The Demonite Territories were formed during the wars between the Army of the Astral Sea and the forces of Demons and Devils. The territories were formed from the mortals that sided with the Demons and Devils, even if they just abided the extortion their village or town was subjected to until most of the demons and deviles were driven back to the lower planes. 

The Northern War: A Saga of Two Fronts (Y25-Y79)

Part I: The Twin Failures (Y25-Y31)

When the Army of the Astral Sea launched its grand, three-pronged assault on the Forsaken Demesne, its strategy was fatally flawed. The Southern Front, under the warrior-tactician Captain Krager Galax, was the sole exception. The Northern and Eastern fronts were immediate, unmitigated catastrophes.

The Eastern Front: The Swarm

The Eastern Front was not a war; it was a feeding. The 1,000-strong Aasimar battalion sent in Y25 was not met by a strategic army, but by a voracious, unorganized mass of tens of thousands of Proto-Fiends. At their head, though not truly "leading," was the Proto-Lord Baalzebul, who reveled in the sheer chaos. The Aasimar, expecting a battle, were encircled, torn apart, and consumed in less than two years.

In Y27, the Army, blind to the truth, sent a new Commander and 2,000 more soldiers. They, too, were swallowed by the horde.

In Y30, the Army made its final gamble: a General, a Commander, and 3,000 Aasimar—a full division. This 3,000-strong force was not just defeated; it was devoured. The fiends, gorged on the divine essence of 6,000 Aasimar souls, became an even more terrifying, bloated tide of corruption.

In Y31, the Army of the Astral Sea simply stopped. The Eastern Front was abandoned. It was the single greatest military disaster in their history.

The Northern Front: The Lie

Simultaneously, the Northern Front under Captain Larya Kreev was collapsing. An academic, not a soldier, Larya was outmaneuvered at every turn. In her mobile tent, a scarred Aasimar Sergeant pointed at her arcane map. "Captain, my scouts report thousands. A legion. Belial himself."

Larya, scrying, waved him off. "Your scouts are seeing shadows, Sergeant. We advance."

She was wrong. For five years, she falsified reports to cover her staggering defeats. In Y31, the Proto-Lord Belial , tired of her, advanced with his own legion. Larya's shattered battalion, barely 100 soldiers, was executed. Larya herself was killed, and her corpse animated as Belial's grotesque, undead servant.

Part II: The 'Salvation' Fleet & The Shadow War (Y31-Y66)

In late Y31, the Army of the Astral Sea was in a panic. The East was lost, the North was annihilated, and the fiends were now free to turn on Krager's lone, southern force.

The response was massive. Two new battalions were dispatched to the North, not just to win, but to survive. Their new commander was Narcis First, a veteran Aasimar Cleric of Saery, the God of Justice.

Narcis was not a warrior like Krager; he was a leader of men. He arrived at Larya's blood-stained, ruined camp and found the survivors—not soldiers, but traumatized souls. He knelt by a broken Aasimar veteran who was rocking back and forth.

"He... he made her dance," the soldier whispered, his eyes hollow.

Narcis placed his hand on the man's shoulder. "The body may be broken, but the soul endures," the Cleric said, his voice a calm anchor in the horror. "Saery sees your sacrifice. Now, tell me where the monsters are." He knew he couldn't win this war alone. He immediately began to spot talent, promoting gifted tacticians to be his captains and lieutenants.

He was also given the Special Missions Platoon, an elite 23-person unit led by Captain Phobus Venger, Lieutenant Azreal Rayth, and Lieutenant Eran Sage. This team was his scalpel.

The true war for the North began.

• The Special Missions Platoon spent decades in the shadows. "Lieutenant Sage," Phobus would whisper, "the ritual circle. Can you disrupt it?" Eran would nod. "Azreal, you and your squad have the sentries. We move in three..."

• The Main Army was Narcis's hammer. As a Cleric, Narcis often went into battle himself, not as a duelist, but as a divine support, his holy light searing through the ranks as he healed his forces.

His campaign, led by his empowered captains, was a brutal success:

1. Belial: His first target. After a long hunt, Narcis's army cornered and destroyed the fiend, avenging Larya's battalion. Narcis personally performed the last rites over Larya's recovered corpse, finally freeing her.

2. Fierna: His second target. Close on the heels of Belial's defeat, her forces were routed and forced into Hell's Mountain within weeks.

3. Levistus: This was the longest, most horrific campaign. Levistus didn't just fight; he created atrocities. His forces left horrific tableaus of cruelty, testing the faith of every soldier. Narcis's true battle here was not against fiends, but against despair. He and his fellow clerics spent as much time tending to the souls of his traumatized soldiers as they did to the dead.

4. Bel: In the final years, Narcis's army engaged the Pit Fiend Bel, dealing a devastatingly heavy blow and forcing him to flee south, where he was finally routed by Krager.

Part III: The Eastern Campaign & The Great PSYOP (Y66 - Y79)

By the end of Y66, the war in the North was won. The Special Missions Platoon, their mission complete, was recalled by the Army of the Astral Sea in Y69.

Commander Narcis First was left with his two battalions. But his new orders had come: turn eastward. He was to "mop up" the remnants of the Eastern Front—the voracious, chaotic horde of Baalzebul that had consumed 6,000 Aasimar. The new orders were simple: "destroy them all."

Narcis scouted the horde himself. He saw a roiling sea of fiends, tens of thousands strong. He knew his two battalions, even veterans, would be consumed just as the 6,000 had been. The order was a death sentence.

He would disobey.

In a decision that would define the future of the North-West, Narcis devised a new tactic: the "Funnel." He split his forces and formed a massive strategic wedge, not to fight the horde, but to guide it south, toward Hell's Mountain.

But the horde wouldn't move. It was content to feast on the corrupted land. So, in Y74, Narcis launched one of the greatest psychological operations in history. He had his mages and scouts magically create and distribute thousands of scrolls, written in Infernal and Abyssal, and scatter them across the Eastern Demesne.

The message was simple:

"This plane means your death. Escape to Hell's Mountain where you can be eternal, but bound to the hells."

In Y75, the Proto-Lord Baalzebul found one. He was not a strategist, but he was not stupid. He saw the "Funnel" and the message. He chose eternity. He and a massive chunk of his horde began a great migration, following Narcis's "funnel" south to Hell's Mountain.

His final orders arrived in Y76. They were likely a commendation, or perhaps a reiteration of the "destroy them all" order. Narcis didn't care. He read them in the privacy of his tent, then calmly held the scroll to a candle flame. His lieutenants, entering to get their new directives, watched the parchment turn to ash.

"Commander?" one asked. "Your orders?"

"My orders," Narcis said, his voice heavy with 50 years of war, "are to stand down. The war is over. Go home to your families."

In Y79, Narcis held a final council. The battalions were officially disbanded. His units were to remain in place and serve as local militia. The Aasimar veterans, under no command, simply took over the existing villages (many of them Larya's old camps) and "became people."

This was the origin of the "Great Anarchy." The North-West Demesne became a lawless patchwork of petty fiefdoms, run by veteran-clans. Their children grew up learning to fight the remaining monsters, wondering why their parents screamed in their sleep. It was this chaos that a boy named Caspian Silversky would one day be born to cleanse.