Hundaru of Telmun
"He was the bridegroom of war, and she brought him an empire as a dowry."
Hundaru of Telmun is the most successful conqueror in the history of the Great Ring, and at his death ruled an empire ranging from Lahat to the Kaphtor Islands.
Hundaru was born on the island of Menâme, son of the King of Menâme and his wife, Daphne of Nisi1. While he was initially believed to be a girl at birth, Hundaru corrected this misunderstanding at the age of six.
During his childhood, Hundaru demonstrated extraordinary gifts in a wide variety of physical and mental activities, but none fascinated him so much as the arts of war. He was an expert swordsman and archer, a skilled rider and sailor, and very probably the finest strategic mind ever seen in the history of the islands. In his late teens, he united the Telmun Islands under a single government for the first time in history, and founded the Telmunic Empire.
He spent three years building his forces on the Telmun Islands, and then struck north, first conquering Saba and then the Kaphtor Islands. He considered an invasion of Ynys or the Korabovi Islands, but chose not to challenge the Clarati sorcerers that held those islands - he wrote that without more information about the range and extent of their powers, an invasion would be foolish. He continued to have spies surveilling Ynys for the rest of his life, ready to seize any opportunity that presented itself.
Instead, he turned west, sailing across the southern extent of the Great Ring and conquering all that he encountered. On Atu Motu, the Tāngata who opposed him were handily defeated, and the remainder retreated into the jungles to watch and wait. He wrote that this was the most frustrating campaign in his life, as the Tāngata refused to meet him in direct battle, instead raiding and harassing his troops mercilessly. In the end, he established a series of fortifications to hold the important harbors and ports, along with a network of outposts and keeps to support these key refueling points, and then moved his attention further west. He chose not to advance upon the island of Motu at all, believing that this would simply compound his frustration.
He spent the next ten years conquering the islands between Atu Motu and Lahat. During this period, he was also responsible for the construction of a large number of lighthouses that would become part of the Ring of Light, having been convinced of their utility by the lightkeepers of the Fáros Óneiro on Lindos. He conquered Pulo over the course of a three year campaign, and then moved on to take Lampuato and Lahat. He established the city of Kendari on Lahat after seeing the quality of the pearl beds along the island, which exceeded the famous pearl beds of the Telmun Islands in every regard.
Hundaru then turned his eyes to the north, looking towards the large island of Kojima and the islands that lay between. He began to lay plans for an invasion of the northwestern portion of the Great Ring, when he was struck down by poison. It is unknown to this day who poisoned Hundaru, but historians have many theories ranging from Yanjin assassins, Clarati sorcerers, to ambitious generals of Hundaru's own armies.
He was 42 when he died, and had no children. He had designated his cousin Tylos of Nisi as his heir, but several generals challenged the succession immediately. The Telmunic Empire fell into chaos in the decades following Hundaru's death, particularly in the west. Tylos ruled a diminished empire consisting of the Kaphtor Islands, Saba, and the Telmun Islands for the rest of his life, but his heirs proved incapable of holding even that fragment of the empire together. On Lampuato, the general Meko founded the Mekongga dynasty which ruled Lampuato for centuries before the excesses of the monarchy led to the devastation and abandonment of the island. The biggest break was in the loosely held territories on Atu Motu - with the empire in disarray, the Tāngata pulled down the fortifications and outposts that Hundaru had built, and drove the Telmunic soldiers off the island. The loss of harbors where ships could reprovision proved fatal to attempts to keep the empire under a single leader.
Hundaru ruled the largest recorded empire in the history of the islands since the arrival of humans, and his battles are still studied by generals today, over a thousand years later. He considered by many to be the most successful general of all time, and his mark on the history of the islands has proven indelible. He essentially invented the professional soldier, and introduced iron to the battlefield at a scale never seen previously. He revolutionized naval battles, building the largest warships seen to that point, and equipping them with catapults and fire-launchers, turning them into floating fortresses that would beach to support land assaults. These innovations were only part of his impact - many claim that it was his thoughts on strategy were his most important contributions, and Callisthenes' records of his ideas are studied to this day.
This article was originally written for Spooktober 2024. You can find all of my Spooktober Articles at Spooktober Central.
This article was originally written for Spooktober 2023. You can find all of my Spooktober Articles at Spooktober Central.
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