Eclenia, or at this point in history the Eclenian Empire is a country that dominates the southeastern quarter of the continent of Galindia, the westernmost continent of Mithra.
The Empire encompasses the original borders of the Kingdom of Eclenia, as well as the Kingdom of Haragladia to the north, and to the west, the Kingdom of Mercia and the Duchy of Antilonica.
But for today’s sake, I will be mostly discussing Eclenia in terms of what is today known as the Heartlands, the original territory controlled by the Kingdom of Elcenia.
The Kingdom of Eclenia was first formed at the end of the warring states period of Galindia which followed the fall of the old Haragladian Empire in 700 BCE. Though the exact date of its founding is unknown it is speculated to have been sometime in the first couple of decades of the fourth century CE when many of the native tribes and city states that inhabited the region united to face the invasion of the Jeddites. The invasion of the Jeddites is the event that caused the majority of the countries that inhabit Galindia to put aside their differences and fight a common enemy.
Eclenia is a unique country in its geography because its borders are naturally protected on all sides by either mountains or the ocean.
The territory within this natural fortress is made up of fertile grasslands, highlands, and is surrounded by many great forests (Especially in the south), the most predominant trees being that of oak and pine, including one species of oak tree, The Great Eclenian Steel Oak, which can live for as long as by some records 5,000 years and regularly grow to be as tall as 120 meters tall and 5 meters thick. These trees are well known for their use in shipbuilding and earned the nickname of Steel Oak as masts made from them are said to be unbreakable. Eclenia’s climate is oceanic in nature with cool summers and cool but not cold winters. This has ensured that crops in Eclenia have almost always been abundant and never scarce enough to cause famine. The mountains which make up the borders in the north and west are both unique and rich in their own ways. The Western mountains are littered with hidden valleys where many small cities and most famously orders of Knights have made their home. The North also has a few of these hidden valleys but is far more known for its abundance of metals, specifically iron, copper, and tin. But in the Northeastern mountains, there are also a few very famous and rich silver mines.
From the time Eclenia was founded, she was always an isolated and relatively peaceful nation relying on a mixture of volunteer militia, and knights of the realm to be called in times of war to defend the mountain passes from attack. These almost exclusively coming from the west by the will of the Empire of Burjion, which was for many centuries the dominant power on the continent.
To understand the rise of the Eclenian Empire I will tell you that the Empire of Burjion, which rose in 900 CE had been built on bloodshed and conquest, it's economy depending on the production of tools of war to function had conquered all but three entities on Galindia all on the eastern coast. The Free Elven State of Madedla in the Darengi forest in the extreme north, the Kingdom of Haragladia in the central east, and the Kingdom of Eclenia in the southeast, and for two hundred years they had been trying to conquer Eclenia and Haragladia.
By 1310 Eclenia had fended off two massive invasions, and Haragladia three.
In that same year, the king of Eclenia at the time, Orphirian, after witnessing his brave, but ill-trained feudal troops die in droves to defend the passes decided to launch a massive military reformation which turned it from a bunch of decentralised lord's forces to a small but highly professional defensive army. This angered the nobility to no end but after the massive losses taken in the last war, they could not argue.
In 1344 the Burjionese returned with another invasion force, but instead of the usual cobbled together feudal army which they were expecting. They were met by a frightening sight of a fully organised and uniform army clad in indigo blue. Lines of spears and crossbows and a backbone of heavily armed and armoured knights atop mighty warhorses.
The armies of Burjion fell upon the Eclenian lines like a wave slamming against a rocky coast. So much blood was spilt that day, it is said the flowers which grow on the field once as white as snow now bloom a scarlet red.
It would be nearly a century before the Burjionese would again dare to attack Eclenia in force.
It is this that brings us to the greatest time in Eclenian history. On a freezing winter night in 1405 in the light of the mighty forge of Fenrock Castle, Joslyn the daughter of the Royal Swordsmith, her beloved Aneirin, the King of Eclenia by her side gave birth to a baby boy, who they named Marius.
Within three years Aneirin would fall ill and die. His older brother Oliver taking his place soon after.
Though he was a bastard, Marius’s uncle treated him as a son, and his cousins as if he were their youngest brother.
In 1423 the Burjionese made arrangements for peace talks to occur with the Eclenians, which King Oliver gladly accepted. He soon rode off to the western pass with his sons in tow. Little did they know it was a trap. The Burjionese slaughtered the Royal Envoy, with only one young knight escaping with his life.
With every pure heir to the throne dead, aside from an infant, the Eclenian court looked to the bastard of Aneirin to take up the crown. The young Marius was now left with a kingdom, a baby cousin to take care of, and the threat of invasion by Burjion. As King, he took a new surname of Aspada in honour of his mother. With fire in his belly and his nation in need of action, Marius rallied the army and marched on the western mountain pass, finding a small Burjionese expeditionary force which he ran down with a divine wrath.
A few months later in 1424, the Burjionese launched the fourth invasion of Haragladia. Which came as a wonderful surprise to Marius who was expecting them to attack Eclenia.
Seeing a perfect opportunity Marius prepared his army to march and sent a messenger to Haragladia with an offer of military aid.
The Haragladians happily accepted as they knew they didn’t have it in them to hold off against the Burjionese alone.
Marius spurred his men to action and began a journey north to relieve the Haragladian army who were besieged on the fortified bank of Vos River. Going through Burjionese controlled Mercia the Eclenians disrupted supply lines and attacked smaller forces of Burjionese troops until they reached their destination.
They found the Burjionese in the midst of an assault and the Haragladian lines beginning to falter, but Marius rushed forward with his cavalry catching the enemy completely by surprise. The Burjionese were utterly routed, and the Kingdom of Haragladia was saved.
The King of Haragladia so grateful to the young Marius, whom he’d know for quite a few years told him that he may have anything he wished. Marius asked for only one thing, to marry the crowned Princess so that the two kingdoms could be united as one against the Burjionese. The King of Haragladia agreed.
A few years later in 1427, Marius would make an interesting discovery while doing some alchemical experimentation. Explosive black powder. He saw the potential of this new device and began research in uses for it.
A year later the Burjionese launched the fourth invasion of Eclenia. This, however, was a far larger host than had ever attempted the attack before, it included vast numbers of soldiers from every part of Galindia under Burjion’s rule and influence.
Marius’s wife and Queen upon hearing the reports of this massive army prepared to send word to her father asking for reinforcements but Marius refused stating that the Haragladian Army needed more time to recover. She looked at her husband as if he were insane and outright refused to speak with him for days thinking him to be suicidal.
However Marius had a plan, for one he’d recently employed a Mercenary Company of Elven Mages from Madedla, and second, he had a plan to use these mages in conjunction with his black powder.
He then proceeded to move his army around dragging the giant Burjion army by the nose, until he reached the field of his choosing. That field was in the flat pastures on the outskirts of the village of Azurekort. Here the Eclenian army would make its stand against their far more numerous foe.
The Burjionese deployed in full array and marched on the Eclenian defensive line which was void of knights anywhere in its ranks, not on foot, nor on horseback. All they could see was the wall of shields and spears.
Cautious, the Burjionese opened up the engagement by sending their pride and joy, the elite longbowmen forward supported by some light infantry. They pushed into a field at the edge of their range and let loose a barrage of arrows which had little effect, the Eclenians didn’t move.
Feeling emboldened the Burjionese brought up their longbows even closer and peppered the Eclenian spear line again. The Eclenians in a moment responded with a volley of fireballs from behind their line, and crossbowmen rose from a hidden trench ten meters in front of the Eclenian line, loosing a deadly volley at close range before foot knights too rose from the trench and charged into the lightly protected archers.
The Burjionese Knights quickly charged forward to relieve their comrades going across the field, passing by a few little red flags which little did they know marked the location of hidden black powder bombs which were detonated via Elven fire mages. The ground exploded blasting horses and knights to pieces.
The Burjionese army thoroughly confused charged into the smoky fray, they too were met with explosions and fire, before being beset upon by the Eclenian cavalry which appeared from seemingly nowhere on the Burjionese flanks.
The battle was over in an hour, the slaughter lasted for another four. The Burjionese, who were already disorganised by the use of many regional, and client state forces, were unused to magic in the field, and this new explosive device. They were panicked and lost order quickly. Those that escaped the bloodbath routed west back to Mercia and those that reorganised prepared for the Eclenian counter attack.
But the Eclenians did not attack. For Marius was sure that the Burjionese could not invade either Haragladia or Eclenia for at least a few years. He would wait and work to develop new weapons and tactics using black powder, and twelve years later his project would bear fruit in the form of the cannon. Four years after that the king of Haragladia died and Marius would unite Haragladia and Eclenia under a single banner founding the Eclenian Empire.
He then proceeded to launch a new military reform as he worked to combine the Haragladian and Eclenian armies, as well as retrain them to work in conjunction with cannon.
The process was slow due to some rather large differences in military philosophy, but they found pride in working together for their new empire and formed an incredible bond.
The work with cannons was also slow and painful for the rank and file but it had opened a floodgate of ideas throughout the officers of the army as they experimented with ways to use the frightening, but at this point relatively unreliable weapons.
It would take three years, but in 1447 the new Imperial Army was declared ready for action, three times the size of the original combined armies of Eclenia and Haragladia this was an impeccably trained and equipped force. Within days of the declaration, Marius sent the order to mobilise and by the month’s end war had been declared and the Eclenian Empire began its first military conquest.
The Burjionese met the Eclenians at the Second Battle of Vos River with everything they had to throw at them. Hundreds of thousands of ill-equipped conscripts were hurled at the Eclenian lines only to be ground to piles of steaming flesh and bone.
The Eclenian army swept over Mercia like a storm wiping out any pocket of resistance they came across. By the dawn of the new year of 1448, all of Mercia was under Eclenian control.
But the Eclenians weren’t done yet, days after the last snow melted in Mercia in spring of 1449, the Eclenian army pressed into Antilonica smashing the garrisons of the old ill-repaired-castles like a hammer hitting glass. The whole of the region surrendering to the Eclenians by the fall.
Finally, the Burjionese would receive some reprieve, but it would only last a few years. In 1452 massive uprisings began in Burjion’s territories of Soeria and their client state on Roncales. All well armed by the Eclenians.
In 1453, at the request of the rebels, the Eclenian army would make landfall first in Roncales, and then in Soeria.
By 1454 the last stronghold of Burjionese troops in Soeria falls to the combined force of Soerian Rebels and their Eclenian allies.
With their empire collapsing around them the Burjionese surrendered to the Eclenian Empire.
Emperor Marius would oversee the demands sent to them. They stated thus.
The territories of Mercia and Antilonica be handed over to the Eclenian Empire. The Kingdom of Soeria, and the Republic of Roncales be granted total independence. And lastly, the Empire of Burjion for the next fifty years pay tribute to the Eclenian Empire as recompense for the various invasions of the Kingdoms of Eclenia and Haragladia.
The Burjionese seeing no other choice accepted the demands.
Soon after the surrender the King and Queen of Burjion were found in their bed chambers dead, they had committed suicide out of shame. Their son and his wife would ascend to the throne later that year.
Marius would travel to Burjion and personally attend their funeral to pay his respects to his fallen former enemies. This made a very strong impression on the new king of Burjion who would ask Marius if he would take his young daughter in as an apprentice. Marius gladly accepted welcoming the young princess of Burjion into his family with open arms.
The period following the surrender of Burjion was mostly peaceful. The Eclenians offered the Free Elven State of Madedla vassalage which they denied with a laugh, but negotiations continued until a deal of trade and friendship, and a pact of defence was struck between the two nations. This an assurance to keep Madedla’s independence, and gave the Eclenian’s exclusive rights to hire mage mercenary companies from Madedla’s Arcane College of Darengi.
With the new pact signed with the Elves and an elite army with nothing to do the Emperor set his sights on a new conquest to the south.
In 1464 the Eclenian army would sail to Albukana and invade the nation of Al-Lat. The Al-Lations would fight heroically with Jeddite Dragon Riders at their side.
They would earn not only the respect of Marius but of the Elves and Haragladian Corps.
In 1468 the Al-Lations would honourably surrender to the Eclenians swearing their loyalty to the empire. However the Jeddites would only swear fealty to Marius, not his empire as they felt it was the man who deserved respect, and not his banner.
Not a month after coming under Eclenian rule, Al-Lat was faced with an invasion. For the Al-Lations it was the return of an old foe, for the Eclenians it was the introduction of an enemy that would haunt the empire for its entire existence. The Sarvanists.
They came in numbers by some accounts as high as the millions. But they were equipped with soft iron, and even bronze supplemented by vast numbers of mages. It was nothing compared to the Eclenian’s full array of steel plate armour, steel weaponry, highly skilled and powerful Elven mages, as well as now vastly improved cannons.
The Sarvanists were massacred beyond counting but still managed to cause some damage to the Eclenian, Sabanite, and Jeddite forces. The invasion which came to be known as the First Sarvan-Eclenian War, lasted a year before finally being driven back into the desert from whence it came.
The Emperor was fascinated and horrified by this new enemy and with the help of Sabanite and Jeddite Elders learned as much as he could of these Sarvanists.
From the knowledge he gained he deemed that the Sarvanists were not only a danger to his empire and people but to the whole world, a disease which had to be eradicated from the face of Mithra. With this goal in mind, he prepared the army to march again this time their target was the Sarvanist State of Manat. It would be the only decision Marius would publically regret in his entire life. The Second Sarvan-Eclenian War had begun.
The march across the desert was the first obstacle, hundreds of Eclenian soldiers died of the heat, and a few thousand more had to be sent home.
Then came the first battle. As the Eclenians reached the border of Manat they entered a desert canyon where a Sarvanist army sprung an ambush upon the exhausted Eclenian column. The Eclenians would win the day but it was a pyrrhic victory for sure. Most generals would have turned back here, but Marius was determined in this righteous cause to save the world from the accursed Sarvanist barbarians.
The Imperial Army finally reached a sign of civilisation for the first time in nearly a month. A small city with house made of sandstone and clay. When the Eclenians entered this comparatively primitive metropolis they found it completely abandoned. Food stalls still packed to the brim, dinner plated on the table in homes. It was as if the people had simply vanished into thin air.
It was a bit creepy sure, but the Eclenians preferred a ghost town to another bloodbath. For they were sure there were plenty more to come.
They spent the next week encamped in the abandoned city just enjoying the time to rest before the campaign could truly begin. However, the campaign would come to them. A few hours before dawn just as the last guards fell asleep house began exploding in balls of fire which couldn’t be put out with water.
The Sarvanist Armies descended upon the city attacking in droves, heading the attack were Sarvanist Dragonriders, but these were unlike the Jeddite Dragons and their riders, these beasts were feral and blind with chains hooked into their eye sockets as the anchor point of the reins and the riders were mad men in rags screaming at the top of their lungs. They fought ferociously, and suicidally, killing as many of the Eclenian troops as possible before being shot down, or swallowed up by the fires which they started.
During the battle, a dragon attacked the Imperial Guard, during which Marius’s eldest son Gaius is killed. His second son is badly injured having part of his helmet melt onto the left side of his face badly disfiguring him. And the Emperor himself is injured with a massive slash across his left arm by a dragon claw.
It was a brutal defeat, the first in the Imperial Army’s history, smaller elements had lost battles before sure, but never had the whole army been defeated.
It is said that Marius was silent for two weeks as he grieved the death of his son.
But the day after his two sons were sent home, one in a box and the other on a stretcher. Marius stood before his generals his face still red with tears and said this.
“I have never before seen such dishonour and villainy. Tens of thousands of my family lie dead on the field… They must be avenged. I will not rest until it is done.”
This was in late 1471.
The Eclenians would continue the war against the Sarvanists for another three years beating them to a bloody draw. Though neither side would admit it as anything other than victory.
Though a bloody and terrible conflict the Second Sarvan-Eclenian War solidified an unbreakable bond between the Al-Lations and the Eclenians.
In 1475 Emperor Marius and his massively depleted army returned home to Eclenia welcomed back as heroes.
A funeral was held for Crowned Prince Gaius where thousands of people attended to pay their respects including the elder chief of the Jeddites who would bestow the fallen Prince Gaius an honorary place as a son of Jeddiam.
Just another three years later in 1478 tragedy would strike the emperor again with the death of his wife at the hands of illness, it was a plague which had been ravaging Antilonica. The Empress had spent much time there giving aid. Her funeral too would draw a massive crowd.
After the death of the Empress. Marius became more and more absent from the Imperial court due to a multitude of health issues. Truth be told he had never fully recovered from the wounds he received during the war with the Sarvanists, his arm ached him most days, and he rarely had a night of restful sleep as he was haunted by nightmares. This all coming to a head when he fell ill and went completely blind.
He would rule another six months before abdicating the throne naming his youngest son Tiberius as his successor in 1480.
Marius would spend the rest of his days quietly with his family, aiding his successor when he needed it and appearing at many birthdays and special events among the people and nobility as the grand patriarch of his nation. He died peacefully in his sleep on what would have been his sixtieth wedding anniversary in 1485. His funeral drew a crowd that overflowed the Imperial Capital with over 600,000 people attending the procession. Among those there were the Headmaster of the Arcane College of Darengi who was a personal friend, The Patriarch of Madedla, the Chief Elders of Jeddiam, The Sultan of Al-Lat, the Doge of Roncales, The King of Soeria, and even the Queen of Burjion who had spent her childhood being mentored by the Emperor.
Thus ends part one of the lore and history of Eclenia. I hope you all enjoyed the story of the first emperor Marius.
