Dwilight/Sallowsitte Dawn/1.4

The Onduran Eruption

4.1

The Ondurans withdrew into isolation from the rest of the tribes, though after centuries of internal reformation and reorganization, they emerged socially powerful and physically strong. The Ondurans began to wage wars of conquest against the fledgling Skosopiurbes, but were never able to defeat them outright. The Securians also became a military target, and once again the Ondurans were unsuccessful in their campaigns. Many began to blame the military failures on the mixing of blood between the two tribes. Strategies that were thought to be obvious advantages against the other tribes proved to be ill-conceived on the battle field. This led to internal dissention and petty feuds between the upper chiefs of the Ondurans. One camp was strident puritan and sought to separate the On’onath from the Dur’anath blaming the defeats on blood mixing, another said the problems were simply due to inexperience, unrealistic and impractical military strategies and that all that was required was to reassess their campaigns and bring fresh tactics. The last said that the Ondurans were wrong to attempt to attack their neighbours in the first place and were being cursed by the newly revealed gods. It was not long before a schism occurred and war broke out between all three sides, thus beginning the Onduran Eruption.

4.2

The Onduran Eruption saw the worst bloodshed of the Sallowsitte Cape. The Ondurans, the camp which advocated new tactics, and whom inherited the formal name from the confederacy, were reaping the best results of their military planning. The Nyomaans fought with religious zeal, and the separated On’onath and Dur’anath raged mercilessly against everyone. Four new armies pillaged and battered the lands of the Sallowsitte Cape and the war was not shy from spilling into Securian or Skosopiurbe territory. An incident occurred which flared up the noncombatant tribes into the whole debacle. A Dur’anath cleansing squad raided a Skosopiurbe village, massacring all the inhabitants. This caused a whirlwind. Due to the level of violence done to the innocent village, and because of the history between the Dur’anath and the Skosopiurbe, the Skosopiurbe allied with the Securians and launched a full scale genocide against the Dur’anath.

4.3

This is also the time period of the Epic of Rudras, a heroic poem about a famous Securian war chief who led their army to brilliant victories against the Dur’anath and the Nyomaans.

4.4

The war brought famine and rampant disease to all the tribes, and many of the oracles thought it would lead to their doom. Bloodshed was a daily occurrence and the tribes began to restructure their societies to continue to wage the war with the least amount of blowback to the community. This led to the development of a warrior class, a phenomenon which became the norm across all tribes. The usual practice to this point was for the men and woman of the tribes to conduct their army campaigns after the harvest; as there was no restrictive winter, that time was naturally open for warfare. Now, the tribes began to breed extra children to field professional armies who would fight all year round. In an unprecedented moment of intertribal diplomacy, the tribes all agreed that from here on, only a bred warrior could fight, and they would make sure to discriminate between combatants and noncombatants. In this way they could all ensure the society does not suffer, and still engage in the warfare they all relied on. The name for the warrior class reduced to one word cross-tribal: arexi. The arexi were sophisticated warriors, individual but communal, highly intelligent and incredibly fit. They seemed like an invincible force. The similarities of education and breeding practices between the tribes made it at times unclear which arexi fought for which tribe, so they began a program of creating field standards and distinguishable paint designs on the light armour. This created a separation between the tribal community and the warriors who defended it. A sentiment that would create contention in the future. With regards to the Onduran Eruption, as the tribes conveniently forgot about the bitter feuds, the war turned into a spectacular killing game. All arexi launched brutal campaigns against the other, and bodies lay across the land for miles on end. The horror and grotesqueness of this sight was eventually unavoidable and the tribes sought to end the war. Unfortunately, they created an engine they were unable to stall.