War of Sovereignty
Since the establishment of the first Kalmasan settlement over a hundred years ago, Volenar had become one of the most valuable colonies the Kalmasan Samraj possessed. Aside from generous farmland, woodlands and good ports, it was positioned well for trading with Brynheim and Jonagval across the narrow Vrede Sea. The Nui Current that moves counter-clockwise around the edges of the Nui Sea also gave Volenar the quickest access to the Okaluan ports of Nua and Na’kainga and the exotic goods of that land, before carrying vessels back to the shores of Kemesh and Kalmasa.
This richness provided much wealth to the Kalmasan Samraj in taxes and duties. When Mahendran the Third finally rose to power after his father’s long and successful reign, he was eager to use this burgeoning wealth to continue his grandfather's vision of the unification of all of Torvalen under Kalmasan rule. He had chafed all his life at the unambitious peace his father had instituted. He decided to begin his campaign at home by capturing northern Kalmasa back from the Calmaxtec ruled land of Neztlalpan.
This campaign proved more expensive than anticipated due to an underestimation of the leaders of Neztlalpan. Since the time of the nation’s founding, the tlatoanis of Neztlalpan had encouraged trade with Yngheim, Ostland and even as far as Jonagval and Brynheim. They were reaching parity in technological sophistication with the Samraj as well. Along with the alliance with the powerful Xoxicohtli and an extensive spy network within the Samraj, they were able to masterfully resist invasion.
Mahendran redoubled his efforts, which required increased resources from the provinces as well as the colonies. Taxes and duties were increased. Prices of goods and resources increased, incentivizing Volenarans to illegally explore deeper into the interior to clear land and prospect for mineral wealth despite longstanding treaties with the Ejdehan Nations established after decades of conflict.
Ejdehan raids of these fortune seekers began and deaths occurred. Angry colonists demanded protection from the Samraj. These demands were met with token reinforcements who generally stayed in the established territory of the colonies. Volenarans resorted to raising illegal militias and hiring expensive mercenary outfits, also illegal since many of them were either deserters from the Samraji Legion or Navy or dodging recruitment into the war effort.
The colonial governors' forces arrested many from these militias and companies, impressing them into service or executing them. This served to further inflame tensions. Many of the leading men and women of the colonies, mainly wealthy planters and merchants, as well as the leader of the newly established Volenaran Academy of the Arts, began to meet in secret in Pranesh to discuss these developments and what to do.
Many were members of the Open Hand lodges of Volenar. They elected to send a formal petition to Samrajan Mahendran requesting the right of the five colonies to elect their own governors. This request was denied with extreme prejudice by the Samrajan and many of the group were put under surveillance.
When next these leaders gathered to discuss their next step, one of them, Ayotl bas Naharem, powerful merchant and largest landowner in the colony of Mahran, proposed that it was not the ejdehan who were their enemies. The true enemies were those who drove them to seek new wealth within ejdehan territory.
He pointed out that it was the Samraj that squeezed the people with taxes and duties, it was they who refused to help defend the colonists against ejdehan raids, who refused to even give the colonists the right to defend themselves against these dangers with their own resources. It was then that the gathering was raided by Samraji agents. Naharem and a couple of others, trained in the semiotic arts, were prepared however and cloaked the gathering in a veil of invisibility just as the agents entered, leading them to safety through a secret exit in Naharem’s manor in rural Mahran, where the meeting was being held.
Raids and searches of all the homesteads of Mahran were conducted, during which some of the residents resisted and were forcefully put down. A young boy and his grandfather were killed. The close knit colony of Mahran was inflamed in anger. Villagers employed their village spirits to drive out the Justicar agents.
Others, trained by Xoxicohtli, used their power to turn the very land against the outsiders. Meanwhile, Naharem escaped north into Anahuetlan, sheltered by planter and Kalmasan war hero, Huexolotl Omecoatl. When word reached Anahuetlan of what had transpired, the leaders of the colony declared an alliance with Mahran in the resistance against the government forces.
Word spread throughout all the colonies, aided heavily by means of the Open Hand. Many thousands in the colonies of Pranesh, Anjara and Nixtal rose up against Samraji forces in pitched battle. Emissaries were dispatched in secret to the hinterlands of Anahuetlan to meet with the Mahran and Anahuetlan rebels. It was here that the first draft of the Volenaran Charter was drawn up and signed by all present. The framework declared the colonies to be autonomous cantons with the right to form their own forms of government acting in unity only for common defense, creation of a common currency, foreign diplomacy and inter-canton trade disputes.
This marks the point that most historians call the beginning of the War of Sovereignty. Alliances were made with Brynheim, Jonagval and Neztlalpan. Without these alliances, the Volenarans, relatively few in number, would have quickly succumbed to Kalmasa’s vast navy and army as well as their highly skilled battle mages. Even then, the Volenarans were hard pressed. Kalmasan forces controlled the largest city and port, Pranesh, as well as most of the smaller ports, especially those in the colony of Pranesh. Volenaran forces were driven into the interior forests, with few lines of supply left open to them.
It was at this desperate juncture that now General Omecoatl, leader of the rebel forces, personally travelled with a small group into the territory of the Rrokreschk Hills nation. They surrendered themselves to the first ejdehan warriors they came across and asked to speak to the nation’s broodchief, Kurroschk. In addition to being Broodchief, Omecoatl knew the old ejdehan as warleader of the Ejdehan Nations and Windlord of the Brotherhood of the Wind.
Through his insight as a Tzetzal and thus member of a conquered native people, Omecoatl was able to relate with and make a personal connection with Kurroschk, with whom he had fought many battles in the past and had brokered a peace treaty. Kurroschk took Omecoatl and a small party deep into the interior of the highland plains of Volenar into nation of Blue Ice Mountain where the two great councils of Uraschk and Kirashk were convened, made up of the temporal and spiritual leaders of the ejdehan Nations, many of whom had never laid eyes on a nukuroschk, their name for the strange mammalian people who invaded their land.
Kurroschk explained the situation and argued for an alliance between themselves and the Volenaran nukuroschk. Omecoatl had brought many gifts of steel, bright spears, fine arrowheads, as well as miners and blacksmiths who would stay and teach the Ejdehan the arts of mining, smelting and smithing. A treaty was formed, declaring Ejdehan territories off limits to settlement, hunting, woodcutting or mining without express permission. In exchange for steel weaponry and knowledge of nukuroschk arts, the Nations allowed the Brotherhood of the Scale to right with the Volenaran League.
With the aid of the Brotherhood, the tide of battle began to turn. The ejdehan had intimate knowledge of the land and acted as arial infiltrators, gliding high above enemy vessels on night raids and dropping canisters of napalm before gliding swiftly away to safety. They also ambushed forces who came into the forests or hilly valleys and acted as highly mobile sentries and messengers.
Between these efforts, and the supplies smuggling and sea raids by Brynheim and Jonagval privateers, the Kalmasan naval lines of supply were largely cut off. The Volenaran League forces retook most of the ports and pushed the Kalmasan legion to the city of Pranesh and the surrounding countryside. Meanwhile, Neztlalpan had continued to resist the southern siege of their lands and aided Volenar through their networks of spies throughout Kalmasa that provided vital intelligence about troop movements and the diplomatic situation.
At last Mahendran III was forced to yield to the demands of the rajans to declare an armistice and later a truce with Volenar. The war had taxed the provinces and their lords to the point where there were whispered threats of secession and the dissolution of the Samraj itself. Thus, despite protests from the United Temples of Evran and the Vidvanya jen Dharmu, Mahendran acceded to peace terms with Volenar.
In the year 263 AE, emissaries of the Volenaran League, led by Naharem and Omecoatl met with the Kalmasan delegation on the island of Ekara, far off the shore of Nixtal and there signed the Treaty of Ekara. The treaty formally recognized the independence of the former colonies and the existence of the Volenaran League as the governing body of those former colonies. The League agreed to peace and an end to the privateering of Kalmasan vessels. Trade was reestablished with the Samraj. With this, the War of Sovereignty had reached its conclusion.
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