Carral the Pityfull

Many moons, and even more suns ago, the lands we live in today were in ruins. War raged across the land. From one side, the evil empire was fighting, their legions slaughtering our brave warriors without remorse. From the other side, there were monsters coming down from the mountains. Great ice beast, called down by the evil witches of the Empire. But our land was divided and it needed unity to withstand these trying times. The kings and queens of the lands stood with their swords pointed at each other. Brothers fought against brothers, and fathers against sons. The land had to be united, but who would do it? Kaswick the Hornmaker was there to answer the call. He was ten feet tall, and a warrior all his life. He knew that the lands had to be united before they could win this perilous fight they were in. So he made a horn. he slew the giant ram of Tonnedon. When he blew the horn, it sounded so loud, it could be heard all over the world. The sound of the horn made people look up from their petty squabbles and their useless fights, and join under the banner of Kaswick. Together they fought and defeated the evil empire and all its evil creatures. And the kingdom was united and will be for many moons yet to come.
~Exerpt from a 3rd age Mesantian children's story~

A preface to war

In the late second era, as the Empire of Dah crumbled, and a wave of disease, unrest, and war raged across the land, a noble in what we now know as Mesantia had an idea that would shape Mesantian history forever. Since Mesantia was one of the first regions to detach themselves from the empire, there was still a lot of resistance to this from imperial forces. Both in and out of the region. Battles were fought, and armies were slain, but in the end, the empire was too powerful for Mesantia to take alone. The detached region was about a lot smaller than the kingdom is today, but it shared culture and identity with a lot of small neighboring regions. These would, although hesitant about supporting the failing empire, not jump to the aid of the Mesantian rebels. So one of the nobles that led the resistance, had an idea. There aren't any firsthand accounts of the process, but the noble, Kaswick made a horn embedded with ancient runes that would unite the regions of Mesantia under his banner. If this was real magic, nobody knows. In my opinion, it was probably just a giant placebo, but it worked nonetheless. The upper regions of what is now Mesantia and the northern part of the Republic, united under his banner and kicked the empire out. In time the horn was lost and after the empire fell, the kingdom fell apart too.
The third era is often called the "age of severance". It's a fitting name, one that describes the coming and going of kings and queens, and the constant state of war that the Hearthlands were in, pretty well. It was a few centuries later when the Horn of Kaswick was needed again. In the year 515 3E, the mighty city of Ostaras fell. With the city, The Dominion fell too, and the era of Snow-Malen was over in the North. This brought unrest and migration with it. The humans of the north, left the Snow-Malen alone well enough, but these Malen still had nowhere to go. They ended up all over the western part of the North, but not all were lucky enough to find a place to live. Some took to the mountains in the south, which in turn brought strife between them and the Grittmen that had made that place their home. Dozens of small clans and tribes of Grittmen lived up there, and the coming of the Snow-Malen who had shunned and banished them for millennia made for a ticking timebomb that could erupt at any moment. And it did. On the second day of the new year, 543 3E, tensions rose up too high, and fighting erupted. Two big Grittmen clans, calling themselves the Nation of Fists and the Blood Cradlers teamed up on a Malen tribe. The Malen were vastly outnumbered, but like most wars concerning Malen, they won through tactics and experience. A few more tribes rallied behind them and together they defeated not only the aformentioned Grittmen clans, but a bunch of others as well. Around 40.000 Grittmen were expelled from the mountains. Men, women and children were all on the run, looking for a place to live. Only one place like that existed, the region of Mesantia. The Grittmen are a hard people. They fight their entire lives, but only see leadership in strength, not in wisdom and experience like the Wood-Malen. The Grittmen living in the northern mountains know how to survive without much food, farmland, trade, or even water. But to make your way through mountains in the middle of winter while you lead a group of 40.000 thirsty and malnourished people, a good portion of which are children, is something even the fiercest Grittman dreads.

Rise of a Hero

An average Human warrior can't go toe to toe with a Grittman, that is just a fact of life. So having 40.000 Grittmen at your doostep, is not something to be taken lightly. Mesantia wasn't a single organism at this point. It was broken up into many different feudal lords and city states. Some more powerful than others. And each of them with full autonomy. Some were smart enough not to antagonize the Grittmen, but some, if not most, were too stupid to see the real danger. The Grittmen had their backs against the wall, and with that, any attack would be twice as dangerous. After tensions rose too high, and skirmishes turned into raids on trade routes, which turned into small battles, the rope that held their relations together snapped and all the bad blood flowed out like water from a broken dam. The Grittmen lashed out hard against the Mesantians. Dozens of villages were looted and razed, while multiple keeps and one town, Barregat, were captured in one night. The Grittmen now had a foothold on the Mesantian lands and would be extremely hard to get out.
This all continued for two more years. Slowly more lords fell to the Grittmen, who'd had a taste of conquering and had been carving out a really big piece of land for themselves. As their territory grew, so did their population. Their brothers and sisters who were still living in the mountains of the north looked at the southern "state" with envy. Within two years, the Grittmen presence had grown to almost 60.000 Grittmen. The Humans were not working together to quell the thread. Each would stand against the Grittmen as an individual, which made them easy pickings.
Like in so many wars before, the solution was uniting the various lords and houses to fight the thread. This is what Carral thought too, a young steward at Bogston Keep. In the years that followed the eruption of conflict, he saw what standing alone against the Grittmen could do. When the last of the Bakrtar Family died without leaving an heir, he jumped to power in the keep. It was a small castle, with very little land surrounding it, but it would be the staging ground for a big operation that the people here would later call the march of paragon. Carral the Pityful, would go to one of the nearby castles or palaces, and get some forces to fight the Grittmen. From there, he would tangle a bit with some smaller warbands, taking minimal casualties, and then returning to the aforementioned keep or castle to ask for more troops. After a while, he had a large army behind him. Some 4000 spears, 500 of which were horsemen. Some accounts say he had twice that in archers, for he knew how much devastation they could cause on the Grittmen. But in reality, although he did exploit this weakness very well, he only had about 2000 archers. His first battle was what was going to make or break the whole operation. Carral was a smart man, he knew that a win would win over many more lords and noblemen of the surrounding lands, but that a loss would suck all the confidence they could ever have in him away. He carefully planned the Grittmen troop movement and made sure to find the perfect target to battle. The Grittmen, who were as arrogant and oblivious as ever, had at this point, split their forces up into large armies that each marched into enemy lands on their own. They are competitive, and so they were very easy to lure into a trap. The Grittmen have fast and powerful outriders, which would have been a problem for Carral, so he choose a long canyon as his battleground. He hired a plethora of mercenaries, mostly cavalry and archers to support his troops, and lured an army of around 4000 Grittmen into the canyon. Using his infantry defensively only, blocking the way forward for the Grittmen, they could withstand much longer than they would on the attack. The Grittmen charged in without a care in the world, not realizing the thousands of archers on the ridges of the canyon, out of their reach. This paired with a few cavalry charges at the back of their lines, and soon the Grittmen were breaking. This was huge, with this victory, it showed the people of Mesantia that the Grittmen could be beaten. That is when Carral revealed his ace. Years ago, before the whole war had started, he had sought after Horn of Kaswick and found it in the old lords tomb. The victory, paired with the horn would unite the lords of Mesantia under his banner. And with the heads of the five commanders of the army on a rope, Carral went past many more keeps and nobles to collect as many forces as he could. In the end, he had three major armies. An army of around 3000 horsemen, and two big armies of around 8000-12000 men. These were big armies, especially for the time. After a few key field battles, Carral had the biggest battle in his career. The two largest Grittmen forces were on his heels as he was pulling back to a keep a week's march away. His other armies were closeby, but wouldn't be able to catch up to him in time if he stayed for a battle. So as he pulled back as quick as he could, he send raiders against the Grittmen forces. Guerrilla fighters who slowed down the Grittmen significantly. When he got close to a canyon, with only one bridge to cross, he quickly steered his army there and set up on the other side. He let his cavalry stay and made them join up with the other two armies that were on their way. When the Grittmen fell on Carral's army, he only had to defend a single bridge. His army was very archer-heavy and so he could bombard his opponent with missiles. When Carral's other armies arrived, the fighting had been going on for three days, Both Carral's forces and the Grittmen had been worn out by the fighting and constant rain of arrows. This is where Carral blew his horn, the might Horn of Kaswick and replenished the morale of his men with the content of only two lungs. It went quickly after that, the Grittmen broke and fled but were mostly cut down by Carral's cavalry. Their army was decimated and Carral now had the advantage. In the years after that, he laid siege to various key castles and towns the Grittmen had taken over. In the end, he pushed the Grittmen back into the mountains.

In the aftermath of the war, the alliance that Carral had built, fell apart. The lords of Mesantia went back to fighting each other, and the Grittmen went back to fighting the Snow-Malen. But the war had left a sour taste in the mouth of the Mesantians. The destruction of more than a decade of war had taken its toll and it would take centuries before it would be forgotten. Carral took up his position as lord of Bogston Keep again, and died before he was 40 to the plague. But he is still remembered as a hero by many Mesantians.

Ethnicity

North-Mesantian

Circumstances of Death

Mesantian Plague

Gender

Male

Eyes

Blue

Hair

Light blonde, wore an iconic braid during the war

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

White

Height

1.75 m

Weight

78 kg

The Pityful is not a common nickname, especially not for military commanders. But Carral definitely earned it. After the lord of Bogston keep died and left the keep without an heir, Carral was one of a few contenders to become the new lord. Two other families who had previously served under the lord were now trying to ascend into the ranks. Through deceit and trickery, Carral took out these much more powerful families. When he spared the last daughter of one of the families, he got his nickname. This daughter was banished from the keep and became later known as The scourge of Cabrant.