The Tousans Heresy
The first of three uprisings caused by the actions of Philip Tousans, better known to history as The Damned Abbott, was fought by the nobility and their peasantry led into heresy by the Abbott's teachings who genuinely believed their actions were just and righteous. Later conflicts would see the Abbott summoning demonic soldiers, and raising corpses to serve as his levy, but in this case his magics were less obviously marked by the Infernal, and he proclaimed them miracles.
The young state of Breutonland, forged from a region newly independent of the collapsing Ulman Empire and now into the reign of its second king, Harald I, was in the grip of endless debates about the structure of its new society. Without the structure of the Empire, the region had, like most, adopted a feudal structure, and with the decentralisation of power many different groups were pushing for dominance. Among these, the adherents of the (originally Ulman) Religio Populi and the older Breuton religion - which acknowledged the same gods but held different rituals and codes of conduct - had begun a bitter feud.
Most people had been worshipping in the Ulman manner for generations, and so the clear majority were in favour of that custom, but among outlying northern regions of the country - those the Empire only had limited interactions with and the new nobility had little time for so long as taxes were paid - tenets of the old faith still held strong. It was this later group that the Abbott was able to recruit from.
In his life as the abbott of a country monastery, Philip spread his Infernal beliefs disguised as a reawakening of the people's ancestry. The cult spread even as Philip 'died' in his monastery, passing at the age of 70. In truth now a Lich, Philip used his magic to blight crops, sicken villages, and otherwise weaken the southern lands of the country. At the same time, he emboldened the northern nobility who had accepted his creed, and even inducted some of them into his true Infernal faith. Within six years of his death, Philip Tousans once again walked among the living, having staged a miraculous "ressurrection", styled in the manner of the Marran Risen Martyrs, and now claiming to be a Divine avatar. Within another year, the northern provinces were in rebellion.
The uprising was a surprise in the south, quickly forcing the submission of many towns extending well into the centre of the country, and the city of Tarce was threatened. If that city had fallen, the war would likely have dragged on for much longer, but when the rebels arrived at its walls Philip was not with them. Without his 'miracles', the rebellion could not force the city walls, and they were forced to settle in for a siege.
The rebels, urged by Philip, had put much of the conquered population to the sword, slaughtering families in the streets and marching on before the bodies were even buried. In many cases, villages were simply burned to the ground. This may have paid off in Infernal power for the lich, but King Harald was able to use it to unify the squabbling factions of the south against the rebellion, as the threat of a crusade against them was enough to get the south to set aside their differences. As such, by the time the rebels reached the walls of Tarce there was already a large force headed towards them.
Philip returned to his host now bestride a flaming horse - something that would become an icon of his in later campaigns - and with his magics invoked an earthquake, which shattered a section of Tarce's walls. However, Infernal power is often indiscriminately destructive, and the damage done to his own army's countervallations - the earthworks a besieging army erects facing outwards to defend against counterattacks - was far more severe. Not a strategist, the Abbott simply withdrew his forces from the earthworks instead of taking time to repair them, and ordered an attack on the city, silencing those nobles who spoke against the decision to abandon the defences with assurances that the gods were on their side.
The defenders fortified the breach as best they could, and the battle began. It was costly to press the attack for the rebels, but with their scouts reporting the approach of the royal army they could not stop, for if it arrived when they were trapped, defenceless, against the city walls, they would be cut to ribbons. Battle raged late into the day, and the defenders still held the wall. Sighting the rebels along the road, Philip tried to take a detatchment of his army to hold them off until the city fell and he could retreat behind its defences.
Harald led the charge against the rebels, who were struggling to man what remained of their earthworks when he arrived. The ensuing clash was a slaughter, as armoured Breuton knights massacred the peasant levy, who broken and ran into the fields. Harald himself confronted Philip, and accounts of the day tell that though three times Philip tried to strike the king with magical fire it slid off his armour like water, and the king charged on through, dismounted, to take Philip's head. In death, the lich's human guise fell away, revealing the rotten corpse he truly was. Even a lich will die if decapitated... for a while at least. Enough that, at the sight of his death and the king's apparently miraculous passage through the flames, the few rebels who had rallied around the Abbott routed. Harald's army fell upon the rebels at the wall, and the slaughter was so great that it is said by those who observed it that less than one in ten of the rebels escaped.
In the aftermath of the battle, the rebellion was done, and reclaiming the land they had taken was mostly a formality. After concluding the campaign, Harald outlawed the old religion, and arranged a punitive inquisition to investigate the northern provinces to root it out. His survival of the Abbott's fire was deemed a miracle, and the priesthood (of whom Harald, as king, was the head) gave him the cognomen "the Blessed".
Despite the victory, Philip was not permanently killed, as the lich's phylactery was still unaccounted for. However, liches are rare creatures, recorded only a few times throughout history, and this knowledge was not even widespread amongst the most dedicated arcane scholars of the time. The Damned Abbott would return again, this time calling up an army of the dead and openly walking as a corpse. Despite this, he would still be able to rally support from the mortal population of the north - a fact many attribute to Harald's brutal reprisals against them.
Conflict Type
Military Campaign
Belligerents
Strength
c. 9,000 light infantry (peasant levy)
c. 100 heavy cavalry (mostly knights)
c. 8,000 light infantry (peasant levy)
c. 500 light cavalry
c. 600 heavy cavalry (The king, the nobility and knights of Breutonland within two days march of Tarce)
Casualties
5,600 - 8,100, estimated
c.700
Objectives
Most believed the goal of their campaign to be to force Breutonland to re-adopt the old faith. In reality, the Damned Abbott wished to spread his Infernal teachings, and enhance his own power through the spread of destruction and chaos.
Put down the rebellion and capture or kill its leaders.
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