The Rise and Fall of Tholain

Introduction

[:Emperor Dominus:King Dominus Tholain] was born in 873, the only son of the then King of Tholain, Sevrus Tholain. All through his childhood, Dominus was exposed to stories of how the neighbouring kingdoms were making life more and more difficult for those who had chosen to work with Magic. It was becoming a dying art, or so it seemed.

King Sevrus seemed to have none of the animosity to wizardry that other nations displayed; there were always whispering around court about how dreadful magic use was, and yet there were also quieter whispers telling the opposite view. Dominus was intrigued by such politics; in his early teens he asked his father if he could begin learning magic use to understand it more fully. Sevrus knew his son would never by a capable wizard, but he arranged some training. Dominus worked hard, but had little natural talent. He gave up his studies into magic in his late teens.

Persecution of Magic Users

The formal persecution of magic users began in 892 when King Farrath of ["Limia"] issued a decree outlawing the use of magic. This was in response to a rise in its popularity and the formation of several new magic user organisations. This started an exodus of wizardry from that state, and was followed in 896 with a similar decree from King Lomas of ["Jorlinum"], in 897 by King Dorus of ["Amastia"] and and 902 by King Folcus of ["Ceralin"]. ["Hebria"] took a similar stance to ["Tholain"], despite pressure from within the country to rid the land of magic. Only King Sevrus made any positive acceptance of magic users, and gave shelter and protection to any wizards that desired it. King Ofarwain of ["Hebria"] resisted all the opposition at the time, and made a statement to his court about taking a sensible approach to the use of magic. He could not guarantee the safety of wizards, however, and found that his people would often take matters of persecution into their own hands. It was here in Hebria that the ["Anti-Magic League"] was formed.

With this division in political support for Wizardry across the southern nations, King Sevrus was perceptive enough to see how his small nation was gathering the most powerful wizards to it. To help organise them for the benefit of his kingdom, Sevrus began sponsoring the magic user guild network directly in 899. This was enormously helpful to ["Tholain"] and it gave a clear distinction between the Tholain and her neighbouring Kingdoms. With this step, even magic users that were bold enough to stay in ["Hebria"] found the lure of Tholain irresistible.

The ["Anti-Magic League"] tried to organise activities inside ["Tholain"], but did not achieve much success; the authorities and the magic users themselves did not tolerate these actions, and the wizards were becoming powerful as they advanced their craft.

Diplomacy

In 902 King Sevrus began a series of diplomatic discussions with the other Kingdoms. He soon pulled ["Hebria"] onto his side to try and convince the other kings that their stance over magic users was divisive and was weakening their countries. There were few successes; Sevrus managed to keep the diplomatic process alive, but didn't manage to convince any of the other countries that a change would be beneficial to them.

Sevrus tried this approach repeatedly until his death in 912. Dominus then acceded to the throne, and his approach was somewhat different to his fathers. He re-engaged the diplomatic efforts; he had a personal liking for wizardry, yet his enthusiastic approach made no difference. The futility of this situation was confirmed when ["Hebria"] withdrew from the diplomacy in 914, they'd had enough, and King Ofarwain was now an old man. While he carried this out, King Dominus also began a process of recruiting and training an army. This was initially a conventional force made up of peasants, and it was trained quietly off to the east of ["Tholain"] near the coast, away from ["Nareth"], and out of sight of any of spies of the other kingdoms. The army was added to by wizards and sorcerers in 915, and the force began to look formidable.

Dominus persisted with the diplomatic discussions for several years but by 917 they'd moved from imploring and cajoling to more of a confrontational and intimidating style. Also by this time wizards had moved into advanced advisory positions near to Dominus' throne. He began to rely more and more on their counsel. His chief adviser appointed in 916 was a senior wizard. ["Tholain"] began using magic to spy upon its neighbours. By the end of 917, Dominus had all but lost faith in any diplomatic solution to the problem of this persecution, and during that winter he and his advisers began on a different tack.

["Tholain"]'s spies had shown how poorly defended the other nations were. It seemed that the kings were comfortable in their realms, there seemed no outward threats and the nations behaved with respect towards each other. Trade between the kingdoms was good, and they were even convinced that ["Tholain"] was only being intimidating where magic user persecution was discussed. Tholain gathered this information over several months through it's spy network, and Dominus was surprised by the folly of the other Kings.

Invasion

King Dominus decided that no declaration of war was needed, and he wanted to act with surprise. During late winter 918 he moved his army up from the the coast to his borders on the west and south. In a very quick military operation, he divided his army in two and invaded ["Ceralin"] and ["Jorlinum"]. Progress was so swift that within two days his armies were camped outside of ["Tamish"] and ["Malberina"], and assaulted these capital cities. Dominus had not expected progress to be so swift, he missed the fall and sack of Malberina, and only just made it to Tamish to see his troops go into the Cerlain capital. Even if Dominus had chosen to spare the lives of the courtiers and the monarchs of these countries, the wizards in his army had twenty years of pent-up anger to unleash, and the old King Folcus of Cerlain and King Algominus of Jorlinum were dealt with brutally.

Next the armies turned to look at ["Amastia"] and ["Limia"]. Amastia were utterly unprepared, and the King Delmus of Amastia sent messengers to the oncoming army to sue for peace. These messengers began riding hard between the front line of the army and the Amastus palace in ["Mercunum"], and the peace was accepted. The army was re-assigned; the force travelling to the south the conquer Amastia was split in two, half was sent north to reinforce the invasion of ["Limia"] while Dominus and the rest of his army went to Mercunum to negotiate. A week of negotiation saw Delmus of Amastia complete a deal with Dominus, and he was installed as the Prince of Amastia, and swore fealty to his new king.

Meanwhile the army had marched west, and in ["Limia"] the only real fighting of the campaign took place. King Farrath was a wily old king and had managed to muster his peasants to form a defence against the oncoming army. It held out for a while, and then pursued guerilla tactics to try and harry the advancing Tholain army. It had some success, and it took several weeks for the army to reach ["Kenver"]. The slowness of this advance only delayed the inevitable. By the time midsummer arrived, the city was besieged, and fresh conscripts arrived to swell the ranks of the Tholain force. These were taken mostly from ["Amastia"], but some were drafted from ["Jorlinum"] and ["Cerlain"]. The siege lasted until the beginning of autumn, and was twice assaulted by Limian forces moving from the north and west. Eventually the magic wielded by the Tholain army proved telling and the city was breached. Once again Dominus struggled to control the anger of his wizards, and the city was sacked. They razed the palace to the ground and King Farrath, his courtiers and his family were dealt with brutally by the magic users.

A temporary government was established for ["Limia"], and Dominus' chief adviser was appointed as interim governor of the kingdom. Dominus kept a military presence in each of his newly conquered territories, and moved the bulk of his army back home. When he returned he found that ["Hebria"] had been preparing for invasion; against his own better judgement, he allowed his wizard advisers to convince him that an invasion here too would be useful. Hebria were prepared to an extent, but with many of the army's main manpower scattered across the south, it was the wizards that carried out most of the fighting. As a result, their magic carved through the Hebrian ranks. Conquest here was simpler than in ["Limia"], but the wizards, who had been restrained during the earlier fighting, found this victory the most satisfying.

Government and the New Political Structures

Martial law was maintained for six more months, while the governance of the kingdoms was decided. Originally Dominus had expected to abolish the borders between the six kingdoms and establish himself as king over all, but he ran into political control issues. It was clear from post-ware events in Limia and Hebria that the control would not be strong enough. The only place that seemed to be working well was Amastia, where the martial law had been relaxed at the end of winter in early 919. Dominus took advice from all the senior feudal lords he could, including from Delmus Amastus.

In the end he opted to leave the kingdoms intact and appoint himself as Emperor above them. This was a logical step and allowed the existing power structures to be maintained in all the nations. He appointed a prince to each kingdom (Amastia already had one) and shuffled many of his most trusted feudal lords into positions of power in each land.

As martial law was relaxed slowly through 919 across all the new Empire, Dominus held the reigns tightly. He wanted no chance of a civil war erupting or any uprisings threatening his authority. He also found he had to pander to the new princes; he'd tried to be fair in division of power - he needed to devolve much out to the princes because without that he couldn't maintain effective control and the burden on himself would become excessive. He established a debating and power-sharing forum in Nareth and the Senate was born; each prince was allowed to appoint a voice to attend this forum, and each of the kingdoms also submitted an elected representative, he was selected by the leading feudal lords in each kingdom.

This worked extremely well. Despite a few teething troubles, Dominus allowed them to take on quite a bit of the day to day running of the Empire. He found that their wisdom was useful as a sounding board for ideas, and it lead to rapid growth of the Empire and a swift improvement in trade and infrastructure across the lands - these were areas he wouldn't have been able to look at himself. Each of the six countries underwent a change from being a Kingdom to a Principality, but by 923 all the Kingdoms had been re-established. This strengthened the Empire, much to Dominus' surprise. The crowns he had taken from each were returned, and the princes of each country became a king.

The senate evolved further. Instead of one appointed representative, some of the kings attended the senate themselves (effectively appointing themselves to the senate). With hands-on experience of ruling their individual lands, they brought even more appetite for change and growth to the Empire.

First Political Decrees

In the early years of his reign, many legal changes were required. ["Emperor Dominus"] backed away from little that was important to his new Empire.

His first decrees involved the level of food production. Despite his military successes the political problems he experienced with his diverse kingdom had shown that conquests further afield would be impossible to control. He was forced to rule out any thoughts of invasions of the northern kingdoms for the time being, but did know these lands were already in the shadow of his new Empire. They were utterly dependent upon his Empire for food, and he needed to maintain this situation. Dominus therefore issued a decree that food production was to be increased by at least one third, and publicised it in the senate and to his people as a generous gesture to aid the people of the north. There was mass buy-in for his plan, which appeared altruistic but was aimed squarely at political control.

With a new-found wealth, and a taxation budget six time as large as it had been for Tholain, Dominus commissioned several spectacular new buildings. The best of them all was a senate debating chamber for Nareth, but it also meant new palaces across the six kingdoms. The senate were involved in these plans, and because of them, the palaces were all to be constructed in a similar style, and from similar stone, but would each be a unique statement of the kingdom they represented.

All and any state-managed persecution of wizardry was outlawed. This had been an unwritten law after the conquest and before the Empire was formed, but Dominus ensured it was formally clarified as soon as he could. State funding for magic-user organisation increased, and was spread out across all the kingdoms. Their remit was also expanded; that they should consider all kinds of knowledge not just those related to the field of magic.

In 919 Dominus commissioned a new crown for the new Empire. He had heard legends of the crowns worn by Dwarfish Kings from before ["The Great Disaster"], and wanted to emulate this in his own realm. He asked his foremost wizards to look into this, make proposals, and build something worthy of this mighty Empire. This they did, and the crown was completed in 922.