Scarlett Family/Galiard's Tale
A letter written by Galiard Scarlett, by then quite old, and Prime Minister of Ohnar West. This is a copy kept in the Scarlett family's library.
Good Ser Sargamour,
You have made the unwitting mistake of asking an old man for a history, and I have lived through some of the greatest events of the Far East, even though I have only been in my current role as Ohnar's Prime Minister for a matter of days. Your request -- no doubt an off-hand one -- has provided me excuse to put to parchment some of the history that I recall, as I have been meaning to do for a while. Much of it has been written elsewhere, and I encourage you to look elsewhere, for what I can tell you is colored by how I saw it, just as it is colored by the foggy sadness that follows old men as have more stories of colleagues dead and gone than they do of living ones. And I do not know if it is merely the way of all things that the deeds and heroes of the past shine so as to make the present seem ever more dull, or if we are truly witnessing our own decline; and I do not speak of Ohnar's decline, but rather all Men, and the end of all things. But forgive me: I get ahead of myself. I shall gladly tell you more than you wished to know.
My doctors tell me that I have the health of a man of fifty winters, and so most do not believe me when I say that I have seen nearly seventy. But that is how long ago I arrived in the Far East, the first of my House to set foot in this land. I arrived in Ozrat at eighteen in what was then the great power of the North, the Feudal Republic of Lasanar. You will get mixed responses if you mention Lasanar today, but back then it was a beacon of strength just as it was a chaotic political place. It had very similar borders to Ohnar's today, which is only natural as Ohnar was one of the successor realms that grew out of Lasanar's fall; it had five Duchies to our four (adding Colasan to our four) and easily threescore nobles to our two.
When I was young, Lasanar was engaged in war with the last remnants of the Arcaean Empire, which was one of two Empires that had dominated the whole of the Far East at one time -- the other being Svunnetland. We were allied with a Kingdom called Ethiala that occupied the Duchies of Topenah, Lasop, and Talex. Ethiala was as great a contrast to Lasanar as it was a friend: they were a classical chivalric Kingdom with a strong King, Osric, and one of the greatest knights on life, Duke Thrasymaque Loran, leading their armies. Thrasymaque was the kind of knight you aspire to when you are young: brave and forthright but never losing his temper, valorous but always gracious toward a defeated foe. They do not make them like that anymore, Ser.
And so we reduced Arcaea to a handful of regions. At that time it neighbored a theocratic realm called Sartania, which was based in Niel. The Sartans follow the War God, whose name you shall not surprised to learn is Sartan, and they are an appropriately direct bunch: the best of friends to have on the battlefield but ever stumbling from one political disaster to the next. To their North, on the Dark Isle, was (and is - for now) another theocracy, called Arcachon, who follow Adghar. Lasanar enjoyed good relations with them both and occasionally mediated disputes between them, but wisely stayed out of their religious wars.
To the South were Greater Aenilia, which is still there; the Antozan Commonwealth in the Duchies of Anacan and Taop; the Kingdom of Nighthelm in Hatdhes and Masahakon, and (perhaps) Batesaor, though I vaguely recall Batesaor going back and forth between Nighthelm and Zonasa, which occupies it today. My Southern history is not what it could be. At the very Southern tip was the only other Republic in the Far East, called Soliferum, with whom we had few dealings. They would play a large role much later.
The rivalry in those days was between the North, with Lasanar as the flag-carrying leader of the Northern Federation, and the South, nominally led by Nighthelm under King Gul'Dan. But to me, that rivalry was leftover from a day gone by even then, for we only fought a few skirmishes with them, and eventually came to an agreement to jointly found a colony in the city of Palnasos. Each of four realms was to send an emissary so that no one realm could unduly influence it. I was Lasanar's emissary, still a young noble with aspirations and little to lose.
As many such joint efforts do, the colony failed. It is hard enough for nobles to serve one banner, and a realm cannot exist when it is trying to serve four. Ultimately, Nighthelm's faction came out ahead, and gained control of the realm, called the Sanctum of Casshern. I maintained my oath to Lasanar and returned to the Republic, where the Prime Minister, Milan von Krondor, rewarded me with the Barony of Semon, the first title ever held by a member of my House, and still one close to my heart. A short while later, Milan retired and my friend Aethius Kain, who was then the Grand Justiciar (or Judge) succeeded him as Prime Minister. He suggested that I try for political office, and with his support, I became Grand Justiciar myself, a position I held for many years.
During that time, Lasanar's lack of a real system of government became apparent, as most major decisions were made ad-hoc. A Republic is always a contest of wills and persuasion between Dukes and elected officials, since the Dukes have all the money and the elected officials the mandate from the realm's lesser nobles. We had a choice, then, to either be a weak, ineffective government and allow each Duke to rule as King or Queen-in-miniature. One such case was Duchess Menelmereth Urominiel of Colasan, who as I recall was going about promising support or gold to foreign realms in exchange for whatever it was she wanted. A certain amount of this is inevitable, but her efforts ran exactly counter to the governance of the realm. That is a weakness of a Republic, for a King may command a Duke, who must in the end acknowledge his liege, but in a Republic, a Duke's liege is ephemeral; the Duke is a vassal of the whole Republic and so can more easily dismiss any one voice. But she could not dismiss the charge of treason I brought against her, and rather than stand trial and fight with words, she seceded from the Republic to become a true Queen-in-miniature. A short and bloody war was fought to re-conquer Colasan for the Republic. Menelmereth was captured and thrown into my dungeons along with one of her co-conspirators, and the name of Scarlett gained some unlooked-for notoriety when I ordered them both executed for treason.
Following the Secession, we undertook to create a permanent framework for the Republic so that there would be less confusion and fewer arbitrary decisions about how decisions were made -- not at all unlike what Ohnar West is doing now. We created the Constitution of the Feudal Republic of Lasanar and it served well as a fair and equitable basis of rulership that made a good and strong Republic into one one of the greatest powers in the Far East.
As the Republic grew in numbers, we experienced many of the growing pains that all large realms do. We had small factions that simply desired change all of the time, no matter whether it was good, ill, called for or not. One such movement led to the rise of a church called the Chaos Requiem, whose sole desire was to tear down all that stood for Order and Law. They claimed the sanctity of religious protection at first, painting themselves as victims of oppression, but even so they rather readily admitted to an agenda of anarchy and ... well, chaos, mostly. The church was ejected from the Republic and its leader banished, but some younger nobles were influenced by the anti-establishment rhetoric and began plotting rebellion. Not enough of them to succeed in a rebellion, but enough of them to de-stabilize the realm. The Prime Minister at the time was a noblewoman by the name of Kestrelle Hawkestone, who was both a dear friend and a frequent political adversary of mine, but as true to the Republic as you could wish for in a leader. She and I worked together to uncover the rebel plot and banished several of them - along with none other than the Duke of Colasan, one Doyle Drake, who did what Dukes of Colasan do in such situations and seceded.
With Ethiala we recaptured Colasan and brought a quick end to Doyle, who fell to my sword in battle rather than submitting to be captured. At this point we had passed all of the tests that our own nobles had thrown at us, so our attention shifted outward.
To the South, in Anacan and Taop, was a Kingdom called the Antozan Commonwealth, led by King Corey. King Corey had designs upon the region of Lemanaziel, which was then part of the Duchy of Colasan and under our banner. Although nominally allied to us, King Corey attempted to solicit Nighthelm's support in taking it from us, but our relations with Nighthelm were warmer than they once had been and we had an agent in Antoza besides. His plan uncovered, a faction within Lasanar -- led by me -- pushed to go to war with Antoza for betraying our alliance. But many felt that war was premature, and so it took months of effort and negotiation to muster support for the war. Antoza spent those months fortifying Anacan, whose walls were famously high to begin with. War eventually broke out, and by that time I was no longer Grand Justiciar, but Duke of Ossaet and General of Lasanar's armies. Rallying a half-dozen allied realms to our banner, we raised the largest army in the Far East's history, and eventually broke their walls and conquered their Kingdom, and in its place created one of our own, with me as its first King. But that history is recorded elsewhere:
Cathay/History
Cathay was my finest hour, the pride of my youth, and it still stands today under wise King James. But back then I was made for conflict, not for peace, and soon after establishing Cathay, a weariness came upon me, and I retired to marry and start a family.
Some years later I emerged and was made Duke of Anacan by a gracious King Ranulf in recognition of my past efforts. At that time the realm of Arcaea had grown in power under a vulgar Queen called Trinity, who even went so far as to offer Arcaea's service in war in exchange for gold, turning her whole Kingdom into mercenaries. Along with our allies in Greater Aenilia and Ethiala, we in Cathay marched to bring Arcaea low, and so we did. I was ready to wipe them off the map, save for the efforts of two people: Aenilia's Emperor, Orphen Vincent, who said that Arcaea ought to be humbled but spared, and Jenred Bedwyr, then a young noble (and Chancellor, I think) of Arcaea who boldly promised both Orphen and myself that, if given the chance, he could take the reins of that miserable Kingdom and restore its honor, its glory, and its power. There are a hundred opinions of Jenred Bedwyr today, but he still rules there, and Arcaea is the largest realm the Far East has seen since the days of the Empires, larger even than Lasanar ever was.
Around this time was the unhappy chapter of the Fall of Lasanar. When I last led its armies, Lasanar was a machine of perpetual motion, always evolving, always trying to uncover what was covered or achieve what could not be achieved. When we founded Cathay, we took with us many of the best and brightest nobles, and easily a couple dozen of them. I had hoped that the foundation we had laid with the Constitution would hold the Republic together, but too many of the resentful young nobles who had long wanted me and mine gone remained behind and grew to power. Lasanar entered ridiculous wars, including one with its ancient ally the Ethialans (whose cause I am still not sure of); Ethiala at that time was led by my own cousin the Archduke Septimus Scarlett, but he was ever a front-line commander and died in a minor skirmish in Lantzas that achieved nothing. Soon, both Lasanar and Ethiala would cease to be, as neither realm had strong successors. The center did not hold, and Lasanar collapsed in a remarkably short time with two or three Duchies seceding to form independent realms: Papania in Ossaet and Colasan, Ohnar in Akanos, and Ohnar West in Sasrhas. Ohnar went through several leaders and governments and names until it eventually joined Ohnar West, and Papania followed suit after a series of wars whose details I do not know.
After my cousin's sudden death, I retired once again, and only returned to duty perhaps a year or two ago. This brings us close to the present day. In my absence, Cathay had suffered a terrible civil war brought on by Soliferum and Sartania, as it happens. Sartania had been conquered by Arcaea and its nobles manipulated by Soliferum's Prime Minister, Conan, into attacking Cathay so that they could have a new home for their War God's followers, even though Cathay and Sartania had always been allies. They induced an old friend and knight of mine, Valgar Reinhart, then Duke of Taop, to secede, and Cathay might have perished but for a concentrated effort to destroy Conan and all his doings by none other than our friend King Jenred of Arcaea, who provided thousands of gold in support to Cathay and bent all his efforts to Soliferum's extermination. He was successful in that. It is interesting, the beds one makes and the cards one plays, never knowing how it will affect the future.
Cathay today had recovered from the civil war, but only barely. It had lost nobles to a new colony in the South, Kindara, which replaced Soliferum, and it had lost its Sartanians and Duke Valgar's followers, as Valgar was exiled. Two of Cathay's remaining Dukes were largely stagnant, up-jumped knights who might have one day made fine Dukes had they climbed the slow and long ladder like everyone else, but who were no doubt rewarded for their loyalty in the civil war before they were ready for such responsibility. They barely knew me and treated me with disdain, even as many other nobles in the realm welcomed my return, but at any rate it became clear that Cathay owned my past and not my future, and so I returned to Ohnar West some months ago. I found a realm almost paranoid in its insulation, fearful that too much foreign glory had led to Lasanar's collapse -- and perhaps it did, though we had no real alternative at the time. Ohnar was hemorrhaging nobles and had little regard from other realms, as it played almost no role on the world stage. War broke out between Arcaea and Arcachon over a rogue Arcachonian assassin trying to murder several of Arcaea's nobles, and Ohnar - then under Prime Minister Joseph, a former Duke of Akanos who had led the Republic for some time - also declared war on Arcachon.
We are a little too near the present for me to tell you with historical hindsight the current political picture, but suffice it to say that Joseph and I had our differences. He is younger than I and never knew me until I returned, though he had heard of me and was initially gracious. But he said very little, even to his council, and his exact reasons or plans for much of anything were unclear: his long-term goals for the Republic, what he hoped to achieve from the war and how it would affect our dealings with Arcaea. We lost every battle we fought with Arcachon, even though we outnumber them on our own and even though they also had Arcaea to contend with. Morale was low and we had no leadership from our leaders, and so I ran against Joseph in the last election and won by a large enough margin that I am now going about re-forming Ohnar's institutions and hoping that it benefits from the past without having to re-learn all of the things we learned in Lasanar the hard way. Since then, we have achieved one major military victory and are on our way to more, and developing our alliance with the Arcaeans.
And that is the history of the realm as I experienced it. Others who were here during periods when I was not can fill in some of the blanks. But there you have my life's work, and the challenge ahead of us in the twilight of my years. I hope you will join us, for our greatest need is to have the kind of ambitious young nobles that are the engine of every great accomplishment.
