The War of Daggers

**The War of Daggers** was an invasion turned civil war taking place in the year 37 CE to 40 CE that involved Hallengard, formerly the Hallenic Empire, Lauchette, and the new nation-state of Aedwin. The war ended with the collapse of the Hallenic Empire and the extinction of the Findlaighs, its former dynasty.

## History

### Background

In the year 1 BCE, Oswald Findlaigh arranged a marriage of his son Cedric to Lucille, the eldest daughter of Henri Levallois, King of Lauchette. After a series of deaths, Cedric would become High King of Hallengard, and Lucille would become Queen of Lauchette. Their son, Wallace, would be in line to inherit both crowns, but the claim had been dropped by Cedric.

Wallace, however, was unaware of this and pressed Lauchette about it, demanding that their elected king, Marceau, be removed and himself placed on their throne. This drew outrage from all sides, as the Imperial clans saw the pursuit as frivolous, and the Lauch saw it as a grand overstep and an insult. After Wallace’s demand was refused, he readied his armies and sailed for Lauchette.

### Battles

An eastern clan named the Sutherlands were pleading with Wallace to not proceed with the war, however, they were rebuffed and humiliated at the palace in Mulleburgh. This sparked Tynan, the clan’s lord, into making inroads with the king’s enemies. He spoke to various nobles in Lauchette, the southern clans of the Empire, and craftsmen and intellectuals in the West.

The trap was set, and as Wallace’s forces began their siege on Marjou Harbor, it was sprung. Peasants rebelled in the West, the culmination of poor conditions, rising grain prices, and idealogues paid by Sutherland coin. The southerners, now calling themselves the Aedwinians, rose up and captured the Imperial troops in their lands. Finally, the nobles in Lauchette that were considered the Findlaighs’ allies sabotaged their boats and stole their supplies. The Imperial army was practically stranded, with the Mainlands being completely helpless.

The Aedwinians didn’t catch all of the Imperial troops, and those who remained moved up to Greenfields. After a scuffle, the town was looted and razed to the ground, killing all of its inhabitants. While the justification for the town being burnt is hotly debated, the action caused a general by the name of George McCullough to send an army to the city of Dunedeigh, the seat of the Findlaighs. The city was overtaken by peasants, but the army continued to lay siege to it. When the city fell, its inhabitants were executed en masse under the pretenses of having something to do with the razing.

The Sutherlands moved through the East with their ally clans to besiege the capital city of Mulleburgh. To their surprise, the Findlaighs were mostly contained within the city, and would all be captured if the city fell. The siege dragged on for a total of eight months, and eventually resulted in the capture of Wallace, along with the execution of the majority of the Findlaighs. A force was dispatched to the fort Findlaigh’s Respite to capture the remainder. In the meantime, Tynan Sutherland was crowned High King of the Hallenic Empire.

In Lauchette, much of the war effort was slowly whittling away at the Imperial army. Ambushes along roads, skirmishers on horseback, and subterfuge all slowly tore down the army’s morale and their numbers. While the army measured up to ten thousand when it had first arrived, by the end of the war it was but a few scattered groups, amounting to about a thousand total.

### Result

The war had slowed down after the fall of Mulleburgh, and when the final Findlaigh fort fell, Tynan decided it was time to sue for peace. Wallace was forced to abdicate and his court exiled from Hallengard. After Wallace abdicated, an armistice was signed between the three nations. Wallace was found dead soon after the armistice was signed. It’s highly suspected that he was assassinated, but it has been officially ruled as a suicide.

While the war hasn’t formally concluded, it very much has ended, with all of the Imperial troops being allowed to return home. Despite claims to the contrary, the war resulted in the collapse of the Hallenic Empire and the creation of the new state of Aedwin. The war has also mended the frayed relations between Hallengard and Lauchette, though whether or not that will last remains to be seen.