Telling the truth about the past requires recognizing contingency, the ways that outcomes are never inevitable and that people always have choices, could always -- in this case -- choose not to fight. And so as we did with The Bright Ages, Oathbreakers will be told as a series of compelling stories centered around the 830s and early 840s. This is a story about a civil war that no one thought possible but everyone at the time saw coming. This is a story of kings and powerful queens, accusations of witchcraft and adultery, subterfuge and diplomacy, brother fighting against brother as they broke bonds in fidelity to one another in pursuit of power. Each faction thought they were doing the right thing, however, believing only they had the power, the right, the divine mantra to pursue a past vision of unity that they wanted to restore. We will meet poets recoiling in horror, disillusioned warriors recording their bitterness on parchment, mothers writing desperate letters to their sons. We will see in full the emergence of a European medieval superpower that tore itself apart, paving the way for the Viking invasions of the next century, as well as the political fragmentation that would, ultimately, lead to what we know today as Germany, France, and Italy.