The Long War & The Age of Divs

The Dark Time

The Long War was not humanity's first conflict with the Divs, but it was the most catastrophic. Ten thousand years ago, as Némand completed its previous approach, the extradimensional parasites found the cracks in reality and poured through.

Before the War: The Age of Divs

In the time before recorded history, the Divs did not invade—they ruled. Humanity existed as cattle, cultivated for their spiritual energy. The ancient Div-Lords established vast feeding pens disguised as cities, where humans were bred to produce specific emotional states:

• Div-e Sepid's Domains: False paradises where hope was carefully nurtured and then harvested
• Div-e Ahriman's Pits: Torture-cities of engineered despair
• Div-e Nariman's Arenas: Endless gladiatorial combat feeding perpetual rage

This age ended when the first proto-Persians discovered that unified will could resist the Divs' influence. The rebellion was bloody, brief, and ultimately incomplete—the Divs were driven back but not destroyed.

The Long War Begins

When Némand's orbit brought it close again, the Divs returned with vengeance. Humanity had ten millennia to prepare, but the Divs had ten millennia to hunger.

The Militarized World

Society transformed into a vast war machine:

• The Eternal City: Built in concentric rings of defense, each circle a fallback position
• Universal Conscription: Every citizen trained in basic Tier 1 magic and combat
• Safe Zones: Protected districts where civilians could live relatively normal lives—the most precious commodity
• The Wall: Not one wall but hundreds of checkpoints, watchtowers, and barrier-engines

The Army of Mazda

Named for the fading god who led humanity's first rebellion, the Army was more than military—it was a way of life. Soldiers rotated: six months on the Wall, three months in the Safe Zones with their families, then back again.

Most never made it past Tier 1. Magic was not about power but survival—lighting your section of the Wall, powering your shield, keeping your squad's Vapour-Lance batteries charged. Heroism was measured not in kills but in hours held.

The Breach

The catalyst for the Broken Sun's ascension was not a grand battle but a tactical failure. Apaosha, the Drought-Maker, was thought contained in the Northern Wastes. Its sudden appearance at the Eternal City's western wall was catastrophic.

The soldier's unit—wall-guard squad Rostam-7 (named for their sergeant)—was the closest response team. Their orders were simple: "Hold until evacuation complete." It was a death sentence wrapped in duty.

The Holding Action

The squad held for seven hours. Not through superior tactics or magical prowess, but through stubborn refusal to break. When relief finally arrived, only four of the twelve remained: the soldier who would ascend, Rostam, Leila, and Darius.

The evacuation was successful. The breach was sealed.

And when the soldier returned to the Safe Zone, he found that "evacuation complete" had not included his street. The Div's spiritual drain had extended farther than predicted. His cottage was ash. His beloved wife was gone.

The War's End

Paradoxically, the Broken Sun's ascension ended the Long War—not through victory, but through stalemate. When he became the Sun, his light itself became anathema to the Divs. They could no longer fully manifest in the daylight. They retreated to Némand, where the eternal war continues in the shadows between stars.

Humanity won survival. The Broken Sun won eternal torment. The price of peace was one man's sanity, stretched across eons.

Legacy

The Army of Mazda continues, no longer fighting Divs directly but maintaining order and hunting the occasional Div-spawn that slips through. They are paladins now, not soldiers, but they remember. Every recruit learns the Broken Sun's story. Every wall-guard knows: the light above is not a distant sun but a watchful eye.

And when they stand their watch, they whisper the same prayer: "Hold the line. For home."