The Wizard Uprising (c. 880–890 ACC) was one of the most devastating conflicts of the post-Convergence era — not a war between nations but an ideological insurgency that cut across nearly every kingdom on the continent.
Origins
The Uprising grew from a radical faction within the continent’s magic-using communities — primarily Malefici and Metas who had developed an extremist doctrine asserting that non-magical individuals were a corrupting influence on the natural order of Eldunary. Their stated goal was the “cleansing” of the continent: the systematic elimination of all non-magical inhabitants and the establishment of a world governed exclusively by those with magical ability. The faction’s emergence was not sudden — ideological precursors had been circulating in fringe magical scholarship for decades — but its transformation from rhetoric into organized violence was rapid.
At its peak, the Uprising operated across at least six kingdoms simultaneously, with decentralized cells carrying out independent campaigns of violence. There was no single commander, no unified military structure, and no negotiating body — which made it extraordinarily difficult to end. Every kingdom that attempted to negotiate found no one with authority to negotiate with.
The Conflict
The Uprising lasted approximately ten years, from roughly 880 to 890 ACC. The death toll is estimated at six million — a figure that encompasses both the deliberate killing of non-magical civilians and the massive retaliatory violence carried out by kingdom militaries and organized magic-user communities who rejected the insurgency. Many magic users fought against the Uprising, recognizing that its success would destroy the relationships between magical and non-magical communities that made coexistence possible across Criozevan.
The First Fire (c. 885 ACC)
During the height of the Uprising, in approximately Year 885, a settlement on the outskirts of the Republic of Oredsy was decimated by a Scarlet magic user. The attack was total — the settlement was destroyed, and no survivors were left to identify the attacker with certainty. Subsequent investigation by the Crimson Rooks and Butterfly archives established that the Scarlet responsible bore the signature of an individual who would later be confirmed as Anton — his distinctive calling card, a smoldering symbol burned into the ground, was found at the site. This is the earliest confirmed evidence of Anton’s existence and places him alive and active in 885. It also places him, with high probability, among the participants of the Uprising — and potentially among its leaders.
The Collapse
The Uprising ended not through a decisive military victory but through attrition and the defection of key factions. The death of several prominent organizers, the intervention of the three Masters (each responding to the threat independently), and the increasing inability of insurgent cells to operate without exposing themselves to retaliatory force combined to break the movement over the final years of the decade. By 890, organized Uprising activity had ceased. The surviving participants scattered — some publicly surrendering, others going into hiding, others assimilating back into legal magical communities.
Anton went into hiding following the Uprising’s collapse. He did not resurface publicly for over a century. During this period, he maintained contact with at least one operative embedded in the Butterfly organization’s archival staff — an ally from the Uprising who had secured a legitimate position within Butterfly and used it to funnel restricted information to Anton across the following decades.
Velho’s Death (889 ACC)
The Master of Magic at the time of the Wizard Uprising was Velho — a Folkwynd mage of extraordinary power who had held the title since 846 ACC. Velho spent the Uprising attempting to serve as a mediating figure between the insurgents and the kingdoms, believing that the radical faction contained individuals who could be reasoned with and brought back from the extremism if given a credible alternative. He was wrong. In 889 ACC, a mob of more than one hundred revolutionary Malefici raided his home and killed him after he offered them a compromise peace. His death was not a battlefield loss — it was an execution by people he had tried to help. He asked them to stop. They did not.
His death was the single most galvanizing event of the Uprising’s final phase — the killing of the Master of Magic by the very faction that claimed magic users should rule the world. It accelerated the Uprising’s collapse more than any military action.
Velho was succeeded eventually by Veles. The period between Velho’s death and Veles’s ascension to the title is not fully documented.