Ashed Rae conflict

> *"We record our war campaigns in order to learn from the past and form the best possible strategy to neutralize any enemy, now however I find myself improvising every battle. Without a doubt through all my study and experience, I can say with full confidence that this is a most unique war" -*Ashed Warmaster personal journals: Twoshield company-
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The Ashed Rae conflict refers to the attempted reclamation of an Ashed Necropolis that had been overrun by a planted Rae Woods. The Ashed city-state **OakMont** had been overrun by Goran forces in the late stages of the great immortal war. Towards the end of the war the city was abandoned by the retreating Goran forces, however not before it was fully terraformed to rae wood standards and populated. Forces left to complete the teraforming were nearly wiped by enemy forces bunkering in the shell of the city. Only the Goran apes were able to survive and flush out the remaining forces. Without any human command they were forced to adapt and live within the city.

150 years after the city had fallen, the Ashed confederacy started the process of re-taking the dead city to repair and repopulate it so that their civilization could begin re growth. The scout teams were prepared to deal with industrial accidents, dangerous architectural collapse, or rogue biomorphs, however were surprised to find what appeared to be a highly organized defense led by intelligent gorillas.

## Siege of Oakmont

> *"There is some poetry to this that over a century after the Goran conquered this city that we are now sieging our own defenses manned by Goran war beasts."* Ashed mercenary war journal
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### **Initial contact**

Ashed scouts reported the presence of Goran biomorphs inside the city walls that appeared to be working in groups. The **Longpoint Company** attempted to enter the city only to be blocked at the wall, the gate having been closed and blockaded by living trees and the only way into or out of the city being a series of overgrown vines on the walls. Upon attempting to tear down the blockade they were bombarded with stones from the cities defensive structures then ambushed by hordes of apes. After several attempts, they retreated, and informed the rest of the companies informed the other companies that the city had been entrenched by intelligent enemy combatants. At sundown, the apes launched a counter-attack against the mercenary camp. Not having enough troops to fully encircle the city, the mercenaries determined their only hope lay in bypassing the city defenses and fighting the apes inside the walls.

Due to the fortifications of the city and determination of the defenders, attempting to breach the defenses head on was nigh impossible without heavy siege equipment or vastly superior numbers, having neither the company **warmaster** decided to circumvent the problem by using city schematics granted to them by the **ethics council** to sabotage the defenses from within**.** The city plans had been granted for the purpose of avoiding city hazards such as **forge gas mains.** After sending several infiltration specialists into the **undercity** looking for a way into the city, instead found that the city underworks had been either flooded or filled with hazardous biomorphs.The Ashed specialists re-directed the forge gas to collect under the main gate fortifications and ignited the gas, destroying the gate and breaching the walls. The Ashed fought their way into the outer districts, taking heavy casualties due to the alien nature of the **rae woods** inside the city and the ferocity of the defenders.

### **Battle for the city**

> *"We were prepared for a battle in a crumbling city, fighting block by block to take quadrants of pre-determined size and structural layout. What we found was a dense jungle environment that blurred the districts together and warped the roads into tight narrow passes with great lattices of tree branches and vines overhead for our foes to manuever around us. If nothing else, this conflict will prepare us for future battles with Goran forces should we ever find ourselves in their territory"* Ashed Warmaster-Personal notes
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The battle for Oakmont started in earnest when the forge gas mains exploded at the front gate fortifications of the city, killing many of the defending Apes and stunning the rest for just long enough for **Ashed Skirmishers** to rush into the breach and hold it for the proper heavy troops to get there to hold it. The initial charge was headed by armored Ashed **Boar Riders** which charged into the breach ahead of the skirmishes. These cavalry units were abruptly stopped by the dense jungle environment and ambushed by the defenders, leading to heavy casualties to the Ashed cavalry. Once the gate was taken, the **Rae Apes** continued to drop heavy stones and spears onto the attackers.

The Ashed mercenaries worked their way up the fortifications to the top of the walls, being stopped at multiple points due to the towers being heavily overgrown by rogue biomorphs including **Carrion Vine** and century old trees blocking off entire hallways. After hacking, burning, or climbing their way past these obstacles, their plan to corner the apes at the top of the tower was thwarted by the apes simply leaping from the tower onto the vine lattices below.

With the high ground taken by the Ashed skirmishers, the proper heavy infantry began moving block by block to try and remove the new inhabitants. The apes' mobility being countered by crossbow archers, but being helped by the tree cover. When the Ashed got to their living spaces, they found themselves attacked by a counter charge of large gorillas in crude steel armor they had made using the long abandoned city forges.

Despite the Gorilla's advantages of raw physical strength and numerical superiority, the Ashed adapted quickly to the jungle environment, and after a few weeks of fierce fighting, the defenders were on the run from a campaign of extermination.

### **Drop tactics**

The Goran Rae apes created a unique tactic for dealing with Ashed combat formations, utilizing the high ground of the buildings to drop Goran Apes directly into the center of their formations past the infantry wall. These drops were sometimes preceeded by **Goran beehives** being dropped to cause chaos in their ranks, as the Rae apes were equipped with specially made goggles and breathing masks. This tactic worked for a week before the Ashed skirmishers took the high ground and the Rae Apes ran out of beeshives.

These tactics capitalized on the Goran apes numbers advantage, as they resulted in far more even casualty exchanges than trying to fight the mercenaries head on, however was acknowledged as being a death sentence for the attackers.

## Involvement of the Broken Kingdom

> *"Onwards soldiers! There's treasure to be won, battle to be had, and legends to be made! Let's show these greyskin bastards what men of the Kingdom are made of!"*
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Due to emotional pleas from the **Four fist knight**, criers were sent far and wide to the corners of the Broken kingdom and volunteers were drawn into a crusade to defend the new city from the Ashed invaders.

Due to taking months for the reinforcements to reach the city, the Ashed mercenaries had already taken control of multiple districts, forcing the apes and Kingdom militia to fight them in the city streets in vicious urban warfare

## Dwaran involvement

The **Dwaran**, hearing news of this crusade through their Broken Kingdom allies, felt sympathy for the rogue apes, feeling a kinship seeing as they are also a breakaway civilzation from the Goran, sent what reinforcements they could with both **high dwaran** and **low dwaran** to arm and fight with the gorilla forces.

## Resolution

Even with casualties mounting, the defenders of the city refused to surrender the city. The Ashed mercenary companies seeing the continual influx of Broken Kingdom levees into the surrounding area sent back messages to the city council to inform them of the cost of taking the city for more soldiers and arms, which in response sent envoys to the besieged defenders. In order to prevent further loss of life and open war with the Broken Kingdom, a peace was brokered.

A deal was struck that the gorillas could keep the city under the conditions that the Ashed were allowed to reclaim the still uncovered guild vaults for data tablets and wealth that belonged to still existing companies back in their home cities. The defenders agreed and the Necropolis was theirs.

* Some of the guild vault contents had previously been looted by enthusiastic Kingdom militia, and could not be found.
* There still exists a plan to re-take the Necroplolis should the city ever fall vulnerable or the Broken Kingdom become too distracted or overdrawn to send aid