Sillisti Purge

While the exact definition is a matter of some debate, the Sillisti Purge refers to the killing of most of the monstrous humanoid population of the Sillisti Mountains in southern Ereba between 978 and 983 FA. Some disagreement exists on the matter of what overlap exists between the Purge and the Sillisti Campaign of 978-79 FA.

Adventurers and the Purge

During the period of the Purge, most of the monstrous humanoid deaths in the Sillisti range were attributable to Ereban adventuring parties and not to the acts of the Legions. Exactly how many monsters were killed is unknown, as most adventurers did not keep records, but estimates of the total killed by adventurers range from 400,000 to 1.3 million, most of these civilians. By contrast, Legion records indicate that the Ereban military killed roughly 80,000 soldiers and 150,000 civilians over the course of the Sillisti Campaign, and about a third as many, mostly in defensive actions and reprisals, over the remainder of the Purge.

These numbers become more clearly disparate when one notes that the strength of the Legions over this period of time ranged from 10,000 at the start to a height of 35,000 in late 979, tapering down to 16,000 by 983, while adventurers never numbered more than 1,000 at any one point in the same period.

Reactions to the Purge

The Purge was wildly popular in Ereba and was looked on with general approval by other demihuman nations. Views of monstrous humanoids at the time generally viewed them as subhuman, barely sentient, culturally irredeemable, and inherently evil. Numerous nations made at least token attempts to drive out the monsters within their borders over the decade following the Purge.

There are indications that the leadership of Ereba, while satisfied with the effects of the Purge, were wary of the large number of powerful adventurers who came back from it. The Ereban adventuring codes that were created during the Purge years, particularly the "enlistment or exile" rules, were a reaction to concern about the dangers of adventurers gone rogue.

Repercussions of the Purge

Many of the monsters of the Sillisti range were not killed, but were driven into the Underdark. There, many of them made alliances with each other and other denizens of the deep, eventually forming into what the Ereban Empire would come to know as the Sillisti Swarm.

Other monstrous humanoid civilizations throughout the world, hearing about the Purge, became more aggressive against demihumans for some time, and in particular the Erebans found that monsters they attempted to conquer would fight far more tenaciously and brutally out of fear of extermination than the demihuman races, who understood that the Empire would accept their surrender fairly. Even after Ereban policies toward monstrous humanoids changed in the late eleventh century FA, most monsters preferred death in battle to joining the empire.

Category:Ereba