The Emberfall Rebellion
"When the embers rose, and honor burned with them.”
812–814 AR – A war of fire, ambition, and betrayal that nearly sundered the Accord.
Among soldiers and common folk, “Emberfall” conjures images of scorched skies, broken banners, and whispered rumors of what truly happened in the Redoubt.
Alternate nicknames in Caelvaris: “The Ash March” — used among veterans who fought in the volcanic wastes. “The Crown’s Searing” — a more poetic term used in ballads, referencing the cost to the royal family.
Background Context (Pre-812 AR)
Late 811 AR Tensions rise within Caelvaris as noble houses begin questioning Queen Aelira’s firm control over relic research and border defense. Discontent brews especially among the outer provinces, where resources are increasingly funneled to maintain the Seal Vault.
811 AR – The Disappearance of Relics Multiple relics stored within outposts near the Caelvaris–Nyssavren border vanish under mysterious circumstances. The Ember Vigil suspects smuggling, but no evidence directly links foreign agents.
Early 812 AR Lord Verathen of House Cindral denounces the Crown, claiming Queen Aelira suppresses divine will by keeping Ifrexus imprisoned. His followers—later revealed to be influenced by the Cinderborn cult—begin rallying disillusioned war veterans, fringe noble houses, and relic fanatics.
Timeline of Events
812 AR – The Spark Ignites
6th Flamefall, 812 AR Verathen’s forces seize the border fortress of Vaelcross Keep, executing the loyal garrison and declaring the formation of the “True Flame Compact.”
17th Emberwane, 812 AR Prince Dareth is dispatched with a vanguard force and several Ember Vigil operatives to retake the keep. The operation devolves into an ambush. Dareth is presumed captured or slain. Queen Aelira declares full military engagement.
30th Cindershroud, 812 AR – The Battle of Ashveil Ridge. Loyalist troops push into the contested trade routes but are driven back by strange relic-enhanced creatures, later believed to be early-stage Vulkari.
813 AR – A War on Two Fronts
2nd Dawnthaw, 813 AR Reports emerge of unnatural firestorms and spontaneous ignitions spreading through southern farmlands. The Flamekeeper Monastery in Vaelgard is desecrated—its relic vault plundered. Ember Vigil agents track stolen relic fragments toward the volcanic hinterlands.
Mid-813 AR – Political Rift Chancellor Yven Marrick argues for limited use of relics to retaliate. Queen Aelira refuses to sanction experimental relic weaponry, triggering Court division. Tensions rise between the Vigil, the Crown, and the Royal Guard.
31st Emberhold, 813 AR – Siege of Emberrest. Rebel airships—modified through stolen Vhar-Khazi schematics—bombard the cliffside city. A coalition of loyalists and Vigil knights repel the attack but suffer heavy losses. Ser Kallin Dros is wounded during the defense.
814 AR – The Fall of Velkareth Hold
4th Smokesky, 814 AR The Ember Vigil discovers that Verathen has built a ritual fortress atop a dormant lava chamber in the desolate south: Velkareth Hold. Intel reveals the Cinderborn cult has embedded themselves deep in the rebellion and are conducting ritual experiments on unstable relics, attempting to awaken Ifrexus.
13th Pyrefall, 814 AR – The Final Assault on Velkareth begins. Loyalist forces and Vigil agents breach the outer walls while the Queen orders airship support from Ashveil Crossing. Deep within the hold, ritual detonations destabilize the lava chamber.
14th Pyrefall, 814 AR – The Cataclysm A massive volcanic eruption obliterates Velkareth Hold. Prince Dareth is assumed dead in the collapse. His remains are never recovered. The Cinderborn presence seemingly vanishes in the region, and Verathen’s body is identified amid the ruins.
Aftermath (Post-814 AR)
- Queen Aelira declares the rebellion ended and establishes a relief mandate for the southern provinces, though resources remain thin. The ruined lands become known as the Charred Expanse.
- The Ember Vigil expands its authority, establishing permanent relic-monitoring installations across the kingdom.
- Whispers of surviving cultists persist, but the Crown quashes open investigation. Ser Kallin Dros is promoted to Royal Guard Commander, but haunted by the memory of Dareth.
- In 818 AR, five years later, the Ember Crown is stolen, and rumors surface of Prince Dareth’s survival—now changed, fractured, and fleeing with the very artifact meant to keep Ifrexus sealed.
Velkareth Hold
“The Bastion of the Blighted Flame”
Velkareth Hold was carved into the caldera of a dormant volcano and retrofitted with stolen magitek and ancient relics. Its walls bled molten stone during the final battle, when an eruption consumed it in fire and ruin—though some whisper it was not natural flame, but the wrath of Ifrexus bleeding through the veil.
Reputation: Few maps still mark it. Adventurers speak of glowing ruins half-swallowed by the earth, where ash still falls like snow.
Legends say: In the deep chambers beneath the ruins, Verathen’s soul—or something far worse—still stirs, bound in fire-choked chains.
Accounts of the Emberfall Rebellion
“The Flame That Lied”
As told by Ser Kallin Dros, The Flamehound
“We called him Lord Verathen then. A man of bold words, clean hands, and a smile that stirred fire in hearts. Said we’d forgotten the old pacts, that the flame we worshiped was no longer divine. Claimed Caelvaris was built on rot and ash. We didn’t see it—gods forgive us—we didn’t see the cinders in his eyes.
It started with skirmishes—quiet, almost clean. The kind of border dust-ups we’ve seen before. Then came the news from the Blackridge Vale. Dareth… gone. Taken or killed in some cursed ambush while parlaying with rebel scouts. I should’ve been there, but I was chasing ghosts in the south.
Verathen used the Prince's death like a horn blast—claimed the Crown’s flame was failing, that the gods had forsaken us. And then he burned half a province proving his point. His men weren’t men anymore—some of them didn’t bleed, and their eyes glowed like coals. That wasn’t rebellion. That was rot in armor.
The war wasn’t a war, not truly. It was a hunt. His men fought like they’d already burned—cinderblooded. We chased him to the black cliffs, to Velkareth Hold, where the very earth howled beneath our feet.
That last battle… I still hear it when I close my eyes. We cornered him at Velkareth Hold—stone and fire, high on the caldera’s lip. It ended not with a charge, but with the mountain itself screaming. Velkareth cracked open, fire spilled from the gods’ teeth, and the traitor was buried in his throne of ash.
But it wasn’t justice. Not really. Dareth’s memory was barely cold, and already the court spun it into a triumph. But I was there. I saw what he left behind. And I’ve heard the whispers in the flame.
They call it victory. I call it the first sign the gods had turned their backs. Emberfall wasn’t just a rebellion—it was a warning.”
Excerpt from “Chronicles of Crown and Flame: A History of Caelvaran Conflict”
—Volume IV, penned by High Archivist Seranne Thell, Royal Collegium of Caelvaris
The Emberfall Rebellion (812–814 AR) began not with fire, but with loss. Crown Prince Dareth Vaelwyn, heir to Caelvaris, was reported slain during a routine diplomatic envoy in the Blackridge Vale, allegedly ambushed by rebel forces under the banner of Lord Maeric Verathen. His death, confirmed by fragmented witness accounts and the return of his scorched heraldry, dealt a severe blow to national morale and catalyzed rapid military escalation.
Lord Verathen, a minor noble turned revolutionary, framed the prince’s demise as a divine omen, claiming the Crown had lost the favor of flame itself. His rhetoric was laced with quasi-theological justification, invoking ancient relic-rights and forgotten tenets of the Church of Flame—texts later linked to Cinderborn corruption. His forces displayed abnormal magical aptitude and resistance to heat and pain, suggesting experimental use of Primordial fragments.
The war’s culmination came at Velkareth Hold, a bastion carved into a dormant volcanic ridge. As Crown forces prepared final siege maneuvers, a seismic eruption—later classified as a Relic-Wake Event—obliterated the fortress and surrounding land, leaving no trace of Verathen or his inner circle. Despite the devastation, Queen Aelira declared victory, naming the event the "Emberfall", and outlawing unsanctioned relic study under royal decree.
In hindsight, the rebellion’s true legacy lies not in battlefield tactics, but in the questions it raised: the nature of Primordial influence, the fragility of divine relics, and the uncertain fate of Prince Dareth—whose body, notably, was never recovered.
