Living Gem War

The Living Gem War was an internal conflict in the city of Schamedar in southern Calimshan that lasted from Eleasias of 1367 DR to early 1368 DR. It centered around the artifact known as the Living Gem.

Background
Shond Tharovin was an adventuring wizard out of Schamedar, with a reputation for insanity, who had sailed to the isle of Ruathym in the to plunder the royal library in the city of Ruathym known as the Green Rooms. There he found the Tome of the Unicorn, which contained the demilich form of Shoon VII, trapped within its pages. He successfully mastered the powers of the artifact and, in the process, survived an encounter with Shoon himself. In exchange for the souls of seven innocents, Shoon promised to tell Shond the location of another powerful magical artifact that he had experience with. On Kythorn 15, the, Shond ambushed a group of mages in the Cloud Peaks, who were traveling from Mosstone to Silverymoon. Shoon devoured the souls of most of the mages, but his final victim, Zallanora Argentresses, was spared by a surge of wild magic. Rather than losing her soul to the demilich, the elven wizard's consciousness traded places with that of Shoon.

Free to act independently of the Tome, Shoon held true to his word and told Shond to seek his prize in "a long-lost temple to the Great Slug, Ghaunadaur, beneath the roots of the Murabir's Woods." After a roughly nine-year-long search in the Forest of Mir,  Shond discovered, twenty miles southwest of the Vorpal Tower, a collapsed cave entrance. After clearing the passage, he found that the cave did indeed lead to a ruined temple of That Which Lurks, and deeper, beyond that, to a similarly ruined wizard's tower. Inside the tower was a glowing, faceted ruby around the size of his own head, levitating under its own power. Prize in hand, he returned to Schamedar in Mirtul of the, boasting of and showing off his discovery. Shond began participating in meetings of the city's ruling council of vizars, always bringing the Gem with him. The councilors all disappeared under mysterious circumstances over the next month, and sometime in Kythorn, Shond declared himself Syl-vizar and Caleph of Schamedar by showing an assembled crowd the magical assassination of former Vizier Artouk Fanzir, suggesting that if the people didn't serve him, the same thing might happen to them.

Events
After this successful coup against the government of Schamedar, Shond set to creating a cult and constructing a temple to get his subjects to worship the Gem as he did. After a couple of months, the leaders of seven villages and towns along the River of Ice, east of the city, declared that Shond and his cult were evil and vowed to stop him. These leaders called themselves the Seven Satraps. After this vow was made, monsters began attacking the rebellious Satraps. They were forced to hire adventurers and appeal to local wizards to defeat the monsters, but the attacks are near-constant and never-ending.

An archmage named Yoond Salshymmyr, in Eleint, decided to cast a powerful curse on Shond but the magic of the curse was so powerful, Yoond lost his life in the casting. The cultists began murdering citizens seemingly at random, trying to enforce the idea that the cult was still in control of the city. The citizenry rebelled against these random killings, attacking the priests. They discovered Shond, cursed into the form of a gibbering mouther, and drove him into the city's sewers. The High Priest of the cult, Ong Thwarba, used the Living Gem to teleport himself out of the city. In response, the Seven Satraps marshaled their forces to attack any cultists outside of the city walls, while those still inside the city started shoring up the walls and hiring mercenary guards to repel any potential hostiles.

By Uktar, Schamedar was under siege by the forces of the Satraps, with the Living Gem flinging spells at the attackers. The siege continued into the following year, until the few remaining cultists escaped with the Gem and went into hiding, allowing the Seven Satraps to take control of the city.