380YE Summer Solstice winds of war

Overview

As Spring turns to Summer, the Empire is engaged in brutal warfare on multiple fronts. In the west, Jotun and Imperial forces clash in Kharaman, Liathaven, Kallavesa, and of course the Mourn. In the east, the war for the Barrens rages while the Empire struggles to drive the Grendel out of Spiral. In the south, humans and orcs clash in an attempt to secure the liberation of Sarvos. And these are only the most prominent theaters of war. With a new Empress on the throne, there will be little time for celebration as the machinery of conflict continues to grind humans and orcs alike into food for the crows.

The Conquest of the Barrens

The Golden Sun keep their banners flying over Dawnguard, and the Golden Axe fight beside them. The Towerjacks are gone, and in their place marches the reborn Gryphon's Pride at last. Five thousand Dawnish men and women in polished armour, marching under snapping pennants bearing the image of gryphons, a grand profusion of leonine-aquiline beasts rampant, couchant, raring for the chance to lay to rest the tattered spectre of the past. To finally, with the full sanction of the Empire, bring the Barrens under Imperial domination. The glorious core of the army is supported by several cadre of questing knights, each with a wealth of practical experience of the Barrens and its savage inhabitants; and by grim-faced knights-errant ready to risk all for the chance to catch the eye of a noble house.

Supported by the garrison of the Towers of Dawn, the Imperial host launches a series of crushing strikes against the orc outposts around Dryhaven. The Golden Sun fight defensively, ensuring the heaviest armoured and best-shielded troops take the van, slowly grinding their way across the territory toward victory. The ironbound Golden Axe keep pace with them, demonstrating the adaptability and pragmatism that make them rightly feared. Between them, the Gryphon's Pride, methodically ensure that not one inch of Dawnish land remains in the hands of barbarian orcs.

The free orcs of the Barrens stand firm, at first. Scouts bring scattered reports of magical defences - potent nexi of Spring and Night magic scattered across the wild places of Barrens, roused to support the savages. From dripping fen and forest fastness, the orcs fight with savage vigour, inspired by the defensive enchantments.

This is not the only sorcery at work in the Barrens. For another season, the red waters flow in rivers, streams, marshes, and in the shallow bitter sea. Wounds fester. The arts of the physick, the apothecary, and the witch are tested; it is a challenge to keep the injured alive even with the many resources at their disposal. When the rain falls, it tastes of copper and despair. Yet the blight harms the orcs more than it does the humans: the Imperial generals have planned their strategy carefully. Their advance is slow, but it minimizes casualties in the face of the baleful sorcery at work in the Barrens.

The orcs are overmatched. Despite the potence of their magical defences, they are slowly pushed back. The gains they made in Dawnguard over the last year are lost, the households fallen under their yoke liberated, and the remaining nobles and yeomen free to join the battle. By the Summer Solstice, Dawnguard is free, again, of orc influence.

Overmatched ... but not overrun. The Imperial armies continue to push, but their slow advance leaves little opportunity to gain new territory. They begin to slowly force the orcs out of the Carmine Fields, but the barbarians do not yield easily. Those who battle under the banner of the Black Wind seem particularly hard to unseat, especially once the battle presses beyond the borders of Dawnguard. It is as if a new passion ignites in them when they fight to defend the Carmine Fields. As a consequence, the Empire makes only slight inroads - perhaps a handful of villages captured, their population fleeing before the steel-and-mithril of Dawn and the iron-and-fire of Varushka.

By season's end, the warhost of the Empire has recaptured Dawnguard, and established several well-supported outposts along the northern borders of the Carmine Fields.

It seems the conquest of the Barrens has finally begun

Game Information : The Barrens

The Dawnish are now uncontested in their control of Dawnguard. The Empire has made minimal gains in the Carmine Fields, which remain firmly under Barrens orc control.

The Defiance of Sarvos

The fog that has shrouded the Bay of Catazaar for the last year or so fades ... and almost immediately is replaced with a new fog. Those who saw this eerie mist arrive during the Spring Equinox whisper that it did not rise from the sea at all, but rather seemed to drift down from the sky like a cloak of falling clouds. Thick as Marcher broth, it swirls and surges through the streets of Sarvos, and spreads its pale fingers across Uccelini and Bocche and southern Riposi. It spreads like spilled milk along the swollen Gancio to Foracci and settles across the roofs of Rodez and Trivento and Orphan's Haven as gently as it falls on the jewelled towers of the City.

Within the peculiar haze, sound carries strangely - sometimes muffled, sometimes amplified. It brings strange dreams. Visibility becomes ... muddled. It is difficult to tell the difference between orc and human at distances of more than a handful of yards. It is easy to get lost, even for people who have lived in Sarvos their entire lives. How much easier it is, though, for those who do not know the city?

At the same time, news comes from Anvil that the Mayor of Caricomare and the League Assembly have urged the people of Sarvos to rise up against the Grendel. The word travels fast, and it catches the spirits of the League citizens like sparks in dry kindling. It is not clear who strikes first - the fog makes it impossible to be sure. Did the Grendel send their thuggish enforcers to break up a meeting of angry citizens? Did a gang of furious bravos jump an orc patrol after one attempted intimidation too many? It hardly matters. The flame of rebellion ignites across the city, sweeping through the streets like wildfire from shore to shore, from the docks to the towers, from the poorest alleys to the wide avenues around the Diora University.

The Grendel have the advantage of overwhelming numbers ... yet the conflict is by no means one sided. The locals have the advantage of knowing the city, and knowing that they are battling not only for their homes and their wealth but for their Pride. The fighting is savage, vicious, utterly without honour or glory or mercy. In some parts of the city, blood flows in streams into the gutters. The bravos of the League employ all the arts learnt in hard fighting in alleyways and cramped, smoky rooms. The Grendel rely on their discipline and the violence that burns in the heat of every orc. In the narrow streets, the humans have the advantage. In the plazas and squares, and in the wider streets, the advantage is unequivocally with the Grendel. The orcs also have the advantage that it is not their city - they do not care how much damage they do to Sarvos.

Who throws the first torch is another mystery that will likely never be solved, but by sunrise the day after the rebellion begins, several Grendel ships are aflame ... but so are parts of the city. Given the choice between fighting the invaders and saving their city from fire, the citizens of Sarvos make the pragmatic choice to save the city.

After two days of fighting, the Hounds of Glory and the Wolves of War arrive. A heavy pall of smoke mixes with the chaotic mists, tainting everything with the acrid scent of burning wood. As the army prepared to cross the water to the city, scouts bring back only reports that contradict one another and make little sense - the magical mist makes it difficult to get a good idea of the situation on the island of Cigno itself.

The Wolves of War enter the city first, cautious and careful. Through the entire march from Reikos, their sleep has been tormented by hideous nightmares of what they may find - burnt ruins, friends and families butchered or carried away to a life of slavery in the Grendel salt mines, a city sunk into the Bay, a city besieged by behemoth horrors from the ocean depths or even a city simply gone - their waking hours beset with doubts. The grim curse of Agramant works its hateful magic against them, but they are defiant. They are here to liberate the greatest city on the Bay, to fight alongside their brothers and sisters against the barbarians who dared to come and steal the jewels of Sarvos.

The Hounds of Glory waste little time with scouts. Starting at the northernmost point of the city, the Dawnish knights and witches sweep through the streets heading for the docks. Their advance is slowed by the mist, but it is inexorable, triumphant. While the magical fog muffles other sounds, it seems to offer no resistance to the blaring horns of the nobles of Dawn. The horns call the people of the Empire to the hunt, to the war, drawing the defenders to their banners.

The sleek warships of the Freeborn Storm are slowed by the strange fog but not by much. The brazen captains are eager to engage the Grendel navy and many know these waters well. With one eye on the coast and the advancing armies they seek out their ancient enemy - time for payback for the attack on the Madruga shipyards, and for a much older defeat. They expect to face overwhelming odds, a navy perhaps twice their size, even with their own flotilla bolstered by scores of independent corsair vessels, but even so there are no engagements.

The advance of the three forces is oddly almost entirely bloodless. No resistance is offered.

Indeed, no orcs are even encountered until the Imperial forces converge in Caricomare, on the waterfront. There at last signs of invasion. A dozen, unfamiliar, low-lying ships are anchored at the quay. Arrayed along the docks are a little over a thousand troops - orcs with heavy tapered shields and heavy greensteel chain. Orders are given, standards raised ... the orcs prepare to receive the charge ... no quarter is offered or given ... the horns are raised to lips eager to at last set loose the dogs of war ...

At the last moment, desperate messengers manage to get the attention of the captains. Orders are barked. Confusion reigns.

These are not the orcs the armies were expecting to face.

They are a battalion of orc soldiers from the Iron Confederacy, a mercenary band known as the Black Swords Jannissaries, just disembarked from blocky Suranni vessels. Tense negotiations begin; the Imperial commanders meeting with the human captains of the Black Swords. It quickly transpires that these foreign mercenaries were secured by the military council to help with the liberation of Sarvos, to "fight alongside General Tancred de Rondell with the Hounds of Glory" at the behest of Lukash Biessek von Temeshwar, Ambassador to the Iron Confederacy.

A major diplomatic incident has been avoided. Thanks to the discordant fog, the Empire could easily have attacked a force of soldiers here to help.

Avoided? Well ... perhaps only delayed. It slowly becomes apparent that by Imperial definition these thousand soldiers of the Iron Confederacy are not free. They are property - slaves - raised from birth to unquestioningly obey the orders of the humans that own them. There are tricky legal implications here. The Suranni officers appear to be a little disgruntled - they are very aware of the Empire's laws on slavery and claim that they were hired to fight the Grendel in territory outside the Empire. But the Grendel are nowhere to be found and now there are a thousand slave soldiers in the heart of the Empire ...

Once it is clear there are no Grendel, the Black Sword Janissaries return to their ships and depart, before a magistrate can be found to make a clear ruling on the legality of their presence. Perhaps for the best - there are warriors on both sides who would have relished the opportunity to test the mettle of their opponents, and people who have personal reasons to wish to shed orc blood regardless of whether it belong to barbarian or foreigner.

There is a great deal of work to be done in Sarvos, and the presence of foreign mercenaries would simply have complicated the situation.

The uprising has left hundreds dead on both sides, and while the destruction has not been widespread the city has been permanently marked by the revolt. Fires raged through the streets during the fighting; it is only down to the Courage of the citizens of Sarvos fighting the fires that the city itself was not lost. If the Grendel had continued to fight, if they had attacked the bucket-chains and firefighters, then it is likely that key parts of the city would have been consumed in the inferno - especially given the chaos and confusion caused by the magical fog. Instead, the Grendel used the confusion to withdraw to the docks in an orderly fashion and it was the better part of a day before anyone realised they had fled.

The only signs of the Grendel that remain are a handful of warships burned down to the waterline, and the bodies of those slain in the uprising, many still floating in the bay. Along with their ill-gotten gains, they have fled the city en-mass shortly after the rioting began. The story is the same in Uccelini - the Grendel have left, disappearing into the fog that cloaks the shores of the Bay of Catazaar beyond the borders of Sarvos. All that the Empire can be certain of is that their ships have not sailed south-west towards Madruga - even with the magical fog, they would not have been able to sneak past the Freeborn Storm.

Game Information : Sarvos

The Grendel have stripped Sarvos of a large portion of its wealth. Practically nothing has been recovered. The two armies quickly sweep the city, and the surrounding territory restoring Imperial law and order. Sarvos is now unequivocally Imperial again.

The uprising took the Grendel off guard and has inflicted an unknown number of casualties on the armies and navies that had attacked Sarvos. Unfortunately, it has also lead to some loss of Imperial life and damage to the city such that everyone will need to do some rebuilding (a term reduction of the taxation provided by the territory, and to the personal resources of the residents).

Any citizen of Sarvos is encouraged to create their own story of what they did during the two days of confused fighting in the city ahead of the Grendel withdrawal. A number of Grendel were killed, and several ships burnt. A small amount of stolen artwork and wealth was recovered, but not enough to restore the collections of the University or the Cathedral, or the personal connections of the prominent citizens.

Finally, there is no sign of any construction in Cigno - in the city proper. While an area of land was cleared with the apparent intention of building a fortification, no actual work has taken place on such a structure.

Five Colours

There are grand theatres of war, where campaigns rest on a knife edge - The Barrens, and Sarvos for example. There are also other theatres, places where the war is cooler ... or where things that are not quite war are taking place.

Green (Reikos)

Three days after the Spring Equinox, Reikos is invaded.

Not by orcs this time, but by something much more esoteric. A great wellspring of Spring magic pours through the Sign of Tamar. It spreads quickly through Tamarbode, through Broken Tide and Grey Charge. As it spreads, it gathers speed and strength. Wherever it passes, existing Spring regio echo the initial wellspring, and add their own power to the magic. It washes over Longshire and Riverwatch, eddying around the walls of Tabernacle and thence to Haros Water and the ruins of Haros. Finally, it swirls across the ruined walls of High Chalcis, and the Chalcis Mount.

With the magic comes a wave of life and transfiguration. At the forefront, mushrooms, fungus, moulds in a rainbow of colours, creeping and consuming everything broken, everything damaged, everything poisoned. Where they have passed, plants grow with supernatural speed, rejuvenating Reikos at the same time as they tear apart the ruins left by war and Druj occupation.

The waves of magic are accompanied by a legion of the Children of Llofir. They range in size from little ambulatory toadstools no larger than rabbits, through human-sized pallid heralds, to a handful of immense mushroom-shrouded mammoth-sized monstrosities that move with slow inevitability across the land. Few of them can speak; those that can are unfailingly polite, quiet, patient ... and offer no harm to the Highborn, even in defence of their own lives. Instead, where they encounter resistance, they simply wait, patiently, for the defenders to tire. They congregate in ever increasing numbers, sending clouds of spores before them, infesting everything.

Where Llofir's army passes the ruins of Highguard are unmade. Those who had hoped to rebuild their chapters, or recover some tattered reminder of the time before the Druj, must fight for every remnant they wish to preserve. The heralds of Ruin see no difference between a Druj-tainted den and a liberated Highborn village that might be restored. As far as they are concerned, it is all damaged, all sick; it has to go. Luckily for those Highborn who wish to preserve their heritage, several captains had planned to spend this season in Reikos gathering the honoured dead and investigating rumours of dark cults. They quickly adapt to a new challenge - protecting the heritage of the Highborn from gentle unmaking by the servants of the Rot Lord.

Yet there seems to be little malice in this magic. Where the servants of Llofir have been allowed to do their work, they leave a land untouched by violence and the hatred of the Druj. Fresh water, fertile soil, healthy growth. Trees sprout with supernatural speed.

Where four centuries of Highborn industry had left open land ... little by little the Great Forest that once covered Reikos is being restored. Little by little, any sign that there were ever humans, or orcs, or war in Reikos are being removed. Little by little, the hope that Reikos may be left as something other than a shattered ruin grows ...

Game Information : Reikos

The territory of Reikos remains in Imperial hands, but the region of Tamarbode has effectively been conquered by the forces of the eternal Llofir. While the Imperial armies had made some headway into claiming the region over Winter, there is nobody to resist the forces of the Rot Lord when they rise from the Sign of Tamar. It is not so clear what has become of the scattered orcs left behind in Tamarbode ...

As to the rest ... expect to see more information about the situation in Reikos in Winds of Fortune.

Blue (Kallavesa)

The great army of the Jotun does not withdraw. It continues to advance along the coast, slowly spreading out across the Westmarsh, forging routes toward Skymark. The orcs come cautiously - they do not seem to relish fighting in the marshes. yet they are here to conquer, not to raid. Where they encounter Winterfolk, they offer the Choice. Take up arms as Jotun; lay down their weapons and become Thralls; or fight and die a heroic death.

They come to conquer - but not to despoil. Unlike in Liathaven, they keep their fire tamed. The orc godi determine which pools and lakes hold the heroic dead - and the Jotun endeavour to avoid these places. Yet for all their respect they do not cease in their slow advance. Barbarian scouts are sighted in Wittal Grove, and along the road north of Fisk. They ask those they capture about Rundhal and the great road that links it to the Marches.

There is scattered fighting, but the halls of Kallavesa are in no position to offer more than a token resistance. All that stands between them and the conquest of Westmarsh is the magic of Wintermark and the Marchers. The Sussivari Frost Coven and the Circle of the Endless Dark weave the subtle power of Night to raise the marshes themselves against the Jotun. Mists swallow the Rundahl Marshes, and both Kallavesa Marsh and the West Marsh, offering sanctuary to those who flee before the Jotun army - and a base of operations for those who resist. At the same time, the power of the Sherard Hunters wakes the Wittal Grove - the trees themselves resist and entrap the Jotun scouts who venture that far, while protecting and aiding the hunters and warriors who seek to oppose them.

Game Information : Kallavesa

These potent enchantments, coupled with the caution of the Jotun, means that they make no headway their conquest of the Westmarsh. Yet by the same token, the scattered defenders and the hungry waters of Kallavesa have inflicted only minimal casualties on the orc forces.

Black (Karsk and Weirwater)

On the last night of the Spring Equinox, the dead rise in Karsk. Several thousand casualties of the recent war with the Thule, both human and orc, drag themselves out of their graves and begin to march south.

Death has not been kind to them. Many are little more than skeletons - but the magic that animates them fills them with unnatural vitality. Initially at least they seem disinterested in attacking anywhere in particular - they appear to be congregating around the troubled vale of the Dark Heart. There is a hurried exchange of messages between the Thule and the Varushkans, but before any response can be arranged, the shambling cadavers abruptly start to move.

An army of wolves, an army of the walking dead, an army of rotting flesh ridden by flesh-hungry winter spirits movies south-west through Karsk toward Kosti near the shores of the Semmerlak. The inhabitants of the town slam their heavy gates, and take up defensive positions on the wall fearing the worst ... and the unliving host walks straight past them. Without hesitation, they walk into the Semmerlak. Thousands of animate corpses simply walk into the lake and disappear beneath its surface without a trace ...

... only to emerge several weeks later several miles north of Culwich in Weirwater. Panicked yeoman flee south to the safety of the town but again the moribund legion simply ignores them and continues to march south-west. As the Summer Solstice dawns, the army is believed to be moving through Garthmoor toward Applefell. At the current rate they will pass the town during the Solstice ... and if they do not turn aside will enter Semmerholm not far from the Semmerstones a little less than a week after the Solstice.

Game Information : Weirwater

An army of cadaverous warriors are marching through Weirwater; it is hard to estimate how many, but it is certain that they represent a force on the scale of an Imperial army, rather than a military unit. They are not going out of their way to attack the living, but anyone who tries to engage them is mercilessly torn apart (if they are lucky - the marching dead hunger for the flesh of the living after all). There has been some damage to villages and roads, and at least one garrison south of Culwich that attempted to obstruct their passage has been overwhelmed with the loss of at least five nobles and thirty yeomen.

There are reports of a few black standards among them, and of an eerie green glow that accompanies the army after the sun has set, but these are unconfirmed at this time. There is no indication who leads them (if anyone), or what they want, or who has raised them, or what their final destination may be. However, as a non-Imperial force marching through Imperial territory it is likely they will be unable to move more than one territory each season.

White (Reikos)

When the Granite Pillar march to Necropolis to take up defensive positions near the southern coast, the magic of Wintermark supports them. The Sherard Hunters have roused the forests of Highrod to support them. The trees grow thickly around the ruins of the First Sentinel - the broken fortress that once looked north to wild Reikos now serves as a base of operations for those who look south to the waters of the Bay of Catazaar. A second significant force takes positions on Sanctuary Sands, below the bluffs on which the Necropolis itself stands.

The coast itself is still shrouded in the unnatural fog that has clung to the shores of the northern Bay for nearly a year now.

Of the Grendel, there is no sign.

Game Information : Necropolis

The situation in Necropolis has not changed.

Red (Segura)

On the last day of the Spring Equinox, there is a flurry of activity in the Hierro clan encampment south of Anduz. All Imperial citizens are politely asked to leave, and if they do not take the hint, are physically ejected. Over the course of the next week, Imperial visitors are turned away by uncommunicative orc sentinels.

At dawn two weeks after the Spring Equinox, without fanfare, the Hierro break camp.

Despite the fears of the people of Anduz, they do not attack the town but instead march west towards the hills of Reinos. Swift-footed scouts dispatched to follow them say they move unerringly toward the red hills. The garrisons at the Towers of Anduz brace themselves, but the Hierro do not even pause.

The orcs march out of Segura, and there is nobody to gainsay them.

At the very last, a lone orc approaches the Kabalai Palace under a flag of truce. Tall orc, armoured, with braided hair and a proud demeanour, he calls himself the chieftan of the Hierro. His manner is civil, his message is short. He thanks the Freeborn for their hospitality, and the Empire for giving his people the greatest of gifts. They will hold the Way in their hearts, and it will give them strength as they go to face the Choice of the Jotun.

And then he turns and follows after the rest of his clan and is swallowed up by the cloud of red dust that trails behind them.

Game Information : Segura

The Hierro have left Segura, and headed west into the territory of the Jotun. The handful that remain behind have asked to join the Imperial Orcs - they appear sincere enough.