The War of Fire was the last war between the Vuurstahl Empire and Vruikt Barr. Fought for the land’s rich mines of ygripetra, the war raged for three years before it was abruptly brought to a decisive end when Vuurstahl revealed its final gambit, a satellite superweapon they called the Mond de Tod, the Moon of Death. The Mond razed Vruikt Barr to the ground, decimating its people and scorching the earth until life could no longer persist. After its firing, the Mond released swarms of combat drones, the Engels de Tod, to pick off any remaining combatants, though they were hardly discriminatory in their rampage. All told, the war killed around 90% of the country’s population, genocide on a scale never seen before on this world.
Horrified by what Vuurstahl had done out of sheer greed, the other nations of the world, led by the republic of Zhellomvend, banded together to form a united front, the Tempestian Union, an international governing body that would ensure a tragedy such as the War of Fire could never happen again. This new alliance, combined with internal unrest stirred up by the war, saw Vuurstahl forced to do that which it had never done before; their military was cut by over 50%, and heavy restrictions were placed on their manufacture of weapons and war machines. Though the Mond’s sheer size and orbit meant it could not be fully disabled or dismantled without potentially catastrophic harm to the world below, the Empire's connection to the satellite was completely severed, with space flights to and from the nation being closely monitored. The systems of the moon were also restricted, with all but its propulsion systems and internal maintenance shut down, left to orbit the planet, a constant reminder of the horrors of war.