Psychic Wars started. Like a joke that got out of hand. No one tells those types of jokes anymore. The three men (and it is always men) gathered their friends and social groups. People of like minds. They gathered amongst themselves. They People tend to forget. There was a time of peace. It was merely three hundred years ago, at the time of writing this. A golden age lasting for two thousand years. There was no war, the only violent threats were the monsters that the Gods put on this world to test us and to make us stronger.
Then came the Psychic Wars. Apocryphal stories indicate that it started over drinks. Almost like a joke. A Sorcerer, a Priest, and a Psychic were in a bar after destroying some un-remembered evil. The drinking lead to boasting. The boasting was about who had destroyed the evil. Whose Powers had been the mightiest. As the night wore on, the drinking got worse, and then it turned to a display of powers. The bar burned. The Age of Strife had begun.
So the first rallied against those whose Power was different. Demagoguery and speeches lead to more fighting.
There are those who said that the Demon, Sithilac whispered in the ears of leaders who should have known better. If so, it was the first time he made his presence felt, but far from the last during the first Psychic War.
Things escalated. Perhaps the rumors of Sithilac's intervention were not as far fetched as I believed. The only people who dropped out were the True Clerics. Some say that they were the true 'winners' of the Psychic War. As if there could be winners in such a bloody mess. The truth of their leaving is up for debate. If you ask a True Cleric, they would say that they were more concerned with the innocents that were being hurt, and in humility they gave up the Psychic War in order to lead the way to peace and save people. Others say that unlike the Psychic Bastion in Riverton or the Arcane Holdfast in Arthic where those were gathered in force, the True Clerics were spread throughout the world, and easy pickings. I think the truth is somewhere in between.
Then it became an all out war between the Arcane and the Psionics. The guerrilla warfare stopped being run-and-gun, and evolved into full scale attacks of massive power. There was little fighting between the two, it was all intermediaries and mercenaries. The self powering Psions had great things to build themselves up, like Psionic War Suits, and the extraordinarily powerful Psionic Weapons whose power burned and ate the soul of those that used them. The Arcanists on the other hand, dabbled in more horrific things, undead being the least of them. The Beastmen, Golems, and the Dread Nanes all acted as the Arcane's shock troops.
However, the Psionic users were almost unassailable. The Arcane became desperate. While they sent shock troops, every once in awhile, one of their brains would burn out. Someone found one of the ancient Elven High Spells. One that had never been used. One created at the worst of the Elf/Orc wars. A spell of ultimate destruction.
It was cast once. It hit Riverton snuffing out the life of everyone in the City. Man, woman, child, halfling, human, Orc, Psionic, and blunt. The accumulated Psionic energy was released in a backlash, tearing down the river to Arthic. In a half an hour, two cities were dead. No one knows how many died that night, hundreds of thousands undoubtedly, potentially a million.
That ended the First Psychic War. It lead directly to the Second. The vast energies that coursed up and down the Quath River ripped open the walls between dimensions. Things poured out from beyond the recognized multiverse. No angels, no demons, no elementals. The Ravening Horde. The few that survived the initial onslaught of energies that destroyed Riverton and Arthic were easy game for the Horde Things.
The Emperor, who had been working to end the Psychic Wars knew as soon as it happened. His closest adviser, Canaan, who was one of the rare people with all three powers had alerted him. The Emperor Colun the first, sent emissaries to the other countries. As the Horde swept across the South of the Empire, Colun I and Canaan gathered forces to drive back the Horde.
The gnomes fell. Their entire country located in the center of the South of the Empire was eaten like wheat before the locusts. It was a tragedy the people never recovered from. It was far from the only tragedy. There are too many to enumerate or even conceive of.
Colun II gathered his forces. Elves, dwarves, orcs, halflings all rallied to his banner against this threat to the world. Other traditional enemies joined in, giants and monsters fought alongside men. The Dragons woke to fight. The True Immortals walked the world adding their great power to the Grand Army. Even Ibn Jad, the True Immortal of the Bastard God had finally committed to a side.
The Second Psychic war was one of meat and flesh against horror. It raged until Colun II took the Empire. He lead the action riding Dragonback that began turning back the Horde. They easily took Riverton and Canaan lead the remaining Psychics, Arcane, Divine to seal the rip in reality.
Few of those Power Users survived the outpouring of energy. Some became undead, like Lord Canaan. Others were left alive, but they were left as husks, living without minds. The Veterans of Psychic Wars lived and continue to do so, requiring no sleep, no food, and not making contact. Those that became undead were lucky, they lost their bodies functionality, but kept their minds.
The final phase of the Second Psychic War lasted ten years, driving out and destroying the Horde Things. The final place they resided was the Great Library of Arthic. With the Horde finally contained, the Psychic Wars finally ended after nearly a quarter century.