After nearly a decade of building political tension and aggressively competitive expansion, the empires of Gehrland and Barid Hold engaged in open warfare for control of the Midlands. The resulting conflict raged on and decimated that region of the world by vastly depleting resources and populations throughout the northern half of the world. Virtually all of the conflict was fought between the Olfassa and Barid rivers, though battles and raids occasionally took place beyond the Midlands region.
The intensity of the conflict varied throughout its six-millennia span and there were decades or even centuries in which little actual fighting took place. But espionage and political sabotage remained active while imperial populations recovered from their losses and the war was considered to still be ongoing. Both nations began to experience rebellions in their outer holdings from settlements that rejected imperial authority and wartime demands. To avoid further domestic implosion, the imperial monarchs of both nations met and signed the Crossroads Charter which officially brought the conflict, and the era it defined, to a close.
