Artula Crake

Artula Crake was a prominent Madduri-Vaalin Shifter, who served in the legions of Vaalus, before leading an unsuccessful rebellion  against the Kassinite authorities in 1214 AK.

Early Life

Artula Crake was born in 1182 AK the city of Cortus, in the southern part of Vaalus. She was a fourth generation Madduri-Vaalin shifter, her great-grandparents having been Madduri auxillaries in the army of Archstrategos Anastasius Lascaris who had travelled to Vaalus in 1138, and settled following Lascaris' Landing  . The shifters of Kin Crake were one of the most prominent Madduri-Vaali clans in Cortus, and were generally held in high regard. Little is known of the specifics of Artula Crake's childhood, though it is recorded that she had enlisted with the Tarlaean Legion in 1199, at the age of seventeen.

The Blight

When the Blight  struck Vaalus in early 1203 AK, Artula was serving as a solider in the Tarlaean Legion's 2nd Cohort. The Legion was dispatched to support the evacuation of Naxoria on the southern border with Terianis, which had been overwhelmed by the Blight as it spread down the Shining River towards the Bay of Naxor. The Second Cohort were initially tasked with patrolling the streets of Naxoria to keep the peace, and with assisting civilians in the evacuation. They became embroiled in a number of skirmishes with Teriani forces after the spire of Tir Pranos, the de facto rulers of the border region, declared that no refugees would be allowed to enter their territory for fear of spreading the Blight further, and sent a significant military presence to enforce the decree.
By the third moon of 1203 AK, it was clear that the situation in Naxoria was unsustainable, and the Second Cohort were recalled to the fortress-city of Tarlaeum. Weeks later, rioting broke out in Cortus as the mutinous Ptelinan Legion seized much of the city's already depleted grain supplies; the Ptelinan mutineers instituted a brutal crackdown against the shifters in the city, who they claimed were responsible for the shortages, killing hundreds and burning down much of the city. The general of the Tarlean legion, Marcus Carbo, refused to dispatch the legion to put down the mutiny without orders from the senate - which had in fact been dissolved  two days earlier by Iuliana Bardanes. At length, the 2nd and 3rd Cohorts of the Tarlaean Legion chose to defy their orders, and marched on Cortus to bring an end to the massacre; Artula led one of the first scouting parties to reach the city, and would eventually report back to general Carbo on the atrocities that the Ptelian Legion had committed there. Those who knew her would later recount that she was never quite the same after that day - for amongst other horrors, almost her entire family had been killed. What became of Marcus Carbo is unclear, though it is said that he relinquished command of the legion shortly thereafter, haunted by the knowledge that he could have prevented the massacre if he had acted sooner.

Reunification

The Tarlean Legion remained in the vicinity of Tarlaeum for the remainder of the civil war, eventually agreeing - albeit grudgingly - to surrender to the authority of the Prefecture of the Light of Kassin. Soon after taking power, the Kassinite authorities passed an edict that banned the public celebration of the Madduri Pantheon, along with all other public religious ceremonies that were not sanctioned by the Light of Kassin; however, cognizant of the need for the support of the military in the crucial early days of the Holy Republic, this decree was not as strictly enforced within the legions as among the civilian populace until 1208 AK, when the Edict of Strictness  mandated that Kassinite chaplains from the Prefecture of the Watchful Blade would be assigned to the legions in order to tend to their spiritual welfare.
This intervention was taken poorly by the Madduri-Vaalin majority legions, including the Tarlaean. Over the next two years tensions increased between the military and the Kassinite administration, leading to an edict  being passed in 1210 AK that mandated that all those of certain ranks in the legions had to be members of the Prefecture of the Faithful Sword; as the Faithful Sword held an absolute bar on accepting shifters, this effectively barred all shifters from the higher ranks of the military. Artula Crake, at this point the commander of the 2nd Cohort of the Tarlaean Legion, was stripped of her rank, and returned to the status of a common soldier.

Rebellion

It is unclear what precisely was the final straw that led Artula Crake to rebel against the Kassinite authorities, though it is generally presumed that it was in response to the increasing religious persecution of the followers of the Madduri Pantheon. In the second moon of 1214 AK, she and an inner circle of other shifters within the Tarelean Legion, most of whom had been dismissed of their command under the Edict of Loyalty  , led a mutiny  against their officers and the Kassinite chaplains that had been assigned to their units. It is said that the two-dozen Tarlean Martyrs were sacrificed to the Black Lion, with some claiming that Artula tore out the still-beating heart of one of the priests and devoured it, proclaiming herself the avatar of Aziz.
With the Tarlean Legion under her control, Artula reached out to the shifter clans in Vaalus, calling for them to rise up under her banner against those who would oppress her. The surviving members of Kin Crake rallied to her cause, along with the clans of Kin Ulim, the Madduri-Vaalin branch of Kin Llyr, and an assortment of smaller clans. By the fourth moon, she had begun to style herself as the High Queen of the Madduri, in addition to the champion and avatar of Aziz.
Artula's forces rampaged across the southern part of Vaalus, sacking Kassinite temples and executing their priests; some lurid accounts speak of them impaling the clerics on spikes, or flaying them alive, all for the veneration of the Black Lion of War. In the fourth moon, they destroyed  the fortress of Leoconium, routing the loyalist forces there and gaining effective control of the southern portion of Vaalus, before beginning their march on the capital. By the sixth moon, they had reached the ruins of Betra, and from there began to march to the coastal town of Pirium - at which point they were intercepted near the ruins of Heraconium by a smaller force of Kassinite paladins commanded by Bythos Kyparissenes.

True Source of Power

Visionary evidence has suggested that Artula Crake may have been influenced by the Eighth Paragon, Lubor an Kaliset, and may have held a portion of the Hunter's Shadow.

The Battle of Heraconium

The precise events of the Battle  of Heraconium remain somewhat unclear, and some accounts of the battle are somewhat contradictory; however it is generally agreed that on the 9th day of the sixth moon of 1214 AK, Artula's army was intercepted as it marched east towards Pirium. The intercepting force, said to be only half the size of Artula's, was led by Bythos Kyparissenes, a Kassinite paladin who would later be canonised as a saint by the Light of Kassin.
It is said that Artula had positioned herself on a patch of high ground just to the north of the ruins in order to be able to oversee the entire battle. The Kassinites harried the flanks of her advancing army, but the sheer weight of numbers made it clear that Bythos' paladins would not be able to turn the tide of battle. Certain of her victory, Artula is said to have joined the fray herself, cutting down a dozen heavily armed Vaali soldier without sustaining a single wound - but then, a miracle occured. As the Kassinites fell back, she is said to have strode out in front of her army, calling to the Black Lion to witness her triumph - and that suddenly, her powers failed her. Moments later, she was engulfed in a beam of blinding white light that seemed to descend from the heavens, burning to ashes in a matter of seconds - and at the sight of this act of divine intervention, her forces routed, and were massacred by the Kassinites as they rallied against the insurgents.
Visionary evidence has suggested that a hither-to unknown organisation known as the Star of Hope, who appear to have been somehow affiliated with the Oath of Night, fought against Artula at Heraconium, and that it was their intervention which stripped her of her power. Almost nothing is known of the Star of Hope, though their members are thought to have presented themselves as Kassinite paladins.

Aftermath

No body, nor spoils of war were ever recovered from Artula Crake - for it is said that the light of Kassin scoured them to nothingness, and scattered her ashes to the four winds. With her death - and the decisive evidence of the divine might of Kassin - her rebellion crumbled within weeks. By the end of the year, the majority of those who had followed her into battle were dead or had surrendered to the Kassinite authorities. Of those who surrendered, many were summarily executed without trial; the rest were either enslaved, or sent into the Desolation in the First Crusade of Penitence  - from which none ever returned.
Whilst not all Madduri-Vaalin communities had stood with Artula - Kin Rhanis, for example, being among her harshest critics - the Kassinite authorities nonetheless decreed them all to be culpable. The efforts to suppress the worship of the Madduri Pantheon were redoubled; whereas the law had turned a blind eye individuals venerating the Madduri gods in private, such things were now to be punished with the harshest of measures. The use of the Madduri language was outlawed  ; those suspected of involvement with the insurgency (even on the flimsiest of evidence) were sentenced to indentured serviture; the property of many shifter families was confiscated; and the shifter clans were declared heretical organisations  , all in a concerted effort to extinguish the Madduri-Vaalin culture and bring the shifters into compliance with the Light of Kassin. Furthermore, following the example of the Prefecture of the Light of Kassin and the Prefecture of the Faithful Sword, all the extant Prefectures in Vaalus expelled all shifters who had been granted membership, and banned them from affiliating with them - effectively barring them from the practice of most skilled trades, and forcing many into poverty. Within a decade, the Edict of Correction  would be passed, splitting up shifter families and removing their children to be indoctrinated.

The View from Without

Whilst within Vaalus, Artula Crake is seen as an idolator, murderer, and traitor of the worst kind, her reputation further afield is more nuanced. Various chroniclers have debated the extent to which her rebellion could be seen as having contributed to the suffering of the Madduri-Vaalin. Whilst some have made the claim that had she not rebelled against the Kassinites many of the later edicts aimed at crushing the shifters would never have been implemented, most agree that the trend towards further oppression of the shifters would probably have continued regardless.
A highly fictionalised account of her life and downfall, The Tragedy of Artula the Lion, was briefly popular in the Northern provinces of Aldernord in the 1320's. Written by the playwright (and later war-hero) Martino di Vega di Triponzo, it drew countless parallels between the Kassinite authorities and the High Houses of Aldernord, presenting Artula Crake as a tragic but heroic figure, taking a stand to preserve her culture from those who would oppress them. The play was considered seditious and banned, with several performances in the cities of Baletto and Triponzo leading to mass arrests and rioting in the years just prior to the Triponzo Revolution.

Species

Shifter

Ethnicity

Madduri-Vaali

Honorary & Occupational Titles

Daughter of the Lion
High Queen of the Madduri
First Spear Centurion, 2nd Tarlaean

Life

1182 1214 32 years old

Birthplace

Cortus

Place of Death

Heraconium

Pronouns

she/her

Belief/Deity

The Black Lion

Aligned Organization

Kin Crake

Other Affiliations

• Holy Republic of Vaalus