| If Boldhome was sacked in 1621 when did Lunar invasion actually begin?
|
You mean 1602. The overt tensions date from the late 1580s, with continual raiding back and forth between Sartar and Lunar Tarsh. Tarkalor Trollkiller and his council strengthened the Sartarite kingdom, extending roads and making peace with the Sun Domers. Tarkalor launched aggressive counter attacks to counter the Lunar Tarshite king Phargentes' raids, and these effectively halted direct Tarshite aggression for a generation. The theatre then became more subtle, moving to the Grazelands and the Far Place.
In the Grazelands, both kings courted the Feathered Horse Queen. Tarkalor won the courtship quest, and in marrying her became King of Dragon Pass in 1575. Phargentes died in 1579.
A combined Tarshite and Lunar army marched against the last Tarsh Exile city of Bagnot in 1582. Sartar and the Grazelanders joined with Wintertop to defend the Bush Range. The armies met at Grizzly Peak. The Lunars won a major victory. Tarkalor died, and so did the Exile cause. The ghosts of Grizzly Peak and their demands for vengeance still reverberate in 1625.
The Lunars moved to besiege Alda Chur. The siege was lifted by Prince Terasin of Sartar, and in early 1583 the Alda Churi and Far Walkers joined the Sartarite kingdom.
A more personal vision: the battle for the Far Place was not fought with armies but with ideology and cultus, centring primarily on the old/new cult of Yelmalio and successive waves of Heartland/Lunar innovation that transformed a barbarian Enduring Light cult into an emulation of Darra Happan sun worship. Trade too was a vital weapon, and Alda Chur was allowed to grow rich and therefore dependent on trade with Tarsh and the Empire. The Righteous Wind blew about the Deep Gors for the first time in a century, but its enemy was the growing power of the Solar Alda Churi more than the Empire.
But back to the broad strokes of the official history. In the short term, Terasin strengthened the border with Tarsh, extending the walls of Alda Chur, extending the kingdom's roads to the glass-walled city and building close alliance with the eastern Far Walker tribes. Alone was built for the survivors and refugees of Grizzly Peak. He held an uneasy peace until his death in 1600, killed by a stray moonbeam and a ravenous bugblatter beast.
Entre Prince Salinarg the Cursed. The omens had been increasingly bad for Terasin, but for Salinarg they were disastrous, with no less than three attempts to get his coronation right in the face of dead ravens, dark clouds, stone lions, cats and dogs living together, whatever. His son and daughters, doubtless twigging that the coronation party would be a dangerous bore, sword deadly oaths, formed the Household of Death with others of the court, and decamped to Alda Chur to defend the frontier against what was increasingly an inevitable.
In 1602 the inevitable happened. The Lunar advance was swift, and the Sartarite resistance was useless (as resistance tends to be). Despite a counter-attack from Alda Chur and a meeting of the armies at Runegate - a battle turned to massacre by the advent of a large red Bat - Boldhome and the kingdom fell relatively swiftly.
The Hurricane would wait a full generation.
| In the years leading up to the invasion what Lunar presence (if any) was
| there in Sartar?
Mostly in the Grazelands and in independent/semi-independent Far Point. Lots of Tarshites of course, and traders, and perhaps a few hardy - or foolish - missionaries. But the Empire was clearly the enemy.
Cheers
John
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