Wars of the Westerlands

The wars of the Westerlands was a 20-year long series of conflicts involving Drennheim, Azzorah, Oskirath, Brunia, and Roedacia. All five nations had grown to a point of near full belligerence towards each other, with a combination of ideological differences, aggressive foreign strategy, and border disagreements coming together to push the states over the edge into conflict. Tensions had been high in the region for decades, with each nation having a laundry list of grievances with their neighbors.

Foundations of War

Azzorah and Drennheim had both recently broken away from Oskirath, with Azzorah having declared independence 56 years prior followed by Drennheim 26 years after. Oskirath still considered them a part of their empire but did not have the military might or diplomatic influence to act on it. Though allies in their bids for independence, Drennheim claimed governorship over territory included in Azzorah’s claim of independence, but never fully under Azzoran control. These claims were never resolved, and the disputed area, the Zerechny Valley, had been a hotbed for small scale violence for years. Oskirath’s claim over The Azzorheim Valley existed only in theory at this point, but they always had designs at one day reclaiming their wayward territories.
In the south, Oskirath still held territories established nearly 200 years prior. At the time of Oskirath’s expansion into the region, both Brunia and Roedacia were in periods of upheaval, and had effectively abandoned these territories. What few locals still lived there were left to fend for themselves, and settlements often succumbed to marauding creatures out of the mountains. Oskirath was seen as a savior to these people, and their influence was welcomed into the region. After nearly a century of peaceful rule, Brunia and Roedacia had both emerged as strong nations once again, and neither cared to have ancestral territory held by another nation, regardless of the legitimacy of their claim.
Despite being neighbors, Brunia and Roedacia were hardly on good terms, with Brunia having originally fought in a century long revolt to break free of Roedacian rule. While this had occurred several centuries prior, the grudges ran deep, and both nations had been embroiled in combat with each other several times over that period. Roedacia had at one point been in competition with the Reinestad Empire in the east over control of trade in the bay but had been soundly beaten in several naval battles, with nothing to show for it but a decimated navy and the eternal enmity Reinestad. Conversely, Brunia had strong cultural ties to Reinestad, and was on friendly terms but were blocked from any kind of trade by Roedacia, further increasing tensions.

The Zerechny War

Tensions first boiled over into conflict when Azzorah attempted to assert their claims over the Zerechny Valley. In early 1207 ACR Rezni Voctorovich, Boyar of Novask, the largest city in the Zerechny Valley, died in a hunting accident, leaving his son, Koychev, in charge of the city. Being pro-Azzoran rule, Koychev's first act was to ask Azzorah to begin the process of incorporating the city into their nation. Azzorah happily agreed, sending an envoy of nearly 100 state officials to begin the process. In response, Drennheim sent a company of soldiers to bar the officials from entering the city. Novask responded by mustering its garrison to stand against the soldiers, expecting a tense standoff followed by capitulation. Instead, violence broke out, and by the end of the day 50 Novask soldiers and 200 Novask citizens were dead, including Koychev. In response, many other settlements within the Zerechny Valley declared themselves independent of Drennheim rule, and Azzorah rushed to muster troops to defend the newly independent territories with force. Within a week, formal declarations of war followed, and the region became the center of a bloody conflict.
The focus of the war for both sides was occupation of the Zerechny Valley, and both sent wave after wave of troops to hold it. Being largely wide, open farmland, the region had little in the way of defensible geography. Most battles occurred in open fields, or in towns and cities with hastily erected fortifications that provided little advantage, and largely consisted of each side throwing a mass of troops at each other and hoping they had the numbers and prowess to take the day. Casualties were high, topped only by the civilian losses of those caught up in the middle of the fighting.

Oskirath Enters the War

As the war dragged on, losses mounted on both sides with little gains by either. Oskirath, seeing this as a potential opportunity to reclaim the north for their own, began investing heavily into building up their forces. By 1214, Oskirath decided it was ready to act. By this point, Drennheim and Azzorah had been at war for nearly seven years, and both had significantly depleted their military forces. By contrast, Oskirath now had the largest standing army it had fielded in over a century and was primed and ready to bring their wayward territories back into the fold. In spring of that year, 40,000 Oskirathian soldiers crossed the mountains and into the Azzorheim valley.
The invasion caught Drennheim and Azzorah by surprise, and Oskirath quickly captured a swath of territory in southern Drennheim and established a foothold in the region. With both Drennheim and Azzorah agreeing that either side controlling the Zerechny Valley was far better than being returned to Oskirathian rule, they quickly agreed to a ceasefire and began coalescing to form a unified front against the invading force. By the time they had rallied their forces, Drennheim’s capitol of Kaliska was under siege by Oskirath. The Siege of Kaliska was bloody and short, with high casualties on both sides. Oskirath had lain siege before the unified Drennheim/Azzorah army could reinforce the city but had to act fast to take it before the force could intervene. While outnumbering the defenders by as much as 20 to 1, the hasty assault meant the defenders inflicted disproportionately high casualties on the attackers. Kaliska fell, but Drennheim leadership was able to escape the city and cross the Tolba river to the north. Oskirath now occupied nearly half of Drennheim, but both armies were now nearly equal in size, and two rivers and a lake now stood between them. At this point, Oskirath made the decision to fortify its position and muster more forces to overwhelm the defenders. The valley defenders did not have the strength they deemed necessary to make an amphibious assault onto the now fortified Oskirath positions, and so followed suit, laying fortifications on their side of the rivers, and attempting to muster more troops to defend the valley. It had been less than three months since Oskirath entered the valley, and fighting came to an immediate and protracted stalemate.

War Spreads Southwards

To the south, Brunia and Roedacia finally received word on what was occurring and saw an opportunity to take the lands they long considered theirs. While unwilling to act together, both were able to negotiate a pact of nonaggression and began mustering their forces to push Oskirath out of the region. Unlike Drennheim and Azzorah, Oskirath caught on to the pending invasion of their lands, and immediately redirected their newly mustered forces south to mount a defense, planning to repel the invaders before bringing them back north to finish their conquest. Declarations of war came in the summer of 1215 from both Brunia and Roedacia, and fighting began in earnest that fall.
Initial progress in the war in the south was slow, with Oskirath holding well-fortified positions in walled settlements and along river crossings. Fall gave way to winter with no significant changes in holdings, and the fighting died down until spring of 1216. Roedacia spent the winter months pivoting their armies in secret, moving southeast along the mountain range that split their northern border to attack the valley between ranges as soon as the weather cleared. Oskirath was not prepared for the move, and the mountain passes to reinforce the valley were still impassable, thus the region fell and the first major territorial gains in the south were made. Along the Brunian front, they had more success in holding their territory, but it came at a cost to both sides. Brunia had mounted a massive siege against Cirna, a large city straddling both sides of the Danura river. While Oskirath had thus far held the city, the fighting was intense, and casualties were stacking up on both sides. Unwilling to cede any territory, Oskirath’s position became a defensive one on both fronts, attempting to weather the storm of Brunian and Roedacian aggression and then turn its attention back to taking the rest of Drennheim and Azzorah. Their position held in this way for another three years, with no major losses or gains from any parties. By this point, Brunia and Roedacia were beginning to suffer increasing amounts of unrest at home over a war that had at this point been almost entirely fruitless. In 1218 Oskirath began secret talks with Roedacia over a treaty that involved ceding the land held by Roedacia in exchange for a ceasefire. They hoped that brokering a peace with Roedacia would threaten a possible two front war for Brunia, forcing them into peace as well and freeing Oskirathian forces to move north to advance that front. The treaty inevitably fell apart, and hostilities continued.

Oskirath Falters

The winter of 1218 was a particularly harsh one, and the mountain passes throughout the region were inundated with massive amount of snow. They remained impassable for months and proved to be disastrous for Oskirath. Unable to reinforce their positions, Oskirathian lines began to waver under relentless pressure from both Brunia and Roedacia. In the early months of 1219 Cirna finally fell, and by summer’s end more than half of Oskirath’s holdings south of the mountains were in enemy hands. In an act of desperation, Oskirath pulled troops out of the Azzorheim valley to reinforce their southern position, stemming the advance of enemy troops, but the hold was far more tenuous than their previous position. Capitalizing on the new vulnerability in the north, Drennheim and Azzorah launched a counter offensive that winter, crossing the Tolba River in force and overwhelming the undermanned and unprepared defensive positions. By the time the passes cleared in the spring of 1220, Azzorah and Drennheim had reclaimed the valley and taken thousands of Oskirathian troops prisoner.
Sensing an opportunity to go on the offensive, Drennheim negotiated an arrangement with Azzorah: both nations would cross the mountains into The Hinterlands and take Oskirath’s territory for their own. Drennheim would lay claim to this territory, and in exchange Azzorah would be given control of the Zerechny Valley. Between the years of fighting as a united force against Oskirath and the favorable terms of the deal for both sides, they formed as solid an alliance as they had ever held and marched their combined armies into The Hinterlands. Desperate to defend their own territory from this new threat, Oskirath all but abandoned their southern holdings to bring their forces home and defend against invasion. Brunia and Roedacia were fast to capitalize on this, and within weeks had routed what few forces remained and claimed all the territory up to the mountains. Sensing, as the north had, the vulnerability of Oskirath’s core territory, they came to a similar conclusion, deciding to take The Hinterlands before the north could and split the territory up later.

Devastation of the Hinterlands

In the summer of 1220, the fertile, peaceful valley at the center of Oskirath’s domain experienced war on their home front for the first time since the nation’s founding. The armies of five nations collided in this once idyllic space, and the rivers ran red with blood. It started as a race between north and south to capture territory before the other could. Oskirath, seeing no hope in the battle, quickly abandoned the valley, taking what troops and civilians they could and retreating behind the great walls of Arkenfel. The invading armies rushed through what territory they could, leaving behind token detachments to stake their claim lest another army come through and claim it for themselves.
At first, an awkward and unsteady truce held between the two forces, but it was a matter of days before it broke down. Reports of skirmishes between small forces came in from both sides, and hostilities were begun in earnest, with each army accusing another of instigating. The battle over the valley was a chaotic, disorganized, and brutally bloody affair. Fighting between the two sides continued for three years, by which point the land was so decimated by war that no one was sure what they were fighting for anymore. Azzorah was the first to break, having nothing to gain personally from the conflict, they backed out of their agreement and pulled their troops back home to begin rebuilding. Drennheim, having no hope of holding out against Brunia and Roedacia by itself, likewise withdrew. Outraged at the abandonment by their supposed ally, and unwilling to honor Azzorah’s claim to the Zerechny Valley without matching territory in the Hinterlands to compensate, Drennheim wasted no time in moving their returned armies into the once disputed territory, claiming half of it as their own. Azzorah responded in kind, and fighting broke out anew between the two.
Before Brunia and Roedacia could set to dividing their new holdings, Oskirath counterattacked, marching troops out of Arkenfel and retaking several towns east of the Nal Galdir River. As both sides positioned their troops along the riverbanks and prepared for battle, Oskirath once again began secret peace talks, this time with Brunia. They agreed to cede the western half of the Hinterlands valley to Brunia if they abandoned the Roedacian army on the eve of battle. Brunia accepted, and allowed the Oskirathian army to cross a section of the river they were defending in the night. The next morning, the Roedacians found their allies packed up and gone, already marching towards the southern passes, and an Oskirathian army advancing on them. The battle was bloody and long: Oskirath, though outnumbered, had the advantage of surprise. As the day carried on, the battle nearly turned both ways at several points, but neither side collapsed into a rout. It was not until evening that an arrow found the neck of the Oskirathian king Samuel Arken, who was personally leading his forces in battle. With his death, the Oskirathian army broke, and Roedacia carried the day.

Continuation of Fighting

The victory for Roedacia was a pyrrhic one, for they had lost most of their forces and had a traitorous neighbor to deal with. They marched what forces remained home, abandoning the valley, but taking the time to burn every village and salt every field they could on the way back. By the time they left, the valley was a wasteland. Few towns and villages remained, and bands of deserters from all sides roamed the countryside pillaging and looting what remained. When Brunia learned of this, they attempted to intercept the returning Roedacians and extract vengeance for the act, but failed to catch them before they made it back to home territory. The two nations immediately initiated hostilities, starting another six years of war over claims to their newly acquired territories before finally agreeing to a new border and entering an uneasy peace.
Drennheim and Azzorah would continue full hostilities over the Zerechny Valley for another eleven years before Drennheim finally capitulated, refusing to agree to a peace treaty, but no longer having the resources to continue fighting over the lands. The two nations settled into a cold war, with neither willing to agree to the other’s terms for peace, but neither willing to reinitiate open hostilities. This position held for nearly twenty years, up until the War of the Shadow Lord.

Aftermath

The war left the land devastated in a way that would take nearly a century to fully heal. The Zerechny Valley, now a part of Azzorah, had their population halved through the years of fighting. The Hinterlands never recovered, and Oskirath was effectively confined to Arkenfel for the years leading up to its eventual demise at the hands of the Shadow Lord. The valley remained devastated and lawless, home mostly to bandits and outlaws. The former southern Oskirathian territories were less devastated, but nearly 500,000 Brunian and Roedacian lives were lost through the conflict. In total, its estimated around a million lives were lost through battle, pillaging, and famine: nearly a tenth of the population of the region. It would be nearly a century before the region recovered to the state it was in before the war.