Sarum War

The **Sarum War** was a series of skirmishes and eventual conquest of the lands of Sarum lasting, who had fallen to orcish necromancers from Hilal, by the Reyimic Fellowship. The war lasted from 1410-1411.

## History

### Background

Sarum was primarily settled by dwarven settler in the early days of the Dwarven Imperium. On their northern borders they eventually encountered the Dragon-kin tribes to the north. This was a generally peaceful relation until the Dwarves conquered the lands of Drazenia. After the fall of the Dwarven Imperium the lands were left mostly abandoned, with the Giants chasing after the Dwarves in this part. The Giants turned the land into a giant fire pit leaving it undesirable for many years. Eventually a small band of humans settled down in the region who were making their way south until they encountered the Umamthakom Mountains. Having taking a wrong turn they decided to settle down for they didn't have the proper supplies to cross the mountain range.

The humans lived in the lands and converted to following the will of Reyim. They were a lot less dogmatic compared to Drazenia but had good relations with them nonetheless. However in 1407 everything changed as a small band of orcs who had just passed their fresh man year at Hilalian school of Necrotic Powers came over the Hilal Mountains in search of a summer adventure. On a drunken night one of the orcs dared a fellow Orc to go an old dwarven crypt nearby and raise the dead. This succeeded and escalated into raising more dwarven skeletons. A month in raising the dead the orcs got caught by a human who then fled to a town nearby telling the news. The orcs followed the human and razed the town to the ground and made sure there were no survivors. Daring each other again they raised the corpses of the humans. After this they became a lot more cautious and decided to build a lair to operate from properly. They felt confident and were arrogant they felt that there was nothing more to learn in Hilal and decided to stay past the summer.

Humans in the region reported the disappearance of entire villages which was cause for unrest. Rumors quickly spread around and reached Drazenia and the Reyimic Fellowship. The fellowship send a scout party in the year 1408, first reporting nothing until a second scout party was send out. They learned of the orcish necromancer activities in the region and reported back to the fellowship. A grant campaign started to raise an army, saying that the will of Reyim was at stake with necromancers operating so close by. An army was raised in the following two years and officially send out in the year 1410.

### The war

The orcs having caught wind that the Reyimic Fellowship is raising an army to defeat them, they decided to come out of hiding and started raising their army of undead and then started razing more towns within the the region. The more undead they could comment the better a chance they have had defeating the Reyimic Fellowship.

#### Skirmish at Nosla River

The first encounter between the armies of Reyimic Fellowship and the orcish undead was at the river Nosla. At the very same side where the fellowship would eventually construct Reyim's Redoubt. The river laid not far from the border with Drazenia. A small force of Reyimic soldiers was scouting ahead when they encountered orcish undead doing the same. Both forces stood at opposite side of the rivers. The Reyemic soldiers mostly consisting of kobolds and a few dragonborn decided to hold out knowing that reinforcements where only a days away. The undead where led by the student who had just managed to pass the year. Seeing the enemy soldiers wait he guessed that reinforcements where nearby, therefor he decided the cross the river at nightfall. Hoping to use the dark and his numerical advantage. A few kobolds stood watch but not enough of them did. They got quickly overwhelmed by undead firing their bows at the them. They silently made their way into the camp and shot more arrows at kobolds drinking around a fire. At this point the rest of the undead crossed and slowly worked their way around the camp killing any sleeping kobold or dragonborn they could find. Being the least experienced necromancer a skeleton broke down creating sound, a couple of nearby kobolds and dragonborn woke up and saw the carnage. They quickly rose up from their tents and and grabbed nearby weapons and fought the undead managing to decapitate a few. It wasn't enough however and they eventually were overwhelmed by the numerical disadvantage they had. A few kobolds managed to retreat back towards the main army joining up with them in the morning. The first battle had been a success for the forces of the undead. This made the orcs grow even more arrogant knowing that they managed to defeat a force of Reyimic Soldiers.

#### Battle for the Lair

A series of skirmishes occurred over the lands of Sarum. These skirmishes where however mostly a lost cause for the orcs, they decide to gather all their forces at their lair which they had called 'Elegee Reyim', or in the common tongue 'Fucking Reyim'. Taunted, the Reyimic Fellowship converged to the lair. Turns out it was nothing to special, apart from the thousands of undead. The lair started out as a small hiding spot in a cave until the first necrotic incident happened form their on the orcs took over the town and started to construct a necromancer tower. A temple building in the town was used the base for this necromancer tower, the undead construction workers had broken open the top of the temple tower and started building up the new tower from there. At the very top of the tower wooden beams were sticking out, indicating that the necromancers had even more ambitious thoughts for their new tower. The bottom of the temple had art depicting Reyim and Tenno which was defaced to look like orcs. From the top of the tower the orcs led their undead soldiers in the coming battle. On the other side the Reyimic forces arrived in force. Some say that the orcs shat their pants that day when a they saw the armies of the fellowship despite outnumbering them. For many kobolds covered the front lines in the back even more dragonborn could be soon, but the real thing that made them allegedly shit their pants was the sight of a large shadow of a winged beast. A dragon had arrived with on its back the commander of the Reyimic forces Heskan the Conqueror.

The orcs had deployed their undead in a half circle around the town. They hoped that the Reyimic forces would attack the center and then they would start enveloping on the side flanks using their numerical advantage to the best. This was a tactic they had tried before at other skirmishes and sometimes worked in their favor, however the forces of Reyim had learned how to defeat formation in the past skirmishes. However the units holding the center were of a different composition than usually, the orcs were smart enough to ressurect the Dragon-kin they had slain at the first skirmish at Nosla River. The forces of Reyim attacked in the center as the orcs wanted to but they wavered at first when they saw their own kin as undead. There was no time to think about this as the undead charged them. As soon as the charge happened another force of Reyimic soldiers showed up, a small group of kobolds had hidden itself on the far flanks, they charged right in to the exposed backs on the left flank of the undead. time the Reyimic Fellowship would use a small force of kobolds who had made their way hidden around in the flanks. The undead surrounded the Dragon-kin but then the kobolds attack the left flank of the undead. At the same time the dragon made its first pass, breathing hot fire on the undead who turned into walking torches. By accident the undead even set the undead around them on fire. The orcs, who had seen the shadow of the dragon, ordered a large group of archers to the top of the tower. They opened fire on the dragon, their arrows bouncing off of the thick hide of the dragon. The left flank of the undead was being slaughtered by the Dragon-kin, however the central flank of the Reyimic were under severe pressure and looked like they were about to collapse. Despite having grown arrogant one orc remained humble, the best student of the bunch almost as gifted as Zog some said, she had send an expedition a week earlier to a nearby dwarven ruin uncovering a power ballista. This ballista was rushed out of a nearby shack and started to fire powerful bolts at the dragon, the first one grazed its right wing. Heskan not being to happy decided to attack the ballista directly with the dragon, they flew right towards it but then a bolt was fired that went straight between the eyes. The dragon started to tumbled out of the sky crashing right into the tower shacking its foundation and making the collapse. Heskan barely survived the fall, when he stood up he saw one of the orcs with his back towards him. He grabbed his sword tapped the orc on its shoulder, they made eye contact for a second before Heskan stubbed him in the chest. The orc collapsed to the ground and a large part of the forces with him. Now that a significant number of the undead had died the previously under pressure central flank of the Reyimic Fellowship could push on. They rushed towards Heskan and the dragon to see if he was alright. Heskan was making his way into the tower ruins searching for the last remaining orc. The same humble orc who had shot down the dragon. There she was in the center of the collapsed ruin, Heskan ordered his soldiers to stand back and threw a sword towards the orc. Heskan then said: 'We are going to fight this out honarbly, but before shall fight tell me what is your name foul orc.' At the same the orc picked up the sword she said: 'It's Yevelda, you follower of Reyim. Still can't accept that we orcs have overthrown a god! Will you fight to bring Reyim's will we actually did it. You are nothing but obsessed with the right rules and honour when you could have finished the will of Reyim a long time ago. But you can't you're nothing more than a puppet to Tenno and Reyim.' Furiously Heskan started swinging his sword at Yevelda. She parried his attacks and then attacked back. They fighting continued with both of them being a match for each other. However both got tired and then suddenly undead stormed through the doors they managed to grab Heskan after which the forces of the fellowship sprung into action and attack the undead. One soldier grabbed his spear and pierced Yevelda in the right leg. The soldier killed of the remaining undead and helpen Heskan up. Heskan said then: 'How dare you to manipulate our battle to gain the upper hand! You vile spawn of Konsulh. Do you have any final words! For I do have the honour to grant you those, honour which you seem to lack.' Yevelda simply responded with: 'Why do I need honour if I could have defeated you and won anyway?' Heskan raised his sword and tried to cut the head of right clean, however having been severly tired he just barely managed to hit the neck. Yevelda screamed out in pain. He tried it one more time but couldn't cut her head of at which moment he simply ordered a soldier to pierce her in the heart and cut her head later of.

### Aftermath

Having defeated the orcs the Reyimic Fellowship incorporated the lands under their banners. The few remaining humans who weren't killed and then raised from the dead rejoiced. Some of them joined the fellowship while others preferred to rebuild what they had lost. The Hilalian School for Necrotic Powers had heard of rumors of dead being raised over the mountains and did send out an investigation team. However they were to slow to arrive and start a proper investigation. In turn they received angry letters from the Drazenia and the Reyimic Fellowship detailing what exactly had happened and that the fellowship threatened to take direct action against them. The fellowship fell more confident than ever with their newly gained lands and support of many more dragons, meaning that flying over the mountains would be easier and therefor the fellowship would have a huge advantage compared to Kraterocracy of Hilal. The school responded with banning the orcs according to official guidelines and stating that what occurred was strictly against the moral code of the school. Tensions between Orcs and the Dragon-kin increased, but eventually subsided after the Fellowship realized that the former lands of Sarum where more devastated than thought.

The Reyimic Fellowship managed to gain more autonomy from Drazenia after the conquest and turned into even bigger zealots than before. Having control of this region meant that they could continue to increase their power base and start construction on a new proper citadel to protect from any more aggression that defies the will of Reyim.