We're authors

Marrishland has a long and violent history. Several civilizations have risen and fallen, here, and the book tells about events during one of the most turbulant periods - a period whose events determine whether a civilization survives or dies.

More than just authors

OTHER PROJECTS

HANGOUTS

COMICS

Battle of Bleakfurd (Belnat 2702 I.D.)

The Battle of Bleakfurd is widely regarded as the first battle of the Mar Civil War less because it was more furious than the pocket rebellions of the previous decades than because it was the first battle between mundane and magocrat that ended in a victory for rural mundanes.

In the spring of 2701 I.D., the Mardux sent tax collectors to demand a tribute of metal from every family in country. While the first metal levy had been largely unsuccessful, two centuries had given the wizards time to perfect the process of collecting a metal levy every 6 years, and most communities accepted this as the normal course of events. In rural towns with a reigning magocrat, the wizard often worked to make this process as painless as possible for the mundanes, sometimes collecting the tribute in public works labor and paying the Mardux's taxes out of pocket.

The Mar Civil War began in Gansen Beige, a tiny farming town south of where Gunne Palus now stands. In previous tax cycles, the townsfolk had traded some of their crop with larger towns in exchange for metals needed for tools and taxes, but the spring of 2701 I.D. fell at the end of a long series of very poor growing seasons. As a result, the Mar of Gansen Beige could not afford to pay the metal levy and still have enough metal remaining for cooking pots and other essential tools.

It is not entirely clear what happened. It is believed someone suggested the magocrats would press some of the mundanes into slavery until they could pay their families' debt. Such drastic steps certainly weren't common practice, but tax collectors were not above threatening to punish mundanes who would not or could not pay the levy. Whatever events transpired in Gansen Beige, the tax collectors never returned to the capital.

Predictably, the Mardux sent a squad of sixteen wizards to put down this new pocket rebellion. Experience with these small rebellions had taught the magocrats that even a handful of wizards could rout a few hundred mundanes simply by producing sufficiently dazzling magical displays. Gansen Beige lay on the far side of the Satysis Amnis, so the wizards spent the night at Suptor - a community near the river crossing to Gansen Beige.

The mundanes of Suptor were remarkably hospitable to the wizards. They even provided the magocrats with canoes for the river crossing, the next morning. As the magocrats neared the far side of the icy river, the people of Gansen Beige turned out with javelins and bows ready. The wizards readied themselves for battle, taking sips from their torutsen flasks.

At the time, wizards believed only torutsen allowed them to use magic, so when they discovered their flasks instead contained muddy water, they had two good reasons to panic. The canoes never reached the other side of the Satysis Amnis. The wizards knew they could not defeat even a small army of mundanes without their magic - especially because they had no mundane weapons of their own - and they suspected the Mar of Suptor had fed them konig worm infested water. Defeated and certain death was imminent, the wizards overturned the canoes and swam to their deaths in the freezing water of the Satysis Amnis.

No one knows how mundanes had learned of the wizards' dependance on torutsen. Certainly, the magocrats kept everything about magic a secret from everyone. Some historians claim a rogue wizard aided the Suptor for his own reasons. Others argue that even mundanes must have suspected the link between magic and a wizard's flask; after all, magic had been around for seven centuries.

(Contributed by Weard Gilda Kronas)