Riombara/Serrai Archive
d'Serrai Correspondence Archive
Here are stored various letters, fragments, observations and thoughts regarding Riombara that were either written or received by members of the d'Serrai family. They were compiled by Kammar d'Serrai during the end of 1009. Some fragments reach back to the very beginning of human settlement of Beluaterra and may be of interest to other historians. Kammar plans to include some fragments in historical writings by other members of his family with the hope of shining further light on times long past...
Daimon Wars, Spring 1007 until 1008 (?)
1007, Summer: Undead Referendum
Referendum on whether to comply with or opose the threat issued by the undead leader
Undead Ultimatum:
Basically Lord Delvin is of the opinion that if we comply with the undead ultimatum we'll have a 'better' chance of survival (by being reduced to Athol alone and dependent on the Summoners word) than if we defy them.
I in turn am convinced we have a much better chance to survive if we do not accept that threat. The first part is based on logic, the second on morale.
1) Logic: Meekly accepting the undead ultimatum would only make sense if all of the below conditions are true. If only one of them is not correct, then we would be better off by fighting the undead. - the undead really have 70000 CS (of those 700000 around 30000 have been destroyed since the Summoner spoke) - the undead are willing to use all of them against us (and have nothing better to do than to concentrate all of that force against us and noone else, likely losing all progress they made elsewhere - the undead are willing to keep their promise to not kill us after they took all our lands. What happens if the Summoner decides they'll 'need Athol as well'? - the undead are able to keep their promise. What happens if the undead are completely under control by the daimons and the daimons tell them to attack Athol. - We are completely unable to defend against the undead.
If only one of the above conditions is not true, then we'd be reduced to Athol, much weaker than now and desperately defending it against a foe who wil l be much stronger than he is now - which will result in our death.
2) Morale: We are nobles of Riombara and sworn to protect. Even if the risk of defying the undead would be larger...are we weaker than Irombro, who has defied a much larger foe for so long? Are we weaker than we were when we were under attack by both Enweil and Luz, when we were reduced to the isles and outnumbered even worse? At a time when our allies could not come to our aid? Compared to that we a re stronger now against the undead then we were against Luz and Enweil.
But even more important - how can we blithely hand over 10ths of thousands of peasants to the undead, peasants who are being slaughtered by them by the score as we speak? How will we ever be able to raise our golden banner in pride after betraying them this cruelly? How will we be able to look into each others faces? How would we be ever be able again to be proud of being a Riombaran?
Should Riombara accept the undead ultimatum, then I will calmly step down from the generals office. All I ask in that case would be to be sent to the place of greatest danger to ensure that I do not live to see us reduced to the corrupt travesty of a once proud realm.
Nobles, of Riombara - think about the above, then vote.
I have already given my vote. With all my being I do know that meekly accepting the undead ultimatum is unwise, wrong - and deeply dishonourable.
I have voted 'no'.
Now I ask you to calmly think, then vote.
Respectfully,
Sir Herkan d'Serrai
Minister of Defense of Riombara
1007, Summer: Military Situation after first undead onslaugth
Referendum on whether to comply with or opose the threat issued by the undead leader
Military situation:
Undead: 2500 CS under two leaders in Eno (heading to Brovyl). 5000 leaderless CS in Irombro, heading to Rii 4100 leaderless CS in Thromegor (as of last turn)
Monsters:
11000 CS in Glongin (Stagger)
Daimons:
none within the south.
The undead had about 35000 CS in the south when they betrayed us (not counting about 15000 additional CS in Enweil). They were able to add between 5-10.000 CS during the past 2-3 weeks. Plus about 16000 additional CS leaderless units that did spawn during that time.
This would bring their total force to 55000 CS (again not counting the remains of once 15000 CS in Enweil). Of that only 2500 under leaders and 9000 leaderless CS remain, the rest has been destroyed by Riombara, Alluran and Irombro. As of today, these 3 human realms are /stronger/ than the entire undead force in the south. Humans have destroyed about 50000 undead CS (including those from Enweil) during the past 2-3 weeks.
To my knowledge no other undead units are walking Beluaterra. They may have substantial reinforcements in the Abyss, but as long as they do not surpass 50000 CS (which I doubt as the Summoner would have bragged about them), then we have a real chance of being able to survive - assuming no major daimon or monster invasions will hit us.
Riombarans, while we cannot be sure what we will have to face soon, we /can/ be sure of having defeated this first major undead invasion which did follow right on the heels of an even worse daimon invasion.
Ay, our golden banner will continue to stand proud!
Sir Herkan Minister of Defense of Riombara
1007, Summer: Coordination with human generals during the first daimon battles
Letter from Herkan Message sent to: Alaned, Alphonse, Bagal, Big, Bimbo, Demonic, Gias Kay, Hannibal, Jenny, Kiljaden, Mistweave, Otto, Rathe, Renee, Tarajist, Trumpet, Vader Greetings, generals!
This goes to all generals, with the exception of Vlaanderen, Sint and Heen. And if there are no major objections then I will forward it to them as well.
Fighting the daimons:
I want to thank all who have worked together to pool our scarce knowledge of the daimons. I think we all have realized that this is a foe like no other - thus we need to find out how to hurt and banish them.
Strategy:
So far we have always tried to prevent the daimons from storming cities. Maybe this is not the best strategy. The daimons have not done any harm to regions or started any takeovers so far, thus we would have the option of evading them completely. Currently the daimon hordes themselves pose no direct threat (though I assume that this will change), thus battling them gives us 'only': the chance to temporarily kill a leader to gain his items and possibly preventing further growth of a daimon horde.
Considering the above (daimons not hurting our regions), I think we have to stop focusing on regions - we should start to focus on mobile forces: (Until the daimons start TO's) we should evade them wherever we are too weak to fight them outright, even leaving cities open (assuming there is no major militia presence there) should it be necessary. Instead we should try to combine as much human and undead CS as possible and engage them at a place of our choice wherever possible.
The recent battle in Fwuvoghor has been a gruesome lesson...if for example daimons advance against Jidington or Eno it would make sense to combine the armies of Alluran, Luz and Riombara in a central region, then engage the daimons...even if that means to leave Jidington temporarily in the hands of them. Needless to say, this should be arranged as far in advance as possible.
Tactics:
It looks like the daimons have distinct differences. We have been looking at the battles in Fronepu and Fwuvoghor - both types of daimons ignored walls and acted like cavalry - but their charge bonus was quite different:
Fwuvoghor:
1st round: 486 daimons charge, 30700 hits (63 hits per daimon) 2nd round: 467 daimons fight, 12100 hits (25 hits per daimon) 3rd round: 440 daimons fight (against units that left the walls), 15000 hits (34 hits per daimon) 4th round: 426 daimons fight (against the undead outside of the fortifications), 13700 hits (32 hits per daimon) 5th round: 416 daimons charge, 26300 hits (63 hits per daimon) 6th round: 409 daimons charge, 21900 hits (53 hits per daimon)
One thing that is important is that apparently no defender had his hits reduced due to fortifications (as is usually reported in the BR). I have not checked the sum of individual hits received by defenders to the total of hits dealt by daimons, but I assume its the same number.
Thus: These daimons act as cavalry, additionally fully negating the advantage of walls. This would point towards fighting them in the open.
Fronepu: 215 daimons attack (14300 CS, 66 per daimon). In Fwuvoghor this was 486 daimons (18400 CS, 37 CS per daimon)
1st round: 215 daimons charge, 25800 hits (120 hits per daimon) (thrown back) 2nd round: 156 daimons charge, 16.400 hits (105 per daimon) (thrown back, 9 additional casualties) 3rd round: 94 daimons charge, 11.100 hits (118 per daimon) (thrown back) 4th round: 59 daimons fight, 5300 hits (89 per daimon) 5th round: 26 daimons fight, 2250 hits (86 per daimon) 6th round: 25 daimons charge (!), 3650 hits (146 per daimon) 7th round: 4 daimons charge
In this battle the charge bonus (+33%) was considerable less than in Fwuvoghor (+100%)
During that battle roughly a third of the hits the daimons received resulted from archerfire, thus the Fronians throwing the daimons back repeatedly did result in many more archer hits then it would have been possible otherwise. That plus the reduced charge bonus did give them their victory. Against the daimons of the army currently in Fwuvoghor, that tactic would have probably resulted in a loss.
Herkan Minister of Defense of Riombara
1007, Summer: Observations from the battlefield of the first major daimon battle
Overlooking the battlefield, Herkan shakes his head. There are areas that are still smouldering, in others the charred remains of daimons can be seen. Long rows of covered human dead have been arranged, ready to be buried or burned, each to his custom.
The camp that houses the victorious army is far larger than their number would make necessary...this sight alone is chilling. Still, amid all this carnage, hope may be found. To see the battlestandards of three realms planted next to each other, while an encampment of undead can be seen nearby...aye, hope can be found even here.
Grimly, Herkan nods and speaks to himself: 'Ay, and we did win the battle. Our force may have been shattered, but no daimon walks the south now.'
He salutes as another Alluran unit marches past, back towards home. Herkan sees that they have adorned their standard with a string of daimon teeth - and even though many of them are wounded, their grins are fierce as they salute back.
'Captain - I will be visiting Lord Vlaed of Luz, I want to enquire about his wounds. Please see to it that he is cared for to the best of our ability - he and General Big have done Luz a lot of honour yesterday. Afterwards I will be with Marshal Brynden to learn about his wounds, then visit King Dimian to pay my respect. If anything crops up you know where to find me.'
Walking towards the luzian standard, Herkan shudders, knowing that after these visits he will not be able to put off meeting the undead warlocks any longer. He grits his teeth and whispers to himself: 'They marched to our aid when we needed it...and it looks like they speak more straightforward truth than some humans do...ay, all that may be true. All that may be true...'. Still, he cannot suppress his childhood memories of the undead swarming over Grehk's walls during the end of the first age...their moans and the screams of men who were torn apart by their hands alone.
A small troop of men rode through the massive gates of Rines...nothing remarkable about them: dusty horses, well worn leather and chain armor. Only a sharpeyed spectator would have recognized that the rolled up standard was in fact the battlestandard of the republic...that well known, frayed and tattered golden cloth that had seen so many battlefields.
Obviously exhausted from their fast ride, the small troop reaches the ducal fortress-palace where a group of squires immediately gets busy taking care of the horses.
'Obviously well run.' remarks one of the soldiers. Their captain snorts and answers curtly: 'What do you expect? Duke Laoch is no man of unnecessary frills...I have heard that quite a number of highborn sons have learned to their dismay that when squiring for that duke, noble blood means you have to excell...'. They then hurry after Herkan who is already striding towards the inner guards, requesting an audience from the seneschall.
