War History
Raised in a family devoted to Valens’s Caelen religion, Thydric Cieren II took the throne after the passing of his mother, the queen, Marcil Cieren. Under the influence of his deeply religious father, Thydric had grown to fear mindsets and customs that didn’t coincide with Caelenian practice. This fear was most directly aimed at Ronan. Though Ronan had long been a peaceful neighbor to Valens, engaging in trade along an open border, Ronan customs and beliefs were more flexible than Caelen instructed. Ronan’s religion, Deacantian, allowed for the nearly unrestrained social, political, and romantic movement of class, race, and gender, placing certain restrictions solely on its royals. Because of Ronan’s radical way of living, Thydric’s rule commenced with unease.
A great addition to this unease was the magical aspects of Deacantian. While only some twenty percent of people were born with an aptitude for magic, Ronan stimulated these numbers by sending them to specialized schools, institutions, and monasteries, where they could foster these abilities into great skill. Although Ronan showed no signs of weaponizing its abled for the sake of military practice, Thydric feared what would happen if Ronan grew too powerful because of its flourishing magic culture.
Furthering that fear was the open trade that Valens had long been conducting with Ronan. While a majority of imports were simple goods like fruits and silk, it didn’t escape Thydric’s notice that other things were seeping into the kingdom as well. The most concerning to him were the trade of religion and magic. Some of Valens’s abled began seeking Ronan knowledge to discover their own capabilities, and others, including those without the ability, sought potions and artifacts for use in every day life.
While Valens was a kingdom of religious freedom, Thydric was outraged that so many of his subjects would abandon the standard practice and engage in something he saw as dangerous. Previous rulers, including the former queen, Marcil, were unconcerned about the cultural exchanges happening with Ronan. Thydric, however, wouldn’t have it. He outlawed the import of magical items and restricted religious freedom, and began waging a local war against the damage that had already been done.
Thydric’s greatest weapon in this home war was a propaganda campaign against magic, through which he spread fear about those who practiced and about the consequences of practicing. With it came a warning of his own: anyone caught doing magic, or with magical artifacts, would be punished by death. Under the advisement of councilors, Thydric gave his campaign years to become successful, and in many ways, it did. For plenty, the growing fear of magic and the penal consequences weren’t worth the risk. For others, fear became so great that they turned in friends and neighbors who they knew were still practicing.
Even though Thydric had taken a developing culture of magic and turned it into a society that feared the ability, his campaign wasn’t as successful as he wanted. Some towns resisted, and a few individuals had become skilled enough in magic to make imparting punishment difficult—one of these individuals killed eight soldiers and four innocent civilians in his attempt at escape. While this served to further the people’s fear of magic, Thydric himself feared that he would never be wholly successful with such a close and practicing neighbor, and his concern that Ronan would invade with its abled developed into a fear that Ronan would invade from within, by enabling Valens’s own citizens.
Ronan had been warned about the outlawing of trade of magical items in Valens, but it was clear that trade was still happening. Ever more anxious about the liberality continuing to influence Valenians, Thydric threatened to end all trade with Ronan unless the rulers took drastic measures. He demanded that Ronan also outlaw magic. The king, Adrikon Ironwood, knowing an end to trade would be far more devastating to Valens because of Ronan’s more plentiful neighbors, refused Thydric’s demand.
Thydric was furious, but his councilors advised him not to go through with ending trade, as Valenian citizens were already at unrest, and furthering the restrictions already in place by cutting off access to certain goods would likely cause uprisings. Thydric took their advice, but not long after, his daughter was caught with a book of magical practice. In his frenzy of panic and rage, all caution Thydric had about provoking his neighboring kingdom was gone. He sent a force of soldiers beyond the Ronan border to attack the closest magical institution to Valens—the University of Healers—determined that King Adrikon would take his threats more seriously.
King Adrikon Ironwood took it seriously. Ronan declared war on Valens, following through on Thydric’s threat to end trade by ending it themselves, and stating that any Valenian caught beyond the Ronan border would be put to death. Having brought about the thing that he feared, and more alarmed than ever that Ronan would use its magical inclinations to invade, Thydric decided that he would invade first, and took a highly offensive position in the war. Ronan would spend the next thirty years defending its magical institutions from attack, and fending off invading Valenian forces in the Black Wood.
Even though Thydric’s campaign against magic had succeeded in making his kingdom afraid of it, not everyone agreed with the war. One of these most prominent figures was Sir Nilan Thaon, a knight in one of Valens’s regional capitals—Ocnellio—and born ten years after the start of the war. Ocnellio’s ruler, Lord Tithian, was one of the few regional lords throughout Valens who refused to fight in King Thydric’s war, as he was reluctant to sacrifice his people to something he deemed pointless. King Thydric tried twice to force Ocnellio’s soldiers to join the fight, but lost more troops to the civil battles than it was worth for enlisting the well-defended township.
Nilan Thaon, however, took his township’s refusal to fight a step further than Lord Tithian. Having been born with an extraordinary gift for magic that was passed down by his father, a Dragonkin, Nilan wanted his people to be free to practice magic and religion without fear of being punished. Because of Valens’s fear of magic, Nilan kept his gift a secret from all but his closest friend, the son of Lord Tithian, Kingston Tithian. Nilan built his movement instead on the basis that the war was petty, and that the people were suffering because of it. The people were losing friends and family to battle, and had felt the heavy increase in taxes needed to fund the war, and so Nilan gained support for a rebellion in Ocnellio and the surrounding towns and villages. All that remained was convincing a reluctant Lord Tithian that rebellion against King Thydric was best for the kingdom.
That push came when someone else caught wind of Nilan’s rebellion. Hazlitt Gaveston, son of Lord Gaveston who ruled over the Grimeadow region of Valens, had been fighting in King Thydric’s war since he was old enough to enlist. Also with a remarkable gift for magic, Hazlitt subtly utilized his abilities whenever he could get away with it, and created a grand reputation for himself as a war hero, leading his father’s Grimeadow army to victory in every battle they fought in Ronan. While fighting in Ronan, Hazlitt came across a history book of Ronan magic, and learned of an elixir hidden away in the kingdom, which would bestow so great a power that even the Ronans feared it. Ambitious and willing to do whatever was necessary, Hazlitt was determined to elevate himself as high as he could, starting with the elixir.