No one knows for sure what happened then. But word of the original gods about the story of what the Swords fought for spread amongst the general populace, not just in Drahar, but everywhere in the world. Slowly, at first, without attracting too much attention, followers of the original gods became more numerous and the original gods (at this time still exarches) began to amass power. Not all of them understood fully why this was happening, but eventually, even they heard the tale of the Usurper gods, as discovered by the Swords and chronicled by a humble priest of Kord named Simon. They were not pleased, because they started to remember what they once had been, and wanted to be so again.
At some point around 501, the original gods transcended to real gods, and thus began the War of the Gods, 483 years after the Swords died. At first, it was a silent war in the shadows of civilization, a war fought between the faithful. But after only a couple of years, it had become a full-blown, world-spanning war between empires, kingdoms and city-states, but also in the dark corners of the world and in every small village..
The war continued this way for around 14 years, slowly depleting the humanoid resources, and yet, there was no clear advantage to any of the sides. Then somehow, in 515, the real disaster struck. The Ancient Compact was broken, and once again the gods (both new and old) walked the earth again, without restrictions. Without being tempered by the primal spirits who had guarded the world since the Dawn War.
The world was sundered. Cities were destroyed, empires fell, mountain ranges were leveled, seas raised and even the weather was affected. Entire kingdoms worth of people were killed, and it looked as if there would be no one left to worship whoever would win the war.
Fortunately, the war did come to an end. Whatever had kept the primal spirits in check vanished around 521, and suddenly the gods found out what kind of fury and power the World Serpent and the other spirits have. The Usurper gods were all killed, and the original (and new) gods were once again banished from walking the mortal world and sent into the Astral Sea.
So the original gods won. Once again the gods are called Kord, Bane, Pelor, Asmodeus etc, but not much was left to rule, not many people were left to worship them. Draegor is a broken world, filled with smoking ruins where there once was might empires and cities.
The Auran Empire, gone. The Empire of the Keeper (also known as the Ebon Empire), destroyed. Drahar a shattered ruin, etc, etc.
And a lot of those left behind share an arguably strong distrust of the gods and those that still worship them. After all, they did almost destroy the world. Instead, people have come to worship the primal spirits to a larger degree. To them, the Swords were misguided fools who brought on a cataclysm, but to those of us who believe in the gods, the Swords of Drahar are the greatest heroes to ever walk the mortal world. They are the ones that freed us from more than 10.000 years of deception. They are now exarches and saints, standing at the side of the gods (Gnoguh and Saint Carric are exarches of Kord, Gork is an exarch of Moradin, Torn is an exarch of Ioun, Truxas is an exarch of Melora and Tagron is an exarch of Asmodeus). Saint Carric is even attracting quite a following.
It has now been 78 years since the second banishment (the year is 599), and the world is still licking its wounds. People live in villages and small towns, and to my knowledge, no man rules over territory much larger than what you can ride in a day. Monsters are everywhere, and the ruins after an apocalypse hold treasure beyond our wildest dreams. If there ever was a time for heroes, this is it.
Hubertus Maximiliam, Bard Extraordinaire of Laketown, in the year 599
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