> From my understanding, when Argrath first appeared, his magic and tactics
> took the Lunar Empire entirely off guard.
Little wonder. For years, the Lunar magicians had ruled the field of battle virtually uncontested, without any organized magic to threaten them. In the few cases where the enemy had strong, organized magic, the battlefields were seeped deeply in blood (Night of Horrors, Building Wall Battle).
Argrath's first magical victory was at the Battle of Sword Hill. After a season or two of guerilla warfare in the Far Point, the Phargantite-led Tarshite expedition corps which had been repelled at the Battle of Queens in 1626 finally found something resembling a Sartarite host ready to take battle in an organized way. Even the terrain wasn't exactly disadvantageous to the Tarshites (probably reinforced with neighbouring provincial troops).
I'm fairly certain that the Tarshite school of Lunar military magic was present at this battle. Under the direct tutelage of King Moirades and Fazzur's older brother, this body of magicians had achieved to kill Prince Terasarin over a vast distance, with a "stray moonbeam", and being one of Moirades' sources of imperial pride, I doubt this school was in any way second rate. However, it will have deployed its resources as usual when facing barbarian opposition - effectively as field artillery. Argrath's magical counterstrike took them by surprise, being mounted from a fully armoured mounted company of warriors (at least true for the Eaglebrowns; the Eleven Lights are mentioned only in CHDP). Their resources already spent, the Sartarite magical strike was effective, not so much against the magicians but against the ordinary troops who would have assumed that magical firepower would lie on their side.
Note that Sword Hill was Argrath's great magical victory mentioned in KoS. Yoran was a disaster (IMO similar to the magical battle from DP boardgame), and Dwernapple was shrewd use of allies rather than magical powerwielding. (The magicians on Annstad's wing were peeled away by Jar-eel's companions...)
> Form what I know, he made use of
> Lunar innovations, such as Sartarite militias of Magicians that were the
> equivalent of the Lunar Magical colleges, as well as being a skilled
> Heroquester and magician.
Argrath was the first Orlanthi to scale up the usually small circles of magically talented people in a battle to regiment-sized bodies (where a regiment of magicians still would number fifty rather than 500, the rest being guards and/or servants).
Unlike most Lunar regiments, he saw to it that the non-magical combat skill of his magicians was not neglected. (In DP a foot magician unit losing its spirit still makes almost a decent militia, and the mounted magicians are among the better cavalry.)
Unlike the Lunar classes, Argrath's magicians had no unified approach to regimental magic. Sir Narib's company sounds like Seshnegi allies from Heortland or Esrolia with a few strong combat wizards among their mercenaries, the Egglords sound like EWF reincarnated, the Snake Pipe Dancers might be an old tradition reinforced with new ideas, the Free Philosophers are most likely a Lhankor Mhy band of magicians, Tosti Runefriend has been described as a bear shaman on his private vendetta against a bear magician among the Lunar allies who ended up supporting Argrath even past his vendetta, etc. The Lunars have such magical hodgepodge too (Spell Archers, Comet Seers, Blue Moon School), but their best magicians are the Classes.
> Supposedly, during his time in Pavis, he made the
> first discoveries of old EWF Draconic lore that enable him to counter the
> arcane Lunar sorceries.
Another source for this would be Minaryth Purple, described in Wyrms Footprints as a well-traveled heroquester. An expert on both troll and EWF matters. The dragonrise conspiracy seems to have been active in Sartar already while Argrath gallivanted on the Homeward Sea.
> Now, from my understanding, up until that point, all other things being
> equal, Lunar magicians had been able to basically whup the butts of most
> other magicians, due to not only the breadth and depths of Lunar magical
> theory, but also due to secrets gained from Nysaloran illumination and some
> use of western style sorcery.
Unit by unit, and given a favourable phase of the moon, Lunar magicians kick ass. They are magically stronger than any barbarian unit. Add in Glowline or Bat effects, and they are on maximum strenght 50% of the time. Part of the secret seems to be numerical superiority - a Lunar Minor Class seems to be made of primarily of magicians, not guards.
> I'm assuming that much of the Empire's success was due to the arcane secrets
> and outlook that the Lunar Way itself provides, as well as the powers of the
> Red Goddess herself.
Yes. The trick of subjecting your power to tidal effects, only to ignore the tides when convenient, is an epitome of the Goddess' way.
> Until the appearance of Argrath, and perhaps the
> Starbrow rebellion, the binding and defeat or Orlanth was almost inevitable.
Depends on how you define "Orlanth". I don't see much Lunar activity in East Ralios or Lankst or Oranor. The Lunars seem to have managed to confine the conflict to Dragon Pass, much like they did at Castle Blue in 1247.
> However, Argrath appears, and suddenly there's this massive turnaround.
> Lunar secrets fail against Argrath's Draconic powers. He resurrects old
> myths, Heroquests, and Dragon Pass itself rises to aid him.
This isn't exactly a new situation for the Empire. Jannisor had done the same 7 wanes earlier, a bit further north. Once warned, the Lunar magicians can be trained to deal with this. Such retaliation might take time - the Empire Struck Back (Yoran) only 13 years after the Dragonrise of 1625, and still full four years after the loss of Tarsh. At Dwernapple Argrath produced new, unexpected allies, but the empire still reacted, trained its magicians for new contigent plans, and returned in magical force again. The Lightbringers' Quest for Sheng was done in the direst hour, as it should be for this measure.
> Now, did Argrath keep his powers to himself, or did he teach his followers
> the Draconic secrets he knew?
IMO Argrath somehow had learned the secret of ring-making his great (claimed) ancestor Sartar knew so well, and after testing these methods in Pavis County and northern Prax (including the cross-tribal secret warrior and magician societies of the Praxian beast nomads) he used them against the Lunars. Getting an object lesson what coordinated magic could do from the Cradle incident and the demise of the White Bull Army probably helped a lot.
> Where they different from what the Waltzing
> and Hunting bands of the EWF taught?
I think so. Argrath did not return a wide-spread knowledge of draconic secrets, but limited it to (some of) his magician societies. I tend to think that many of his secrets would be late-EWF style rather than emerging-EWF style, too. A good part of this was based on use of only half understood artifacts.
> How did he reconcile this with the memories of the Dragonkill and
> existing Orlanthi feelings in regards to Dragons, especially the cult of
> Alakoring Dragonbreaker at the time.
A dragon raiding your lifestock and stead is bad news. A dragon raiding your neighbouring clan is, well, ambiguous. A dragon raiding distant enemies is good news.
Alakoring is renowned for breaking the stranglehold on the cult of Orlanth. Since this is what Argrath reputedly does as well, what does it matter if he uses bits of secrets stolen from the dragons and the EWF now and then? Orlanthi are happy to use the Sandals of Darkness, even though these are stolen from an enemy.
> How did Argrath's "Enlightenment" surpass or bypass Lunar Illumination?
Huh? Why should Lunar illuminates be sensitive for draconic awareness, or vice versa?
> I'm
> assuming that Argrath's Draconic magics were a counter to the Lunar
> Illumiannt mysteries and techniques, as far as I can tell.
In the boardgame, Argrath's powers negate the glowline and glowspot effects which aren't in any way related to Nysalor's methods (there was no "Brightline" during the late Dawn Age), but to a fairly "chaotic" method developed by the Red Emperor against Sheng Seleris, using Yara Aranis demonic background and the moon's glow to "cheat". The glowline has a horribly unbalancing effect on Lunar magic. Surely this would be one item on the White Moonie agenda...
> How did Argrath's Dragon Magics become integrated with traditional
> Lightbringer magic?
There's a precedence. Orlmandan the Red demonstrated that it was possible to worship the old gods and use draconic magics. The EWF was built on this interplay, so Argrath did not have to invent it, only rediscover it.
> As far as I can see, Argrath must have been packing so pretty powerful mojo
> to stop the Lunars so dead cold, especially as the Lunars had up until that
> time met with very few defeats. The only one I can think of is how Pharoah
> thwarted their invasion.
Jannisor, Sheng, Night of Horrors. In these cases, the Lunars had suffered long series of defeats and had to field a surprise power when the situation was dire.
I personally think that Argrath did no such thing as start the Lunars dead cold. At Sword Hill, he outsmarted the Tarshites. At Yoran, Lunar might prevailed. At Dwernapple, the giants saved the day. Before the Lightbringers' Quest, the Lunars once more occupied the heart of his territory.
> Also, until the royal house was destroyed, Sartar
> was also the nut they couldn't crack, as Sartar, a unified kingdom, had
> resisted them for many years (about 2 centuries, if memory serves?)
One century - founded 1494 (four years after Hon-eel's takeover in Tarsh), destroyed 1602. Until 1538, Tarsh was (or should have been) at the focus of Lunar attention. When Palashee rebelled, the Lunars fought Tarsh once again, until 1555. Only Phargentes started the wars against Sartar, for their role in aiding Palashee. Only Tarkalor managed to set back Lunar advances, although Terasarin did manage a stalemate for 18 years. Phargentes won Tarsh, and harrassed Sartar, but never made an overt move to conquer it (failing to become King of Dragon Pass). Moirades contested with Terasarin for 18 years before striking a well prepared blow. Much of this delay resulted from necessary groveling in the Heartlands, I suppose. (Philigos was kept waiting 17 years for an opportunity to oust Palashee, and Fazzur needed 14 years to repeat his march on Karse...)
You might as well claim that Tarsh resisted the Lunar Empire for three wanes, and remain silent about the minor interior problems caused by a certain Sheng Seleris.
The inspired rulers of Sartar did pose a problem, especially Tarkalor, but at no time did the Sartarites face a major invasion force into their land before 1602. Terasarin's reign is described as incessant raiding, not invasions, and this is the time which resembled outright warfare most closely. Jarolar and Jarosar (somewhat) sensibly tried to settle the conflict in Tarsh, as did Tarkalor (successfully until 1582).
Joerg (still unchallenged holder of this name here)
(Caveat: I'm writing this away from my sources, a couple of dates might be off...)
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