As industry was developed, it was not organised in a way intended to benefit the empire's human subjects - which made up 99.9% of the population. Instead, it was optimised for the creation of one thing alone: Soldiers.
This did not become apparent immediately: At the time of the empire's founding, no human being had ever heard of a
Leskeln, much less seen one. Therefore, it was not possible for
Forfir to use their presence as a justification for the draconian measures he planned to implement in the future. Thus in the
Beginning, the Grannr was a remarkably humanistic place within which to reside. Peoples' needs were met largely without fail, and both wealth and the products of the state were distributed evenly among its population; with no class system existing by which the people could be divided. Underneath all of this, however, factories and other workplaces were built and structured in a way that would allow them to shift production at a moment's notice. Though not a soul realised it, every part of society was built in a way that would allow Forfir to seamlessly transition from the egalitarian state it presently was to the vision of a grand war machine which he wished to create.
It took a great deal of time, but eventually, the
Wyrm Lord's preparations were complete. Around the year 150 Re, a village in the east of a region called
Grestvyt was destroyed; supposedly by the Leskeln. News of this spread all throughout the empire, and Forfir announced that the time he had dreaded had finally come: The Leskeln were invading. The Grannr army - rudimentary as it was at this time - was mobilised, and sent into the forest of Ethlarnashem to seek out the Leskeln and exact retribution upon them. The Grannr-Leskeln war had begun.
Conflict - Overview
The Grannr-Leskeln war would begin around the mid-2nd century Re, and would continue until its end in the year 862 Re. As such, owing to the immense duration of the conflict, the initial forces that each belligerent entered into it with would come to change drastically over the course of
The War. What started as a few tens of thousands of soldiers on the Grannr's side would grow to become half a million at the empire's peak, and in the Leskeln's case their gods would grow angrier and more wrathful as generation after generation were born and knew only war. For these reasons, detailed analysis of the war is split into phases based on the most important changes that occurred on one side or another to impact the state of the war.
It became readily apparent after the first decade or so of war that both sides had an overwhelming defensive advantage. In the case of the Leskeln, the great sequoia trees of Ethlarnashem provided ideal defensive terrain; limiting the sight lines of the opposing Grannr
esoterikii and preventing them from unleashing arcanums at range, as well as allowing the Leskeln themselves to blend in with the terrain and prepare ambushes. The latter tactic was particularly deadly, as the Leskeln could near-perfectly camoflague themselves by digging into the dirt and pretending to be simple bushes or trees, and could then attack unsuspecting passers-by.
In the Leskeln's case, the sheer numbers and defensive fortifications of the Grannr proved too difficult to take. No matter how devastating their Theos became, the Grannr army could always simply throw more soldiers at them; hiding their precious
esoterikii - the ones actually capable of threatening the Leskeln - by tens of thousands of meat shields. As well, Arcana could be used to erect vast stone walls and ramparts which were timely to destroy, and could be created far more easily. Thus did Grestvyt slowly fill with such structures, and over the course of the war, the entire region became akin to a large-scale fortification.
By and large, the majority of full-scale engagements throughout the conflict were won by the Grannr army; but with devastating casualties usually consisting of 50-75% of their human forces or more. Few of these engagements occurred beyond the initial years of the war as well, as the Leskeln learned it was far more efficient to defeat the Grannr forces by laying traps and ambushing them; thereby whittling their forces down until they were destroyed or had to withdraw without the need for a pitched battle.
Despite being referred to as the Grannr-Leskeln war, in truth the war was more akin to a series of multiple year-to-decades long conflicts that were interspersed by frequent periods of low hostilities. No formal peace was ever achieved between the two belligerents after the onset of the war, and neither did any kind of informal cessation of hostilities occur; but rather frequent periods occurred where both sides refrained from mounting any major offensives. Even then, raids remained a constant source of harassment even as the main armies hid behind defensive positions.
The reasons for these long pauses in hostility differed by side. In the case of the Leskeln, they suffered from having much lower numbers of combatants than
The Grannrormrlen could field. Although each individual Leskeln could be nearly as powerful as one of the
Fyrstbairn in the right conditions, they reproduced much more slowly than humans, and so any death took a long time to recover from. As a race, their population would begin to stagnate around the onset of the war, and would gradually drop lower and lower in the following centuries; never exceeding the initial amount which they started with. The need to divert individuals to the war effort also severely crippled their agricultural ability; initially making it vital that they be able to return to their fields during the sowing and harvest seasons, or risk famine. The Leskeln's human allies in the Balakari & Orissan were also not nearly so numerous as the subjects of the Grannr, and so were limited in what forces they could field to aid the Leskeln.
Despite having an entire state dedicated to the fielding of such large armies, the Grannrormrlen still could not sustain the enormous casualties it commonly suffered in the war for extended periods of time. Such large amounts of humans would die that they simply could not be replaced without allowing time for populations to recover, and to put aside time to train new recruits.
Esoterikii, in particular, were devastating to lose; commonly requiring anywhere from 8 to 30 years to train and produce. In the event that the Grannr blundered and lost a large number of its
esoterikii, it could find itself left unable to campaign for potentially decades. Another problem was unrest: The Wyrms' empire was perennially beset by revolts and uprisings, and these grew worse whenever the army was away for multiple years; even moreso when it sustained large casualties. As such, a cycle eventually developed where the government would have to suppress large-scale uprisings every time a period of campaigning ended.
Final Phase
The last phase of the Grannr-Leskeln war began in the 9th century Re. For reasons still debated heavily to this day, the Grannr forces started achieving previously unheard-of levels of success in their battles against the Leskeln. Whether this was due to the creation of new types of War Beasts, advancements in Arcana, or difficulties on the Leskeln's side is not known. By far the biggest change in the war, however, was that in the year 849 Re, Forfir departed from Wyrmheim for the front lines in order to take to the battlefield himself for the first time in over six centuries.
The military advantage provided by Forfir's presence to the Grannr forces was significant, but unlikely to have been enough to tip the scales significantly in their favour. What had far more effect, however, was the improvement in morale that the Grannr's human forces derived from seeing their ruler on the battlefield. It had long been a rarity to see one of the Fyrstbairn in battle, owing to their limited numbers and role in the empire making them too important to risk on the battlefield; but for the Wyrm Lord himself to take the field was utterly unheard-of, and gave a sense that the ages-long conflict was finally nearing its end.
The next decade was spent pushing north through Ethlarnashem. During this time, the Grannr army were met with stiff resistance, but succeeded in besieging and destroying a number of the Leskeln's treeholds; their equivalent of cities. In the year 861, they for the first time entered northern Ethlarnashem, and began laying siege to the Leskeln's capital. Victory here would mean the collapse of the Leskeln's fighting ability, and the Grannr forces would be able to wipe the scattered remnants of their race out at their leisure.
Five years prior to the beginning of the siege, an important general of the Grannr army had gone missing during a battle in the early push through central Ethlarnashem. The individual in question was one of the Twelve Paladins; a group of twelve of the most decorated generals and individually accomplished warriors in the army, who served as the Wyrm Lord's personal military councillors. The individual in question's name was Lyri of Grestvyt; known for being an unparalleled warrior who had risen through the ranks incredibly quickly due to her personal slaying of more than half a dozen Leskeln.
Her whereabouts had been unknown ever since her disappearance, and she had been assumed dead. Yet, her spot in the Twelve Paladins had yet to be filled when she abruptly returned in the early months of the year 862 Re. The explanation she presented to the army was that she had been captured by the Leskeln and held captive for multiple years, but had eventually broken out and attempted to find her way home to the Grannr; only now having succeeded. Many high-ranking members of the military found this explanation deeply suspicious, including some of her fellow Paladins; owing to the fact that the Leskeln had never been known to take prisoners in the past. Yet despite this, at the Wyrm Lord's personal command, she was allowed to return to her position as one of the Twelve Paladins and assist in oversight of the siege on the Leskeln capital.
Three months later, the Grannr army broke through the main defensive wall around the capital, and began to besiege the inner wall. The Leskeln's army was at breaking point, and victory was predicted to be achieved in a matter of hours. It was then, during a private conversation with the Wyrm Lord inside of his makeshift-palace, that Lyri killed Forfir by beheading him. She emerged covered in blood with the
Ormr's eye as proof of his demise, and upon discovering what had transpired, the Grannr army fell into chaos. It became apparent that this coup had been planned when other members of the Twelve Paladins turned on their fellows and certain parts of the military command, assassinating most of the higher-ups in one fell swoop.
The result of this was that the Grannr army that was besieging the capital promptly collapsed, as the human forces deserted and attempted to flee back to friendly territory. In the aftermath of her betrayal, Lyri proceeded to join up with the Leskeln, and was made commander of what remained of their army. Four of the Twelve Paladins - the only others of their order to survive the slaughter that had followed Forfir's death - also joined her as her generals. Lyri would spend the next six months recuperating and building up the Leskeln's army in Ethlarnashem as she waited for winter to end. When spring came and the campaign season resumed, she took the Leskeln's army and began marching south; intent on pushing through the Field of Corpses while the Grannr army was in disarray and making directly for the capital.
Last Battle
Before she could lead her host to the Field of Corpses, Lyri's scouts discovered that one division of the Grannr army - a particular one lead by a Fyrstbairn general - had maintained their posts and were still guarding the entrance to Grestvyt. Not wanting to engage them directly with her still-recovering force, she instead opted to take the long way around through Pasdjit, in the hope of crossing the strait to enter Summerlen from the east.
Relations between Pasdjit and the Grannrormrlen were frosty at this point in time, and so when Lyri requested of the king to allow her force passage through the polity to strike at the Grannr, she expected the king to grant it. Despite this, however, the Pasdjitan ruler wished to try and remain neutral in the conflict, and deemed that allowing Lyri's army to pass through Pasdjit would be a tacit declaration of support for the Leskeln. Therefore, he refused to allow Lyri and her host passage through the kingdom.
In response to this, Lyri decided to take her army through by force. She and the Leskeln began travelling down the northern mountain pass through to Pasdjit, with the intent of meeting them in battle if necessary. According to historical sources, she deemed the Pasdjitan force would be easier to defeat than that of the general's army guarding entry to Grestvyt, and so decided that conflict here was preferable to a potentially devastating battle there.
The king of Pasdjit, upon learning of this, mustered the Pasdjitan army for battle and deployed his troops at the southern end of the pass; intent on taking advantage of the narrow terrain to try and nullify Lyri's numbers advantage. The Pasdjitan army was also supported by an irregular unit; a group of former Cullers from the Grannrormrlen, who had defected and sought asylum in Pasdjit after a diplomatic mission to the
Ashborn capital of
Flame's Providence had gone wrong. This force, known as the
Band of the Phoenix, had as part of it a creature known then as
Rukhmar, later
Rukhmar the Firebird; who would prove instrumental in the battle to come.
Battle between the two forces was joined mid-way through the year 683 Re, at the height of summer. The engagement would come to be known as
The Battle of Pasdjit, and would see the Pasdjitan army emerge victorious against all odds. Lyri and the other four surviving Paladins were all killed during the battle, and the Leskeln that had travelled with her were either killed or fled back to Ethlarnashem in the aftermath of the battle. This crushing defeat destroyed the Leskeln's will to fight, and they would not send another force south to attempt to prolong the war.
Although this was not the first time both the Grannr and the Leskeln's forces had been destroyed, this time it was different. Both sides now lacked the resolve to continue fighting. In the wake of the Wyrm Lord's death, the Grannr was unable to elect a new leader for nearly a decade; by which time half the empire had declared independence. The future Wyrm Lords would lack the political will to further prosecute the war against the Leskeln, and so the Grannrormrlen's will to fight died with Forfir. In the case of the Leskeln, their defeat at
The Battle of Pasdjit sapped the last of the desire for battle from them, and when no further Grannr armies came, they simply allowed the war to end without contest. And so it was that the Battle for Pasdjit came to be the last battle of the Grannr-Leskeln war.
Aftermath - Leskeln
The end of the war represented the dawn of a new era in Pretheya. With the Leskeln's army shattered by a new and previously unheard-of foe, they as a race made the decision not to attempt to push further into the Grannrormrlen, and instead began attempting to rebuild and recover from the damage that Forfir's last campaign had wrought. Although many feared his replacement would continue to propagate the war, in the end, there would never be another campaign lead by the Wyrms into Ethlarnashem.
With the destruction of their last army, the Leskeln stood with a population around half the size of what it had been at the outbreak of the war. So long had passed that their culture had been transformed near unrecognisably, and few among them still lived who had seen the war from start to finish. As a race, they suddenly found themselves lost and without purpose. As the years passed after the end of the war, their unity began to fracture, and eventually, the nation that had united against the Wyrms shattered back into dozens of separate tribes; many of whom began making the decision to migrate north, away from the memory of the wars in the south. This mass migration meant that they ceased tending to the great redwoods in the south, and so the forest of Ethlarnashem - which had already been depleted by around a fifth of its size during the war - began to shrink.
The Balakari and Orissan peoples, for their part, watched as the creatures that they had known for more than a millennium gradually began to disappear. They were eventually able to recover from the damage dealt to both their lands and populations, but as a people would come to lose part of the cultural foundation that their society and identity was based upon, in the form of their relationship with the Leskeln. Future generations would know of the great tree-beasts only in the stories passed down by their ancestors, and most would live and die never seeing one of the creatures that had once been part of their peoples' daily life. Despite this, the forest kingdoms' worship of the Leskeln persevered, and in time would grow into a fully fledged religion; perhaps encouraged by the creatures' absence.
Aftermath - The Grannrormrlen
With Forfir's death, the Grannrormrlen was thrown into an unparalleled period of chaos. The empire's institutions, which were so dependant on a competent central ruler to continue functioning, now found themselves bereft of a commanding figure for an entire decade in the wake of the war's end. In response to this, the empire's mighty command economy began to collapse, and by the end of the century would give way to a market economy; marking the start of the change to the adoption of currency throughout Pretheya.
Although a new Wyrm Lord would eventually be chosen, their election came far too late to save the crumbling empire. A mere three years after Forfir's death, the united eastern provinces of the empire, comprised of the two regions of
Belyria and
Seiforh, would declare independence from the Grannrormrlen and the formation of a new great Wyrm empire: The Eastern Wyrmrealm. War would break out between the Western Grannrormrlen and the Eastern Wyrmrealm almost immediately, and the human soldiers who believed their duties were finally over would find themselves forced to war yet again.
As the war broke out, many among the
Ofirar would choose to flee into the Eastern Wyrmrealm to attempt to escape the persecution they had now been suffering for centuries. Once there, however, they found it little different from the Grannrormrlen that they knew; and so this would pave the way for Saga of Jorulvik's creation of an independent Ofirar state in Seiforh around the turn of the 1st millennium, resulting in yet another piece being chipped away from the Wyrms' empires.
Aftermath - Humanity
Of all the drastic changes to occur after the war's end, the race perhaps most greatly affected was humanity. The conflict which had underpinned Grannr society, and by extension been the central determining factor in the way of life of every human on the continent, was now over; and with its end went the purpose for the draconian rules and living standards of the Grannr. When soldiers continued to be sent to fight even after the war's end, people who thought that the fighting was finally at an end were outraged, and unrest flared up to hitherto unseen levels across the continent. The greatest change within the continent's population was in their perception of the Wyrms: Wyrm rule had long since shed the illusion of benevolence, and had propped itself up through a claim of necessity. Now that the war was over, however, that claim no longer held weight; and so people began to long for independence and human self-governance.
This long-desired human liberation would not come immediately after the death of the Wyrm Lord, but rather would begin taking shape around a century and a half later; and it would all stem from the details of the final battle of the Grannr-Leskeln war. The peculiarity of
Lyri the Mad's defeat comes not in the form of how it is she was driven back, but rather by whom. In a strange twist, the war came to the end as the result of actions of a foreign force; namely the Pasdjitan Army, and its auxiliary force, the Band of the Phoenix. The Grannr army was in fact entirely uninvolved in the final defeat of their ancient enemy, and both they and the nation at large were taken completely by surprise when news reached them that Lyri had met her demise in the mountains of Pasdjit.
One particular element of this battle would become legend throughout the entire continent: Although the Pasdjitan army fought valiantly, victory in the battle was at the time attributed almost entirely to the actions of Rukhmar the Firebird. The great bird joined the battle as part of the Band of the Phoenix, and was responsible for single-handedly turning the tide of combat when she set the Leskeln alight; causing them to break ranks and eventually flee. The Pasdjitan people, who had already worshipped Rukhmar for centuries before this event, portrayed her assistance in the battle as nothing short of miraculous, and she herself as divine. Although their religion would not yet spread to the rest of the Grannr, Rukhmar came to be seen as a symbol of freedom and liberation among the continent's people; and perhaps more importantly came to be associated with the end of the centuries-long conflict. People began to think of her as having freed them from the Leskeln, and so when opinions of the Wyrms started to sour in the following century, it was only a short leap to begin seeing her as a symbol of defiance towards the Fyrstbairn also.
This came to a head when the Ashborn people of
Zemet launched an invasion of the Western Grannrormrlen in the year 1014 Re. The Ashborn, although they followed a different religion to the Pasdjitan people, still worshipped Rukhmar; and it was her power in the form of Theos that they called upon to defeat the Wyrms. After their initial largely bloodless conquest of Grestvyt, they would move south and occupy Summerlen in the following years. Once this was done, they launched an invasion of Pasdjit, and successfully liberated the polity; which had been recently annexed by the Western Grannrormrlen. Once they had done so, the leaders of the Ashborn people met with the royal family and priesthood of Pasdjit. Several years later, they would declare the formation of
The Blazing Empire, and with it: The
Shahru religion.
Within the next three hundred years, all of the continent outside of the Silver Mountains would convert to this new religion. The Rukhmarite forces would see the eventual destruction of the Eastern Wyrmrealm via popular uprising, which would give birth to the
Karvina Empire. The Karvinas would then invade and destroy the Ofirar state of Seiforh, before heading south and conquering Asutoa, then west to Ressengia. All three of these regions would be freed of their Wyrm or
Wyrmkin rulers, and though they would find themselves under arguably just as tyrannical regimes in the years to come; they would at least be ruled by humans.
After the Karvina empire's collapse following its disastrous invasion of
Intersedra, the remnants of the Western Grannrormrlen would attempt to invade and reconquer Ressengia. It was here that they would meet their ultimate doom at the hands of Rukhmarites, as the succesor organisation to the now-long-fallen Blazing Empire,
The Vestaltir, declared the first ever crusade against the Wyrms. Belyria, Asutoa, Pasdjit, and Summerlen would all answer the call and commit forces to first the defense of Ressengia, and then, the destruction of the Grannrormrlen. This would come to be known as the Landamaeri War, and would begin in 1337 Re, and end in 1404 Re with the death of the last of the Fyrstbairn at the Battle of Wyrmheim. This battle would be the final nail in the coffin for the Grannrormrlen, and mark the end of an empire that had lasted nearly 1500 years. It was only then, with the destruction of the last Wyrm-ruled polity in Pretheya, that the Vestaltir claimed that the Rukhmarites' divine mission was complete; and that humanity was now free.
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