The Neo-Astrolatry Uprising

The continent of Bastique is rarely troubled by true conflict. The nobles plot against one another and assassinations are fairly commonplace, but beyond the ousting of groups of bandits, it is rare for open warfare to occur. However, this changed 15 years ago with the Neo-Astrolatry Uprising. Considered to be one of the bloodiest conflicts in Bastique history, it took the Church of Saint Tupaux completely by surprise.
For years, since the Church's inception, they and their Knights had aggressively hunted down and removed all signs of heretical propaganda and replaced it with their own. They had hunted down every remaining heretic, to the point that there had been no sightings of any of the Old Gods followers in many years. This is why, when the Uprising began, it caught the Knights unawares and unable to appropriately respond to the attacks.
The first sign that something was wrong was that all of the Knights that were out on patrol were attacked and killed within days of each other. At each attack site, the Inquisitors sent to investigate found a flag displaying a golden sword in front of a shining star on a field of purple, which would soon come to be known as the flag of the Neo-Astrolaters.
The raids continued for months, Knights and Priests attacked out on the road or in the city-states and then disappearing entirely. The Church was struggling to respond to the guerilla tactics of the Astrolaters and they were beginning to lose more than the lives of their knights and priests, they were losing their follower's faith. Questions were starting to be asked by the common folk about whether Saint Tupaux and the Spirits were really as holy as the Church would have them believe; maybe they were wrong to have abandoned the old ways.
While the Chevaliers began kicking down doors in their hunt for the heretics, the Inquisitors interrogated any that might know of their whereabouts. It was believed that the only way that the Astrolaters were able to continue operating in the way that they had been was if they were receiving aid. The inquisitors had been able to find proof of donations to the Astrolaters and of common folk providing them with sanctuary inside of their homes. Each culprit was dealt with harshly, however, this did nothing to stop the attacks and only served to attract more people to the cause of the heretics.
The Church was losing their war, slowly but surely, and would have fallen completely if it were not for the overconfidence of the Astrolaters and the impressive actions of one man. The heretics had amassed their army, prepared to march on the Cathedral and end their uprising. They had sent a small team to distract the main body of the Tupaulian forces by running them around so that, when the Astrolater army besieged the Cathedral's gates, their army would be too far away to help. As they marched, a scout reported that a group of knights would be passing by on patrol and that they should be able to avoid them. The Primus of the Neo-Astrolaters, Astraeus de Céleste, decided to attack the passing patrol, growing arrogant in his imminent victory.
Luring the patrol to them with their scouts, the 12 units of the Astrolaters army waited for them to arrive, the Primus shivering in excitement at the prospect of showing off just how hopeless the Churches situation was. When the patrol arrived, they were shocked not only to have found the bulk of the Astrolaters army but also at the sheer size of it. Thom Lapín, then just a knight in the Chevaliers knew that they needed to inform the rest of Church's forces as soon as possible and, dismounting his horse, gave the order for his men to ride as fast as they could to give them that message.
Astraeus, seeing the patrol leave behind a single man, chuckled to himself. He believed that the patrol had left in fear of the forces that he led and that this one knight was the only one brave enough to face them. Wanting to get this over with as soon as possible so that they could return to their march, the Primus gave the order for a single unit to advance and engage the solitary knight. As the 500 men of the 12th unit charged up the hill, there was no one in the entirety of Aland that would have guessed that Thom Lapín would not only survive the encounter but single-handedly defeat the entire unit.
Standing in awe and disbelief at what he just witnessed, Astraeus de Céleste began to give the order for all units to advance when he saw the glint of armour cresting the hill behind Thom. Moments later, the full might of the Knights of Saint Tupaux was amassed at the top of the hill, having rushed to the site after receiving word from the riders sent by Lapín. No longer able to hide from the Church's forces, Astraeus gave the order to charge and began an all-out attack against the Tupaulian's. In response, the Knights fired their first volley of arrows at the Astrolaters. The heretics began to drop like flies as one volley was followed by yet more as they desperately charged up the hill. By the time they finally reached the shields and spears of the Church's frontline, the Astrolaters had been cut down to half their original number and what was left were exhausted from the charge, making it child's play for the Tupaulian infantry to finish them off and end what would become known as the Battle of 12 Points.
With the Neo-Atrolatry forces destroyed, the uprising was over. Astraeus had been hit by several arrows but was saved by a Tupaulian priest who used their gifts to heal the heretic. He was sent to the dungeons at the Cathedral of Saint Tupaux, where he remains to this day. His legacy is intact, however, as his uprising may have failed, but his followers are still out there and grow in number by the day.

Conflict Type

War

Conflict Result

The Knights of Saint Tupaux were victorious

Belligerents

Neo-Astrolatry

Knights of Saint Tupaux

• The Knights of Tupaux

Strength

The Neo-Astrolatry forces consisted of 12 units of 500 soldiers. 
Each soldier was equipped with light armour to allow them to move quickly, short swords or axes for close-quarters combat and a light wooden shield. The reason for their lighter arms and armaments is due to the fact that they typically favour guerilla-style tactics and often fought on city streets where they would be able to benefit from being able to move faster. The only reason why they were out in force for the Battle of 12 Points was that they were on their way to end the war by sieging and occupying the Cathedral of Saint Tupaux.

The Knights of Saint Tupaux consisted of 5,000 soldiers who were split into divisions of archers, cavalry and infantry. 
Each soldier was equipped with heavy plate armour, apart from the archers who were given slightly lighter chainmail to wear. The infantry fought with thick, heavy steel shields, longswords and spears. The cavalry were armed in a similar fashion to the infantry but had the benefit of riding their purebred and highly trained warhorses.

Casualties

Of the 6000 soldiers fielded by the Neo-Astrolaters, only 370 survived the final battle. All of those that survived were rounded up by the Church and publicly executed, all except the former Primus, Astraeus de Céleste.

Most of the casualties suffered by the Knights of Saint Tupaux were from before the final battle. There was little that they could do against the Astrolaters guerilla tactics and they had lost over a thousand of their soldiers. In the Battle of 12 Points, the Knights only lost 20 of their Chevaliers, with others only suffering minor injuries. If the heretics had not been caught on an open field, the Knights would never have been able to win the war.

Objectives

The Neo-Astrolaters wished to go back to the days when Bastique followed the Old Gods, the celestial deities that are said to have created Aland. In order to do this, they aimed to destroy the Church of Saint Tupaux and usher the people of Bastique back towards the light of the true Gods.

The Knights of Saint Tupaux aimed to find and wipe out the heretics that threatened to destroy the Church and their way of life. They also hoped that a victory would cause the faith in the Tupaulian Church throughout the course of the war to be reignited in their followers.