The Catalyst of Ambition: The Fall of the Zulkirs

After centuries of rule by the Council of Zulkirs—eight masters representing each school of magic—the internal stability of Thay shattered. Szass Tam, the Zulkir of Necromancy and a powerful lich, decided that the "inefficiency" of shared rule was a weakness. He launched a clandestine campaign of assassination and necromantic terror, utilizing a massive army of the undead that he had spent decades quietly "stockpiling" in the pits beneath Bezantur.

The resulting conflict was not merely a political coup, but a brutal purging of the nation's arcane identity. Tam systematically eliminated the Zulkirs of Transmutation, Evocation, and Illusion, forcing the survivors into a desperate, losing exile. This war turned the fertile plateau of Thay into a scorched wasteland of bone and shadow, signaling to the world that the "Red Wizards" were no longer a mere merchant cabal, but an expansionist empire of the dead.

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