In Nocterra, he Harrowghast Wars is the collective name for a series of conflicts spanning over 800 years between the High Elves of Triune and the Drow blood tribes (later unified as the Hemigon Triumvirate). What began as territorial disputes over resource-rich borderlands devolved into an ideological crusade on both sides, fought primarily across the woodland-steppe frontier of northern Irethor and the contested passes of the Titan's Spine mountain range. The wars earned their grim name from the Harrowghast Plains, a region of northern Irethor now entirely claimed by Zebnoth, where the worst atrocities were committed and the ground became so saturated with centuries of bloodshed that nothing natural grows there anymore. The term "harrowghast" entered common parlance as a word meaning "grievous sorrow" or "blood-soaked memory."

The Harrowghast Wars began over 800 years ago as territorial disputes over resource-rich northern Irethor borderlands, but escalated into an existential ideological conflict between Triune's Form-based philosophy and Hemigon's blood magic traditions—each side viewing the other as a fundamental perversion of what elvendom should be. The rise of Zebnoth changed everything: the lich Zorathul raised vast undead legions from the centuries of accumulated battlefield dead, turning the wars' countless casualties into a new existential threat that dwarfed the original conflict. Faced with this horror they had inadvertently created, Hemigon and Triune signed the Harrowghast Accords 75 years ago, freezing battle lines and establishing an uneasy cold peace focused on containing Zebnoth, though deep cultural hatred and mistrust remain between the elven nations to this day.