[OOC] The Keep at Echo Valley

The War of the Three Rivers
and
The Rise of the House of Greeling


The Crown (aka the Royal House of Backkrum):
The House of Backkrum was the first true Royal House the land had even known.
After centuries of seemingly never ending conflict, a succession of Backkrum Lords and then Kings unified the continent by marriage and force and brought peace to the land.
Conflict between Counties and/or Baronies became a rarity.
There were occasional border skirmishes or clashes over broken treaties or cancelled marriages, but for the most part major war had become a thing of the past.


The Boom:
Twenty years before the start of our role play, the continent began experiencing the most profitable and more progressive decade in history.
Every level of administration -- Counties, Earldoms, and the Kingdom itself -- became flush with silver and gold.
But not all the news was good news.  Although this wasn't consistent across the continent, the treasuries of most of the Earls and many of the Counts grew in wealth far more than that of the King himself.
And as anyone knows, money is power.


The Bust:
All good things must come to an end, and the good times enjoyed by all were no different.
After a decade of wondrous times, the continent was struck with a decade of droughts, plagues, floods, earthquakes, forest conflagrations, and more.
The Earls and Counts who had profited more during the previous decade survived this tragic period much better than did the others.
The disparities between rich and poor administrations led to border skirmishes; these little fights soon led to outright wars.


The War of the Three Rivers:
During these rough years, tensions rose between the Kingdom and many of his Earldoms and Counties.
The King had died during the flush years, to be replaced by his then-32 year old son, Loran.
Despite his age, Loran lacked the diplomatic experience to keep the Nobility in line.
He mismanaged several important situations during the rough times; equally important, he alienated many of his key Counselors -- some of them powerful Nobles in their own right -- causing him to amass more than his share of enemies amongst the Nobility.
Powerful Earls and Counts took advantage of the King's lack of experience.
They stopped paying their taxes, took control of Crown-owned highways, bridges, and Keeps located in or near their territories, and -- ultimately -- came into conflict with the Royal Army.
Soon, the entire continent was at war.  Most nobles took sides: Royal loyalists or Independence minded rebels.
Some, however -- such as Count Karl of the House of Blynne, Lord of Black Rock -- promised no allegiances at all or, when they did, rarely followed through, instead fighting for their own profit and security.


The Siege of the Capital:
Late in the 5th year of the War, a powerful Noble -- Earl Yorran of Weston -- secured the allegiance of most of the rebellious Nobles.
He led them to several great victories against the Crown, forcing the remnants of the King's army to withdraw from most of the continent to protect the Capital.
Yorran and his new Bannermen laid siege to the Capital, surrounding and isolating it for nearly a year.
The population of the Capital was suffering from starvation and disease, and the King was being pressured by his last loyal Nobles and Counselors to sue for peace, even if that meant abdicating the Crown.


Samuel of Greeling:
During the 3rd year of the 6 year long War, the Village of Greeling was brutally attacked by forces opposing the King.
A Landed Peasant named Samuel saw his daughters raped and murdered and his eldest son brutally beaten and executed.
A veteran of previous border skirmishes, Samuel rejoined his Count's army and began fighting for the King.
Samuel's previous experience and innovative strategies for warfare on horseback soon had him leading a Mounted Warrior Company (aka Cavalry) of up to 100 men.
A year later, the Count switched alliances, joining the fight against the King under the banner of Earl Yorran of Weston.
Samuel felt betrayed and -- with a dozen other men -- deserted the army.  Most of them returned to their home villages, including Samuel.
Days later, an 8 man Squad of Earl Yorran's soldiers tracked down Samuel.  A fight ensued, and while the eight soldiers were all killed, Samuel's second son, wife, and several neighbors were killed as well.
Fearing more visits by Yorran's men, Samuel and his only remaining child, Phillip -- now Earl of Echo Valley -- fled to the woods to wait out the war.
The news of what happened to Samuel spread, and over the weeks to come, dozens of soldiers still loyal to the King deserted from Yorran's army.
Many of them made their way to Samuel and implored him to put together a force to fight against Yorran.
Samuel approached an Earl loyal to the King, seeking funding for a mounted force.
The Earl knew of Samuel's reputation and -- despite his being little more than a Landed Peasant -- provided Samuel with a chest of silver and gold and a herd of 30 trained war horses.
Samuel began training his cavalry while his son -- skilled with a bow -- began training a Company of Archers.
A few weeks later he led the force back into the fight.


The Woodland Warriors
For the next year, Samuel's force ambushed enemy supply trains and raided villages loyal to the enemy.
They came to be called the Woodland Warriors for their knack of hiding inside and then suddenly striking from the thick forests that covered much of the continent.
Although the Warriors were fighting for the survival of the Crown, the King could not acknowledge them as heroes of the Kingdom because, at times, their methods weren't always the most honorable.
The Warriors developed a reputation -- conflated in many instances and sometimes fully undeserved -- for slipping into the homes and camps of the enemy and executing Lords, Generals, and their families before looting the properties of anything of value to further support their cause.
The King appreciated the good work of the Woodland Warriors in private; publicly he had to denounce it at barbaric.
At one point, the King publicly called for the capture of Samuel of Greeling while covertly sending him word that no actual effort would be expended to bring him to justice.  (Although it was never recorded, that secret message was accompanied by another chest of silver and gold.)


The Great Infiltration: Breaking the Siege of the Capital:
The Woodland Warriors hurt the rebel forces,, but theirs was a guerilla war with small victories and the war was still being lost.
When Samuel learned that the Capital was under siege, he pulled his forces back deep into the Southern Woods and took a few months to rebuild and rearm.
Warrior spies kept close tabs on the Capital's situation, conferring with the King and watching Earl Yorran's forces.
Samuel could see that even while the people in the capital were becoming desperate, the Earl's forces were becoming lax and complacent.
He waited for the New Moon to spring his attack in the darkest hours:
Samuel and 11 of his Captains and Lieutenants led small squads dressed in rebel uniforms deep into Yorran's encircled army.
They slipped into the tents of the Earl's Bannermen and Generals to kill them and their aides while they slept.  Samuel himself slit a knife across Yorran's throat and -- as he watched the man slowly bleed to death -- spoke of his wife, sons, and daughters who had all died at the Earl's bidding.
The surviving infiltrators slipped quietly closer to the Capital -- away from the woods and the rest of the Woodland Warriors -- before signaling for the second phase.
Using the trunks of trees just inside the forest line to create hastily made ballistas, tubular projectiles filled with pitch oil -- diluted to make it flow more easily -- were launched at the camps for several minutes.
When the calls of attack and ambush began to rise, Phillip's archers -- now numbering more than 400 men, women, and young boys -- rained fire arrows down upon the encampments.
A conflagration enveloped vast portions of the siege camps that -- with the lack of leadership -- led to mass confusion.
It was then that Samuel's Mounted Warriors set upon the enemy.  They were vicious, as always, slashing and stabbing their way through the camp.
The rebels scattered in two directions, but with little success: those heading outward were met by a continuing rain of arrows; those who fled inward were met by the remains of the Capital Defense Force, which had come out via secret tunnels to engage the enemy, led by Samuel's Officers.
By the time the sun rose, the battle was over.  More than a thousand of Yorran's men were dead; another thousand had been captured; and a third thousand -- many injured, with many of those critically so -- had escaped into the forest.
There was initially a fear that the escaping survivors would attempt to mount a response, but it never came to be.  Some of the rebels were captured over the weeks to come, but most simply disappeared back to their farms, villages, and towns to forget that they'd ever carried a sword, bow, or spear at all.


Phillip of Greeling, Lord of Echo Valley:
The King couldn't very well ignore the contributions of Samuel of Greeling and his Woodland Warriors after they had saved the Kingdom.
But his desire to finally publicly recognize Samuel's heroism was foiled by the man's death the following days from injuries sustained in the battle.
Instead, as was customary in such a situation, Samuel's eldest and in this case only son was heaped with the praise and adulation that should have gone to his father.  This wasn't much of a stretch, of course; as young as he was, Phillip had been responsible for conceiving of the aerial attack that had so devastated the rebel army after its leadership was annihilated.
Phillip was Knighted, given the title of Count.
After a few weeks of consultation with his Counselors, the King awarded Lord Phillip the Earldom of Echo Valley, which had belonged to a now deceased Loyalist who'd left no descendants.
The surviving members of the Woodland Warriors were all declared Landed Peasants and given a purse of silver and promised 20 acres of land that would be taken out of the estates of rebel Nobles.  (This benevolence nearly bankrupted the Crown's treasury, but the King knew he would make it up in the long run by confiscating the valuables of those who'd betrayed him.)
[OOC] The Keep at Echo Valley

KingOfNowhere

KingOfNowhere

KingOfNowhere

KingOfNowhere
