Battle of the Rising Deep

The Battle of the Rising Deep was an engagement fought in the 34th century APC, during the age now known as the Time of Terrors between the attacking armies of Ralsimoor, led by the mage Pezulruth Veld and the defending forces of the city of Nephatar, led by the Fisher Queen and mage, Queen Shellesha Pavaris.

The Conflict

Prelude

Pezulruth Veld conceived of the attack on the city as a way to achieve his desire to gain control over the Net of Pruth, a fabulous magical artefact which belonged to the Fisher Kings and Queens of the city of Nephatar. To steal the Net, he knew that he would have to defeat Queen Shellesha and he began to plan an assault in 3320 APC, although his schemes were not ready to execute until four years later.

Deployment

In the first week of Kerax, land forces from Ralsimoor advanced down the coast and by the 14th of the month they had taken up positions to the north and east where they were in range of the city walls. The first skirimishes between aerial defenders from Nephatar and units from the advancing artillery forces took place on the 16th. After these opening shots, there were a number of feints and sorties which did little other than to establish the limits of the onshore battle lines before the main naval engagement began on the 1st of Tuzlle.

Battlefield

The forces of Ralsimoor were not strong enough to encircle and besiege the city but they controlled access to the north and east and their shock assault struck at the estuary and the Nephatar harbour, completely distrupting sea travel at the height of the battle. The entire conflict was fought within sight of the city on all fronts.

Conditions

The timing of the main engagement in the battle was determined by the weather. It remained fine and warm at the end of Kerax but as the month turned, storm clouds gathered over the ocean and were driven onshore by a fierce east wind which was accompanied by a rising tide on the 1st of Tuzlle. These were the conditions that Pezulruth Veld had been waiting for and when he unleashed his monsterous allies, their impact was magnified by gale, rain and a raging sea.

The Engagement

The first hostile contact between the antagonists began shortly after dawn on the morning of 16th Kerax, 3324 APC, when aerial scouts from the city were fired upon by mobile light artillery units and although there were no casualties on either side this escalation marks the start of the eight day conflict.
Pezulruth's primary tactic was to draw out the Net of Pruth bringing it into the arena of conflict where he planned to seize it with a web of intricate spells which he had spent years devising and preparing. Everything else was a diversion and a means to support this end, and that included the finding, nurturing and training of Gorkull and Gurkull, two of the native creatures that inhabited the deeps of the Klokken Ocean. Pezulruth expected that the arrival of his chaotic sea monsters in the city harbour would provoke Queen Shellesha to attempt to use the Net of Pruth to subdue them and this would provide him with his opportunity.
On the 20th Kerax, city security forces tested the strength of the beseiging land army in an inconclusive skirmish which accounted for around half of the total infantry casualties, but it was not until the morning of 1st Tuzlle that the main engagement began. This was when Pezulruth Veld unleashed his sea monsters and the battle came to a climax. At the same time the land forces were ordered to advance, splitting the Aerial City Overwatch which lost three figher and four light bomber class airships in sorties against enemy artillary and out over the bay.
Some unnamed commander in the Ralsimoor ranks saved many lives when he ordered his troops to hold their lines before engaging, pending the outcome of the sea battle, which was obviously going to be the decisive theatre of operations, and as a consequence the land armies on both sides suffered no further casualties that day.
Instead, the Nephatar navy suffered the greatest losses amongst the city defenders, having to bear the brunt of the attacks from Gorkull and Gurkull, and it was only their herosim that prevented the monsters from reeking havoc on the city shoreline. Four destroyers, seven light cruisers and twelve cutters were sunk and upwards of four hundred naval personel were drowned or killed in the attack, reducing the 1st Nephatar Defence Fleet to less than half of its original stength.
Crucially, though, Pezulruth Veld had miscalculated the reponse of his powerful enemy. Queen Shellesha had received very good intelligence, both over the preceeding years leading up to the battle and then in the final days. She understood very well what Pezulruth Veld wanted and how he planned to get it, and she had no intention of falling into the trap he had set.
The Fisher Kings and Queens of the 34th century were no longer the simple fishermen that tradition said their ancestors had been in the age of the Water Kingdoms (if that was even true). Since at least the time of the Four Aerial Courts, magical power had flowed in the veins of the city rulers of Nephatar. Not only was Queen Shellesha a mage worthy to challenge Pezulruth Veld on his own terms, she came from a line with a great heritage in maritime arcana and knowledge, which consisted of far more than just the Net of Pruth.
Pezulruth Veld had control of the city of Ralsimoor, a metropolis with a much more ancient and powerful lineage than Nephatar that could be dated all the way back before the Sundering to the days of the Young Kingdoms when the Fey themselves had walked its streets. In Ralsimoor, they thought of Nephatar as an upstart. But Pezulruth Veld was himself a usuper and a murderer who had come to power by nefarious means which included assassination. He was not well liked in Ralsimoor and his position was precarious. When he decided on his plan to take the Net of Pruth he had underestimated the Queen's powers within areas of magical theory and practice which she understood so much better than him. So rather than even attempting to use the Net of Pruth, instead Queen Shellesha worked on her foe's control over Gorkull and Gurkull, breaking it at the height of the conflict in the bay and turning them first on their surprised master who they quickly destroyed and then on each other, until Gorkull was dead and Gurkull fled back to the ocean deeps, badly wounded and no longer any threat.
Seeing that their leader was dead and having no stomach to continue the conflict, the Ralsimoor infantry on land began an orderly retreat, harried by the city defence forces, which suffered only a handful of casualities in the final sweep that cleared the hinterlands. By the end of the 2nd of Tuzlle the battle was over.

Outcome

Since Queen Shellesha had no interest in following up her victory with wars of conquest, Ralsimoor was able to recover after a short and bloody civil war in which a new and less expansionist government came to power. Nephatar gained the respect of other warring powers of the age and was not challenged again throughout the Time of Terrors.

Aftermath

The irony of the use of weaponised sea monsters to attack the City of Fish, whose very foundation and success had come from defying their waning control of the oceans, at the beginning of the age of the Water Kingdoms, was hardly lost on either side in the conflict. Even in an age when standards of orthodox courtesy in war had suffered a notable decline, this tactic was widely considered to be particularly reckless by observers who were not directly involved in the conflict, risking as it perhaps did, a return to the dangerous days following the Planar Conformation when the oceans were not navigable. After all, who knew what reactions the rise of Gorkull and Gurkull might provoke amongst the other denizens of the deep? Sleeping monsters should be left to sleep in their sea beds.
Fortunately this dire prediction did not come true. Unfortunately, the battle turned out to be merely one example of the havoc that dangerous and powerful mages would cause throughout a period known as the Time of Terrors.

Conflict Type

Battle

Start Date

16th Kerax, 3324 APC

Ending Date

2nd Tuzlle, 3324 APC

Belligerents

Nephatar City

Led by

• Queen Shellesha

Ralsimoor

Led by

• Pezulruth Veld

Strength

• 1st Nephatar Defence Fleet

• 1st & 2nd Aerial City Overwatch

• Nephatar City Security

• Arcane Royal Guard

• Gorkull and Gurkull
• 1st Ralsimoor Infantry Brigade
• 2nd Ralsimoor Infantry Brigade
• 5th Ralsimoor Heavy Armoured Regiment

Casualties

1st Nephatar Defence Fleet

• Four destroyers
• Seven light cruisers
• Twelve cutters
• Four hundred and three naval personel

1st & 2nd Aerial City Overwatch

• Three fighters
• Four light bombers
• Twenty five airmen and women

Nephatar City Security

• Twenty nine infantry
• Eleven mounted close combat troops

Arcane Royal Guard

• Three mages

Gorkull and Gurkull

• Gorkull was killed
• Gurkull fled to the deeps

1st Ralsimoor Infantry Brigade

• Ninety five soldiers

2nd Ralsimoor Infantry Brigade

• Forty three soldiers

5th Ralsimoor Heavy Armoured Regiment

• Thirty five gunners
• Seven battle tanks
• Two mobile artillary units

Objectives

Queen Shellesha appreciated that Pezulruth Veld was not in full control over his city and his armies and that the desire to conquer Nephatar was contentious within the Ralsimoor army and leadership. She realised that if Pezulruth Veld were to be neutralised the invasion would very likely falter and fail, and she build her strategy for the defence of the city on that basis.

Pezulruth Veld's personal objective was the acquisition if the Net of Pruth and the goal of the conquest of the city of Nephatar and the subjugation of the Fisher Queen was an entirely secondary consideration in his mind. Nevetheless it was a motivating pretext which he used to maintain his grip on power with the Ralsimoor military and he presented the aim of the campaign in those terms.

Magicians' End - Fisher Queen Shellesha by DMFW with Night Cafe

Pezulruth Veld by DMFW with Midjourney

Magicians' End - Battle of the Rising Deep - Gurkull by DMFW with Midjourney