Old Empire, The Bleeding Kingdom
Pastar, ca. 654 DR
Government
- Type – Ūstàri Oligarchy
- Ruler – Queen Salìra the Second of Pastar, King Ergònēmos the Fourth of Pastar, King Calmàan the First of Pastar
- Capital – City of Castrìna
- Cities – Castrìna (72,010), Gidðir (14,330)
- Calendar – Dekàli Reckoning (DR)
- Festivals – …
People
- Population – Pastàryr (650 DR) 984,310
- Races – (Yrūn 85%, Ōéle 4%, Urdar 3%, Ortor 2%, Dwürden 2%, other 4%)
- Ethnicities – …
- Languages – Pastàric, Trade
- Religions – Ūstar (Kændlan, Wōd…)
Trade
- Currency – …
- Imports – Textiles, wine
- Exports – Silver, gold, ore, cheese
Regions, Geographic
- Savage Coast
- Tor’n Myrið
- Tor’n Zalkàntor
Regions, Political
Landmarks
People
History
The Wasting Campaign
In 1246 HK, the Old Empire faced its greatest threat in over a thousand years. An alliance of Yrūn and Eylfāe armies struck devastating blows against the northern city-states of Oð and Taldàna. All indications were that the next target would be the Fertile Coast city-state of Kændal, to whom the Kingdom of Pastar had lost its independence 53 years before. The presumptive King of Pastar, Rifgir the Second, had a clandestine meeting with Acèntyri agents. Terms of alliance where drawn wherein Rifgir agreed to engage Kændàli armies in the North as the Acèntyryr attacked the Midlands. Once the city-state’s armies were engaged outside the capital, the main force would sweep across the southern Fertile Coast. In this manner, the forces of Kændal were divided and the city-state conquered.
When the House of Zyan was crowned at the City of Kændal in 83 DR, there was much work to be done. For four generations, the people of Kændal had lived under the rule of foreign governors who levied heavy taxes and shipped much of the kingdom’s bounty overseas. The once prosperous region was bankrupted and several factions advocated succession from the ancient city-state. The High Lord decided that Kændal needed an enemy to rally its people together. The plan was devised to wage war on their Northern neighbors, who had fared well following the war due to their alliance with foreign powers. Though few living had memory of the war and its players, a well orchestrated propaganda campaign soon convinced the populace that the Pastàryr were to blame for the land’s condition.
The Wasting Campaign was designed with several goals in mind. The first goal was to raid the Pastàri treasuries, which had swollen in recent decades due to lucrative trade with Vulmùra. Second, the Kændàlyr hoped to recapture the Northern territory and establish their own people in ancestral positions of ownership and authority (i.e., the Third Regency). Third, there was a visceral desire to make the Pastàryr pay for their treasons. To accommodate this popular appetite, the High Lord ordered the Wasting, a genocidal campaign to eradicate ethnic Pastàri adult males.
In the late Spring of 87 DR, armies marched north into the Kingdom of Pastar.
Third Kændàli Civil War
By 241 DR, the Pastàryr were fed-up with Kændàli rule and sensed an opportunity for change in the form of a new, weak High Lord, Soryn Domi I. Agitators appeared in every major city and town, raising the cry for Pastàri independence. In the Fall of 241, riots erupted in the City of Castrìna and later, Gidðir. The doors and windows of Kændàli businesses were smashed, their produce thrown into the streets, and their owners beaten and chased from the towns. Soon, similar uprisings were happening throughout the territory. The occupying Kændàli lords sent couriers to Kændal, seeking help from the High Lord, while shuttering themselves in their manors and keeps. The High Lord promised to respond, but no response came. The next Summer, during a period of quiet tensions, a wealthy land holder named Lord Garyðyr was dragged from his carriage in the City of Castrìna and executed by a mob. Again the occupying Kændàli lords demanded assistance from the High Lord. Reluctantly, Soryn Domi I called on his nobles to supply him an army to quell the latest rebellion. Their response was lackluster. The nobles claimed that they could not spare the troops and had already committed forces to the seasonal Western Campaign (i.e., Ortor), which would begin again in the Fall. A poor military leader, the High Lord sent his provisional army to the border in the Spring of 243. The High Lord’s Army met immediate resistant at the City of Gidðir, where Pastàri militias had gathered to secure the border. The High Lord’s Army entrenched themselves within the southern half of the Divided City and began a protracted campaign of street-to-street fighting. By the Summer of 243, the Pastàryr began sending raiding parties into northern Kændal, harrowing the local manors and municipalities. The High Lord’s inability to advance the war effort gave Pastar time to re-establish the Ūstàri Oligarchy and raise three, albeit small, regular armies.
Up until the Spring of 244 DR, the fighting had little impact on Kændal. Pastar was viewed as a northern, somewhat backward territory, more of a thorn than a threat. The occupying nobles worried about their holdings, businesses and guilds were concerned about their assets, but for the most part little had changed at home. People were more concerned with the seasonal Ortòri raids, than their northern neighbors. This attitude changed on Orid the 7th, when a series of explosions rocked the ports of Kændal, Fvehēr, Jergòrrið, and Lirðùn Rið. The Great Wharf at Fvehēr in particular was destroyed by a series of powerful explosions. In Jergòrrið, the explosions started fires in the harbor district, destroying a wide swath of warehouses and food-stores. The Civil War had come to an unsuspecting Kændal. The High Lord made repeated calls for troops, but the Kændàli nobles withheld their support. Historians have asked why the Kændàli nobles were so intent on undermining the High Lord’s every effort. A number of reasons are given: a) the High Lord’s wife was a Pastàryn and many believed the Barber Lord had no interest in winning the war, b) the High Lord was viewed as an uneducated and an inept military commander, c) the nobles truly were strained by their efforts to support the ongoing and increasingly brutal Western Campaign. Left with few options Soryn Domi I called upon the Kændàli navy, which was mostly used to protect merchant lanes, to attack the heart of Pastar.
A fleet of Kændàli frigates were assembled and sailed north to the City of Castrìna in the Summer of 244 DR. On the way, they discovered and commandeered a number of Pastàri ships. At Castrìna, the captains elected to set-up a blockade since they were not equipped to attack the city itself. This infuriated the High Lord, who had hoped that his navy would strike at the heart of the rebel territory. His plans were further thwarted when two of the frigates were destroyed by fire-barges as they sat at anchor. The worst was yet to come, as Ældrūan marked the beginning of the infamous Bloody Winter.
The Winter of 244 DR is remembered throughout the Fertile Coast as the Bloody Winter. The events of these three months had such an impact on Pastar and the psyche of the region that to this day, the country is known as the Bleeding Kingdom. The reputation gained by the Bloody Winter has done more to dissuade attackers from approaching Pastar’s borders than any army raised since by its three monarchs. Beginning in Ældrūan, an organization of partisans known as the Order of the Wolf began a systematic and ruthless purging of non-native Kændàlyr from the borders of Pastar. The scene repeated itself again and again throughout the kingdom. Representatives of the Order would descend on towns and villages, rally the natives into frenzied mobs, and then direct them toward local manors and keeps. Armed with torches and pitchforks the frenzied mobs would execute entire households. Women and children were sometimes spared, but only after savaging and blinding the poor survivors. These tributes were then transported to the Pastàri borders and released into the snowy countryside as a message to their oppressors. Thousands of naked and blinded tributes froze to death, huddled together along roadsides or lost among the windswept fields. In the cities, things grew worse. Ethnic cleansing was carried out at a feverish level. Anyone who “looked” Kændàli was dragged into the streets and beaten. The survivors were then taken to holding cages in each of the major squares where they awaited public executions at the hands of the mysterious Order. In the City of Castrìna, in view of the distant Kændàli naval blockade, the last of the remaining Pryr Kændlan were burned at the stake along the city’s wharf. News of these atrocities reached the City of Kændal quickly. The High Lord blamed the nobles’ reluctance to support the war. The nobles blamed the High Lord for wasting three years and allowing the separatists to gain strength. Nothing could be done until the late Spring of 245, as the Ortor were already streaming into the Fertile Coast from their mountain homes. By the Spring, the Bloody Winter came to a close. The Ūstàrian monarchs, who had to some extent permitted the hysteria to unfold, finally imposed law in the kingdom and outlawed the mysterious Order of the Wolf from engaging in further incitements.
After the Western Campaign died down in late Spring of 245 DR, the Kændàli nobles raised a military force dubbed the Noble Army. This was an intentional broadside to the authority of the High Lord, and in complete contravention to the laws of the land. Under another Crown, the act would have been seen as treason, and its supporters hunted down and imprisoned. Instead, the Noble Army marched toward the border to lend assistance to the High Lord’s Army which was still entrenched at Gidðir. The Fifth Battle of Gidðir was finished within weeks, with the city being routed and razed. The Noble Army then pursued the Pastàri army deeper into the territory, burning towns and fields as they marched. The High Lord’s commands went unheeded. Embarrassed by this sleight, the High Lord withdrew his army from the region, opening up the campaign’s rear. Pastàri forces soon flanked the Noble Army, trapping them in enemy territory. For the next two years, the Noble Army marched through Pastar looting and pillaging for badly needed supplies. Militias skirmished with the Noble Army, slowly depleting their numbers. In 248 DR, their numbers reduced by half, and no closer to resolution, the Noble Army surrendered. The Pastàryr took their weapons and armor and escorted them to the border. There had been enough bloodshed, almost. Within Kændal, in a scene reminiscent of the Civil War’s beginning, the High Lord’s entourage was stopped in the streets of Kændal. The High Lord was pulled from his carriage and slain in the street. Some have suggested the act was committed by Kændlanyr while others give credit to veterans of the Noble Army. Whichever is true, no one came to the Barber Lord‘s aid.
Time Line
(Kæn/Pas) First Kændàli Civil War 242-259 HK
- 259 HK; 4/817 ER; First Regency established in Pastar
(Kæn/Pas) Second Kændàlan Civil War; 978-1008 HK
- 978 HK; 4/1536 ER; The Second Kændàli Civil War begins; Pastar and others withdraw/secede
- 1008 HK; 4/1566 ER; Second Kændàli Civil War ends; Pastar remains independent
(Kæn/Olo/Pas) The Pastàri-Ōloodi Wars; 1166-1193 HK
- 1166 HK; 4/1724 ER; Battle of Run Pastûn (Kæn)
- 1171 HK; 4/1729 ER; First Battle of Pastar (Pas)
- 1177 HK; 4/1735 ER; Battle of Tor’n Zalkàntor (Pas)
- 1185 HK; 4/1743 ER; Battle of Castrina (Kæn)
- 1186 HK; 4/1744 ER; Second Battle of Pastar (Kæn)
- 1193 HK; 4/1751 ER; Karóa II ends war; signs treaty with Ōloodi lords
- 1193 HK; 4/1751 ER; Second Regency established in Pastar
- 1246 HK; 4/1804 ER; Pastar declares independence from Kændal; aids Acèntyra
- 83 DR; 4/1887 ER; House Zyan becomes Seventh Kændàli Dynasty
(Kæn/Pas) The Wasting Campaign, 87-90 DR
- 87 DR; 4/1891 ER; Kændàlyr march into Pastar
- 87 DR; 4/1891 ER; Second Battle of Gidðir (Kæn)
- 87 DR; 4/1891 ER; Battle of Myríðin (Pas)
- 88 DR; 4/1892 ER; Third Battle of Gidðir (Kæn)
- 90 DR; 4/1894 ER; Battle of Eastwall (Kæn)
- 90 DR; 4/1894 ER; Second Battle of Castrìna (Kæn)
- 90 DR; 4/1894 ER; Third Regency established in Pastar
(Kæn/Pas) Third Kændàli Civil War; 241-248 DR
- 241 DR, 4/2045 ER; Uprisings in City of Gidðir, Castrìna, Kændàlan businesses torched
- 241 DR, 4/2045 ER; Widespread skirmishes against Kændàli holdings throughout Pastar
- 242 DR, 4/2046 ER; Lord Garyðyr assassinated in City of Castrìna, Kændàlyr demand response from High Lord
- 243 DR, 4/2047 ER; Spring: High Lord Soryn Domi I raises army and marches toward Pastar
- 243 DR, 4/2047 ER; Fourth Battle of Gidðir (Pas)
- 243 DR, 4/2047 ER; Kændàlyr remain near Gidðir while separatists attack holdings in northern Kændal
- 244 DR, 4/2048 ER; Pastàri seditionists set explosives in Kændàli ports, Fvehēr wharf destroyed
- 244 DR, 4/2048 ER; Kændàlan warships attempt blockade at City of Castrìna
- 244 DR, 4/2048 ER; Winter: Two Kændàli warships are lost to fire-barges
- 244 DR, 4/2048 ER; The Bloody Winter: Kændàli nobles are seized, tortured, and executed throughout Pastar
- 245 DR, 4/2049 ER; Kændàli nobles raise their own Noble Army
- 245 DR, 4/2049 ER; Fifth Battle of Gidðir (Kæn), Gidðir is burned to the ground, Noble Army continues into Pastar
- 245 DR, 4/2049 ER; Angered and embarrassed by the Noble Army’s success, High Lord’s army is withdrawn
- 246 DR, 4/2050 ER; Noble Army is soon stranded, surrounded in Pastar
- 248 DR, 4/2052 ER; After two years without support, Noble Army surrenders