A World Elsewhere

[Esterlen 4499]

 

 

 

 

12th of the Grand Harvest, 1547

 

“You shameful curs, you common wretches! Stand and fight!”

 

John I Frederick’s orders fell on deaf ears. In a bloody rout on the green fields of Dunland, the Orenian corps, sorely whipped, retreated north across the great Eroch. The coursing river tossed up a haze of mist, and the beat of hooves on slick stone was occasionally interrupted by a crash and a clatter: the water claiming another rider. In panicked pursuit were the unmounted warriors of the peasant levies--young men bearing clubs and spears--pushing past their fellows as the enemy closed in. Last, the emperor and his retinue followed in a fighting retreat, half berating and half bolstering whatever troops they could corral. The timbre of John’s voice was incredulous, harshly barking his righteous anger at both the army’s defeat and what he saw as the cowardice of his commanders. Another defeat was unacceptable, and without the taking of Fort Dunamis, the war’s course looked bleak. As a symbol of his resolve, the emperor trailed after his retinue, keeping as near to the battle as possible without abandoning his guards entirely.

 

Guided by the volleys of elven archers from the Eastern Isles, the imperial retinue finally approached the near bank. Like water against a stone, the hail of arrows parted wherever the banner of House Horen went; but even with a clear path, fording the river would be treacherous. Fog obscured its far side, and deep furrows surrounded the few safe passages. Led by its lesser members, the retinue cleaved into five single-file lines. In center rank, John Frederick’s warhorse cantered after the Duke of Carnatia and was followed by his second son the Prince Alexander. The emperor was quiet, though his sword was unsheathed, brandished wildly, and his face steely. Around him, his procession cursed the names of Revlis, Rhewen, Ubba’Ugluk and all the others, swearing to return in vengeance.

 

 

“Any man who disperses from the fight will be hanged by the wayside! Hear me, damn you!”

 

The Holy Orenian Emperor’s baritone trailed off as he looked to the opposite bank, where a cavalcade of Urguanite crossbowmen stood stalwart, their arbalests aloft. The ruler grew silent, his words replaced by a simple, stony-faced glare as he turned his destrier around to face away from the retreat, holding his broadsword aloft as if in triumph. His brown hair had grown thin and receded over the years of stress, much akin to his famous resolve, and his usually neatly trimmed moustache and beard had become unshaven from the weeks of neglect in the field of war. An iron bolt or two flew past his warhorse, and the cries of the dying resounded across the foggy river as they were peppered by dwarvish shafts.

 

“Your orders, sire?!” asked the Duke of Carnatia frantically. The Emperor swung his steed around again as if to respond.

 

But fate’s hand stayed John’s reply. An errant swell of the river, kicked up by an outcropping upstream, swept into his steed. Its foreleg pushed aside, the horse misstepped, slipping on the slick stone, and stumbling; John tumbled from his saddle like a stone. He crossed the water’s threshold with a violent gasp, his words inaudible. Alexander’s hand shot out, but it was too late. The Holy Orenian Emperor’s ornate steel armor dragged him into a deep rift of the river Eroch. John’s last sight was the tumbling of his blade into the depths, and the light of the Seven Skies before him as he sank to the riverbed, the muddy water filling his lungs and choking the life from him. Even so, pushed forward by a bombardment of Urguanite bolts, the son had no time to lament his father, and the retreat continued.

 

As they completed the crossing of the river, the emperor’s retinue--now without its emperor--began the speaking of last rites. They had lost no other man as they forded: only their ruler, his death as swift and barbarous as any in this godforsaken war. The singular priest in their ranks intoned on the virtues of the sovereign, and the pastoral glories he awaited in the Fifth Sky. In his soldiers’ words, the Seven Skies would suit the Emperor better if they were are cold and wintry as he. For Prince Alexander, his only hope was that his brother could yank the dogs of war about with the same strength as their father. After the loss of its twenty year ruler, Oren became vulnerable to the same cycle of civil war that had wracked it for three centuries.

 

Several days later, an unnamed Erochlander merchant of spirits would come across the sovereign’s body washed ashore just north of the location he had fallen, decayed so much that it was identifiable only by the rich cloak and armor on his person. The merchant and his crew placed the emperor’s cadaver in a barrel of dark rum to preserve it, sending it by river-barge to Luciensport, where John Sigismund, the Prince of Alstion and the successor to the Imperial throne would await to collect the moribund relic.

 

VALE JOHN I FREDERICK, HOLY ORENIAN EMPEROR

 

(1498-1547)

 

---

 

 

John I at His Table, 1623, Carlo Bragonolo

 

“As long as his conquering armies went from one victory to the next, John’s subjects remained boundlessly obedient, his rule and claim unchallenged. When a string of humiliating defeats by the nonhuman alliance proved him and his tacticians fallible, his enemies domestic would crouch, ready to strike like vipers from within. He had ruled for twenty-one years, eighteen of which were total war, aging from a youth of twenty-and-eight winters to a bitter, gouty despot who had lived for just under half a century. His detractors called him a tyrant and his apologists said that such was necessary in times of war and conspiracy.

 

John sought to provide strong leadership and steadfast unity in a time of political disarray, in opposition to the debased and inhuman masses of the south who wished to see humanity divided and weak. While he had ultimately failed in breaking the cycle of disharmony, for a time he succeeded in stalwart opposition to perfidious Urguan, conquering a number of provinces (See appendix for Cascadia, Avar, Erochland, Esterwick) and bringing peace, culture and law to much of the Imperial heartlands. The Emperor would leave behind seven children, six of his wife and one illegitimate, with his daughter Charlotte believed to have predeceased him, as well as five young grandchildren.

 

The partnerships he fostered with the various first ministers he employed in the seat of the Archchancellor were legendary and the source of much of his success - firstly his father the monk Charles Polycarp, secondly the Courlander Publius Bracchus, thirdly the prodigious Adrian of Rothesay and finally the greatest of his favorites, Augustus d’Amaury, whose unparalleled diligence was alone responsible for most of his success during the last third of his reign. This relationship with the Archduke was judged sorely by many of the other nobility - who found such a reliance befitting of any active monarch. However, historians have revisited the emperor’s complex relationship with the enigmatic d’Amaury - the wordsmith and poet Patrick Tilley contends the belief that ‘their various skills complimented one another, and on a personal level their friendship was vital to the continuance of the union, for in the many fields where John was weak, Augustus was strong, and vice-versa’.

 

The contemporary clergyman Michiel de Loquelier was far more critical of John I, writing that he was a ‘flinty, prickly, pale creature who hunched upon his throne, nursing whatever minor grievance he could perceive’ and that his ‘singular true virtue was his apparent lack of the vices of greed and lust’. Similarly, the bard Hugh Anthony Cregg, more commonly known as Hugh of Lewes, wrote the following limerick (For which he was flogged by the Duke of Istria, Arthur Roswell, then Count of Pompourelia, in 1531):

 

“Our emperor wears a saintly ring,

 

His word no man relies on,

 

He never said a foolish thing,

 

But never did a wise one.”

 

My opinion on the matter is best reflected by the writings of the Kaedreni scholar Morvran aep Rheyndeith, who called John I Frederick ‘irrevocably flawed, though arguably an improvement on his immediate predecessors - his reign was not only characterized by his selflessness, fairness and his incomparable dedication to the betterment of his country and people, but also by his inability to attain their love and approval,’ writing further that ‘his hatred for the old aristocracy and reliance on several favorites meant that his every action would inevitably transpire contrary to the people’s wishes’.

 

Almost immediately after his death, the (Somewhat apocryphal) manner in which his body was preserved became an urban legend among the peasantry, who took to calling the kind of dark rum his body was immersed in ‘Emperor John’s blood’ or for short ‘Johnsblood’.

 

One thing is certain - the Holy Orenian Emperor who, at the height of his popularity all thought would lay the Urguanites to rest would ultimately fall short of that goal, being laid to rest in a tomb of his own before he saw his work come to fruition.”

-Logan Macdonough, a Harrenite scholar, in an excerpt from his treatise Reflections on the Emperors of Mankind, 1602

[Scipp3r 451]

May God have mercy on his soul.

[MikhaiI 231]

Charlton would have begun leaping about in delight after hearing such, 
"The Emperor is dead

   Emery is avenged!"

 

[Heff 2460]

Lucien III offers his hand, helping his rival of many futile bickerings, into the Seven Skies. 

[Cleggmire_ 130]

              "And so he falls." The knight would imply sullenly, his orbs cast heavily onto the pyre as he cleans his bastard blade, "And ze last zing he showed to me was mercy, but non ze commoner. Blood for Ashford. Blood for my kin. Blood for ze greater good."

[Publius 4098]

Publius is struck with great grief at the loss of the Emperor despite his bitterness. He says a prayer for both him and Oren from his home in Al-Wakrah, thinking to visit Felsen in the near future.

 

"May every Emperor be as strong as he."

[lawnmowerman 3040]

Ser Rhys Roke's eye blinked but once, lips donning a common scowl. He'd mumble a simple, bitter prayer for his fallen Emperor.

 

Kazik shakes his head swiftly, mumbling through gritted teeth.

 

"Just as the fire started rising, Johnny boy."

[tilly 5115]

Adelheid, from her home in Kaedrin, steeples her manicured fingers. A slow, coy smirk grows on her lips and a long, relieved breath leaves her body, as if it had been held for all those years.

[AGP 3169]

"Creator preserve us."

[Hammer4_ 166]

Aelius hears tell of the Emperor's death, pondering what will unfold next in this deranged course of events.

[MikhaiI 231]

Charlton looks to Adelheid through the home's window, distributing a loud smirk before stating, "My hero.." Charlton then places a pair of sunglasses on before spinning on his heel and sauntering away.

[Onslaughted 920]

Danis would be on a hill nearby Felsen, he would be over looking the city, hearing of this news. "Good riddance." he would say under his breath.

[Imam Faiz Kharadeen 3167]

Faiz Kharadeen shakes his head as he hears the news from within his little island, fiddling with some of his books "Killed by the very group he despised. I warned him, but my warnings fall upon deaf ears. Oh well."

[GloriaPreussens 798]

John would let loose tears for his fallen father, casting aside his black plate

[Jachnun 566]

 

Vytenis welcomes John to the Seven Skies .