Main > Compendia > History > First Age > Foundation War

Etymology

The Foundation War (Commontongue), also Zulradu (Furytongue \ˈzulrʌˌdu\ for faithless war), earned its name from the stakes of the war: the ability for the Founders to continue with their usurpation of reality from the Titans.

Lore

Lore about the Foundation War is rare and heavily biased. The only living record of the war comes from its survivors, namely the Titans, Dragons, and Immortals. All of these parties have competing values to interpret the ancient events, making credibility difficult to ascertain.

Timeline

All years noted in IR.

OIR 9182: The Foundation War began with the first act of direct aggression by the Founders.
OIR 8626: The last Battle of Shattered Shores occurred.
OIR 8565: Council of Titan's Heart occurred.
OIR 8398: The Final Binding occurred.

Causes

The titans approached Bastion with violence since its arrival, but were unable to effect the fortress. It wasn't until the Founders unleashed an army that meaningful aggression took place between the Founders and the titans.

The Founders had spent over one thousand years studying the titans and their universe. They sent servitors out from Bastion to observe and return with data. Many servitors were destroyed by the titans, but many more returned with insights into their behaviors and personalities. The servitors also found allies among the dragons and immortals who also wanted to dethrone the titans. These allies were promised places of freedom in the new universe that the Founders would create.

Meanwhile, the titans learned almost nothing about the Founders due to the impregnable fortress they hid within and the inability to force information from the servitors.

Once the Founders gathered enough intelligence about their enemies, and once they could coordinated battle plans with their allies, the conflict began with the Founders making the first strike.

Major Events

Everburning Obsidian

OIR 9182: The first violent act in the Foundation War was the Founder strike on the most powerful titan in the universe, Burning Obsidian. This attack was calculated to satisfy a variety of tactical goals:

The battle allowed the Founders to try out their weapon that causes rending, splitting powerful titans into separate pieces. As planned by the Founders, the more powerful the titan, the more effective this weapon, especially soon after the Titan consolidates power through Dominion.
By defeating the most powerful titan in the universe, the total collective might of the titans was drastically reduced.
The removal of Everburning Obsidian created a power vacuum that heightened conflict between some of the more powerful Titans in the Contest Eternal.
The removal of the most powerful titan also caused some of the weaker titans to negotiate fusion in fear, but Fusion also made the titans vulnerable to the Founders' Rending weapon.

Battles of the Shattered Shores

OIR 8626: This marked one of the single greatest milestones in the war, where the raw might of Titans and their massive armies were tested against the strategies and technology of the Founders and their allies. It would be the closest thing to a fair contest the war would see. Pendulum was present at the Battles of the Shattered Shore, and has told this tale to the Gods and the Arcanists, as a caution against the titans ever becoming free.

The Shattered Shores themselves were a fragment of the Titan Maelstrom Deep, who fell at the beginning of this series of battles. Upon this landscape the Founders proved that their strategies, tactics, and technologies were capable of defeating the entire array of titan forces backed by their master, without the tricks of ambushing and Rending the titan before cleaning up their forces.

Council of Titan's Heart

OIR 8565: The titans realized that they were losing the war too late to do anything about it on their own. So several of the remaining Titans convened at a landmark called the Titan's Heart, a traditional peaceful meeting ground. They also summoned the most influential dragons and immortals. They hoped to secure a change in allegiance and discuss a new alliance against the alien Founders.

Had these peace talks succeeded, the Founders may have lost the Foundation War. But it was impossible for the titans to offer any reassurances to the dragons and immortals that they would not continue to be pawns in Contest Eternal. As negotiations began to break down, titans began to blame each other for the failure to win the allegiance of the dragons and immortals, and others simply saw alliance as a lost cause without the help of double agents on their side.

The council ended without an accord, and with deeper divisions between titans from their angry desperation. The war proceeded as it had, toward the inexorable victory of the Founders.

Final Binding

OIR 8398: The last Titan to be defeated and bound by the Founders was Dreaming Meadow. She was surprisingly difficult to defeat, even though she was among the weakest of the titans and the only one remaining. While she did not possess formidable skills of violence, she was cunning, and her powers of sleep and sound proved difficult for the Founders and their allies to unravel. In the end, she surrendered herself to the Founders and was bound without violence.

Consequences

The consequences of the Foundation War were profound and permanent, most of them still impacting the universe today. Some of the major consequences include:

Since the Founders won, they were able to complete their project of constructing the Integrum within the universe, using The Apparatus.
As they cannot be destroyed, the titans were all imprisoned. Most of them were contained within Astral Prisons, their power fueling the expansion of The Apparatus and the creation and function of the Integrum.
Those titans who were too powerful to be contained in Astral Prisons were disintegrated into smaller parts. While the parts were not useful as a power supply, they could be effectively bound and secured.
The dragons and immortals who allied with the Founders were given Integral bodies and were given realms of their own to inhabit. Some allies considered this a betrayal, still an imprisonment, just more comfortable than that of the titans.