Peristaltico Family/Meristenzio/History of the north for the Pontifex of Ibladesh

Roleplay from Sir Meristenzio Peristaltico, Prime Minister of Sirion

Message sent to Sinted Dacara

A messenger arrives at the court of Ibladesh from afar. It bears with him a parchment and a voluminous amount of well bound scrolls, decorated with leaves motives and golden thread. The parchment reads: From Prime Minister Meristenzio Peristaltico to Pontifex Sinted Dacara. On the neverending war of the north. The first of the three scrolls, written in a quite cured handwriting, reads Dear Pontifex Sinted, When I left my family estate at 17 years old, the war between Fontan and Sirion had began since a couple weeks. Now I am almost 40 and I have not seen a single day at peace with Fontan. This might explain why there is much more to be told about this war that a single person in a single message can tell, but I will do my best. As I said, I was a young boy when the war started, so I had to be helped by some sources, first of all sir Handow Meadowcrest, now Duke of Sir Temple and Prime Minister of Sirion at that time. I will try to report his records in an objective manner. • How the war started: At the beginning, Sirion Fontan and Old Rancagua were confederate. Because of territorial issues, Fontan was willing to attack OR but they could not do it as long as the federation was there. Sirion used its “neutral” position to convince Fontan and OR to find a peaceful solution, but Fontan decided to go to war with OR nevertheless. Breaking the federation they declared war to Sirion as well, but the two agreed to remain on peaceful terms for the moment. Sirion asked Fontan not to use our regions to attack OR and, even if there has been a couple of attacks on Oligarch city (belonging to Sirion at that time), those were not the true reason for the beginning of the war. The spark that lighted the fire was an attack made by Fontan in Bruck (belonging to OR), where Sirion was deploying a good amount of forces in, I guess, an attempt to stalemate the situation and resume peace talks. Fontan probably took that as an untold decision of Sirion to support OR, and attacked our troops. That was the beginning of the Sirion and OR against Fontan war for us. Fontan’s military machine was astonishingly powerful, and we were unexplainably weak. This resulted in the loss of Oligarch and Avamar (later recaptured) for Sirion, and the loss of Ashfort and Kazan for OR. This was the turning point for in Kazan the Sultanate was born. • SoA: Unable to conquer all OR alone, Fontan created SoA in Kazan. Their declared goal was conquer all OR for they attacked them as soon as created. They claimed to be an autonomous realm, but this is just plainly untrue for they have always shared with Fontan the same aims and political stance, probably even something more like gold and troops. They have always acted more as a puppet than an independent entity and this has always been intolerable for us, since our whole war turned around the friendship and alliance we had with OR, a true friendship, while their alliance is just a farce. SoA put on its knees OR even if allied with Sirion and OI, and completely destroyed them after a while. OR nobles fled to Sirion, where we welcomed them, vowing to rebuild their homeland and cleanse their territories from the cursed Asenan domination. Their addition further strengthened us, and we could withstood several foes at once. In fact, once taken OR, SoA lust for land was not satiated, and they turned their attention on Sirion. Fontan and SoA’s dream was to wipe Sirion out and create a new realm in Slimbar and Parm (I read a message about this personally, even if not from an official source of course). However they proved to be not enough to break us, and we repelled their attacks even when at their side Perdan, Westmoor and OI were deployed (more about them later). During the war, SoA proved to be not only born out of an dirty manoeuvre, but also to be made by unhonourable nobles. Their actions were characterized by unmentionable cruelties and barbaric act, they performed unforgivable crimes against the people and the nobility of Sirion, such as executing a man of faith and head of Sirion’s church. Of course we were at war and their actions might be justified in this light. Nevertheless their behaviour was radically different from Fontan’s, and their methods far from what one would expect from someone considering himself noble. This is one of the main reason no peace was signed a while ago: even if their leadership is now quite different and no longer as it was before, the past is hard to forget. This is what the second scroll contains • The other realms involved: After the foundation of SoA but before the demise of OR, Perdan and Caligus attacked Fontan from the south and the confederacy of Fontan was the realm created by the secession of Fontan city. Caligus was allied to Sirion and promised to help us, Perdan attacked out of not well understood reasons, probably more greed than else. The result was the creation of Westmoor that at the beginning claimed to be neutral towards Fontan, but later on joined the war. This attack gave a lot of breath to Sirion and OR but soon the southern realms proved to be not really interested in putting an end to the threat of Fontan that, by the way, proved to be a nut pretty hard to crack. Soon the southern realms started to discuss peace with Fontan Sirion and OR. This part is rather involved, because I was merely a marshal at the time and was not aware of the diplomatic talks ongoing. I have pieced together several witnesses and the facts should have been the following. The southern realms started the talks with the condition that all their conquests had to be consolidated, some minor land was given to Sirion and its claim on Avamar affirmed. Nothing was to be given to OR nor taken from SoA. These conditions were unacceptable for Sirion, since the whole point of our war has been helping OR and we asked different conditions, leading to further talks. Soon the southern realms grew impatient, for their interests no longer laid in the north and they signed a separate peace, leaving Sirion and OR against SoA and Fontan once more, pointing us as too greedy to be included in a peace with them. After a while, Sirion made the probably most important and foolish mistake we could make. We still mourn that moment for not only this lead us to further dismay, but it was against our uses and unhonorable in nature. As you might have heard, we made a proposal to Fontan: in light of our past friendship, and in light of all the land they lost to Westmoor (Fontan had to give Westmoor Oligarch city to sign the peace, not a light loss), we offered them an alliance, believing they would be more upset with the southern realms that stabbed them rather than with us. In this way we would have allowed them to reclaim Westmoorian land, and, in a second time, to move SoA there giving back the former lands of OR to its rightful owner. While, as I said, Perdan and Westmoor did not fight to help us, they were still on our side and our temporary allies (even if out of merely military need). Westmoor, informed of the facts by the cunning Fontan’s chancellor, took this as a betrayal and relations dropped. Westmoor however did not attack us immediately but only after a while, mixing the above mentioned letter with other quite meaningless reasons such as a pretended Sirionite kidnapping of their former king and at the end decided to attack us at Fontan’s side. Reviewing the past, this whole proposal has been a big mistake on our side and haunted Prime Minister Handow (the one making the proposal) till his retirement. His actions may be justified in light of his age, as someone who dreamt to see Sirion and Fontan together like in the past, or as those of someone desperate in their defence against a superior foe, but anyway that’s not up to me to judge. Their alliance was quite weird, for Westmoor was created out of Fontan’s land, and they have been foes since the first moment. Plus the leader of the Confederacy of Fontan, sir Gregor, was welcomed in Westmoor and became even their judge. Nevertheless, swallowing their hostility, they fought side by side against us. I had the occasion to chat with the noble serving as Westmoor’s General at the time, a noble I befriended during the war, and he explained me that few in their ranks really wanted to attack Sirion, but orders came from above and, by his own words, “at least we give something to do to our nobles”. After a while, OI attacked us as well, even if with not a real commitment. The reasons for their move were shady and never openly discussed, something about our past unfriendly behaviour towards them while we were both allied to OR. Later on even Perdan joined the fray, without a proper declaration of war and, therefore, without any reason given to us of their move. They attacked us a couple times and then withdrew to fight against Caligus. Needless to say their might was considerable and that was the only moment our defences trembled. And finally the third scroll • Why the war still continues: We are tired of fighting against Fontan. All the reasons we had to fight them are long forgotten, and few among our (and I guess theirs) knights remember the past quarrels. They proved to be worthy and honourable foes, noble enemies and we respect them. We have little interests on the borders we currently share with them. Several peace attempts were made in the past, the first I remember clearly was done when Perdan started to help them and we were afraid our end draw near. Fontan asked the regions of Avamar city, Limbar, Elmbar, Trinbar, Tabost and Sermbar. SOA wanted Csopa, Caqueta, Obando, Parm, Osslamar, and Ustimbar. Of course this was rejected as insulting, and war continued. In time they realized that breaking us was not in their power, and corrected their peace proposal, leading to the one you mentioned in your former message. They proposed to confirm the current borders, Tabost and Dale to Fontan, Obando and Caqueta to SoA. At first the peace was considered positive by Sirion, but at the end, two were the main reasons this peace was not done. The first was that we did not want Fontan to freely attack Caligus, at that time engaged with Perdan. We required them not to attack Caligus as one of the conditions of peace and that was not really accepted (perhaps we also required them to allow us free passage to help Caligus but I don’t recall exactly if this was just drafted between us or officially proposed). The second is the most important one. As I said, we won’t forgive what SoA has done, and our nobility reaffirmed our will to continue fighting against them, till they can be kicked out of OR’s land. Fontan of course did not want to abandon SoA, and the war continued. In all this, Westmoor’s stance is somewhat unclear. We tried several times to mend the diplomatic wounds Handow’s proposal created, but they did not listen to any reason. They now fight mainly for the sake of their friendship with Fontan, not willing to leave them alone against us. Much like the stance SoA and Fontan have towards each other. What sometimes puzzle me is what would Westmoor gain from our demise, since they are too far to gain anything for real. I guess that works also the opposite way, since they have little to lose by fighting us. • Conclusions: While we may be ready to sign peace with Fontan, we will fight against SoA as long as they stand. As opposed to them (especially SoA), this war has never been about land for us. When they realized they could not take land from us, they started to question their reasons. Our reasons however still stand. We have first fought to honour our friendship with OR, then fought to defend ourselves against insanely overwhelming odds, and now to honour our vow and defeat those who cowardly exploited their alliances to steal all the land they could, first from OR than from us, SoA. So if you are dreaming of a possible solution for us would necessarily involve SoA withdrawing at least from the Oroya area, to allow OR to be placed there once again. I understand that this appears as impossible so I am afraid what comes out from my message is that this war is quite hard to be solved diplomatically, at least for us. My report is over. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did writing it. I have tried to remain objective as much as I could when possible, but as you know it is not always possible to avoid our own bias. These finely edited scrolls as a gift from myself to the crown of Ibladesh. I hope it is appreciated and I look forward to your feedback on it, don't hesitate to ask if you would like to know something more or if something was unclear.

Sir Meristenzio Peristaltico, Prime Minister of Sirion