Pentarchy-Augkarate War

The Pentarchy-Augkarate War was one of the most destructive conflicts in the history of Nomos. Lasting from 151 to 167, and fought primarily in eastern Otheia, an estimated one million Otheiae soldiers were killed in the conflict, as well as an additional million civilians killed by reprisals by the Arezians, in an attempted ethnic cleansing of the region. Three million died as well due to resultant famine. An estimated 18,500 Arezians were also killed in the conflict.

The roots of the conflict lay in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution. The Otheiae, having overthrown the previous Warlords, and establishing the Augkarate of Otheia, invited the Arezians to send advisors to their courts, to help them in the building of their new nation, as well as in its management. However, over the course of more than a century, the Otheiae began to chafe under the presence of these long-lived advisors, who they saw as attempting to influence the policy and rulings of the Realms in the favor of the Arezian Pentarchy. These tensions increased as the original rulers, who had led the Revolution and invited the Arezians to the country, as well as their children, began to die off, being replaced by their more ambitious descendants.

The outbreak of the war is generally traced to 151, where tensions boiled over in the city of Estya, in the Realm of Easu. An Arezian official travelling through the city was murdered by a mb of attackers. The Arezians recalled all their subjects in the Augkarate to their isolated cities for their safety, many of whom fled to Arizan, a small Arezian exclave city in the bounds of Otheia. The Newcomer Realms of Otheia raised an army to besiege the city. In response, the Arezians raised an army of their own, and invaded the eastern portion of the Augkarate. When they heard of the fall of Arizan, their army changed its goal from the relieval of the city to the extermination of the Otheiae. Simultaneously, the Berlons were drawn into the war in the west of Otheia, putting further pressure on the Augkarate. The Arezians were defeated in a pyrrhic victory at the Battle of the Plains of Aselad in 162 by a combined force of all Otheiae armies in the Augkarate, and the war would officially end in 167 with the Treaty of Hihhill.

### Phase I

The fist phase would be dominated by the Siege of Arizan.

In the city of Estya in Easu, Oziras Azendros, an Arezian diplomat, was murdered by an angry mob. His body was dismembered and thrown into Lake Ersers, to the outrage of the Pentarchy's ruling body. The Pentarchs issued an order that all Arezians return to their cities for their own protection. Taking this as an insult, the people of Otheia demanded war with the Arezians. Three realms would bow to the demands of their people, the Realm of Easu, and the Petty Realms of Hass and Kaxep.

#### Siege of Arizan (151-155)

An army would be mustered by the aforementioned states, 70,000 strong, and would be led by Kara Keporo of Easu to the city of Arizan, the only Arezian city located within Otheia. Governed by the esteemed Zeran Azendros, brother to the slain Oziras Azendros, the city would put up a dogged display of defiance.

##### Almearis's Attempted Relief (152)

In 152, seeing that the Council of the Pentarchs was unwilling or unable to make the decision to raise an army to relieve the beleaguered Arizan, Almearis Zirines, son of the Lord Pentarch Erdonnas, would raise a band of his personal retinue and other volunteers. This band would attempt to march as a relief force to the city. However, it was stopped by Erdonnas, who wished not to enflame tensions with Otheia further. Almearis would stand down and disband his force, though he protested the order.

Despite being told to cease official involvement in the conflict, Almearis would open up indirect diplomatic channels with the Berlons to the west of Otheia, and attempt to convince them to open a new front in the conflict. This would come to see success in the Second Phase of the conflict. when the Berlons invaded the west of Otheia as a diversionary attack.

The lack of action and orders to stand down caused Almearis, and the lesser pentarch Izandros, to debate whether they should perform a coup against Almearis' father. Ultimately they would decide against the action, though Izandros would begin secretly gathering an army in preparation for such a potential outcome in 153.

#### Second Relief Attempt (154-155)

In 154, Erdonnas Zirines would finally cave to the demands of his fellow Pentarchs, as well as the increasingly desperate pleas from Arizan, and would raise an army to relieve the city.

The Arezian army, numbering 2,000 strong, and reinforced by Izandros' contingent of 8,000 additional soldiers and retinue, would advance into eastern Otheia. However, it would be too late to relieve the siege, which would be broken in 155 in an Otheiae victory.

##### Breaking of the Siege

For 4 years, Arizan would resist all attempts to breach its walls. The magicians of the Arezians were too much for the Otheiae to overcome through brute force Both the attackers and the defenders were running low on supplies and morale, and so the Otheiae, under Keporo, would dig a series of mines beneath the city's walls. Stocking the mines with a newly introduced weapon, gunpowder, the mines were set alight, and Arizan's walls were destroyed. The Otheiae army rushed into the breach, and what followed would become known as the Rape of Arizan. Only a few shapeshifting Arezians would escape the brutal sack, and they would reach the relief army dispatched by the Pentarchy in 154, telling stories of the brutality of the Otheiae.

### Phase II: (155-162)

#### Wooded Realms Campaign (155-156)

Having been informed of the brutality of the Otheiae during the Rape of Arizan, the Arezian relief army would go on a rampage throughout northeastern Otheia. Starting in the Wooded Realms and slowly making their way south and west, they would slaughter any village they encountered wholesale, and would destroy any town or city they encountered. Izandros would be quoted as saying *"We are rectifying our prior mistakes"*, when questioned by Erdonnas as to the motive of their genocidal attacks.

The Arezians would successfully level most cities they encountered, and would destroy every army sent against them by the Woodland Realms, and would kill every Otheiae person they encountered in the region. Throughout the campaign the region would be reduced in population by almost 50%, the survivors fleeing into the deep woods of their homeland, or forming vast columns of refugees, who would occasionally be ambushed by the Arezians, who would shapeshift into birds for better mobility.

#### Augkaraxemcras Areizien (156-167)

The pleas of the Karas of the Woodland Realms would be heard across Otheia as they requested allies and aid for fighting back the invaders. This would eventually cause the Augkara of Otheia to declare an *Augkaraxemcras*, a *War of the High Kingdom*, and to summon the armies of all Realms to force the rampaging Arezians back. The order would be dispatched, that every kingdom was to send its army to the east of Otheia, to fight back the Arezians. Additionally, every Arezian found within the bounds of the Augkarate was to be put to death on suspicion of being a spy.

Nearly 500,000 soldiers would be raised from across the Augkarate to meet the 8,000-strong Arezian force. The Arezians were marching south along the River Dasdrile, and the various armies of Otheia were straining to meet them in battle before they could kill more of their countrymen. Over the course of the war, more than double this amount would be raised, to replace the heavy losses suffered by Otheiae soldiers in battle.

##### Berlon Intervention (157-159)

Following the declaration of the War of the High Kingdom against the Arezians, almost every soldier in the western part of Otheia was pulled east to battle the Arezians. This left the west of the country almost entirely undefended, and easy prey for raiders. The Erls of Berlby would, seeing the border regions devid of troops, raise and commit substantial forces to an invasion of the southwestern Realms of Otheia, in order to both seize land and take pressure off the Arezian march south.

The invasion would prove successful at first, with many castles being seized outright without bloodshed, and several cities surrendering after a short siege. There were few soldiers, and fewer still Otheiae mages left in the region to country the Berlon threat, and so they made relatively rapid gains. The southwestern realms, particularly the Coastal Realm of Aslock, would request to the Augkara that their men be allowed to return and defend their homeland, though this was refused, and the Berlons were able to continue their invasion. Entire towns would be slaughtered by the Berlons, and the countryside would be pillaged of all its values.

A relatively small militia force would be gathered under the command of the a merchant named Hen of Andaoi, and would set out to battle the Berlons. Numbering merely 7,000, the militia was a last resort, a desperate attempt to fight back the Berlons. Meeting a 20,000-strong Berlon army at Ashtrada Bridge, in 159, where they would manage to successfully defeat the larger Berlon army through use of ditches and pikes. The Berlons would be routed, and would not return to Otheia for the duration of the conflict.

#### Wiltermen Raids (160-179)

Sensing weakness from their neighbor to the southeast, the Wiltermen beyond the frontier of the Western Realm would cease their raids into Otheia for a short period of time. However, by 160, despite the celebrations of the western peoples of Otheia, massive raids were suddenly launched, with the goal of both stealing and conquering. Numbering from the high hundreds to the low thousands of men, these raids would scour the northwest of much of its produce, valuables and people, who were either slaughtered outright or carried off into slavery. They would also employ their druidic magic to besiege and sack several cities, including Ahcer, Soldaoi and the capital of the Western Realm, Cinderu. These raids, targeting the undefended villages, towns and cities, would leave the land of the northwest depeopled for more than 50 years following their cessation, only regaining similar levels of population in the mid-200s.

Similarly to Aslock, when the Western Realm requested its troops be relieved and allowed to return to defend their homeland from the Wiltermen, the request was refused by the Augkara.

#### Clash of Armies (158-162)

As the Arezians were moving south on their slow, yet meticulous, genocidal march, the Otheiae armies from across the Augkarate finally began to arrive to oppose them. Among the most useful and important of the troops to arrive were the armies of the Newcomers under Kara Keporo of Easu, whose soldiers, fresh from the Siege of Arizan, were very experienced in fighting the Arezians, and they had adapted their tactics to suit such magical warfare.

By this point, the Arezians had split into several smaller contingents. Under Izandros would be the majority of their forces, some 3,500, while Zevar, the highest commander of the Pentarchy's small army, leads another 3,000 men in the southeast, moving toward the ruins of Arizan, to enact reprisals against those who killed his kin. Additionally, 1,500 men are led by the Pentarch Ikros, which is to cleanse the region of Otheia north of Lake Ersers. Two groups comprising 1,000 Arezians each are tasked with plunging deep into Otheia and disrupting army movements and sowing chaos throughout the Realms, killing all whom they come across.

The first Otheiae armies to arrive would attempt to engage the disparate Arezian forces independently, believing they could overwhelm them by numbers alone. These armies were almost immediately destroyed by the Arezian magicians, and soon the other forces of the Otheiae would learn from their mistakes, biding their time and gathering their armies together in a larger force. From 158 until 162, there would be limited skirmishes between the armies of the Pentarchy and the Augkarate, resulting in heavy losses to the Otheiae forces, though the Pentarchy suffered casualties as well. The various armies throughout Otheia were ordered to combine with one another, and to hunt down and destroy the disparate Arezian contingents.

In 160, the first major clash of the two people since the Siege of Arizan would occur at Eleagure, in the Realm of Kaxep. The armies of the Newcomers under Kara Keporo would pursue and outmaneuver Zevar's force in the field, forcing a clash at Eleagure Hill. The Arezians, confident from their easy victories against the Otheiae sent before them previously, were surprised at the effectiveness of the Newcomer's new battle doctrine, which was created in the crucible of Arizan. The Arezians suffered heavy casualties to Otheiae skirmishers, and would be forced to retreat southeast, in an attempt to link with Izandros' force.

##### Siege of Hihhill

Eventually, Izandros would reach the city of Hihhill, the capital of the Highland Realm, and the seat of power of the Augkara of Otheia. Finding it impossible to assault from any direction except the northwest due to its positioning across the river Dasdrile, situated on a massive cliff, and with a dense forest to its rear, the Arezians began to settle in for a short siege. However, unbeknownst to the Arezians, the city had a new piece of secret technology, a Breck Device. When the Arezians began magically bombarding the city, the device was activated, and the city was protected from the magical attacks. The Arezians, enraged that their bombardment was ineffective, began to increase its rapidity. Over the course of a few weeks, the Arezians began to slowly overwhelm the Breck Device's field, and the device started to go into a critical state.

###### Race to Hihhill and the Battle of the Plains of Aselad (162)

Upon hearing of the Arezian force besieging Hihhill, and the desperate plight of its defenders, the Newcomer army begins to march toward the capital. The various Arezian armies were recalled by Izandros, to bolster his forces against the incoming Otheiae relief force. Realizing where their targets are heading, the Otheiae armies do the same, moving to link with Keporo's force.

As the smaller Arezian forces meet Izandros at Hihhill, his scouts report the Otheiae are closing. Growing desperate, Izandros orders one massive bombardment of Hihhill. This almost causes the device to go into a critical state. The bombardment is almost successful, nearly causing the device to overload, but beforeit could be overwhelmed, however, the combined armies of the Otheiae appeared to the Arezians' rear.

Realizing that they might not be able to escape, the Arezians stand and fight, blunting the Otheiae advance. However, the Otheiae are too numerous for the Arezians, and Keporo had spread his new tactics among many of their leaders. Thus, fully unified in one united force, the Otheiae attack. The battle lasted a fortnight, and was geographically the largest battle in history, taking place across a nearly 5,000 square kilometers. Despite inflicting massive casualties, the Arezians realized they would need to retreat, or all be killed. Thus, under the cover of a relatively small rear-guard action, Izandros's force would retreat. It was a victory for the Otheiae, though a pyrrhic one. The Otheiae killed 3,820 Arezians, though they lost nearly 220,000 of their own soldiers, and several important commanders

##### Retreat from Otheia

The Arezians retreated north up the Dasdrile, and were hounded by the Otheiae as they fled. They would be pursued by the army of Otheia from their south, and would be repeatedly ambushed from the sides of the road by vengeful militias. This would lead to another 1,000 casualties among the Arezian ranks, further whittling down their already scarce numbers. In the Winter of 162-163, as they crossed the Dasdrile at the Great Ford in Kareda, the Otheiae would catch up with them. Being bottlenecked at the ford, and with only a few able to cross at a time, the Arezians were forced to stand and fight. The Battle of the Great Ford would see a further 500 casualties taken to the Arezian army by direct action, though many more would perish as the result of drowning in the river as they desperately attempted to cross the thin ice upstream of the ford. This battle would force the Arezians to abandon their supply wagons to escape, leading to yet more deaths due to starvation along the road back to their homeland.

The Battle of the Plains of Aselad, and the subsequent Retreat from Otheia, are considered among the most embarrassing military disasters in Arezian history, alongside the Siege of Arizan.

### Phase III: (163-167)

#### Recovery

For about 3 years, both states simply spent time recovering from the massive blows they had been dealt. The Otheia had much of the northeast of their country depeopled by Arezian raids, and the massive refugee crisis spawned by the Arezian cleansing of the region was placing great strain on those regions which were not effected heavily by the war. Additionally, famine gripped the country, caused by the calling of far more men and women to army service than the country could support, and the harvest failed due to lack of workers. In the Pentarchy, the situation was little better. While it had only lost a much smaller percentage of its population, These comprised more than half of its trained soldiers, and the Arezians knew in the event of an invasion, they could not simply rely on mass-conscription the way the Otheiae could. As such, little happened during the years 163-166.

##### Otheiae Reprisals (166-178)

###### Raids on Berlby (166-178)

*Main Article: Kara Elsoe's Raids*

The Otheiae would shatter the unofficial truce in 166, by invading the Erls of Berlby. In their rage at being attacked by the Berlons, the Otheiae would set out on a campaign of total war, spearheaded by the army of Aslock under Kara Elsoe of Aslock. This campaign would avoid actual combat against the Berlon Erls and their fyrd, rather the target was the civilian populace. The Otheiae would raid across the eastern part of the country, east of the Tyst, where they would burn, kill, rape and pillage any village they came across. The east of the land would be economically devastated, its people killed or set to flee west for safety, which would cause famine in the region surrounding Ledensburgh. The Otheiae outmaneuvered the Erls in the field, and managed to reach, and sack, Eanhalt, the local seat of power. They would withdraw following this victory, though Elsoe would continually direct and lead smaller raids into the region for years to come (until 178), as reprisals for what the Berlons did to his Realm.

###### Counter-Invasion of the Pentarchy (166-167)

The Otheiae would also attempt to mount a counter-invasion of the Pentarchy's lands. None of these would prove particularly successful, the difficulties of travelling from Otheia to the lands of the Arezians (through the cold north, or through Iraz, both of which have unique difficulties associated with the crossings) would see few soldiers of those armies in fighting capacity once they reached the Pentarchy, with most either being sick, starving, or dead by disease or dark forces.

Despite this, there were several armies sent, each numbering about 100,000, between the years 166 and early 167. Those who survived the march would often wreak havoc upon the Arezian lands, though it would be universally a short time before these groups were destroyed by the retinues of the Pentarchs, or the Pentarchs themselves. As such, it was realized that an attempt to assault the homeland of the Arezians would be unfeasible, and the first attempt at diplomatic talks since 153 would take place.

### Peace

The Treaty of Hihhill would officially end the war in late 167. Both sides were exhausted from fighting (the Otheiae having been decimated, and the Arezians being unused to the rigors of warfare), and so the terms were simple. Peace was to commence between the two nations once the year was out, hostilities were to be ceased, and normal relations were to recommence. However, it was not a return to the status quo, Arezian envoys were no longer to be at the court of every Kara, nor could the Arezians ever attempt to influence the internal and external politics of the Augkarate again. Additionally, the city of Arizan was never to be resettled by Arezians.

### Human and Financial Cost of the Conflict

Nearly 5 million Otheiae were killed in the conflict, which was almost 1/3 the overall population of the region. While only about 1 million of these were due to direct military action, the effects of the Arezian cleansing of the region caused massive famine throughout Otheia, and the refugee crisis from the north was immense. The high mortality rate was also contributed to by the fact that the soldiers of Otheia were required to live off the land, as the number called up for service was far too high for any central authority to feed and supply. The war, and the need to supply all the soldiers, would bankrupt most of Otheia, and it would not recover financially for over 100 years.

18,712 Arezians were killed in the conflict. Of this, 8991 were soldiers and personal retinue of the Pentarchs. The Arezian military would not recover from this loss for over a century. An additional 9,720 were civilians, and one government envoy, Oziras Azandros, were killed. The entire city of Arizan was destroyed, with little more than a cratered ruin existing. It was unable to be resettled.

About 100,000 Berlon civilians would either be killed or would starve to death along the border with the Augkarate as a result of Elsoe's punitive campaigns in the region.

### Military Developments

The siege tactics employed by Kara Keporo at Arizan would go on to be studied across Otheia, and would be implemented by many commanders. These tactics, and the usage of concentric circles of trenches, batteries of mages, counterbatteries thereof, and the construction of saps, would begin to be employed by every Otheiae siege commander, and form the basis for modern day sieges.

Kara Keporo's reforms to the allied Newcomer army would be carefully studied and implemented by every army in the Augkarate. The use of the so-called Newcomer-Order, an order of battle emphasizing good-spacing and discipline, would become standard across Otheia, as it limits casualties sustained when fighting against mages. The Newcomer Order is the primary order-of-battle used in Otheiae armies today. Such tactics require professional soldiers, who could retain formation and discipline, and these soldiers rely on a strong corps of NCOs and lower officers to give the necessary orders when required, and to take individual initiative to maintain the commander's overall strategy in battle.

### Social and Cultural Impact

The breakdown of social order caused by the Arezian cleansing was often more significant and longer lasting than the immediate damage. The collapse of local government in the northeast of Otheia created landless peasants, who banded together to protect themselves from the soldiers of both sides (the Otheiae soldiers lived off the land, causing friction between themselves and those they were protecting), and led to widespread rebellions in the Wooded Realms, the Borderlands, and the Newcomers' Realm. Arezians would devastate one area before moving on, leaving large tracts of land empty of people and permanently changing the ecosystem. Food shortages were worsened by an explosion in the rodent population, while the Highland Realm was overrun by wolves in the winter of 163, and its crops destroyed by packs of wild pigs the following spring.

A frenzy of despair is recorded as occurring among the Otheiae during this period, seeking reason for the seemingly senseless bloodshed. In Ra'laabreist regions of Otheia, these culminated in trials of those suspected to be in collusion with supernatural forces or the Arezians. Over 2,000 people were slain in these witch-trials, which began in 162 and only ceased in 178, by which time they had also spread to neighboring Berlby and Ansverrei.

The aftermath of the War would see the gradual reduction of the authority of the Augkara, as during the conflict the reigning Augkara was percieved as doing very little to help the people of Otheia against the Arezians. The Karas would slowly begin to ignore the rulings of the Augkara, whittling the office's power away de facto, until in the resent day, the office has little authority to control the Karas.

The war would also see the first instance of the rise of proto-nationalism in Otheia since the Glorious Revolution. It would unite the people against a common enemy, and there was a phenomenon of "purging foreign elements" from Otheia and Otheiae culture, from literature to architecture, to performing smaller ethnic cleansings of their own. These would mostly be focused on Arezian influences, though Berlon and some Ansverran elements would be removed from the culture as well.

The sense of nationalism caused by the war, while faded, still exists at a low level, and influences how the Otheiae treat with themselves and each other politically, culturally, and socially. It has occasionally made resurgences, such as in the aftermath of the Great Wars of the Faith, and is presently making a comeback among romantic authors. For such writers, the war is remembered as one of the defining moments of national trauma of Otheia. Some proponents of Pan-Otheiae unity have cited the war as what occurs when the country is not united against a common enemy, and use it to propagate their ideas of a centralized state in Otheia.