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| Undead Terror | |
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| Years | Summer 291 AC - Autumn 291 AC |
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The Undeath Terror was a conflict that raged inside the Regalian Empire in the year 291 AC, coinciding with the end of the Chrysant War. The Undeath Terror was not a conventional conflict in the way soldiers might have known it, rather it was a conflict that was Empire-wide and saw small skirmishes in localized areas all over. The Afflicted Undead were not commonly seen in the Regalian Empire, or the world widely speaking. For hundreds if not thousands of years, the condition of Undeath was unknown among Ailor, save for those of the Fornoss faith who knew of the Draugr. In the year 291 AC however, Undead appeared all over the Empire after a sudden outbreak of Undeath in the Imperial Palace which caused the deaths of all the Imperial Princes of the blood, and thus ended the male-line of House Ivrae de Sange. Undead marched from graveyards all over the Empire, causing mostly Knights and local militias to have to put them down or guard graveyards at night to keep watch. The conflict was over within a year, but it burst knowledge of the Undead into the public psyche and created several laws that still hold to this day, about the burial of the dead. The loss of the Imperial Princes, and the waves of assassinations by the Slizzar that occurred around the same time due to the end of the Chrysant War, saw the death of the broken Emperor Justinian II, causing the Imperial Sanction to pass the throne to House Kade instead. This event is as such not remembered for being particularly bloody, but radically changed the course of the Empire's politics for years to come, and made the people widely aware that the Undead existed, and that they were a serious threat. Many arcane scholars nowadays theorize this was a plot by the Malefica from the beyond, but because the Malefica works in centuries, the true motivation for the events or whether they succeeded remains unknown.
Prelude
Emperor Justinian II, like many of his predecessors before, had sired several sons to ensure the continuation of the Ivrae Dynasty. The eldest was Auguste, the Crown Prince who was destined to one day succeed his father as the Emperor. Second was Prince Juvinois, who like many second sons was trained as a Viridian Knight to be the sword arm of his elder brother. Last was Prince Therinois, whose future was intended to be the vigilant eye for Auguste, in whatever capacity that would entail. The Emperor desired that the three princes would support each other through the darkest times so that the Imperial Family would remain a beacon of stability for others to emulate. At least, that was how things were intended to be.
While Prince Juvinois took to his calling as a Viridian Knight with earnest conviction, Prince Therinois was not as enthusiastic. As the third son, it was unlikely for him to ever become Emperor, and yet he was too high up in the line of succession to pursue his ambitions away from the Imperial Palace. While he initially went along with his duties without protest, the years of entertaining various courtiers and carrying out the wishes of the Emperor and Crown Prince behind the scenes began to wear on him. These frustrations reached a climax at the end of the Chrysant War, in which both Auguste and Juvinois were honored for their service during the final battles of the conflict, while Therinois was confined in the Palace to once again entertain the courtiers, and thus never received such commendations.
Envying the prestige of his brothers, Prince Therinois began to desire the Imperial Throne for himself, though lacked the means to achieve this aim. However, news quickly reached the palace of the mass assassinations of the Regalian nobility at the hands of Slizzar infiltrators, inspiring the prince to use similar covert tactics to see his desires achieved. He would enact his plot during a particularly dark summer night. When the changing of the Imperial Guard began in the Princely Corridor of the Imperial Palace, Therinois snuck into the Crown Prince’s chamber with an ornate dagger, intending to murder his brother in his sleep. However, Auguste would be woken up once Therinois plunged the dagger into his heart, causing the Crown Prince to send out a cry of agony. This shout would wake up Prince Juvinois, who rushed into the next chamber over alongside the Imperial Guards who had just gone on duty, only to see Therenois on top of the now-dead Auguste. In an act of retribution, Juvinois took his sword and plunged it into the heart of his younger, slaying the fratricidal Prince Therinois.
The following morning was a somber affair at the Imperial Palace. Emperor Justinian II was beside himself with grief over the deaths of two of his sons, with Prince Juvinois likewise having difficulties easing the sorrows of his father. Though with the recent assassinations of the nobility by the Slizzar, news of Auguste and Therinois’ deaths was not made public, as the Palace feared that the Empire could plunge back into Pessimism so soon after the last one ended. As such, both Auguste and Therinois’ bodies were placed into the Imperial Crypt with little ceremony, with many expecting this to be the final tragedy inflicted on the Emperor following the Chrysant War.
However, the situation would take a graver turn than initially predicted, with the Regalian Empire forever changed by it. That night following the internment of the Princes, Therenois’s corpse was reanimated in the depths of the Imperial Palace, intending to finish the job he had in the final moments of his life. Once again waiting for the changing of the Imperial Guard, Therinois snuck into Prince Juvinois chambers. When the Imperial Guards returned to their post and saw the bedroom door ajar, they could not imagine what happened next. Bursting into the room, the two guards saw Prince Therin, risen from the dead, tearing at the neck of the now-dead Juvinois. In less than 24 hours, all three Princes were dead, and the terror was just starting. Across the Regalian Empire, beyond the Crown Isle and Corontium as a whole, those killed in the Chrysant War and buried in their graves, alongside the murdered nobles interred in their Crypts, all began to rise from the dead at the same time. The clergy were the first to sound the alarms as graves burst open, and soon militias, guards, and knights took to arms against the dead.
Experience
Among Soldiers
Unlike past Regalian conflicts, the Undeath Terror saw every able-bodied fighter take to the streets in defense of the living. From professional guard forces and veterans of the Chrysant War to the blacksmith’s child, anyone who could bear a weapon did so as the Undead were hunted down. This proved to be difficult initially, as few Regalians at the time knew how to destroy the Undead, and so often failed to enact a swift and merciful demise of the dead. Aside from fighting the Undead directly, local militias would stand watch over graveyards at night and enact curfews to ensure that those who could not fight were able to rest as well as they could during this time.
Among Officers
As the Regalian Military was unable to muster during the Undeath Terror, various local leaders and veteran officers took to commanding the makeshift militias during the crisis, using their knowledge of warfare to organize their fight against the Undead. Their experiences were nearly identical to those of the soldiers under them and only served to fill the demand for leadership in a crisis, with many rising to meet the challenges head-on.
Among the Knights of the Regalian Empire, none proved their mettle greater than the Darkwald Order of Tirgunn. Only spoken of in whispers outside of their native Osteiermark, the Darkwalds had earned a reputation as the foremost Vampire hunters over the past 200 years, though their activities did not stop at eradicating the Sanguine threat. Years of hunting had seen the Darkwalds compile a vast library of the Occult, including ways to destroy the Undead that were now plaguing the Regalian Empire. Deploying across the realms, Darkwald Knight coordinated with other Knightly Orders to educate the masses on decapitating the Undead, the only method to permanently end the madness.
Among Command
During the Undeath Terror, Commanders focused solely on their immediate situation, before they moved to coordinate with their neighbors to aid them when able. Dukes traveled across their domains to coordinate with their vassals, organizing their feudal armies when necessary to purge critical locations of the Undead, such as the catacombs of large cities where thousands rose from their graves. When their lands were cleared from the threat, they would move on to neighboring provinces, repeating the same process. Rivalries were put aside for the greater good of the realm, as every noble knew that the dead cared little for political feuds.
End & Aftermath
In the middle of Autumn, militias across the Empire began to report that no new Undead were rising from the grave. Those that escaped into the countryside were likewise dealt with by Knights and levy armies alike, with only a few remnants of Undead left to decay away from civilization. Rather than rebury the remains, corpses were instead burned in massive fire pits outside of cities, with cenotaphs erected to honor the victims of the crisis.
Back in the Imperial Palace, Emperor Justinian II had fallen into a deep depression following the death of Prince Juvinois and passed from his inconsolable grief soon after hearing the news. With the death of the Emperor, and with no sons left to inherit, the Palace began to panic. Justinian had only a singular brother, Charlerois, who had died a decade earlier, and he in turn only sired daughters. His eldest, Princess Alianne, was killed by Slizzar as part of the assassinations of the nobility, leaving Princess Adelheid remaining. However, the Imperial Throne could only pass to male heirs, leaving the question of the next Emperor unanswered. After intense negotiations and compromises, the Imperial Sanction of 291 was signed by Princess Adelheid and Chancellor Moriarty Kade. The Sanction allowed the Imperial Seat to pass through females to their eldest sons, making Moriarty’s son, Alexander, the next Emperor of Regalia, beginning the reign of the Kade Dynasty. In return, House Ivrae would retain their titles as Imperial Princes alongside their estates in Vixhall, maintaining a claim to the throne in the process.
Finally, the Regalian Empire implemented several reforms of burial practices to ensure that the Undead would never rise again. Cremation became the standard practice of burying citizens, especially among the commoners. The nobility were still permitted to be interred in crypts, though decapitation of the head was required to do so. As these changes were universal, this also saw several Fornoss Helbolwen closed down, an action which caused religious friction from the faithful. Fornoss faithful were already familiar with the Undead and had their ways of handling the situation that saw regions like Drixagh and Nordskag fare better than the rest of the Empire. As such, these regions ignored the reforms outright and continued to maintain their burial traditions intact, while advocating for such traditions to be respected where Fornoss was a minority, to little success.
Review
Today, the Undeath Terror is remembered as a tragedy that almost destroyed the Regalian Empire, and created animosity against the Affliction. Many saw the Undead as a blight against their gods, and responsible for the death of Emperor Justinian II, who had grown to be well-endeared by the population in much the same way as his father Vilgemar had been. Since then, every Regalian citizen knows to watch out for those who would attempt to raise the dead and act with extreme prejudice against any Undead who will prey on the living.
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