The Red War
| Participants | Casualities |
|---|---|
| Dram | 150,000+ |
| Usareik | 25,000 |
| Outcome | Annexation of Dram into the Kingdom of Usraeik, Rekkan becomes the new home of the Dramer race. |
The Incursion
On the 254th day of the 10th Year, Red Era, the Dramer were invaded by a marauding Jarvah army, led by Maximus the Crusader. At this point, they lived in their ancestral homeland of Dram, a small island south of Usareik.
What Dramer sources survived the war claim that the invasion force was over 20,000 Jarvah, one of the largest invasion forces in history up until that point. The Jarvah had not underestimated the Dramer - a usual, and fatal mistake made by most invaders of the Dramer. They were prepared for a lengthy campaign, and led an army of seasoned soldiers. Outnumbered and unprepared, the Dramer could not resist the Jarvah, and by the 260th day, the Jarvah had established a permanent base on Dram.
The Red Massacre
The Jarvah began a vicious genocide against the Dramer, to purge the race they considered to be demons off the earth forever. The Dramer were not allowed to collect their dead, and many bodies were simply allowed wash into the sea. The Dramer could do little to resist the Jarvah invaders, being ill-prepared for such a force.
On the 304th day of the 10th Year, the last Dramer city, Haven, fell, and 30,000 Dramer were slaughtered or enslaved. Their forges, factories and colleges burned, and the Jarvah showed no quarter to any who surrendered. Only Havok, a town on the most eastern edge of the island, remained.
The Flight of the Dragons
200 Dramer Warriors, led by Rekkan Remor, deserted the battle at Haven, fleeing to Havok, with the goal to evacuate as many people as they could. A veteran of the war, Rekkan knew how the Jarvah operated, and refused to see his people wiped out. On the 350th day of the 10th Year, he reached Havok, 10 days before the Jarvah would. Along with the towns people, they left the island on 3 trade vessels, carrying as many people and supplies they could. A total of 2000 Dramer were evacuated, not including the 200 warriors.
The Dragon War
While on Rekkan, the Dramer worked at a feverish pace to establish a defensible settlement. The island itself helped, being extremely defensible in nature, and eventually, a settlement was established inside the crater of the Volcano, which would become Rekkan (city). When the Jarvah finally attacked Rekkan, the Dragon War began. The 200 Dramer Warriors left used the landscape of Rekkan, especially the Narrowing, to their advantage, forcing them into a choke-point, where their magic, traps and technology would be most effective.
On the 101st day of the 11th Year, Red Era, the Jarvah attacked with a force of 10,000 men, but due to the Narrowing, they could only get 10 or 20 men in at a time, where they were ambushed time and time again by archers, oil traps, pit fall traps, and fire. Eventually, the Dramer began to get overwhelmed, however, and were pushed further and further back from the Narrowing, until their advantage was lost.
When the battle began to turn for the worse, Rekkan Remor was filled with a rage that he could not contain. His family, his love, and his life destroyed, he transformed into a Dragon. For a brief moment, both armies stopped the fight, gazing upon the first recorded Dragon Warrior. Then Rekkan began to destroy, consume and burn the Jarvah army alive. Once the threat had past, Rekkan took watch on a small inlet over the Narrowing, where, consumed by the transformation, he turned to stone. The Dragon War ended that day, as quickly as it had begun, and the statue of Rekkan still stands watch over the entrance to the Narrowing.
Aftermath of the Dragon War
The Red War was a great blow to Dramer culture and technology, as the Jarvah were ruthless with their destruction of all Dramer settlements. The Dramer population was also extremely culled, due to the genocide and enslavement of most of the population, though this is lessened during the Jarvah Civil War, which leds to the freeing of 7,000 Dramer slaves, most who go to live on Dram. By the end of the Lords Era, not a single Dramer slave remained in captivity, or alive - around the same time, at least 15,000 Dramer were alive and breeding, and by the 5th Era, the population has recovered to pre-war times at around 150,000.
The Red War directly led the Jarvah Civil War, as well as the formation of the Grey Skins. This not only represented a serious schism in Jarvah soceity, but provided a valuable trade route for the Dramer, and a way for a struggling settlement to flourish into a full nation. At the same time, it made the island of Dram extremely rich, if reliant on the Dramer for that wealth.
The Red War led to the foundation of the Dragon Warriors, and elite group of Dramer soldiers, and the building of the Guardian, a giant, dragon-like machine, called a Ren, that guards the entrance to Rekkan.