Great Byblosi War

The **Great Byblosi War**, also known as the **War of Kassônian Aggression,** is an ongoing conflict on WikiCraft 4.0. The war, fought over the independent city-state of Byblos, primarily pits the Sultanate of Kassôn and its breadbasket ally Kokomo against a coalition of New Skyhold and Oculita.

The war is the second major conflict in the server's history, after the earlier Kokomo-Kasson Conflict.

## Background

### Competing influence over Byblos

In June of 2020, shortly after the creation of WikiCraft 4.0, Zoomer Strife, an intrepid explorer from nearby Kokomo, first made contact with the village of Byblos, then named Somel. Despite early Kokomese influence, within a week of Somel's discovery, Rose Beckett, a then-stateless traveler known for many expansive projects across the region, visited the village. The famous cobblestone wall she constructed around Somel formed the basis of the town's success, protecting it from raids and mobs, and making it a point of potential future development.

Beckett's interest in Somel, just as Kokomo's, soon subsided, and shortly after construction of the wall was completed, she relocated to Aincrad. Somel sat in a state of desolation for roughly a month until mid-July, when the leadership of Kassôn began expressing interests in the village. Kassôn, a fast-developing town upriver from Somel, had been locked in a state of constant hostility with Kokomo, and as such was lacking in local allies and trade partners. Somel soon became an attractive source of revenue for the Kassônians, who by the end of the month had completely converted the derelict village into a cultural mecca and centre for learning; librarians and clerics populated Somel, providing knowledge and resources for their Kassônian benefactors. Ties between the two settlements were strengthened with the completion of the Tri-city Metro Service, linking Kassôn with Somel, on July 16. It was also around this time that Somel primarily came to be known by its alternative name 'Byblos', coined by the Kassônians in reference to the village's status as a scholarly hub.

After the cooling of the Kokomo-Kasson conflict, Kokomese logisticians and architects further invested in Somel, aiding Kasson and the village proper in the creation of schools, warehouses, and farms. This led to a golden age and a triad of prosperity into which Kokomese food and skill fed and aided the other two, Kassonian money and power flowered throughout the region, and Byblos continued to flourish as an intellectual locus.

Kassôn's interests in Byblos persisted for months, until the Sultanate began to explore other colonial options further afield. In mid-March of 2021, Beckett, who had since relocated to Skyhold and developed the Hotelist faction out of the city's New District, began expressing interests in developing Byblos further. Citing the fact that she had single-handedly fortified the village 9 months prior, Beckett attempted to assert her dominance over Byblos despite Kassôn's ongoing nominal suzerainty. With help from allied Oculita, Beckett sought to renovate and expand the entire village of Byblos, razing several of its original buildings in the process. When Sultan Samuel Darkwalker of Kassôn discovered this supposed encroachment on what he considered to be a Kassônian sphere of influence, he formally declared war on New Skyhold and Oculita on March 23. Kokomo's External Logistics Chief Zoomer Strife soon followed on April 2, declaring an economic war on the same two following a quiet border skirmish and aggressive territorial expansionism by what he deemed a colonial power.

### Kassôn-Skyhold Tensions

Tensions between Kassôn and Beckett's Hotelist faction of New Skyhold long predate the start of the current conflict. Beckett's relocation from Aincrad and decision to use Skyhold as the site of her new development project in October of 2020 was a cause of contention for many. As the New Skyhold district, where Beckett was now based, is located between Skyhold proper and the city of Kassôn, many Kassônians expressed trepidation over Beckett's intentions, especially as her new Hotel towered over the Ashkan Desert. Divisions were also present in Skyhold itself, as the city's founders feared the Hotelists' growing influence. The Skyhold-based Templars faction (led by Grandmaster Jeremiah Garland, himself also a member of Kassôn) were wary of Hotelist encroachments on Templar territory. Tensions flared on all sides, but ultimately conflict was largely avoided.

With the start of 2021, a treaty of friendship was signed between the Hotelists and the Republic of Oculita. The Oculitans' own period of rapid expansion beginning in early March further threatened Kassôn, which shares a lengthy but undefined and largely undeveloped border with Oculita. The New Skyhold-Oculita alliance was seen as an affront to Kassôn's own regional interests, heightened tensions between the Sultanate and the Hotelists (who coexist less than 200 blocks from each other), and ultimately drove the Kassônians into a strengthened entente with the Templars of Skyhold. The stage was set for a bitter conflict between the two sides, and the Byblosi incursion was the fuse that lit the powder keg.

### The Kokomese Branch

Kokomo, the server's first power, was thought to be long dormant in the months leading up to the war. Indeed, it had spent much time looking inward and focusing on the expansion of education services and its own infrastructure, while continuing friendly but stagnant relationships with its allies. Its only contribution to the tensions prior was the controlled demolition of an abandoned Hotelist monument on the Kassônian border by a cadre of Kokomese engineers with payment from Kassôn. The recolonization of Somel1 by New Skyhold struck at what the Kokomese leadership deemed a close ally and vital investment project. However, hostilities would not truly begin until a low-level border skirmish the night of April 1, in which a New Skyholdian colonial platoon stepped into Kokomese land and were repelled by the archers at the border. From the body of the sole casualty, a Skyholdian soldier, the Kokomese recovered a document revealing the Byblos Protectorate's administration's plan to attack and bite at the archipelago citystate's borders. With this provocation, Kokomo threw in its lot with the Kassônians.

## Course of Events

The war officially began on March 23, 2021, when Sultan Samuel Darkwalker of Kassôn declared a state of hostility toward the New Skyholders under Rose Beckett and the Republic of Oculita.

### 1st Siege of Kassôn

On March 24, a day after Sultan Darkwalker's declaration of war, a Skyholder force led by Rose Beckett descended on the city of Kassôn itself. Whilst a cell of Templars under the command of Grandmaster Garland manned the city walls and held the bulk of the Hotelist besiegers at bay, Beckett herself entered the city gates and challenged the Sultan to a one-on-one duel. Darkwalker accepted, surmising that the victor of the duel would determine the course of the battle. The two leaders met in Sultan's Square in the heart of the city, exchanged words of honour, and began an intense fight. Grandmaster Garland mediated over the duel. Sultan Darkwalker, commonly known as 'the Pauper Knight' for his tendencies to fight using arms and armours incongruent with his city's vast wealth, seemed to be a poor match against Beckett, clad head-to-toe in Netherite and wielding a vicious flaming Netherite blade. Charging with his trusty axe, Darkwalker was beaten back by Beckett in the duel's opening, and in the battle's early phases it seemed likely that Beckett would best the Kassônian sultan. However, forgoing his axe for a deadly bow, Darkwalker ultimately proved to be the worthier fighter.

For roughly an hour the two commanders sparred through the city streets, retreated up and charged down Kassôn's imposing towers and keeps, and exchanged death blows in the blistering desert sun. It was Darkwalker's realisation that he could not match Beckett in a direct melee, forcing him to go into a ranged and defensive mode, that allowed him to prevail. Beckett tried to reciprocate Darkwalker's accurate bowshots with her own deadly trident lobs, but the environment was not on her side; if it happened to be storming in Kassôn that day, perhaps she may have prevailed. As the sword-and-axe duel progressed into something of a strategic urban shootout, it became clear that Darkwalker enjoyed an advantage on familiar turf. Roughly an hour after it began, the 1st Siege of Kassôn ended in a failure for the Skyholders, and a victory for the Sultan and his city's defenders. Beckett, however, escaped the carnage and returned to Byblos.

### Operation: Raiders in the Night

The second action of the Great Byblosi War occurred on March 31. As retribution for the attempted Skyholder assault on Kassôn, Sultan Darkwalker and Grandmaster Garland plotted a daring strike against Byblos itself, then under the nominal military control of Skyhold and Oculita. Long before the start of the war, Kassôn had used Byblos as a source of economic income and scientific research; Darkwalker and Garland had populated the walled village with craftsmen and farmers with whom they bartered resources, and clerics and librarians who shared arcane knowledges. Despite the destruction of the original village by Beckett and her associates, many of these original inhabitants of Byblos still remained. Kassôn feared for the safety of these villagers, who had effectively become Skyhold-Oculitan hostages. Seeing an opportunity to simultaneously revamp their wartime economy, save their former subjects, and deliver a crushing blow to their enemy's morale, Darkwalker and Garland resolved to covertly extract the villagers from hostile territory.

Operation: Raiders in the Night began that evening, when Garland and Darkwalker led a small sortie into Byblos itself. Using the underground rail service linking Kassôn and Byblos, they were able to bypass Byblos's famous walls (since strengthened by Beckett) and slip into the village under the cover of the night. Beckett herself was in Byblos, overseeing development of the citadel in the village's new northern district. The Kassônians, after dispatching a few Skyholder guards posted by the metro station, crept into the old town district to the compound where several villagers were being held, all the while careful not to alert Beckett. One by one, Garland and Darkwalker arduously led the villagers of Byblos out through the streets and to the station, where they used the underground rail to transport them back to Kassôn. Completely unbeknownst to Beckett, a grand total of eight Byblosi villagers were freed by the Kassônian raiders that night - including the village's Scholar Superior, a learned man possessing rare knowledge of Mending capabilities. The villagers were placed in a safehouse in Kassôn, where they will either begin their new lives in the desert town, or will ultimately await relocation back to Byblos when the war ends.

### Battle of the Askhara Pass

The second major engagement of the war between the two primary combatants of Kassôn and Skyhold occurred on April 6. Reeling from their defeat at the 1st Siege of Kassôn and angered by the deception they suffered from Kassônian and Templar special ops units as a result of Operation: Raiders in the Night, the Hotelists under Rose Beckett attempted once more to penetrate the Kassônian heartlands. Just before nightfall, a Hotelist army comprised of New Skyholder regulars and loyal Byblosi colonial auxiliaries was convened at the gates of Byblos, with Beckett herself commanding. Beckett's host proceeded west, crossing the River Duske and entering the Askhan Desert, with the city of Kassôn itself as the intended target. Any hopes Beckett had of covertly besieging the desert capital once more were foiled when a defector from her host - a young disillusioned Byblosi swordsman - deserted and warned the Kassônians of the impeding invasion force. Sultan Samuel Darkwalker, then paying a visit to the Templar sanctum beneath Skyhold, was recalled to Kassôn. Riding to the city's barracks, the Sultan rallied his loyal soldiers to arms and rode east to meet Beckett's approaching army in a pitched battle.

Benefitting from his familiarity of the Askhan Desert's often hostile terrain, Darkwalker chose to stand his ground at the Askhara Pass, only a few miles from the walls of Kassôn. The pass, named for the ancient Palace of Askh-Rah (the ruins of which are now long buried beneath the shifting desert sands), is a barren and flat expanse of land in an otherwise mountainous region of the Askhan Desert. It is surrounded on three sides by treacherous sandstone crags, and on the fourth side by the River Duske, which separates the desert from the swampy badlands of Byblos and Kokomo. Any westward-advancing army hoping to reach Kassôn must go through the Askhara Pass, lest they risk traversing the hostile Kassônian foothills. Positioning his hastily-assembled army on the cliffs between the pass and the walls of Kassôn, Darkwalker commanded an unparalleled view of the surrounding area, and saw Beckett's army approaching through the bowl-shaped valley, just as he anticipated.

If the 1st Siege of Kassôn began with a note of uncertainty for the Sultan, the Battle of Askhara Pass was a decisive victory. Rather than pour his soldiers down from the cliffsides to fall onto the entrapped enemy soldiers, Darkwalker relied once again on ranged tactics to gradually wear them thin; as many as 80% of the soldiers in the Sultan's army were archers wielding the farmed Kassônian curved longbow. Darkwalker himself descended with a small force of desert riders, and met Beckett amidst the carnage. The two generals fought intensely as the pass's flat and barren landscape began to fill with bodies and blood. All through the night the battle raged, with only the blazing tails of Kassônian fire arrows lighting the jet-black sky. As dawn came, the Hotelist army had been decisively broken. Beckett herself had been pushed back by Sultan Darkwalker, who ordered his men to harass the Hotelists as they made the cumbersome retreat back across the River Duske. Darkwalker was then escorted back to Kassôn by his Templar bodyguards (a contingent of Templar knights, under the command of Grandmaster Jeremiah Garland, were present at the battle, but were not committed) and celebrated his second great victory of the war. With Garland and the rest of the Kassônian War Council, he immediately began plotting his counterattack, which would involve striking at the city of Byblos itself...