The War of the Twins

“Sing, minstrel, of the Twins, Sarna, Render of Cities, and Tivolous, The Betrayer. Sing of their lust for conquest, their mad aspirations to godhood – and yes, sing too of their defeat, won at great cost. But defeat and destruction are not one and the same, so sing too of what came after…”

• Prologue, The Tragedy of The Twins (2022 A.T.)

The War of the Twins is thought to have begun in 1502 A.T., when two elven twins identifying themselves as Sarna and Tivolous made known that they had raised armies of the undead and of infernals. Using these forces, and their own powerful magics, the Twins quickly assailed the nation of Deepwood, starting with the great city of Darkwood, likely in an effort to stem opposition from the powerful contingent of mages headquartered at the University.

From there, the war spread outward, threatening nearby human and elven lands, forcing the retreat across what would later be known as Lake Haro and Lake Ire. Refugees brought with them whatever portable magics and treasures they could muster, in an effort to keep culturally and mystically significant resources out of the hands of the Twins. Over the next nineteen years, the Twins bled forces allied against them, until their apparent assassination at the hands of the Elven dúath warriors, Paragon and Nystula.

The Twins were then imprisoned in the city in which they were fortified when the Alliance made their final stand, as great magics were worked to seal the city against escape by undead or infernal forces, or the twins themselves, and to send it deep beneath the earth.

Immediate Aftermath

Following the War of the Twins, there was a massive effort to keep allied forces and civilians fed. A great deal of otherwise arable farmlands had been destroyed or magically corrupted during the war, so food was imported at great expense from more distant lands, including the territories of the Skrulmiter minotaurs, and the gnomish nation of Whistlewind. Simultaneously, efforts were made to Cleanse the damaged land, and to put down both the undead formerly in service to the Twins, and those that had arisen naturally from horrors of the war.

Simultaneously, while some effort was made to recover treasures lost in the retreat from the Twins’ advances, many were marked as missing, possibly permanently. In an effort to ensure that the Twins were never released from their underground prison, there was a grudging agreement between representatives of the Alliance to strike both the location of the city that held the two warlords from maps and history, and to even censor its name. Many ruins dating back to this time were abandoned when they could no longer be held due to logistical or tactical limitations, some of them with supplies intact.

Where nations had fallen, new nations – some claiming a lineage from their predecessors, and others striking fresh ground – sprang up. The gnomish nation of Detter does not overlap with where the city of Detter had been, but served to honour those that had perished in the city’s defence. The fledgling kingdom of Michian expanded rapidly, using an orderly and martial tradition to reclaim lands lost to the Twins under their own banner. North of Lake Haro and the Ire, a number of human kingdoms formed a bulwark against the expanding Michian, although much of these kingdoms remained wild and unexplored, as more limited means meant that they could not be cleared of peril and blight as thoroughly.

The End of the Twins

In 1999 A.T., explorers, prospectors, and scouts from the Kingdom of Harodom found substantial iron deposits in the area that would become known as the town of Yorik. Simultaneously, they found something else: a massive city, ancient by the standards of humans, haunted by potent undead and infernal forces. Within, the Twins still dwelt, Sarna having become a Lich, and Tivolous, a magically enhanced wraith. In order to justify a garrison, mines were built in the region, in accord with minotaur nomads who had also found the area rich ground for mining.

Over the next twenty years, the Twins, able to send occasional emissaries or manifestations to the surface, battled one another and the adventurers that settled in Yorik. In 2022, these battles finally came to a head, with both Sarna and Tivolous being finally defeated using enormously powerful magic called upon by the Adventurers of Yorik, and it is suspected, the direct intervention of at least one god.

The ‘Undercity’ as it was so called, remained a perilous place, haunted by the taint of the undead and infernals it had housed for centuries. Although many treasures that had been in the City when it had first descended underground were there to be found, the City was a death trap, and most who ventured beneath were not seen again, even with the Twins defeated. Eventually, in 2024, a powerful infernal was locked within the magical trap, and its explosive death levelled the city, destroying all things subject to magic within.

Authored by: Andrew Dunlop
Fantasy Alive Lore Team 2026
Copyright © Endless Adventures Ontario