Is The Mage War Just Revenge?

by Darcwulf, Staff Writer
Last Updated: Majetag, Fleurgreen 27, 2008

Palanthas - Recent discoveries about certain events leading up to the Mage War, beg the question, is all this death and destruction just the revenge of one grief stricken man?

Finally after five months of open bloodshed and destruction, the Herald has managed to piece together several key incidents leading to the Wizards of High Sorcery's declaration of war on the sorcerers of Ansalon. The pivotal individual in all this is Justarius, the then Head of the Conclave.

"Justarius was a moderate," confirmed Guerrand DiThonn, the red robe currently in of the Palanthas Tower, "Was being the operative word. Like Dunbar Mastermate, he originally believed that we could coexist with sorcerers and was instrumental in getting the Conclave to approve of Dunbar's building the Academy of Sorcery. That changed though when Esme of Fangoth, who was once an apprentice of Justarius at the same time I was, went missing. The last time anyone saw her was when she chased three drunken sorcerers out of Fangoth, the following day she couldn't be found. Her family instituted a search, but when they had no success they approached our orders, so Justarius sent in an investigative team, including his own daughter Jenna."

This investigation resulted in the infamous Fangoth Tragedy.

Arguments still rage to this very day as to who was at fault, but Justarius emerged from this bloody quagmire blaming the deaths of his daughter and former apprentice on the sorcerers. Over the next few months Justarius exorcised most moderates from positions of power within the Orders, only Mastermate managed to hold onto his position as Head of the White Robe.

According to sources inside the Conclave who spoke on condition of anonymity, Justarius even expanded the ranks of the renegade hunters, the elite individuals the Orders train to hunt down those they deem use magic criminally and illegally. He even created a specific subset within the Renegade Hunters to deal with sorcerers, the Primal Annihilators. When not going incognito, Annihilators dress in a dark grey uniform rather than the customary robes, their allegiance is instead symbolized by a simple colored cloth belt. Many Annihilators have limited martial training in addition to their spell casting abilities, some even wielding swords, axes and the like.

"Six months ago Justarius turned loose the Annihilators," continued DiThonn. "Sorcerer propaganda would like everybody to believe he did it out of revenge, but that just isn't true. I knew Justarius well; he just wanted to prevent another Fangoth Tragedy, to prevent other fathers feeling the same loss he did. And Fangoth is not the only calamity brought about by the reckless power of primal sorcery since it's re-emergence at the end of The War of the Lance. When we succeed in wiping the plague of primal sorcery from Krynn it will be a tribute to Justarius's memory."

Is The Mage War Just Revenge?

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