The Bechtlarite Blockade of the Isle of Seanachai

Military action

In the years leading up to the Blight, many attempts were made to pressure the Seanachaisian Royal family into submitting to the demands of the Bechtlarite Sovereign, to forego their independent reign and join the global coalition under Becht direction. Undaunted and unmoved by these attempts, the Becht Empire uses its superior naval assets to blockade all the major trade routes in and out of the Island nation, cutting them off from trade and travel alike.

In the summer of 4 AR, the Becht nation under the direction of Sovereign Daimus III , moved their entire fleet into The Ephemeral Sea surrounding the Isle of Seanachai and cutting them off from all forms of commerce and travel in an attempt to disrupt both their economy and way of life enough to dishearten their rulers and turn the public opinion of their people sour enough that they might lose their support. Using the combined navies of The Becht Nation and their allies, the Gaul Do Shah Empire and the Kingdom of Underhome, they were able to entirely isolate the island nation.   The Seanachaisians, in response, deployed their own fleet which was dwarfed by comparison. This one sided stalemate did not, however, stop smaller craft from slipping through to the mainland to seed dissent and engage in clandestine operations by the Seanachaisians aimed at undermining the leadership of all three nations through use of the Seanachaisian's unique skills with manipulation and subterfuge, their natural talent offering them a great deal of power over those they were able to reach. The first year saw a great increase in favor for the cause of the Seanachaisians on the mainland, and further infuriated the Sovereign. To counter this, and unable to keep up with the Seanachaisians ability to sway hearts and minds, the Sovereign turned to a more brute force means of containment, deploying aerial assets to offering increased support for the navy. Airships and observation balloons filled the skies around the Island nation, and the attempts to traverse the sea became much more difficult.   The second year of the blockade saw the first exchanges between the two cultures, as a number of small craft attempting to make the journey to the southern marshlands where they could enter the mainland unseen and remain harder to track, were sunk by the larger naval ships of the Becht Empire. This pushed the Seanachaisians into an uproar, but Sovereign Daimus III was able to contain the news of the altercations and seed stories of the events taking place in a much different light, claiming that the peaceful attempts to sway the holdout nation into creating a global union with them and all the other nations of the world were being met with viscous and violent acts against their troops. The subversive stories told of night raids, sunken galleons and hundreds dead. In order to keep this narrative from being contested, Becht troops began hunting down the Seanachaisian dissidents on the mainland and either imprisoning them or killing them to keep them as quiet as possible. The majority of the Seanachaisians went into hiding as this progressed, which permitted the falsehoods to spread and find root among the mainland cultures.   By the third year, King Faoilin Íonachta and Queen Bridgid Íonachta had grown weary of their imprisonment and the suffering it was causing their people, and decided to send a number of small groups of specialized soldiers out to actually engage in raids of the larger ships, using stealth and their inherent abilities to weave magic through music, the raids were far more devastating than the forces of the blockade considered possible, losing over a dozen ships in that year to these tactics. ENraged by the reluctance and retaliation of the Seanachaisians, Sovereign Daimus III ordered the shelling of coastal settlements as winter came into season. The destruction of the coastal towns and villages was horrific, and within a weeks time, hundreds lay dead of injured by the onslaught of the Becht cannons. Still the Seanachaisians would not budge, and seems to remain unified and even emboldened further by the attacks. Desperate, and under the guidance of Xendal Vedakrhi , Daimus III devised a plan to bring the conflict to a close that involved drawing out one of both of the Seanachaisian royals and then causing unheard of levels of destruction upon their home while they were captured and unable to stop or hinder it from happening. This plan was conceived and implemented, and a letter of truce was delivered to the royal family. So as not to place the king in danger directly, but in a strong show of faith, Bridgid Íonachta was sent to represent her people, and swiftly incarcerated as Daimus III begain preparatioins to bring down what would come to be known as, the Blight.