Siege of Westmarch

## Prior Events

### Foundation of the Silver Inquisition

The Silver Inquisition was formed in 490 AC in Deep Harbor by Maldon Arrindell, previously a Captain in the Corlester army who now styled himself General Arrindell. Soon after forming the Silver Inquisition, Arrindell moved its base of operations into the Broken Fang Mountains, a mountain range that runs between the Falkenried and Corlester regions of Suldura.

As the Inquisition gained power, they became more organized. While some parts of the army still focused on "witchhunting," others began to act as a security force for parts of the countryside. Arrindell hoped that, by providing the Inquisition as a source of security, he would be able to eventually supplant the Margrave of Falkenried, who he saw as dangerous due to the Margrave's Mayakara wife.

In 494 AC, Arrindell approached Gravine Mezara Corlester to request Deep Harbor's aid. Deep Harbor was known as a city particularly hostile to magic and to the Mayakara, and was the largest Sulduran city without a Mayakara academy. However, Corlester turned him away, refusing to lend her aid to an army hostile to her cousin, Margrave Tiberius Falkenried.

### Corlester-Arrindell Pact

Nearly five years after refusing Arrindell, the Gravine of Corlester summoned him back to the city, seeming to have had a change of heart. This change was preceded by a general shift in the Gravine's behavior following her taking a man named Ravahn Ashara as her lover.

Gravine Mezara ordered a large part of the Corlester army, led by Captain Edmund Caldara, to join forces with the Silver Inquisition, assisting them in their planned attack on Westmarch. Around 40% of Deep Harbor's forces were allocated to be sent along with Silver Inquisition troops.

### Silver Inquisition Preparations

In preparation for the impending siege, the Silver Inquisition began sending advance forces into the Falkenried region. A group of around 50 soldiers led by Captain Gemma Firthing traveled east of Westmarch into the Brightwood and took control of the Brightwood Bridge, the primary crossing over the Redwend River, planning to cut off supply lines into Westmarch.

While this happened, Inquisition and Corlester forces began construction of siege weapons in Deep Harbor and in camps in the Broken Fang Mountains. The Silver Inquisition also continued minor operations throughout Falkenried, such as sending a team to clear out the Autumnbrook Mines and sending witchhunters after the necromancer of Wood's Edge.

### Westmarch Learns of the Planned Siege

A group of Silver Inquisition soldiers, Juniper Arrindell, Eurian Montaigne, and Morgan Isthiril were sent to the Autumnbrook Mines where they were captured by a group of mercenaries - Corvyn Xalrick Barryhouse, Grimyse Ecixellash, Holg Bersk, and Saladin. Learning of the Silver Inquisition's plans to besiege Westmarch, the mercenaries released the three soldier, but then passed the information that they had learned on to the Margrave of Falkenried. This confirmed suspicions that the margrave already had, and reaffirmed his decision to begin preparations for an attack on his city.

### Gathering Aid

Preparing for the attack, Margrave Tiberius Falkenried sent his son Owen to Crownport to be fostered with the margrave's cousin, High King Artorin Tavore. Falkenried hired two of the mercenaries who had brought him the information about the impending siege to escort his son, sending them along with his personal friend Finnbjorn Cinderforge, and also asked them to deliver a message to the king request his aid.

En route to Crownport, the mercenaries were waylaid by Captain Firthing's troops at the Brightwood Bridge and cleared them out, turning the bridge over to Westmarch troops.

Upon reaching Crownport, the mercenaries delivered the margrave's message to Queen Calliandra and the royal council. The queen informed them that the crown would be unable to answer Falkenried's call for aid, since their troops were mired to the south in the Malkin Rebellion. She did, however, provide funds to hire mercenaries.

Using the crown's funds, Finnbjorn Cinderforge employed the mercenary captain known as The Cat and his men, The Cat's Claws. He also enlisted the aid of Elend Tavore, a cavalry captain sent home in disgrace from the war in Malkin. Finally, he persuaded the famed retired general Kyrel Evander to lead Westmarch's forces.

### General Evander's Preparations

Upon reaching Westmarch, General Kyrel Evander assumed control of the preparations for the siege. He spearheaded a search for potential saboteurs within Westmarch, and discovered that, due to the Westmarch City Guard's rapid recruitment, they had employed several undercover Silver Inquisition agents. These agents, along with many who had entered the city under pretense of being refugees from the countryside, had planned to open one of the gates during the siege to let Silver Inquisition soldiers in. In addition to capturing these saboteurs, Evander ordered three of the four Westmarch gates to be sealed off and barricaded with packed dirt.

Evander also ordered several reconnaissance and espionage missions to be carried out in the days leading up to the siege. Disguising themselves with magic, Grimyse Ecixellash, Saladin, and The Cat infiltrated a Silver Inquisition war camp to learn of their battle plans while the druids Meena Rosleff and Myth took avian forms to perform aerial scouting of the approaching armies. Between these operations, Westmarch was able to discover the size of the attacking army and the extent of Corlester.

## The Siege

### Attempted Assassination

Hoping to turn the tides in their favor, the Silver Inquisition selected five skilled soldiers, including Morgan Isthiril, to be sent into Westmarch in an attempt to assassinate Margrave Tiberius Falkenried and his wife, Nilene Guinevra. All five were given powerful magic items, called martyrblade rings, which allowed them to enter the city unnoticed and to attack with greater speed and lethality.

The soldiers sent after Nilene were killed by Finnbjorn Cinderforge, Grimyse Ecixellash, Saladin, and Torvald Stonesong, who were with the margravine when the attempted assassination occurred. Nilene was able to tell that her husband was also under attack due to the warder bond between them, and she and the other four with her were able to teleport to him and avert that attack as well. While all of the assassins were killed, it was then discovered that their deaths had been inevitable - the martyrblade rings granted them great powers, but also ensured their deaths within a few hours of the rings' activation.

### Pre-Siege Skirmishes

After learning of the sizes and locations of the approaching armies, Westmarch planned an attack on the smallest of the forces. Two of the Westmarch Mayakara - the druid Meena Rosleff as a scout and the wizard Damien Crane to cast a fireball - accompanied a group of cavaliers led by Finnbjorn Cinderforge and Elend Tavore. The Westmarch forces prepared an ambush, attacking the rear of the army led by the Corlester officer Captain Edmund Caldara. Catching the Inquisition forces by surprise, the cavaliers were able to inflict heavy casualties. Captain Caldara was also unhorsed in the attack. He challenged Finnbjorn Cinderforge to single combat and was defeated and killed.

### Sabotage of the Siege Engines

The final night before the battle, after the Silver Inquisition's siege engines had been assembled outside of Westmarch, a final stealth mission was conducted by Westmarch forces. Saladin, Grimyse Ecixellash, The Cat, and Myth sneaked out of the city and into the surrounding army, destroying several trebuchets before retreating to within Westmarch's walls.

### The Battle on the Walls

The walls of Westmarch were manned primarily by the Westmarch City Guard, reinforced by crossbowmen of The Cat's Claws and supplemented by sorcerers, wizards, and bards of the Westmarch Mayakara. Saladin led the battlemages, directing their magical attacks, while Falkenried directed the archers, assisted by Grimyse Ecixellash, The Cat, and Westmarch City Guard Captain Ifram Chaswick.

The Silver Inquisition's forces greatly outnumbered those of Westmarch, despite their losses in the pre-siege cavalry skirmish, but the walls conferred a significant advantage on the defenders, and the leadership of General Evander helped the defending forces position themselves strategically. As a result, the Inquisition took significant losses. The defending forces also took heavy casualties, but were able to send the wounded to Nilene Guinevra and her medics for triage and healing.

### Cavalry Charges

While the Inquisition and the wall defenders fought over Westmarch walls, a cavalry force of Westmarch noblemen and Elend Tavore's cavaliers gathered outside of the city, behind the main force of the Inquisition army. Once the Inquisition was fully entrenched in their engagement with the walls, the Westmarch cavalry charged at their rear, falling upon the force of Inquisition officers at the back of the army. Between their heavy losses on the walls and this attack on their rear, the Inquisition army quickly devolved into chaos.

### The Breaking of the Inquisition

As they found themselves pincered between the walls of Westmarch and the cavaliers at their rear, the Silver Inquisition army broke, turning and fleeing from the battle. In addition to the losses during the battle, many more were lost in the retreat - all told, nearly 80% of Silver Inquisition forces became casualties. General Arrindell's own son, Juniper, was thrown from his horse and captured by Westmarch forces as the Inquisition army retreated.

## Aftermath

### The Inquisition in Ruin

After their army broke, what remained of the Silver Inquisition limped their way back into the Broken Fang Mountains to lick their wounds and attempt to regroup, but the heavy losses that they had suffered made it unlikely that they would be able to stage another such large-scale attack.

The captured Silver Inquisition forces were taken prisoner by Westmarch, their officers imprisoned in the Westmarch Dungeons. All of the Inquisition prisoners were then sent to Crownport for trial, escorted by The Cat's Claws. In Crownport, all captured Inquisition officers were executed and the captured soldiers pressed into service in the Malkin Civil War.

### Corlester and Ravahn Ashara

Gravine Mezara Corlester had gambled heavily on the Silver Inquisition, sending a large percentage of her armies to support their attack. After the failure of the Siege of Westmarch, the Gravine summoned all survivors back to Deep Harbor, seeming to withdraw her support from the Inquistion.

### Mayakara Join the Malkin Civil War

The Siege of Westmarch demonstrated to the world the power that Mayakara could have in allowing even a much smaller force to challenge a larger one. Not only were the mages on the Westmarch walls able to cause severe casualties in the assaulting forces, but Nilene's healers significantly minimized the casualties taken by the defenders, and Mayakara druids were able to magically repair Westmarch's walls, reducing the efficacy of the Inquisition's siege weapons.

Following their victory at Westmarch, Falkenried made contact with his cousin, King Artorin, and Nilene contacted Seaspire Keep, both of them sharing the details of their success. Between the two of them, they were able to forge a reconciliation between the Crown and the Mayakara, repairing a relationship that had been severely damaged when King Artorin ejected his Mayakara advisor Godfrey Belzamor from Crownport. With the relationship repaired, the Mayakara and the Crown's army joined forces in Malkin against the armies of Kainen's Hollow.

## Officers and Important Players in the Siege

### Silver Inquisition

* General Maldon Arrindell
* Captain Edmund Caldara
* Captain Fredrin Gardner
* Lieutenant Ilsa Tyvellis
* Lieutenant Juniper Arrindell

### Westmarch

* General Kyrel Evander
* Margrave Tiberius Falkenried
* Captain Carrow "The Cat" Shaw
* Captain Elend Tavore
* Captain Finnbjorn Cinderforge
* Captain Ifram Chaswick
* Captain Saladin
* Lieutenant Grimyse Ecixellash
* Lieutenant Holg Bersk
* Lieutenant Myth
* Mayakara Guild Mistress Nilene Guinevra