The Great Wars are a fictional conflict from the Shannara series by Terry Brooks. According to legend, the Great Wars were a result of several things. These things were common to most societies: territorial dispute, political disagreement, and so on. With the publishing of Armageddon's Children, it is revealed that Demons serving the Void (the collective embodiment of evil) started the Great Wars. The origin of the Gnomes is the survivors who fled to the forest. A small percentage of the few survivors of the Great Wars remained unscathed by the mutation. They retained their names as Men.