Nexa-Vinian War¶
Contested
Named in the open question Nexa-Vinian War and Vinias: the Compendium (S372, S384) dates the war 1864-1895 MA in its history of Numenia and 2270-2271 MA in its regional chronology of South Astia, and has Vinias lead a rebellion in Rhovun in 641 MA, long before the order was founded.
"The backlash against magic-users in human lands was like a tidal wave." — History of Terrun (S386)
The Nexa-Vinian War was the civil war of the wizards and the crusade that followed it. The old Council of Wizards broke apart; the splinter that became the Nexa-Vinian Order gathered the scattered mages, and then under Vinias set out to make magic-users "the rightful ruling class" of the continent. The kingdoms, with the help of the mage-hunters called Vacatori, broke the order's power, and in the purge that followed magic among humans became rare and feared. The newest history dates the war 1864 to 1895 MA, in the Age of Magic.
Also called: the Spell Wars, in the lore of the mage-hunters (S208, S304); the mage revolt (S372); perhaps the First Great Mage War of the Augurs (S536). The Fourth Age remembers it as the schism that made the Acadian Order (S358).
The fall of the Council¶
Before the Shattering the Archwizards had ruled magic through the Worldstone; afterwards their council dwindled. The newest telling (S358, Fourth Age) says the Council of Wizards "fell apart after most of the Archwizards fell in the demon wars (all except one, Lothos)." The older history (S386) gives the end a face: "Now that the council of arch-wizards was down to four, it began to flounder." Bitterly divided, the council saw the arch-wizard Methusial and a large body of followers announce their departure from the Order of Wizards. Civil war broke out. Methusial's "insightful preparations led to early victories that destroyed or imprisoned much of the leadership of the order, including the current head arch-wizard, Erazmius," but Methusial himself was killed shortly after, and the old order was left "scattered and leaderless."
Methusial's two human apprentices, Nexagar and Vinias, stepped up to lead the splinter, which took their names: the Nexa-Vinian Order. They were "largely successful at bringing many of the old wizards into the order and hunting down those that refused," and "brought order and organization back to magic-users. For this, many of the kingdoms were initially grateful" (S386). At its height the order "flourished in the aftermath of the demon wars," directly or indirectly controlling most of the civilized kingdoms (S358).
The schism and the crusade¶
Nexagar and Vinias "differed on their ideas about the wizard's role in society." Vinias "believed that magic-users were the rightful ruling class, the rightful nobility"; Nexagar "favored the idea that wizards were meant to serve and protect" (S386, S358). The falling-out became a civil war inside the order. In the Fourth Age account the schism "created the Acadian splinter (led by Nexagar)," and the mage civil war "brought about an opportunity for the kingdoms to seize back control from the Nexa-Vinians." The Acadians fled the fighting to a remote island, where they flourished and much later became the kingdoms' trusted police of rogue mages; the remaining Nexa-Vinians "were driven into hiding, their name now a curse-word among civilized populations" (S358).
Vinias, with the order behind him, "led the Nexa-Vinians on a crusade to place themselves as rulers of the continent." The Compendium says that "with the full might of the Nexa-Vinians behind him, there was little that could stop him. Every mortal race on the continent would bend their knee" (S372). In the Pictish homeland of the Storm Coast "their legions of Undead destroy every Pictish city state except for Txacali," and undead hordes still roam the Pictish jungle and "return to haunt the now empty cities of their origin" (S372, regional chronology).
The Vacatori and the Spell Wars¶
The counter came from the mage-hunters. "In secret, the elves and dwarves founded the Vacatori, specialized spell suppressors to deal with the magical threat. The Vacatori were extremely successful at countering the mages" (S372). Their art, Mithi'nulias, "an art originally founded with close cooperation between Dwarvish rune-masters and Elvish arcanists," turns Mithis into a negative state that destroys ordinary Mithis on contact. "Mage hunters were widely used during the mage revolt almost 1000 years ago that resulted in a drastic culling of magic-users and magic-using ability among humans" (S372). The lore of Arcane magic remembers the same fighting as the Spell Wars: Spellbreakers, or Vacators, were "originally employed during the Spell Wars" and "have since been outlawed by every magical order," so that only the Dwarves and Dark Elves still train them (S208, S304).1 This wiki takes the Spell Wars to be the Nexa-Vinian War, as the Compendium places them.
The art had a price. After centuries it was discovered that Mithis and Mithi'nulias combined into Chaos magic, Mal'thias, "unpredictable and extremely difficult to control," and that the change was one way; the council of wizards abolished the practice, and the remaining renegade mage-hunters "were eventually hunted down and destroyed or imprisoned by the wizards, elves and their mercenaries" (S372). The elven kingdom of Than'Doriel destroyed a Mithi'nulias academy in Myrkan and carried its books into a vault beneath its temple of Kalar; the Compendium's queen Shynri believes that knowledge "may be instrumental in the defense against and eventual defeat of the Nexa-Vinians."
The purge¶
The power of the Nexa-Vinians was broken. Then "the backlash against magic-users in human lands was like a tidal wave as they were hunted down and killed. Magic-use, once fairly common talent in humans, became rare, and a thing feared by the populace" (S386). Humans came to mistrust the Elves, who "did not purge their casters like the humans," and the Elves were shunned for their magic. "A brutal repression of mages and the civil war decimated their numbers" (S358). Vinias "was the only high level Nexa-Vinian to survive the war, only to be captured and executed many hundreds of years later" (S386); the Compendium notes that he "has been imprisoned and killed several times, but has managed to escape or reform. The source of his immortality is a mystery" (S372). The order itself did not die. In the Compendium's present it has turned to "the establishment of a world-wide mageocracy," and many nations and towns "live under the rule of the Nexa-Vinians" (S372); in the Fourth Age its last adherents are a secret, and a High Acadian Wizard imprisoned for necromancy was "secretly a Nexa-Vinian" (S358, S359).
First Great Mage War¶
The lore of the Augurs remembers a First Great Mage War "which led to the death of millions and the reduction of magic use among humans," orchestrated in secret by the Ghorvallian Conclave, "a small group of Augurs ... whose existence is likely forgotten to almost every book" (S536). The description matches the purge that ended the Nexa-Vinian War, and the two are provisionally treated as the same war here; the source does not say so.
Gap
No source names the battles of the crusade, the kingdoms that fell to Vinias, or how the Vacatori and the kingdoms finally broke the order. The Pictish campaign is the only theater described. Nothing says where the Acadians' island lies in relation to the war's fighting.
Earlier accounts¶
The 2020 history (S386) has Vinias eliminate Nexagar "in a coup" before the crusade. The Fourth Age account (S358, 2026) and the gods-lore of the same year, which lists Nexagar among the Kalari as Lord of Blue Fire (S420), have Nexagar survive the schism to lead the Acadian splinter; the newer reading is followed above. The Compendium (S372, S384) adds that the order "began to move more and more towards the acquisition of power" only "not long after the death of Nexagar," sanctioning necromancy, sorcery and summoning.
The Compendium's chronology of Rhovun has "the Necromancer Vinias" lead a rebellion of wizards against that kingdom in 641 MA, a civil war of fifty years ending in his defeat and the outlawing of magic; its ruins Meraethe Castle, "once the seat of power of Vinias," and the Tower of Ithuil, home of a warlock "allied to Vinias during the War of the Warlocks," belong to that rebellion. Whether this is the same man a thousand years early, a namesake, or a lost draft is the open question above. The dreams of Inwe (S053 to S056) mention "the Nexa-Vinian War" and "the return of the Primal Death Dragon Nexxumar" in one breath as matters discussed at the Shrine of Caerylas in Inwe's youth, which would place the war within an elven lifetime of the Fifth Age Hollowing; the sources do not reconcile this with the MA dates.
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