Waldren Occupation

> T*his article is about the historical time period. For the architectural style, see the appropriate section under Duil Architecture. For the imperialist institution, see Waldren.*
>
>

> *See More: Complete Timeline of the Mortal Realm*
>
>

The Waldren Occupation is the roughly 500 year period during which the Waldren Trade Enterprise spread their influence and control over the continent of Tirónar. Immediately following the Feadhainn Era, most historians agree that this era started ~1000, officially ending when Waldren left Leyfel around 1500.

However, depending on which country you ask, the Waldren Occupation ended at different times. After all, historical periods don't just stop and start, like kids in a queue for a slide. Different parts of the world will see changes at different rates, and the transition from one period to another is usually fuzzy and indistinct.

Leyfel has the longest Occupation period, which is why its end date around 1500 is considered the "official" end of the Waldren Occupation by historians. Similarly, while Haneul, Grancinco, the Island League, and Borrike successfully retained their independence from Waldren, they still call the entire time period when Waldren had a presence on the continent to be the "Waldren Occupation."

For nations like Duilintinn, Tandeli, Halennor, and Lantraeth, the Waldren Occupation ended as early as the early 1400s. Some of these nations began to rebel against Waldren, while others were left to their own devices so their imperialist overlords could focus on quelling said rebellions. This ushered in a period that's either called the "Revolutionary Years" or the "Interim Years," depending on whether the nation had rebelled or been left in salutary neglect. Due to their similar time spans and shared traits of cultural shifts, power vacuums, and inner turmoil, the Revolutionary Years and Interim Years are considered to be the same period of history, just under two different names and, like the Waldren Occupation, varying end-dates.

## Conquest

### Initial Colonies

Waldren first landed in Leyfel around 1000, where they immediately established its first of many colonies. From there, the imperialists traveled north, where they quickly and easily took over the forested regions of Lantraeth and the rocky coast of Halennor, both of which were almost completely empty and practically defenseless after the Dragon War. With a source of lumber, mining opportunities, and tropical produce, Waldren was drunk on success and decided to seek more profit further inland.

Around the same time, Waldren also claimed Duilintinn for its own, with next to no opposition. Almost immediately, the colonists began cutting down the smaller forests that dotted the landscape, causing massive deforestation that the region has never recovered from. In addition, it began setting along and imposing its own culture on the eastern coast of the region, effectively ensuring that the already-weakened civilization of Feadhainn would never rise again.

#### Disease Factor

It's important to note that, by the time Waldren arrived in Tirónar, at least a few centuries had passed since the Dragon War, so while the civilizations of Tirónar were still struggling to bounce back from the war’s near-apocalyptic devastation of the Dragon War, they were not completely defenseless anymore. However, much like in the history of real world imperialism, Waldren’s arrival in Tirónar would have likely also brought new diseases to the continent. The civilizations that had recovered the fastest from the war were better able to deal with the sudden epidemic, but that was only Haneul, the Island League, and sorta Grancinco. Everyone else was starting from more-or-less scratch, and any young civilizations that were growing from the ashes would have been unprepared to deal with an epidemic and foreign occupation simultaneously, making it easy for Waldren to walk in and take over.

### War with Grancinco

After taking the time to establish itself in these initial colonies, Waldren then attempted to take the nation of Grancinco in 1059. While the region had recovered better than Lantreath, Halennor, and Duilintinn from the Dragon War, the years spent rebuilding had left Grancinco with very little military prowess. Despite this, Waldren was caught by surprise, both by the completely unfamiliar tropical climate and the stark difference between resistance put up by the other colonies compared to that of Grancinco. The result was a war that lasted over fifty years of battling against the forces of both Grancinco and nature, as Waldren crept slowly but steadily across the desert landscape before being forced to a halt by the dense jungle of the Ayuda Forest and the dangerous Ayuda River when Grancinco's forces destroyed the only bridge across.

Exhausted, both nations agreed to a truce in 1103, leaving Waldren with a large swath of the southeastern coast. This region, which they renamed Tandeli, was enormously profitable for Waldren. Not only was the region full of bustling ports, fertile soil, and tropical goods, but Tandeli was home to the largest unicorn population in Tirónar. Waldren immediately began hunting unicorns to the point of endangerment, selling their horns and coats for ridiculous profits.

While Waldren had its eye on Haneul next, the war with Grancinco forced the trading company to rest on its laurels before attempting to take on an even more militant region. For over a century, Waldren contented itself with profiting on their current colonies and recovering their strength. These colonies were all called an “Arm of Waldren.”  For example, Tandeli was called “The Southern Arm of Waldren,” Leyfel was known as “The Central Arm of Waldren,” the lands that would become Halennor and Lantraeth were collectively known as the “Northern Arm of Waldren,” etc. As Waldren depleted what they believed to be Duilintinn's valuable resources, the region was jokingly called “The Useless Arm of Waldren."

### Haneul and the Island League

After amassing an insane amount of wealth and spending large portions of it on ships, soldiers, and weaponry, Waldren finally attempted to take over Haneul in 1227.

Needless to say, it was a mistake.

As Waldren had initially feared, Haneul kicked Waldren's butt onto the curb. To make matters worse, Waldren's ships approached too close to the Island League during this invasion attack, prompting the pirates of the League to rob and torment the imperialist trade ships at every turn, both out of respect for their allies in Haneul and for some consistent profit and sport.

In response, Waldren attempted to take over the Island League. However, the merfolk of the Eastern Sea, who themselves were strong allies of the Island League, began to take issue with the swarms of boats coming through their territory up and down the coast. The nuisance that the merfolk made of themselves, combined with the superior seafaring abilities of the Island League and the military support from Haneul, ensured that Waldren wouldn't take over the islands and would remain easy pickings for the pirates.

Waldren was extremely stubborn and proud, refusing to admit defeat against both nations for nearly a century. This period was full of back-and-forth naval skirmishes, as the pirates of the Island League targetted Waldren ships and Waldren attempted to take one of the islands in response. With the maneuverability of the Island League's ships and the military prowess of Haneul, few of these skirmishes ended in "defeat" for Waldren. Instead, these battles resulted in a frustrating stalemate in which Waldren found themselves unable to catch the ships of the Island League, nor break through the defenses of Haneul.

### Borrike

By 1325, Duilintinn had become significantly less profitable than Waldren's other holdings in Tirónar. After exhausting the sparse forests of the region, Waldren found itself baffled by Duilintinn's strange climate and ecosystem. Duilintinn was rapidly becoming less profitable, and Waldren needed to fill the economic hole before they found themselves in debt after losing so much money in their war with Haneul and the Island League.

Frustrated, Waldren sailed to the opposite side of Tirónar in hopes of snatching up Borrike. Rumors said that this region had massive forests and wide, sweeping plains of untilled land ripe for the picking. However, these rumors forgot to mention that Borrike also had giants. While Waldren was able to wander into the region without much opposition, they quickly decided that the western coast of Tirónar was too far away to profit upon after less than a decade of trying.

## The Fall of Waldren

By 1334, Waldren had stopped attempting to fight against Haneul and the Island League and was giving the northeastern coast a wide berth, even sailing around the opposite side of the continent to pick up their goods from Lantraeth and Halennor. In an attempt to make up for their losses in this war and the rapidly falling profitability of Duilintinn, Waldren's remaining colonies are aggressively exploited for goods and resources.

After a century of profiting off of these colonies, Waldren began to face down the first of many revolutions against their rule in Tirónar. While the initial uprisings were easily quelled, the spark of these attempts for independence would light a flame across the continent. From then on, Waldren was constantly fighting at least one uprising. As a result, Waldren instituted a period of salutary neglect for its more cooperative and/or unprofitable colonies.

### Halennor's Rebellion

Halennor was the first country to rise up against Waldren. After centuries of watching Waldren ship the fruits of their labor to some distant land that they'd never seen nor particularly cared about, the newest generation of Halennorians decided they wanted what their neighbors in the south had; independence. Inspired by how Haneul and the Island League had successfully fended off the Waldren invaders, in 1445, these young rebels attempted to rise up against Waldren on their own. This took the form of a strike, where the rebels refused to produce or hand over the goods they produced to the Waldren ships that arrived to pick them up and sell them elsewhere. In response, Waldren forcefully took the goods themselves, threatening worse punishment if things were not back to normal when they next returned. Soon afterward, the Halennorian rebels requested aid directly from their southern neighbors, Haneul and the Island League. Despite its inability to defeat Haneul and the League in the past, Waldren spent several years depleting its ships and manpower in Lantraeth to the west and Duilintinn to the south in an attempt to quell this rebellion. Eventually, in 1453, Waldren was forced to admit defeat and retreat to its southern holdings.

Halennor's successful rebellion against Waldren had several side-effects. First, Waldren's attempts to retain control in the region forced it to prioritize its use of ships, manpower, and resources. As a result, Duilintinn and Lantraeth were largely ignored except as launching points for Waldren's ships towards Halennor. This began a period of salutary neglect in both countries. After losing so badly to the combined forces of Haneul, Halennor, and the Island League, Waldren was stretched thin and had no choice but to continue leaving these two regions to their own devices.

### Tandeli's Rebellion

In addition, Halennor's rebellion had inspired another rebellion in Tandeli. While an underground opposition movement had been simmering in the region for centuries since Waldren's hostile takeover, Halennor's success was the spark that lit Tandeli's resistance ablaze, with the first official battle of Tandeli's revolution taking place in 1462. Unfortunately, Tandeli lacked the international aid that Halennor benefited from. Fortunately, Tandeli had an extremely organized preexisting resistance movement and access to several tactical and technological advantages that Waldren had overlooked. As a result, while Tandeli's war for independence against Waldren was long and brutal, in 1495, Tandeli successfully gained their independence as well.

### Retreat

With their navy almost completely decimated, Waldren attempted to retreat back to Leyfel to nurse their wounds and continue profiting from their remaining holdings in Duilintinn and Lantraeth. However, by this point, Lantraeth had quietly been forming its own factional governments, and Waldren was in no position to bring the northwestern region back in line. Meanwhile, Duilintinn's rocky coastline, variable climate, and the factional chaos that had grown in Waldren's absence had all been written off as more trouble than it was worth.

On top of everything else, there were stirrings of unrest among the people of Leyfel, who were getting sick of being nothing more than a launching point for a company that playacts at being a government, yet doesn't use its tremendous profits to actually support the people they supposedly "ruled." With the writing on the wall, Waldren decided to cut their losses in 1500 and return to their home country of Senfara, leaving Leyfel to fend for itself.

### Back Home

The Waldren Occupation also had negative political and economic effects for other nations of Senfara.

Despite the mercantile and geographic power that Walden earned for its backers during its occupation of Tirónar, the long-term relationship with a continent so inundated with magic caused some upheaval back home. First and foremost, this sudden advantage gained by Waldren’s supporters caused significant political and economic turmoil as its rivals fought to maintain the balance of power. Piracy flourished not just among the islands of Tirónar, but in Senfaran waters as well, specifically targeting Waldren ships. Moreover, Waldren was not tied to any one Senfaran nation, but several, often offering their allegiance to one government before trading it for another. This made them several enemies in the long-term, but increased their profitability in the short-term as they played the international trade of Senfara to its own advantage.