OOC - A Proposed History Part 1: The Kelmoran Uprising

Sorry to hold up the story up guys. There is a lot of writing I want to do but I don't have enough time to do it. Anyway, this is part 1 of 4 of a series of recent-ish events that I'm planning on proposing happened, with the other 3 parts detailing the Cicilian Conspiracy, the Purge, and the Mage War.

As our setting is becoming more and more involved, I believe that we need to start defining at least major historical incedents that would potentially affect the back stories of many of our characters. To open this discussion, I'm going to post my ideas of what happened below, but I will not be offended if you guys want to write revisions or throw it out the window. Due to the lack of a defined calendar, I will define dates as years Before the Current Game Date (BCGD). If something doesn't work with your character's backstory or you have different ideas about how things happened, feel free to comment below. Without further ado...

42 BCGD - 41 BCGD, The Kelmoran Uprising:

Once upon a time, Verden was a land where mages and magical creatures could live and practice their crafts in relative peace. Verden had always been fairly heavily regulated compared to her neighbors, but the regulations regarding magic, and enforcement of said regulations was greatly ramped up in the wake of the Kelmoran Plague.

In 42 BCGD, Verden authorities discovered that the famous wizard, Galathus Kelmoran, had been kidnapping people for years and performing horrifying experiments on them. One of Galathus' apprentice's caught wind of the plan to arrest his master, and Galathus was able to escape into the countryside. Needless to say, the Verden authorities didn't just let the wizard get away with murder quite so easily, and they sent trackers to pursue and arrest him. Galathus then ambushed his pursuers with the assistance of a handful of undead abominations that he had created.

Unfortunately for Galathus, one of the trackers escaped the slaughter, and when the tracker's superiors heard her story, Galathus became the most wanted man in Verden. The local lord, Baron Eckhart Crosby, amassed his forces and pursued Galathus, hoping to crush the old wizard before he could amass a substantial undead horde.

Captured followers of Galathus would later claim during their confessions that the wizard hadn't originally planned on creating a zombie army, but Lord Crosby's actions forced him into it. Regardless of whether those claims were true or not, the necromancer fled from the Baron's army, and as he did so, he passed through a number of villages, razed them to the ground, and inducted their occupants into his own undead army. Eventually, Galathus gathered a fairly substantial force of zombies, wights, wraiths, etcetera, as well as a number of loyal followers (some were former students, others were magical prodigies that Galathus spared and indoctrinated, and others were depraved beings who just wanted to learn dark magics), and decided to make his stand.

Lord Crosby had requested assistance from other lords in containing the situation, as it didn't take a genius to see what the necromancer was up to. Other lords did indeed send troops to join the hunt, but unfortunately for Baron Eckhart Crosby, most of them did not arrive in time to save him. Crosby's army had started to gain on Kelmoran's swelling horde, so when Galathus suddenly went on the offensive, Crosby was caught mostly unprepared.

Eckhart Crosby was a man that was too valiant for his own good. The battle quickly turned against him as his levied troops lost their nerve and fled before their horrifying foes. Eckhart, instead of retreating to fight another day, led his knights in a suicidal charge. Legend has it that Eckhart and his knights cut a swath straight through Galathus' terrifying legion, and the Baron himself struck down the dreaded necromancer before he and his knights were overwhelmed.

What actually happened is a mystery, but what is known is that Crosby and most of his men perished, however, Galathus had indeed been gravely wounded, and to preserve his soul, he transformed himself into an undead lich.

Galathus, now calling himself Mal Kelmoran, supplemented his losses with the bodies and spirits of Crosby's fallen men, then led his horde against the armies of Count Henry Osrik and Baroness Lianna Csargard, who had been coming to reinforce Crosby. Kelmoran defeated them as well, though both of the nobles managed to escape the battle with their lives intact.

The situation had officially gotten out of control. Mal Kelmoran now had a frightenly large army, and there were no local forces that could possibly stand before him. His undead minions pillaged the countryside with impunity, while the lich himself led the bulk of his force to the city of Therborough and besieged it. If the city fell, the lich would have enough bodies to build an army the likes of which Verden had not seen in a long time.

Galathus Kelmoran was knowledgeable about many things, but siege warfare was not one of those things. The men and women trapped in the city knew that the fate of Verden rested in their hands. Determined to save their country as well as avoid the unpleasant fate of becoming shambling corpses, every resident in the city contributed to the defence, either with a weapon in hand, relaying messages, or bringing food to the soldiers. The dreaded foe threw themselves at the walls of Therborough numerous times, but every time they were repulsed.

Mal Kelmoran eventually settled in for a long siege, hoping to starve the defenders into submission. However, his blockade was poorly managed and implemented, and smugglers were able to get stuff in and out of the city. Kelmoran started to realize that the siege was not working, but his pride caused him to maintain the siege longer than he could afford to.

Alberic II, King of Verden (Asgurt's father. Silvercloud, if you had a different name in mind, just let me know), stepped in at this point. He raised the royal army, called together the armies of his vassals, and marched toward Therborough to relieve the beleagered city. King Alberic's army vastly outnumbered Mal Kelmoran's legions, and soon the necromancer was again fleeing for his life (or well, un-life at this point). Alberic's cavalry harrassed Kelmoran's forces for days as his army slowly caught up to the lich's vanguard. Kelmoran had tried to make a break for the Skeldergate Forest, but he realized that he wasn't going to make it before Alberic's army reached his. Nonetheless, he continued his retreat, but now made plans for battle.

Pulling a stunt similar to what he had done against Baron Crosby, Kelmoran suddenly went on the offensive once Alberic's army got close. King Alberic had kept his army moving at a swift pace in order to catch up to the fleeing lich, so unfortunately his men were quite weary by the time Kelmoran engaged them.

Kelmoran employed a shock and awe strategy, hoping to scare off and route Alberic's army before the King of Verden could rally his troops and utilize his much greater numbers. The lich and his mages bombarded Alberic's soldiers with flashy elemental magic while the undead legions formed a wide, thin, battle-line. The zombie horde fell upon the tired soldiers of Verden, and though many of Alberic's forces wavered, they did not break.

Alberic used his cavalry to encircle and cut through the thin enemy formations, and soon, the tide of the battle turned in his favor as Kelmoran's undead minions began to crumble before Alberic's stalwart men and women. In a last-ditch effort to pull victory from the jaws of defeat, Mal Kelmoran led a battalion of fearsome wight's into the fray, carving through Alberic's center in an attempt to reach King Alberic II himself.

King Alberic took the bait and brought his bodyguard's against Mal Kelmoran and his wights. The lich had put himself in a dangerous position by pushing so far into Alberic's army, and the king took advantage of the situation to completely surround the lich and his wight's. Mal Kelmoran could not best the King's bodyguards, and eventually, he and his wights were destroyed.

The battle was over, with Alberic II having finally defeated the menace that was Galathus Kelmoran at a fairly heavy cost of life. Unfortunately, quite a few of Kelmoran's followers had escaped, and many of them would cause problems for years to come.

The Inquisition was created in 40 BCGD around a year after Kelmoran's demise to combat the various Cults of Kelmoran that had cropped up after the lich's destruction. Some of his followers just couldn't accept that the war had been lost, and continued to fight from the shadows while others wanted to be the next great regional terror. All of these cults were eventually crushed, but it would take many years. To this day, some of Kelmoran's followers are still believed to be at large.

One other thing to note is that Galathus Kelmoran produced a number of texts on necromancy in order to efficiently educate his followers. Most of these have since been destroyed, but one has recently been stolen from the Royal Archives by one Sabina Hoyt Hibiscus...