Anarchy of the Five Crowns (concept)
The Anarchy of the Five Crowns was a period of Marcher history regularly considered to be the lowest point in the known memory of Chevalie that lasted from 878 IS to 939 IS. After the maddened High King Thamean reacted to the murder of his son Giliman with madness, having the entirety of the high nobility and their families massacred in the The Brutality, he soon after killed his children and then himself in a maddened display in his throne room. With the death of the High King, his family, the extinction of several of the most important noble houses in Chevalie and the devastation of most others, all law and order in the realm collapsed. The proceeding anarchy left all power in the hands of minor lords and city leaders, who quickly began warring with one another over old debts or attempts to reunite Chevalie.
Five kingdoms eventually emerged from the chaos, though dozens more still claimed independence, and would battle one another for the final twenty years of the Anarchy. Kings of the families of Montegon, Valadec, Illurdian, Den va Pontaget and Den va Seignon families would further torture the land in the war; and the Anti-Magic Orders would regularly join the highest bidder as mercenaries. The war between the Five would eventually culminate in the Red River War, a final conflict between the five which was interrupted by the invasion of the Arch Lich Silas Stavro.
Stavro would get further than nearly any other Lich and reach the interior of Peti Gisredde. He was only stopped by the The Champion of Chevalie, who united the Anti-Magic Orders and pretender kingdoms and then sacrificed themselves to slay the Lich in one on one combat in the Palace of Gisredde.