The Tetrarchy

The Tetrarchy was a civil war in the Grevian Empire that lasted from 120 IE to 123 IE. The war was started after Magnus’ death when Adriana usurped the throne with the help of the Imperial Guard. The civil war ended when Harmonia with the help of his uncle Titus successfully destroyed the rebellions across the empire.

## The Civil War

### Background

Magnus’ health deteriorated by 118 IE so bad that he had to be put in a coma and while this helped in some way to his health, it wasn’t to last and he finally passed away in 120 IE. Magnus had revolutionized the army in 115 IE by introducing long pikes called “sarrisus” and made it so that the infantry would form up into a phalanx, significantly making the formation better defended at the cost of speed and maneuverability.

Magnus’ new modeled army was never put into a test however, as he died before he could test his new army in the field of battle. Magnus never really put much effort into the armored arm of his army as he was so used with infantry just like he did to Justus during the Brother’s Civil War.

When Magnus died in early 120 IE, he gave to his sons and daughter a new reformed army, untested in the field of battle. Before he was crowned as the new emperor, Decadus was overseeing the new army in Rindus, some 120km south of Rechester, arrayed in a field. While he was doing this however, his sister Adriana was bribing his way into power by bribing the Imperial Guard and all those willing to pledge loyalty to her for a price of gold.

When Antius, master-at-arms and senior officer in the Imperial Guard, knew what was happening, he assembled the entire Imperial Guard and made them swear an oath of loyalty to Decadus in front of the Imperial Palace. After they all swore their oaths, he alongside several dozen of them marched inside the throne room. Inside he found Adriana sitting in the throne and him cornered alongside his men with a couple hundred men from the Imperial Guard. But as he ordered them to seize Adriana, he noticed that the cloaks of the Imperial Guard cornering him and his men were of gold color instead of their standard red color. Before he could respond though, the turncoat Imperial Guards charged at Antius and his loyal men.

The fighting inside the palace was brutal and harsh, as both sides were in a confused melee. In the end, all of the loyal Imperial Guardsmen were slain with Antius and a few of his remaining men locked in the dungeon. Adriana imposed a harsh punishment for those that don’t support her, with the senate building stormed after the guards didn’t let Adriana’s Imperial Guard inside to threaten the Senate. Several groups of scattered loyalists managed to hold out for several days but all were stormed and its occupants summarily executed.

### The Symphony of Siblings

When news reached to Decadus a few hours later, he was furious to see that his rightful throne was seized by Adriana and began to muster an army of around 120,000 men, most of them taken from the new model army Decadus was inspecting. After a week, he received news that her sister had managed to sway two legions onto her side, increasing her army to 115,000 men, and immediately began to march his army towards Rechester. Adriana, knowing that her brother is bringing an army to seize her throne she had bought with gold, split his army into two to guard the major mountain passes in the south.

Her army arrived late however, and observed from distance Decadus’ army descending down to a plain, clearly challenging her to battle. Adriana’s head commander Magister Militum Panonius accepted this offer, and ordered his army to charge at the loyalist army as they were still in the process of moving troops across the mountain pass. Panonius’ soldiers were caught in the phalanx, with many men butchered by the deadly pikes of the loyalists. While the usurper army began slowly pushing through the phalanx, the fighting became increasingly tight as the cliffs were all around them. This played out for Decadus, as he slowly pushed in his reserves with relative safety compared to that of Panonius where whole formations were clogged up in a nightmarish bloodbath.

Seeing that all hope for a quick decisive victory was lost, Panonius called off the attack and ordered his men to return back to camp in the river Twari just a few km from the battleground. Panonius’ army was attacked several times by Decadus’ far more numerous cavalry and armor during the journey, losing another three hundred men. By the time he reached camp, he was shocked to see the amount of casualties. While the loyalists only lost 2,000 during the encounter, Panonius had lost around 20,000 men from slow and sluggish bloodbath that was the Battle of Trath. Knowing that he might lose his army in the next pitched battle, Panonius marched his army out of the camp to withdraw to Gracetree, where the forests there would benefit his army.

After his entire army had crossed the mountains, Decadus began to move towards Rechester, just 2-days march from Panonius’ army. To ensure the loyalty of the surrounding cities, Decadus dispatched many of his airmobile auxilliary cohorts to the surrounding cities, with all of them agreeing to not support Adriana for the price of not burning their cities to the ground. Decadus arrived in Eredor just a few km from Gracetree and camped there for three days, during his stay there he received word that Titus has pledged loyalty to him and is mustering of an army of 10,000 men to depart for Revia. Delighted and overconfident, he marched out his army from the camp and immediately began to march towards Rechester without the use of scouts.

His army was marching in Gracetree when they were ambushed by the Adrianan Army led by Panonius. Now without their pikes to use due to the forested terrain, the battle became a confused melee as both sides struggle in the terrain. The battle was ultimately decided when the Decadian vanguard was completely encircled and almost annihilated if not for nightfall when the vanguard broke out in the dark. All in all, 10,000 Decadian soldiers were slain with another 4,000 missing.

While this setback impacted Decadus, it did not impact that hard since most of his army was intact and Panonius decided to not commit his reserves, thus unintentionally saving the Decadian vanguard from total destruction. Nevertheless, the Decadian Army was steadily advancing towards Rechester, meeting no opposition as Panonius had ordered that his army was to man the walls of Rechester in the upcoming siege.

When Decadus arrived in Rechester, he found that it was heavily guarded by the Adrianan Army, now numbering only 25,000 men due to desertion and disease. He began the siege by digging trenches and setting up a camp for his army to rest after the ambush at Gracetree. A few days later the Imperial Guard, fearing that they might be destroyed after the siege, deserted as they opened the gates to the city. When the Adrianan Army saw this, they immediately rushed towards the gates in order to close it. Just as they clashed with the Imperial Guard the Decadian Army got in just in time to prevent that from happening. The street fighting in the streets was both bloody in civilian and soldiers from both sides. Luckily for the Decadian Army, they had pikes so they easily pushed the Adrianan Army away from the gates with their massive phalanx formations.

When the Decadian Army was spotted in the city square, Adriana fled the capital using her personal transport craft together with a small handful of loyal Imperial Guardsmen. Immediately after, the Adrianan Army lost hope and surrendered the city to Decadus. Decadus, furious over the betrayal of the Imperial Guard, disbanded them after the battle, disgracing the officers of the Guard who commited suicide by jumping over the walls.

### The Year of Light

Decadus was crowned as emperor in 121 IE following the Senate’s approval. During his short reign of just a year, he planned to improve architecture in the empire and to move the capital from Rechester to Frostpike. During a hunting trip with his brother Titus and a small retinue, they found a waterfall. Although Titus thought that it wasn’t safe to stay in one place for so long as brigands were reported to be in the area at that current time, his objections were overruled by Decadus who wanted to stay for a night here.

During the night, while Titus was out hunting some deer in the woods, the camp was suddenly attacked by unknown assailants brandishing shivs and daggers. Caught suprised, the guards with their shields down were quickly overcomed by the more numerous assailants. Titus heard the commotion going on in the camp and so ran there only to find the camp torn to shreds and everyone there dead, including Decadus who had his head decapitated and put on a guard’s pike.

While searching of what remains of the camp, he came across one of those who attacked the camp with the symbol of a heretic cult on his head. After he made this discovery, he quickly called help and was evacuated back to Rechester for safety. News of the death of Decadus sent shockwaves throughout the empire that quickly rose numerous rebellions ranging from separation, claimant, etc. Although he was second-in-line to the throne, the Senate skipped past Harmonia because she was a woman and was underaged (aged 15 at the time). Before he was crowned however, Titus left Revia bound for the Golden Brotherhood Stronghold at Goldkeep, Northpass to find some clues.

There he found that the tattoo belong to an ancient order known as the Cult Of The Violet Sun. Enraged by his findings, he summoned all of the senior officers in the order to call upon their aid in destroying this cult, to which everyone chanted his name and called for a holy war.

### The Period Of Reverence

Although much of the Decadian Army had deserted to the rebels and the most dangerous of all the Chieftains, a militaristic society aimed at creating a military junta, Titus had brought with him the Golden Brotherhood and The Senate following his acceptance to emperorship. In Frostpike, Titus was crowned emperor of the Grevian Empire, whose subject lay in open rebellion following the death of the previous monarch.

Wasting no time, Titus with the funding from the Senate began mustering an army. When he embarked from Frostpike, he had just under 20,000 men including that of the Golden Brotherhood (2,000). Titus landed in Revia to find that 90,000 men lay between him and Rechester, which was under siege by a 20,000 army under Panonius (who had escaped from captivity after the death of Decadus). Knowing that his enemy knew that he was outmatched, Titus moved south with his army, the enemy army chasing him. When the enemy army reached the forests of Almanti, they were ambushed by Titus who led cavalry charges himself against the shocked and unprepared enemy. Panicking and disoriented, Panonius ordered a controlled withdrawal but was killed by Titus in single combat after he had breached the line. Now without a leader, the Panonian Army fled the ambush without establising a rearguard and were decimated during their retreat, losing 60,000 men to sickness and desertion.

While Titus had lost considerable amounts of men in the battle, with the Golden Brotherhood down to just 900 men, he ordered the march north as quickly as possible to catch the battered enemy army from the back. During the ensuing chase, out of the 30,000 men that escaped the carnage, only 10,000 made it back to the river Frada where they are met with the 20,000 unscathed army that had to abandon the siege of Rechester following the defeat. The army, now led by Aphrad, began to guard all river crossings of the Frada from Titus and his army.

Knowing that a head-on charge towards the other side would be a massacre, Titus sent innacurate information to his spies that he was going to make a crossing from the east with his entire army. When Aphrad arrived in the eastern crossing, he found that no one was there. Just in that moment, Titus’ army slammed the rear of Aphrad’s army, for they had crossed through the unguarded western crossing. With his lines breaking almost at impact, Aphrad fled with most of his cavalry but was met upon the fields by Titus and his Golden Brotherhood. Although he outnumbered Titus with his cavalry, the Golden Brotherhood easily defeated their foes with Aphrad yielding to Titus to avoid certain death.

Aphrad’s army was pretty much destroyed after the Battle Of Frada, with only several units managing to escape through the woods north of the battlefield. Titus finally relieved the city when he marched through the gates with his army. He ruled the empire for only 2 weeks with relative peace before he abdicated for Harmonia as she is the only daughter of Decadus and therefore the rightful monarch.