Erstal Rebellion

The Erstal Rebellion was a movement led by Henrik Eklund who rallied the slaves in Erstal, called **Vagh Erstal** then, to overthrow the Dwun Family that oppressed them in **346PR**. It was a bloody affair that ended up with the creation of Tamwull and changing from a monarchy to a democracy.

## Background

The city of Erstal was founded in **204PR** by Brundok Dwun, establishing the Dwun Family as the royal family. Using their wealth accumulated from mining the mountains to the North, Brundok managed to attract other Dwarven families to the settlement, slowly building it into a city.

In **211PR** Brundok Dwun gathered his army to conquer some of the human tribes nearby, when defeated, the captured would be enslaved. When the slaves were brought back to the city they were forced to work in the mines, dealing with the dangerous areas that the Dwarves refused to work near.

More tribes were conquered in **223PR**, bringing the slave population of the city to a total of 6,000.

In **245PR** a member of the Dwun family, Mysdyl, tried to make some reforms about the treatment of slaves, hoping to change the culture of beatings as punishment. This was shut down by her brother, King Brundok II.

The next year, Mysdyl tried to improve the treatment of slaves again, providing food and shelter, even education in some cases. When her brother heard of her insubordination, she was exiled from the city, angering the slaves.

By **300PR** the slave population of the city reached 11,000, though had a mortality rate of around 50% because of their ill conditions. Secretly, the slaves had managed to set up some schooling times for the young ones.

Henrik Eklund was captured by the Dwun army in **329PR** after leading a band of humans to hurt the trade of the city. After he was whipped and beaten he was forced to work in the mines as a slave.

Now a slave, Henrik would begin spreading rebellious thoughts through the population and planned for a rebellion and nation afterwards.

Adron Dwun was named King in **333PR** after the death of his father, King Gimdir.

In **344PR** Henrik and a group of slaves were able to steal a cart containing Dwarven weapons and shields, hiding it away in the mines where it could not be found. King Adron at the time launched a huge investigation, eventually framing some other slaves and publicly executing them.

## Rebellion

At the start of Mak **346PR**, Henrik and his slaves began an open rebellion against the Dwarves. Using the weapons they stole in **344PR**, they killed the soldiers guarding them in the tunnels and quickly took control of the North-East side of the Undercity.

A few days later, King Adron heard reports that an entire section of the Undercity was no longer patrolled. Fearing the worst he rallied the army and marched out to defeat what had ever taken control.

Advancing to the North-East side of the Undercity, King Adron was forced to split his force up into smaller detachments, using tunnels and causeways to travel. Henrik knew that they would not be able to defeat the Dwun troops in open battle so used the tunnels and undercity to his advantage, collapsing them where he could and killing the Dwarves. After a tunnel collapsed, they would later come and scavenge what armour and weaponry they could.

In the main causeway, King Adron and his bodyguard continued to advance, defeating groups of Slaves that tried to stop them. Eventually he reached the residential section, where he was ambushed. On the tops of all the houses, rebel slaves threw what projectiles they had, firebombs, javelins, rocks and sticks. While the last two did nothing to the heavily armoured Dwun troops, the firebombs had immediate effects. Knowing they had lost the advantage, King Adron retreated back to his controlled parts of the city, dealing with more ambushes along the way.

When the Dwun troops returned, they had only 1,000 of their original 5,000 troops.

Confident with their victory, the slaves gathered what equipment they could use from the dead Dwarves and marched to the other sections of the Undercity. Other than the Dwun troops, their opponent included the guards. Trained against the monsters of the caves, the slaves advanced slowly, losing vast amounts to the guards.

Hearing about the rebellion in the North-East section, the other slaves began to rebel, causing the guards to spread their number.

Now weakened, the guards were no match to the slaves under Henrik, breaking to their superior numbers. After breaking past the guard and entering the centre of the city, Henrik realised that he had no hope defeating the soldiers once their full number had gathered. So, he went up instead, using the Erstal stairs and escaping the Undercity.

Still in the Undercity, the slaves from other sections that rebelled saw Henrik use the stairs and pushed to do the same. Now ready, the guards and soldiers fought them back, though still were outnumbered. Eventually the fighting got close to one of the storage facilities housing mining explosives. Breaking into the building, the slaves began using the explosions with their attack, causing a small earthquake to hit the city.

The earthquake, while small, managed to hit many of the supporting structures of the city and began a collapse. Still fighting, more explosives used by the slaves caused lava to rise up, engulfing the outskirts of the city. Eventually it became a mad dash to the stairs to escape. But, another shake from the earthquake ended their desire, causing the bottom part of the stairs to collapse. At the top, the remaining slaves and citizens managed to escape as the Undercity met its fate.

## Afterwards

In the Overcity, now the only city, the slaves under Henrik managed to take control with little resistance. Now the ones in power, Henrik proclaimed that this would be the birth of a new nation, where the humans were no longer enslaved by the dwarves.

Eventually the rest of the Dwarves, if they weren’t Pro-Slave, were exiled. Henrik later began the lengthy ordeal of creating a new nation named Tamwull, initially starting it as a council with a president, all elected, before turning into a democratic republic.