Reinfell's Nightfall

Reinfell's Nightfall, also known under names such as Reinfell-draknacht in Scheli-dren, is the name given to the resolution of the coup against the darkrunner monarchy in Kyrol following the Godbomb in 4116. "Nightfall" here refers to the literal Scheli-dren translation for a hypnic jerk -- the sensation of "falling" and subsequently awakening after just trying to fall asleep.
In the immediate aftermath of the Godbomb, society was left destitute and with an unclear future. As a result, from even within the darkrunners, there was a growing sentiment against the historic symbol that was the Reinfell family as a whole and the current monarch, Hadu Reinfell. Distaste for the monarchy only grew with the rising feeling that the nobility had somehow cushioned themselves against the Godbomb's worst effects, saving the best water, food, and shelter for themselves and leaving the commoners to starve on the broken streets. On top of that, in the years since the Godbomb, nobody had even seen Hadu Reinfell, as she was hiding away in her opulent palace. Even prior to the Godbomb, she had been known to be secretive and suspicious of others, yet the apocalypse itself seemed to have driven her into a state of only serving as ruler when it benefitted herself.
It was no secret that the angriest of revolutionaries were banding together and hoped to oust Hadu Reinfell from her palace and allow unbridled access to the stores of food she was keeping from the populace as well as drag the queen before the people for judgment. However, the blatant demonstrations of calls for violent action and even assaults on the queen's royal guard were a mask for the actual infiltration going on within Reinfell's closest circles.
Piece by piece, Reinfell's closest aides were replaced by the revolutionaries' own; this was an exceedingly slow and gradual process that took place over the course of ten years, slowly filling in natural gaps left by the Godbomb with hopes of eventually overtaking the survivors still in the royal court. By the time a close aide died, their successor -- a spy planted by the revolutionaries -- would have been part of their "circle" for years and would not be seen as suspicious. Within ten years, the revolutionaries outnumbered the truly loyal to the crown, and Hadu Reinfell's closest friends and confidants had been gone for years. As planned, she reached out to some of the spies, hoping to better befriend them and soothe her loneliness from within her palace.
Once inside the palace, the spies began distributing small amounts of food and supplies to the starving commoners beyond the palace walls. All this transpired while their most adept spies preyed on Hadu Reinfell's loneliness and even attempted to initiate affairs with her under thinly-veiled secrecy. Eventually, Hadu Reinfell agreed, yet not in the way the spies expected, for when one of them was invited to her bedchambers that night, they found not Hadu Reinfell waiting for them, but the other spies arriving at the exact same time. At this juncture, they realized something was horribly wrong, and a noxious gas released in the room caused them to fall asleep. Hadu Reinfell is said to have executed the traitors by flinging them down a pit at the bottom of the depleted food stores -- thus, the Nightfall being the startled awakening the traitors felt just before their final, lethal impact hundreds of feet beneath the surface.
Historical documents have revealed that Hadu Reinfell knowingly allowed the spies in her midst to have them kill off her advisors for her, as she had long-since despised most of them since before the Godbomb and trusted no one at all. As early as the year 4103, she seemed to be aware that the coup was gaining ground right beneath her feet. Her journals indicated that she hated the whole of the royal court, including her own family, and had discovered evidence that they, too, had been plotting against her, from her sisters to her own royal guard. Instead of trying to fight off one side or the other, she allowed the stronger side to kill the other, and then lashed out just as they began to "fall asleep, satisfied with their work".
Category:Ealdremen Politics
Category:Ealdremen History
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