The Greenbelt revolt was a rebellion in
The Greenbelt region of the Ottriban Empire that was sparked by the persecution of the Telenean faith by the ruling emperor, Ottribus IV. The rebellion began in 600 PL when members of the Orderly Companies, a group of guildmasters, went on strike to protest the execution of two of their members. In 602, the Greenbelt Trading Company formed the Beltlands Alliance and created the Beltlands Defense Force, which was equipped with advanced weaponry, to protect their interests and faith. The BDF was successful in several early battles, but was eventually overrun, when calls for aid to the kingdom of Corcelle went unanswereds. Despite their efforts, the Beltlands forces were unable to defeat the Ottriban army and the rebellion ultimately failed.
The Conflict
Prelude
With the ascension of Ottribus IV in 598 PL, dark days descended upon the Greenbelt. Gone was Empress Maelia I, along with her popular reforms, replaced by the new emperor's fanatical devotion to the Lurian Church. In 600, Ottribus IV declared Lurianism as the one-true faith and sent the Hand of Light Inquisitors to destroy the Churches of Telene throughout the empire. The ripple effects of this persecution were palpable in the Beltlands, where the faith of the goddess of order and preservation had taken strong root. The public seethed with anger, and a boiling over of tensions seemed all but inevitable.
Following the unjust execution of two guildmasters, Beltlander cries reverberated across the region. The Orderly Companies, who had long labored in the shadows of the Emperor’s rule, answered the call for justice with a roar; factory gates shut, ships remained docked in port, and tools went unused throughout the Greenbelt. The once peaceful Orderly Companies now acted in secret defiance to the sovereign’s will. In 601, it was discovered that several exiled guildmasters had started a secret armament program in Iande Forest, with the aid of smiths and engineers from Corcelle. Accusations flew between the Ottriban Empire and Corcellean Crown as to who was behind this uprising. But Corcelle maintained their innocence, standing firm against all allegations. As brigands began attacking imperial vessels on the Bavand River, it became clear that a rebellion was in the making.
The Lumberjack Queen by Hauntogram
The Greenbelt Trading Company, armed with enormous riches and driven by the mounting economic and religious turmoil, took decisive action to protect their interests in 602. With a might that had never before been seen on Orithe, the Beltlands Alliance was created, and its formidable Beltlands Defense Force, was armed with unequaled firepower—including small arms weaponry in the form of the firebuss and snaplock pistols. To further show their devotion to the Goddess Telene, Greenbelters converted Lurian temples to Telenean churches, in defiance of the emperor's mandate.
After a long, rigorous election process, Bara Zenzio, of the Orderly Company of Woodsmen, ascended to the throne and became Queen of the Greenbelt. Hailed as "the Lumberjack Queen" by friend and foe alike, Queen Bara quickly set about modernizing the Beltlands and strategically deploying the BDF to protect her people from further interference from the Ottriban Empire.
By the harvest of 603, the BDF had achieved a remarkable series of victories along the Bavand and Kapsard Rivers, as their army grew in strength and confidence in the face of formidable adversaries. However, the year of brutal fighting that followed extracted a heavy toll on the Beltlands forces. As the BDF's strength waned, Queen Zenzio was forced to turn to the kingdom of Corcelle for military and economic aid. But the desperate pleas for help from the queen were met with a hollow silence—the kingdom of Corcelle had abandoned the Greenbelt in its hour of peril.
In a last-ditch attempt to save her people from destruction, Queen Zenzio called upon the hilldruids of the Mojesh Mountains for assistance. It had been centuries since the mystic clan had been seen in Wodohr's Rest. But as the Beltlands Defense Force clashed against the armies of Ottriban, the ancient mystics rose from their slumber and brought forth hordes of aether-touched beasts to join the fight—vicious crowbears, mythical unicorn stags, and according to some reports, a flock of reality-warping void owls. The druidic power was a formidable force that held the forest region in its sway. The fearful omen of their presence was enough to make the bravest of warriors lose their resolve. As the two sides met with a force that shook the earth, their clashes echoed through the hills and forests of Wodohr's Rest, leaving none certain who would eventually emerge as the victor.
But sometimes war is simply mathematics. Despite their formidable arsenal of advanced armaments and powerful aetheric companions, Beltlands forces could not contest the sheer size of the Imperial Army. For three long years, the Greenbelt had withstood the onslaught from the most powerful empire in Luralon. Yet, in 605, during the season of Wodohr's ascent, the BDF was overrun by Ottriban forces. Following a grueling 66-day siege at the gates of Arcovete, the Greenbelt Revolt was inevitably laid to waste, and Queen Zenzio was driven into exile.
It was a pyrrhic victory for the Imperials, who suffered immense losses at the hands of a regional upstart sect of merchants and craftsfolk. This shattering of imperial might would not go unheeded by the vassal kings on the marches of Ottriban. For the people of the Beltlands, it was a crushing loss, from which they would never fully recover.
In the months of high heat in 605 PL, the Treaty of the Bavand was signed, officially ending the revolt and re-establishing the Lurian Church as the dominant religious authority in the Beltlands. The Lurian Inquisition brutally forced a mass migration of Teleneans out of the Greenbelt, a decimation that wreaked havoc on an already fragile economy. With the outlawing of Orderly Companies and the expulsion of Telenean merchants and traders, the society of the Greenbelt plunged into chaos, and the Telenean nobles were robbed of their political might.
The Lurian Church's grip on Ottribus IV tightened after the conflict, with the emperor granting them sweeping powers to stamp out dissenting faith. But their newfound strength could not quell the public's waning loyalty to their creed, and with the loss of public confidence came increasing repression and authoritarianism. The Greenbelt Revolt which started as an economic insurgency, soon morphed into a religious struggle, and ultimately a failed revolution. The uprising, while ultimately unsuccessful, was the spark that would ignite a fire that burned for the next 35-years, slowly engulfing the grandeur and might of the Ottriban Empire until, after 600 years of unrivaled dominance, the entire structure came crashing down, changing the balance of power in Luralon forever.
Hilldruid Fire by Hauntogram
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