Logiru: The Dying Embers

Logiru: The Dying Embers
----Written by Prof. Linnika of the Crimsongorod University Historical Society
Chapter I - The Long Peace
This document will outline the start of the fiefdom era (which lasted from 720 to 940) from the Flame perspective. However before I can delve further into the history of Logiru, I have to set the scene, or rather the history, leading up to the monumental collapse of the tribal council in 720. 
A good place to start would probably be the forming of the tribal council and the long shadow of peace that followed it. In the year 0, the largest kingdoms from the 4 tribal regions created a loose confederative agreement: Rose in the northeast, Flame in the northwest and central areas, Knot in the southwest and Blood in the southeast. 
From the Flame region came the kingdom of Logiru. It held a tight grip on various ethnicities in the region and focused heavily on central control, power, and loyalty. They fought a subtle cultural war against Blood, due to long standing religious differences.
See, in Blood, a main person of worship was Ichor, and in the Flame region, they heavily worshipped Prometheus, the Flamegiver. Prometheus being the youngest ancient, the one to bring fire to mortals and who was slain at the hands of his lover, Ichor, who was consumed by the Void. Obviously this made the Flame… uneasy at best towards the Blood, and at worst, sparked all-out war prior to the tribal council.
The 4 great kingdoms of the Tribal Council Era were as follows: Alaxia in the Knot lands, Logiru in the Flame lands, Synorho of the Rose lands, and Kyndl of the Blood lands. In the year 0, they each sent diplomats to the central-ish city of Crimsongorod, to find or delegate a way to peace.
A compromise was reached, to decide on any one solution, each tribe (as a group, dominated by their great kingdom) would hold one vote, however on each tribe’s select season, they would hold 2 votes, and so Blood was tied to Winter, Rose to spring, Flame to Summer, and Knot to fall. Geographically, a counter-clockwise rotation of power was formed. 
Of the 4 great kingdoms, Alaxia was the strongest by far, but also the most politically neutral. They had their own interests of course, but mainly believed that the best way to strengthen their own power was to keep the council afloat. Whenever one of the other great kingdoms would face rebellions that threatened the balance of power they held dear, they would intervene and crush said rebellion into the dirt.
This balance of power would hold, mostly unchallenged, for 6 and a half centuries, the Long Shadow of Peace, as it is now known in history, would bring with it a series of great innovations regarding the administration and centralization of power. However that is not the focus of this document. No, today I want to talk about the confederation’s downfall. How it all unraveled in a series of spectacular explosions, starting with a band of murderous thieving hordes of peasants, and ending with the annihilation of the peaceful world many once knew. 
For the average citizen of a kingdom circa 525, their daily life consisted mainly of their simple job, passed to them by their father and his father’s father. He might’ve even read a curious poster or two that was flying around - something about the fall of Exindicum. It mattered little to them, hell they probably didn’t know why or how Exindicum was ever a big deal in the first place, but to the king of Alaxia, it troubled him.
As a kid, Laius III had read many older Knot texts, from the great clashes of Poli and Axloa and the weeping of Prometheus, to the epic tales of adventurers traveling across the Ankt to do battle against Iridian forces. He read the crushing, desperate memoirs of kings who had seen their armies crumble before them at the might of Rosea. That terrible force that swept across the Ankt, destroying everything in its wake and keeping all of Knot in their yoke for 2 centuries of oppression.
Laius even read about the legends of Tilwaen, an old story from up north, originating from the mountain worshippers of the Flame. Knot footnotes asserted that while she most likely did exist, the extent of her power was probably exaggerated.
Yet in the early history of his own kingdom, Alaxia itself, this yoke vanished. The once proud pink banners of Rosea fled across the Ankt, and not out of fear of the Knot, but of what lurked in the west. Stories, although few and far between, spoke of the Iridians. The crafty people who were able to throw off the Roseans, which matched the stories from his own kingdom that told of Rosean armies retreating west.
Despite these old stories telling of Iridian strength, in his own day, Laius allied with Iridium, as they were under the subjugation of Exindicum. His court weighed their options. Letting Exindicum rule over the lands west of the Ankt was risky; they could attempt an amphibious assault to the rear of his kingdom. If they helped Iridium, it would destabilize the region for several more decades. leaving Alaxia uncontested.
In this storm of events, Alaxia helped their age-old rival in defeating Exindicum. With Iridium’s innovative magic spells and Alaxia’s manpower, they were easily able to overrun Exindicum and send them back to their highlands from whence they came. 
Yet even with the situation stable, Laius still fretted at night. He knew the stories of old, of Iridium’s craftiness, and of how they had survived the millenia through cunning and wit. He wondered day-in and day-out if he had made the right choice, helping his ancestors’ rival. All while the shadow in the west grew, Alaxia would struggle to hold the corners of its empire together, and the tribal council.
Chapter II - The Long Decay
Skipping ahead, past Laius III, Xheyo II, and Anxa I, we arrive at the year 667, the beginning of the end. A report, although minor, arrived at Laius IV’s doorstep in the late winter of August. It was a detailed scout report, specifically mentioning that multiple innovations had been made since his namesake’s days and that the Iridian army was in great shape. 
The report also detailed that multiple buffer states that were once secure stalwarts against a potential attack on the west coast of the Ankt were now weak. The leaders complacent, their armies corrupt. Iridium could move forces all the way to the Ankt by 680 if they wished to.
Even with the generous assumptions, Iridium still moved faster. By 675, they were already at the Ankt, but would move no further. The buffer states set up in the previous century proved themselves incapable of fending off the new superpower. However, even the might of Iridium in its heyday wouldn’t want to fight Alaxia and the might of the tribal council’s forces.
For years, Alaxia itself had grown complacent. They believed that the destiny of their kingdom was to be the sole dominators of Knot lands, and they had effectively achieved that. They sat atop their thrones and sneered at the thought of Iridium seriously challenging them.
Iridium stewed in the silence, working out a plan. They knew a fair, clean fight against Alaxia would never work, they had the full power of the great kingdoms behind them if they just had time to call in the other kingdoms. Some in the Iridian courts began to develop a plan. If one piece of the tribal council fell, the rest might come crumbling down. 
Iridian spies knew that several separatist groups were plotting in Logiru, one of the great kingdoms, specifically the one that dominated the Western Flame region. They hatched a plan, if they could set up enough distractions, it could buy time for actual rebels to prepare for an assault on a fortress, giving them a base of operations.
For a rebellion in Flame lands to work, they would have to drum up a specific image, this image being that Logiru no longer held the mandate of power. The people of the mountainous and even some of the plains dwelling Flame believed that fierce loyalty to the ruler was the honorable way to live your life. If you could shake their belief in their leader, that what they were swearing their lives to was no longer just, Logiru could come crumbling down.
In the fall of 715, around April, they lit up several villages with fire/heat spells in the northern regions of Logiru. Sure enough, with several divisions normally spread out amongst the area concentrated in a few towns north of Drataburg, the rebels, seeking to establish legitimacy, hijacked Drataburg itself, earning respect from the locals as they seeked to spread their rebellious spirit throughout most of the kingdom.
They mostly spread propaganda about how Logiru armies had really lied to them about the history of their conquests. Instead of unifying, they presented Logiru as dividing the people, conquering them, and said that when the Logirun army showed up, they sought not to quell the reasons for their rebellion, but merely snuff it out without delay. Something they knew would trouble the hearts of Flame citizens.
The history of Logiru is forever intertwined with that of Alaxia and Kyndl. And so we must move back to Alaxia. Laius IV, now a far more elderly man, heard the news in Logiru and decided that it would be worth it to send a couple legions of his up to Drataburg to help crush the rebels, a plan that would normally be a footnote along the several other times similar events have happened. However, this would be no ordinary order, this would undoubtedly change the history of the Knot region forever.
As Knot men, used to the harsh sun of their marshy homeland moved north to assist Logiru, a new rumor spread among the army, both in the legions heading north and the legions that stayed behind. In every backroom there lingered a single thought, from officers down to conscripts, the Iridium army, the shadow from the west, had regrouped. Some talked about a possible invasion from the west, some about spies coming to sow rebellion.
This rumor, although sometimes exaggerated, was, to the King and his advisors, unfortunately not a total fabrication. Reports in 716 (after some legions had already been sent north)  did indicate a massing of Iridium troops on the banks of the Ankt, a massing that would almost assuredly be coming their way. And yet, they didn’t inform the public, or the army. They kept it quiet amongst their ranks, even as the western shadow dragged ever closer.
Chapter III - Cracks Erupting
The first bolts of kinetic energy flew across the Ankt in the summer of early 717. By then, the rumors had been all but confirmed. The Iridian army offered buffer cities on the eastern side of the Ankt two choices: surrender, or burn. If they chose to surrender, they would be rewarded. Every city destroyed in a province would have their wealth split, 75% going to the Iridian army, and 25% to the cities that chose to fly the flag of white. 
The Alaxian regiments stuck in Logiru now raced home under the summer sun, fearing the ruin of their proud kingdom. Laius IV was panicking, he was not prepared for the Iridian assault. When he sent out legions to try and slow down the Iridian advance, the enemy would wait for his legions to enter terrain unsuited for combat from their side, and fire, sowing discontent among the solciers.
In Logiru, the situation was even more dire. News sprang up from the south of a possible invasion from Kyndl. Demagogues in the south preached that like Ichor killed the evil Prometheus, they too should rise up and slay the dragon in the north. Logiru citizens, particularly the ones based in the plains area, believed that the kingdom should strike at Kyndl first, a sort of vengeance for their gods slaying of Prometheus.
The king of Logiru, Halaerae, was quite troubled by all the news flooding into the court. Stories of men who wished to go to war with the Blood kingdoms over petty religious disputes while a rebellion was going on and one of their major allies was tied up in a war angered him. Yet he had little choice in the matter, if Kyndl and their vassal kingdoms came north, he had to give them a fight.
In 718 it increasingly became clear that Synorho would not intervene in tribal council affairs, and that the council itself was splintering. There were talks of all out war from both camps in both Kyndl and Logiru. Worst of all, Alaxia could not spare a man to intervene or enforce peace; their forces were all tied up fighting Iridium. 
With Blood and Flame kingdoms at each other’s throats over religion, and Synorho mainly staying peaceful, Alaxia fought alone against the hordes of Iridian soldiers crossing the Ankt. Wave after wave of men, turning the Alaxian forces into dust. 
By 719, Iridian forces had captured the last city standing between them and Aixa, the ancestral home of Alaxia. Their forces, although small, could use their undersized forces to their advantage, hiding behind outcroppings and tall crops before striking at the enemy. It was clear that Alaxia’s days as a superpower were now numbered, and every day, the situation worsened. Their capital’s surrender was a when now, now an if.
Spies confirmed that the Kyndl armies were now parked right on the border between themselves and Logiru, ready to fight. According to the best estimates available to Halaerae, their armies outnumbered his, 65,000 to 50,000 in total capacity. A fight would be nigh unwinnable. 
As the rebels gained steam from their fortress in Drataburg, a campaign to sweep southeast was increasingly likely. If Logiru dedicated forces to completely annihilating them, however, Kyndl would almost certainly seize the moment and take Crimsongorod. 
Halaerae made the hard call, he would stay in Crimsongorod to fight the Blood forces, 50,000 strong, he would have to fight to the last man if he wanted a hope of victory, but it could work. If the rebels came south though, it would be all over. His kingdom would be fractured into a million tiny pieces.
Chapter IV - Logiru’s Embers
In the early summer of 720, around the middle of January, Aixa finally fell in what would become the first of four shoes to drop. Alaxia as a kingdom ceased to be after Laius IV was killed in an ambush after the fall of Aixa.
While Kyndl was gearing up for war in the spring of 720, small cracks began to emerge as a local preacher/demagogue in St. Tetrisburg espoused a new idea, drawn from older texts he and a couple others dug up. Ichor might’ve been possessed by Void when he killed Prometheus. Maybe he wasn’t the great guy like so many in their region believed.
While this tiny little heresy was brewing, Kyndl forces marched in preparation for war, and in the winter of 720, around July, they officially declared war on Logiru, and the long march to Crimsongorod went surprisingly swimmingly. However, to cross over to the city itself, they had to either go through a narrow pass (bad for an army that had the advantage) or cross a river where they could easily be pelted by state-of-the-art javelins, which Logiru had in spades. 
The Blood generals decided that the narrow pass of Elpomyret, that bordered the river to the northeast, would be the best way to get across to Crimsongorod. Unfortunately, Halaerae also knew this, and so he stationed 20,000 men to the pass.
The first and second days, both sides took heavy casualties as the 20,000 men held with all they had, thinking reinforcements would be slow to arrive. On the third day however, the extra 30,000 men arrived at the scene to see the Blood army badly tiring as the original contingent of Logirun troops had held firm.
By the end of the fourth day, Blood troops had retreated, having lost 17,000 men of the 55,000 they sent in. Logiru had lost 13,000 men of the 50,000 they had available for the defense of the pass. The army had survived, but they were now beleaguered, and weak.
What Halaerae couldn’t have anticipated was that the Kyndl forces were not done scheming. They had sent, in the middle of the battle, a rider on their swiftest horse, and sent him away to Tilgrad. (This city is now called Tilwaengrad, but is called Tilgrad for historical purposes as the -waen suffix was disputed prior to the rise of Tilwaen, the leader of the Redvolution.)
The rider reached the city and asked for Eravtus, the leader of the Mountain Rebels, as they were now known. He was told by a local innkeeper that Eravtus and his personal guard - the most loyal of the revolutionaries, had moved towns as they feared an incoming Logiru reprisal.
In fact, Eravtus was in the town over, Fradlingov, where he had set up a temporary camp. The unknown rider informed him that while Kyndl armies had failed to defeat the Logirun forces, a swift rebel attack on Crimsongorod within the next month could swiftly end Halaerae’s reign, and bring sovereignty back to the mountainous region of northern Flame.
In mid August of 720, Halaerae’s guards looked over the great walls of Crimsongorod and found a great army amassed outside their walls. Compared to their now 38,000 men, the rebels had cooked up a force of 45,000, and soon they would be bearing down Crimsongorod in a lightning assault.
Their army came from the north, where the crossing was in fact much easier. Within a week, they were assaulting Crimsongorod itself, threatening to bring down the meager defenses it already had. As Logiru’s surrender appeared more and more imminent, riders were sent out across the lands by rebel horse riders to let each province and city know that they would soon be independent, free of Logiru restraint.
Now, with the forces of Logiru badly damaged, they knew they could only hold out for so long. Halaerae decided that if they had any hope of victory, it would be in one last grand charge. They threw open the gates of Crimsongorod, the great scarlet gates, and charged into the night. The king was never seen again, and the cavalry, although successful at damaging the rebels, was unable to break their resolve as their own morale crumbled when they did not return with their king intact. Crimsongorod fell to the rebels only a scant week later, on September 2nd. 
After the successful rebel victory at Crimsongorod, most of the civilians were unharmed as their job was (mostly) done after Logiru renounced claims on any land outside of the city and Halaerae was dead. The dying embers had finally faded out, leaving a thousand tiny kingdoms in its wake, as 720 was the start of the fiefdom era.
Epilogue - The Fiefdom Era
So, what became of the Flame region, of the Blood, Rose, and Knot regions? Well first, Kyndl would be torn apart by 734 in the calamitous War of Voidian Heresy, and after the war, state power was permanently shaken as neither side could secure a victory, nor keep their own land stable for much longer.
Synorho, a mostly peaceful state in the northeast, slowly faded from power as its confederation style government was torn apart by various warlords and local leaders that no longer saw the usefulness in banding together to secure the future of Rose interests. 
And so, at the end of the year 720, the Fiefdom Era began. Born in blood, the era would last for 220 years. Modern historians now like to divide it into roughly 2 sub-eras, the Early Fiefdom Era (720 - 830) and the Reunification Wars (830 - 940). The Early Fiefdom Era saw division as the wave of revolutions led to bloodshed as smaller kingdoms were to pick up the pieces. 
In Knot lands, around 750, the fief of Bolinne would start rising out of the ashes. In Rose and Blood lands however, they would mostly stay squabbling, and in the ashes of Logiru would rise Fradlina, who’s story is too long and complex for this document but to sum it up, would stay as a fiercely defensive kingdom before joining what is now called the Northern Confederacy.
The rivalry between Iridium and Knot people would continue for next several centuries, as clashes between Iridium and Alaxia would be succeeded by clashes between Iridium and Bolinne for the decades to come.
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