Year 105,742: The Haesonian Dialogue

This Event was played out of sequence; it is chronologically concurrent with the Conqueror's invasion of Zefar.  For dramatic purposes, and to keep the players from unfairly using knowledge of one event to influence their behavior in another, I introduced this Event after the Conqueror handled the giants of Sathad-Zin.

Again, there was no historical document for this Event, since the players were familiar with the scene.

Alone among the people of the Delta, the Haesonai had a safe haven to which they could retreat.  The bulk of their people lived upon an island, so to there they retreated.  No one knew whether the Conqueror had a devastating fleet to match his terrible land army.  The Haesonai knew that Celestrones was from Joranne, and that the Bronze Empire was possessed of a navy, but perhaps Celestrones had not employed that navy in this conquest.  Was the navy engaged elsewhere?  Was it yet to come?

The various cities of the Haesonai did not spend idle time wondering.  They defended their waters with ships, each ship containing a sorceress who could raise a storm at need.  Winds and weather could keep the Conqueror at bay.

And the Haesonai were nothing if not adaptable.  Like the bamboo that grew in the marshes, they were flexible.  Their culture had been based upon competition, upon finding the best weapon for the job.  Unlike the Zefari, they had never relied upon one form of production.  The Haesonai believed in diversification.  Whichever was the best method would win out.  Swiftly they turned their attention to the use of iron and steel.  They had, after all, been trading partners of the Joranne, even though trade had fallen to a fraction of its previous level, so they had at least heard of steel before the Conqueror’s arrival.  And again, unlike their Zefari neighbors, their island was rich in iron.  All that was needed was time to forge a new army.  Safe behind their wall of storms, they bent iron into swords.

In defending their island against all incoming ships, the Haesonai had isolated themselves.  Even their sister cities on the mainland could not maintain contact when the seas, angry with magic, were too rough for travel.  Those cities had been left to defend themselves as best they could, wreathing their cities in illusions suitable to deflect the armies of the Conqueror.  His soldiers, the Haesonai believed, would never bother to conquer mere ruins.

But it was not merely the Conqueror with whom they had to contend.  The Zefari sent an envoy, backed by columns of soldiers, to the city of Veladis, right on the mouth of the bay.

General Drurich (M, 44) is a young for a high officer in the Zefari Army, but the constant defeats to Celestrian steel swords have thinned the ranks considerably.  He has been sent on an unpleasant but necessary task for the good of the Empire, and he has the backing of three divisions.  Drurich isn’t happy with his assignment.  Things back home aren’t going well.  The crumbling of Zefari social order is almost too far along to stop; the junior races of the Empire are wondering whether it might be time to abandon the security of the Empire and fend for themselves.  Independent city-states all along the coast are becoming hesitant to commit their support to a distant Emperor.

He addresses the Council of one such city of Veladis.  The council there is the Veladis Five, a small group of Haesonai amazon women and telepathic Boda.  The rule of the Five over Veladis dates back tens of thousands of years, back before the days when Chima and Tonta were combined into one.

“Council,” says General Drurich, “there is no use in pleasantries.  You are all painfully familiar with the approach of Celestria from the west, as are we all.  The Conqueror’s men approach, and they are bearing steel.  I need not inform you of the consequences of his arrival, so I will be brief.  The Emperor Rhees has sent me to collect your soldiers.”

“Our soldiers will remain here,” says Magister Ona (F, 58), an ex-military Haesonai woman.  “If our soldiers abandon the city, our walls cannot possibly hold.  Our people know this.  Without women to defend our walls, the people would panic and flee.  There would be chaos.  We cannot grant you the use of our soldiers.”

“The Emperor is not begging for soldiers,” says General Drurich.  “This is no request.  I am commanded to bring your soldiers to the front, where we make our stand against Celestrones.”

“That is impossible,” says Ona.  “It is a battle your army cannot win.  You cannot fight the Conqueror in an open field.  You have cavalry, and stone, and archers, but you do not have steel.  To stand up against the Conqueror in pitched battle is to march into death.  We will not authorize the Emperor their use.”

“The Emperor is descended from Chimata the Combined himself,” says Drurich, “who was set by the gods over Zefari and Haesonai alike.  That is his command, and your soldiers are to report to the battle.”

“Chimata the Combined respected Zefari and Haesonai alike,” says Magister Pleth (M, 33), a Boda telepath.  “He never would have burned one of his citizen to keep another citizen warm, as you propose to do by taking our defenses.”

“The Emperor has commanded me to observe how the Haesonai, especially of this city, did brisk business in trade with the people Bronze,” says Drurich.  “It occurs to him to wonder if perhaps the Veladians are allies more to Celestrones than to the Emperor.”

“Among the people of the Bronze Empire are merchants whom we know well,” says Magister Ona, “but of late we have traded with them little.  We are no allies of the Celestrians.”

“And yet,” Drurich says, “it is not the Haesonai whom Celestrones attacks.  He attacks Zefar’s armies only, sparing yours.  The Emperor may naturally wonder if you are in league with the Celestrians.”

“There is no collusion between Haesonai and the Conqueror,” says Ona.

“Do you call him Conqueror?” says Drurich.  “He is not yet conqueror of the Delta.  The armies of Zefar will obstruct Celestrones and his men with steel we are managing to create.  And if you of Veladis wish to earn your place in the Zefari Empire, you will send your soldiers into battle with us or be called craven.”

“We will do no such thing,” says Pleth.  “Our armies are our own to command, and our cities our own to defend.  When the Conqueror comes to Veladis we will hear his terms.”

“Then the Emperor, regretfully, declares your city forfeit.  Outside your walls I have two divisions of Zefari troops.  If you continue to obstruct the Empire we will destroy your city utterly.”

“Your Emperor,” says Pleth, “will make an enemy of all Haesonai.  They, at least, are our allies.  They are mistresses of the sea.  While your army lays siege outside our walls, the Haesonai navy may well come to our aid.  Our telepaths may even now, all unknown to you, be seeking out their vessels and calling them here.”

“The Emperor is not without a navy of his own,” says Drurich.  “If your people from the island of Amazons send their navy to assist you, they will first fight the Emperor’s own.  And still, I do not think this very likely, for your people must be concerned over their own safety as well.  Is it not more likely that your navy is occupied in defending the island?  How much of their strength would they spare to defend one city here?”

“They may send a very great force,” says Ona.  “And they may send none.  That remains to be seen.  Then, investing our city with your siege will cost you many soldiers that you can ill afford to spare from the battlefield.  Your Emperor may not find it wise.”

“The Emperor knows his people are anxious to rebel,” says Drurich.  “He does not wish to allow Veladis to go its own way, lest it give heart to other cities whose courage wavers.”

“And you propose to lay siege to Veladis, we who are not a threat, while all the while the Conqueror approaches at your back?” says Ona.  “Siege takes years that you do not have.  If your men fail to repel the Conqueror, you will be slaughtered on our doorstep.  Then, perhaps, your zombie corpses will serve better in our cause than they did in yours.”

("Oh, snap!" said Dave the Artisan.)

“If you are so desperate to hope for our destruction at the hands of the Celestrians, then you place no hope in your allies of Haesonai,” says Drurich.  “So again I say, supply your soldiers to the Zefari Army at once, to be taken into battle against Celestrones, or the city in which you live will be razed to its foundations.  The people of the Empire must see that the Emperor does not crawl away weakly when one of his subject cities resists him.”

What The Players Decided 
As one, they decided that the best result could be obtained by resisting the peremptory demands of General Drurich and the Emperor.

"I hate politics," Dave added.

"They should definitely fight," Jack said.

"Yeah, they should fight," Connor agreed.

Do you think that General Drurich has a point? I asked.

"Well, yes, but I'm not so sure if it'll stiffen the spines of the other rebellious cities," Dave said.

They realized with a certain dread that they had just prepared the Zefari Empire with spells and enchantments that could be used to fight the Conqueror, which the Zefari would now use to fight the Haesonai.

"We want the Zefari to be as strong as possible when it fights the Conqueror," Joe said.  "To be strong it has to have the united strength of all its cities.  That means we have to lose this one.  I say they have to fight."

"All right, they fight," Dave said.  "But I want it noted in the blog that I said to leave my giants alone."

Results 
I won't know the results of this round until I prepare for the next round.

Year 105,743: The Conqueror Turns East

Although this segment followed chronologically from the Courthouse at Celestria, we didn't play it until after the Conqueror invaded Zefar.  My reasons for this were twofold.  First, I didn't want to give the players the opportunity to stop the Conqueror from invading Zefar.  The players might have tried to abort the eastern expedition and convince Celestrones to consolidate his holdings.  That's a reasonable thing for them to have asked, but it wouldn't forward the development of technology, or the migration of peoples.  Second, I didn't want to mingle two events simultaneously and make the players juggle both the Courthouse and the eastern invasion; mixing up their two priorities might have resulted in some very odd developments.  I also did not prepare a historical document for this Event, as the players should already be familiar with the Conqueror and his purpose.

In any case, we turn now to the Conqueror, just prior to the eastern campaign.

Celestrones the Conqueror has completed his consolidation of his holdings in the former Empire of Sathad and, at age 38, is preparing an eastward push into the lands of the Haesonai.  The coastal jungles lay before him, and the savannah at his back.  His generals insisted upon first establishing firm control over the Galos River and the ports there, but Celestrones overruled them.  The giants of Chon Zin are a war for another day, the Conqueror says; we cannot forever ignore the raids of the Amazons into our eastern flank.

But, say his generals, we cannot either ignore the mighty giants.  They have fortified the river of Galos with walls and embankments and towers.  If we do not defeat them soon, their defenses will be impossible to penetrate.

Oresthal (M, 46) is Celestrones's most trusted adviser since the death of Attades.  “To do the most good for the most people, and the least harm,” says Oresthal, “I must first be allowed to study the giants and their culture.  They are unlike us, and their cities are built in fours:  their people are many and varied.  Among them are men with wings, both large and small, who live in the highest parts of the city; and long-lived men of bark-like skin who live in the gardens of the city; and the giants themselves.  How are we to know what is good, and what is bad, for a people of whom we know nothing?”

General Yantres (M, 50) is a strong supporter of Celestrones's empire, and a good soldier:  obedient when his orders come down, and loud-spoken when his opinion is asked.  In this case, he cannot agree to leave the giants at the Conqueror's back.  “Precisely because we do not know them, we must not think them idle,” he says.  “The giants came down from the Teeth of Nagiz and took the city.  They tore down the walls of Nagiz and seized the Empire at the moment the Pharaohs seemed weakest.  And here we plan to quit the field, to start an expedition east, and leave behind our holdings in the hands of the locals?  The Chon Zin are sure to attack us the moment we send the army east.  Let us attack them first.  If we impress into our army giants and winged archers, how much easier it will be to proceed east and conquer the Amazons.”

“The Chon Zin are fortifying only east of the river,” says Commander Hareton (M, 34), who commands the Conqueror's personal squadron of ships.  “They are preparing for our attack, and yet they are not massing armies.  I've seen the docks at Galos.  The new Pharaohs of Sathad aren't interested in fighting us, and I say it is best we keep things that way.”

What The Players Decided 

Dave likes the culture of the peaceful giants and wants to protect them from the ravages of the world.  He can always be counted on to support whatever side they're on.  "I say to leave them alone," he said.  "They're not attacking.  Do you walk up to the hornet's nest and start hitting it?  No, you just let them do what they're doing, pollinating flowers."

"That's bees," said Jack.

"Oh.  Did I say hornets?  I meant bees."

"I agree, they're not a threat," Joe said.  "As long as you're not attacking them, they won't attack you.  All you have to do," he said, as if speaking to Celestrones, "is walk up to them and tell them their leader isn't strong enough, and take them over.  Easy."

There was precedent for that in Earth's history, I told them.  That's precisely how Alexander the Great had gotten himself voted leader of the Athenian League.

"No, leave the giants alone," Dave said.

"I'm only taking this position because I know you like the giants," Joe said smugly.

"If I could just play Devil's Advocate, here—" Dave began.

"You, Devil's Advocate?  You're already on the giants' side," Joe said.

"—we already know that the Conqueror is going to survive this.  We've seen him in the future.  We can't stop him from going east and attacking Zefar.  Whatever happens here, we know the Conqueror is going to win."

But if he's fighting Sathad-Zin and Zefar at the same time, I pointed out, he might not have enough men for both.

"He could just take one, and then take the other," Joe the Leader pointed out, in his role as God of Conquest.  "Then when he got to Zefar he'd have giants in his army."

Dave again hoisted the "leave my giants alone" banner.

"I agree with Joe," Jack said at long last.

Dave wanted it to be known in the blog that he registered his disapproval.

Results 

I won't know the results of this round until I've prepped for the next round.

End of Empire

An excerpt from End of Empire by Yeshi the Observer

The Conqueror wintered in Hobras with his troops, near to the ruins of Vess, and his men fortified the city.  In so taking the upper reaches of the Ephacce River, the Conqueror impeded river traffic from Veladis northwestward.  The following spring there was an escalation in the cost of many goods normally traded along that river.  Some boatwomen returning from the river said that the Conqueror was confiscating barges and all their cargo.  Some said the arrival of the Conqueror had given rise to banditry.

The armies of Zefar could not do battle with the Conqueror.  Those who fell on the battlefield were left behind with their bronze swords shattered and their bronze shields shorn in two.  All the magic that had served the Zefari so well in the forging of their Empire had failed them now, for steel was stronger than bronze, and the secret of steel was not known to magic.

In all the cities of Zefar, the people turned against their masters.  The Zefari had ruled long over the others:  the Drendel horse-men, the Avadi northerners, and the Boda mentalists were all lesser races to the Zefari.  Now fear ran through the Empire, fear of the Conqueror that they could not halt.  The Zefari had failed to protect the Empire that they built.  Deprived of comfort and security, the people began to whisper of turning against the Emperor.

Only the Abbadar remained loyal to the Empire, for long ago, Ayalthar the United had offered clemency to those people and invited them back to their holy lands from whence the Empire had expelled them.  The Abbadar, all in appreciation, did swear undying loyalty to the cause of Zefar.

This was not popular among the people of the Empire.  Loyalty to a helpless Empire during this time of crisis was worse, in the eyes of some, than treason…

Year 105,742: The Conqueror Invades Zefar

After the Rite of Union in 105,560, the combined person of Ayalro, Prince of the Haesonai, and Redelthar, Imperial Prince of the Zefari, was the heir apparent to both empires.  When his Zefari father, the Emperor Salathon, passed away five years later, the Emperor Ayalthar assumed both thrones.  The two nations, north and south of the Ephacce River, were united as one, led by a single individual that had a unique understanding of both.

One of his first actions as Emperor was to re-open the homeland to the Abbadar in exile.  The Abbadar had fled — or been expelled — from the region of the Ephacce Delta since their people had been conquered, two thousand years before.  Since that diaspora they had wandered in the wild, maintaining their memories of the Delta region only in their myths and stories encoded into the Gospels of In-Pella, also called the Tales of Our Exile.  As an act of generosity, to unify the people of Zefar and Haesonai as he himself had been unified, Emperor Ayalthar reinstated their ancient lands to them.  The Abbadar would be permitted under his imperial grace to become reunited with the Boda, their long-distant kin who had remained behind.

This clemency was not universally appreciated among both empires.  Many who had settled the Delta during the intervening centuries were unwilling to be relocated.  They argued, not without justification, that the Abbadar had fled the Delta voluntarily, giving up their lands and homes in response to visions of the future.  Why should those lands be returned to them?

However, nobody objected too strenuously, nor too loudly, to the Emperor’s plan.  Most Abbadar had unexplained psychokinetic and psychic powers, to possibly include mild forms of telepathy, precognition, and clairvoyance; they were adept at telling truth from lies — a particular obsession among the Zefari, for one — and at evading upcoming dangers.  The Abbadar could be for the united Empires a sort of canary in a coal mine.  If any danger were apt to strike the Delta, a flood or a monsoon or an invasion, the Abbadar would be the first to know.  Some said, “Does not the return of the psychics indicate that our homeland is safe?  Would they return to these lands if danger were imminent?”

Such acceptance of the Abbadar’s talents lasted approximately two centuries.  Many of the Abbadar who returned from lands to the west brought with them the Gospels of In-Pella, in which was predicted the rise of a great chaos of warfare directed by a Conqueror yet to come.  The proclamations of doom were unnerving to the Zefari in particular, who had severe social injunctions against mortals impersonating deities, or speaking on behalf of the divine.  Among the Zefari were many who accused the Abbadar of fomenting unrest for their own purposes, or of being unnecessarily pessimistic.  It was bad for business.

That all changed in 105,742.  At the furthest western edges of the Zefari Empire, occupied mostly by Haesonai fishing villages and trading towns amid the jungle, the armies of Celestrones the Conqueror hove into view.  The prophecies of the Abbadar were coming true.  I outlined the difficulties faced by the Zefari Empire by giving the Players an excerpt from End of Empire, written by a neutral Haesonai historian named Yeshi the Observer.

The Haesonai were long associated with the people of Celestrones, having conducted robust trade with them for hundreds of years.  Their armies of light, mobile, bronze-armed Amazons made difficult targets for the Conqueror, who more often found himself chasing shadows than doing battle, yet the armies of the Celestrian Empire could not be matched by any strategy the Amazons knew.  His armies were able to advance largely unopposed through the jungle, pacifying the towns it encountered through a combination of diplomacy, infrastructure, and trade.  In carving swaths through the thick jungle, the Conqueror’s vast supply of troops and manpower did what the lightly populated groups of Haesonai were unable to do themselves:  to build a series of connecting roads linking their towns in a network of profitable trade.

Under the protection of the Conqueror, border raids of the Haesonai towns ceased.  The skirmishes between displaced Sathad warlords, Inoren riders, and Haesonai frontierswomen were quashed.  The Conqueror brought peace and culture, at a small price.

As the Haesonai disappeared into the jungle, fighting a mobile guerilla war against a virtually impregnable enemy, the armies of Zefar came out in large columns.  The Zefari had mixed-unit tactics, guentar cavalry, and archers.  What they did not have was iron.

Bronze they could make in any quanitity:  their Earth-mages conjured pure copper, and pure tin, and the two pure metals were alloyed together.  Steel was impure.  The Zefari Earth-mages could conjure a wall made of weak iron, but they could not conjure even a thimble full of carbon steel.  As a result, the Zefari’s bold offensive strategy to meet the Conqueror head-on in battle quickly turned into a defensive evasion, then a rout.  All the Zefari stone mages could do was erect diversionary walls in a vain attempt to keep out the Celestrians.

The Zefari Empire had been constructed with the Zefari firmly at the top, the source of all magic and crafting and security.  From them came the best bronze, the best stonework, and the best tools, and so from them had come leadership and command.  Now their strongest asset was useless to resist the advance of the Conqueror.  The other races of the Empire finally felt fear, and anger at the Zefari for their failure.

As quickly as the Zefari had tumbled from their lofty place atop their society, the prestige of the lesser races of Zefari rose.  The guentars had been masters of the forge.  It was they who alloyed pure metals into bronze.  They bent all their skill to the replication of iron, as quickly as it might be learned.  To fight the Conqueror they would need to divine his secrets.  The Avadi northerners possessed magic of their own, not sufficient to withstand the Conqueror’s armies, but enough to slow him down.  The Boda used their latent precognitive power to predict when and where the Conqueror would advance next.  Even the Abbadar stood to resist — possibly because they knew there was almost nowhere to run.  With their telepathy, they attempted to steer the armies of Celestrones against one another, to some success.

But when a civilization’s back is to the wall, it turns upon itself.  The last-ditch efforts of the Abbadar to save their ancestral homeland was not enough to convince the people of the Delta that the telepaths were good neighbors.  Had the Abbadar not lived in the west?  Hadn’t they returned to the Delta just before the Conqueror?  Weren’t these the people who flee at the first sign of trouble?  Why do they remain here?  What is their purpose?

Emperor Rhees III (M, 16) is a young emperor, barely sixteen, but the best pick of a lean family line.  He is eight generations removed from Emperor Ayalthar the Combined, and was the only apparent choice for the throne.  Preserving the line of Ayalthar was essential to maintaining harmony in the Delta between the rebellious, independent Haesonai and the structured, practical Zefari.  Rhees was raised as well as could be expected, and is bearing up well, but nothing has prepared him for the end of his empire.  In these dark times, he borders tears of despair, and he listens to his advisers in shock.  There seems to be little anyone can suggest.

General Athosis (M, 41) is a battle-hardened guentar, tough and scarred, who has seen the Conqueror’s men in the field.  “We are making steel,” he tells the Emperor, “but not quickly enough.  We need tons of the stuff to put a decent army in the field.  We haven’t got tons.  We haven’t got a single iron mine from Reyash to Skeltern.  Your Zefari can only conjure so much iron a day, and after that it’s got to be smelted and forged.  That takes time, and it takes guentars out of the battlefield.  If you want steel for the rest of your army, I’ve got to give my quartermasters every spare set of hands I can get.  You might as well assign the cavalry to me, for all the good they’re doing on the battlefield.”

Pagligarana (M, 56) is a Zefari mage, during one of his rare spare moments.  He and the other Zefari, any with even the slightest skill in Earth magic, have been conjuring supplies day and night for the army.  It is difficult for the Zefari to come to grips with the new reality, that the Empire which they built with raw magical talent would be defeated by something so mundane as a blacksmith.  Blacksmiths were commoners, not magic at all.  “I cannot escape the feeling that the Abbadar are aiding the cause of the Conqueror,” he explains to the Emperor.  He’s exhausted and short-tempered from many successive twenty-hour work days.  “These are people who can see danger coming.  Why don’t they run?  Surely they can see as clearly as we that the end of the empire is near.”

“Shut your mouth,” says Thaun (M, 59), the Avadi High Priest.  “The gods would never permit the Zefari Empire to fall to the likes of Celestrones.  He’s little better than a soldier, they say; son of an aristocrat.  His armies win by sorcery and base deception.”

“His armies win,” says General Athosis pointedly, “with tactics.  And with steel.  Which,” he adds, “we haven’t got.”

“Always you have an excuse for your incompetence, General,” declares the High Priest.  “Steel is an impure metal, a corruption of its natural state.  Such a blasphemous creation could only defeat the armies of Zefari if their hearts are not pure.  It is a moral failing of your soldiers, general.”

“A moral failing?” asks General Athosis.  “Have you seen what a steel sword does to a bronze shield?”

“Your men are being led astray by the wiles of the Abbadar Oracles,” says the High Priest.  “They’re whispering words of deceit and betrayal in their ears.  It weakens their resolve.  We must take steps to crush the Abbadar before they assist the Celestrians to overthrow His Imperial Majesty’s entire empire.”

“Destroying the Abbadar is pointless,” says the Zefari mage Pagligarana wearily.  “What we need to do is surrender now, and quickly, before Celestrones swallows up the entire Delta.  Soon we will have to retreat north behind the Grand Palisade, and the gods only know if even those will stop him.”

What The Players Decided

"Is that their question?" Joe asked.  "If the Palisade will stop the Conqueror?  Because we can answer that right now:  no."

They're looking for ways to respond to the Conqueror's invasion, I reminded them.

Almost immediately the players dived for the list of magic spells and began combing through them for something, anything, designed to stop an invasion.  There wasn't much, but as the Zefari was made of two races with more-than-average magical talent — the Avadi and the Zefari — it was the best resource they had.

"We built this Empire," Dave said, referring to the Conqueror, and feeling a little guilt for what they had unleashed.

"We built all of these empires," Joe the Leader pointed out.  "We're not going to be able to keep all of them alive and happy."

It was true, I conceded.  They had allowed a culture to expand to enormous dimensions based on the conjuration of metal resources.  Zefar didn't have an iron mine to its name.  Naturally it would be threatened by another culture with a more flexible, less dogmatic view of technology.

Connor pointed out the spell Penetrating Weapon.  Could that be used by the Zefari to turn back the Conqueror?

Dave took up the stance that the Zefari empire must be given every advantage; Joe took the position that having their asses kicked would be good for Zefar.  Jack was studying the map very quietly.

"We can't just let the Conqueror take these guys over," Dave complained.  "Then we'll have just one culture across the entire continent."

"He's spreading roads, trade, technology, and writing," Joe said.  "And philosophy, law, self-government.  Why are we against this again?"

Dave made a face.  "I don't really like his system of laws," he joked.

"What?  You just helped install them," Joe said, laughing.

Other spells were available to the Zefari that with their advanced Earth magic, the Conqueror would not be able to defend against:  Summon Earth Elemental, for one.  The spell Steelwraith would protect one from even being touched by metal.  Turnblade could cause a blade to strike with the flat instead of with the edge, but was useless on arrows and spears.

"I agree with Joe, we should let the Conqueror fight them," Connor said.

"There, it's three to one," Joe said.

"Hey, Connor used to be on my side," Dave protested, "and now he's on your side.  And you say I'm the weaselly middle ground?"

Joe made a very cogent statement on the nature of warfare.  "If we want these guys to survive, we have to let them fight.  They're going to have to come up with a technology to defeat the Conqueror.  Warfare is the best way to advance that technology.  I say bring it on, let the Conqueror attack."

"Then we're arguing the same thing," Dave said, relieved.  "Just from different sides."

And Connor keeps switching anyway, I observed.

The Players came to their final conclusion.  They warned the Zefari not to harass the Abbadar.  The reason they have not run from the Conqueror is that they smell success!  You must not retreat.  Oh, and here's a list of spells you might try...

Results
I won't know the results of this round until I prep for next round.

Year 105,739: The Celestrian Code Of Laws

To set the tone for the story to come, and the basis for the Conqueror's empire, I started them off with a selection from Justice, in specific the trial of Dytoclanes, as recorded by his student Attades.

Celestrones the Conqueror retook the island of Joranne in 105,732 in a storm of steel javelins, long pikes, and deadly spears.  The warlord Jlando of Ruif, who had seized the mines of Joranne with deception and daring, didn’t stand a chance against the onslaught.  None of his weapons could protect him against a short sword forged from Bazik steel.

After taking nine months to secure the islands, regroup, and outfit the army, Celestrones came to reflect upon the teachings of Attades.  He had won a tremendous victory against a virtually defenseless foe.  The battle was scarcely a contest, and had he not been fighting to retake his homeland, he might have wondered if there was honor in such a one-sided battle.  For the first time, men had died under his command, and at his command.  As Attades had taught him, he now realized the truth:  in order to do the most good for the most people, it may be necessary to do harm.

And yet, Celestrones decided, the harm did not come from within the Bronze Empire; it came from Sathad.  The giants of Chon Zin had assumed the throne of the Pharaoh, but in so doing, they had fractured Sathad into dozens of warring factions.  The Inoren of the east were breaking away.  Every warlord of Sathad promised his people riches, safety, and peace, but delivered only death and war.  Tribute was exacted from the people to pay for endless slaughter over territory.  What had once been a center of culture and civility, religion and trade, was now a disunited realm of barbarians.  The giants had turned the river Galos into a fortification, a final barricade against encroaching barbarism.  Had Celestrones known of the prophetic Abbadar, and that they had all fled, he would not have condemned them for it.

The job of protecting the Bronze Empire was not yet finished, Celestrones decided.  In order to secure her fully, it would be necessary to bring peace to Sathad.  That worthy goal would not be achieved without cost, but Celestrones was willing to make Sathad pay that price for peace.  In the winter of the following year, he moved vast numbers of his iron-clad army across the straits to the mainland.  Once his forces were assembled at the mouth of the Galos, he proceeded to sweep them north and east.  Every warlord that stood in his way was either converted to his cause or trampled under.  Every city that he captured peacefully was given its autonomy:  they would govern themselves as they thought best, assisted by a satrap of his choosing, and they would owe only tribute and men for the army.  Every city that resisted him was erased from the map.

As his armies spread east, they grew.  Local warlords feared to stand in the path of such a mighty force of horsemen, archers, swordsmen, chariots, sorcerers, and elephants, and rather than die fighting him, they helped him against their more traditional foes.  With the aid of one of his advisers, Oresthal, Celestrones learned the culture and languages of the Sathad people, and spread the language and alphabet of Joranne.  He built cities in his wake, not for commerce or for farming or for conquest, but merely to manage the vast Empire he was building.  Generals trained under him, learned his methods — both his brilliant military innovations and his unprecedented political ones.  Despite his epithet, Celestrones was no conqueror and he had no interest in running anyone else’s affairs.  By granting his conquered cities independence and peace he gained respect and admiration.  He ruled far more successfully with peace and good management than the warlords had done with fear.

The conquest of the savannah took nearly five years, but in time Celestrones brought his armies to what he considered to be the rotting center of the endless fighting:  the Great Temple at Pharo.  From here the priests of the Temple collected great tributes, and from here the tribute was spent to finance the wars on the savannah.  In a rage, and without hesitation, Celestrones ordered the city sacked, the Great Temple destroyed, the statues of all but five of the gods beheaded, and the High Priestesses of all the gods in the temple stripped of their wealth.

He ordered a city named Celestria built on its ruins.  In place of the Great Temple, Celestrones built a courthouse.

Celestrones (M, 29) is the Conqueror himself:  educated, determined, calculating but ethical, generous to his allies and ruthless to his foes.  He is prepared to do whatever he must to secure lasting peace for Bazik and Joranne, and if this means forcing peace down the throats of her neighbors, so be it.  In his wake he has left behind the Bronze Empire, two allied islands with a rudimentary common government, and in its place he has founded the Celestrian Empire:  self-rule for all, within certain defined imperial boundaries.

His present headache is administrative governance.  Formerly the Great Temple and its network of local priests was the center of the judiciary, dispensing legal judgments in the name of whoever claimed to be Pharaoh this month.  Celestrones has had to demolish the entire thing and begin from scratch.  The old code of laws written by Mlabmis to unite the people were a nightmare of exceptions, loopholes, and compromises between the many resident cultures.  Celestrones does not wish to be consulted on every petty interpretation of the law, nor perpetuate the present system where a judge is permitted to pass lenient sentences on those who pay the biggest bribe, or who have the proper racial makeup.

His tutor, Attades (M, 68) has accompanied him on this prolonged mainland expedition in order to moderate his more militant tendencies.  Attades's recommendation is to implement a system similar to what he described in Justice:  the punishment of law would be placed into the hands of a judge, with an investigative panel of philosophers at his disposal, who would analyze the various arguments, circumstances, and evidence of each case in order to determine into which ethical category the accused's behavior fell.  Attades defined many kinds of behavior, such as an unjust wrong, a justifiable wrong, a necessary wrong, and a righteous wrong, in addition to a selfish right, a shared right, a retributive right, and many others.  That, he says, is the model from which we begin to build perfect justice.  We analyze the context of the crime and the status of the criminal, before dispensing an appropriate sentence.

Oresthal (M, 37) is, like the Conqueror himself, a student of Attades.  He has pursued the philosophy of his master into a primitive form of scientific quantification and categorization.  If good and bad are relative, and dependent upon a finely balanced understanding of the nature of all things, reasoned Oresthal, then one must begin by first calculating the nature of all things, by which actions and ethics can later be determined.  At the side of the Conqueror, Oresthal has been learning a great deal, studying everything he can find, employing batteries of scribes to document his findings on plants, animals, cultures, languages, history, cities, technology, magic, and the people themselves.

Oresthal's recommendation is to preserve the old ways.  He isn't convinced that imposing an entirely new system of justice will work unless they first understand all of the complexities of the old one.  The people are accustomed to consulting their priestesses as moral judges.  Only the priestesses, professionals in moral analysis, had the training and insight into the arcane and twisting legal precedents.   The common people didn't understand the ways of the heavens and couldn't settle the law themselves.  Before we discard all the foundation of law, we must first know what it is we're destroying.  What may we safely retain, and what must we cast out?  Five races came together at Pharo, and from five peoples the law was intertwined.  To sever that tangled knot of law is to unravel the fabric that holds these varied peoples together.

Celestrones does not have an answer.  Although he doesn't approve of letting the gods meddle in mortal law, he is practical enough to realize that no system will govern if the people themselves don't like it.  If we install an unpopular system, no cases will be brought before the courts, Celestrones argues, and the people will simply go to settling the cases informally among themselves.  Besides, he says, the principles of his empire are at stake:  I promise my subjects safety, fairness, and self-governance.  How can I give them self-justice without giving them back the judicial system of corrupt priestesses that they had before?

What The Players Decided 

First, they stared at me in shock.  Joe the Leader turned to his phone.

"Now we have to set up a system of law for a whole conquering empire," he texted to Jean, who was absent this week — she's an attorney.  "Thanks for skipping tonight."

"LOL," she texted back.  A big help, I'm sure.

Dave the Artisan stared gloomily at the others.  "I miss the days when we just had moon tigers to worry about."

It took the players a little while to get their feet under them and come to grips with the massive and important task they had before them.  In addition to devising a method for determining guilt or innocence, they wondered how they would implement a system of fair punishments.

"We could just put the priests in charge of that part," Connor said.  "Obey the law and you get to go to heaven."

"We're going to build the afterlife into the legal system?" Joe exclaimed.

They turned to the list of magic spells that I had made available to an Iron Age society.  Joe pointed down to one item.  "Compel Truth.  Just puttin' that out there."

Magic would become the essential structure of their legal system.  A magical item would be enchanted to compel truth and, hopefully, dispel any existing enchantments.  Joe suggested a magical book that the witnesses put their hands upon.  Jack, in turn, suggested a magical lasso made all in gold.

The Players examined the uses for judges, a court system, and a jury.  "We have this idea from Justice about a judge, and he's got a panel of philosophers to investigate," Joe said.

"We have something that makes them tell the truth," Connor pointed out.  "Why do we need any of that?"

You'll still need to know which witnesses to bring in, I said.

The Players didn't want to cast out the priestesses entirely, because that was the basis for holding the Empire together.  They broke down the five remaining gods that Celestrones had not destroyed — the five that the Bronze Empire itself worshiped — and used that as their starting point. 

Without restating their arguments and digressions in their entirety, they elected to establish a court of five judges.  Each judge would have a part to play in pronouncing sentence, and a specific role to play during the trial, based on the god or goddess whom he represented.  Dave was the God of Truth, who would be moderator of the court and who would command the panel of investigators as necessary.  Temu, played by the absent Jean, was Goddess of Justice, so her judge would represent the defendant.  Joe was God of War and Conquest, so his judge would represent the prosecution.  Jack, as Storyteller, would have a judge to represent the history of the law, as well as to transcribe the events of the court.  Connor was Goddess of Fertility, which didn't have much to do with law, but as a general hand-wave toward his role of Mystic, they said his judge would be responsible for any magical proceedings.

Results 

I won't know the results of this round until I prepare for the next round.

Justice

An excerpt from Justice by Attades

The magistrate Xerotes called last to the dais Dytoclanes himself, and he stood before the Dreamers who sat in judgment.

Xerotes the magistrate asked:  You do declare before the assembly that you are Dytoclanes the Scribe, a scholar of Joranne?

Dytoclanes:  Yes, I am Dytoclanes the Scribe.  I do not call myself a scholar, but others do say it of me.

Xerotes:  You have heard the testimony before the assembly.  You have been accused of poisoning the thoughts of your students with rabble-rousing nonsense, and of questioning the authority of the Tyrant Elza Narades, and of jeopardizing the security of the state.  Do you deny these charges?

Dytoclanes:  I do, and I do not.

Xerotes:  Explain to the assembly your position, for it makes no sense.

Dytoclanes:  I do concede that I did teach my students of the nature of Truth and Goodness, as has already been described; that I do not deny.  That some in this assembly do call it poisoning the minds of students, I also do not deny.  That some call it rabble-rousing nonsense, I do not deny.  Whether one is the other, it is not for me to say.

Xerotes:  Explain.  Confine your answer to the facts and do not speak nonsense.

Dytoclanes:  I teach my students that to arrive at the Truth, one must see it from all sides.  I see Truth from my own side, and you see Truth from your own side.  In your hand, magistrate, there is a scroll from which you read.  I see the scroll is blank.  Do you see that the scroll is blank?

Xerotes:  This is the scroll on which your crimes are writ.

Dytoclanes:  Ah, but does not a scroll have two sides?  I see no charges; I see a blank parchment.  Is that not an aspect of the truth?

Xerotes:  It is part of the truth, but it is more right to say that the scroll has writing.

Dytoclanes:  Your scroll, then, only has one side?

Xerotoes:  It has two sides.

Dytoclanes:  But you have told me only of one side, therefore in some way you are concealing the truth.

Xerotes:  The side without instruction is not important.

Dytoclanes:  Ah, but into a scroll without writing, anything may be written or read.  Is that not more useful than a scroll into which only one thing has been written?  A scroll with writing can be used for only one purpose, its own.

Xerotes:  There is a purpose for a scroll without writing, but I am using this scroll only for this purpose.

Dytoclanes:  And what is your purpose for that scroll?

Xerotes:  I am here to determine your guilt before the assembly.  The scroll I bear lists the crimes you have committed against the state.

Dytoclanes:  And how do you determine my guilt?

Xerotes:  I determine your guilt by asking questions of you before the assembly, as well you know, Dytoclanes.  You are not here to ask questions, you are here to answer them.  You have been accused of questioning the authority of the Tyrant.  Do you deny this, yes or no?

Dytoclanes:  I never questioned the authority of the Tyrant.  He has authority by law to decide what he feels is best for Joranne.  I only questioned the truth of the Tyrant’s decisions.

Xerotoes:  In so doing, you caused others to question the authority of the Tyrant.

Dytoclanes:  Do you question the authority of the Tyrant?

Xerotes:  I do not, nor does anybody present.

Dytoclanes:  Then, magistrate, I do deny the charge.  If questioning the authority of the Tyrant is a crime, I did not do so.  Let he who questions the Tyrant be brought forth instead.  If I caused others to question the Tyrant, again let him be brought forth.  I asked questions to learn the truth.

Xerotes:  That is your crime, then.  Do you deny it?

Dytoclanes:  I do not, magistrate who asks questions to determine the truth.  Do you?

Celestrones the Conqueror

An excerpt from Phantor's Celestrones the Conqueror

Celestrones was the son of Maklonaides, a general in the Jorannian ground army.  Maklonaides served with, trained with, and commanded branches of the Bazik wing of the Bronze Navy, as well as on joint operations with the armies of Sathad horsemen.  Maklonaides raised his son with the best tutors and instilled in him a broad working knowledge of the military and its traditions.  Among Celestrones’s tutors was Attades.

Attades gave Celestrones a foundation in philosophy and learning, beginning with Law, his own methodical inquiries into the nature of truth and goodness that expanded upon the works of his late master Dytoclanes.  In addition, Celestrones learned cooperative Bronze Empire government in Varbu, where he was trained as a delegate from his home city of Kalbarad.  For several years, he also served in both the Bronze Navy and in the ground forces as a cavalry archer.

The fractured empire of Sathad, to the north, continued its periodic raids against the Bronze Navy, largely in an attempt to capture the tin mines of Joranne to secure a necessary component of bronze for the Sathad.  The warlords grew bolder, and became better sailors out of necessity, so good that even the Bronze Navy was occasionally pressed to keep them at bay.

To the navy’s detriment, Elza Narades, now the aged tyrant of the Bronze Empire, had agreed to sign away some of that tin supply to the Haesonai in trade.  That agreement enriched Elza Narades personally, and was a diplomatic victory for the Empire, but was also seen as his final, fatal step too far in the direction of unenlightened self-interest.  Warships from Sathad, disguised as Haesonai traders, broke the lines of the navy.  Battle commenced on the island of Joranne for possession of the mines.

The generals in Bazik knew they had to press the attack and re-take the mines immediately, for it was also their own bronze supplies at stake.  Without the tin of Joranne, the Bazik could only make mere copper, which was no match for bronze.  How could they make war on Joranne to capture tin, without having tin?  Celestrones ordered the forges and smiths of Bazik to find a substitute that could be used temporarily, a metal only durable enough to retake Joranne.  The smiths of Bazik settled upon iron.

Pure iron was found to be not much heavier or harder than bronze, but where bronze must be melted at high temperatures and cast into a mold, iron could be hammered at cooler temperatures without first melting it.  Since the Bronze Empire had been forged by allowing like with unlike, the smiths knew that two metals alloyed could be stronger together than either alone.  And so the smiths of Bazik melded iron with charcoal to produce the first steel.

Armed with swords of steel, and clad in steel armor, the forces of Celestrones swept across the Gulf of Tenore and stormed the island of Joranne.  The warlords of Sathad, despite all their weapons and armor, were cut down.  Once the army had picked up their new weapons, and having seen how easily an iron sword could shear through bronze plate, they never put them down again…