The Hobgoblin War

Military action

Darkport tests the mettle of Arakeen.

The elevation of Sovereign Devia was seen by many of Arakeen’s enemies as a possible time of weakness. The first several years of her rule were plagued by a number of large scale raids by Northreach and Aktannia. Sovereign Devia devoted much of her time and attention to crushing these raids, with a fair degree of success.
  It was during this time that Lady Cylence Coldeyes began moving against Arakeen. Unwilling to devote her best troops to what was essentially a test of Devia’s mettle, the Strife Lord pressured the Hobgoblin tribes in the northern parts of Darkport to expand out into the contested areas between the two countries.
  The Red Pike tribe of Hobgoblins formed the main force of the assault, led by their chieftain Hurgek the Manslayer. Hurgek’s strategies were exceptional and he used his troops to drive wedges into the weakest point of the Arakeenian defenses. To break the morale of his enemies he attacked the outlying shepherd villages and left his victims impaled upon large pikes at the sites of their villages.
  Sovereign Devia, enraged at the Hobgoblin’s predations of her people, brought the main force of the Arakeenian army to face the threat. For the first time in Arakeenian history, Devia assigned war wizards to each combat unit as well as their normal priestly compliment. These mages were able to match the Hobgoblin wizards blow for blow and made the early battles far closer than Hurgek had hoped for.
  The Sovereign was confident that the war would be over very quickly until the Hobgoblins unleashed their secret weapon, a company of powerful warriors mounted on wyvern mounts, called the Sky Gougers.
  The Sky Gougers gave the Hobgoblin force an ability to strike quickly and escape that the Arakeenians couldn’t match. This new development stopped the Arakeenian momentum and forced the battle to drag on for months.
  Early in the year 121, the Sovereign decided that something had to change or the war might end up with the Arakeenians on the losing side. She charged a group of her powerful Vassals, who called themselves the Wanderers of the Wastes, to break through the Hobgoblin lines and assassinate Hurgek the Manslayer.
  The Wanderers managed to break through the Hobgoblin lines with little trouble and faced off against Hurgek and his elite guard. The Wanderers did their best but it soon became clear that they were completely over their heads. Several of their members were slain, and the mission seemed to be thwarted. As Hurgek, himself, led the final charge against the Wanderers, their mage Ragesh of the Flames, saw one last chance to defeat him. Ragesh centered a powerful delayed blast fireball that centered on his own body, and then rushed to engage Hurgek in melee combat.
  Hurgek, seeing no threat in the oncoming mage, began to toy with Ragesh as he slowly killed him. Thus it was that Hurgek was at ground zero when the fireball finally detonated. The magical fire obliterated Hurgek and the remaining Wanderers, in addition to setting the main Hobgoblin camp on fire. The flames spooked the Wyverns who flew away.
  Then Devia commanded her forces to attack in full force. With the loss of their leader and the Sky Gougers, the Red Pike Tribe broke and fled the field. The Sovereign pushed forward until she recovered the remains of the Wanderers of the Waste, and returned them to Draknos. They were entombed in the Cathedral of the Silver Seraph, and statues were raised in their honor in the Sovereign’s gardens in the capital.