Winter Riots of 935 RA

The Winter Riots were largely a result of the imprisonment of Flaithe Faolan, after she was discovered as a woman and removed from her position as Mox Master. Citizens of Revelback rose up demanding her release, which King Collium the Constant refused to grant.
The Winter Riots were ended by the king's two sons, Dorreon and Fremman. Fremman, the younger son, would eventually be wed to Miila Sirtal, a Westerner. Most credit is granted to Dorreon, however, who stole Flaithe out of her cell and fled with her to the Fiirwood, where the two were wed in a Deinain ceremony.
Flaithe had acquired some fame before coming to Revelback. After the deaths of her two elder brothers during the Stock Wars, she disguised herself as a man and took a company of men north into Ururudun, where she led several successful sorties along the borders, and reportedly held the Eskiwood for a time before being forced to retreat. Later events would confirm that Flaithe's father, Conric Faolan, was aware of Flaithe's deception but allowed it out of naked ambition for the glory of his family name. Or so observes Genev the Terrible, accurately if uncharitably. Later events would also reveal Lord Conric to be a man consistent with this characterization.
It was these military victories that brought her to the attention of Collium the Constant, a new king looking to replace the aged an inept Lonnach Sorshan, the Mox Master under both Barthos the First and Bennerog the Green Boar, who finally died of his years less than a moon into Collium's reign. Speller Dina would record that the King was greatly distracted solidifying his power, having vied against his own mother for control of the realm during much of his nephew Bennerog's three-year reign. When Flaithe's gender was discovered, about a year into her tenure as Mox Master, Collium's political foes would naturally take a less merciful view of his folly.
When Lord Conric learned of his daughter's imprisonment, he led a sizable company of men across from Dubraigh to Revelback on foot. Some suggest he intended to pick up allies along the way, though if this is so he evidently failed. Pollen the Proud asserts baldly that Lord Ondor Sirtal, the Lord of Dubraigh, had flatly forbidden any ships to carry Conric and his men toward his folly. Whatever the truth may be, Lord Ondor would enthusiastically promote this latter story after the Winter Riots ended.
The King was unmoved by Lord Conric's petition, and similarly unresponsive to his entreaties as a father and his threats as a "great power in the West." Rather than slink back to Dubraigh, Lord Conric and his men set about stirring public unrest. Flaithe's imprisonment was soon depicted not as a matter of women in office of power, but rather as an act against the Siiari and Deinain, both of whom were heavily represented among the peasantry. Muttering grew to shouting, which soon led to violence.
How the Riots began is sadly not recorded, but much that survives suggests that fires and vandalism broke out in several places in a single day, which a surprisingly disorganized city guard was unequipped to deal with. Mox Padrig Finn, captain of the city guard, would be removed from his position in less than a week and replaced by Sir Staeven Timber, who quickly manifested open war against the peasantry. He was strongly supported by Mox Atlan Barkside, a newly arrived Mox Man under Mox Master Harec Elkwood, Flaithe's replacement, and Mox Nodric Vaugh, a member Queen Tuall's personal guard. The Queen was a Sirtal of Dubraigh, and wanted it made clear that the Chief of the West did not support these riots.
The peasants, for all their chaotic violence, had their leaders as well. Central among these were Oghnar Ironhands, a large and muscled indigent whom some called a former smithy, and a tavern magician named Liisha the Lutenist, more often called Liisha the Looter, whom some called a wolfmaid as well. Ironhands was said to have choked two soldiers to death at once, one in each hand, and supposedly stove in heavy armor with his maul, which one garbled story claimed he had set aflame like King Baarach of Beth.
Yet for all Oghnar's ferocity, the true commander of the rabble, if they had one, was the silver-tongued Liisha. Though taught her skills in the beer drains and back alleys of the city, her power to enrage and enliven the peasantry to violence was legendary, and while the vicious Ironhands would fall to Connorog Odon's blade at the height of the violence, Liisha would linger on, evading capture even after the riots were officially said to conclude. Mysterious fires in the late Winter, soldiers on patrol found murdered behind taverns, even a noblewoman's stillbirth were lain at the bloodied hands of this vipress, though Sivan Strider claims her only true talents were seducing and manipulating violent men. Nevertheless, she proved a powerful and enduring figurehead to the rabble.
Due both to his station and his influence over the peasantry, Lord Conric had been given apartments within the Boarsden as Flaithe's release was debated. His refusal to heed multiple warnings to return home would ultimately prove his undoing. Near the end of the twelfth month, the King was awakened by the report that his own firstborn son, Prince Dorreon, and somehow freed Flaithe from her prison and absconded with her in the night. Rosheen Norfall spells that the two had loved one another in secret, and even suggests that this love had led to Flaithe's discovery, a story many lovers and fools enjoy, but the truth of the matter is unknown. A key to Flaithe's cell was discovered among Lord Conric's possessions, and the Chief of Clan Faolan soon found himself in his daughter's cell.
The violence was dying down by this point, but was by no means ended by Flaithe's freedom. Ultimately, the violence was settled by a marriage between Prince Fremman, the king's second son, with Miila Sirtal, granddaughter to Lord Ondor Sirtal. Lord Conric was released and ordered to escort Prince Fremman west to meet his bride. The Prince was granted the title Patriarch of the Siiari and Lord of the West, a title that would hence be inherited not by his children but by the eldest son of Clan Sirtal. Tavern brawls were still more plentiful than normal, and Mox Nodric Vaugh himself was murdered in a back alley (by Liisha herself, some whispered), but the Riots had largely ended by the time Dorreon and Flaithe at last returned to Revelback. When told that his daring efforts to effect peace had essentially been for nought, the Prince responded, "She is fair enough to look upon." Dorreon and Flaithe had wedded one another in a Deinain ritual during their time away from the city. Rather than set the match aside, they would later be married in a Hostly ceremony. Flaithe the False would therefore one day be the Queen of Revellia.
Collium the Constant was infuriated by the Riots, and categorically refused to fund any repairs to the city. Later, as the following Winter approached and many were threatened with the cold, he was heard to say, "Let their fires warm them." This would eventually lead Harec Elkwood to resign his post as Mox Master under dubious circumstance and return to Berleigh, where he would later inherit the chiefdom from his brother Lord Trennon. Harec's replacement, Golbran Oishlog, is a subject of dark history that need not be repeated here.
The Winter Riots of 935 RA are generally considered to have finished in the late Summer of 936 RA, when Liisha the Lutenist was discovered behind a beer drain by none other than Sir Staeven Timber, who had been removed from his position as head of the city guard shortly after Prince Fremman's departure for Dubraigh. Sir Staeven had developed a fiendish reputation for his treatment of the peasants, those who had surrendered arms and even those who perhaps had taken no part in the violence, and though he remained a part of Harec's retinue before his resignation, the man had taken to heavy drink after his dismissal from the captaincy. He brought Liisha to the king, whereupon it was agreed that she should suffer the punishment given to wizards in ancientry. Sivan Strider records that she was disemboweled and burned living on the last day of Summer, in the city square. Nineteen years later, this square would be the site of the High Hostel of Dorreon.

Conflict Type

Battle