The Taking of the Temple of Dianecht

The first clash which is considered to be part of The Revolution, as opposed to a precursor. Carr Tharn led her then-disorganised but dedicated crowd of followers to the Temple of Dianecht and took the building and its defenders by surprise, winning an almost bloodless victory.

The Conflict

Prelude

Carr Tharn, a tradesman's daughter outraged at the death of her father during one of King Tarquin III's many violent crackdowns, rallied a crowd in the Market Square with calls to end the high taxes and opressions of the king. Before the City Guard could intervene, since although the majority of them likewise hated Tarquin their instincts to bring crowds to order were still powerful at that point, Tharn led her angry band of commoners across the eastern bridge of the city which connects Market Square with their more upmarket bretheren - the traders of the Garden of Gold.
Although declaring herself a 'fellow trader' to these wealthy merchants, here to 'bring liberation from opressive taxes', it was very clear that Tharn's intent was to bring the area into her uprising one way or another, and by force if necessary. Many of the Garden's traders did in fact agree with the majority of the crowd's demands despite their middle-class status giving them a certain instinctive distaste for the unorthodox methods Tharn was calling for, but whether they agreed or not made no difference. The Garden of Gold was ransacked for weapons, armour and supplies within an hour or arriving, and any trader not willingly offering their goods to support the rebels found their stores looted by force.

Deployment

The newly armed crowed poured out of the Gardens of Gold onto the main throughfare by the Great Bridge, before milling about on the wide street, unsure of what to do with their newfound weaponry. Some scuffles broke out between the commonfolk and the irritated traders, some buildings set ablaze, and the uprising seemed destined to become just another angry mob doomed to violent repression by the King's forces. However, at that moment, sensing that her spontaneously risen movement was threatening to disintegrate, Tharn stood atop a burning trade cart - whether she had some magic skill or whether by 'burning' the eyewitnesses meant 'smouldering' is unclear - and called for an assault on the Temple of Dianecht. Such a scandalous suggestion certainly had the desired effect of gaining the attention of the vast crowd, but it seemed for a moment that she might become their next target, such was the widespread unquestioned devotion of the common people to their God.
Tharn, unfazed, continued without seeming to notice the angry ripple which passed through the gathered crowd. She called for a purging of the 'vanities' of the Temple, and the 'desecrations' that the Royal family had wrought upon the holy place by intermingling their own 'personal fiction' (so she is recorded as having called the legends of their being chosen by Dianecht himself) with the divine and placing statues to their own ancestors in the place which should be for the Light Lord alone. Deftly turning the anger of the crowd - which at first threatened to discharge itself in random violence, and then upon Tharn herself - toward the statues of royal ancestors, palace appointed clerics and other marks of Royalty within the Temple, Tharn lept from her burning platform and called upon the gathered citizens to follow her and 'free the Divine from the taint of Tarquin's vanity!'

The Engagement

The crowd followed Tharn in a frenzy of righteous anger, their cause given new weight and motivation besides the simple and aimless wish for 'freedom'. They now had an aim to achieve. Barely an hour after they first rose up in the Market Square, the crowd burst into the Temple of Dianecht and began to destroy all the symbols of Royalty they found there. Royal sigils were torn from the altar cloth, tombs of dead royals were defaced, and the vast statue of King Gabraeil, semi-mythical founder of the Feywild dynasty and supposedly the Celestial which dedicated the Kingdom and the Ruling Family to Dianecht forever, was pulled down by the neck and smashed against the stone temple floor.
It has been the source of much historical speculation as to why the Temple did not activate its many defences to protect itself from the crowd. Certainly the temple with its magical defences, its clerics and its many guardian paladins should have been able to prevent the actions taken by the people that day. Some say the Paladins and Clerics agreed with the people, saw that they intended no sacrilidge to the deity himself, and chose not to act. Some say they were taken so totally by suprise that paralysis and the bystander effect took hold, and no one person having stepped forward to lead the defence, everyone simply watched it happen in horror. A less commonly held theory, but a valid one from an arcane standpoint, is that the Temple's many defences were simply not able to defend against true worshippers of Dianecht, having been expressly magically engineered to defend the Temple from attacks against The Lord of Light. This attack very much NOT being against the deity himself, the theory suggests that the defences simply could not be used against the crowd.

Outcome

Having purged the temple almost unopposed, Tharn stood once more before the crowd. Taking the purple and white lilly banner of the royal family, torn from the tapestry rail above the high altar, she held a flaming torch to it until the cloth began to burn. To the cheers of the crowd, she threw the flaming cloth into the sacred altar fire, where it burned to ash with an unnatural speed, choking the flames with soot and blackend remnants. Her now-famous line, from which the Republic later took its motto, then rang out through the vast echoing hall of the Temple.

"Freedom from Tyranny! Death to the Opressors! Death to all Monarchs!"

According to eyewitnesses and particpants speaking later, it was not until a while after they had cheered each of the three statements that they realised they had, on the third cheer, become the first supporters of a Republic, and that Tharn had just become the first to call for one.
Leaving the Temple, the crowd, led by Tharn and a small but growing group of hastily chosen militia leaders, poured out onto the street and seemed to act as one, pressing forward toward the Great Bridge.  The revolutionaries were headed to the Palace.

Historical Significance

Legacy

The taking of the Temple of Dianecht for the people is now generally regarded as the birth of the Republic.  The anniversary is celebrated yearly, and the vast statue of Carr Tharn which now towers over the North Bank stands exactly upon the location eyewitnesses say Tharn stood on her burning cart to address the crowd.

Included under Conflict

The Revolution

Start Date

2119

Conflict Result

The Temple was stripped of its Royal connections and the Republic was declared.

Location

Illyria