A war? I think that [I]I[/I] need to confer with the summary in the OP.
...
Okay, I've confirmed that the summary has absolutely no mention of a war - not even the Rodorian civil war, which I would have assumed was where the idea came from - so I can talk pretty easily without contradicting it. There is no outright war going on, though, except the civil war, but aside from Pelgaid recently hiring some mercenaries to for additional guards during the wedding, none of the dukes have the desire or funds to take on hired blades like that (particularly not freelancers who are not even part of a larger band) (I realize this was not what suggested, I merely eliminated the chance preemptively). As for clashes, actual skirmishes between the ducal armies are pretty rare, with the most recent one being the Seclyrian attack on Nemhim City (which was both well out of the way of where any of the characters are at the moment, [i]and[/I] happened before your character left in the first place.
The only other major conflict going on would be the Crusader's Guild destroying the Anaxim Forest, which resulted in the near-annihilation of both the attackers and the defenders, where surviving defenders would likely have been burned along with the forest and surviving crusaders would have gone with their leader to escort him back to their base.

As for a better idea of the world; Shien, shall we make the link to the Compendium public? (Even though I still have no idea how to edit anything on there and thus haven't had the chance to do so.)