"Appendix C: The Arcanian War" by Emilie Aurora Finn

In 1163, the 22-year-old Queen Ellena inherited from her mother, the late Queen Melady, a country that was teetering on the brink of both political and moral collapse. The people of Arcania, the country on the southern border of Lauralia, had been experimenting for some time with stripping their land of resources to create devices of all kinds. Some of these were benign, and at first, Queen Melady had welcomed the voice- and music-boxes, synthetic bow strings and cloths, preserved foods, bicycles, and other devices the merchants of Lauralia brought from Traderston, on the Arcanian border.

It was only near the end of her reign, when her own people began experimenting with extracting the resources to create these devices themselves, that she realized the danger this activity posed to the balance of the ecology of the land. Lauralian monarchs had always limited the activities of miners, foresters, farmers, and engineers with an eye to maintaining the balance of all life in Lauralia. Until the advent of the Arcanian devices, the people had respected and adhered to these regulations without question. Now the more progressive nobles in the provinces of Kait, Metalton, and Reynold began questioning and even disputing outright the justification behind those laws.

The quality of life for all citizens of Lauralia, but especially of the peasant classes, could be improved immeasurably, they argued, if they were to follow in the footsteps of the Arcanians and develop labor-saving, time-saving devices of their own. Not to mention the improvements in the areas of scientific discovery, communication, and military ability.

The Queen opposed this, telling them again and again that to upset the balance of the land to the degree necessary to create the volume of devices they talked of was to sign their own death warrant in the distant future. Fewer and fewer of her people believed her, however, or cared for a future centuries away if they did, especially since when they demanded scientific proof of what she asserted, she could only tell them the old myth of the Earth Magic inherited from her non-human ancestors. No one believed in myths anymore; especially myths that seemed designed to keep the present oppressive government in power.

To combat the Progressive nobles’ desire for devices and manufactories, Queen Melady made new and stricter laws, restricting the type and function of devices that could be brought across the border into Lauralia, and further restricting also the kinds of forestry, mining, and manufacturing that could be done within the borders of Lauralia. Response to this was predictable. A highly organized smuggling trade developed on the Arcanian border, and illegal forestry, mining and manufacturing practices had to be rooted out and stopped in the progressive lands, where the governing noble often turned a blind eye to these proceedings, or even patronized them.

In addition to the disgruntlement, and even at times active disagreement and disobedience, of the Progressive nobles, there was a growing unrest in the common classes. Arcania needed food and raw materials as desperately as the nobility of Lauralia wanted the devices they would give them in return. Merchants therefore saw a highly profitable market being arbitrarily closed off from them by a selfish ruler. Artisans and some professionals (most notably physicians, engineers, and scientists) resented the limits the new restrictions placed on their crafts and professional experiments.

And the peasants grew downright rebellious, as they saw the Queen withholding the machinery that would make their lives easier and more profitable. Understandably, the unrest among the peasant class was most virulent in the provinces whose governing families were most oppressive (see Appendix A). Unfortunately, these oppressive governing families (most notably the Province of the Eastern Woods) were also those with the strongest tradition of loyalty to the monarchy, and the major force supporting the Queen in her efforts to save her land. This left the Queen’s hands tied if she even desired to correct the social injustice in their lands.

Meanwhile, the Arcanians were getting frustrated and angry with the Lauralian government as well. The country of Arcania was overpopulated, and not nearly as rich in the resources that made Lauralia so stable. There were fertile plains in Arcania, but these had been over-farmed, and some misguided experiments with chemicals invented to make crops grow more quickly, or to repel plagues of harmful insects, had backfired, rendering some thousand acres infertile. Much of these plains, too, had oil beneath them, which was too precious a resource to the Arcanians to use them for growing food instead. To the south of the plains was the Arcanian Desert, in which very little could grow due to the lack of water. Successful irrigation systems had alleviated this problem to some extent, but the sandy ground was still not the best for growing enough crops to feed Arcania’s hungry hundreds of thousands.

The Arcanians then saw in Lauralia a land of virtually untapped resources. A lake and rivers whose irrigation potential was hardly being exploited at all, veins of ore, gold, diamonds and coal whose surfaces were hardly being scratched. Whole forests of trees just sitting there doing nothing! Acres and acres of uncultivated prairie! Who knew what hidden wells of oil under the plains in the north! And who was stopping them from gaining access to these resources? Not the merchants of Lauralia, who desired the profit that would come to them from such trade. Not the peasants, who would welcome the means to maximize the production of their farms, forests, and mines and the new freedom the profit from such production would give them. Even many of the nobles were hungry for these profits, and for the devices of entertainment and convenience the Arcanians could offer them. No, all that was stopping the exploitation of Lauralia’s resources was an outdated monarchy and a few equally outdated nobles loyal to her.

All this Queen Ellena inherited from her mother, along with an unstable and intemperate governor of the new land of Kait (see Appendix B), and an extremely unstable situation in the Metalton region (also see Appendix B). Queen Ellena made peace in the Metalton region by declaring it part of Lauralia, and installing the mayor of Metalton, the progressive, popular and charismatic Harkin, as its first Lord. She appeased the violently progressive Lady Kris by allowing her to implement a strikingly innovative system of governing her peasant classes (see Appendix A). At the advice of her unofficial chief advisor, Doctor Colin, a former peasant, she also repealed some of the more extreme of her mother’s reactionary restrictions on Arcanian devices, and engaged Lady Kaitlin of the Eastern Woods in a series of involved, and ultimately unprofitable, discussions of her system of governing her peasants. And in 1165, she gave birth to her only daughter and heir, Princess Elizabeth.

In 1168, just when it seemed that it was possible to again achieve some measure of the internal stability Lauralia had always been famous for maintaining, Arcanian “irregular” troops attacked the Plains Lands on the far northeastern border between the two countries. It was a brilliant strategic move on the part of Arcania. The Plains Province was the most stable of all the Lauralian provinces; the Governor, Princess Lynda, was Queen Ellena’s cousin, and unswervingly loyal to the monarch. Additionally, the province was well known to be liberal in its governance of the peasants within its borders.

The Prime Minister of Arcania disclaimed all foreknowledge of these attacks, asserting that the attackers were bandits, mercenaries, and deserters from the Arcanian Army, who were attempting to take the Plains Lands on their own and gain control of the profitable diamond mines in the foothills of the Northern Alps just within the Province’s northern border. The regular Arcanian Army even made some token attempts to stop these raids, while simultaneously supplying the raiders with food, weapons, and additional manpower. Princess Lynda was killed in battle during the third raid.

Princess Lynda’s daughter, Lady Laura of the Plains, was only 19 years old when her mother died, and seven months pregnant with her first child. She fled to the Capitol, leaving her lands in the hands of her extremely capable chief advisor, General Elroy. In early 1169, however, soon after the birth of Young Lord Jordan, Lady Laura’s son and heir, General Elroy was killed in battle. Lady Laura returned to the Plains with troops from the Queen’s own army to aid her people in what, it was becoming more apparent, was anything but a string of unaffiliated bandit raids.

Late in the year 1170, with the Plains Lands desperately embattled and on the point of collapse, Arcania officially declared war on Lauralia, and the bulk of their army attacked that bastion of Royalist support, the Eastern Woods. Traderston fell almost immediately, since the citizens welcomed the Arcanians with open arms, and Lady Kaitlin’s troops failed to arrive until after the Arcanians had taken hold. This gave them a position from which to extend their attack further into Lauralia.

Caught unprepared and shocked by what was now a full-scale war, Queen Ellena called together those of her Royal Council who could come to discuss the situation. The embattled Lady Kaitlin, of course, was in no situation to attend, and the governors of the other Woodland Provinces, Lord Coran of the Western Woods, and Lady Ella of the Western Valley, elected to stay in their lands, since, being on the Arcanian border, they could conceivably be attacked without warning. These lands sent representatives to the Capitol in their stead. From Lord Harkin of Metalton, there was an ominous lack of communication, but Lady Kris of Kait, Lord Reynold II of Reynold, and Lord Boris of the Capitol Mountain Lands all attended and took council with the Queen, assuring her of their continued support and loyalty.

By the beginning of the year 1171, it became apparent that the Plains Province was entirely in the hands of the Arcanians. No communication at all arrived from Lady Laura, and no intelligence afterwards could find out if the Lady (and heir-apparent to the throne of Lauralia after Princess Elizabeth) was dead, captured, or fled.

The war now raged on two fronts, as Arcanian forces launched a two-pronged attack from the Plains into the Reynold lands to the west, and further into the Eastern Woods. Lord Reynold (after taking his hasty leave of the Queen and Council in the Capitol) and Lady Kaitlin put up fierce resistance, but they were hampered by the superiority of the Arcanians’ weapons, the unrest and at times outright sedition among the peasants, and the reluctance in the lower ranks of their troops (many of whom were peasant or low commoner class and in sympathy with the Arcanians).

During this time Young Lord Reynold, Lord Reynold II’s heir, was sixteen years old and a final year student at the Capitol Teaching Academy. Just before the Academy graduation in that year, he shocked the Queen and Court, and horrified his father, by marrying Lori Tamot, a peasant girl on scholarship from the remote village of Haydren, in direct defiance of every tradition of the aristocracy. Though Old Lord Reynold was progressive in his views, and one of the lobbyists in the Royal Council for change in the treatment of peasants within the country, even he could not disregard such a blatant flouting of tradition—an action that could even seem treasonous in the midst of a war like the one currently being fought. He disowned and disinherited his son, vowing that if Young Lord Reynold wished to marry and have children by a peasant, he should also be willing to live like one. The newly wed couple left the Capitol and fled through the Reynold Lands into the Arcanian-controlled Plains.

Slowly the two armies of Reynold and the Eastern Woods were driven back to the west and north toward the Capitol Lands and the Province of Kait. Early in 1173, the Arcanians laid siege to Lady Kaitlin’s manor in the center of the province. Desperately, Lady Kaitlin appealed to her sister Lady Kris for help. Lady Kris claimed that she had sent most of her troops to aid Lord Reynold in the west and had none to spare for Lady Kaitlin.

If Lady Kaitlin doubted the truth of this statement, she had no way to verify her suspicion. Her army was trickling away, as more and more of her soldiers got tired of dying to defend a cause and a Governor they no longer believed in, if indeed they ever had. Loyalty to a monarch far away and safe in the Capitol was no longer enough to hold them, and throughout the next two years they began drifting away in greater and greater numbers to join the Arcanians until finally Lady Kaitlin was outnumbered and out of provisions as well.

In 1175, Lady Kaitlin’s manor was sacked, and the Lady and those of her forces still loyal to the crown began a desperate retreat along Traderston Road to the Capitol. Lord Reynold had managed to maneuver his retreat into his own lands in such a way that his forces and Lady Kaitlin’s joined within his lands, but this may have done more harm than good, since it allowed the Arcanian forces to come at both of them from both the south and the east.

As Lady Kaitlin and Lord Reynold retreated step by hotly contested step toward the Capitol Lands, Lady Kris betrayed the crown by secretly allowing the Arcanian troops access to Laural Lake via Kaitston Landing. The Arcanian army marched down Kait Road at night and boarded ships at the landing that bore them to the southeast into the Western Woods. Lord Coran’s manor was surrounded and sacked in 1176. Soon after Merchantston in the Western Woods was taken by Arcanian troops, and Lord Coran’s forces were effectively cut off from the aid of those of Lady Ella of the Western Valley and crushed. The Western Woods fell completely to the Arcanians in 1177, on the death of Lord Coran. His daughter, Lady Rena, managed to evade the Arcanian troops and fled to the Western Valley, joining the now embattled Lady Ella.

1178 proved to be a fateful year. On the Eve of Meladrin, Lady Kris and treacherous Royal Councilman Sir Robert Lloyd in the Capitol conspired with the Arcanians to smuggle Arcanian Special Operatives and Elite Troops into the woods in the Capitol City, and through a passageway into the Castle itself. Their plot to assassinate the Queen was foiled, but while Queen, Council, and Castle Guard were fighting for their own safety and the life of their Queen, and sorting out the implications of the treason that had allowed the near coup, the regular Arcanian army laid siege to Lord Reynold’s manor in the southeast. Outnumbered, with insufficient provisions and weapons to withstand a siege, and with both his and Lady Kaitlin’s troops on the verge of open mutiny, Lord Reynold surrendered to the Arcanians and pledged his support to them. Lady Kaitlin fled, with Lord Reynold’s secret aid, and took refuge in the Castle.

On the eve of the year 1179, the manor of Lady Ella of the Western Valley was sacked and the Lady killed, leaving the Arcanians in control of the Western Valley. Lady Ella’s daughter, Lady Lindsey, and Lady Rena of the previously defeated Western Woods led their outnumbered troops in a slow and bloody retreat through Metalton.

 In the spring of 1179, Arcanian forces surrounded the Capitol and took what was left of the Royal Army completely by surprise. The Queen was killed in a lightening-bolt assault on the Castle, and with her death what was left of the open Royalist resistance crumbled completely. Princess Elizabeth escaped and went into exile in Arcania itself. Lady Kaitlin and the ten-year-old Lord Jordan of the Plains fled to the manor of Lord Boris in the Capitol Mountains Lands.

On the other side of the country, Lady Lindsey died while retreating. Her thirteen-year-old daughter, Lady Leah, succeeded her and under the guidance of Lady Rena continued the futile and bloody resistance that marked their painfully slow, but steady, retreat.

The Arcanians in the Capitol spent the last of the year 1179 in consolidating their position in the Lauralian capitol and in combing the country for the escaped Princess Elizabeth. When they could not find her, they issued an official proclamation that she was dead, but without a body very few of the citizens of Lauralia actually believed them. Arcanian rule was very harsh on dissidents, however, so most of the people of Lauralia kept their doubts about official proclamations from their new government strictly to themselves.

Lord Reynold III, now a captain in the Arcanian army, had reentered his native country during the siege of the Eastern Woods, and had assisted greatly in the abortive search for the missing princess. When the new Governor of Lauralia discovered that he was the heir to Old Lord Reynold, they sent him back to his own province. A few months later Old Lord Reynold died naturally of a heart attack (another official proclamation stated this in no uncertain terms), and Captain Reynold was given the governorship of his native province in reward for his services to his adopted country.

Thirteen-year-old Miss Katarina Lloyd, once an intimate friend of the Princess, denied all knowledge as to her whereabouts and asserted that after her father’s imprisonment for treason she had been more a hostage in the Castle than a friend of the royal family. She herself led the Arcanian Guard to the dungeons to free her father and embraced him as he emerged from his cell. Both pledged their loyalty to the new government and became model civil servants in the new regime.

In early 1180, Lord Harkin of Metalton ended Ladies Leah and Lindsey’s resistance by ordering his troops to ambush them and finish them off. The Royalist troops, including Lady Rena, were slaughtered. Lady Leah fled disguised through Metalton into the Western Mountains. Aided by northern barbarians outside Lauralian borders, she made her way east to the Capitol Mountains.

Their hold on the country firmly established, the new Arcanian government turned its attention to the small pockets of Royalist supporters hiding in the Capitol Mountains. Resistance in this quarter dissolved quickly, however, as Lord Boris of the Capitol Mountains Lands, packed up his household, instructed his people to surrender peaceably to the new government, and disappeared deeper into the Capitol Mountains before the Arcanians ever got there. Several token attempts were made to sweep out the Royalist camps in the mountains, but winter was brutal so far north, and interest in that enterprise gradually weakened.

And so the war was over. And if the tiny pockets of Royalist nobility hiding in the mountains and the persistent lack of news about the whereabouts of the young heir to the Lauralian throne worried some of the administrators of the new government, they were small worries, quickly shoved aside by newer and more immediate concerns. Certainly none of them ever questioned the loyalty of the young and beautiful popular actress and singer, Katarina Lloyd, and rumors of a secret underground organization of neo-Royalists self-titled “the Faithful” were squashed as mere fairy tales told by aging grandmothers remembering the good old days.