Being an History of the Allorn Empire; the Javarindar War.
Pt. 1 of 5
Pt. 1 of 5
[An illustration purported to be one of Empress Talea Sunvidal's many vacation palaces.]
Augur Niddafel once declared that there was no people so blessed as the Est'alorn, to be granted the favour not only of the Pantheon, but of Estel herself. Indeed, when he declared this at the end of what we have since labelled the Awakening era, it could not have been more true. The fledgeling Allorn Empire, now united under the watchful gaze of a still-living Empress Talea Ilu Sunvidal, seemed all-powerful; a nation of mages and warriors, craftsmen and politicians, the Altalar of Talea's Allorn Empire were fully justified in claiming dominion over the land, seas, and sky, as Daen itself was divided and drawn between the many Highborne lords, Altalar merchant ships and naval convoys roamed the high seas freely, and fast-growing cities scraped the skies with spires capped in beaten silver and gold. Of course, it goes without saying that Niddafel's words came in Ancient Altalar, not as they are transcribed here in the Common tongue; were Niddafel to live and speak today, his statement would ring hollow, for they depended wholly on Altalar dominance. In the present day, the few remaining Princes and Merchant Princes squabble over parcels of land when not at war with each other or some other foreign entity seeking a morsel of Daen themselves; Varran corsair fleets and Songaskian slaving galleys stalk the waters, suffocating any chance at reclaiming naval superiority; even in the skies there comes division, where the Regalian Empire lays claim to the clouds and winds above wherever the Imperial Prince Cedric Kade may be, and rumours of the ancient Dragoness Rikkira foment on the swelling borders of the Dread Empire.
However, this text serves not as a piece to emphasise the fall of Altalan culture and holdings since the Fracture of Allorn and the Wildering; no, this text is instead a recount of the Allorn Empire's campaign against the Javarindar, the predecessors of today's Varran people, and the rise of affluence and purpose that followed this war. In this, we will draw from a vast sea of sources and recounts, but in the main, we shall rely on the recollections of three; His Holiness, High Augur Lorlavelle, a close friend and confidant of the new Empress and Prophet of Estel; Grand Rector Solicent, the first Grand Rector, known for his impeccable memory and devotion to recording; and the bard Rie, whose tales are often tall and sensational, yet still offer brief glimmers of truth and honesty. It is also of staggering import to lay down the rules of nomenclature in these early days of Allorn, lest you, the reader, become confused. Rather than a forename, middle name, and surname or house name as one may have today, the people of the Awakening era fully lacked a forename, instead replaced by the name of their kingdom or principality of birth; for the first Allorn Empress, born in the imperial city of Alar Talea, she was known as Talea Ilu Sunvidal, whilst our bard was known in full as Rie Nisalle Forlemael, born in Grae Rie. With such rules now clear, it is time to move to the meat of our subject.
Of the Opening of War; the Rising
The precise beginning of the Javarindar war is a point of contention among historians, though the involvement of Empress Talea's strength in earnest in 2675BC is agreed upon by all scholars. Even in its day, it was not entirely agreed upon; Augur Lorlavelle states that war, by principle, only begins at its declaration, and so the Javarindar war only truly began in 2675BC, the same as Talea's full-scale engagement. Rector Solicent argues otherwise, and his exhaustive notation tells us that this argument even occurred with Lorlavelle himself, stating quite plainly that the war began in 2690BC, a full decade and a half before Lorlavelle's stated date, which Solicent declares to be the beginning of escalation and therefore opening year of the war as the Javarindar began to fall upon the still-maturing Allorn Empire, harassing borders and stifling trade routes. Regardless, upon accepting the inevitability of war, Empress Talea found herself facing a foe far removed from the rebel kingdoms and contesting proto-nations she had only years ago absorbed into her new Allorn Empire. These were not foes who could be reasoned with by virtue of shared blood, nor could they be swayed by religion, for the Faith of Estel professed the superiority of the slender and beautiful Firstborn; no, these were the Javarindar, bestial and feline, with their own queer gods and, most importantly, methods of waging war. Without magic, Talea and her generals presumed that the Javarindar would be an easy defeat, a war that would be won as soon as sparked, if Lorlavelle's dating was to be believed. It was not.
In these days, the Altalar believed themselves the longest lived; how could they not? To the common Elf, they were truly, and rightfully, the first. Only the learned and the ancient were even so much as aware of the existence of their predecessors, the Meraic, and even then, while the Maraya-to-be were slumbering in their Tohn vaults, the Highborne scholars researching them were entirely unaware, dissuaded from searching further into the tunnels of the vaults by murals of pastel-skinned beings treating what could only have been primitive Est'alorn as playthings and lessers. If not for the arrogance of the Meraic, to place art of such offense in the very entrances of their slumbering halls, and the anger of the apparently-not-Firstborn, to turn away at the first sign of an uncomfortable recount of an unrecorded past, the Meraic may have been freed from their Tohn Vaults before their collapse; untold thousands of Meraic may yet have lived, and offered their technology as thanks to the Altalar to cut a war that lasted centuries down to months. At the same time, the slumbering Meraic may have also awakened and proceeded to subjugate the world at large with technology that is not even rivalled today, nor ever was in any time of the Allorn.
What occurred instead was ostensibly a victory at Pelfaelle Fields by Talea's forces, and a harsh lesson in underestimating the enemy.
By all firsthand accounts that survived High Augur Haferath's purgings during the Floundering, the Battle at Pelfaelle Fields was a bloodbath. Still operating on tactics and stratagems developed and employed during the early Awakening for conquering other kingdoms, the gathered Allorn forces entered formation, readied their spears... and were blown to pieces by what survivors described as "roaring sticks of metal, loosing scraps and shards of metal at us as a bow does arrows, but in less than a fraction of the time". As would become a mainstay of Altalar victories, the turn of the battle came at the hands of Allorn mages, and only after hours of weathering the Javarindar assault to close the gap between them enough to be effective. Able to turn away the veritable hail of shrapnel and smoke belched out by the Javarindar, the mages instead suffocated their foes with fire and wind, causing a great, raging inferno that all but cremated the opposing Javarindar force wholesale, but not before two thirds of the assembled warriors suffered some level of injury from the so-called "boom sticks", and two thirds of that either died on the field or expired at a later point from their wounds. So would begin a long, arduous, and intensely defensive war of attrition for the Allorn Empire.
Few records of the war that was waged by the Javarindar remain in the hands of modern Altalar; a mixture of High Augur Maferath's expungements, time, war, and the Wildering have crumbled most un-recorded, un-duplicated pieces of firsthand information to less than dust. What does remain, however, is telling. What a casual scholar or historian-by-hobby may declare of the Javarindar war is that it was hardly a single war at all, and the exact dates of its opening and closing are unknown; indeed, most large battles were conducted as many as decades apart, and open combat was sustained sparingly, so as not to waste further life. However, it cannot be said that these lesser-trained scholars are widely versed in Ancient Altalar, so their input, while not technically incorrect, is no less poorly informed. What is known is that the Javarindar War was declared in 2675BC (even considering Rector Solicent's affirmations that the war began in 2690BC, regardless of when it was declared) and that it ended in 2520BC, not long before the Empress Talea died and was ascended to become the ninth member of the Pantheon, the Goddess of Unity in 2500BC.
It should not be assumed that the Empress Talea was alone in leading her war, however; such a long and grating war would be too great a burden for even the goddess-to-be to bear alone in her mortal state. Rather, Talea was surrounded by learned strategists like the twin Princes of Cáelle, who differentiated themselves from one another by method of Prince Neyle wearing a red sash and Prince Niyle a blue one, though some whispered that Neyle and Niyle often swapped lives, and in some stories wives, by simply trading their sashes. Talea also kept the company of the general of her great war host, which would often be harried and molested by Javarindar forces. This great general was Princess Fáenille Nyssa Naahl, of the Fáenille Principality; Fáenille was regarded as a harsh woman to look upon, not for lack of beauty but for her discriminating gaze, known to turn away even the most battle-hardened soldiers with as little as a glare. A staunch follower of Vallea, she believed that the Commander of Power lent her not only physical strength, but also the strength to lead Talea's armies to victory. Some records even name her as a member of the strain of Est'alorn that would go on to become the Sundial, though there is little evidence more than a few scant mentions scattered in ancient records to support or deny this claim. The first Empress was also joined by Prince-Consort Láenor Solle, a known favourite of Talea's among the court, and the first father of her descendants. The Prince-Consort was known for his stark red hair, but little is truly known of him, as he was seemingly utterly and totally eclipsed by his lover and partner; while some scholars of the Grandening era made the claim that the Prince-Consort was, in fact, the true first ruler of the Allorn Empire, these accusations were rightfully considered baseless by any other scholar worth their merit. It is of note that the Prophet-Empress kept none in her cabinet who so much as held sympathies towards the followers of the Moon-Well Goddess, whose name is only barely known even today.
The leaders of the Javarindar army cannot, however, be named, and not for lack of attempting. Unlike the various recounts, letters, and statements produced by the Altalar veterans of the Javarindar conflict, there were no efforts made to protect recovered Javarindar texts and records from the High Augur Haferath's wroth at any piece of information that may even provide an inkling towards the struggling state of the Allorn Empire against the Javarindar hordes. Instead, we only vaguely know that these generals did indeed exist, that there were indeed strategists of their own, and that there was a ruling caste, court, and aristocracy. All other parcels of knowledge pertaining to the Javarindar leadership, be they minor or major, were lost to the fires set by Haferath.
Departing from the naming of generals, strategists, and lovers, we shall divide the Javarindar War into four major stretches, which shall be attributed fitting names; the Probing, stretching from 2675BC, immediately after the first battle, to 2650BC; the Conservation, from 2650BC to 2600BC; the Waning, lasting from 2600BC to 2550BC; and the Fortuity, which lasted the final three decades of the war, from 2550BC to 2520BC. However, these four eras-within-an-era are not to be detailed in full in this brief text; instead, the four eras will be released separately in texts of their own, and then released as a full omnibus when such a time as all four texts have been publicated and disseminated. Until then, I bid you, the reader, farewell.
