War of the Vestige

The War of the Vestige occured 25 cel ago between the Academy of Deep Sciences and the Church of Embers. The war was short-lived; both sides armed with such immense power that casualties mounted rapidly. It lasted for around a cel, ending abruptly with the Battle of Consequence. It took place in Espeira, across the plains of the Skyeward Steppe, and was located between the Academy of Deep Sciences and the presumed location of the Church of Embers.

Causes
After much investigation of the mysterious deep, the Academy of Deep Sciences deemed transient deep to be too dangerous. Those who experimented with it would often lose their minds, gradually becoming mentally unstable and even physically disfigured. One of the Academy's most talented students Abram Belrand appreciated the potential of transient deep and led an uprising, along with a selection of other likeminded students, against the Academy. Angered at the restriction of the transient deep, they founded the Church of Embers, a place where students could freely investigate the properties of deep, even the transient deep. From the formation of the Church, there was understandably huge friction between them and the Academy.

The Academy made several attempts to outlaw the Church, afraid of the repercussions of using transient. They appealed to the Grand Keep and the Prince to order the closing of the Church, but the Prince's desire to remain unbiased towards two factions he correctly recognised as being potentially highly dangerous kept him from interfering.

Eventually, small groups from the Church began harassing the Academy for supplies, and a member of the Academy struck one down: the final precursor to the war. The Academy decided to act before things got any more out of hand and dispatched all of it's willing scientists to wage war on the Church.

The Battle of Consequence
Many days into the war, Abram realised that the Academy had the upper hand. Their attack has caught the Church off-guard, and though powerful, the Church were far outnumbered. Abram decided that the only way the Church could win the war was if he used all of the deep he could muster in a last ditch attempt to secure victory.

Abram was in intelligent student. He saw the benefits of transient deep, but he was well aware of it's raw power and volatility. He had always been highly cautious when researching and using the transient deep, but now he had decided to cast a most destructive spell. The question was, how destructive? Abram himself knew that his plan involved using a spell that he could not predict the repercussions of. It was a risk he was willing to take. Abram spent the next 4 days and nights taking a very long route around the battlefield, into the edge of the Woods, to avoid detection by the Academy's scientists. After many pillars' travel, Abram found himself behind the amassed army of the Academy. There he cast the Last Spell, an almighty explosion of untamed transient deep that obliterated everything in it's wake. Abram singlehandedly annihilated all of his foes, and to his devastation, all of his own friends.

Impact
The Last Spell has left a huge crater in the ground, stretching for kilometres across the plains - the Great Scar. The deep there is so dense that time itself struggles to flow. Everything caught in the Abram's blast is frozen in time, unable to move unless something enters the Great Scar and moves them. It is possible to freely move into and out of the Great Scar; only those things present at the time of the Last Spell are trapped.

This area is that which was directly affected by the Last Spell, and the Residual Infection is at it's most prevalent here. The Residual Infection causes strange and monstrous abnormalities in the natural plants and animals affected. A few beings that would otherwise become Infected are immune to it, no matter how the Infection has been transmitted - via contact with others or through the air. The Residual Infection has now spread throughout the Continent and it's effects are apparent, spanning the land.