The Latrine Crusade
A trivial disagreement ended up being the inciting incident that resulted in the signing of the Concordance for Survival Treaty!
They're our neighbors in Winter's Voice now, but I still think those stupid Alian Barbarians were in the wrong.
In the weeks after the "Day of Concordance", when the "dark" nations came to the aid of the "light" nations after the Kirinal Explosion, the assembled armies often found themselves side-by-side with their traditional enemies. The generals tried to keep folk with bad blood away from each other, but of course this plan would fail spectacularly at some point.
The orcish armies of the Empire of Borthakar found themselves camped right next to their traditional northern foes, the Barbarians of the Alian Tribes. As long as there were enemies to fight, the two forces were able to ignore each other. But a weeklong lull in battle led to the conflict known as the Latrine Crusade.
A Feculent Feud
The Alian tribesmen and the orcish armies had a long history of conflict in their shared northern homeland. At the time, the orcs were newly civilized, attempting to drown out the voice of dark gods in their sleep. The Alians had lost the cream of their civilization in the Disintegration of Kirinal decades before and had collapsed back into a loose confederation of tribes. They found each themselves encamped together on the northwestern edge of The Kirinal Pit.
The Alians were unhappy with the reversal of the "natural order", their civilization in decline as the orcs ascended. The tribesmen took the location the Imperial Borthakaran latrines, located next to the Alian sleeping quarters, as an insult. They would vandalize the latrines whenever they had a chance. They especially enjoying collapsing them when they were occupied.
The frustrated Borthakarans could never prove that the wily tribesmen were to blame, but the two sides came to blows over it. Fortunately, the horns of battle called them to war just as they were about to spill blood.
The Treaty for Survival
The so-called Latrine Crusade was the worst of many small conflicts between the assembled armies of the world. The asembled nations and powers knew they needed more formal agreements to avoid their allies from breaking out into open conflict.
The catalyst for all of it was the grudging respect that grew between the Alians and Borthakarans. They went from the Latrine Crusade right into battle against a demonic horde and generations of conflict metled away as they fought against a common foe. After that battle, the Borthakarans returned to find that the Alians had rebuilt the latrine for them.
Winter's Voice
When the time came to divide up the Kirinal Concordance Zone, the orcs and tribesmen shocked everyone by deciding to partner with each other to form the Winter's Voice Canton. They fight together to this day as the fiercest wariors on the Pit.
Sometimes all it takes is finding some common ground. Love the header picture!
Thank you! I've been working on my header game since then, but I remember that finding a decent latrine on Unsplash in 2020 was tough!
Take a look at my Institutions of Learning challenge article.
Learn about the World of Wizard's Peak and check out my award winning article about the Ghost Boy of Kirinal!