The Last War is not ancient history. It ended two years ago. Depending on your character's age, it's either the world they grew up in or the world that shaped everyone who raised them. A century of continental warfare doesn't fade that fast. It lingers in border checkpoints and missing family members, in the way a Karrn stiffens when she hears an Aundairian accent, in the empty chairs at tables across the Five Nations.
King Jarot ir'Wynarn, the last ruler of a united Galifar, died in 894 YK. Tradition pointed to his eldest daughter, Mishann of Cyre, as heir. His other children — each governing one of Galifar's five provinces, each commanding armies — disagreed. None was willing to kneel. A dynastic dispute became skirmishes, then campaigns, then a full-scale civil war lasting a hundred and two years.
It wasn't one conflict so much as a rolling catastrophe. Alliances formed and fractured. Borders shifted by the decade. Nations that entered the war as Galifaran provinces emerged as something else entirely — the Eldeen Reaches broke from Aundair, Valenar elves carved a homeland from Cyre's south, Darguun's goblinoid mercenaries turned on the nation that hired them and kept the land, Droaam declared itself under the Daughters of Sora Kell. The map of Khorvaire was redrawn in blood, then redrawn again, and again.
Generations were born into the war, fought in it, and died in it without ever knowing peace.
Not with victory. With horror.
On the 20th of Olarune, 994 YK, the nation of Cyre was annihilated — a wall of dead-gray mist rolled across its borders in a single day and swallowed everything inside. No warning. No explanation. No one has ever claimed responsibility. The Day of Mourning killed millions and left behind the Mournland, a blighted waste where natural and magical laws no longer apply.
The remaining nations stopped fighting almost immediately. Not because they'd resolved anything, but because the Mourning proved the war could produce consequences beyond anyone's ability to control. If it could happen to Cyre, it could happen to anyone. Two years of negotiation produced the Treaty of Thronehold in 996 YK — formalizing borders, recognizing new nations, and declaring that no one would sit on Galifar's throne again.
The broad strokes are common knowledge: succession dispute, century of war, the Mourning ended it, Cyre is gone, the treaty drew new lines. Every citizen of the Five Nations can recite some version of this.
What circulates less openly: the scale of war crimes committed by every side. Cannith's creation forges. Karrnath's undead legions. Experimental battle magic nobody discusses in polite company. The degree to which the dragonmarked Houses profited by selling services to all belligerents simultaneously. The espionage networks that have never been fully dismantled.
The war's public narrative is cleaner than the war itself ever was.
The Last War shaped nearly everyone in Khorvaire. Your character has a relationship with it, whether they fought or not.
Maybe they served — as a soldier, scout, medic, or magewright attached to a military unit. Maybe they dodged service and carry guilt or defiance about that choice. Maybe they lost someone. Maybe they profited. Maybe a shifting border put their home in a different country overnight. Maybe the skills they learned don't translate to peacetime, and the silence feels worse than the fighting ever did.
Some questions worth considering:
Which nation did they support?
Do they believe the peace will hold?
Are there things they did during the war that they haven't told anyone?
Do they still flinch at loud noises, or do they miss the clarity of knowing exactly who the enemy was?
The war ended two years ago. The treaty says so. Whether your character believes it is between you and them.