The Southern Crusade

The Great Southern Crusade (2553-2555), the name given by the Conoilithians to the Conoilithian Empire's response to the Atenari invasion of Eithlith in the year 2552, was a major military conflict fought between the Conoilithian Empire and its allies, against the Atenari led by the 'witch-king' Selas. It was also the only time the Atenari were defeated and driven out of Eithlith by military might, and the last time the Atenari would attack Eithlith.

BACKGROUND
The Atenari were a powerful and mysterious nomadic nation, who had an extremely war-like culture and would frequently launch invasions of southern Eithlith, sacking hundreds of towns and cities before disappearing into the southern desert with the loot. As a result of their battle prowess, the Atenari achieved legendary status in Eithlith, often described as demons who took the form of humans, and possessed super-strength and a battle-craze which fuelled their bloodlust in combat. The last Atenari invasion had been in 2350, and it had ravaged the Virgandian Empire, the most powerful nation on the continent, which was unable to stop it.

In 2552, the Atenari invaded again; as the Virgandian Empire had collapsed a century earlier at the hands of the Conoilithian Empire, they easily swept away any opposition in southern Eithlith that the Virgandians and local city-states presented. Recognising the threat, the Conoilithian Empire and their allies mobilised their armies for a war to defend themselves from the Atenari, and force them out of Eithlith.

NAME
The Conoilithians fed into the myth that the Atenari were demons, and their leader, the war-chief Selas, was presented as an evil 'witch-king' to the Conoilithian public by the Imperial government. Additionally, as the Atenari were believed to have come from somewhere in the far south, beyond the desert, more extreme sects of the Conoilithian religion, who believed that the source of evil was towards the south, further insisted that the conflict would be a battle of 'good versus evil'. As a result, the war soon took on the guise of a holy war, and it was officially declared as a 'crusade' by the Conoilithian Emperor.