Great War - The Balance Swings

The Ashed entry to the war locked up every front in the conflict and balanced the scales. The fall of nations was halted and slowly the balance began to turn back to the favor of the eastern block.

## The Empire and the Kingdom

The Tallet Empire's decision to strike the Ashed city-states, while strategically sound for the long-term game the Emperor was playing at, proved to be their undoing. As the Tallet forces reduced their numbers and reinforcements likewise didn't arrive, the Kingdom was blessed by one of the harshest winters in memory. The storms kept even Woag ships from crossing the sea to the northern coast. For the first time since the battle for the Kingdom began, the defenders found themselves fighting foes that were not being perpetually reinforced.

The effect became amplified when the Tallet commanders decided to assault the strongholds of the Kingdom. Previously the massive casualties would have eventually swung the maneuver into the Tallet's favor, but now the mounting losses on the Empire's side could not be replenished. The death ratio of two Tallet for every one King's Man amplified after the outer defenses were breached. The interior of every fortress, unbeknownst to the Tallet, reached underground and most entries into the hearts and vaults aside from the grand halls were designed to be held by single warriors one at a time. With barely enough room for an Armored Rider to swing his great axe about, the Tallet blood-stained the corridors in every corner of the kingdom, their numbers truly rendered useless. Most battles went on for weeks even after the outer walls were breached, until the Tallet retreated to the south and back into the Empire's land, the shattered forces of the Kingdom having ultimately won their homeland through personal excellence as warriors.

## The Kingdom and the Woag

The Tallet on retreat, the Truest King pulled every mountable warrior he could to his side with his Order of the Truth and rode out after them, not engaging them in direct battle and risking being reversed on this time, but harrying them back to the Empire's heartland. This time, generations after the Kingdom's last foray through these lands, the native population rose up to aid, the northern part of the Empire entering full rebellion in the wake of the retreating armies.

At the same time, fortresses in the south of the Kingdom were left in the hands of the infirm and the injured, as every remaining able-bodied man and woman marched north to fall into the Woag who had the northern four kingdoms pinned down. The southern forces, combined with sallying garrisons, crashed into the Woag, forcing them back to the sea. It is not known exactly why- perhaps it was respect for the Kingdom's tenacity- but the following spring all that came back across the sea was a message from the Eternal Warrior, declaring non-aggression and inviting the Kingdom to meet for trade the next summer. These meetings have since become the Contest of Blood between the two people.

## The Kingdom, the Ashed, and the Goran

Rather than chasing the Tallet all the way to their capital, the Truest King turned his dwindled force of cavalry to the east, riding for the Circle. Joined by the freed riders of the northern kingdoms, the last of the Myriad Legion marched to the aid of their allies, the eastern block to fight as one for the first time in the Great War. The Royals were once again left to defend and begin rebuilding the Kingdom, the once mighty people broken to a remnant of their once populous realm.

The Kingdom's forces on their way to the east, the Ashed rotated again out of the Circle's lands and returned home. The returning Ashed forces tipped the balance on their arrival and ended the front in the favor of the Ashed against both the Tallet and the Goran. The Goran withdrew without a fight in a surprising move, the weakened Right Arm of the Goran nation choosing to cut their losses and enjoy the rich bounty they had taken from the cities.

## Fallout

The Tallet Empire was defeated in the Broken Kingdom, the gamble the Emperor had taken failing on both fronts due to Kushanese reinforcements in the Ashed cities. The Empire's newer holdings, weary of the generations of war finally begin to rebel. The Broken Kingdom, after chasing the Tallet out went to the aid of the Circle rather than finishing the Tallet off immediately; it is theorized that depleted food reserves drove this decision. The vital Ashed mercenaries returned to their home, driving the Goran and Tallet away from the city-states ending the gridlock.

The war seemed to have finally turned to favor the eastern block and plans were laid for offensives by a combined Ashed, Kushanese, and Kingdom attack against the Tallet Empire with a simultaneous drive by the Kingdom, Kushanese, and Circle against the Goran.