Randle's Folly

artist's conception of the horrid experience endured by a survivor of Randle's Folly

In 1032 OC, the Imperial Army was in a very difficult spot: for 60-odd years, the rebels had had the upper hand by forcing the Imperial soldiers to hover close to the Erkenheld-Fethil border where they would be mercilessly picked off by the rebels guerrilla tactics. Army leaders were also feeling the impatience of the Queen and her royal advisors, who wanted to end the Border Wars as quickly as possible.

It was this mix of urgency and desperations, perhaps, that lead General Victor Alamacious Randle to undertake what had the potential to be a brilliant campaign that had the potential to change the course of the war. After capturing an elf in an attack on his encampment, Randle had some of his spies use various mean to gain valuable information from it - specifically , a hand-drawn map to the rebels' base of operations.

Randle ordered his entire battalion to enter the forest from various points meant to triangulate the rebels' camp. His plan was to rush in and take the camp with no prisoners and use it as a waystation for further exploration of the forest.

But the brilliant plan quickly turned into a terrible failure. The map hand been drawn as if well-beaten paths existed, which should have made storming the camp in such a quick and coordinated fashion easy to do, but no Imperial soldiers found anything but dense undergrowth and nearly impenetrable vegetation. The rebels presumably used the soldiers' disortented state and isolation from one another to their advantage - though no bodies were found after the failed attempt, few men stumbled out of the forest of the next few days. And few of those men were sane enough to speak coherently.

What happened to the men who survived Randle's Folly is not clear, and dependent on the trustworthiness of terrified and now paranoid soldiers. Randle's Folly marks a major defeat for Elothnin, both in terms of the material loss of soldiers and a huge drop in morale.

See Also:
Eldernoth Furbolg

The Great Green Wall

The Great Green Wall is a colloquial term given to the Erkenheld-Fethil border by Elothnin's soldiers. A few years after the quiet that followed the Years of Red Grain, the red elves emerged from the eastern edge of the Erkenheld Forest to fight with the Imperial Army once again. After a few battles two things became clear: that the red elves had allied themselves with other strange forests creatures, like gnomes and centaurs, and that the Erkenheld was completely impenetrable.

In the last 80 years, this term has been used to describe the situation the Imperial Army faces - it has to skirt the edge of the forest in order to fight with the rebels, but can never pursue the rebels when they retreat back into it.

See Also:
Randle's Folly

The Service and Loyalty Act of 953

In the 950s OC, during the peak of the Red Grain period, the Imperial Army had an unprecedented and undeniable upper hand in the Border Wars. The tactic employed by the queen following the victory at Alamodour, however, required a large number of Imperial troops to overwhelm and cut off rebel bases.

As more successes followed, it became clear that army needed to attack and contain compounds in multiple areas simultaneously - it also became clear that the Empire needed substantially more troops in order to achieve this. In a desperate move, with little input from her cabinet of advisors, Queen Lilhelndine wrote the Service and Loyalty Act of 953, which ordered that able-bodied Elothninian man was required by law to serve a term in the Imperial Army, and that punishment for refusal was death.

Very little else was explained in the document¹ - Lilhelnndine did not specify what, in particular, qualified one as 'able-bodied' or how long 'a term' was. thus, the actual implementation of the draft was left in the hands of the army itself. Informally, the rules of conscription developed over the next 50 years: any of-age man who could walk reasonably well, see out of at least one eye and use at least one arm could be drafted. There need not be a clear or regular system which conscription occurred in, instead garrisons coulc (and should) draft from the locals whenever they needed bodies. And a term tended to be the length of whatever campaign a battalion happened to be partaking in.

Due to the lack of oversight or standardizaation, the border provinces of the Fethil and Perejin were affected much more severely by the Service and Loyalty Act than the other areas of Elothnin. Generally, this is thought to be a matter of convenience, though rabble-rousers claim that it is yet nother demonstration of the classism pervsavie throughout the empire.
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¹The only other peices of information included were that spies should wear purple when not actively engaged in acquiring new information and that mush should be served for breakfast because, as she put it, "and army travels on its stomach."

Alamadour

the commemorative monument erected at the battle site by the Fethilian sculptress, Lendnisa Worthis

Alamadour was a large and well-known red elvish farming compound situated near Neerhemfeth. Perhaps the nearness of such incursions caused these particular elves (including the famed elvish leader Valiyon) to be among the fiercest fighters among the rebels.

Alamadour was destroyed in the dead of night by a surprise attack by the Imperial Army. The battle itself has become the stuff of highly unsubstantitated legend - it is claimed (sometimes by older Athenorkos elves who claimed to be survivors) that the Imperial soldiers mercilessly killed all evles they found out in the open, regardless of sex or age, and barricaded the rest in their homes to be burned alive.

The destruction of Alamadour marked the beginning of the Years of Red Grain - a period of great loss for the red elves and major victories for Queen Lilhelndine and her army. It is remembered both as a tetament to the awesome military power of Elothnin and as a symbol of the great injustices suffered by the rebels. Since around 1000 OC, when the Rebel Forces emerged from the Erkenheld Forest after the red elvish retreat at the end of the Red Grain Period, the Rebels have shouted "Remember the Alamdour!" as they run into battle with the Imperial Army.

The Years of Red Grain

one of the few Fethilian compounds that survived the Years of Red Grain

The Years of Red Grain is a term given by the Athenorkos rebels to the period between the fall of Alamadour in 937 OC and the formation of the Rebel Army roughly around 970 OC. While technically a discrete war in and of itself, the Years of Red Grain are typically thought of as a period of the Border Wars. This period is marked by a dramatic shift in the tactics of warfare, which decisively favored the Imperial Army.

For twenty years after the Burning of Neerhemfeth, the Imperial Army attempted to stave off the red elves, but took hard losses and had no definitive victories. Eventually, the troops were recalled and the queen sent out Prabil Worthis to establish diplomatic ties to the Athenorkos elves. The elves and many Elothninians (including, legend has it, Prabil Worthis himself) assumed that the change in strategy signalled the tacit defeat of the Imperial Forces. In actuality, Lilhelndine used this as an opportunity to strengthen her military forces and have her best and brightest devise a plan to counter the elves' guerrilla tactics.

Roughly a decade after the death of Worthis, Lilhelndine began a brutal but effective military campaign. Instead of trying to establish bases of operation, as they did previously, the now quite large and well-supplied Imperial Army laid siege to the elves' agricultural compounds, typically taking all their food and viciously slaughtering any of the elves they found there before warnings could be sent to neighboring compounds. If the army suspected that elves at the compound had left to make guerrilla attacks or scout out Imperial whereabouts, a contingent was left behind to kill the returning elves without mercy.

In the next 30 years, elvish compound after elvish compound fell to the Imperial soldiers. Military records from the period indicate that 114 compounds were destroyed, and it is estimated that several thousand elves were killed in the process. Elvish scholars, however, claim that these figures are unrealistically low. The end of the Red Grain period came around the early 970s, as the sightings of red elves dwindled dramatically while they fled into the Erkenheld Forest and up into the Klevarcht Mountains.

The Burning of Neerhemfeth

an artist's conception of this most auspicious occasion

Few would suspect that Neerhemfeth, a sleepy and sparsely populated hamlet in the Fethil, has played such an important role in Elothninian history.

Around the Otellian calendar year 850, right at the start of Queen Lilhelndine's reign, Elothnin was beset by a severe famine. As her subjects starved, Lilhelndine had no choice but to make incursions into the Fethil - at that time, wild and untamed except for some stray red elvish bands populating the region after the Athenorkos' First Displacement. Elothnian leaders of the time argued that the red elves were doing little more than dancing in the grain, and that given their dire situation in the way of food, it was their right to cultivate the lands.

Since there was little in the way of a formal, centralized army, Lilhelndine order bands of small, local militias to explore the Fethil and report back vital information about the red elves' whereabouts and character. Forays were made towards the elves, who met the Imperial militia men with great distrust and apprehension.

By 855, Lilhelndine had grown impatient and demanded that an outpost be established in the Fethil, north of Neerhemehind along the Quentalno river. This outpost - which was chistened Neerhemfeth - was to serve as a base for supplies and communication for further explorations into the Fethil.

Though it was a small, dreary, unassuming place, it became the site of great controversies and (many respected historians, both Elothninian and otherwise, agree) its establishment marked the begining of the Border Wars. While the red elves had tolerated Lilhelndine's curious excursions into the Fethil, the establishment of an actually Imperial town in the Fethil provoked them. Many of the red elvish leaders saw the building of Neerhemfeth as a breach of the informal negotiations they had had with Otellian during the First Displacement period.

Memorandums sent back and forth from the militia men charged with the construction of Neerhemfeth and the Queen indicate that all was going very well, with no signs of trouble from the nearby elves. It came as a great surprise when the red elves fell upon Neerhmefeth, razing it to the ground. Valiyon, a well-known red elvish leader of the area, nailed a statement, written in Athernorkos, to a post in the town square. It took sometime for the Elothninians to translate it, revealing the following message:

Because we are honorable, we are warning you. Your Otellian took our ancient lands, but we conceded as long as you stayed there at let us have the Yellow Sea¹. Though we are numerous, though we could overtake you and reclaim what was once ours through magickal means, we did not out of respected for the agreements made with your forbears. Clearly, because your lives are so short and memories so feeble, you do not remember the boundaries your king agreed to in exchange for peace with us.

These are our lands, humans - they are not yours to take. You have grown arrogant and presumptive, like greedy children. Only the Athenorkos can live in these lands. build your puny hamlet again, and we will burn it again and we will strike down any of your forlorn soldiers you are foolish and selfish enough to send here without mercy. This is your only warning, Lilhelndine.

While this declaration caused quite a stir among those men on the front lines - who had seen the red elves slipping through the waving tall grass silently, regarding them with wary glances - the threats of the red elves were not taken seriously by the queen or her cabinet, and the immediate rebuilding of Neerhemfeth was ordered. Only two days into the reconstruction, Neerhemfeth was once again burned, and this time, most of the soldiers were left dead or captured by the elves and never heard from again.

Lilhelndine ceased construction on the waystation and had the troops retreat and ordered scholars to pore over what few documents still existed from Otellian's time. After some time, the scholars come to the conclusion that no formal agreement had been reached by the Elothninian founder and the red elves. there was a long standing informal understanding, yes, but there appeared to be (on the human side of things, at least) nothing actually preventing Lilhelndine's encroachment. The queen order Neerhemfeth to rebuilt once again, and this time, ordered extra troops sent to protect it.

Over the next 40 years, Neerhemfeth was burned to the ground 6 more times by angered red elves. The Imperial Army (such as it was) made little progress into the Fethil's interior because the elves used a combination of guerilla tactics and their social magicks to seduce and/or kill humans who ventured far enough away from Neerhemfeth.
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¹This is what 'fethil', which is actually an Athenorkos term adopted into the common Tongue, is literally translated as.

Mundayne Hegemony

Gramski's Prison Notebooks

First proposed by the great political philosopher Gramski of the Round Open Patch near a Stand of Birches, a hunchbacked gnome taken prisoner by the Imperial Army for his revolutionary behavior. Gramski first attracted the ire of the authorities while openly trying to recruit both the magickal and mundayne beings of a small frontier town to join the rebel cause. Gramski was detained and charged with being a general nuisance and not wearing wooden shoes¹ within imperial bounds.

Because of his belligerent behavior before the military tribunal that considered his case, Gramski was given the sentence of 30 years in prison, to be served in a workshop making weapons for the very troops that he had worked so hard against. Of course, Gramski was deeply demoralized by the ruling and, in particular, the sentence that he was given. However, with his intimate knowledge of woodcrafting the rebellious gnome found subtle artifices to undermine the efficacy of the weapons he was forced to make with what he hoped would be deadly results for their imperial wielders.

During his time in prison, Gramski, who had always been a prodigious talker, set down to record his thoughts on and justifications for opposing the Elothninian Empire's seemingly insatiable appetite for expansion. This labor yielded several important concepts, including the landmark notion of Mundayne Hegemony. According to interpreters of Gramski², Mundayne Hegemony describes Elothninian society as systematically devaluing and destroying magickal beings' culture, rights, and even their lives on the belief that the use of magick corrupts the morals and internal ethics of beings. Magickal creatures, in the view of some anti-magick demagogues, are lazy, morally deficient, and dishonest because magick allows its practitioners to skirt the kind of labor that keeps humans honest. This, in turn, is used to justify the systematic disenfranchisement and devaluation of all magickal beings.

In his strange, often cryptic writings Gramski argued that if mundayne and magickal beings were ever to have peace with one another, mundayne beings would have to be compelled to abandon their anti-magickal beliefs -- only then could a just society be created.
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¹Following an edict by King Gimmelthorpe all gnomes dwelling within the confines of the Elothninian Empire were required by law to wear wooden shoes at all times, "for the sake of public decency and order." This law has been viewed by many in the gnomish community as being both discriminatory and naive.
²Because of the strict constraints on his activities and the danger of being found with anti-imperial rantings by prison guards, Gramski elected to write in a form of code, which only the most astute and initiated readers are able to decipher.

The Border Wars

The Border Wars is the name given to the long-standing conflict on the expanding boundaries of Elothnin. Since its founding under Otellian a millenium ago, Elothnin has grown consistently, often with the resistance of their neighbors who were being brought into the country against their will. The term Border Wars' modern usage refers primarily to the more recent conflicts between the Elothninian Empire and the non-humans living in the Fethil and western parts of the country.

The Imperial Offensive
The Border Wars began under the reign of Queen Lilhelndine who sought to expand Elothnin's borders to the Erkenheld Forest at the expense of the non-human residents of the Fethil and Perejin. Though there were already humans living in these areas, including Prabil Worthis, they were content to coexist peacefully with their primarily elvish neighbors, and, for the most part, did not see any need to bring the land under Elothnin's rule.

However, with an increasing number of reports from frontiersmen and explorers describing the bountiful grain and hospitable climate, a swell of public support for invasion steadily developed. In addition to the accounts of early adventurers, a famine struck Elothnin in 850--the same year as King Gimmelthorpe's death--throwing added urgency to the demands of expansionist politicians and publicists. Naturally, a great deal of planning was involved: an army (see right) had to be raised and outfitted, maps needed to be made, and a strategy concocted.

After five years of wrangling, in the year 855 Lilhelndine sent an army into the Fethil to claim the territory for the empire and subdue any resistance they met. Despite the extensive planning, the venture proved quite ill-conceived, and the army was hampered by poor logistics and supply issues. The troops were mired in deep mud after heavy spring rains, and sustained severe losses from elvish guerillas who harried the column during its slow advance.

After reaching what was then the small village of Neerhemfeth, the army had lost nearly a quarter of its troops to the elves' guerilla tactics, disease and desertion. At this point, the commander elected to beat a retreat to the boundaries of Elothnin proper and face the wrathful disappointment of Lilhelndine.

Peaceful Expansion
Diplomacy, in the form of the rustic Prabil Worthis, proved a much more effective approach to expansion than military adventure. Worthis had lived among the elves for a number of years, and had argued against forcefully incorporating the territory into the Elothninian empire. Rather, he argued for a peaceful association between the independent province and its larger, more powerful neighbor.

When it became clear that Elothnin was bent upon conquest, even at a heavy loss of life, and that the elves were going to remain equally staunch in defense of their homeland, Worthis sought to forestall a bloody conflagration by getting the elves to leave through a traditional drinking match. Being both an honorable people and great lovers ale, the elves were quite content to put their fate in the hands of their stoutest lush. The elves' champion and Worthis drank for three days straight before the latter proved the victor (see left for an artist's interpretation of this auspicious event). The elves were so astonished by the human's capacity for drink that they felt little resentment about having to leave the land that they had inhabited since time immemorial.

Many of these red elves migrated to valleys in the Klevarcht Mountains where they proceeded to eke out a living off of the few plants, including, of course, pipe-weed, that would sustain themselves in the less than favorable soil. Some groups of elves were more reluctant to leave their ancestral homeland, and simply moved farther north and west to the areas of the Fethil adjacent to the Erkenheld and Klevarcht mountains.

Persistent Hostilities
Following the death of Prabil Wothis in the year 924, relations between elves and human settlers in the Fethil soured. This was in part due to the loss of the great negotiator and preacher of tolerance that had been Worthis, and also to the increased demand for farmland and resources as ever greater numbers of humans entered the Fethil. This expansion resulted in the resumption of guerrilla attacks by red elves on human settlements.

In response, Lilhelndine issued a formal proclamation of annexation of the Fethil and Perejin and sent out a refitted, stronger army force to protect the humans under attack. Due to the sheer size and strength of the Imperial Army, those elves that resisted were forced to take flight into the Erkenheld Forest. The elves, under the leadership of a young Jellihondor, soon struck an alliance with the centaurs of the forest who felt threatened by Elothnin's seemingly insatiable drive for territory, uniting the Rebel Forces under one flag for the first time (see right).

In Perejin, humans began making incursions into the Erkenheld Forest, attempting to take advantage of the empire's growing market for timber, by setting up logging in the mysterious forest. Progress in this endeavor was slow but steady, hampered by the odd tricks that magical areas are apt to play on the minds of men. In addition, the normally retiring gnomes of the forest were sparked to pugnacity by Elothninian encroachment on their homeland, leading many of them to join with the elves in fighting against the humans.

The Border Wars have continued more or less unabated for ever since, taking a particularly heavy toll on the Fethil, where the majority of fighting has been concentrated. Neither side has won a decisive victory during this time, but, some Elothninain strategists believe that the advantage currently lies with the resistance insofar as they have been able to systematically harry Imperial Army with very little loss of life on their own side.

The Imperial Army

the Imperial Army makes camp

The Imperial Army has been fighting a long-standing war with the rebels on the western borders of Elothnin. This war, which is fought primarily in skirmishes and ambushes as opposed to large battles, has been ongoing for much, or all, of Queen Lilhelndine's reign. For many, it has become one of those unfortunate situations where none remember the original offense, but do not stop as it has by now become habitual.

Any able-bodied man in the country over the age of 15 may volunteer for service, or be drafted. However, this age limit is not firm and especially flexible during times of heightened unrest. Soldiers in the imperial army can be categorized as either porters, infantrymen, cavalry, spies and officers. The younger, smaller, and generally less-well-off soldiers tend to be porters or infantrymen, while the older and better-connected soldiers start at the higher ranks. The uniforms for all soldiers follow the Queen's emblem (seen above), which is a silver diamond on a purple background.

Additionally, the Imperial Army contains a contingent of highly trained spies. The spies, due to the demands of their particular role, have been given a fair amount of independence from the rest of the Imperial Army, often acting on missions without seeking approval from the reigning generals. Gaining entry into the spy corps is considered quite difficult, but highly prestigious.

See also:
Erkenheld Forest
Randle's Folly
The Great Green Way
Larthon Ractor
Bertronius Worthis
Nelhoepher and Lem
Caspio McNab

The Rebel Forces

a rebel encampment in the Erkenheld

The Rebel Forces is the name given to the rag-tag group of bandits that have been warring with the Queen for the last 150-200 years. Not really an army so much as a series of loose alliances between various magic-related species, historically they have fought in small groups and clumps separated by species. Beings that have made confirmed attacks include elves (specifically red elves), centaurs, gnomes, dwarves, a handful of mages, and the rare disillusioned ogre.

In recent years, the internal structure of the Rebel Forces has undergone a number of changes. They appear to have banded together into two or three large battalions, each of which contains a multiplicity of beings. A new spirit has developed, and the rebels now view themselves as a single group and not a series of different species with loosely related goals. One example of this is the emergence of the Golden Tree emblem (see right), which they place on flags and clothing as they ride into battle, and represents the forces as a whole.

Those who have fought such battalions in battle report that a leader for each group seems to be designated and oversees his own species, but that the entire group works together as a whole. While their small numbers still relegate them to variants of guerilla warfare, their newly cooperative strategy is proving to be highly effective.

Language in the Rebel Army
As can be expected, language barriers quickly emerged when this group of wildly different creatures banded together. Many of these beings had never interacted with anyone who was not of their own race! Given the hermetic tendencies of such races as centaurs and gnomes, it comes as no surprise that each race has developed its own tongue. Some races (man included!) , like elves and centaurs, even have dialects among their groupings that are barely distinguishable to one another.

The Old Man proved invaluable in sorting out this rather nasty and convoluted problem. In his infinite age and wisdom, he had learned a great many languages, and was able to ascertain what was spoken by whom, and thus, who could talk to one another. Upon further investigation, the Old Man found that the Common Tongue of Elothnin was the most widely understood. The Rebel Army has subsequently made it a formal practice to have at least one or two members of each race and tribe be fluent in the Common Tongue in order to communicate with others in the army, and translate information back to their fellows.

See Also:
Jarthen Furblog
Imperial Army
Erkenheld Forest
Jellihondor
Glothnafar
Rethnaki