379YE Autumn Equinox winds of war
Overview
While there are a number of places where activity of military import is taking place, surprisingly few of them involve clashes of Imperial armies with barbarian armies.
As a consequence of negotiations between the Thule during the Summer Solstice, a peace treaty has been signed ending (for now) the conflicts in Sermersuaq and Karsk. In some paces the Empire potentially gains territory, and in others it the Empire cedes territory to the orcs.
At the same time, there are multiple small engagements on the eastern front. In Holberg the Drakes army are facing angry trees; in Brocéliande, the Black Thorn fight vicious battles again vallornspawn; and in Dawnguard the Barrens orcs launch an unexpected - and unsuccesful - attack.
Meanwhile, in the far south-east of the Empire, the Siege of Fort Mezudan has begin. Highborn and Navarr troops support the Urizen garrison at the fortification colloquially known as "the Fist" and while they manage to show the Grendel adavance, they are not able to prevent the barbarians gaining ground. The campaign against the Grendel continues.
A SOMBRE EXCHANGE
In Karsk, the Thule withdraw
The orcs quit their positions in the hills of Crowslook and Branoc. There is no fanfare. One evening when the huddled humans go to sleep they are under the dominion of the Thule. The next morning, orders come down and the Thule begin to pack supplies and dismantle their camps. Within days they are gone, their forces marching north and west, taking up new positions in Krevsaty. Scouts suggest the fortified camp at the ruins of old Oloy has been greatly expanded; the isolated defenders of the Krevsaty Yelta watch the Thule foraging bands with some trepidation.
Meanwhile, the banner of the Golden Axe flies over Lestazny. The army camps not far from the remnants of the vale of Ivarsgard, down on the shores of the Semmerlak. Ivarsgard is already being reclaimed by the hungry forest. A few companies are dispatched to root out the wolves that have taken up residence in the ruins. and in the empty mine workings - but they do not present much of a challenge for seasoned Varushkan warriors.
In the north, the warriors of the Charnel Lord - Varushkan and orc alike - hold their positions around the Broken Barrow. There is no sign of the unnatural, undying warriors that have fought against the Thule in previous seasons. Raven messengers fly back and forth between the leaders of this enigmatic force, and the Senators and Generals of Varushka. Something is in the air - but the details are not clear at this time.
There are no engagements in Karsk between the Thule and the Empire as Summer lengthens into Autumn. Cautious for signs of Thule treachery, the Golden Axe maintains a solid defence. Injured troops rest, broken equipment is repaired or replaced (to the profit of the miners of Moresvah). More than one captain slopes off to visit the Sovereign's Heart in the ruins of fallen Isember. There is peace - or as much peace as one finds in Varushka.
In Sermersuaq, the Thule advance
Down out of the upper passes, come the Thule, cautious for signs of an Imperial betrayal. They regain the ground lost last season in the ]]Sermersuaq#Silver_Peaks|Stonefields]], and when it is clear that there is no Imperial opposition they move quickly and cleanly to take control of the Ice Caves. They give the retreating Imperial forces plenty of time to quit their positions.
The Green Shield watch from the open plains of East Floes and Suaq Fount, ready to drive the orcs back if they try to move even one inch out of the foothills. The Thule orcs make no effort to push beyond the peaks. The other Imperial armies have already left by the time they take the Stonefield Ice Caves.
The banner of a great white dire-wolf flies over the Silver Peaks now. Perhaps as many as five thousand Imperial soldiers were killed, or maimed, or lost the will to fight in the year since the Thule invaded Sermersuaq. Many of their bodies were never accounted for, lost in the broken canyons and buried beneath stone or snow. Nearly five thousand Thule fell alongside them. Yet there is little sign of the bodies - voracious Spring magic bred flowers from the corpses of the fallen. The Thule will see an excellent bladeroot harvest this year.
There are no significant engagements between the Empire and the Thule, just the smooth surrender of the northern peaks to the orcs. If there is frustration among the Wintermark troops, they use that anger against the enemies they can attack - against the Jotun raiders testing the defences of Wintermark. The Jotun raiders receive a savage beating, abandoning their raids and retreating quickly - just shy of a rout - back across the western borders.
There is peace in Sermersuaq - for now.
Game Information
Thanks to the peace treaty signed by the Imperial Senate, there has been no more fighting between the Empire and the Thule. They have ceded two regions of Karsk to the Empire. Those regions are now effectively neutral, belonging to neither side. A campaign army could move into the regions and conquer them, potentially without resistance. The matter of the troops loyal to the third power in Karsk - to the sovereign known as the Charnel Lord - still awaits resolution ... but that's something we can talk about later.
In Sermersuaq, incontrast it is the Empire that withdraws. The Thule, apparently trusting the Empire to keep it's peace treaty, have advanced into the areas they have abandoned. The region of the Silver Peaks now belongs to the Thule - as do the ilium-producing Stonefield Ice Caves.
The Fog of Peace
There is no true peace on the eastern front, but neither is there anything that could truthfully be called war. Not yet, at any rate. A peace treaty presented to the Senate on behalf of the Druj, and a treaty from the independent orcs of the Barrens, have been rejected. Yet if there is a state of war here, it is founded in uncertainty and confusion.
Angry Trees
In Holberg, Old Tom's Finest mount a spirited defence against the threat of Druj counterattacks, but mostly spend the long Summer days fighting off animated trees intent on tearing down the walls of Holberg. The resourceful Marchers adapt quickly to this threat. For a time it seems as if every axe and hatchet on sale in the markets of Holfried is bought by a grim-faced yeoman to use against the malicious vegetation powered by barbarian magics.
A few bands of orcs still haunt the northern forests - remnants of the scattered Druj armies. The orcs suffer less from the depredations of the angry trees - drawn as they are towards large structures and concentrations of people. Furthe, they flee all contact with Imperial troops, preferring to keep themselves alive through banditry and brigandage. It is a pattern the Empire has seen before. Within a generation, they will have forgotten they were once soldiers and will have adopted the practices of the common cut-throat and ruffian. Young heroes of the Empire will cut their teeth tracking them down and putting them to the sword.
Angry Ettercaps
At the same time, the Black Thorns leave the Empire for the Barrens. With the aid of the Great Forest tribe, their army moves safely from Dawnguard to Murderdale, and into eastern Brocéliande. They skirt the edge of Dark Ranging at speed, using all their skill to avoid direct confrontation with the vallornspawn that hold sway in those twisted woods. Their destination is Elerael, on the border with Reikos. They are quick - but not so quick that the husks, and the ettercap, and the stranger horrors of the vallorn do not claim some of them. Too many perhaps.
Yet news comes to the Navarr left behind, at the Broch and in Boar's Dell, that they have reached their destination. A vicious engagement with insect abominations and a few scattered bands of Druj orcs follows, but by the start of the Autumn Equinox the Black Thorns have driven the invading beasts out of the southern forests. Without the anchors of spring magic to hold it, the miasma parts and recedes again. Elerael is safe - for now - but the Black Thorns are caught between the vallorn on two sides, the unknown dangers of the Great Forest at their back, and the sickness in Reikos to the south.
Angry Orcs
As to the orcs of the Barrens - the Black Wind, and the Great Forest, and their allied tribes of orcs and briar - they launch an attack of their own. When the Navarr have passed through the Barrens, perhaps as many as fifteen thousand orcs move against Drycastle and the Towers of the Dawn. They advance cautiously, their attacks are sporadic and half-hearted and as soon as the encounter concerted resistance they fall back - confused. In each case, they command the Dawnish defenders to lay down their arms - it is clear they expected there to be no resistance. They talk of peace treaties, and seem surprised that their demands for the surrender of Imperial territory in the Barrens are ignored.
The orcs withdraw in disarray, clearly angry. In the confusion, there are a few losses on both sides, and reports of pockets of vicious fighting between orc warriors and Dawnish knights enthusiastic for an opportunity to strike against their enemies under cover of the fog of war. The towers of the Dawn sustain minor damage, but there is no decisive engagement between the Barrens orcs and the Imperial defenders. Not yet, any way.
Game Information
Holberg is still suffering the side effects of Druj magic even though the Druj themselves are gone. Navarr forces have pushed through the edges of the vallorn of Broceliande to secure the untainted region on the southern side of the territory and it is now in Imperial hands again. The business with the Barrens orcs is a lot less cut-and-dried. It seems they hoped to claim the Towers of the Dawn and Drycastle without significant opposition. Once they realised the inhabitants of the Dawnish estates, and the garrisons at the Towers, were prepared to defend their holdings, they soon backed off. Casualties are relatively few on both sides - but even so it is likely there will be diplomatic repercussions here. It's simply to early to say precisely what form they will take.
The Siege of Fort Mezudan
Following the Summer Solstice, the Granite Pillar and the Quiet Step pull out of Reikos and march down through the mountains of Morrow and Redoubt. They cross the eastern border into Spiral, and the sole remaining piece of territory held by the Urizen.
For the soldiers of these two armies, it is as if the sun has come out from behind the clouds. Months of fighting the Druj under the influence of their foul miasma of dread are behind them. Purified of the Reikos flux, and with the opportunity for a toe-to-toe battle with a barbarian army under an open sky ... it is like a breath of fresh air. Now and again, a soldier will simply break into a broad grin or laugh for no obvious reason - it is as if they are surprised by their own ability to feel joy again. They may die in battle at any moment ... but at least they are out of Reikos and away from the horror and despair and the mud.
The Granite Pillar quickly take charge at the citadel known locally as "the Fist" , smoothly slipping into the role filled until recently by the Valiant Pegasus. The Quiet Step immediately dispatch scouts to spy out the enemy positions and get a feel for their likely strategies. The Urizen garrison meanwhile offers what aid they can - and several declarations of thanks to the Imperial Master of Works without whom the castle would likely never have been completed.
For their part, the Grendel forces waste no time in launching their assault into Ateri; their ultimate goal the capture of Fort Mezudan and with it the final vestige of Urizen resistance in Spiral. They push quickly through the outlying foothills. The Highborn and Navarri defenders meet their advance, holding where they can and withdrawing in a disciplined fashion back towards the castle where they cannot.
The Granite Pillar excel in the defence - not only do they coordinate opportunities for the Navarr scouts to sneak past the Grendel lines, but they are able to anticipate the strategy, and blunt the force, of the big barbarian push. Indeed, the fact they are outnumbered seems to play to the strengths of the Highborn troops - their smaller forces are more mobile, and it is clear that their carefully laid down fall-back positions and lines of support and defence give the Imperial forces a significant advantage in the face of an enemy perhaps twice their size.
Still, the defenders are unable to hold the foothills of Ateri. Several spires fall to the Grendel as the defenders withdraw back to the Fist. There they make a stand. A little under six weeks since the negotiations at Anvil, a lone orc emissary strides arrogantly up the road beneath the castle and imperiously demands the surrender of the fort to the Salt Lords of the Broken Shore.
The defenders politely decline to give up their positions.
As the emissary returns to the armies advancing through the hills, great braying horns begin to sound signalling the beginning of the Siege of Fort Mezudan. The Grendel have been preparing for months - battering rams, a siege tower, and heavy catapults are all moved into position while forces possessed of great scaling ladders and grappling-lines push toward the walls under the cover of sustained missile fire. A powerful barbarian orc force fighting beneath banners bearing the image of a dark bird on a white background lead the attempt to storm the walls, trying to force the defenders back with an overwhelming assault. The orc forces are well supplied by their navy, still anchored off the southern coast, and it provides a constant stream of fresh troops to replace those injured in the ensuing battles.
Even behind the reinforced walls of Fort Mezudan, the defenders are pushed to the limit holding the Grendel at bay. The enemy takes advantage of any weakness to press their attack, with the castle and the Granite Pillar suffering the bulk of the damage. Estimates suggest both sides have suffered similar casualties, but there is little doubt that the Grendel have won the first stage of the engagement with the Imperial forces.
Without the Granite Pillar and the Quiet Step, however, there is no doubt the castle would have fallen before the Grendel during the first assault. Still, the orcs of the Broken Shore now control nearly half the region and if they can drive the defenders back from Fort Mezudan nothing will stand between then and complete domination of the territory.
Game Information
The Grendel have won a small victory, but Fort Mezudan still stands. They are a little under half-way through conquering the surrounding area, and are focusing their attention on destroying or capturing the castle. There is no sign of the hostages the Grendel took during the recent consolidation of their position in Spiral.
==The Death of Death==379YE_Summer_Solstice_winds_of_war#Hard_Rain_Falling Whenever someone says "could this get any worse?" veterans of the Reikos campaign will wince and change the subject.
Torrential rain keeps up throughout the Summer months and well into Autumn. The mud is only the half of it - the stinking mud, made feculant and pestilential by the |rampant magic of Spring. Everywhere the waters rise, washing away topsoil, causing tree and ruined chapter alike to become treacherous or deadly. Everything is soaking wet, all the time, and the water is tainted. An apt metaphor for Reikos, perhaps.
Thanks to the Druj sorcery, even the smallest wound may fester gangrenously ... or become an invitation to maggots and flies to burrow under the skin and require amputation. Bad enough on a trek through the woodlands ... but on a battlefield?
Then there is the miasma. The Quiet Step and the Granite Pillar are gone, and new armies have taken their place. The Strong Reeds and the Bounders, hearty men and women who think they understand a rough campaign. The Citadel Guard, concealing their revulsion at the corrupted, corrupting war zone into which they have marched. The Wolves of War, seasoned League troops supported by hard-bitten Varushkan wagon-raiders who have fought the Wolves in Karsk and for whom a few orcs and a little bad weather hold no terrors.
By the time they reach the Valiant Pegasus, sheltering in the ruins of Haros, they have been exposed to the Druj miasma for nearly a week. It is difficult to decide which has the more profound effect on these newcomers - the terrible crushing weight of the miasma, and the rain, and the dark magic ... or the soul-numbed state of the Highborn soldiers when they finally reach them.
One shocked officer mutters that there is little to tell between the shambling Highborn siege engineers and the ]]Quickening_Cold_Meat|shambling unliving corpses]] that accompany them.
Oh, how insightful that seemed at the time. How untrue a comparison it quickly proved to be.
The corpses bolstering the Valiant Pegasus - provided by the darkest magic of the Winter realm - do not last the month. At first the collapse appears to be a few isolated incidents. A corpse here and there ruptures wetly, bloated with internal gases - the preservative magic that keeps their flesh intact no match for the rotting touch of the Rivers of Death. Nobody spots the spores until it is too late. By that time, the fungus has spread through the unquiet dead like the Reikos flux is spreading through the living soldiers ... but where one in ten humans fall seriously ill, all the husks succumb to the spreading fungus that devours their dead flesh. Some of the mushrooms are quite beautiful - eggshell blue, or the gentle flush of delicate rose - others stink to high heaven. It is almost a mercy when the last of the husks splits apart, releasing heavy yellow spores into the air.
The rain is a blessing, in a way - it stops the spores spreading for a start. While they do not seem to be able to find purchase on living flesh, they infest damp leather and canvas if given the chance.
A thousand corpses, animated and brought from Spiral, undone in less than a week, no longer suitable as hosts for the ravenous Winter spirits bound within them. Now unbound ... in a land where death reigns like a pagan king ... where the dead often lie unburied because there is nobody left to dig their graves ...
The first encounters with wild husks occur as the last major enclaves of Druj resistance are rooted out of Haros Water, and the five Imperial armies set their sights on the great citadel of Urith Barath ... of High Chalcis, as was. A few patrols report gaunt and ghoulish figures, some human, mostly orcs, engaged in unspeakable feasts. They flee in the face of armed men and women ... but then return to skulk in the shadows waiting for weakness to strike so they may feed. It is scant consolation, but engagements with these scattered gangs of baleful grues indicate they are physically very weak - and show signs of being consumed by the same fungal spores that riddled the dead flesh of their original hosts.
The road to High Chalcis is marked with horrors. Now and again, the scouts spy a slave encampment. Some are obviously abandoned - the bodies of the slaughtered slaves lying where they fell ... or shambling slowly around their pens ridden by Winter spirits ... these are horrible but easy enough to pass by. Even the wagon raiders accompanying the Wolves of War leave the slave camps untouched (and they are among some of the first to break into ruined or abandoned Druj positions during the slow advance westward).
The worst though ... the worst are the ones where the slaves obviously still live. In some cases, the Druj have withdrawn and not even bothered to put them out of their misery, leaving them to die of starvation (because nobody will die of thirst in Reikos this season), or of the flux. Those are the worst, because the orders are to leave the camps alone, rather than risk refugees that might spread the pestilence of the Reikos Flux to other parts of the Empire. A few Druj guerrillas take advantage once they notice the Imperial troops giving the slave camps a wide berth, and retreat into them when the armies draw near.
The citadel of Urith Barath - a great wall of white granite and black stone quarried and built by slaves. Barbed black iron spikes, and the tattered banners of the chapters of Highguard adorn the walls. One great gate of blackened weirwood, and a field of sharpened stakes, scattered with waterlogged trenches. The walls are garrisoned by pitiless orc warriors, and over it all flies the banner of the stone toad.
It is a terrifying sight, like a vision of some heathen underworld given flesh. Even without the miasma, the thought of assaulting the citadel would be a sobering one. The five armies draw up around the lower hills, over twenty-thousand Imperial troops .. many of them sick in body or spirit from their exposure to this accursed land where once the gardens of Highguard flourished.
The Valiant Pegasus lead the attack, supported by the Marchers, the Urizeni, and the League army with their Varushkan mercenaries. Perhaps this is how the Druj armies in Holberg felt, assaulting the walls of Holfried. The result is not catastrophically dissimilar. Between the Druj miasma of fear, and the rotting, festering magic of Spring, and the savage defence of the garrison of Urith Barath the Empire is thrown back time and again. Over the course of the first two months of the siege, maybe as many as fifteen-hundred Imperial troops are killed, or maimed, poisoned, or broken in spirit so that they simply cannot go on.
If there was any doubt that orcs are untouched by the Reikos flux, the armies of the Empire see ample proof of it during the terrible siege of what was once High Chalcis. The defenders are hale an healthy - while the Spring corruption of the red-running-rivers assails their bodies with the same indiscriminate voracity with which it attacks the Imperials, the Flux finds no purchase on them. Likewise, the three companies of Imperial orcs that fight alongside the Wolves of War remain in good health throughout - not a one of them falls to the flux. It seems this disease is solely for the human enemies of the Stone Toad.
And oh, does it take it's toll! The soldiers of the Valiant Pegasus begin to fall first, and most seriously, but it is an indiscriminate killer. As Autumn approaches, it becomes common practice to take a role call each morning to see who has passed away in the night. Or to find the empty bedroll left by a poor soldier whose death has opened a door for a hungry Winter spirit to find a corpse to wear.
Another two thousand Marcher yeomen, Urizen sentinels, League mercenaries, and Highborn champions killed by sickness. One in ten dead of disease. It is no way for a warrior of the Empire to die.
And in the end? Has it been worth it? Two months of sustained siege has cut the garrison, toppled one of the two central towers, and reduced the strength of Urith Barath by perhaps half - perhaps not so much. The Druj remain inside their walls, hunkered down for a long siege, watching with pitiless eyes as Spring magic and disease do their work for them ... and helping the reaper along a little with their arrows, and their spears, and their poisons, and their spite.
Grim to write, hopefully grim to read. A variety of factors - disease, dread miasma, Spring magic, thunderous deluge, wicked bastard orcs, a giant castle - have left the Imperial troops with significant casualties, and significant damage to the walls of Urith Barath.
Game Information
It's very hard to predict how this situation will develop - the castle and it's defenders have nowhere to go, but the Imperial forces have taken a serious blow to their strength and all five armies are now thoroughly infested with the Reikos flux. The Empire has, however, successfully cleared the Druj out of Haros Water, which means that two regions of Reikos are now in Imperial hands.