Kinsey Family/Enri/First Crusade

The First Anti-Serpaensist Crusade

I do believe I owe Sir Londo Mollari a story.

I say story, because memories are fickle, and I cannot, in honesty, to tell the whole truth and the only truth. Certainly the Serpaensists have their side of the story. This is only the best effort and honest recollections of an old man.

* * *

The Fall of Abington

This story began when Abington, one of our realm’s oldest arch-rivals, finally crumbled under external assaults and internal corruption. It spun off the new realms of Caergoth and Suville as dukes declared independence. (Abington was down to the Stoneville and Riverholm duchies after two realms split off from it.) Caergoth had the duchy of Wayburg, and was busy taking Stoneville from a dying Abington. Suville had the duchies of Suville and Narville.

To their west, Carelia already stretched to the duchy of Sullenport. (We helped them take that duchy from one of Abington’s colonies, by the way.)

To their north, the realm of Ash Sea Islands (ASI), based around the Ash’rily duchy, moved to seize control of the duchy of Riverholm from the dying Abington. Caergoth and Suville were too weak to object. Abington’s enemies, CE included, were mostly allies and friends of ASI. And so the duchy of Riverholm was taken without much resistance. Soon afterward, Stoneville fell to Caergoth, and Abington was officially a dead realm.

CE launched a few more raids on Suville for good measure, but when Caergoth and Suville offered us normalized relations, we decided to take up on their olive branch, and give them a chance at peace and reconstruction.

With Abington fallen, the main power blocs in Atamara at that time were:

The Talerium-CE-Tara-Carelia alliance. The Falasan-Minas Ithil-Ash Sea Islands alliance. The Darka-Eston-BoM-Norland alliance. (Norland fell to its own allies at around the same time Falasan was destroyed, but that’s another story entirely.) The Caergoth-Suville alliance.

At around the same time, Magna Serpaensism was already in existence, and was generally not considered so different from the other faiths in Atamara. It had large influences in Falasan (based around the Barad Falas duchy), Ash Sea Islands, and Minas Ithil.

Some scoffed that the whole MS religion was founded by these three realms as an excuse for Falasan and its allies to invade Eston. (Magnus, the religion’s serpent god, supposedly exhorts his followers to gain control of all cities around the central lake.) Only Eston and its allies really objected to this, of course.

CE’s political position at the time was that Falasan would have found some other excuse to invade Eston if they did not have MS, and in any case, it was not a war that we wanted to be involved in.

* * *

Changing Relationships

Soon afterward, while Falasan was slowly making progress in their war against Eston, ASI founded a colony in Riverholm. It was a theocracy (a first for Atamara), named Protectorate of Magnus (PoM). I would pin-point the founding of this realm as an inflection point, when relations between the eastern alliance of Falasan-MI-ASI and the western alliance of Talerium-CE-Tara-Carelia begin to deteriorate rapidly, and when we began to normalize relations with the Caergoth-Suville alliance.

For it was around this time that the Priests of Magna Serpaensism began entering neighboring realms, and started preaching without permission from the neighboring realm governments, nor from the local regional governments.

Caergoth, Suville, Carelia, and Tara were the main recipients of this unwelcome attention from Serpaensist Priests. Each of these realms had their own faiths and really just wanted the Serpaensist Priests to leave them alone. Diplomatic protests fell upon deaf ears. Although not directly affected, Talerium’s leadership was especially vocal in denouncing the actions of the Serpaensist Priests.

And then PoM went one step further. Its small army marched through ASI, Falasan, Eston, and launched a surprise attack on Talerium. They looted Cantril before Talerium’s main army could respond, declared that “Talerium has felt the serpent’s sting”, and went home.

Talerium was obviously very unhappy about this. Most of the anger were directed at PoM, and at Eston, who claimed not to notice the foreign army that marched through their lands. (Although in hindsight, their intel gathering efforts inside their own realm just might have been that incompetent.)

It was then that Caergoth-Suville came to us with a proposal. They claimed that they were afraid that PoM would begin to take their regions via religious means, which was a legitimate fear, given PoM’s insistence on preaching without permission.

And so they proposed that we put past animosity (between the nobles of CE and Abington) aside, and form a grand coalition of Talerium, CE, Tara, Carelia, Caergoth, and Suville, for the sole purpose of dismantling the Falasan-MI-ASI alliance and ending the threat of Magna Serpaensism once and for all.

(I hope you have a map handy for this next part. Those who do not care for geography might want to skip the next paragraph.)

Under this proposal, Caergoth would move their realm north, and annex most of ASI and PoM’s holdings (Riverholm, Ash‘rily, Wor‘ight duchies). Suville would get the duchy of Stoneville from Caergoth. Carelia would get the duchy of Wayburg from Caergoth, and annex Ser’quea duchy from ASI. CE would get Nida from Carelia, and form a new colony in Barad Falas. Tara would annex the duchies of Aja and Tucha from Falasan. Talerium was expected to sign up just to get revenge. Caergoth also expressed a desire to found a colony in MI’s capital of Shanandoah, although CE leadership had some hope that we could persuade MI to be neutral, given our good relations, and the fact that we saved them from the northern hordes more than once.

And so Caergoth and Suville had already divided ASI, PoM, and half of Falasan among the members of their proposed new alliance, by the time they came to us. I’d like to stress that the whole plan originated entirely outside of CE and its allies. Our enemies would have everyone believe that CE is this shrewd puppet-master that constantly tries to control everything. I’m telling you that sometimes we’ll go along with the schemes of others, if it suits our purposes.

* * *

Beginning of the War

Some of us were uneasy about starting a war on other realms, as we have historically almost exclusively defended ourselves (or defended other realms from unwarranted aggression). Our reputation in the north as the “anti-fun police” was entirely deserved. Even if our Talerium allies were attacked first, PoM seemed content with “teaching them a lesson”. The military threat was minimal. The religious threat of Magna Serpaensism was a new threat, and thus its danger was unknown.

In the end though, Nida, plus a new colony in Barad Falas, was too tempting an offer to pass up. We knew that Nida was strategically important if Carelia were to double-cross us again (as they once did before when they sided with Abington), and we knew that we needed a shield in Barad Falas against the northern realms, who would eventually attack us sooner or later. And so, for the first time after the fall of Abington, CE joined the coalition, and went to war.

Near the beginning of the war, we founded the guild called the League of the Eagle, to facilitate communication between the coalition’s member realms, and discuss our findings on MS. This guild was so successful that our current enemies would eventually copy our idea, and set up their own anti-CE guild. Magna Serpaensism was already a centralized guild in its own way, as we found out later.

The beginning phases of the war went smoothly for our allies, but not so much for CE. Several incidents happened that were unexpected for us. One was that, as soon as we declared war on Falasan, Eston and its northern allies declared that they would become Falasan’s allies, and defend its territory from us. This was despite the fact that they had just finished a long and bitter war against Falasan, a war that Falasan had started, a war in which several Estonite nobles had died. Apparently the northerners hated us more than anyone else.

Minas Ithil also abandoned its past friendship with us and firmly sided with Falasan.

Lastly, Falasan threw its entire military might against our front, leaving its eastern front against Tara completely undefended.

Luckily, we were able to bribe the mercenary Darkans to our side. Although their contributions to our war efforts were mostly token efforts, at least we were able to buy them out of fighting against us.

The first few months of the war saw both our realm’s and Falasan’s mountain holdings decimated by raids and looting. CE and Talerium forces were barely able to fend off Falasan and MI’s determined attacks, and could do little offensively, when Eston, BoM, and Norland added their efforts to Falasan’s defense.

However, Tara was slowly but steadily making progress on their front against Falasan, methodically isolating and eventually taking the duchies of Aja and Tucha. They met no significant military resistance, save for the city militias.

Meanwhile, Carelia, Caergoth, and Suville made short work of PoM, and were steadily making progress against ASI, who had to fight on alone.

One thing I’d like to point out is that, during our war against Falasan, they repeatedly tried to sabotage our war efforts through any means necessary. They called for cease-fires for the purpose of negotiations, and then refused to negotiate, instead using the lull in the fighting to refit. Serpaensist Priests from both Falasan and ASI began swarming the contested mountain regions, converting regions to Falasan after we had taken them.

* * *

Imperial Ban

It was at around this time, from observing the enemy’s behavior, and through intercepted intel, that we realized that a horrible truth: Magna Serpaensism was not just a religion that went along with what its host realms wanted. Instead it was the other way around.

Magna Serpaensism controlled PoM, ASI, Falasan, and MI under its dominion. Its priests and elders made decisions on everything, from diplomacy to military matters, as a single group, rather than four separate realms. They were often the same people controlling the realm governments, and thus held vast powers.

Anyone who was not a Serpaensist was isolated, ignored, and deprived of power at the first opportunity. Soon their nobles realized that joining MS was the only way to upward career mobility. Magna Serpaensism was the first (and thus far only) supra-realm government system that we have encountered.

To us, this was disgusting and heretical. Every other religion on Atamara dedicates itself to spiritual and ethical matters, and allow feudal governments to handle matters in the material, secular world. Magna Serpaensism was a rejection of this very notion of separation between the palace and the temple. They see themselves as both a religion AND a government. Originally founded as an excuse for war, this “religion” was not about spiritualism nor ethics. Instead it embodied the pursuit of power for the sake of power.

We realized that, should we fail and lose the war, our Senate would not just be replaced by a colonial government from our enemies. Should we fail, eventually there would be no de facto governments left, just puppets and shells. Should we fail, Magna Serpaensism’s robed priests and elders would control the totality of Atamara. We would never let this occur.

When MS’s founder tried (and failed) to convert one of our regions through religious force, the Cagilan Senate made the unprecedented decision to outlaw a religion. We decided that Magna Serpaensism must be destroyed. No Cagilan noble would be allowed to practice this foul religion. While the temples and shrines of other faiths are to be protected and respected, MS temples and shrines are to be destroyed on sight.

* * *

Middle Phase of the War

Eventually, after months, our patience paid off. Both PoM and ASI were conquered and destroyed. Caergoth, Suville, and Carelia took their share of the conquest, distributed their territory according to the original agreement (we received Nida at this time, as I recall), and kept their word by moving north to assist us.

Caergoth and Suville declared that they would deny entry to any Serpaensist refugees from the destroyed realms. Thus, the Serpaensists from PoM and ASI were mostly taken in by Carelia. (Yes, this is what came back to haunt us later, as the Serpaensist refugees quietly took over Carelia from within, and declared war on us much later. But that’s not the focus of this story.)

As the combined might of six realms pressed up against Falasan, its northern allies quickly lost interest in the war. Darka, Eston, BoM, and Norland hatched a plan to attack Minas Ithil, now that CE and its allies are both distracted and not on friendly terms with MI anymore. (We defended MI during several wars against the northern realms.)

Norland apparently did not stick to the “script”, and attacked MI several weeks ahead of schedule. For this “sin”, they were set upon by their former allies, while MI remained blissfully ignorant on how close they came to total destruction.

For the rest of the campaign against Falasan, Falasan fought with only MI’s aid, while the rest of the northern realms busily devoured one of their own. Of course, this was a foregone conclusion. CE took control of Barad Falas after its duke defected to our side, after ten days of siege. We founded Coria in Barad Falas, and offered Falasan a peace treaty, which they accepted.

However, when we moved to settle our debts with Minas Ithil, some Falasani knights inexplicably broke treaty and attacked us at Lothruin. When the local peasantry in Lothruin defected to Falasan in response, they even tried to repair and hold the region, and thus deny us access to Minas Ithil.

While we admired them for defending their last standing ally, the terms of our treaty with them were quite clear, and so were the penalties for breaking them. Falasan was destroyed within weeks of them rejoining the war. Coria annexed Barad Gardor. At around the same time, the northern realms destroyed their former ally Norland.

Most of Falasan’s Serpaensist refugees fled to Eston. Some were allowed to join Coria after they renounced their faith in MS.

* * *

End of the War

By the time the coalition forces were taking turns sending forces into Minas Ithil through the Lothruin-Lyton bottleneck, MI was fighting on borrowed time. Most of MI’s western rural regions were razed. After several unsuccessful attacks on Shanandoah, we switched targets and sacked both York and Leohampton, as the Ithilians concentrated all of their defense at Shanandoah. Of course, with most of their realm ruined, Shanandoah fell due to starvation soon after.

And so Caergoth founded Hammarsett at Shanandoah, and we made peace with Minas Ithil. Almost every realm in the coalition agreed that destroying Falasan and ASI were enough, and since Minas Ithil’s only Serpaensist duke was the Duke of Shenandoah (as Magna Serpaensism had not had the time to complete its own “conquest” of Minas Ithil), we allowed the Dukes of York and Leohampton to keep their duchies.

Noble refugees from Shanandoah were mostly absorbed into MI’s two remaining duchies. It was the only realm in the Serpaensist “eastern alliance” that was allowed to survive in the end.

Toward the last days of the war, as the peace treaty with Minas Ithil was negotiated and finalized, we repelled an BoM attack on York while our armies camped inside the city walls. Apparently the Makarian Marshal did not bother scouting ahead, and expected to find nothing but a depleted MI garrison. Instead his forces ran into a full strength Cagilan task force, and was crushed easily.

BoM’s ruler blamed the whole thing on his Marshal, but we had our ears inside BoM, and knew their real plans. The northern realms, being the vultures that they were, had planned to establish a colony in York, after we were done beating MI into submission. Of course, we made it clear to them that they would not be profiting from the war, especially when they fought for the losing side for most of its duration.

The borders today are more or less how they were at the end of the war against the Serpaensist realms. I believe this war against the original Serpaensist alliance would go down in history as the First Crusade against Magna Serpaensism. Perhaps our current war against Carelia would be known as the Second Crusade. Time will tell.