Schism in the North

The Schism in the North (Lacrean: ⰔⰀⰍⰀⰄⰡⰞ ⰀⰈ ⰤⰔⰀⰍⰁⰀⰐ, Sakadāš az Ēsakban) was a protracted civil war within the Fifth Chotarian Empire lasting from 728 to 760, in which the established imperial court at Kozrat was challenged by a competing claim to the imperial title by a court at Sermorog, a Lacrean city on the coast of Argotea. The war was triggered by a conflict between the Emperor Lēl II with the Grand Commander of the Northern Armies, Urigān, whose sister Imola was fejedelem of the northern province of Hetvend; after Urigān refused an imperial summons to be tried for treason and blasphemy in the winter of 727–8, he staked a claim as Counter-Emperor and was installed by his sister at Sermorog, her court city. Urigān and his son and successor Hohat prosecuted a bitter struggle for the throne with the Emperors at Kozrat, gathering behind them the northern provinces of Argotea and Gergotea, as well as the occasional adherence of other parts of the Chotarian world.

The Schism was a period of grave troubles for the entire empire, as the pivotal conflict in the Chotarian heartland was accompanied by a series of other confrontations in more peripheral regions, including the revolt of the Axiovy prince Sambil of Selbzi in 737–49, the uprising of the Rasheem princes and subsequent Qundi conquest of western Anabbah from 740 to 764, and repeated nomadic incursions, both through Gergotea and across the Cinnabar Gates, throughout the period. The court at Sermorog faced its own internal problems on account of the internecine power struggles among Urigān's family members, particularly after his death in 744, and the court's turbulent dealings with the Gergotes to its north. This combination of events provoked a general feeling that the empire was on the brink of collapse and returning to the depredations of the later Equinox era, a sentiment that sparked new currents of reformist Peribolasm, to be carried into government policy after the end of the Schism. Tarcal I reconquered Sermorog in 760, bringing the Schism to a close, and ordered the city levelled as an exemplary punishment.