Zerkova kidnapped an Iosan god, right? What's the name, and are there any other interesting details about that god?
Get the Mk2 Elven army book and read the history at the beginning of the book. Basic summary:
Elves are chugging along in life, things are great. Gleaming cities, daisies and butterflies.
Elves love their gods so much that they decide to decide to build a bridge to the elven heaven called "The Veld."
It'll be great! They can help us be even better! What could go wrong?
They succeed building the bridge. Sadly.
As the gods came across the bridge there is an earth shattering ka-boom. Literally.
Tens of millions of elves are instantly killed.
The capitol city is gone. Millions more die in the ensuing magical flames.
A small desert is turned into a giant desert (now full of filthy Skorne.)
There is now a crack in the crust down to the core.
Ios is where the remaining elves (1-5%
) fled to out of the burning desert with their gods.
Ios is built up.
Elves start to realize after a millennia or so that they are now subject to old age and disease.
A general malaise sets in.
After 3 or so millennia the gods reveal that they are in decline by being away from The Veld.
There is a barrier preventing easy re-entry.
The gods declare that they are going to try to find a place to get entry back to The Veld.
The gods leave Ios. The elves following the god of winter Nyssor leave Ios. (None of the other elves care.)
700 years later all of the priests go crazy due to disconnection from their god. This is "The Rivening."
Riots, looting, violence follow. All the followers of the war god kill each other and themselves.
The ones for Scyrah quickly recover in a couple of hours.
Soon Elven mothers start infrequently giving birth to soulless children. The frequency slowly increases.
100 years later Scyrah returns as a beautiful older woman, says nothing as she enters the temple and doesn't come out.
Unknown to the Iosians, Nyssor returns to the Nyss at the same time.
Nyssor later encases himself and his sword in ice to slow his decline. The Nyss further reinforce it with a stone vault.
After another ~300 years it becomes public that Scyrah is not recovering, but on her death bed.
The human war to overthrow the Orgoth starts with Thamar's Gift - arcane magic.
Thamar's Gift happened at the same time as The Rivening.
The Retribution does not see the timing as coincidental, and inherent in their beliefs is that all magic is divinely derived. Since the human arcanists don't derive their magic from their dieties (yes, the elves did ask the Monoth priests about this) The Retribution determined that the arcanists are the indirect reason for the Soulless to be born. Kill all of the human arcanists, and everything will be just fine.
The Seekers came about at the same time as The Retribution - they see the timing of Thamar's Gift and The Rivening as coincidental. They think that they just need to collect as much magical and arcane lore as possible, as well as seek out where the other Elven gods just happen to be hiding, and the Elves can come up with a good solution.
Lord Ghyrrshyld (Goreshade) came up through a minor house (House Vyre) dedicated to magic. He had collected magical tomes and writings from pretty much everywhere, was politically very aggressive, and was a deeply inspirational leader in a time when there were no real leaders. He turned House Vyre into a military powerhouse and was in the process of positioning himself to become emperor of the Iosians. His view was not that the human arcanists needed to be killed, but that *all* humans needed to be killed to save the elves. He went from "inspirational leader with a penchant for personally slaughtering all he fights" to "needs to be stopped" when he smashed the skull of his soulless nephew on a marble floor in front of the rest of the elven leadership. An attempt to arrest him turns into a civil war which then leads to Vyros mortally wounding the soon to be eldritch Goreshade.
When the dragon Ethrunbal (Everblight) took over the Nyss, those that were able to escape took Nyssor's case to Korsk and secreted him into the basement of the main Morrowan cathedral. Eiryss found out about all of this after talking to Cylena Raefyll and other Nyss refugees. Goreshade broke in, killed the attendents, cracked into the case, took Nyssor's sword Voass, and was in the process of trying to kill Nyssor with Voass when Eiryss stopped him and chased him out. (Being trapped between a mage hunter and a god that you're trying to kill, with Greylords coming down the hall, you start to consider leaving.) When Eiryss returned to the cathedral she found the Greylord's (Zerkova) took Nyssor. Eiryss went back to Ios and reported about what was going on with the Nyss, Goreshade, and Nyssor. This electrified the Iosians and made them throw themselves behind the (till then "splinter group") Retribution. They also jump-started efforts to reconnect and regroup with any refugee Nyss, bringing them to Ios. Nyssor's vault is recovered and brought back to where Scryah is sleeping.
On page 80 of No Quarter issue 71 there is a 2 page story called "Reborn" told from the perspective of Scyrah. She has been awoken and confronted by Goreshade and a collection of other Eldritch he contacted (after he had snuck back into Ios with a bunch of Bane Riders.) She and Nyssor dispelled the spells that preserved the other Eldritch, but instead of doing the same to Goreshade she realized that he was the only one that could do what she and Nyssor could not do - give the elves a fighting chance at survival. So the goddess of spring and revival forgave Goreshade and returned him to life.
So, does that help the discussion?
) fled to out of the burning desert with their gods.
