The Council of Harenis and the First Arc Dran War

Military action

How the city of Dran was created and how it contributed to the downfall of the Arc empire.

The Arc general Nurian Mondrias built a fortress on an island in the estuary of the Wane, known by the Hol Darah as the Renderfordh but named Nurian’s Rock. He enslaved the Hol Darah and other tribes inland forcing them to build the fortress, which over several centuries became the source of Dran power. Thousands of Hol Darah and other tribes people died building Nurian’s hold. Runaway slaves retreated into the mountains where they survived robbing the trade routes between Arc and the new outpost. A trading settlement built on the ruins of the Hol Darah’s villages was created in the year -1929. The leaders of Arc were suspicious of the developing trade outpost and had waged war in previous centuries over emerging trade rivals, but they also saw the potential in Dran, particularly as a result of Nurian’s hold, which was able to train and deploy large numbers of troops into traditionally volatile regions that arc had failed to control completely. With the development of threats to the trade routes to arc from the Hol Darah, it made sense to allow dran to police the region. Dran’s power grew as a result of the demographic crisis within the Arc empire, as the empire gradually waned in power between , a generation of Arc nobles, including the Varren and Greyll families, had sons that had few if any opportunities for commercial or military advancement in Arc, so a new start in Dran, a relative frontier outpost as far as Arc was concerned, seemed like a positive move. As the Arc empire fractured and the great southern empire of Del Marah broke away, Dran became more strategically important to Arc, as Drannish armies were able to keep Ghothars, who had landed in the north east of Aestis at bay. In -1325 Kheraas Mondrias, lord of Dran, called the first Council of Harenis. This was a vast and historically unprecedented diplomatic undertaking, with representatives of all the great cities called to discuss the consequences of the decline of Arc. He argued that the capital of the empire be moved to Dran, the now powerful warrior city state. This, in his view, would be the only means by which the Arc empire could be saved, but the council rejected his view. In anger he returned to Dran, declared independence from Arc and put 144 Arcish council men to the sword. The Dran war of independence, beginning in -1324 accelerated the decline of the Arc Empire and gave the Del Marahans the advantage they needed over the Arc armies of the south. It would be the break away of Del Marah, dismissively thought of by Arc as its 'southern territory' that would shatter the city state's empire forever.