Naegiran Uprising

Near-victorious Iadrian troops march on the rebel city of Kadenan.

Duchy of Vremas

Duchy of Jareche

Installation of House Palivan as Dukes of Naegirus

Death of King Anselm II

House Palivan

House Haywood

Grand Army of Naegirus

Royal Legions of Iadria

The **Naegiran Uprising**, also known as the **Kadenan Rebellion** or the **War for the Guardians**, was a seperatist revolt of the Duchy of Naegirus against the Kingdom of Iadria. The Uprising was spearheaded by Grand Duke Alastair Kaden, former Chancellor to the King of Edon II Arvait. Although the war was initially started with the stated aim of defending the Duchy of Naegirus and challenging uncontrolled Royal power, Duke Alastair sought primarily to depose King Anselm II and secure the Holy Crown for his own House.

The Uprising's foundations lay in a long-running grudge fostered between Prince Anselm and the young Duke Alastair, men of similar age and strong ambition within the political sphere of Iadria. Deeply competitive and holding opposing views on the future direction of the Kingdom, the two men had fought political battles for years. While the Arvait prince was an outspoken adherent to Menastism, an Iadrian philosophy promoting revanchism and centralization, Duke Kaden saw himself as a defender of the traditional power of the separate Duchies. The last years of Anselm's father's reign saw a great increase in political violence throughout western Iadria, as followers of the two leaders clashed in the streets. Following the death of King Edon and the coronation of his eldest son, Anselm II Arvait, the new King punished Kaden by replacing him as Chancellor to the King, installing his own brother, Prince Geoff, in the Duke's stead. Infuriated by the confistication of his power and faced with heavy taxation from the ambitious monarch, Alastair retaliated by gathering six sympathetic Royal Legions, who ostensibly were loyal only to the King, and calling up his Ducal levies. Stunned by the defection of so many Legions and the bold action of the Duke, King Anselm was slow in raising his own armies, and was thus unprepared when Kaden officially declared his opposition to the Arvait Dynasty. The Uprising had begun, and Kaden did not hesitate to make his move.

In July of 6A 707, the rebel forces began their offensive. Marching from Aerilon and Nantgarth, two Legions moved south against the Blackbriar, whose Duke Royce Harveld had pledged loyalty to the Crown, and quickly siezed the bustling city of Elden. To the west, a Vremasian host led by Lord Marius Gaubert attempted to halt the rebel Legions crossing into the Duchy's territory, but was destroyed in detail at the Battle of Kiaderia. As winter arrived, Duke Kaden's forces had overrun large swathes of land in Blackbriar, Vremas and southern Angarth; regardless, King Anselm continued to refuse to accede to the rebel lord's demands. Over the winter, the Arvait King gathered nine Royal Legions, a host of Knights Jareche, and his own House's host to Angarth, while the Dukes of Blackbriar, Vremas and Jareche raised their own forces. As the year 708 dawned, the Royal armies began their counterattack in earnest.

Confident in his military prowess and imminent victory, King Anselm personally led the advance southwest, aiming to dislodge the rebel vanguard from the Angarthic cities of Hirane and Axminster. The King's army, made up of three Royal Legions, the Arvait Host, and the Knights, met Kaden's vanguard at Aeston Fields. As the battle dragged on, victory seemed assured for the Royal Host; seeking to strike a killing blow, King Anselm gathered his cavalry and led a charge around the rebels' left flank. As his force wheeled about to charge, however, a single unit of Naegiran crossbowmen turned about to fire on the cavalry. As the charge ensued and the King's men met the enemy lines, a single well-placed crossbow bolt penetrated Anselm II's visor, killing him instantly. In the disarray and confusion that followed, the King's cavalry disintegrated and the surviving rebel army was able to disengage and withdraw to Kadenan, though two rebel Legions had been nearly destroyed.

The weeks immediately following the death of King Anselm were filled with chaos and disorder in the high courts of Iadria. Many suggested that peace should be sought with the rebel Duke, even at the cost of territorial and political concessions. Some even spoke of secession, or of a new dynasty. Moving against these detractors, the Arvaits and their allies in the Clergy rapidly arranged a coronation for Prince Geoff, who was crowned King Geoff III Arvait in Ihenium on June 13, 708. Though inexperienced and previously ambivalent toward the Crown, the new King immediately set about crushing the rebels that had slain his brother. Geoff gathered the armies that had fallen into confusion after Anselm's death back to him and staged a daring crossing of the Grey Guardians, pushing his men hard to descend on central Naegirus in a surprise attack. As the King's force broke out into the Naegiran Valley and approached the major city of Brinas, two rebel Legions under Kaden's command rushed to meet them; displaying caution and temperance, Geoff commanded his army effectively. Despite heavy losses, the Royal forces shattered Kaden's armies and advanced into Brinas, forcing the rebel Duke to withdraw. The majority of the Naegiran forces fell back to the heavily-defended port city of Orontus, while Duke Kaden himself and his retinue retreated to his fortified capital of Kadenan.

As Geoff consolidated his gains and oversaw the retaking of southern Angarth, Duke Royce Harveld of Blackbriar began his own campaign in the south. Uniting the hosts of his vast lands with those of loyalist Naegiran nobleman Earl Jack Palivan, Harveld drove Kaden's forces out of the northern reaches of the Duchy, then met them at Elden. The Second Battle of Elden proved to be a crushing blow against the rebel cause, as an entire Legion was caught within the walls of the city and destroyed by the vengeful Blackbriar troops. With Elden secured, the loyalist Duke and Earl kept up their momentum and pushed into southern Naegirus, laying siege to Kiaderia itself and preventing any further incursions into Vremas. As summer approached in the year 709, Kaden's powerful uprising had been reduced to several holdout cities, all of which were under threat -- yet the stubborn Duke Alastair refused to yield, vowing to fight against Arvait tyranny to his last breath.

King Geoff took this in kind, and led a march against Orontus as the two-year anniversary of the Uprising's outbreak approached. A grueling battle ensued, as the massed armies of Angarth and Jareche fought their way inch by bloody inch through the heavily-fortified port city's defenses. The four decimated rebel Legions holding the city refused to give up any ground without a fight, even as Iadrian naval vessels fitted with siege weaponry arrived to bombard Orontus from the coast. In the end, the Battle of Orontus lasted over a month, leaving the vast city in utter ruin and resulting in a thoroughly pyrrhic victory for the new King. Nonetheless, Geoff did not delay in turning his attention to Duke Alastair's last stronghold of Kadenan, calling on what was left of his loyal armies in the region to gather and march on the Naegiran capital. As the last of the rebel Duke's forces trickled into the walled city ahead of the Royal advance, the writing on the wall was clear; even as the Siege began, disgruntled nobility and peasants began an uprising of their own within Kadenan's walls, calling for Alastair's deposal and the end of the bloodshed that had wracked Western Iadria. As a result, the Siege was short, if vicious; elements within the city aided Geoff's armies in overcoming Kadenan's formidable walls, while the disgraced Duke of Naegirus remained within his Keep, simply watching as his gamble for power burned before his eyes. With the last of his forces destroyed and Kadenan occupied, King Geoff oversaw the public execution of his brother's rival on September 23, 709. Earl Jack Palivan, having become the most powerful remaining Naegiran noble over the course of his campaigns, was instated as Duke of Naegirus in the absence of the Kaden's, and would later be selected as Chancellor as well.