The Darland Riftwar was an inter-world conflict fought in the province of Darland in the Kingdom of Evenhold between 880 and 885 YA against invading humans from Kelewan. It was the last great crisis that Molinar navigated before his retirement.
The conflict began when Tsurani mages on Kelewan detected a rare planar conjunction with Eamon's material plane and forced opened a large, artificial rift. It opened on 39 Storms 879 in the countryside of Darland southeast of the city of Tharkeld. First scouts, then soldiers and laborers came through, all part of House Keda of the Tsuranuanni Empire. The invaders' were led by Force Commander Irozane who served Lady Nantana, the house's leader on Kelewan. Though they initially pretended to be explorers and traders, they quickly fortified the rift site, grew their forces, seized local property, and started taking captives.
Open war broke out in 880 when the Tsurani encircled and captured the city of Tharkeld, took the governor hostage, and began extending their control into the surrounding countryside. Captured Evenholders were forced into service as workers or taken back to Kelewan as slaves, and more Tsurani continued to pour through the rift. Royal forces halted the Tsurani advance, aided by Molinar and members of the Council of Mages, but the continual flow of fresh troops and supplies from Kelewan (and the magics of their own mages known as the Great Ones) made victory elusive.
Over the next four years the conflict ground down into endless offensives, counteroffensives, and raids that did little to move the front lines, while magical attacks carried out by both side became increasingly intense and sophisticated. Molinar recognized that the Tsurani couldn't be decisively defeated while the rift remained open, so along with Merlin and other mages of the kingdom he devoted himself to understanding its magic. In 885 he succeeded in breaking the rift's connection to Kelewan, severing the invading forces' supply line. The remaining invaders were defeated or surrendered and Tharkeld was liberated.
The surviving rank-and-file Tsurani stranded on Eamon were resettled in scattered areas where they were treated with deep distrust and suspicion by locals, but over the past three centuries they've been slowly absorbed into Addaran culture. The fate of Eamonite prisoners taken to Kelewan is unknown.
In Darland the scars of the occupation and the resulting depopulation and displacement have faded but have not been forgotten.
