THE HISTORIA PERTINAXI: Volume IV;
Aurelius’s Final Crusade
Written by Justinian Nafis, Count of Susa
and
Adolphus Gloriana, Earl of Suffolk, Prince of Sutica
Aurelius’s Final Crusade
"This war felt different. It wasn’t like the other wars, where it was for one lord’s inheritance or another’s plot of land. It was for something bigger, like what I’d hear about from my grandfather. ” - A Curonian crossbowman in the service of Aurelius’ Legion during the Third Atlas Coalition War, c. 1693
In a letter written to his cousin, Margrave Mariusz of Styria, in 1685, Aurelius believed that he “[had] reached the peak of the mountain long ago. This descent is gradual, but the bottom is near.”
The words were far from those of the authoritative, confident, armor-clad Emperor whose stone face could be found in every square across the realm. It was the embrace of inevitable death from an eighty-two year old man who had seen the lives of hundreds of friends and foes go by before him from beginning to end. His wife, his three sons, Leitseig Romstun, Arpad Ivanovich, Frederick Pius, Eimar var Burgundar, all of the Mardon Emperors, Sir Konrad Nzech, John Sarkozic, Adelard von Brandt, Jevan Ruric, King Sigmar of Haense, and many more who had played more or less prominent roles in his life were now dead. His first time in combat against the armies of Emperor Peter II seemed like ages ago, and it was, but so too did more recent wars: against Haense, against Curon, against Ostmark, and against Norland. With poor records to go back and refresh his memory from, all seemed to blend together in his mind.
In preparation for his death, Aurelius began to withdraw from his direct style of governance as he conferred more duties upon Prince Augustus. He was frequently absent from the capital, trading his power there for peace and serenity in his country palaces. He remained aware of all that was occurring in the realm by maintaining a strong flow of communication from Carolustadt, but in his advanced age he looked to spend the few remaining years he had left tending to his gardens and designing a small, constructed lake that he could fish salmon from. For a few years this remained the case, and as the Empire entered the lull of peace, the aged Pertinaxi could feel content with his accomplishments and be proud that he would leave a stable, calm realm for his grandson to inherit.
Unfortunately, one final challenge would come to test the old Emperor. While he may have believed that he had built a state impervious to challenge, inside or out, the truth was that it was him, not any institutions, not even the Imperial Legion, that had prevented significant challenges to the throne. It was benevolent in some regards: taxes were low and vassals could keep to their own affairs. In other regards, it was oppressive: soldiers of the Legion were allowed to take and plunder without consequence and any perceived dissent was met with intimidation, exile, or death. Aurelius was one of the few who could manage this tenuous balance, which was found out so disastrously in his later years.
For the men of Nordengrad, Earl Thoromir’s fealty to Aurelius was a great stain of honor that no method of rule by Renatus, benevolent nor oppressive, would be sufficient in earning anything but their contempt and rebellious spirit. In 1687, a disgruntled band of clansmen confronted the earl in their city’s square over his permittance of Imperial patrols to enter his lands. What occurred next is disputed- either the crowd slew Earl Thoromir by throwing rocks at him or one of their number challenged him to a duel, which he accepted, only to hit his head on a rock and perish during it- but no matter what truly happened, the result was that Torsten Ruric, one of Earl Thoromir’s more prominent critics, took control of Nordengrad with his clansmen.
Torsten Ruric made professions of loyalty to the court in Carolustadt, but he moved with the intent to rise against the Empire. He quietly arranged treaties with the dwarves of Kaz’Ulrah and the tribes of Krugmar, both of whom had grown tired of the Empire’s favoritism of the elves. He also made ties with other dissenting forces across the Empire, but none were so large or influential as the tribes of Arberrang, a desolate, primitive people in the south who, while nominally subjects of the King of Haense, as they lived only miles from the capital, were said to practice dark sorcery and conduct human sacrifice. No specific plans were made for a general revolt, but all expressed a mutual interest in resisting the power of the Pertinaxi.
It was in Arberrang where the war erupted on the 3rd of Harren’s Folly, 1689. During a visit for a feast, Torsten Ruric, accompanied by his house guard, ambushed a Haeseni patrol just outside of the feast hall of the chief of Arberrang. It was said that the patrol had been harassing the locals and, wanting to demonstrate his loyalty to his new allies, the Earl of Nordengrad slew this company almost to a man. The few survivors straggled back to Markev, where they warned King Robert of the attack. An alarm was raised, and word was sent to a nearby Imperial patrol.
Torsten Ruric, realizing his mistake, both in rashly attacking the Haeseni company and leaving survivors, attempted to rectify the situation by riding to Markev with his house guard and some warriors from Arberrang to assault the city. Despite a lack of siege weapons, and numbering no more than two thousand men, Torsten and his soldiers were able to take advantage of a ruined section of Markev’s walls to enter the city, where they began to slaughter denizens by the hundreds. Just as they were about to enter the royal palace, where King Robert was under guard with his soldiers, the Imperial patrol arrived. Led by Prince Cassius Horen, they met Torsten’s forces in the city streets and quickly put them to flight. Markev, House Barbanov, and possibly the whole of the southern Empire, had been saved.
As important as this inciting engagement was to Haense, it was just as important to Aurelius, who received word of it weeks later. In one of his spring palaces at the time, he immediately raced back to Carolustadt to raise a new army and summon his vassals and allies. He recalled Prince Cassius back to the capital to lead the Imperial Legion and began making war plans to put down the revolts in Arberrang and Nordengrad. Over the next few days, news of other, less successful, uprisings came from all corners of the Empire. A mutiny by the town watch in White Peak was put down by the governor there. A group of Reivers had tried to arm the peasants in Styria, but were driven off by Margrave Mariusz. Officials in Santegia had preemptively arrested several Norlanders in Presa de Madera who were attending “furtive gatherings”. The many chiefs and jarls of Norland proper, still in Imperial control, had gathered to discuss joining with Torsten Ruric, but chose to remain loyal to Aurelius because of Torsten’s poor lineage and marriage to the daughter of a fisherman.
Aurelius’s choice to name Prince Cassius as the Marshal of the Imperial Legion would be the start of the legend of the last hero of his reign. The eldest son of Prince Tiberius, it was said by those who knew him that the young prince carried the best traits of his late father and his late uncle Antonius. Young at the time of his ascension, having been born in 1671, Prince Cassius was mostly unproven, but he commanded an unwavering loyalty in the men he read, was one of the Empire’s finer swordsmen, and was well-read on strategy. When he arrived in the capital a few weeks after his victory at Markev, he did not carry himself as a meek, inexperienced boy of seventeen, but as a seasoned general. In a short time, ranging from one to two months, he had raised an army of eight thousand that was steadily being reinforced by soldiers from Adria, Santegia, Styria, Curon, Ostmark, Norland, and the many hundreds of other smaller vassals across the Empire. Haense sent a small contingent, but under orders from the Emperor, they devoted most of their forces to defending the south against the tribes of Arberrang, bolstered by mercenaries hired from the snow elves.
As the Emperor and his grandson hastily assembled their army in the Heartlands, Torsten Ruric and his house guards returned to Nordengrad. Understanding the gravity of what he had just done, and what was about to be brought upon him, the Earl of Nordengrad held a ramshackle coronation to have himself named King of Norland. He called upon the people of the city, and the petty clans outside of it, to join him in his defense of the north and drive back Aurelius. Kaz’Ulrah and Krugmar soon made good on their support and sent armies to reinforce Nordengrad while committing the bulk of their forces against the elves, whose realms they invaded from east and south.
While Torsten concentrated his strength at the Krag, a fortress near Nordengrad that was named after the fearsome Axionite castle, though only a third as deadly, Aurelius and Prince Cassius raced their army north. With Haense and the elves pressed, but holding firm, defeating the rebellious Norlanders would remove the most immediate threat and allow the Legion to relieve its allies. The hastily-assembled army, numbering anywhere from fifteen to twenty thousand, arrived on the outskirts of Nordengrad on the 5th of Owyn’s Flame, 1689. Fortunately for the Imperials, the rebel Torsten, an inexperienced commander, had divided his host of twelve thousand between the Krag and Nordengrad with the aim of securing both. Prince Cassius drew up a light defense around Nordengrad to bottle the soldiers there in while he turned the rest of the army towards the Krag, where the self-proclaimed King of Norland was with his soldiers.
The siege continued for several weeks, most of it devoted to the construction of several great belfries that stood higher than the tallest buildings in Nordengrad. They were of Prince Cassius’s own design, and over the course of several assaults they proved quite effective. While the first three attacks against the walls were repulsed with some losses, the fourth, on the 19th of Tobias’s Bounty, gained a foothold. As the Marshal of the Legion held the line, thousands of Imperial and allied soldiers climbed the towers and made their way atop the ramparts of the Krag. The fighting there was fierce and brutal, but by nightfall the fortress was taken and Torsten Ruric was captured. Not wishing to lose more soldiers in a siege of Nordengrad, Aurelius had Torsten dragged before the gates of the capital in full gaze of his subjects, who promptly lost their will to fight and threw open the gates for the Legion. In less than a year, Torsten’s rebellion had been put down.
In conquering Nordengrad and the Krag quickly, Aurelius had parried the most dangerous threat to the realm, but Torsten Ruric’s allies did not surrender, though they did retreat. After a few weeks of rest, the Emperor and his grandson marched north to the orcish badlands, where they united with the elves and began the brutal conquest of the country. Several villages and forts were burned with little resistance, but the dry, inhospitable climate made occupation a slow process. Hundreds died, not of orcish steel, but of parched throats and scorpion stings, but Aurelius, determined to bring a quick end to the war, pressed his army on. Eventually they surrounded the central stronghold of the Rex, a cruel, misshapen hill fort called San’Kala. After a siege of four months, the orcs finally capitulated on the 30th of Owyn’s Flame, 1690, and their lands were given to the elves in exchange for their lives.
Having quickly defeated Nordengrad and the orcs without too serious a loss of life, the Emperor felt comfortable enough to divide his army. He took the bulk of his forces, ten thousand, to besiege the dwarven city of Kal’Tarak, which had been built into the side of a mountain, as is the fashion of those peoples, and would take significant investment to capture. Prince Cassius and five thousand soldiers went south to join the four thousand Haeseni in battle with the tribes of Arberrang and their snow elven mercenaries. Much like with campaign against the orcs, the Arberrang peoples rarely confronted the Imperials, instead taking to the bitter cold of the dark forest that they called home, which was filled with monsters, traps, and a frostbite that was more deadly than the two.
A child’s soft birch bark carvings recovered from Arberrang. They are believed to depict some of the villagers there. These drawings were used back in Carolustadt to confirm rumors that the tribesmen were disfigured and had many extra limbs and appendages.
Curiously, a report sent to Prince Cassius’s staff from a patrol gives one of the only primary documents we have of the dark arts of the people of Arberrang. The patrol officer, Imperial Lieutenant Restoo Benkho, reported that his platoon was attacked by a single mage who formed creatures from the shadows of the dark woods of Arberrang and assailed the soldiers with them.
"No blades could pierce the black miasma of these animals that attacked us, so we dropped them all and ran for the safety of a nearby igloo that was known to bear a Cross of our Lord, having been put there a day earlier by a Haeseni priest that had accompanied us.”
Whether true or exaggerated, this report is evidence of the widespread belief in the Imperial ranks that the people they fought were Ibleesian sorcerers.
By the winter of 1691, Prince Cassius and King Robert had pacified most of Arberrang, which is to say they virtually exterminated all but a handful of tribal villages. After extensive darkspawn testing, most were found innocent. They were allowed to live but, like the orcs, stripped of their lands and relocated elsewhere across Haense. The south had been pacified once again, leaving only the dwarves of Kaz’Ulrah still standing. As Prince Cassius and his army rejoined the Emperor in the spring of 1692, they found that much progress had been made.
Over the past two years, the Legion had systematically blasted into several rooms and hallways within Kal’Tarak. A dwarven city like any other, sprawling with more passages, fortified bunkers, and false paths than any fortress built by man, the slow, grinding process claimed many lives, more than were lost against the Horde or Arberrang, and the extensive use of magic and explosives drove up the costs. In what was the most deadly siege of the war, claiming well over a thousand lives, by the summer Aurelius and his staff concluded that if Kal’Tarak could not be taken quickly, they would have to agree to a diplomatic end to the war. It is said that while the many aged, wise generals murmured their agreements, it was the young, bold Prince Cassius who rose up angrily and volunteered to bring his grandfather victory within a week.
On the 6th of Horen’s Calling, 1692, Prince Cassius and fifty hand-picked Dragon Knights descended into a dark, cramped tunnel that had been found during an excavation of the northwestern part of the city. Old maps showed that the tunnel they were following, so narrow that two men could not stand beside each other, led to Kal’Tarak’s throne room, where the King of Kaz’Ulrah, Thoak Goldhand, was thought to be. An old dwarf, revered as a fierce opponent of humanity for centuries, the King of Kaz’Ulrah was an honored figure among the dwarves, and they would not risk his death were he captured quickly. If their guesses were correct, the Dragon Knights would win the war in a few hours. If not, they would all die with their prince.
After what Prince Cassius called “a walk that, while likely only an hour, felt like ten times that,” he and his small force finally saw light. As the prince, leading the pack, neared it, he saw himself overlooking the great throne room of Kal’Tarak, where King Thoak Goldhand and his immediate retainers were taking their supper. Not wasting the opportunity, the prince and his knights scaled down the wall and charged into the feasting group of dwarves. Most were killed immediately, but a few surrounded their king for long enough for guards outside, who heard the commotion, to swarm the throne room. As more dwarves poured in, surrounding the invaders, desperation set in for Prince Cassius. Proving himself all the swordsman that his reputation had made of him, he cut through five of King Thoak Goldhand’s retainers. When the dwarven king raised his own hammer in defense, the prince knocked it from his hands with a single blow. Facing the wrong end of a sword, the king fell to his knees immediately and roared for the fighting to cease, which it did a few moments later. Thirty seven Dragon Knights had been slain, and around them were the bodies of a hundred or more dwarves.
Prince Cassius and his few remaining knights were allowed safe passage through the rest of Kal’Tarak with King Thoak Goldhand in tow, his hands bound by the cape of one of the felled knights. By the time they reached the outside, the gates of the city had already been swung open, and the advance units of the Legion had begun to accept the surrender of weapons and high-value hostages. The prince and his men limped- all of them had sustained serious injuries of some sort- through the mass of soldiers until they reached Aurelius, who awaited on a palanquin with his great vassals and officers lined beside him. The Emperor descended from his palanquin to accept the surrender of King Thoak Goldhand and walked, with the aid of a cane, to a nearby tent that had been prepared for the ensuing diplomacy. From the moment that his grandson and his Dragon Knights had entered the tunnels of the city, Aurelius had made preparations for his victory.
The diplomacy between the Emperor and King Thoak Goldhand was a mere formality. Kaz’Ulrah in its entirety, even its crown, were surrendered to the Empire. For their willingness to surrender, the dwarves of Kal’Tarak were allowed to remain there, albeit under the occupation of a sizable Imperial garrison. The only exception was the king himself, who was to be made a captive alongside Torsten Ruric. When the treaty was finalized on the 7th of Horen’s Calling, the Third Atlas Coalition was finally brought to an end. The last challenge to Aurelius had been soundly defeated, and with these additional conquests, the Empire and its tributary states controlled all corners of the world except for the deep southern tundras, where the snow elven tribes resided. It had taken a lifetime, perhaps something even more than that, but Aurelius had done what only the early Johannians had: the world was now brought under his flag.
Feeling rejuvenated for the first time in years, Aurelius did not plan for a typical return to Carolustadt with his retinue upon the disbandment of his army. Instead, he granted himself a triumph, the likes of which had not been seen before. A festival book was prepared by Lester Drake, who also gave us historians the mercy of writing an account of the triumph itself. Using these two sources, we have a clear picture of what the Triumph of 1692 looked like to the people of Carolustadt.
After several weeks of securing his new conquests, issuing land grants, and appointing new governors, the Emperor began a slow march back to the capital. They finally arrived outside the gates of the city on the evening of the 30th of Owyn’s Flame, 1692, and encamped outside until the next morning. They arranged themselves in parade formation before the opened gates of Carolustadt. Entire streets were blockaded as spectators made their way to an outlined path that led to the city square.
Then, as Lester Drake writes:
"For the first part, paintings depicting the sites of His Imperial Majesty’s victories: The Krag, Nordengrad, San’Kala, Arberrang, and Kal’Tarak were shown to the ignorant masses on canvases that were so large we feared they may not have fit through the gates if the carts that carried them hit even the smallest pebble. Thankfully, they were kept intact. As they were drawn forth, the people made their pleasure known by their applause, so thunderous that tiles fell from the roofs of the townhomes. After the paintings were more wagons, carrying the riches of our plunders: first were the weapons collected at Kal’Tarak, then came the gold from the same city, after were the totems of the Horde and the flamebrands of the Nordlings, and finally were the idols of the Arberrangian tribes. Lastly, more paintings, on smaller canvases, were drawn, depicting some minor battles and skirmishes that, although I did not know their names, it was under His Imperial Majesty’s instructions to have concluded.
For the second part, the prisoners of war were brought. First were two dozen chiefs of the Horde and of Arberrang, all bound in simple chains and subjected to a maelstrom of rotten foods that had been left out in crates for months for this occasion. Next was the king of the dwarves, allowed to ride in on a horse, a dignity that His Imperial Majesty insisted be afforded for this old enemy of Man, but he too was subjected to the abuses of the people. Finally came six Norldling chiefs tied around a blackberry bush that was as large as the cart that carried it. Above them, held aloft above the bush by several poles that stabbed into his back, was their leader, whose screams dulled the mockery of the crowd at first, but was soon drowned with cries of “traitor” and “pagan.”
For the third part, His Imperial Majesty was brought before the people alone on a chariot, which was painted in pure silver lined with gemstones of every variety. The Emperor wore purple robes from the neck down, and his face was painted a bright yellow. Atop his head was a wreath made from pea shoots. In his left hand he held his sword, in his right he held his scepter. His look was a pleasant one, and he even smiled at the crowd and waved twice as he was acclaimed as the triumphator by all of his subjects.
For the fourth and final part, the Legions, led by His Imperial Highness [Prince Cassius], marched at a slow pace. They sang songs of a subject so low that I dare not repeat their contents, but this rudeness seemed to be encouraged by the people and even their officers, for many joined in with their merriment, which within their first few steps in the capitol had eroded their well-famed discipline. Drinks, candies, and other goods were passed to the soldiers, who all in turn gave trinkets and baubles and coins and other bits of plunder from their campaigns. I thought I had even seen the Duke of Adria himself engaging in this base behavior, but I did not raise this aloud for I am uncertain and do not wish to tarnish his good character.
When the procession reached the square, which took four hours from its initial entry, the prisoners were arrayed before an audience of no fewer than eighty thousand. The orcs, whose necks were so large that they could not be strangled, were shot individually. Each time a crossbow bolt ended one, cries of ‘Tandem Triumphans’ filled the air from the spectators, though none partaking in the triumph would dare utter such a curse. The chiefs of Arberrang came next, and they were strangled in the typical triumphal fashion. Some cheers came from the audience, but it was fewer than with the orcs. Following them was the sole dwarf: their king. He was given the honor of a beheading at the hands of Sir Arthur Wayne, which he accepted with honor. This good conduct merited silence from the crowd along with a few prayers for his soul.
It was after the dwarf king’s beheading that a priest ran into the middle of the sight of the executions and demanded an end be put to it. The foulest of slanders came from his mouth, for he accused His Imperial Majesty of conducting human sacrifice to appease the pagan gods that he aligned himself with so that he may not bend to our true Lord. This untruth warranted the jeers it received from the crowd, who pulled the priest back but, at the insistence of Sir Pierre de Roth, did not see him harm and only escorted him back to the church.
After the priest’s interruption, the Nordling prisoners were brought forth. Still tied to the large blackberry bush, with Thorsten [Torsten] Ruric above it, the traitorous earls were strangled, again to great acclaim and cheer by the audience. However, this dulled when two torches were thrown onto the bush, setting it alight and slowly burning Thorsten Ruric. Even this was thought to be either too cruel of an execution, or perhaps too sacrilegious of an execution, for the tastes of the crowd, so said some soldiers that were positioned near one vocal group. His Imperial Majesty was unswayed by this reception, if he even knew of it at all, and the Nordling chief was slowly consumed by the fire without any quicker death.”
The Triumph of 1692 was among the greatest that history has ever seen, and has subsequently spawned hundreds of pieces of art inspired by the spectacle.
If the Triumph of 1692 had shown the sheer power of Aurelius’s united Empire, it also revealed some of the fractures that the course of his brand of unification had created. Many of his subjects revered himself as something close to a living god, and while the Emperor had never openly entertained the notions in his early years, the past decade had only made the associations clearer. The colorful, imposing statues of the invincible Aurelius, standing with one foot atop a globe, was often a far more spectacular image than similar likenesses of local saints and even the Exalted themselves. When soldiers looked to military directives, rather than the Holy Scrolls, as instruction for virtue, the consequence was a mere reprimand. During a session of court in 1687, a minor nobleman from Santegia had even tried to proclaim Aurelius as the Fifth Exalted. While he was arrested and allowed to be put on ecclesiastical trial, the Emperor made it known that he would not allow this admirer to face anything beyond minor penance.
The Church had long-balked at these supposed pretensions of divinity that they accused Aurelius of promoting, but a succession of weak pontiffs had been unable to effectively rally the Canonist faithful against him. This, in turn, emboldened the Pertinaxi loyalists who themselves felt the Church was enslaved to the interests of their enemies. During the wars against Curon, Haense, and Ostmark, churches and monasteries were looted, priests were attacked, and several holy sites were desecrated. These attacks were almost exclusively the fault of independent, rogue units, who were often severely punished for their actions, but the Imperial government never truly took preventative steps against these attacks, only reactive ones.
The Emperor had done little to help his case. By far one of the most secular Emperors, his piety was little more than passing references found within state documents to his divine authority bestowed by God. He attended mass infrequently and confession less, was ill-learned on the Holy Scrolls and could not hold a conversation on theological matters for long, and openly admired pagan religions, such as the Red Faith, which he found better-suited to the organization of a militant society. He rarely tried to hide his personal indifference towards religion, and with state policy directed towards a propaganda campaign that bordered on deification, the most devout Canonist around the realm feared that soon Aurelius would adopt a new title: God-Emperor.
In late 1692, with the Empire victorious over all its enemies, a new conflict with the Church only became more likely. Two weeks after Aurelius’s triumph, the Imperial Senate, led by the old Sir Frederick Pius, resoundingly rejected Church-sponsored legislation that would increase the authority of ecclesiastical courts. Fiery rhetoric was directed against the Church during the debates, and even the godly Sir Frederick Pius denounced the incompetence of High Pontiff Siegmund and his Curia. This stirred some outrage, and many priests and their supporters published treatises against the Senate, in which they accused it of being an arm of the Emperor’s project to achieve self-acclaimed godhood. This incident may have come and gone without much issues, seeing as how the Emperor himself had not even commented on it, but just weeks later, far from the center of activity in Carolustadt, something worse happened.
After the triumph, Prince Cassius had been sent back north to oversee the integration of the conquered territories into the Empire. Part of this involved accepting the submission of many tribes that had never been more than nominally represented by their dwarven, orcish, or Nordling overlords. One of these tribes, known as the Rosenyr people, was particularly resistant to Imperial authority. They had allowed several Haeseni priests to visit and preach, so long as they gave tribute, but they had been far more hostile to Imperial officials. On the 21st of Godfrey’s Triumph, 1692, several Rosenyrites ambushed and killed a tax collector. Prince Cassius, who was at Castle Grolwic, only a day away, led a small party on the 22nd to exact justice.
The Massacre of Rosenyr saw the near-total elimination of this troublesome people, but more consequential was the slaying of two of the priests who had been living with the tribe. Prince Cassius first claimed that it was an accident, that they had been mistaken for tribal shamans by some of his newer recruits, but later he recanted and instead said that they had been fighting alongside the Rosenyrites. His testimony was generally supported by his soldiers, but across the Canonist world, clergy and the devout accused the prince of having conducted a premeditated murder. The clergymen at Rosenyr had a reputation for being more critical of Imperial policy, and Prince Cassius was known to align himself with many of the Empire’s most absolutist elements.
High Pontiff Siegmund, an ambitious, conniving man who chafed at his own authority being subsumed under the Pertinaxi strength, believed he had a prime opportunity. Two weeks following the Massacre of Rosenyr, he excommunicated Prince Cassius and demanded that he be surrendered to ecclesiastical courts. He also released several denouncements of the Emperor’s growing stranglehold over the matters of faith, and even came close to outright accusing him of aspiring to godhood. His words resonated with many of the clergy and common people outside of the Heartlands, and it was with this population that he hoped to leverage some change.
Back in Carolustadt, the old, tired Aurelius likely wanted to thunder with rage at the High Pontiff’s demands, but his voice could hardly carry by then. Many years of campaigning, especially the most recent ones, had worn him down. His strong-built, imposing figure had withered and left behind a husk of a man. A year earlier he had been able to walk with a cane, but now, aside from small strolls around his palace, he was forced to travel by litter. His public appearance at his triumph was a last display of public majesty, a show that affirmed his health and dominance, but ever since he had secluded himself from the common eye. He wanted nothing more than to retire again to his country estates, where he could live out his last months in peace and comfort, but even now, even after six decades of war, he was still facing challenges to his power that demanded his presence in the capital.
It was to be Aurelius’s final campaign, though it shed ink, not blood. He issued a pardon for his grandson and declined to have him sent to ecclesiastical court, much to the favor of the people of the Crownlands, who loved the prince above all others. Over the following weeks, he sent word to his vassals and governors, instructing them in the most direct of terms to stamp out any rebellious sentiments. All complied and ordered the arrest of the most vocal dissidents. With popular opposition stifled, Aurelius then moved to unseat the Pontiff. On the 8th of Sun’s Smile, 1693, he issued a Divine Imperial Command that removed Siegmund from the Pontificate. Drawing upon his divine authority bestowed by God, he claimed supremacy over the High Pontiff’s office and called for new elections. Affixed to the bottom of the scroll, which was posted in every town across the realm, was a new styling that so many had feared: His Divine Imperial Majesty.
For many, this was a step too far. Riots across the southern Empire broke out and were only barely contained by local authorities. Several cardinals and bishops affirmed their loyalty to Siegmund and called for an excommunication of the Emperor. Siegmund himself, in a response issued five days later from Belvitz, refused to excommunicate Aurelius. Instead, he called upon the Lord to bring an end to the man he now fully claimed aspired to make himself a god on the mortal plane. Two days later, the Legion garrison had him arrested and, under the Emperor’s orders, relocated to a monastery in Norland. Putting down this latest threat had caused an uproar, but aside from a few injured in Rivia, it had been mostly bloodless.
While many of the common people and the clergy had turned sharply against Aurelius, he had the support of the Legion and of the entirety of the nobility. To those who knew Siegmund, the High Pontiff was a man who could not be trusted and had a tendency to overestimate his position. His unpopularity did not extend to the masses who had never so much as met him, but that was more due to the symbol of his office rather than anything that he did. With neither the tact to keep his seat, nor the political ability to organize an effective resistance, the whole of the backlash that Siegmund could build amounted to a few riots that ceased by the end of Sun’s Smile. His Divine Imperial Majesty had enforced his total supremacy over the Church and the majority of his subjects did not so much as raise their voice in protest.
That is not to say that this decision was a popular one. Aside from most of the army, the Imperial family, and some of the more fanatic Pertinaxi loyalists, the realm overwhelmingly found Aurelius’s proclamation to be an unnecessary response, but the legacy of his victories burrowed deep within their collective spirit. Four or five coalitions had risen against Aurelius, not to mention countless other scattered attempts at opposition, and each time they had been defeated without much difficulty. As much as he may have tried to hide his condition, the Emperor’s demise was imminent; waiting him out, not confronting him, was a secure strategy.
It was a wise choice by the Imperial vassals. Whether he lacked the energy or the knowledge, Aurelius had no hope of manufacturing an Imperial cult of Emperor-worship. His measure had, like most regarding his image, been a pragmatic one. He was well-aware that his end was near, and his heir, Prince Augustus, was regarded as a far more moderate figure. So long as the old Emperor did not push the issue too much, he could have a more favorable Pontiff elected, withdraw from religious affairs, and allow a friendlier Canonist Church to resume its stewardship of the faith. When a Crownlander named Elwood was elected to the Pontificate, becoming Daniel V, he felt assured that he would face no serious resistance from the Church again. On the 8th of Sigismund’s End, 1693, he returned to his country estates and left Prince Augustus in charge of the capital once again.
At his palace of Donostia in the plains of Santegia, his favorite of his rural homes, the Emperor decided that it would be there, surrounded by vineyards, hot springs, and sweet-smelling gardens, that he would end his days. For all of his life, he had been in the center of the largest political events on the continent. His days in Doggersden felt like a history more ancient than that of the first Kings of Oren, but so too did his storming of Adelburg. For a man of such an advanced age, ninety, he remembered the past well enough to speak about them with some attendants he brought from the capital, who recorded much of what he said. During the last year of his life, Aurelius spoke quite candidly about his history, either as a confession of guilt or as a boast.
By the spring of 1694, it was clear that the Emperor would not survive for much longer. He was bedridden and infirm, though his mind stayed strong enough that he allowed the window of his room to be opened so he might feel the warm rays of the sun. It did little to help the chill he had contracted that winter, and come early Harren’s Folly he only awoke to take some bread and water. On the 14th, with his fever still unbroken, he was administered the last rites. He survived another three days, but he finally passed on the 17th of Harren’s Folly, 1694. Reported by a priest in attendance, Father Eugene Daumpart, his final words, spoken that morning, was a request to quench his thirst: “Could you dip that bread in the water for me?”
During the evacuation of Atlas, Aurelius’s body was transported overseas and brought to Helena, where it was buried once again. It disappeared after the Time of Troubles, and in the time since no fewer than twenty two theories have been put forward as to who took it.
As Aurelius’s body was taken to Carloustadt for burial, made slow by a long procession through the western Empire, Augustus held his coronation. The Imperial crown that was placed upon his head could not have felt any heavier than it did in that moment. As the funeral procession grew nearer to the capital, which could be seen with the many flags and fires that adorned the horizon in its wake, the period of mourning, to last a month in total, grew to a close. The day after his grandfather was to be laid to rest, Augustus would be unshielded from the punishing judgement of those who desired a man who could don the armor in the same way as the Emperor of Man.
History has treated Aurelius well, even those which are detractors of his time on the throne. In the most critical of examinations, the point was still surrendered that, despite his conquests, despite his ambition, and despite the destruction that followed him, Aurelius used methods that worked, regardless of the cost, and relentlessly pursued his vision with cruel efficiency. The ills of the Pertinaxi were directed towards Antonius alone, and his actions became synonymous with either the wanton slaughter of the age, or with the machinations of those who were jealous of the Pertinaxi and wished to smite them. With Augustus’s reign being quiet, the focus of any glorification of the age, or even a critical examination, fell upon Aurelius.
As time has passed, the model of Novellen liberalism and the scholars made in its wake came to stand in direct contrast to the Pertinaxi despotism that preceded it. Over in Haense, the rejection of Imperial centralization led historians there to apply a hostile lens to the suppression they had faced under the Pertinaxi in order to draw comparisons between them and their present situation. With the reign of Antonius all but exhausted of critical discussion, and the reign of Augustus still understudied, revaluation of Aurelius became the primary method to levy new attacks against the Empire of Man. Where intellectuals before could not help but admire the tenacity and success of Aurelius, even against the human, financial, and personal toll it took, the new age aimed to discredit even that.
The “new Aurelius” was a warlord like any of the era, not a high-thinking visionary who employed violence. He built no state save a horde totally dependent on tribute and coercion, and doomed it to collapse as soon as he died. Law was applied inconsistently, conquest was necessary to feed the state, and murder and intrigue defined all politics, as any perceived dissent was completely stamped out. Aurelius accomplished no more than Tobias Staunton: an impressive conqueror who knew nothing beyond warfare, damning his new Empire to its end the moment he died. Aurelius was never to be praised, he was not a ‘hard man making hard decisions’, for he was solely a bloodthirsty tyrant whose own ambitions preceded human unity in any real sense. Even his accomplishments were reduced as the achievements of his more-talented subordinates who succeeded in spite of their liege, not because of him.
At a glance, many of these critiques are reasonable. Aurelius was far more comfortable in military tents than he ever was at his desk, and his style of governance reflected that. It would fall to Augustus to build anything resembling a functioning bureaucracy, but even that was short-lived. The Emperor’s tactics did bring to his enemies a fear so great that few would ever dare to oppose him, but it in turn bred a hatred for him and his line that was so great that even the more moderate policies of Augustus would fail to earn the loyalty of his vassals. There is a certain truth to the argument that the Pertinaxi despotism, while nearly unstoppable during Aurelius’s time, faltered quickly after his end.
However, any arguments against Aurelius the man, rather than the system he implemented, fall somewhat short. Although he never was eminently capable in his own right- even when compared to his administrative failures, his personal battlefield record was mediocre- he was an expert manager. Having to deal with a number of personalities, each from different backgrounds, he was able to prevent a breakdown in cooperation or a fracturing of his personal network. At the same time, he maintained his hold on power absolutely and could dismantle any threat to him. When Margrave Eimar or Crown Prince Constantine, two influential men who had served him well before, conspired against him, the Emperor swiftly and decisively cut them out of the state. At times, this judgement would go awry, such as when he had a governor in Rivia executed for embezzling funds when he had done no such thing, but generally his tight fist on the state prevented challenges to his authority.
The Pertinaxi system that he created, while imperfect and relatively short-lived, was perhaps the only form of government that could have emerged at the time. The Mardon Empire’s founding principles, a collaborative unity with subjects stronger than their master, had been discredited almost immediately after its inception. With the greater Imperial project at risk of complete collapse, only a militant state that could capably deflect any challenges to its ascent could restore it. Although Aurelius was no great thinker, he was more a visionary than he was a strongman, as much as he played the latter role earlier in his life. As short as it was, the Empire of Man would survive him, and with it the Pertinaxist ideology that has lingered in the background as a constant alternative, or perhaps threat, to the Petrine and post-Petrine liberalism that has come to shape our world today.
Vale, Aurelius ‘the Planet Emperor’
6th of Harren’s Folly, 1603-17th of Harren’s Folly, 1694
King of Renatus
(r. 17th of Sigismund’s End, 1637-17th of Harren’s Folly, 1694)
King of Marna
(r. 13th of Tobias’s Bounty, 1652-17th of Harren’s Folly, 1694)
Emperor of Man
(r. 4th of Tobias’s Bounty, 1678-17th of Harren’s Folly, 1694)
O Ágioi Kristoff, Jude kai Pius. Dóste mas gnósi ópos sas ékane o Theós. Poté min afísoume na doúme to skotádi, allá as doúme móno to fos tis sofías kai tis alítheias. O Theós na se evlogeí.
The transition to peace under Augustus shall be covered in our next volume of The Historia Pertinaxi.
Aeus joined the community
THE HISTORIA PERTINAXI: Volume IV; Aurelius’s Final Crusade Written by Justinian Nafis, Count of Susa and Adolphus Gloriana, Earl of Suffolk, Prince of Sutica Aurelius’s Final Crusade "This war felt different. It wasn’t like the other wars, where it was for one lord’s inheritance or another’s plot of land. It was for something bigger, like what I’d hear about from my grandfather. ” - A Curonian crossbowman in the service of Aurelius’ Legion during the Third Atlas Coalition War, c. 1693 In a letter written to his cousin, Margrave Mariusz of Styria, in 1685, Aurelius believed that he “[had] reached the peak of the mountain long ago. This descent is gradual, but the bottom is near.” The words were far from those of the authoritative, confident, armor-clad Emperor whose stone face could be found in every square across the realm. It was the embrace of inevitable death from an eighty-two year old man who had seen the lives of hundreds of friends and foes go by before him from beginning to end. His wife, his three sons, Leitseig Romstun, Arpad Ivanovich, Frederick Pius, Eimar var Burgundar, all of the Mardon Emperors, Sir Konrad Nzech, John Sarkozic, Adelard von Brandt, Jevan Ruric, King Sigmar of Haense, and many more who had played more or less prominent roles in his life were now dead. His first time in combat against the armies of Emperor Peter II seemed like ages ago, and it was, but so too did more recent wars: against Haense, against Curon, against Ostmark, and against Norland. With poor records to go back and refresh his memory from, all seemed to blend together in his mind. In preparation for his death, Aurelius began to withdraw from his direct style of governance as he conferred more duties upon Prince Augustus. He was frequently absent from the capital, trading his power there for peace and serenity in his country palaces. He remained aware of all that was occurring in the realm by maintaining a strong flow of communication from Carolustadt, but in his advanced age he looked to spend the few remaining years he had left tending to his gardens and designing a small, constructed lake that he could fish salmon from. For a few years this remained the case, and as the Empire entered the lull of peace, the aged Pertinaxi could feel content with his accomplishments and be proud that he would leave a stable, calm realm for his grandson to inherit. Unfortunately, one final challenge would come to test the old Emperor. While he may have believed that he had built a state impervious to challenge, inside or out, the truth was that it was him, not any institutions, not even the Imperial Legion, that had prevented significant challenges to the throne. It was benevolent in some regards: taxes were low and vassals could keep to their own affairs. In other regards, it was oppressive: soldiers of the Legion were allowed to take and plunder without consequence and any perceived dissent was met with intimidation, exile, or death. Aurelius was one of the few who could manage this tenuous balance, which was found out so disastrously in his later years. For the men of Nordengrad, Earl Thoromir’s fealty to Aurelius was a great stain of honor that no method of rule by Renatus, benevolent nor oppressive, would be sufficient in earning anything but their contempt and rebellious spirit. In 1687, a disgruntled band of clansmen confronted the earl in their city’s square over his permittance of Imperial patrols to enter his lands. What occurred next is disputed- either the crowd slew Earl Thoromir by throwing rocks at him or one of their number challenged him to a duel, which he accepted, only to hit his head on a rock and perish during it- but no matter what truly happened, the result was that Torsten Ruric, one of Earl Thoromir’s more prominent critics, took control of Nordengrad with his clansmen. Torsten Ruric made professions of loyalty to the court in Carolustadt, but he moved with the intent to rise against the Empire. He quietly arranged treaties with the dwarves of Kaz’Ulrah and the tribes of Krugmar, both of whom had grown tired of the Empire’s favoritism of the elves. He also made ties with other dissenting forces across the Empire, but none were so large or influential as the tribes of Arberrang, a desolate, primitive people in the south who, while nominally subjects of the King of Haense, as they lived only miles from the capital, were said to practice dark sorcery and conduct human sacrifice. No specific plans were made for a general revolt, but all expressed a mutual interest in resisting the power of the Pertinaxi. It was in Arberrang where the war erupted on the 3rd of Harren’s Folly, 1689. During a visit for a feast, Torsten Ruric, accompanied by his house guard, ambushed a Haeseni patrol just outside of the feast hall of the chief of Arberrang. It was said that the patrol had been harassing the locals and, wanting to demonstrate his loyalty to his new allies, the Earl of Nordengrad slew this company almost to a man. The few survivors straggled back to Markev, where they warned King Robert of the attack. An alarm was raised, and word was sent to a nearby Imperial patrol. Torsten Ruric, realizing his mistake, both in rashly attacking the Haeseni company and leaving survivors, attempted to rectify the situation by riding to Markev with his house guard and some warriors from Arberrang to assault the city. Despite a lack of siege weapons, and numbering no more than two thousand men, Torsten and his soldiers were able to take advantage of a ruined section of Markev’s walls to enter the city, where they began to slaughter denizens by the hundreds. Just as they were about to enter the royal palace, where King Robert was under guard with his soldiers, the Imperial patrol arrived. Led by Prince Cassius Horen, they met Torsten’s forces in the city streets and quickly put them to flight. Markev, House Barbanov, and possibly the whole of the southern Empire, had been saved. As important as this inciting engagement was to Haense, it was just as important to Aurelius, who received word of it weeks later. In one of his spring palaces at the time, he immediately raced back to Carolustadt to raise a new army and summon his vassals and allies. He recalled Prince Cassius back to the capital to lead the Imperial Legion and began making war plans to put down the revolts in Arberrang and Nordengrad. Over the next few days, news of other, less successful, uprisings came from all corners of the Empire. A mutiny by the town watch in White Peak was put down by the governor there. A group of Reivers had tried to arm the peasants in Styria, but were driven off by Margrave Mariusz. Officials in Santegia had preemptively arrested several Norlanders in Presa de Madera who were attending “furtive gatherings”. The many chiefs and jarls of Norland proper, still in Imperial control, had gathered to discuss joining with Torsten Ruric, but chose to remain loyal to Aurelius because of Torsten’s poor lineage and marriage to the daughter of a fisherman. Aurelius’s choice to name Prince Cassius as the Marshal of the Imperial Legion would be the start of the legend of the last hero of his reign. The eldest son of Prince Tiberius, it was said by those who knew him that the young prince carried the best traits of his late father and his late uncle Antonius. Young at the time of his ascension, having been born in 1671, Prince Cassius was mostly unproven, but he commanded an unwavering loyalty in the men he read, was one of the Empire’s finer swordsmen, and was well-read on strategy. When he arrived in the capital a few weeks after his victory at Markev, he did not carry himself as a meek, inexperienced boy of seventeen, but as a seasoned general. In a short time, ranging from one to two months, he had raised an army of eight thousand that was steadily being reinforced by soldiers from Adria, Santegia, Styria, Curon, Ostmark, Norland, and the many hundreds of other smaller vassals across the Empire. Haense sent a small contingent, but under orders from the Emperor, they devoted most of their forces to defending the south against the tribes of Arberrang, bolstered by mercenaries hired from the snow elves. As the Emperor and his grandson hastily assembled their army in the Heartlands, Torsten Ruric and his house guards returned to Nordengrad. Understanding the gravity of what he had just done, and what was about to be brought upon him, the Earl of Nordengrad held a ramshackle coronation to have himself named King of Norland. He called upon the people of the city, and the petty clans outside of it, to join him in his defense of the north and drive back Aurelius. Kaz’Ulrah and Krugmar soon made good on their support and sent armies to reinforce Nordengrad while committing the bulk of their forces against the elves, whose realms they invaded from east and south. While Torsten concentrated his strength at the Krag, a fortress near Nordengrad that was named after the fearsome Axionite castle, though only a third as deadly, Aurelius and Prince Cassius raced their army north. With Haense and the elves pressed, but holding firm, defeating the rebellious Norlanders would remove the most immediate threat and allow the Legion to relieve its allies. The hastily-assembled army, numbering anywhere from fifteen to twenty thousand, arrived on the outskirts of Nordengrad on the 5th of Owyn’s Flame, 1689. Fortunately for the Imperials, the rebel Torsten, an inexperienced commander, had divided his host of twelve thousand between the Krag and Nordengrad with the aim of securing both. Prince Cassius drew up a light defense around Nordengrad to bottle the soldiers there in while he turned the rest of the army towards the Krag, where the self-proclaimed King of Norland was with his soldiers. The siege continued for several weeks, most of it devoted to the construction of several great belfries that stood higher than the tallest buildings in Nordengrad. They were of Prince Cassius’s own design, and over the course of several assaults they proved quite effective. While the first three attacks against the walls were repulsed with some losses, the fourth, on the 19th of Tobias’s Bounty, gained a foothold. As the Marshal of the Legion held the line, thousands of Imperial and allied soldiers climbed the towers and made their way atop the ramparts of the Krag. The fighting there was fierce and brutal, but by nightfall the fortress was taken and Torsten Ruric was captured. Not wishing to lose more soldiers in a siege of Nordengrad, Aurelius had Torsten dragged before the gates of the capital in full gaze of his subjects, who promptly lost their will to fight and threw open the gates for the Legion. In less than a year, Torsten’s rebellion had been put down. In conquering Nordengrad and the Krag quickly, Aurelius had parried the most dangerous threat to the realm, but Torsten Ruric’s allies did not surrender, though they did retreat. After a few weeks of rest, the Emperor and his grandson marched north to the orcish badlands, where they united with the elves and began the brutal conquest of the country. Several villages and forts were burned with little resistance, but the dry, inhospitable climate made occupation a slow process. Hundreds died, not of orcish steel, but of parched throats and scorpion stings, but Aurelius, determined to bring a quick end to the war, pressed his army on. Eventually they surrounded the central stronghold of the Rex, a cruel, misshapen hill fort called San’Kala. After a siege of four months, the orcs finally capitulated on the 30th of Owyn’s Flame, 1690, and their lands were given to the elves in exchange for their lives. Having quickly defeated Nordengrad and the orcs without too serious a loss of life, the Emperor felt comfortable enough to divide his army. He took the bulk of his forces, ten thousand, to besiege the dwarven city of Kal’Tarak, which had been built into the side of a mountain, as is the fashion of those peoples, and would take significant investment to capture. Prince Cassius and five thousand soldiers went south to join the four thousand Haeseni in battle with the tribes of Arberrang and their snow elven mercenaries. Much like with campaign against the orcs, the Arberrang peoples rarely confronted the Imperials, instead taking to the bitter cold of the dark forest that they called home, which was filled with monsters, traps, and a frostbite that was more deadly than the two. A child’s soft birch bark carvings recovered from Arberrang. They are believed to depict some of the villagers there. These drawings were used back in Carolustadt to confirm rumors that the tribesmen were disfigured and had many extra limbs and appendages. Curiously, a report sent to Prince Cassius’s staff from a patrol gives one of the only primary documents we have of the dark arts of the people of Arberrang. The patrol officer, Imperial Lieutenant Restoo Benkho, reported that his platoon was attacked by a single mage who formed creatures from the shadows of the dark woods of Arberrang and assailed the soldiers with them. "No blades could pierce the black miasma of these animals that attacked us, so we dropped them all and ran for the safety of a nearby igloo that was known to bear a Cross of our Lord, having been put there a day earlier by a Haeseni priest that had accompanied us.” Whether true or exaggerated, this report is evidence of the widespread belief in the Imperial ranks that the people they fought were Ibleesian sorcerers. By the winter of 1691, Prince Cassius and King Robert had pacified most of Arberrang, which is to say they virtually exterminated all but a handful of tribal villages. After extensive darkspawn testing, most were found innocent. They were allowed to live but, like the orcs, stripped of their lands and relocated elsewhere across Haense. The south had been pacified once again, leaving only the dwarves of Kaz’Ulrah still standing. As Prince Cassius and his army rejoined the Emperor in the spring of 1692, they found that much progress had been made. Over the past two years, the Legion had systematically blasted into several rooms and hallways within Kal’Tarak. A dwarven city like any other, sprawling with more passages, fortified bunkers, and false paths than any fortress built by man, the slow, grinding process claimed many lives, more than were lost against the Horde or Arberrang, and the extensive use of magic and explosives drove up the costs. In what was the most deadly siege of the war, claiming well over a thousand lives, by the summer Aurelius and his staff concluded that if Kal’Tarak could not be taken quickly, they would have to agree to a diplomatic end to the war. It is said that while the many aged, wise generals murmured their agreements, it was the young, bold Prince Cassius who rose up angrily and volunteered to bring his grandfather victory within a week. On the 6th of Horen’s Calling, 1692, Prince Cassius and fifty hand-picked Dragon Knights descended into a dark, cramped tunnel that had been found during an excavation of the northwestern part of the city. Old maps showed that the tunnel they were following, so narrow that two men could not stand beside each other, led to Kal’Tarak’s throne room, where the King of Kaz’Ulrah, Thoak Goldhand, was thought to be. An old dwarf, revered as a fierce opponent of humanity for centuries, the King of Kaz’Ulrah was an honored figure among the dwarves, and they would not risk his death were he captured quickly. If their guesses were correct, the Dragon Knights would win the war in a few hours. If not, they would all die with their prince. After what Prince Cassius called “a walk that, while likely only an hour, felt like ten times that,” he and his small force finally saw light. As the prince, leading the pack, neared it, he saw himself overlooking the great throne room of Kal’Tarak, where King Thoak Goldhand and his immediate retainers were taking their supper. Not wasting the opportunity, the prince and his knights scaled down the wall and charged into the feasting group of dwarves. Most were killed immediately, but a few surrounded their king for long enough for guards outside, who heard the commotion, to swarm the throne room. As more dwarves poured in, surrounding the invaders, desperation set in for Prince Cassius. Proving himself all the swordsman that his reputation had made of him, he cut through five of King Thoak Goldhand’s retainers. When the dwarven king raised his own hammer in defense, the prince knocked it from his hands with a single blow. Facing the wrong end of a sword, the king fell to his knees immediately and roared for the fighting to cease, which it did a few moments later. Thirty seven Dragon Knights had been slain, and around them were the bodies of a hundred or more dwarves. Prince Cassius and his few remaining knights were allowed safe passage through the rest of Kal’Tarak with King Thoak Goldhand in tow, his hands bound by the cape of one of the felled knights. By the time they reached the outside, the gates of the city had already been swung open, and the advance units of the Legion had begun to accept the surrender of weapons and high-value hostages. The prince and his men limped- all of them had sustained serious injuries of some sort- through the mass of soldiers until they reached Aurelius, who awaited on a palanquin with his great vassals and officers lined beside him. The Emperor descended from his palanquin to accept the surrender of King Thoak Goldhand and walked, with the aid of a cane, to a nearby tent that had been prepared for the ensuing diplomacy. From the moment that his grandson and his Dragon Knights had entered the tunnels of the city, Aurelius had made preparations for his victory. The diplomacy between the Emperor and King Thoak Goldhand was a mere formality. Kaz’Ulrah in its entirety, even its crown, were surrendered to the Empire. For their willingness to surrender, the dwarves of Kal’Tarak were allowed to remain there, albeit under the occupation of a sizable Imperial garrison. The only exception was the king himself, who was to be made a captive alongside Torsten Ruric. When the treaty was finalized on the 7th of Horen’s Calling, the Third Atlas Coalition was finally brought to an end. The last challenge to Aurelius had been soundly defeated, and with these additional conquests, the Empire and its tributary states controlled all corners of the world except for the deep southern tundras, where the snow elven tribes resided. It had taken a lifetime, perhaps something even more than that, but Aurelius had done what only the early Johannians had: the world was now brought under his flag. Feeling rejuvenated for the first time in years, Aurelius did not plan for a typical return to Carolustadt with his retinue upon the disbandment of his army. Instead, he granted himself a triumph, the likes of which had not been seen before. A festival book was prepared by Lester Drake, who also gave us historians the mercy of writing an account of the triumph itself. Using these two sources, we have a clear picture of what the Triumph of 1692 looked like to the people of Carolustadt. After several weeks of securing his new conquests, issuing land grants, and appointing new governors, the Emperor began a slow march back to the capital. They finally arrived outside the gates of the city on the evening of the 30th of Owyn’s Flame, 1692, and encamped outside until the next morning. They arranged themselves in parade formation before the opened gates of Carolustadt. Entire streets were blockaded as spectators made their way to an outlined path that led to the city square. Then, as Lester Drake writes: "For the first part, paintings depicting the sites of His Imperial Majesty’s victories: The Krag, Nordengrad, San’Kala, Arberrang, and Kal’Tarak were shown to the ignorant masses on canvases that were so large we feared they may not have fit through the gates if the carts that carried them hit even the smallest pebble. Thankfully, they were kept intact. As they were drawn forth, the people made their pleasure known by their applause, so thunderous that tiles fell from the roofs of the townhomes. After the paintings were more wagons, carrying the riches of our plunders: first were the weapons collected at Kal’Tarak, then came the gold from the same city, after were the totems of the Horde and the flamebrands of the Nordlings, and finally were the idols of the Arberrangian tribes. Lastly, more paintings, on smaller canvases, were drawn, depicting some minor battles and skirmishes that, although I did not know their names, it was under His Imperial Majesty’s instructions to have concluded. For the second part, the prisoners of war were brought. First were two dozen chiefs of the Horde and of Arberrang, all bound in simple chains and subjected to a maelstrom of rotten foods that had been left out in crates for months for this occasion. Next was the king of the dwarves, allowed to ride in on a horse, a dignity that His Imperial Majesty insisted be afforded for this old enemy of Man, but he too was subjected to the abuses of the people. Finally came six Norldling chiefs tied around a blackberry bush that was as large as the cart that carried it. Above them, held aloft above the bush by several poles that stabbed into his back, was their leader, whose screams dulled the mockery of the crowd at first, but was soon drowned with cries of “traitor” and “pagan.” For the third part, His Imperial Majesty was brought before the people alone on a chariot, which was painted in pure silver lined with gemstones of every variety. The Emperor wore purple robes from the neck down, and his face was painted a bright yellow. Atop his head was a wreath made from pea shoots. In his left hand he held his sword, in his right he held his scepter. His look was a pleasant one, and he even smiled at the crowd and waved twice as he was acclaimed as the triumphator by all of his subjects. For the fourth and final part, the Legions, led by His Imperial Highness [Prince Cassius], marched at a slow pace. They sang songs of a subject so low that I dare not repeat their contents, but this rudeness seemed to be encouraged by the people and even their officers, for many joined in with their merriment, which within their first few steps in the capitol had eroded their well-famed discipline. Drinks, candies, and other goods were passed to the soldiers, who all in turn gave trinkets and baubles and coins and other bits of plunder from their campaigns. I thought I had even seen the Duke of Adria himself engaging in this base behavior, but I did not raise this aloud for I am uncertain and do not wish to tarnish his good character. When the procession reached the square, which took four hours from its initial entry, the prisoners were arrayed before an audience of no fewer than eighty thousand. The orcs, whose necks were so large that they could not be strangled, were shot individually. Each time a crossbow bolt ended one, cries of ‘Tandem Triumphans’ filled the air from the spectators, though none partaking in the triumph would dare utter such a curse. The chiefs of Arberrang came next, and they were strangled in the typical triumphal fashion. Some cheers came from the audience, but it was fewer than with the orcs. Following them was the sole dwarf: their king. He was given the honor of a beheading at the hands of Sir Arthur Wayne, which he accepted with honor. This good conduct merited silence from the crowd along with a few prayers for his soul. It was after the dwarf king’s beheading that a priest ran into the middle of the sight of the executions and demanded an end be put to it. The foulest of slanders came from his mouth, for he accused His Imperial Majesty of conducting human sacrifice to appease the pagan gods that he aligned himself with so that he may not bend to our true Lord. This untruth warranted the jeers it received from the crowd, who pulled the priest back but, at the insistence of Sir Pierre de Roth, did not see him harm and only escorted him back to the church. After the priest’s interruption, the Nordling prisoners were brought forth. Still tied to the large blackberry bush, with Thorsten [Torsten] Ruric above it, the traitorous earls were strangled, again to great acclaim and cheer by the audience. However, this dulled when two torches were thrown onto the bush, setting it alight and slowly burning Thorsten Ruric. Even this was thought to be either too cruel of an execution, or perhaps too sacrilegious of an execution, for the tastes of the crowd, so said some soldiers that were positioned near one vocal group. His Imperial Majesty was unswayed by this reception, if he even knew of it at all, and the Nordling chief was slowly consumed by the fire without any quicker death.” The Triumph of 1692 was among the greatest that history has ever seen, and has subsequently spawned hundreds of pieces of art inspired by the spectacle. If the Triumph of 1692 had shown the sheer power of Aurelius’s united Empire, it also revealed some of the fractures that the course of his brand of unification had created. Many of his subjects revered himself as something close to a living god, and while the Emperor had never openly entertained the notions in his early years, the past decade had only made the associations clearer. The colorful, imposing statues of the invincible Aurelius, standing with one foot atop a globe, was often a far more spectacular image than similar likenesses of local saints and even the Exalted themselves. When soldiers looked to military directives, rather than the Holy Scrolls, as instruction for virtue, the consequence was a mere reprimand. During a session of court in 1687, a minor nobleman from Santegia had even tried to proclaim Aurelius as the Fifth Exalted. While he was arrested and allowed to be put on ecclesiastical trial, the Emperor made it known that he would not allow this admirer to face anything beyond minor penance. The Church had long-balked at these supposed pretensions of divinity that they accused Aurelius of promoting, but a succession of weak pontiffs had been unable to effectively rally the Canonist faithful against him. This, in turn, emboldened the Pertinaxi loyalists who themselves felt the Church was enslaved to the interests of their enemies. During the wars against Curon, Haense, and Ostmark, churches and monasteries were looted, priests were attacked, and several holy sites were desecrated. These attacks were almost exclusively the fault of independent, rogue units, who were often severely punished for their actions, but the Imperial government never truly took preventative steps against these attacks, only reactive ones. The Emperor had done little to help his case. By far one of the most secular Emperors, his piety was little more than passing references found within state documents to his divine authority bestowed by God. He attended mass infrequently and confession less, was ill-learned on the Holy Scrolls and could not hold a conversation on theological matters for long, and openly admired pagan religions, such as the Red Faith, which he found better-suited to the organization of a militant society. He rarely tried to hide his personal indifference towards religion, and with state policy directed towards a propaganda campaign that bordered on deification, the most devout Canonist around the realm feared that soon Aurelius would adopt a new title: God-Emperor. In late 1692, with the Empire victorious over all its enemies, a new conflict with the Church only became more likely. Two weeks after Aurelius’s triumph, the Imperial Senate, led by the old Sir Frederick Pius, resoundingly rejected Church-sponsored legislation that would increase the authority of ecclesiastical courts. Fiery rhetoric was directed against the Church during the debates, and even the godly Sir Frederick Pius denounced the incompetence of High Pontiff Siegmund and his Curia. This stirred some outrage, and many priests and their supporters published treatises against the Senate, in which they accused it of being an arm of the Emperor’s project to achieve self-acclaimed godhood. This incident may have come and gone without much issues, seeing as how the Emperor himself had not even commented on it, but just weeks later, far from the center of activity in Carolustadt, something worse happened. After the triumph, Prince Cassius had been sent back north to oversee the integration of the conquered territories into the Empire. Part of this involved accepting the submission of many tribes that had never been more than nominally represented by their dwarven, orcish, or Nordling overlords. One of these tribes, known as the Rosenyr people, was particularly resistant to Imperial authority. They had allowed several Haeseni priests to visit and preach, so long as they gave tribute, but they had been far more hostile to Imperial officials. On the 21st of Godfrey’s Triumph, 1692, several Rosenyrites ambushed and killed a tax collector. Prince Cassius, who was at Castle Grolwic, only a day away, led a small party on the 22nd to exact justice. The Massacre of Rosenyr saw the near-total elimination of this troublesome people, but more consequential was the slaying of two of the priests who had been living with the tribe. Prince Cassius first claimed that it was an accident, that they had been mistaken for tribal shamans by some of his newer recruits, but later he recanted and instead said that they had been fighting alongside the Rosenyrites. His testimony was generally supported by his soldiers, but across the Canonist world, clergy and the devout accused the prince of having conducted a premeditated murder. The clergymen at Rosenyr had a reputation for being more critical of Imperial policy, and Prince Cassius was known to align himself with many of the Empire’s most absolutist elements. High Pontiff Siegmund, an ambitious, conniving man who chafed at his own authority being subsumed under the Pertinaxi strength, believed he had a prime opportunity. Two weeks following the Massacre of Rosenyr, he excommunicated Prince Cassius and demanded that he be surrendered to ecclesiastical courts. He also released several denouncements of the Emperor’s growing stranglehold over the matters of faith, and even came close to outright accusing him of aspiring to godhood. His words resonated with many of the clergy and common people outside of the Heartlands, and it was with this population that he hoped to leverage some change. Back in Carolustadt, the old, tired Aurelius likely wanted to thunder with rage at the High Pontiff’s demands, but his voice could hardly carry by then. Many years of campaigning, especially the most recent ones, had worn him down. His strong-built, imposing figure had withered and left behind a husk of a man. A year earlier he had been able to walk with a cane, but now, aside from small strolls around his palace, he was forced to travel by litter. His public appearance at his triumph was a last display of public majesty, a show that affirmed his health and dominance, but ever since he had secluded himself from the common eye. He wanted nothing more than to retire again to his country estates, where he could live out his last months in peace and comfort, but even now, even after six decades of war, he was still facing challenges to his power that demanded his presence in the capital. It was to be Aurelius’s final campaign, though it shed ink, not blood. He issued a pardon for his grandson and declined to have him sent to ecclesiastical court, much to the favor of the people of the Crownlands, who loved the prince above all others. Over the following weeks, he sent word to his vassals and governors, instructing them in the most direct of terms to stamp out any rebellious sentiments. All complied and ordered the arrest of the most vocal dissidents. With popular opposition stifled, Aurelius then moved to unseat the Pontiff. On the 8th of Sun’s Smile, 1693, he issued a Divine Imperial Command that removed Siegmund from the Pontificate. Drawing upon his divine authority bestowed by God, he claimed supremacy over the High Pontiff’s office and called for new elections. Affixed to the bottom of the scroll, which was posted in every town across the realm, was a new styling that so many had feared: His Divine Imperial Majesty. For many, this was a step too far. Riots across the southern Empire broke out and were only barely contained by local authorities. Several cardinals and bishops affirmed their loyalty to Siegmund and called for an excommunication of the Emperor. Siegmund himself, in a response issued five days later from Belvitz, refused to excommunicate Aurelius. Instead, he called upon the Lord to bring an end to the man he now fully claimed aspired to make himself a god on the mortal plane. Two days later, the Legion garrison had him arrested and, under the Emperor’s orders, relocated to a monastery in Norland. Putting down this latest threat had caused an uproar, but aside from a few injured in Rivia, it had been mostly bloodless. While many of the common people and the clergy had turned sharply against Aurelius, he had the support of the Legion and of the entirety of the nobility. To those who knew Siegmund, the High Pontiff was a man who could not be trusted and had a tendency to overestimate his position. His unpopularity did not extend to the masses who had never so much as met him, but that was more due to the symbol of his office rather than anything that he did. With neither the tact to keep his seat, nor the political ability to organize an effective resistance, the whole of the backlash that Siegmund could build amounted to a few riots that ceased by the end of Sun’s Smile. His Divine Imperial Majesty had enforced his total supremacy over the Church and the majority of his subjects did not so much as raise their voice in protest. That is not to say that this decision was a popular one. Aside from most of the army, the Imperial family, and some of the more fanatic Pertinaxi loyalists, the realm overwhelmingly found Aurelius’s proclamation to be an unnecessary response, but the legacy of his victories burrowed deep within their collective spirit. Four or five coalitions had risen against Aurelius, not to mention countless other scattered attempts at opposition, and each time they had been defeated without much difficulty. As much as he may have tried to hide his condition, the Emperor’s demise was imminent; waiting him out, not confronting him, was a secure strategy. It was a wise choice by the Imperial vassals. Whether he lacked the energy or the knowledge, Aurelius had no hope of manufacturing an Imperial cult of Emperor-worship. His measure had, like most regarding his image, been a pragmatic one. He was well-aware that his end was near, and his heir, Prince Augustus, was regarded as a far more moderate figure. So long as the old Emperor did not push the issue too much, he could have a more favorable Pontiff elected, withdraw from religious affairs, and allow a friendlier Canonist Church to resume its stewardship of the faith. When a Crownlander named Elwood was elected to the Pontificate, becoming Daniel V, he felt assured that he would face no serious resistance from the Church again. On the 8th of Sigismund’s End, 1693, he returned to his country estates and left Prince Augustus in charge of the capital once again. At his palace of Donostia in the plains of Santegia, his favorite of his rural homes, the Emperor decided that it would be there, surrounded by vineyards, hot springs, and sweet-smelling gardens, that he would end his days. For all of his life, he had been in the center of the largest political events on the continent. His days in Doggersden felt like a history more ancient than that of the first Kings of Oren, but so too did his storming of Adelburg. For a man of such an advanced age, ninety, he remembered the past well enough to speak about them with some attendants he brought from the capital, who recorded much of what he said. During the last year of his life, Aurelius spoke quite candidly about his history, either as a confession of guilt or as a boast. By the spring of 1694, it was clear that the Emperor would not survive for much longer. He was bedridden and infirm, though his mind stayed strong enough that he allowed the window of his room to be opened so he might feel the warm rays of the sun. It did little to help the chill he had contracted that winter, and come early Harren’s Folly he only awoke to take some bread and water. On the 14th, with his fever still unbroken, he was administered the last rites. He survived another three days, but he finally passed on the 17th of Harren’s Folly, 1694. Reported by a priest in attendance, Father Eugene Daumpart, his final words, spoken that morning, was a request to quench his thirst: “Could you dip that bread in the water for me?” During the evacuation of Atlas, Aurelius’s body was transported overseas and brought to Helena, where it was buried once again. It disappeared after the Time of Troubles, and in the time since no fewer than twenty two theories have been put forward as to who took it. As Aurelius’s body was taken to Carloustadt for burial, made slow by a long procession through the western Empire, Augustus held his coronation. The Imperial crown that was placed upon his head could not have felt any heavier than it did in that moment. As the funeral procession grew nearer to the capital, which could be seen with the many flags and fires that adorned the horizon in its wake, the period of mourning, to last a month in total, grew to a close. The day after his grandfather was to be laid to rest, Augustus would be unshielded from the punishing judgement of those who desired a man who could don the armor in the same way as the Emperor of Man. History has treated Aurelius well, even those which are detractors of his time on the throne. In the most critical of examinations, the point was still surrendered that, despite his conquests, despite his ambition, and despite the destruction that followed him, Aurelius used methods that worked, regardless of the cost, and relentlessly pursued his vision with cruel efficiency. The ills of the Pertinaxi were directed towards Antonius alone, and his actions became synonymous with either the wanton slaughter of the age, or with the machinations of those who were jealous of the Pertinaxi and wished to smite them. With Augustus’s reign being quiet, the focus of any glorification of the age, or even a critical examination, fell upon Aurelius. As time has passed, the model of Novellen liberalism and the scholars made in its wake came to stand in direct contrast to the Pertinaxi despotism that preceded it. Over in Haense, the rejection of Imperial centralization led historians there to apply a hostile lens to the suppression they had faced under the Pertinaxi in order to draw comparisons between them and their present situation. With the reign of Antonius all but exhausted of critical discussion, and the reign of Augustus still understudied, revaluation of Aurelius became the primary method to levy new attacks against the Empire of Man. Where intellectuals before could not help but admire the tenacity and success of Aurelius, even against the human, financial, and personal toll it took, the new age aimed to discredit even that. The “new Aurelius” was a warlord like any of the era, not a high-thinking visionary who employed violence. He built no state save a horde totally dependent on tribute and coercion, and doomed it to collapse as soon as he died. Law was applied inconsistently, conquest was necessary to feed the state, and murder and intrigue defined all politics, as any perceived dissent was completely stamped out. Aurelius accomplished no more than Tobias Staunton: an impressive conqueror who knew nothing beyond warfare, damning his new Empire to its end the moment he died. Aurelius was never to be praised, he was not a ‘hard man making hard decisions’, for he was solely a bloodthirsty tyrant whose own ambitions preceded human unity in any real sense. Even his accomplishments were reduced as the achievements of his more-talented subordinates who succeeded in spite of their liege, not because of him. At a glance, many of these critiques are reasonable. Aurelius was far more comfortable in military tents than he ever was at his desk, and his style of governance reflected that. It would fall to Augustus to build anything resembling a functioning bureaucracy, but even that was short-lived. The Emperor’s tactics did bring to his enemies a fear so great that few would ever dare to oppose him, but it in turn bred a hatred for him and his line that was so great that even the more moderate policies of Augustus would fail to earn the loyalty of his vassals. There is a certain truth to the argument that the Pertinaxi despotism, while nearly unstoppable during Aurelius’s time, faltered quickly after his end. However, any arguments against Aurelius the man, rather than the system he implemented, fall somewhat short. Although he never was eminently capable in his own right- even when compared to his administrative failures, his personal battlefield record was mediocre- he was an expert manager. Having to deal with a number of personalities, each from different backgrounds, he was able to prevent a breakdown in cooperation or a fracturing of his personal network. At the same time, he maintained his hold on power absolutely and could dismantle any threat to him. When Margrave Eimar or Crown Prince Constantine, two influential men who had served him well before, conspired against him, the Emperor swiftly and decisively cut them out of the state. At times, this judgement would go awry, such as when he had a governor in Rivia executed for embezzling funds when he had done no such thing, but generally his tight fist on the state prevented challenges to his authority. The Pertinaxi system that he created, while imperfect and relatively short-lived, was perhaps the only form of government that could have emerged at the time. The Mardon Empire’s founding principles, a collaborative unity with subjects stronger than their master, had been discredited almost immediately after its inception. With the greater Imperial project at risk of complete collapse, only a militant state that could capably deflect any challenges to its ascent could restore it. Although Aurelius was no great thinker, he was more a visionary than he was a strongman, as much as he played the latter role earlier in his life. As short as it was, the Empire of Man would survive him, and with it the Pertinaxist ideology that has lingered in the background as a constant alternative, or perhaps threat, to the Petrine and post-Petrine liberalism that has come to shape our world today. Vale, Aurelius ‘the Planet Emperor’ 6th of Harren’s Folly, 1603-17th of Harren’s Folly, 1694 King of Renatus (r. 17th of Sigismund’s End, 1637-17th of Harren’s Folly, 1694) King of Marna (r. 13th of Tobias’s Bounty, 1652-17th of Harren’s Folly, 1694) Emperor of Man (r. 4th of Tobias’s Bounty, 1678-17th of Harren’s Folly, 1694) O Ágioi Kristoff, Jude kai Pius. Dóste mas gnósi ópos sas ékane o Theós. Poté min afísoume na doúme to skotádi, allá as doúme móno to fos tis sofías kai tis alítheias. O Theós na se evlogeí. The transition to peace under Augustus shall be covered in our next volume of The Historia Pertinaxi.
As if I couldn't be a humble vampire making black pudding for second breakfast fry ups smh
halflings are forced to be normal, humble farmers instead of edgy darkspawn by lore? oh no, this is a HUGE loss for the halfling community /s
biggiecheese joined the community
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