Battle of Four Kingdoms

The Battle of Four Kingdoms (35 ME), also called The Field of Maiúnla Diëlmes [may-UHN-la dee-EL-mez], was a pivotal military campaign in the history of the island of Besoa, culminating in an all-out battle between its historic Four Kingdoms. Its brutal aftermath led to the fall of the kingdoms of Derailad and Heronbar, the island thereafter divided between the victorious nations of Sann'al and Alsan.

The name “Battle of Four Kingdoms” is a reference to the ancient board game sjatranj, played on a board with four sections or “kingdoms”.

The battle is the subject of the greatest tales in Besoan folkloreplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigFolklore

Folklore

This is in a series of articles about oral traditions, tales, folk practices, and folklore.

topics cult1, and has been so distorted from historic events it is difficult to discover the truth. The legend is as follows.

In the last days of Derailad, the Loremasters forever sought to extend their power by sorceries and the intercession of magical beasts. The greatest of the Loremasters were three, each equal in craft but forever striving for to gain mastery over the others. For years each strove in secret to summon and harness one of the Beasts of the Apocalypse, the Black Wyrm of Mecal, of which the Tirennion tells: “In the beast's tail there is a stone, and whoever should seize the Wyrm, by this stone may have whatever he should desire.”

After years of each striving alone and in vain, for they bore malice and jealousy unto their rivals, they resolved that the sole hope of harnessing the Wyrm was to work together, then share the power amongst themselves. And so they worked for long days with chants and spells, all the while plotting betrayal in their hearts.

Finally one night the great black beast, a mass of pitted coils of iron too vast for human eyes to see, appeared in the darkness above their fires. Each put forth their hand to touch the stone, and all said with one voice and with glee in their eyes: “I wish the destruction of my enemies!”

With a flash of its eyes the Black Wyrm read the secrets of their hearts. It lashed out the coils of its vast body, and crushed all three to death, for each sorceror was the bitterest enemy of the others. Next it laid waste to the palaces of their rivals, to the servants who had slighted them, the tradesmen who had cheated them, the rats who had stolen their food. The plaintiffs in the courts who had tried their patience, and the criminals who had committed wrongs. The men who plotted the downfall of their masters, the women who'd sneered and laughed at their attentions, the babes of races the rulers despised. The Black Beast laid waste to all the land til it was awash with blood, for it had read the darkest desires and hatreds that dwell in mens' hearts, and knew them all.

Once Derailad was destroyed and its people fled, the Wyrm turned next to the rival kingdoms, whom the Loremasters had long despised for their beauty and fairness. And so driven by hate the Beast butchered guards and threw down castles, sank trading ships and crushed noble lords.

The Four Kingdoms led all forces they could muster to occupy and restrain the Black Wyrm, achieving nothing more than death and delay. At last, the greatest surviving sorcerors of each of the Four Kingdoms led a force of four armies, attempting a great spell to either drive the creature out, or return it to its slumber.

Thousands perished trying to force the creature into submission, but eventually the four great magicians of the kingdoms cast about it a mighty spell of constraint, which froze the beast forever on the Field of Maiúnla Diëlmes. Each army chose a champion, strong in courage and resolve, to guard the beast for all time from any who should seek to release it back into the world.

Thereafter a great stone chamber was constructed about the beast, and over that heaped earth to form a hill, thereafter known as the Dolorous Mound in memory of all those who died from the folly, ambition, and the selfish pride of men.

Modern historians view the tale as an allegory of the conflict between the four kingdoms of the time, particularly in the face of social and economic strife resulting from climate change. Lower sea levels during the Little Ice Age particularly impacted Heronbar and Derailad, which were heavily dependent on the sea for trade and food supply. A lower sea level meant that port cities and their infrastructure were suddenly cut off the sea. Alsan and Sann'al, being agrarian societies, were less impacted by this change, and so came to dominate their neighbours. Modern scholars claim this conflict was glamorised by later storytellers to give it romantic and magical overtones.

Hartheranplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigHarthera

The Hartheran Union, commonly named Harthera, is an imperialist maritime nation state dominating the northeast of Anásthias. It is one of the two great powers of the modern epoch, arguably the most technologically and militarily powerful nation in the world, only matched by the vast size and wealth of its neighbour, viridviridOrorrMEOrorrOrorrOrorrOrorr historians in particular have described the tale as a cover for the destruction and genocide of Derailad, a nation which was at the time rich, influential, technologically advanced, yet peaceful and with no standing army. The conflict was almost certainly an excuse by the two nations of Sann'al and Alsan, who were themselves descended from Aralsic immigrants from the north shared a common language, to annex their neighbours and divide the island between themselves.