The War of the Mark was a conflict fought across Khorvaire between the nascent Dragonmarked Houses and bearers of aberrant dragonmarks.

Five hundred years before the formation of Galifar, aberrant marks were more common, more powerful, and more dangerous. The first Sharn was destroyed in an earthquake by the powers of aberrant leader Halas Tarkanan, while his consort, another aberrant leader known as the Lady of the Plague, commanded hordes of vermin to destroy cities with disease. In an effort to eradicate these dangerous individuals, the dragonmarked houses united in the War of the Mark and hunted down those with aberrant marks, significantly reducing the numbers of those with such marks and those with marks had much weaker powers: floating instead of falling or summoning fire are among the most powerful powers recorded in the last centuries, nothing compared to the firestorms Darya Blaze was allegedly able to produce.

Those with aberrant marks are no longer being hunted down and killed as in the days of the War of the Mark, but a general superstition and fear of the aberrant marks persists. During the Last War, Breland trained a group of aberrant-marked individuals to carry out a series of suicidal black-ops missions. Eventually the group went rogue and fled to Sharn, forming the group known as House Tarkanan. Since the Day of Mourning, the number of aberrant dragonmarks has begun to increase.