Seer-mursaat war

The Valley of Agony filled with tormented Seer ghosts in the aftermath of the war.

“

War in those days was not for the timid. Makes modern battle look like a child's game...

— Isgarren in A Legacy Damned

The seer-mursaat war was an ancient war between the Seers and the mursaat who had once been allies during the previous dragonrise. Despite being heavily outnumbered by the Seers, the mursaat eventually triumphed against their enemies with the invention of Spectral Agony and decimated the Seers with only a few survivors remaining, building the city of Bava Nisos near the site of their triumph and ushering in an era of mursaat enlightenment.

History

Background

At the Seer leader Sidony's behest, the mursaat and the Seers had joined forces with the other elder races of Tyria—the dwarves, the Forgotten, and the jotun—to fight against the Elder Dragons during the previous dragonrise. However, as the mursaat and Forgotten went to fight the Elder Dragon Zhaitan, Sidony inexplicably withdrew the Seer forces and had Seers focus on forging the Shadowstone and the Bloodstone to seal the world's remaining magic away from the Elder Dragons, while the dwarves and the jotun likewise did not come to the aid of their allies. The resulting battle against Zhaitan led to many Forgotten and mursaat casualties.

Feeling betrayed by the rest of the alliance's lack of assistance, the mursaat refused to give up their magic into the Bloodstone and instead abandoned their former allies by using their shadowcraft to shift themselves beneath the skin of the world, out of phase with Tyria via a shadowed pocket of existence, as a way to escape the Elder Dragons.

Conflict

Once the Elder Dragons had fallen into slumber, the mursaat returned to Tyria and began waging a millennia-long war against the Seers as the mursaat wanted revenge for betrayal as well as to become the dominant species on Tyria. The mursaat numbered in the hundreds and were outnumbered but they nevertheless would fight against the overwhelming Seers for thousands of years.

Since their creation at the hands of the Seers, Sidony believed that the magical weapons Legavo and Mulmund would be essential in the Seers' defense against extraplanar invaders. However, the mursaat would eventually ward their armors against the staves' unique magics, well before the weapons became known as the Scepter of Orr and the Staff of the Mists, respectively.

During the height of the conflict, the mursaat researcher Yagon successfully assassinated Sidony while luring the attacking Seers into a trap in the Valley of Agony in Mistburned Barrens where she unleashed her greatest invention, Spectral Agony which she considered her gift to Tyria, on them. Although the remaining Seers were eventually able to regroup and develop a defense against the mursaat's Spectral Agony, it was created too late in the war, and the leaderless Seers lost. The Seers went all but extinct with only a handful of them surviving although the mursaat also suffered significant losses in the conflict.

Aftermath

The mursaat city of Bava Nisos was built near the site of Yagon's triumph, while the valley remained steeped in endless agony of the tormented Seer ghosts for millennia as Yagon wanted them to suffer for eternity.

Isgarren, despite having been exiled by Sidony before the fateful attack, still chose to avenge his kin's fate. He gained passage into Bava Nisos undetected and killed Yagon in broad daylight in revenge. Yagon was among her peers and family, and the assassination was executed at the height of preparations for the Ceremony of the Rabbit's Moon, catching the mursaat unaware. Although Yagon's mate, Arch Steward Celsa, issued an order to bring Isgarren back alive if possible as mursaat tradition dictated that the final life-breath of the enemy should be gifted to the mate of the victim, Isgarren remained elusive and denied the mursaat their revenge.

See also

• Mursaat
• Seer
• Spectral Agony