January 2023: A History of Tierra and Her Peoples (Pt 1)
1: The Kentauri
To ask for a history of Tierra is to ask for the impossible, for just as the Tierra of today is now a land of many fiefs and lineages, it was once a land of many peoples and traditions, each with their own stories. A history of this land is much like the history of many of its great families: united at present, but the result of many disparate roots, stretching across seas and mountains. There is the Tierra of the Unified Kingdom, born upon the field of Montjoy amidst Edwin the Strong’s statesmanship and Callum the Cruel’s intransigence. There is the Tierra of the Kian soldiers who would lay the stones of Cunaris and Warburton. There is the Tierra of the Calligian adventurers and opportunists who would make Wulfram. There is the Tierra of the M’hidiyossi corsairs and merchants and bankers, who would leave their legacy in the bastions of Leoniscourt, the parks of Aetoria, and the streets and monuments of a thousand other places.
But before them all, there is the Tierra that was before. The Tierra which existed before Tierra. Before the stories of the many peoples, there were the stories of the ones who lived in this land before them, the ones whom many are descended, but whom few will adopt as their own. I speak of course, of the Tierra of my own people, the Tierra of the Kentauri.
It can be frighteningly easy to reduce the history of the Kentauri peoples to the shell which they now are. Even the name “Kentauri” itself is a sort of cheap generalisation, a term brought about only after the rise of the Settler-Lords, a name given to us by those who now live in the lands of our ancestors, as if it were the stakes of a pale, to pen us in to that part of our homeland which we still possess. Much of what is commonly understood of the Kentauri are the product not of our old ways, but of the new ones which we have had to adopt to survive in an environment which is as much foreign as it is ancestral. It is these customs which are so easily derided as the barbarous ways of half-literate savages, to the familiar images of half-naked men fighting over a sheep’s carcass filled with whisky, of backwards fools which look with disdain upon all pretense of learning, of a people who are as wild and stark as the harsh lands they live in – as if such “noble” fortitude could justify keeping us in such a place.
The truth is, I think something far more complex, and far more dangerous to those who would see us only as animals – or worse – as victimised innocents. The truth was that in the times before the Settler-Lords, we were not one people, but many. That is a conclusion I think ought to come more easily than it has to most, for even the most cursory glance at Tierra’s varied climes makes clear that the ways in which one might live in one region would prove entirely impractical in others. So it was in those times as well. In the North, men hunted the forests of what is now Wulfram. The midlands were ruled by sheep-herders, who lived in great hill forts atop whose ruins many Aetorian towns now stand. The West was the domain of fisherfolk, who first gave name to the Salt Coast, they who braved the sea on tiny coracles, and first charted the passages still used by today’s seafarers. In the south laid the strongest and most populous of the old peoples, ruled by chiefs who dared call themselves king, and who the others all feared in times of war.
And there were certainly wars, not in the style of the clan grudges and the raids of today’s Kentauri, but of mustered armies in open fields, like those of other armies. The men of those days were every bit as warlike as their Kentauri descendants, and my own clan keeps preserved long records of skirmishes and campaigns, of men riding out from wood and stone fortresses to contest the grazing rights of a pasture, or the possession of a hill, or the tolling of a bridge. The stories of those times tell of schemes and intrigues every bit as complex and vicious as those of any Kian court, and of diplomatic arrangements which might prove a challenge to the comprehension of even a Takaran Senator or an Antari Lord of the Congress. These were not savage animals, or innocent children, but a sophisticated collection of peoples, who were not unwilling to seize any advantage over their enemies.
And this, perhaps, was the key to their downfall, for when the Settler-Lords arrived, they saw the newcomers as nothing more than a useful implement in their own vendettas. They compassed not the long-term intentions of the Kian and the M’hidiyossi and the Calligians, but merely saw their numbers and their weapons in terms of their own interests. It is often lamented that had we been united as a people, we might have easily pushed the Settler-Lords into the sea, but we were never united, or a single people until the circumstances of our overthrow made us one by necessity. Instead, we saw only our familiar enemies, and a means to overwhelm them in eschange for a trade concession here, the right to settle there. It was only after we vanquished our old enemies did we realise that our former allies had become new ones, and by then, it is far too late.
Now, all that remains of the Tierra that was before Tierra is an artificial agglomeration of a people, pushed into the poorest corner of an island by our own short-sightedness. Of what came before, there are only our histories, carved on posts by the Northerners, upon stones by the midlanders, in plates of silver locked in iron-bound chests by those who had once been southern nations, like my own clan. So carefully guarded are these histories that they are rarely shared to those outside the clan, for they are the last relics of the time before.
One day, perhaps those stories will once again be shared and added to the collection of those which have become the common record of Tierra’s history. Until they day comes, they will remain, hidden and secret by the will of those who keep them – a wish I have every intention of respecting.
-Sir Alastair Esmonde Ludovic Dyn Kellen, KCSI
2: The Calligians
There has been a Calligian presence in what is now northern Tierra for nearly a millennium. Even during the near mythical time when humans possessed universal Banecasting, there were known to be outposts and trading settlements along the coast of what is now Wulfram. Though often possessed of the impressive fortifications and edifices which we now come to associate with the sorcerous powers of Old Calligia, these were for the most part minor centres of only a few hundred inhabitants, stops along the trade route to Takara, or outposts intended to support the occasional naval patrol against pirates and renegades. To the Old Calligians, the land that would become Tierra was a shadowy periphery, almost beyond their notice, possessed of little in the way of useful riches – and already in the possession of peoples too troublesome to rule and too well-organised to subjugate.
It was the fall of Old Calligia which changed this state of affairs. Suddenly, the scattered outposts along the northern coast found themselves not only without the essential implements needed to maintain their fortifications, but also without regular communication or resupply from their homeland. Though ships from Calligia would continue to arrive, such comings would be irregular, and many of the more isolated communities fell to ruin as their inhabitants starved, walked into the forests to join the natives, or sought to take their chances with larger settlement, or with one of the many warlords which now fought over the ruins of their old homeland.
Those settlements that remained found themselves subject to a new benefactor. The Takarans had sought to use the turmoil in Calligia to their advantage, by creating a state of affairs on the continent more favourable to their own interests. With such an object in mind, they began shipping arms and other means of military assistance to those Calligian warlords they saw as most amenable to their own dominion. Unwilling to either risk delivering such shipments directly to Calligia, and even less amenable to the prospect of making such transfers on their own soil, the Takarans found the Calligian outposts in Northern Tierra to be a most useful expedient. For two decades, the flow of supplies to Takara’s allies would continue. The precise quantity of such transfers would rise and ebb with the change of governments, but the flow itself was great enough to necessitate the great expansion of many of these minor settlements by Takaran engineers, most notably at Tannersburg, whose harbour still bears such marks of Takaran banecasting.
Not all new shipping came from Takara, however. As the ruin of Old Calligia dragged on, many sought to flee their war-torn homeland for more peaceable lands, and the settlements of Northern Tierra – now effectively under Takaran military rule – offered safety and security, if not necessarily freedom or comfort. Thousands took ship south in those years, swelling once-isolated outposts into great networks of farming hamlets and border fortresses – and turning the isolated enclaves of settlement into the beginnings of real kingdoms, built atop land purchased, or outright taken from the natives.
In this latter means of expansion, the Takarans proved to be of great assistance. Seeing the Calligian refugees as a more reliable source of labour than the supposedly intransigent native peoples, Takaran military forces would often play a major role in securing concessions in the favour of the colonists, often at the points of bayonets. It is said that in some Kentauri clans, the Wulframite descendants of those colonists are rumoured to have eru-venne blood, as impossible as that would be in reality. Even after the collapse of the Takaran military missions in Calligia, the Takarans maintained considerable influence among the colonies in Northern Tierra, and the remants of that region’s time as a defacto Takaran protectorate can remain visible even unto this day.
As Takara withdrew, Calligia returned, albeit under a different banner and different symbols. Over the next centuries, the House of Saint Stanislaus would exercise a policy of control over its southern colonies which could be best described as long-term inconsistency, with some Emperors seeing the distant shore as a prime dumping ground for troublemakers and disgraced courtiers, whilst others planned to develop them as a base of power far away from the ambitious nobility and querrelous leagues of the continent. As a result, Octovia would never truly reassert its power over its Tierran possessions. New arrivals might cling to the customs and practises of the old country for a time, but would invariably find themselves abandoned with the changing of emperors and the subsequent changing of policies. within a generation, they would inevitably become part of the local culture which they had found themselves surrounded by.
So, as the power of the Imperial Throne waned, Octovia’s colonies grew further apart from its nominal overlord. By the time of the rise of the League of Antar, Wulfram had effectively become an independent kingdom. Although Octovia, and later Antar would continue to demand submission and tribute well into the Unified Kingdom era, its hold over Northern Tierra had been broken long before then. The final severing of ties, which came with King Alaric’s War, was less a change in course than the final cementing of a long-established reality: that of an independent Tierra, no longer subject or connected to its Calligian roots.
-Sir Walter Antonio Stanislaus d’al Alberbrich, KCSR
February 2023: A History of Tierra and Her Peoples (Pt 2)
3: The M’hidyossi
When one thinks of the M’hidyossi migrations, one must first realise that one is considering not just one, but three – or perhaps even four such movements. Aside from originating from the same continent, these migrations have very little in common with each other. M’hidyos is, in the end, a very vast and varied continent, and those great movements of peoples who have found its unheavals and unpleasantnesses intolerable have in the past possessed likewise different resources, motives, and specific points of origin. Such distinctions are of vital importance, for although it might be said that the foundation of Tierra as a unified kingdom was laid in M’hidyossi stone, it might quickly become a matter of dispute to determine whether the specific stone in question is the granite of the Mountain People, the limestone of Santamor, or the basalt of Old M’hidyos.
A Digression: although M’hidyossi migration has played perhaps the greatest role in the shaping of Tierra today, and most Tierrans may trace at least some portion of their ancestry to the continent, it ought to be remembered that Tier al-ard was not the destination of all, or even the majority of those who emigrated from the continent. While Varahd was, and remains the most populous part of the continent, and while its people and lands have not escaped the turmoil of the centuries, there are very few people descended from that race in Tierra. In the end, most of of Varahd’s emigrants settled elsewhere, in the northernmost dominions of the Kian, where they to this day maintain a distinct cultural presence amongst the great peoples of that vast and terrible empire.
The peoples of the First Migration, on the other hand, came from further north, the trading ports of Santamor and the Olive Coast. These were the adventurers, men – almost always men – of some fortune and power, out to seek enlargement away from the paltry trade with the insular and proud Octovians of frozen Calligia, or the overpopulated and heacily taxed traffick with the Kian. Hailing from minor nobility, or merchant houses of middling resources and influence, they sought to establish trading relations with the natives of the Tierran continent, and the small Calligian settlements which had begun to spring up in the northern part of that land and the Kian enclaves which were beginning to be established in the south. At first, these posts were mere harbours, with rudimentary defences to deter raids from land or sea, but in time, as trading houses began to build offices, and then headquarters near the source of their wealth, they became towns in their own right.
In these early days, the adventurers were vastly outnumbered by the natives of the land, who would be known as the Kentauri in latter days. This served the adventurers well, for this not only provided them with a great range and number of trade goods, but also with another source of income, for the natives were fractious and warlike against each other, and the adventurers though few in number possessed the arms, organisation, and training to make for formidable additions to their warbands. Alliances were signed to safeguard the growing settlements along the coast of what is now Aetoria, and with musket and pike, the adventurers and their allies drove away their enemies – before turning against their former allies.
For in that time, the adventurers who had first settled the coast had become numerous and wealthy and powerful, and the small bands of guards they had first brought with them had become armies, and the gardens they had cultivated to feed themselves had become vast landed estates. Those of the natives who submitted were married into the houses of the adventurers, as if they had been defeated or junior noble houses in the old continent. Those who refused had their holds ravaged and their people driven into a permanent exile to join their vanquished former enemies. This was not done out of malice or spite, but out of a desire to secure the power of the adventurer-lords over their holdings – yet the wronged party rarely considers malice in intention, only malice in consequence, and it is as a result of this that the descendants of those exiled peoples, who now call themselves Kentauri, remain distrustful of all outsiders – and for good reason.
Contrast this to the story of the second migration, those of the refugees.
As the Santamorids consolidated their rule throughout the continent, many were left without a place in their homelands. Either due to unwise political connections, fear, a lack of stability, or simple sentence of exile, they fled across the sea to the far west, beyond the fledgling trading posts of the merchant houses, until they either found shelter in the rocky coves of what has become the Salt Coast, or were turned back by the schooners of the Takaran Richshyr.
In this place, the refugees found land ill-suited for farming, and seas far too rough for the methods of fishing which had sustained them in their old homelands. However, this country was not entirely incapable of sustaining human life, for although sparse, it was still populated by natives who were able to make a living through their own specialsed methods of harvesting both meat and produce from the sea, the rocks, and the stony soil. It was these people who welcomed the refugees into their settlements. In return, the newcomers put their remembered skills and connections to their previous lives to good use, clearing harbours and building large sea-going ships which could sustain trade with far-off Takara and Butea.
In time, the combination of these strengths allowed the refugees to survive, and their hosts to attain a new degree of prosperity. The two peoples intermarried, and with the addition of other arrivals – including a second wave of emigrants following the unification of Tierra and the fall of the Santamorids – laid their own road separate to either that of the exiled Kentauri or the lands of Santamor and M’hidyos which they came from. From here springs the people of the Salt Coast, as dominated by the great double-headed house of Englessea/Englessey, and whose cities of Crittenden and Castermaine represent the union of two peoples as one.
An examination of Crittenden and Castermaine’s construction quicly reveal evidence of particularly heavy defensive works: curtain walls, sea batteries, a series of watchtowers and citadels along the coast. These are the legacy of the last, and perhaps the least-welcome of the M’hidyossi waves of settlement, the criminals, or perhpas more euphemistically: the freebooters.
Common understanding is that these freebooters primarily hailed from High M’hidyos and the Olive Coast, from hill bandits and sea corsairs. This is an impression which has been formed by the well-documented lineage of the most famous of the resulting houses: the Cazarostas of Leoniscourt. Yet not all of these individuals came from such places. Here also were the dregs of Kastellia, failed merchants and disgraced nobles from Santamor, even particularly bold gangs from Varahd. All were drawn to the Takaran trade, and the wealth which the ships plying it carried in their holds. With the Takaran Third Empire focused entirely on a confrontation with the Kian, and much of the western coast of Tierra uncharted, these freebooters were able to build havens and fortresses for themselves all along the coast, demanding tribute or extracting loot from the Salt Coast when needed.
It is this latter contest, between the freebooters and the descendants of the refugees which still shapes the cultures of that region. In many ways, the two waves were very alike: the unwanted cast-offs of M’hidyos, joined with the locals of the country, and using their shared knowledge for mutual benefit. In time, thanks to the occasional truce, intermarriage, and the final imposition from above of a general peace by the new Kings of Tierra, these cultures grew into a restive, if tense peace with each other. It is not a perfect fusion. The joining points are obvious to see, yet one may yet bear hope that such differences may be resolved in the generations to come.
-Sir Ibrahim Iskander Joachim d’al Altamira ae Montalban, KCSI
4: the Kian
There had never been any intention on the part of the Grand Staff to give over any part of Tierra to civilian settlement. Initial Kian interest in the landmass of the Tierran continent was purely military. In the last years of the previous dynasty, as confrontation with the Great Enemy loomed, it was the intention of the Ministry of Planning to secure forward operating positions from which the Empire’s fleets and armies might defend the homeland without placing into risk those Dominions which traditionally find themselves targets.
To this end, during the twelfth year of the T’ienneanne Emperor, a fortification was established on the Eastern coast of the continent, well south of the known area of extant M’hidyossi settlement. This fortress would form the northernmost point of what was then called the Outer Sea Line, a series of bases spread in a wide and shallow arc covering much of the Sea of Concord. Intended primarily as a resupply point for naval expeditions, treaties were duly signed with the local indigenous peoples for the purchase and provision of some of the materials needed for this purpose, with the remainder to be shipped from the homeland. As time passed and the fortress grew in importance, many of these imports were replaced with goods and equipment manufactured on site.
These manufactories and workshops, of course, required men to work them. In addition, the soldiers and sailors which garrisoned this outpost required the customary services of a garrison town. To meet these needs, a small town arose around the walls of this fortress, consisting of wine shops, handicrafts, tailors, and brothels. As the town grew, the existing agreements with the local peoples became insufficient for the purpose of feeding the settlement, let alone providing sufficient produce to fill the naval depots. As a result, veterans were settled in the immediate hinterlands of the town, to provide additional food and other necessary crops. By the time of the Great War, what had begun as a mere outpost was a large town in its own right, one which persists today as the city of Fernandescourt.
This pattern continued up and down the coast and beyond, in what is now Callindria, and further on. The island of Warburton first originated as the anchor of the so-called Foremost Sea Line, a further pattern of outposts intended to extend the reach of the Emperor’s fleets and armies even further. By the time war between the Kian and the Great Enemy finally began, this line of bases was also fully established and partially self-sufficient. They would prove their value in the subsequent campaigns, and although several smaller outposts were destroyed or otherwise lost during he fighting, the Sea Lines served their purpose. Never was the Kian homeland directly endangered by Takaran forces. The strategy of the Ministry of Planning had shown its worth, while the enemy’s overconfidence in their own command of the sea allowed for no similar strategy, allowing allied forces to bring the war to a successful conclusion.
Following the peace, however, the Sea Lines were seen as superfluous. It was firmly understood that the Takarans would not again be a threat for at least another century, and the newly established regime of the Duke of Zi’enne required all resources to be directed towards the consolidation of their own rule. The forces of the new Emperors thus withdrew from the outer defences, with the assumption that those who had lived and worked within them would also opt to return to the homeland.
This assumption proved unfounded. By this time, the bases of the Outer Sea Line had been established for over a century. Those of the Foremost Sea Line for more than two generations. Communities and settlements had not only formed in the shadow of these bases, but well out into their hinterlands. When the armies and fleets withdrew, some went with them, but most stayed in what had become the homeland which they and their families had been born in.
It is, perhaps, understandable what happened next, for the withdrawal of Kian military forces also meant the withdrawal of Kian administration and bureaucracy. These former bases were thus obliged to assemble their own means of governance, ones which naturally began to plot a course which focused on the immediate interests of local populations over the long-term necessities of a military plan which no longer applied. Within a generation, these new powers began asserting themselves over the lands around them. Freed from Kian control, they often saw little need to respect treaties between the local native peoples and the envoys of the Grand Staff. As a result, the territory under their direct control grew, as those natives who did not submit where either driven out, or otherwise removed.
Thus ended the history of the differing peoples who settled the Tierran continent, and those who – perhaps unwisely – welcomed them. Thus began the stories of the period we call the Petty Kingdoms, from which eventually arose the Tierran state.
-His Excellency the Count of Leannejouwe
March 2023: The Generals of Brigade
Except from NORTHERN WARS, a commercially avaliable Kian Tabletop Wargame from the 9th Century.
TIERRAN GENERAL OF BRIGADE (Generic)
Point Value: 65
Type: Commander
Statblock: 1x General of Brigade + 5x Mounted Staff Officers
MOR 5 – MOV 15 – RNG – 12 – FIRE 2 – MELEE 3 – TOUGH 5
The cream of the Tierran officer corps, the General-of-Brigade is a senior commander in the King’s Army. Although lacking a formal military education, he has distinguished himself enough as both a fighting officer and a leader of men to secure an appointment to high command. He is capable of both directing a battle effectively from afar, or charging into battle at the head of his command, assisted by a small group of staff officers who double as his bodyguard, should the general’s life be imperilled.
Special Rules:
Leadership(6/30): Designate up to six other units at the beginning of play. The General-of-Brigade provides a +2 bonus to MOR to these units so long as he is within 30cm of them.
Specialty – Line Infantry: Line Infantry units affected by the General-of-Brigade’s Leadership rule also gain +1 FIRE.
OR
Specialty – Shock Infantry: Shock Infantry units affected by the General-of-Brigade’s Leadership rule also gain +1 MELEE.
OR
Specialty – Skirmisher: Skirmisher units affected by the General-of-brigade’s Leadership rule also gain + 1 FIRE.
OR
Speciality – Shock Cavalry: Shock Cavalryunits affected by the General-of-Brigade’s Leadership rule also gain +1 MELEE.
Sub-Commander: This Commander unit may be placed under the command of a Commander unit with the Commander-in-Chief rule, providing the latter unit’s leadership benefits to the former and all units under his command.
VARIANTS
JOHANNES, DUKE OF CUNARIS
MOR 6 – MOV 0 – RNG 18 – FIRE 2 – MELEE 3 – TOUGH 5
First wartime commander of the illustrious Royal Dragoons, the Duke of Cunaris was head of the wealthy and powerful Findlay Clan, a family with a long history of military service. After distinguishing himself as a talented regimental colonel, he was wounded and immobilised by an Antari Church Hussar whilst leading a desperate charge at the battle of Blogia. However, despite his injury, he would prove a capable brigade commander in the years to follow, playing an instrumental role in holding the Tierran Army’s right flank during the Second Battle of Blogia.
Bold on the field, he proved more vacillating in the political sphere, and his unwillingness to choose a side during the early phase of the Tierran Civil War did much to damage his subsequent reputation.
Special Rules:
Leadership(8/40), Specialty – Skirmisher, Sub-Commander
Immobile: This unit cannot be moved after deployment, and takes a -1 MELEE penalty when the target of a Charge action.
LOUIS, EARL OF CASTERMAINE
MOR: 5 – MOV 15 – RNG 12 – FIRE 1 – MELEE 3 – TOUGH 5
The Earl of Castermaine was a man known from an early age for his great attention to detail. He proved himself a brave and capable commander throughout the Dozen Years’ War, but proved truly skilled as an administrator and a staff officer. As a result, the brigade he commanded maintained a reputation for being the best-supplied and the best-led. However, his methods in maintaining such standards did not always endear him to his men, who nicknamed him “The Old Complainer”, for his constant focus on seemingly minute logistical affairs.
However, such meticulousness would prove an immense boon to his allies during the Tierran Civil War, when he proved to be the most talented senior military administrator in the Wulframite army.
Special Rules:
Leadership(6/30), Speciality – Line Infantry, Sub-Commander
Meticulous: This Commander may forgo his Move action to add an additional + 1 FIRE and + 1 MOR to all units under his command within his Leadership radius until his next activation.
JAIME, BARON MATHESON
MOR: 6 – MOV 12 – RNG 8 – FIRE 3 – MELEE 4 – TOUGH 6
Baron Matheson did not secure his position through patronage, as most of his colleagues did. Instead, he clawed up the ranks of the Royal Tierran Marines. He quickly gained a reputation for aggression and boldness, especially for personally leading unexpected attacks with outmatched forces, and using the ensuring confusion to his advantage. By the time of the Dozen Years’ War, “Havoc” Matheson was already a living legend among the Marines, and his continued exploits through that conflict only spread his reputation to the rest of the Tierran military.
However, by the time of the Tierran Civil War, Matheson was well past his prime. Refusing to take sides, he ceded the field to younger men, who would forge reputations soon to eclipse his own.
Special Rules:
Leadership(6/30), Speciality – Shock Infantry, Sub-Commander
Bayonet Leader: If engaged in a Charge action, this Commander may choose to add double his normal Leadership bonuses to his own unit, instead of providing them to units under his command within his Leadership radius.
TOMAS, BARON TOURBIRDGE
MOR 6 – MOV 15 – RNG 12 – FIRE 1 – MELEE 2 – TOUGH 6
Tomas d’al Eldridge, Baron Tourbridge was an unlikely fighting officer. Before the war, he was thought to be more at home at a card table than a map table, more likely to command a dance floor than a battlefield. Yet when the Dozen Years’ War broke out, and the commission he had purchased solely as a social ornament suddenly became a pressing duty, “Twelve-Gin Tommy”rose to the occasion with a sometimes shocking ability. He quickly proved one of the better officers in the Tierran Army, and by the Blogia campaign, had secured an appointment as one of the Duke of Wulfram’s Generals-of-Brigade.
It was Blogia which made Tourbridge’s reputation, his command holding off charge after charge of Antari Church Hussars as the rest of the army retreated. Unfortunately, it would also unmake him and most of the men under his leadership as well.
Special Rules:
Leadership(6/30), Speciality – Line Infantry, Sub-Commander
Die-Hard: Once per activation, this Commander may designate a single unit under his command within his Leadership radius. That unit may automatically succeed on a single MOR check.
SIR LOUIS-AUGUSTE D’AL PALLISER
MOR 5 – MOV 24 – RNG 0 – FIRE 0 – MELEE 4 – TOUGH 5
Born the dashing second son of a well-connected, if relatively minor noble family, young Louis-Auguste seemed almost born to be a cavalry officer. However, despite serving with distinction as a junior officer during the early part of the Dozen Years’ War he showed little aptitude for command until the fateful day of Blogia. Left the most senior surviving officer of his regiment, Palliser won promotion and knighthood by playing an instrumental role in rallying and organising the retreat of what was left of the Tierran cavalry.
His greatest accomplishment of the war, however, would come at the Second Battle of Kharangia, where his brigade would strike the decisive blow against Prince Khorobirit’s flank. As a result, he was elevated to the Tierran Cortes as Viscount Palliser of Kharangia, the title by which he would be known during the final, and perhaps most glorious part of his career.
Special Rules:
Leadership(4/24), Speciality – Shock Cavalry, Sub-Commander
First Lancer of the Realm: If engaged in a Charge action against an enemy cavalry unit, all other units under his command and within his Leadership radius gain an additional +1 MELEE bonus if they also engage in a Charge action. This effect lasts until this Commander’s next activation.
April 2023: Trade and Commerce
From the Olive Coast: Olives, oil, sauces and wines.
From Santamor: Metalcrafts, dyes.
From Varahd: Spices, cotton, dyes, rice, specialty firearms.
From Aetoria: Wool, financing and insurance bonds for all of the above.
From Tannersburg: Iron, coal, metalwork, military firearms.
From Mersdon: Silver, marble, wines, oil.
From Varsovia and Kaien: Machine parts, luxury goods, rice, cotton, silver.
From the Salt Coast Ports: Wool, stone, labour.
From Warburton: Perfumes, silver, wheat, rice, labour.
From Callindria: Iron, metalwork, tomatoes.
From Leuce: Specialty wood, tropical fruits, chocolate, coffee, sugar, rum.
From the Baie’yanne Ports: Machine parts, gunpowder, grain.
From Havenport: Goods from the Eastern Trade, Kentauri whisky.
From Warburton: Silver, perfumes.
May 2023: The Queen’s Own Rifles
1. THE EXPERIMENTAL CORPS OF RIFLEMEN
The origin of the concept behind the Queen’s Own Rifles may be pinpointed precisely to the days immediately after the calamity at Blogia. It was at this time that the Countess Welles, in concluding her much-celebrated report following the course of that battle, first suggested the creation of a dedicated force of light infantry for the purpose of scouting and intelligence-gathering. Reasoning that much of the Tierran Army’s defeat at Blogia could be attributed to the lack of such a force capable of reconnoitering the fateful wood in which Prince Khorobirit hit the bulk of his heavy horse, Welles made the claim that a repetition of such a disaster might be avoided should a force be raised and maintained at the discretion and direction of the Commander-in-Chief.
In theory, the Tierran Army already possessed regiments capable of such work. However, the Light Infantry regiments which had last been stood up during the time of King Alaric’s War had lost whatever special distinction they had once possessed in the intervening years, their readiness and ability sapped over the course of long decades broken up as a neglected Houseguards. The Royal Dragoons, in theory also capable of such work, had made themselves far too useful in other roles during the early years of the war. Though one squadron of the regiment would occasionally be attached for reconnaissance and patrol duties, the remainder would be committed to more direct combat roles, most often as shock cavalry, and occasionally – as was famously done at Kharangia – as dismounted assault troops.
This meant that – as per the Lady Welles’ first intention – an entirely new force would have to be raised, to be purpose-trained and equipped to fulfil the role required of it. This was an eventuality which was much disfavoured within the upper ranks of the Army. Not only would the raising of a new regiment create an immediate new demand on the dwindling numbers of recruits available to replenish the depleted ranks of the rest of the army, but a new regiment would also necessarily mean a new establishment of officers, many of whom would have to be drawn from the leadership of existing units, causing much confusion and unease at a time where it could be ill-afforded. Likewise, the establishment of another regiment of foot would have meant an additional expense upon a Crown budget which was already showing great signs of strain. There would have been no doubt that such a course of action would have become a matter of grave contention within the Cortes.
In the end, a compromise was brokered. A temporary force approximately the force of a double-company would be recruited as a detachment from the diverse regiments of foot. The men to be gathered were to be those with prior background as gamekeepers, hunters, and other trades requiring great knowledge of the land and the expeditious traversal of it. It would be trained and armed to move in loose order, allowing it to cross difficult terrain quickly, and if necessary, to harry and delay the enemy from concealment and from beyond the range of retaliation with rifled muskets. Commanded by a major, this force was to serve as dedicated reconnaissance unit under the direction of the Commander in Chief, and as an experimental force intended to test the viability of a unit of rifle-armed scout-skirmishers, a sort of force which had no parallel in the doctrine of the Richshyr which the Tierran Army modeled itself greatly upon.
Unfortunately, the formation of this Experimental Corps of Riflemen quickly proved to be subject to a most intransigent obstacle, for although enlisted men might be easily found, and equipment was rapidly improvised from the contents of the gun rooms and gameskeepers’ wardrobes of several Royal hunting lodges, officering this new force was to prove a much thornier problem. The command of scout-skirmishers required a different sort of temperament than that normally fostered within the regiments of foot. The enlisted men – though selected for their reputable service records – were rumoured among the army to consist greatly of poachers and thieves. Perhaps worst of all, the necessarily discreet manner of such a force would render it difficult for any ambitious officer to gain the reputation and fortune which he might have desired. It was only when the King personally offered to purchase promotion for any man willing to take command did volunteers appear. The first of these, Captain Victor d’al Reyes of the 8th of Foot, was duly promoted Major, and took command in late 608.
This, however, left several remaining places vacant, and although the further Royal promise of Lieutenancies persuaded several ambitious Ensigns of the Blood to volunteer, not all the vacancies could be filled. At this, the King (who had taken command of the army in person in the interim) proposed an unorthodox solution: the awarding of brevet commissions to worthy senior NCOs among the enlisted men assembled. Reasoning that such positions would not be permanent, and that the leadership of small groups of scout-skirmishers would be closer to the work of sergeants than officers, Grenadier Square and the Duke of Havenport offered little objection. As a result, Two Colour Sergeants of the 8th were duly raised to the rank of Lieutenant on a provisional basis. Three more would be similarly appointed before the end of the war.
The Experimental Corps proved a substantial success under Major Reyes’ command, serving to secure the supply lines of the Duke of Havenport’s Division during the 609 Kharangia campaign, and even maintaining discipline outside the city as most of the rest of Havenport’s forces fell to plundering it during its fall. Throughout the 610 campaign, it operated as a separate force of two companies, skirmishing with Prince Khorobirit’s own scouting forces, and maintaining contact with the Antari general’s individual corps as they concentrated in an attempt to drive Tierran forces back. When one of these corps attempted to besiege and reduce the important position of Fort Kharan, it was the Experimental Corps who were able to infiltrate the Antari siege lines, and destroy their food supplies in a daring sortie, thus forcing an enemy force of nearly ten thousand men into retreat just before the onset of winter.
The sternest test of the Experimentals’ mettle would come in the spring of 611, as Prince Khorobirit attempted to retake the city of Kharangia. With the combined Tierran Army positioned along the eastern bank of the River Kharan, the Experimentals served as a screen for the army’s extreme right flank, attached to the Duke of Cunaris’s brigade. It was in this position that that they were subject to a determined attack by Antari Church Hussars, who had utilised a hitherto undetected ford in an attempt to outflank the Tierran Army. Facing an attacking body of heavy horse which outnumbered them two to one, the Experimentals were able to hold the enemy at bay, until relieved by Cunaris’ Dragoons and the victorious forward elements of the White Rose Lancers. Their dogged defence not only proved the utility of such a force of light skirmishers even in set-piece battle, but likely saved the Tierran Army from severe loss, or destruction altogether.
2. THE QUEEN’S OWN RIFLES
The Experimental Corps played no major role in the war in Antar following the Second Battle of Kharangia. With the destruction of Prince Khorobirit’s Army, Tierran forces were free to advance into the open expanse of the Central Plains, where cavalry scouting was of much greater utility than scout-skirmishers on foot. In addition, the Experimentals – whose strength had never at any time exceeded two hundred men – had suffered severe losses at Second Kharangia, enough to warrant their consolidation into a single company, which was relegated mostly to camp security duties during the 611 and 612 campaigns, with the role of scouting mostly being returned to the regiments of horse – primarily the Royal Dragoons.
With the end of the war in Antar, the Experimentals were stood down. Having recruited mostly from Houseguard regiments, the veterans of the unit thus returned to civilian life. However, the shared experiences of the Antari war and the relatively informal environment of this most irregular unit had created personal bonds betwixt officers and men, ones which would outlive the war. Placed on half-pay, Major Reyes joined the Intendancy, and used his connections within that organisation to retain contact with many of the officers and men who had served under him in Antar. On multiple occasions, he would exercise his influence to secure housing, employment, or even immunity from criminal prosecution for one of his veterans. As the politickal situation spiralled out of control in Aetoria, and the country began to slide towards what we must now see as an inevitable civil war, these connections would prove most useful.
At the end of the war, Reyes had joined the Reform Club, one of the most prominent and exclusive such establishments in Aetoria. The Reform was considered a clearing house of radical politics, which often escaped formal charges of sedition by virtue only of its royal patronage. At times possessed of an adversarial relationship with the Crown, it had always possessed a somewhat Royalist bent, with many members believing the centralisation of power around the Crown to be necessary to advance the development of Tierra as a kingdom. Thus, it was with the Royalist faction which then-Intendant Reyes found himself, and although certain actions during the immediate post-war period imply that his loyalty was not without conditions, this did not stop him from contributing greatly to the Reform’s organisation of militias and self-defence leagues for the Royalist cause.
Elsewhere in the city, the Army Reform Commission deliberated matters pertaining to Reyes’ old command. Considered a qualified success, some members within the Commission wished to expand the programme, raising a company of scout-skirmishers to be attached to each regiment of foot. This was strongly opposed as an unconscionable expense, and a disruption of both the traditional organisation of the Tierran infantry regiment, and a near-impossible standard for the Houseguards to maintain. The alternative – a single regiment of dedicated skirmishers to be maintained at quarter strength in peace and stood up to full strength in war – also met opposition. It was considered too inflexible, and many commissioners expressed doubt that such a force might prove effective when its ranks were swelled with inexperienced peacetime recruits.
In the end, the matter remained mostly unresolved when the Duke of Wulfram’s Proclamation threw the realm into civil war.
Thankfully for the Queen, it was an turn of events which Reyes and the rest of the Reform were well prepared for. Having assembled his veterans in the city in the days prior to the crisis, he now used them once again as scout-skirmishers, leading the assembled militias of the Reform Club to the relief of the Northern Keep, with the assistance of a force of Dragoons. This done, his skirmishers proceeded to offer considerable assistance to Royalist forces as they retook the Shore Batteries and forced Wulfram’s army to retreat. For his actions, Victor d’al Reyes would receive his second Gryphon of Rendower, and the men formerly of the Experimental Corps of Riflemen would receive a considerable amount of royal interest.
Having been received a strong impression as to the necessity of such a force in the days to come, Queen Isobel not only accepted the recommendations of the Army Reform Commission regarding a permanent force of scout-skirmishers, but expedited the process, breaking the deadlock between the two proposed means of establishing such a force by instituting a compromise: the new force would be a full regiment, with colour, a place in the order of precedence, and permanent commissions; to be commanded by the recently-promoted Lieutenant-Colonel Reyes. However, it would serve as a battalion of detachments, which each company separately assigned to the support of other regiments or brigades within the army. There, they would serve as specialised scouting forces for the far-flung and often disparate fighting forces which now assembled under the royal banner of House Rendower.
Thus was born the Queen’s Own Rifles.
3. ORGANISATION
The Queen’s Own Rifles is the most junior regiment of foot in the Tierran Army’s permanent order of precedence, placing it above the Houseguard regiments, but below older and more illustrious commands, such as the Grenadiers, Dragoon Guards, and Lancers. It consists of a single battalion of nine companies, each of eighty men, much like a regiment of Line Infantry. However, as a battalion of detachments, this force does not deploy together as a body. Instead, each company is available to be freely assigned by Grenadier Square to those independent commands in need of scout-skirmishers. Thus, a company may be assigned to an independent brigade here, a regiment on detached duties there, or serve as an independent raiding force in its own right.
As in a line regiment, each company of the Rifles is commanded by a Captain, and assisted by two Lieutenants. However, the arrangement of duties and responsibilities above and below the company level are considerably different, thanks in part to the recommendations made by the Army Reform Commission. As a battalion of detachments, the Rifles do not require any officer above the rank of captain to take the field directly. As a result, the Rifles’ Lieutenant-Colonel and Major are instead intended for administrative duties, coordinating the disparate companies and maintaining a small logistics staff to ensure that the far-flung elements of the Regiment are properly supplied with food and powder. However, the Lieutenant-Colonel reserves the right to attach himself to any individual detachment should the situation warrant it, a stipulation insisted upon by the regiment’s commanding officer, Colonel Reyes.
The Rifles’ intended role as a battalion of detachments also necessitates an unorthodox – perhaps even radical – arrangement of responsibilities at the lowest levels. While an individual Rifle company possesses the same complement of officers and senior NCOs as a company of line infantry, the Captain, Lieutenants, Sergeant-Major and four Sergeants are grouped together separate from the remainder of the company. The seventy-two men left over are divided into eight sections of eight Riflemen led by a Corporal. In contrast to the traditional role of the Corporal, which is to maintain discipline and order among the common soldiers, the Rifles Corporal is expected to lead his section into combat, sometimes even independently, with the authority which might normally be expected of a company officer in a traditional arrangement.
Needless to say, this is an exceptionally controversial state of affairs, one which was enforced more by the necessity of allowing individual companies the needed flexibility to serve as the scouting force of much larger formations. In theory, this would mean that a single company of the Rifles could serve multiple roles at once, with one section holding a strongpoint against the enemy here, whilst others serve to scout or guard lines of communication elsewhere. Even so, there was much official opposition regarding the idea of delegating independent command authority to baneless and relatively junior NCOs. Only at the insistence of Colonel Reyes, several of his officers, and ultimately the Queen herself was such a division of authority finally approved by Grenadier Square.
4. EQUIPMENT AND UNIFORM
The particular nature of the Queen’s Own Rifles has created a certain degree of difficulty when it comes to the matter of equipping such a force. As the Tierran Army has never maintained a standard pattern of full-sized rifle-musket, it possesses no stock of existing weapons fit for purpose. While there was at one point discussion involving the possibility of arming the Rifles with Dragoon carbines, this expedient was quickly rejected, as the weapons in questions were considered too inaccurate and too underpowered for what would be required of them. As a result, the Rifles are currently armed with a selection of rifled muskets gathered from primarily irregular sources, including private collections and as the result of small orders from individual specialist gunshops. As a result, each individual rifleman is obliged to carry moulds for his individual firelock, for there is no guarantee that the calibre of one man’s weapon will match that of those next to him.
In addition, this means that each Rifleman must take considerably greater pains in the maintenance of his firelock, for a lack of standard pattern means a lack of standard tools with which an armour might service all rifles in a company. As a result, Riflemen tend to carry additional accoutrements and tools far in excess of what might be carried by a line infantryman, and are expected to possess far greater knowledge of the workings of their own weapons. In contrast to these tools, Riflemen tend to carry much lighter loads than regular infantry. Aside from blankets, a bedroll, and a few necessary implements such as a cooking pot and a long hunting knife, they carry little else, often choosing to eschew the carrying of rations in favour of hunting or otherwise acquiring food in the field – especially when in hostile territory where such measures are considered more acceptable. Not only does this allow the individual rifleman greater agility in the field, but it also allows them to maintain a quick-marching pace which can often rival the speed of cavalry over long distances.
The search for a standard uniform was also left by the wayside by the exigencies of a very present need for fighting units. As the burnt orange of the line infantry was considered unsuitable for a force of scout-skirmishers, the Rifles were obliged to secure their own clothing. However, the use of several common suppliers and the need for clothing of a certain style, colour, and cut resulted in a manner of uniformity in its own right. The result was a general type of clothing patterned upon, or directly adapted from those of gameskeepers and huntsmen employed on Aetorian country estates: hard-wearing jackets and trousers in brown or shades of Dragoon or forest green, accompanied by soft-soled and low-cut boots, low soft-brimmed caps, and heavy cloaks to keep off the weather and conceal burnished metalwork. Officers often supplemented this general appearance with Kentauri-style hunting jackets, which had then recently come into fashion, as well as more traditional markers of officers’ rank. Colonel Reyes himself retained his line infantry officer’s cocked hat and sword, though he did possess the presence of mind to remove the bright cockade on the former.
5. CONCLUSION
The formation of the Queen’s Own Rifles was more than just the culmination of a process which began with the Experimental Corps. It was also the most daring doctrinal experiment in the Tierran Army’s history: a permanent regiment organised in a manner and in pursuit of a doctrinal role which did not have an equivalent within the Takaran Richshyr upon which had served as Tierra’s military model since its foundation. Its organisation at the company level and below is a direct contradiction of the Takaran insistence on immediate control and concentration of fire which has served as the watchword of that model for centuries. Despite its veteran officers and NCOs, its ranks are filled mostly with new and untested men, who lack the experience of battle, but also the preconceptions which might have otherwise been drilled into them as line infantry. It is, in many ways, a clean slate – one which, if successful, may serve as the precursor to an entirely new style of organisation, command, and of war altogether, and alter forever the character of the Tierran army, but the history of the entire Infinite Sea.
June 2023: Warlords of Calligia, (Pt 1)
To His Excellency, Holder of the Onyx and Carnelian Seal
Excellency,
It has been made evident to me in recent days that the current mood of the court has been placed in a state of some uproar as a result of the return of the formerly exiled Lord P____, and the circumstances of his return to the land of his birth in the company of the young Lady Y___ of V________. Given the nature of these circumstances, it comes to me as little surprise that certain more volatile and excitable elements within the Court of Sun and Heavens have now come into possession of a considerable interest in that young gentleman’s cause. Distressingly, it has been known to me that the more ardent of these figures have been overheard expressing a desire to join the Lord P_____ in his ostensible cause. Even more alarming to me is rumour that some of the more influential of these figures intend to petition the Grand Staff to lend the aid of the Great Kian to this endeavour.
Your Excellency, this humble servant has for nearly thirty years served as one of the greatest scholars of note regarding the dispositon of the powers which currently hold sway on the Calligian continent. On rare occasions in the past, the most revered and well-remembered Emperor Sinne’jiao has honoured me by soliciting my counsel regarding the matter of these realms, although his grandson and successor has not yet done so. It is with this knowledge in mind that I must strongly urge your Excellency to advise that the Emperor avoid any involvement or entanglement with the Lord P_____’s endeavour, or any other course of intervention in the affairs of the Calligian Princes.
The way which the story of the matter in question may reach Your Excellency’s office is thus: that the Lord P_____, having been cut off from his family and homeland during the recent disturbance in that country, has spent years being brought up amongst our own people, that he has learned our customs, our ways of governance, and the strengths of our way of life. Thus enlightened, he has conceived of a plan to return to his homeland and use the wealth and power of his family to spread the wisdom of the Great Kian, and to restore harmonious order to the realms of his birth, either thought supporting, or by supplanting the Prince of Octobirit, who has shown himself to be unfit to that task. I am sure it is hoped that once this occurs – for there is no doubt in the minds of his supporters and admirers that Lord P_____ will succeed, armed with all of the knowledge and upright thought of the Great Kian against what is still considered a very barbarous land ruled by very degenerate and uncivilised peoples – that Lord P____ will be much obliged for any aid which the Great Kian has provided him, thus creating a great and powerful ally in the north, with whom we may do much to confound and overawe the designs and schemes of the Great Enemy.
This is a very stirring story, one with all of the necessary elements to heat the blood of young officers in search of a means of serving the Great Kian in a more proactive way than the current policy of the Ministry of Planning allows. However, it is also an inaccurate one.
The primary weakness of such a narrative lies in the way which the powers of the Calligian continent have been portrayed. We who are so used to the tranquility brought upon by the firm hand of the Great Kian and the harmonious intercourse of the Dominions too easily see the Antari as possessed of a similar, if more dysfunctional system as is the case with other Northern Kingdoms like Tierra. In this conception, the Prince of Octobirit serves as sovereign over many vassals who may be over-eager to assert their own interests, but remain subordinate to a central state. This is not the case. As far as any unprejudiced observer might be concerned, Antar – and thus, the Calligian continent – possesses no central authority at all. Real power rests in the hands of powerful aristocratic families who pursue their interests as independent states in their own right, with Octobirit serving only as a neutral gorund for the heads of these families to meet and discuss matters of their own common interest.
It is these families which I would write of to Your Excellency, and it is the interaction between these families which render what is being proposed now in the Court of Sun and Heavens so very dangerous.
The most illustrative example of such forces at play might be that of the most powerful family in Calligia, that of the House of Khorobirit. The Princes Khorobirit were integral to the foundation of the League of Antar, and have often claimed the position of hegemon among the far eastern reaches of Calligia. Possessed of wealthy and well-populated estates, the successive princes have ruled quite well by the standards of that land, and have gained a reputation for honestly, pragmatism, and ruthlessness which has served them well over the course of the past three hundred years. This reputation was much enhanced by the current prince, for during the Tierran War, he arranged himself at the head of a great coalition and demonstrated himself to be an able politician and a passable leader of armies, nearly succeeding in delivering a comprehensive defeat to the Tierran Army.
At this point, the Prince Khorobirit might have been considered in the same place as the illustrious ancestor which founded the current Imperial House, being possessed of great wealth, great prestige, and a victorious veteran army. Yet where the forces of Heavens and Earth favoured greatly the cause of the Duke of Zi’enne and lit his path to the head of the Grand Staff, the conditions of the Calligian continent worked against the Prince Khorobirit. In those lands, chaos is mistaken for freedom, and order for tyranny. Where a wise man might see Khorobirit as favoured by the Heavens, the Calligian lords saw him as a threat to their own privilege. In confederation with each other, they engineered his defeat at the hands of the Tierrans, and conspired to bring about his downfall.
It was perhaps only through the greatest of feats that Prince Khorobirit was not only able to overawe his assailants, but to recover his position of dominance within the League of Antar. The means by which he did so are still difficult to explain, but the truth remains that at this moment, he has become the effective hegemon of much of the continent, at the head of a vast alliance of the most powerful lords of those realms. For those who are aware of these truths, Khorobirit seems to have surmounted all obstacles, and appears to be positioned to secure overlordship in a manner fit to found a truly unified state. Indeed, it is into the service of this lord which our young Lord P____ intends to enter the service of, and it is to his cause to which he intends bind himself.
This cause has already bourne some fruit which might be considered promising: a small core of professional soldiers, institutions of governance and administration, and other institutions which demonstrate a far-sightedness uncommon among the Calligians. Chief among his more perceptive initiatives is the establishment of shipyards and facilities to maintain a war fleet, which no Antari lord has done in half a century. It is clear that Prince Khorobirit’s goals extend not only to the domination of the Calligian continent, but the expansion of his influence beyond. This, some will tell us, is proof that he would make a valuable ally, that once his plans are made reality, he will serve as a friend to the Great Kian mightier even than the Varahdi.
Yet to assume the success of this cause to be assured is folly. Indeed, it would be perhaps more wise to say that it is one doomed to fail.
When two men swear an oath of blood brotherhood, it is expected that both will uphold such a bond unto death. To us, it would be easy to assume that such agreements carry similar weight in other lands. Yet to come to such a conclusion in regards to the alliances and fealties of the Calligians would only be the greatest folly. While the Calligians do honour certain oaths, the ones they swear of alliance and allegiance are not among them. Where such things are upheld as a matter of course for any gentleman of virtue in our own realms, they are easily made and broken as the shafts of sporting arrows in the Northern Lands. For any pretext, such a bond may be broken, and at many times for no pretext at all. Indeed, naked self-interest often seems reason enough for the sundering of even long-standing alliances, for the Calligian thinks only of how to secure advantage for the next week, month, or year. If such a matter should render circumstances difficult for his sons and grandsons, that is their affair, not his.
Thus the suppoedly mighty coalition which Prince Khorobirit has built is one which is not only immensely fragile, but also the likely source of his downfall, for within its bonds exist those lords most able to secure advantage in betraying him, and in including them in his own strategems and arrangements, he has made it an easy matter for them to position themselves to do so. Thus it will be only a matter of course that Khorobirit will be betrayed from within his own faction, as he has already been once before. Though it is possible that he will weather such a calamity as he has before, it will certainly render his plans impractical as he fights to regain control, and it will almost certainly ensure that such plans will never come to fruition.
This is the true state of affairs in Calligia, and it is from such an assessment that I must advise that in no way might involvement in those lands serve the interests of the Great Kian.
July 2023: Warlords of Calligia, (Pt 2)
Before one may begin to fully elaborate upon the particular interplays of the various noble houses of the Calligian continent, one must first come to understand the underlying fractures and divisions within the societies which populate that land. I take especial care in this account to describe such things in the multiple. For all that the continent may be under the supposed dominion of a single entity and a single government – a notion already defined as an obvious deception – Calligia is in fact home to multiple peoples, each regarding Creation in their own fashion, with their own history and means of regarding the nature of power and rule. Although these peoples have long since interacted with each other, that does not mean they exist in a state of harmonious unity, as the peoples of our own Dominions do. Instead, their history is one of mutual contention, rivalry – and in not-uncommon cases, a degree of bloodshed which far exceeds any succession crisis or rebellion in our own recent history.
The peoples of the Calligian continent are commonly divided into four. Greatest and most powerful of these groupings is that of the so-called “Old Calligians”, those who pride themselves on being the heirs of the great empire which first united the continent. Evidence of their works are still present, from the ruins of the sorcerous fortresses which dot the countryside, to the artifacts of old magic which many noble families of this people continue to possess and pass down from father to son.
As for the character of these Old Calligians, their way of thinking can be best described as a contradiction: while it was they who engineered the great empires of the continent’s past, it is also they who are the proudest and most jealous of their own privileges. Though it was an Old Calligian family which severed the tendrils of the Great Enemy and raised the empire of Octovia, it was likewise nobles of that extraction who were made up the majority of the rebellion which overthrew that empire. Although they carry within them the blood of great administrators, traders, and engineers, they scorn these trades, instead seeming to take only pride in their personal martial prowess. Their wars they prosecute without armies, only a vast rabble of their serfs, which are to serve solely as backdrop for the individual duels and petty engagements of small groups of mounted nobles in their traditional harness and armament, which they title “Church Hussars”.
In truth, this is the understanding many have of Calligia as a whole, for the Old Calligians have often played an outsized role in their history. Likewise, it cannot be said that this people have not left their imprint on the rest of the land. After all, it was the Old Calligians who conquered and subjugated the other peoples, and it would seem obvious that so many centuries of subjugation would spread the customs of that people far beyond their heartlands along the river valleys and fertile lands which make up the great part of the Central Plains. Thus, in all parts of Calligia, there are the marks of that history, particularly among their nobility, which seem to emulate the Old Calligians in dress and forms of address and titles, as well as in the general way in which they do war.
That does not mean there are not marked difference between this people and the others of Calligia, especially in regards to temperament and thought. Those people of the far north of the continent too pride themselves on their independence and freedom, but this derives not from their history as emperors, but the resourcefulness needed to survive in an often most unforgiving land. They value handicraft and the net and spear more than the labour of the field which is so prized in more fertile regions. Their armies too, are different beyond superficial appearances. Although they too are led by Church Hussars, the relative difficulty of raising great warhorses in the north make them far rarer. The difference is made up by cavalry of often terrible quality, and the use of the frigid conditions of the north itself. Northerners are more willing to withdraw from battle than the Old Calligians, and are more willing to pardon those who do.
This way of thinking can be contrasted with those in the south of Calligia. Bounded by great forests and with land similarly less suited for cultivation, these peoples have traditionally been fishers and traders, using the access to the coast to make contact with other peoples. In the past, this has made them wealthy and influential, and as a result, they can be seen as the most open and welcoming of the peoples of Calligia. Yet this manner of living has more than once brought the south to grief. The rebellion which overthrew the Octovian Empire began as a result of the Emperor’s harsh repression of a southern noble house. Likewise, the south has borne the brunt of the recent conflicts with Tierra. As a result of these clashes, much of the southlands’ trade has been cut off, its villages burned, its people displaced or destitute. The past generations have seen them suffer greatly, and as a result, many possess a certain degree of despair regarding their circumstances, though this did not stop many from resisting the Tierran expedition which ultimately resulted in the end of the most recent episode of contention.
The fourth group is perhaps the only one which does not presume to make mockery out of the Calligian boasts of freedom. These are the wild horsemen of the most marginal part of the Central Plains, who call themselves the “Oberlinder”. Disdaining all form of rulership or authority, they rule themselves communally, as some of the less civilised horse people of the frontiers do. These people acknowledge no noble titles, possess no princes, and maintain no great cities or works. Instead, they live as overgrown bandit clans in small villages, which in turn are allied in great confederations. In common affairs, the men of each village vote amongst themselves, and in great matters, the elected headman of each village join the others of their confederation in disordered and often drunken meetings.
Compared to the other groups, these people are very small in number, and lack fortresses, artillery, or many of the other tools of warfare. They hold the creations of armouries and shipyards in contempt, seeking to do battle only with those weapons which they themselves carry, atop horses which they themselves have bred. It is only because of the skill of these horsemen, and the worthlessness of the land that they remain relatively unmolested by more populous regions. Indeed, these horsemen are instead used as mercenaries, providing skilled light cavalry to those princes who cannot otherwise raise their own. As a result, these Oberlinders have often spread themselves far and wide beyond the borders of their homeland, leaving their imprint, and often their children among the bloodlines of distant peoples.
For centuries, these peoples have shared the same realm, and thus, have interacted greatly with one another. The Old Calligians, in their time of dominion, spread their colonies and outposts far across the continent. The Northerners likewise traveled south, while those of the Southlands spread along the coasts, carried by their trade. As a result, these peoples are no longer confined solely to their heartlands, and those who find themselves surrounded by the lands of other peoples often adopt some of them customs and ways of those more accustomed to the land. Here, we may once again see the example of Prince Khorobirit, who holds sway over much of the Northlands, despite being a house of Old Calligia. Their methods and customs are thus, a mix of the two, and the composition of the current Prince’s coalition comprises disproportionately of Northern lords – while many of his enemies are like him, of Old Calligia.
Yet this does not mean such peoples live in a state of harmonious co-existence with one another. Deep are the grievances which each people holds against the other: the Old Calligians are resented for the manner which they once ruled – and still continue to rule. The Southerners are seen as almost foreign in their affinity for the sea. The Northerners are regarded as poor and primitive – even savage. The Oberlinders, almost all other peoples resent, both for their lack of respect for noble titles and princely offices, but also for their uncouthness, their rashness, and their mercenary and seemingly arbitrary nature.
Thus, we must understand that Calligia is not just a land of many princes with their own interests, but of multiple peoples, each with their own grievances and interests. This situation is further complicated by the fact that centuries of intermixing have not only created for distinct groups, but also a great many combinations of traditions and ways of living. Although they have, at times, been subordinated to a greater purpose as our own peoples have, much of their history has been taken up by fractious and violent contention between these peoples and even within them, so that the boundaries between each people and each regional distinction within them are both complex and all but impossible to truly determine.
Given such conditions, it is perhaps a matter of course that any coalition or alliance would be inherently unstable. Not only are the Calligians disunited by personal interest, but by the great differences in their customs. They are many peoples, under the same name, and to build any manner of unity upon such a base without the means to mortar them together will necessarily come to naught.
September 2023: Warlords of Calligia, (Pt 4)
With a fundamental understanding of the disposition of the Calligian continent and the warlords which inhabit it now established, it becomes a mere matter of following these truths to their logical conclusion to understand the character of the Calligian lands and those men who would claim rulership over them: namely that it is naturally divided into interest groups based on matters of culture, history, and politickal identity. That the fact that multiple empires have risen and secured dominion over the preponderance or the whole of this mass must be something attributed not to the forces of geography or unity of character, but to fortune, to inertia, or to banecasting the likes of which Creation will never see again. Thus we can see likewise that the fragmentation of these empires – into ever more feeble state forms until they are finally sundered – is not a process of degeneration caused by motivated malignant actors within the courts or frontiers of these bodies, but due to the very contradiction within the heart of any single government which should seek dominion over all of Calligia.
Likewise, it might be just as easily inferred from these prior conclusions, the result of the endeavour of Lord P____ – who I am given to understand has ambitions upon the Princely title of the House of Noribirit – or any other would-be reformer, conqueror, or unifier. Namely that their efforts to unify and bring order to the whole of the Calligian continent are doomed to failure, either in the short term as they are overwhelmed by other contenders and those who would covet their freedom over any sense of greater unity, in the middle term upon their deaths as the coalitions which they held together through force of will and personality collapse, or in the long term through slow wasting as every other Calligian Empire has done in the past.
There may, perhaps, be some chance that such a scheme may persist or succeed in the smaller scale, with the creation of some power capable of securing hegemony over much, or even all of the Calligian continent without seeking its complete conquest – such as has been accomplished by our Varahdi allies. However, once again, history is likely to act against the success of such a goal. Three previous empires have set a precedent, and it seems almost certain that any ambitious contender will measure himself against those past glories, as hollow as we have established them to be. To ask a prince of Calligia to be content with only a fifth, a quarter, or a third of the continent is to prove that he is a lesser man than his ancestors. This may be acceptable to the vast majority of the lords of that land, but to those very few who look beyond their own immediate interests and petty squabbles, such limits on his ambition would be all-but unthinkable.
I must assure your excellency that I am well aware that it is often considered discourteous in some circles to criticise a course of action without offering an alternative. However, in this specific matter, I fear that I must be so bold as to risk offering such offense. Given the characteristics of the matter at hand, and the truths which I have already ennumerated, I can only recommend a course not only of complete inaction, but of a censure of any attempt to render aid to Lord P____ and his scheme independently by any of the young officers of the Court. Under normal circumstances, I would not hesitate in refusing to countenance such an action, but in this case, three reasons recommend themselves in a way which makes such a drastic decision the only rational one.
Firstly, there is the precedent that a permissive attitude would set amongst the young men of the Court. While it is laudable and virtuous for men of education and birth to set out into the frontiers in pursuit of accolades and experience in the realities of the wild, to allow them to do so in a place so far away and with customs so different from our own cannot be adviseable. Furthermore, even if an argument can be made that the particular cause of Lord P____ is worth support, accepting such an assertion will render it easier for future notables to make the same argument to allow themselves to lend themselves to less credible endeavours, which may serve to corrupt their morals, destroy their virtue, and perhaps even serve to cause them to pollute the Court with ideas better suited for other lands upon their return.
Secondly, by allowing so many promising young officers to depart, they will no longer be at the disposal of the Grand Staff should a crisis arise. If all of those officers suited for the field are away on disparate adventures in faraway lands in peacetime, then there may seem little harm, yet although it is the Grand Staff and the Emperor who draw the line between war and peace, it is the Great Enemy who chooses the instant to step over it. Should such an instant come, the Great Kian must be as prepared as possible to answer, so that we may restore peace and order under Heaven with the minimal necessary amount of bloodshed and disruption to the common operations of the populace. This cannot be done if many of those officers of lower or middle rank – so necessary for the proper function of the armies – are absent and unable to be recalled in a timely manner.
Lastly and perhaps most importantly of all, by allowing young men of the Court to arrive in foreign lands, and fight for foreign causes while still wearing the vestments of our homeland, while bearing the weapons customary to our own armies, and training foreigners in our ways of fighting, they make not only themselves, but the whole of the Great Kian odious to those who oppose their allies. I hope I have previously made it clear to your satisfaction why it is unlikely any individual magnate will be able to unify the whole of the Calligian continent under their absolute rule, and as a result, any force which our young officers assist will surely retain powerful enemies for many years to come. To make their enemies into our enemies, at a time when our state of contention with the Great Enemy is delicately balanced cannot be adviseable. Even if they win for themselves some glory in these distant lands, they will just as readily strengthen the enemy by making them seek the support of the Er-venne.
This last argument is one which has already been made, regarding the representations of his Excellency, the Count of L______ regarding intervention in other lands. It is of my opinion that this warning was not sufficiently heeded, and as a result, the enemies of those the Count has aligned himself with now treat openly with the envoys of the Great Enemy, and are now dangerously close to falling under their power. This is not a lesson we can afford to leave unlearned.
I hope with utmost sincerity that your Excellency looks upon this memorandum as a forthright and honest appraisal of the situation as it exists in Calligia and among those who hold power over it. Although it is not my intention to criticise your Excellency’s potential intentions, I feel that my opinions on the matter based on my many years of expertise must be made clear. I present these conclusions only in the hopes they will be given serious consideration after being received in the spirit in which they were intended – for the sake of the future well-being and advancement of your Excellency’s mandate, and for the continued perseverance of the Great Kian against the forces of the enemy.
October 2023: In Defence of the Tierran Dragoon
By a Confidante of the Gonfaloniere
It has become the fashion in recent years, for men of certain martial pretensions to make comment upon the conditions and the conduct of the war so recently concluded in Antar, betwixt the League which rules that country and the Unified Kingdom of Tierra. Although such efforts may have perhaps originated from some enterprise with the laudable object of improving the defenses and the potency of our own little island’s soldiery, it has now quite evidently apparent to any informed observer that such an exercise become a competition in sophistry and posturing. Having exhausted all profit and advantage in demonstrating knowledge of how things were done, it has now become the mode for those engaged in such commentary to instead demonstrate themselves better than the original. Thus we are treated to the abject sight of men who have never set foot on a battlefield now gainsaying the decisions of veteran fighting officers, of those who have barely touched the swords at their sides criticisng the actions of men who have waded through blood, and even those singular figures who see fit to boast that we with our little parade army of less than a thousand are a more martial and formidable race than they who have but recently fielded an army fifty times that number – and brought to heel a Great Power of the Infinite Sea.
Nowhere has this become more prevalent than in the subject of the composition of the Tierran Army. In many ways, the Unified Kingdom’s army is in appearance and equipment and organisation not so different from our own. Its history and origin are likewise similar, having been formed originally from companies of militia raised for local defence and embodied into regiments during times of war. This similarity has evidently encouraged certain individuals of their great virtuosity in military theory. Although they may themselves have little experience of soldiering and even less of open warfare, they have taken it upon themselves to step uninvited into the boots of the General Officers of the Tierran King, ordering and reordering the ranks and dispositions of his veteran, battle-tested army into configurations which they – in all of their experience with such matters – consider more efficacious in winning a war which the army in question has already managed to win quite handily without such modification.
One formation subject to particular attention has been the Tierran Royal Dragoon Regiment, a force originally raised as mounted infantry during the time of the King Alaric. Originally raised as a force of mounted infantry, this regiment was heavily employed during the war in Antar, and gained a considerable reputation as not only mounted skirmishers but light horse and light infantry. It proved most efficacious during the early phases of the war in both skirmish and battle. Most famously, it held the Tierran left flank at Blogia, played a major part in the storm of Kharangia, and once again distinguished itself in the action which broke the Antari Prince Khoroibirit’s armies outside that same city. In the space of a decade, it has accrued to itself a most illustrious reputation. Yet those who believe themselves to know better would argue that such a force is superfluous to the order of battle of any competently run army – that the Tierran King which has owed so much of his success in battle to such a corps is better off without it. In the spirit of charity, one must assume these arguments have merit, at least in the eyes of their originators.
Whether they possess similar value in the eyes of those of a less elevated perspective is another matter entirely.
For example, the argument is made that a regiment of Dragoons trained in the Tierran style must be useless as cavalry, for being only trained to act and think and fight in the saddle only half the time, it lacks the skill and mentality to properly engage with an opposing element of dedicated horse, which may boast not only a training regimen entirely devoted to fighting from the saddle, but also the correct mentality for cavalry actions – an element which has been much vaunted but has been defined in so many disparate ways that one must wonder if it is a truly tangible factor at all. Regardless of such minor quibbles as the definitions of the terms involved, those who make the argument do so adamantly: that dedicated cavalry will trounce Dragoons in the saddle, as surely as the sun rises and sets.
This may come as some surprise to the officers and men of the Tierran Dragoons, who have on multiple occasions met and routed much larger forces of Antari cavalry in mounted combat.
In truth, it would seem the focus of training does not quite seem to matter quite so much as the method and the duration. Having been obliged to fight fully mounted and on foot, the Tierran Dragoons have endeavoured to simply train twice as long so that they might better fulfill their obligations in both aspects. This seems to have provided an additional advantage, in the sense that by training longer, they have had more time to grow accustomed to those aspects of soldiering which are common to both corps of infantry and cavalry: the prompt receipt and response to orders, movement in close and open order, and the confidence which comes from trust that ones’ comrades are capable of their appointed tasks and that together the whole of the corps is more than capable of mastering the enemy. Against the Antari – who seem to have neglected almost all of these factors save for the traditional skills of horsemanship and individual riding – the results have been evident.
Even if the Dragoons were not maintained and fielded at such a high standard, their utility as cavalry would not be so small as some would claim. Most of a cavalry force’s duties do not require proficiency in mounted combat at all. To reconnoitre before the head of an army, to make contact with the enemy’s picquets and maintain ones’ own, to maintain lines of communication, to charge the flanks of enemy foot, to ride them down when they break, and escort shipments of high priority – these tasks simply require that a man be armed and capable of riding a horse at a greater speed than a man afoot without falling out of the saddle. Even if these were the only qualifications possessed by a Dragoon, he would still be of use as cavalry – perhaps more of use than a great number of his detractors.
Stymied from the saddle, these most experienced and able commentators then condescend to dismount: perhaps the Dragoons might make passable cavalry, but they make poor infantry. It is the obverse of the previous argument, and one refuted in the same manner. During the war in Antar, the Dragoons have proven themselves quite capable of skirmishing on foot, and even facing enemy infantry in close order. Their training in such fighting might not have been as focused as that of dedicated foot, but it was evidently quite enough to rout Antari foot possessed of no training at all.
Undeterred, the more astute of worthy commentators take another tack, that the weapons and accoutrements of the Dragoon make him unsuitable for fighting on foot. While this might be the case were Dragoons intended to be deployed as infantry of the line, it seems the men responsible for the deployment of such a force were not quite so deficient in mind as to make that decision. Instead, the Tierran Dragoons have been traditionally deployed on foot as skirmishers, firing from cover to delay or harass an enemy from a distance – a task which their equipment makes them quite suitable for. True, the lack of bayonet and long-barrelled musket to mount it upon may seem like a deficiency, but those who make note of such a lack seem themselves to lack the comprehension that such equipment is solely of use for the purpose of repelling cavalry – a requirement which a force of Dragoons might just as easily fulfil by an expedient which has somehow evaded the attention of some commentators – namely that of mounting their horses and drawing their sabres.
Thus rousted from their outworks, the worthy and most learned commentators retreat to their final redoubt, that of economy. Having established that it requires twice as much time in training and exercise to maintain a Dragoon regiment as an equal of both its counterparts in thoroughbred cavalry and infantry, it is thus argued that it would simply be more economical to maintain two separate regiments. With the vehemence of a child or a card sharp who insists that adding three and three make for a pair of threes and not six, they maintain that there is no need for such an ‘amphibian’ corps, if for the same cost one might have two regiments instead of one.
Unfortunately, such an argument does possess a certain slight oversight, one which no doubt would have required the perspicacity of a Takaran sage to uncover: namely that two regiments of men draw two regiments worth of pay, rations, and accoutrements – surely a thing which any intelligent observer could be excused for neglecting, for it is as imperceptible a quibble as the wetness of the sea or the coldness of snow.
Those of more extraordinary capacities of thought – those who might perhaps be able to count to twelve without aid of their fingers – might instead come to the conclusion that a regiment of Dragoons in the Tierran model offer not only the capabilities of two regiments at the cost of the upkeep of a single such corps, but may also possess additional capabilities which two separate regiments might be unable to match. As a result, a force of Dragoons might advance to a position mounted, and then dismount to harass the enemy before he might react. A force of Dragoons might skirmish with a screen of enemy skirmishers, and then mount to ride them down when they break. A force of Dragoons might conduct patrols ahorse with at far greater remove from the main force of any opposition, then dismount and hold advantageous ground as infantry should any be found – whilst sending a mounted courier to inform their commander in chief with more expedition than any messenger might do so on foot.
Given such observations, it may perhaps be said that in attempting to prove the superfluity of the Tierran Dragoon, those certain interested parties have indeed proved its utility instead. As the gentlemen in question are no doubt men of reason, motivated solely by a desire to take the lessons of a foreign war to better the defence of our own little island, I would encourage them to put these conclusions to constructive use. Indeed, instead of arguing against the existence of a Dragoon regiment in an army of a wholly different country, perhaps they might put their efforts to better use – in raising a force of such Dragoons for our own.
November 2023: Notes on a Crisis (Pt 1)
6/2/617
Awoken early today. Case White.
To say that this was completely unexpected would be to lie. There are contingencies in place. There are preparations left in waiting for a day which I had hoped would not come, but which has presented itself regardless.
My personal sentiments would drive me to suppress the spread of this intelligence, if only to give myself the time to mourn in private. My personal sentiments must make way for the exigencies of this service which I have now succeeded to. Any attempt to obstruct or otherwise conceal this news for any reason would be seen as duplicity, and such an impression would only serve ill for the credibility of the Crown, a matter of chiefest importance at such a moment.
Halford is due to arrive within the hour. From him, the rest of the realm will be made aware. I may have a few hours subsequent to compose myself before all Aetoria upends itself. I must use that time wisely.
——
6/4/617
Clear now that W. does not intend to challenge the succession. His attitude of these past two days has been the very picture of conciliation. There is no doubt now that he believes patience to be the best strategy.
Perhaps he is right. Once again, the compromises of Edwin the Strong are found to have burnt unevenly on the pyre. Legal precedent renders me both ward and guardian of the powers which have recently come to me. W. may attempt to force a Cortes regency, though such a move would likely strain the bounds of legality – something which he is yet loathe to do.
No, more likely he will attempt some new compromise, to frame himself as a guarantor of my powers rather than a guardian – a position which will outwardly seem to favour me but accrue to himself all leverage. For all that he is a fool in other matters, he remains a champion sophist.
But if I am to deny him such a compromise, I must ensure that he lacks the means to force the issue. Aetoria is a boiling pot which will scald whomever it is tipped towards first. Its base must be made firm before all else.
——
6/5/617
My Lord Halford,
It is not our intention to allow for any deterioration of the splendour and majesty of this institution. However, one forgets himself if one is to believe such aspects anything more than supports for the structure of legitimacy.
Under normal circumstances, a coronation in the traditional style may serve us well, but given the straitened disposition of much of the country, such a ceremony could very well be seen as an unwarranted extravagance at a time when the country may ill afford it.
The decision stands. We have already spent more than we can spare on mourning white. To triple that expenditure on oranges and blues would be inadvisable at this time.
-IR
——
6/5/617
Sir Daniel,
Regarding your memorandum of yesterday, I must make agreement with all of your points presented therein. That the Highland Regiment must be rated the most trusted corps of the Army save for the Grenadiers in these circumstances cannot be denied, nor might the ability or loyalty of its Colonel in Chief.
However, it is precisely because of these reasons that I must decline to follow the course of actions you have advised.
Firstly, there is the fact that the reputation which has served the Highlanders so well on the field of battle will work against them in the circumstances which you advise deploying them. Few in the city will rest easily with men of such foreign customs and fearsome aspect patrolling their streets, and the very actions which have made your own regiment odious to so many in the city this autumn last are common practise amongst the Kentauri.
Secondly, any prolonged absence from Kentaur by the greater part of Clan Havenport’s armed strength will serve to render the whole of the region more unstable. The Highlanders are needed to hold the south more than they are needed here.
Lastly, should the Crown seek to deploy upon the streets of Aetoria a regiment known to be loyal to it, certain interested parties will almost certainly be provoked to rashness, under the impression that we seek to accomplish the very ends which you propose to strive for. It does not serve the interests of the Crown to be seen as attempting the overthrow of its own Cortes by force of arms.
Find another regiment for this task.
-Isobel
——
6/7/617
Discounting the Highlanders leaves me with three potential options, which means I am left with one option.
The Marines would seem fit for the task on first glance, being as they are accustomed to the practise of keeping order aboard ships of war. However, they are not suited for long marches, and I suspect too close to the Admiralty Club, which in turn has fallen under W. and his party.
The Lancers might be more fit to cover ground, but their attitude and their armament make them poorly suited to keeping order. Likewise, to treat them as trustworthy in carrying out the Crown’s business would greatly compromise the position of its Colonel in Chief in a manner which will be detrimental to the interests of the country.
That only leaves one corps with the appropriate drill and armament, whose disposition might be agreeable to all parties. That leaves only one regiment which might be called to Aetoria.
——
6/7/617
To His Grace, the Duke of Cunaris
Colonel Commanding, the Royal Dragoon Regiment.
Given the current state of affairs, we have seen fit to place your command at the direct disposal of the Crown for the purpose of maintaining peace, order, and good governance within our capital of Aetoria. In pursuance of that aim, the following measures are to be taken.
Effective immediately, the regiment is authorised to recruit to wartime strength of six squadrons.
Effective immediately, all officers on half-pay are to be recalled to active service.
Effective immediately, the three squadrons comprising the regiment’s peacetime strength are to make way for Aetoria, where they will present themselves as fit for service at the Southern Keep in no more than ten days following the receipt of these orders.
Upon arrival, His Grace is expected to present himself at soonest opportunity before the Privy Council for further instructions.
Isobel
General-Royal
December 2023: A Regiment Divided
or
THE TRUE DISPOSITION OF THOSE BODIES OF FIGHTING MEN PREVIOUSLY KNOWN AS THE WHITE ROSE LANCERS,
NOW CALLED “RED” OR “BLUE” LANCERS BY VIRTUE OF THEIR ALLEGIANCES.
THE SITUATION
With our land so divided betwixt personal and politickal loyalties, it seems in these unpleasant days that every body of armed men serves no longer the good of the common wealth and the people of the realm, but their own narrow loyalties – not for the sake of a greater weal, but in the name of their paymasters, their chiefs, those to whom they can look to for promotion and advancement in the case of victory, or shelter in the case of defeat. Thus, the Grenadiers have rallied to their Aetorian Queen, and thus the Cuirassiers have assembled just as loyally to their Duke of Wulfram. Other regiments too, have rallied to one flag or the other, as have the Houseguards of the Cortes Lords, whose arms are bourne now in the name not of common defence, but the politickal loyalties of their masters.
There are few exceptions to such a rule. The officers of the Royal Dragoons have followed the lead of their Colonel in declaring neutrality – or else flocked to the side which has seemed to them best placed to offer them advantage. The White Rose Lancers, on the other hand, appear to have found themselves in a situation of rather greater confusion. Many have followed Viscount Palliser to the ranks of the Aetorian Queen, whilst others follow the lead of their own Colonel, who sits upon the council of the Duke of Wulfram. Thus, a single regiment has been split in two, and although both bodies remain a shadow of their strength (their numbers having already been sapped by the years of peace and now reduced still by the violence which commenced this current and most unhappy state of affairs), it seems that the chiefs of both forces intend on raising men to fill the so-recently-emptied ranks so as to bring these two regiments – these ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ Lancers – to full wartime strength.
At a glance, these two forces may seem evenly matched. Both are currently of similar numbers. Both possess secure bases – the Red Lancers in Aetoria and the Blue at Tannersburg – which are nonetheless far away from the Regiment’s regular recruiting grounds in Warburton. Both even still wear the same uniforms, carry the same weapons, and ride in the same tack; distinguished only by the coloured sashes and scarves from which they draw the names which they are now known by. It may seem to a casual observer that neither force is more or less legitimate than the other, and that both are as worthy an heir to the original as the other.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
FACT: The BLUE LANCERS remain under the command of its RIGHTFUL COLONEL IN CHIEF
While there is little question that many talented and experienced officers have gone over to the Aetorian Queen and her Red Lancers, such a fact cannot counterbalance the truth that the Blue Lancers retain the most valuable person of all, that of the Duke of Warburton. For all that Palliser and his officers may boast of their experience against the Antari, they cannot lay claim to the rightful office of Colonel-in-Chief, which has always been in the possession of the House of Harris, whose current head sits upon the Duke of Wulfram’s council. As a result, Palliser does not sit as a rightful commanding officer in his own right, but as a mutinous deputy, who has thrown over his own superior officer, and taken a number of his subordinates into mutiny with him. All of the customs and laws of military discipline name him and those who believe themselves under his command as derelict in their duty – a fact which no amount of fighting experience or past accolade can erase.
FACT: The BLUE LANCERS retain possession of their traditional RECRUITING GROUNDS
Although the Blue Lancers currently maintain quarters in Tannersburg, their allies in the Duke of Wulfram’s camp also retain control of the regions of the country from which come the regiment’s recruits. Ask any fighting officer worthy of the name, and he will you that it is not uniforms or weapons which make the character of a regiment, but the men which fill its ranks. This means that as both regiments are raised to wartime strength, the Blue Lancers will be able to retain its accustomed character, since its new recruits will be made up of the same good Warburtonian stock which has always made up its ranks. The Red Lancers, on the other hand, will necessarily need adulterate their depleted cadre of original Lancers with recruits from Aetoria, who are of different and altogether unsuitable temperament. The Blue Lancers will retain the character which has made it renowned. The Red Lancers, on the other hand, will slowly become an Aetorian regiment, manned by a those of a character wholly inferior to their counterparts in regard to the matters which a regiment of lancers must excel at.
FACT: The BLUE LANCERS alone may rely on reliable supply of PAY and RATIONS
The continued presence of the rightful Colonel also serves as another advantage for the Blue Lancers, as it is the Colonel who is required to provide for matters of pay and supply. While it cannot be denied that the Viscount Palliser is in possession of a considerable fortune, he does not possess the estates necessary to maintain it whilst also providing for the upkeep of a regiment. With the Aetorian Crown in a position of deep obligation to its creditors, it seems unlikely that the Queen is any more likely to offer relief when it inevitably becomes necessary. The Duke of Warburton on the other hand, retains the possession of his estates and the great incomes which derive from them, allowing him to support the upkeep of the Blue Lancers indefinitely, just as he did during years of peace. Thus only the Blue Lancers may rest assured that their pay will never be stopped for want of funds on the part of their Colonel.
FACT: The BLUE LANCERS remain in possession of their reserves and supply of MOUNTS
It is well understood that the capabilities of a cavalryman are much reliant on the particular qualities of his horse. When it comes to the duties of a lancer, it is the Warburtonian breed which is unquestionably the best suited for the tasks required of it, being more agile than the Cunarian destrier, lighter than the Wulframite charger, but more robust and hardy than those beasts commonly bred in Aetoria. With such qualities in mind, it becomes clear that only a regiment which retains access to the breeding farms and pastures of Warburton may mount its squadrons in a manner best fit for purpose, and that access remains exclusively the province of the Blue Lancers, not the Red.
FACT: The BLUE LANCERS remain in possession of their accustomed BARRACKS and STABLES
While the Blue Lancers may reside for the moment in Tannersburg, their home barracks and stables remain in Warburton. There they possess not only remounts and stockpiles of their own accustomed armaments, but the museum of the regiment, its formal mess hall, and all the other accoutrements and adornments which a regimental establishment requires. Once free to do so, the Blue Lancers may return to those accustomed barracks and stables built to especial purpose for their own regiment and its mounts. The Red Lancers, in contrast, have no such luxury. The slapdash accommodations which they are currently burdened with in Aetoria are the only ones which they possess, and as a result, they are cut off from the history and a great many of the conveniences which have much embellished the existence of the regiment they claim descent from.
Thus is presented the reality of the matter, that these two divergent regiments – seemingly equal – are in fact possessed of vastly differing circumstances. Given such intelligence, it is certain the most persons of discerning attitude might easily see the merits of one over the other.
Paul Wang 