Gormann's Horde

right|300px In the years prior to Gormann the Reaver's invasion of Trynser, his horde had thundered out of Bortania to conquer Verintalia and Mondrulavia and pillage parts of Lharasia, including the city of Chandoman. The Trynsern watched these events with concern but failed to send aid. Instead, the mobilized forces and fortified them along the border. It was thought that this hard defensive line would be adequate to discourage agression.
On the 13th day of Flowering in 1735, Gormann's army marched away from the border with Trynser and seemingly vanished without a trace. After a week of no contact, there were demands for regiments to be sent home, but the Imperial command maintained the vigilance. In the meantime, the humanoids in the Humanoid Reservation were seen to be getting agitated and gearing up for war. Some assumed that Gormann was attacking them somewhere and others thought that they were preparing to attack the Empire and would be easily thrown off again.
Hours before dawn on the 20th of Flowering, goblinoids from the reservation stormed and destroyed an Imperial border fort along the Humanoid Reservation. Before they fell a signal was sent and the war between the Imperials and the humanoids was on. Thirty-six days of warfare ensued and the humanoids proved to be better organized and armed than thought. Several forts went up in flames and thousands were killed. Troops were withdrawn from the defensive line with Mondrulavia and were often destroyed piecemeal.
This was time that Lord General Mergen Crychee used to organize his army to draw the humanoids into an ambush near the village of Haimwaide. On the 12th day of Heris the humanoids crashed into the center of his line as planned, but as the Imperials closed on them, hordes of screaming Bortan barbarians dashed into the Imperial flanks. Gormann had struck.
His army routed, Crychee and his survivors fled to Terenden and gathered reinforcements, including an army from the dwarves of Corotaine. Crychee marched out to lose his life and his army at the Battle of Hawkrest on the 21st of Heris. Once again the shattered survivors fled to Terenden which Gormann promptly besieged with a part of his army and marched the rest to the southwest. His horde pierced the coastal lands of the elven kingdom of Syran Vale, burning the forests left dry by the late autumn heat.
A new army was mobilized at the town of Ferenthis by the then Lord High Marshall Erois Datagnan. This army consisted of all serving troops in the Trynsern Peninsula aside from small garrisons for each of the cities. Many militia were called up as well. Gormann's horde collided with this force at Ferenthis on the 41st day of Heris. After a hard fought battle, Datagnan retreated his overwhelmed army to the fortress city of Mantius. Again, Gormann left a portion of his army to bottle up Datagnan and marched west towards Trynser City.
Gormann's horde fanned out ane pillaged and burned a wide swathe through the rich center of the Trynsern Peninsula. He masterfully brought them back together to face his latest challenger, Lord Marshall Mondrocar Blackeagle at Korduran in early Damirin. Now instead of pumelling Blackeagle with his now spent army, he engaged in two months of gruelling maneuver warfare and plundering of the Imperial heartland.
Back east, Terenden fell to the Bortan and humanoid invaders on Damirin the 17th and the Trynsern defenders were slaughtered and the city burned to the ground. This part of the horde soon rejoined Gormann and enabled him to outflank Blackeagle at Korduran, forcing him to abandon the city and withdraw to Trynser City. Farther to the east, an army from Lharasia entered the Humanoid Reservation from the east and was fighting their way through the now depleted tribes. Meanwhile, the elves of Syran Vale and dwarves of Corotaine continued their harrying raids on Gormann's supply lines.
The Emperor grew more frustrated with Marshall Blackeagle as he spent weeks training his army while the Bortans and humanoids wrecked the Imperial heartlands. But Blackeagle saw how good it was to rush untrained militia against the horde. And untrained militia, dredged from the streets and prisons, was mostly all he had to work with. Finally he marched forth and Gormann quickly reacted.
On the morning of the 38th of Raxin, the two armies clashed at a plot of land called the Heddenfields. Blackeagle's army held out against one howling horde after another for the entire day and into the night. Around midnight, the Lharasian army from the east had arrived and rode into Gormann's right flank, crushing it. This provoked a general Imperial charge into Gormann's center which left Gormann the Reaver himself a mangled wreck.
Within hours, his army and the humanoid support evaporated into the surrounding wilderness, leaving the cities safe once more. The Lharasian leader Chogrim was splendidly rewarded / suitably bribed and his army quickly left the Empire to ride roughshod over Gormann's homeland of Bortania. The army of survivors in Mantius under Datagnan afterwards marched through Mondrulavia and is currently subduing tribes of Bortanians and marching towards their capital.
Gangs of Bortans and humanoids still lurk in the dark spaces between the cities of the Trynsern Peninsula. Also freed gangs of thugs and prisoners, now armed and empowered, roam and cause trouble in what was once the most secure region of the Empire. The veteran formations that existed before are now decimated, and the most experienced survivors are either campaigning in Bortania or have been sent south to the war with Zazimar.
Cities and towns to the east have simply ceased to exist, including the major city of Terenden which once held over a hundred fifty thousand souls, now a burning pile that stinks of death. A loud cry is heard in the Imperial Senate to account for the weakness and negligence that let this all happen. The problem with this is that many of the heads that would have had to roll already did so. Many say that the laws that allowed the Humanoid Reservation to continue to exist have been voided and those lands and the lives of those who live within are now fair game.
It is going to take years to recover. The Zazimaran campaign forced the crown to make it more lucrative to sign up for the army. There is debate in the government to reinstate the draft because the all volunteer army has dwindled to an all time low.
In 1742, it was said that famed playwright Alman Dragonkin was working on a play about Gormann's Horde.
Category:Gormann's Horde