, but never enough to reach the Northeastern center.

Then the Northeast appeared with weapons that were faster and more accurate than anything previously seen, wearing armor that existing rounds could no longer penetrate. Northern scouts tracked the source to large, advanced ships off the eastern coast, crewed by small people who were demonstrating the new weapons and explaining that they also had very large cannons. The Thazvaari Dominion had entered the war.

The Northern and Western Passes used everything available to them, including unleashing Smilohounds as weapons rather than just hunting animals or mounts. It was not enough. Several battles were lost in succession.

Imperial Discovery

Geban scouts in the party of Architect Varenth Solarn and Prince Vaer'gidon discovered a wounded Western Pass woman and immediately remarked on her size. They brought her to a nearby outpost and waited for her to wake. The report reached Gidon, who had been in the region with scouts for years, observing. He knew the Ngorrhali were fighting a civil war and had begun to understand some of their words and gestures, but he was not aware of the Thazvaari involvement until the woman woke and drew out what was happening.

They prepared an airship and flew to the Western Pass. On landing they were attacked immediately until the woman blocked the fire before any conflict took place. Prince Vaer'gidon was accepted quickly because of his own size. He could look them eye to eye instead of them towering over him. War Chief Bregun, now acting as High War Chief, met him with immediate respect. They found scholars to work translation in order to communicate. During this time Gidon sent scouts to confirm that it was indeed Thazvaar supplying the Northeast.

Bregun explained to his people what the relays were and what benefits they would bring. His word carried weight. He was a proven leader, deeply respected, and massive even by Frost Sentinel standards. The Western Pass allowed a relay outpost to be built near them, enabling fast communication they had never experienced.

Imperial Intervention

The Empire learned that a relay construction site in southern Ngorrhal had been destroyed, with imperial engineers and their guards killed alongside civilians near new clearings. This site was nowhere near the passes. The Northeast now had Thazvaari rovers and ships operating along the Geban ocean off the eastern Ngorrhali coast, meaning they could reach proximity to Geba itself if they traveled further.

Emperor Vaer'karesh left it to his son to solve the matter, giving him his blessing to act as he saw fit. "If they are strong make friends of them. If they are weak they are still worth saving from Thazvaar."

The Empire entered the war unofficially at first, in a defensive and area-denial role. Once the scholars completed accurate translations, the offer to officially join was made. Gidon had watched the Ngorrhali warriors and saw people who already embodied the same spirit as the Empire but came from a land that would never allow what they had. Their size, their steadiness, their stoicism, their willingness to fight prolonged battles shirtless or without insulation under their armor in freezing conditions. This is where the name Frost Sentinel originated. Gidon and other imperials began calling their warriors by that name. He did not want to see them wiped out. He wanted them to be part of what the Empire was building.

Assimilation

Bregun gathered the Chiefs and explained the proposal. Many agreed. Many did not. Those who refused challenged him for their chance to be right, which in Ngorrhali culture could not be refused without losing all credibility. Several Frost Sentinels challenged him for allowing their identities as a people to be changed, for surrendering their names, their independence, their way of life to foreign rule. Challenges could be issued anywhere at any moment, on ice, on a path, in a field. Bregun met every one. Sometimes it was single combat. Sometimes three stood against him at once. He never lost. Those he defeated became his strongest supporters once they lived long enough to see the truth of his words: that identity lived in action and survival, not in the sounds one made when speaking one's name.

Those who accepted began learning Geban immediately. Names were translated to imperial standard where possible, and changed entirely where no translation could fit the format. Bregun and Gidon shook hands. Within days, imperial ships were at the southern coast, airships were landing in the passes, and relay engineers were everywhere. The Empire did not send resources. It sent soldiers. Imperial forces fought and died alongside the Frost Sentinels, with Bregun and Gidon personally leading major engagements.

End of the War

Once the combined imperial and Frost Sentinel forces reached the center of the Northeastern Pass, Thazvaar abandoned the war immediately. The majority of the Northeastern Sentinels fled to Thazvaar, which is the sole reason Thazvaar has a Ngorrhali population. Those who did not flee were wiped out. Caches were destroyed or seized. Remaining Thazvaari ships were sunk. The rail system the Dominion had built for the Northeast was retained. In the matter of seven years from imperial intervention, it was over.

Following the war, Tharyn'Bregun advocated for relay adoption across Ngorrhal. The continent became home to the largest and highest relays on the planet and the center of experimental relay technology. Frost Sentinels were granted their own district in the imperial capital with unrestricted freedom of movement. Northern Pass children were raised in the capital as the Emperor's royal bodyguards, an honor never extended to any other non-imperial people.

When Prince Vaer'gidon and War Chief Tharyn'Bregun later died together fighting Ukhaal Walkers during their bonding trials in Ukhaalstaag, the alliance became permanent. Empress Vaer'yinda commissioned a statue of Gidon and Bregun shaking hands at the entrance of the Sentinel district in the capital.