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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.

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Early Victories (ca. 3750 - 4000 I.D.)

The Gunne War marked the beginning of the first significant Mar invasion of Drake lands since the First Goblin War two centuries previous. The invasions that marked this period of Mar expansion were not organized by the marduxes of the time - at least not directly.

In the beginning of the 38th century, a decree went out from Domus Palus. Any wizard who could capture and hold Drake lands for a decade with minimal incidence of defeat at the perimeter would be eligible for the title of dux. A dux would have virtually unlimited authority within his realm - called a duxy.

Weard Svarti Gunne was the first to answer this call with an army of wizards and mundanes. They crossed the Rubus Amnus and marched against the tribes of guer they met there. The Gunne War lasted seven years, after which the Mar territory increased in area by nearly half its previous size. Drake incursions into what would eventually become the Duxy of Gunne did not end until Flasten and Despar became the new Mar frontiers, so Svarti Gunne never received the title of dux. The first Dux of Gunne received his title about a century after the end of the Gunne War (ca. 3850 I.D.).

After the Gunne War ended but before the lands it had conquered had become the Duxy of Gunne, Weard Vor Skrem and Weard Aren Pech led armies into the lands south of Gunne's perimeter, initiating the Skrem War. Weard Pech set sail from Domus Palus, establishing a beach head on the coast before launching his campaign against the Drakes. Weard Skrem - a skilled mapmaker before she became a wizard - led her army south along rivers wide and deep enough for canoes, skirting the eastern boundary of Gunne before attacking the Drakes from the east.

Working independantly of each other, the two wizards' armies pinned the Drakes between them. The Skrem War would have been much shorter if the inhabitants of the region had been a race of guer instead of a large tribe of kobolds. It is said the kobolds had not yet learned to fortify their perimeter with traps, but they soon learned to employ this tactic against the Mar invaders.

The armies of Skrem and Pech lost and rebuilt outposts and towns constantly for fully two centuries. No one born in any place ever died there. Control of a mound of dry ground or a stand of fruit trees passed from kobold to Mar and back again three or four times per generation, and strategically important areas like iron bogs and wild rice fields sometimes traded hands three or four times per year. Companies of wizards splintered from the two main armies periodically, sometimes becoming elite freelance armies like the Niktoti Band, but usually becoming either bandits or mapmakers.

In the end, Skrem's army weathered these chaotic times better than Pech's, so when the last kobolds withdrew southeast into the Dead Swamps, the newly appointed dux christened his realm the Duxy of Skrem (ca. 3950 I.D.).

Weard Gilby Piljerka entered the lands south of war-torn Skrem shortly after Gunne became the first official duxy after Domus (ca. 3850 I.D.). His conquest was made far easier by the discovery of a ruined port city misidentified as the remnants of Litus Albus. Within a decade, tens of thousands of devout Mar had built Pidel Palus on the ruins of the city they believed to be the home of Weard Darflaem and resolved to defend it at any cost.

This bold move attracted the hostile attention of many of the Drakes from the Dead Swamps and what would become the Duxy of Piljerka. The Duxy of Pidel would eventually emerge from the labors of these zealots (ca. 4300 I.D.), but Weard Piljerka became the first wizard to gain the title of dux in a single lifetime. The Duxy of Piljerka became an official territory before the end of the 39th century.

It is worth noting, for those familiar with modern geography, that at this time, the boundaries of Gunne, Skrem, and Piljerka stretched westward all the way to the sea. What would eventually become the Duxy of Pidel held a strip of land along the southern coast of the subcontinent, but its territory did not stretch more than a few miles east of Pidel Palus.

Despite the time it took to conquer these new territories, the wars for Gunne, Skrem, Piljerka, and Pidel were far more successful than the Mar invasions that would follow them.

(Contributed by Weard Gilda Kronas)