The great gears of war turn, my friends. It's story time with Uncle Splint out of character.
In trying to aid the humans of The Furious Confederation, The Innocent Union, and Realm of Good, King Uvash Languagepage of the Abbey of Equity sent forth an expedition to found Battlejudge, deep in elven territory. In the year 540, the plan was put into motion, and the small outpost launched provocational raids against the elves of The Whimsical Sparkle and Jungles of Dangling. While few died, the dwarves caused a general raucous and stole a number of items, as well as leaving one civilian dead.
These elves, understandably, didn't like this. They were quite upset in fact.
The two queens convened and agreed to assault Battlejudge, as well as other outlaying hillocks and fortresses, and so what is now known as The Fierce Conflict and The Outrageous War began. However, in the east, the Sky of Harvesters mobilized as well, late that year, igniting The Crazed War that winter with an assault on the then-capital of Mansionsprinkle, though the first swing by the Sky of Harvesters landed at Bouldertaxed.
The elves lost. Badly. The leader of the assault and another elf would be taken prisoner, and the attack entirely beatn back. This would repeat itself at Shieldseed, with more prisoners taken by the dwarves. They'd only get one "win" at Hazyearth, shown at the bottom of the screenshot. And they even lost there despite having the upper hand on a tactical basis, with the leader being killed in a skirmish outside the hillock by a trio of dwarf militiaman.
The rest they were generally outwitted once the militias actually got their shit together and fought back, as shown below.
In some of these fights, it seems they retreated as soon as even slight resistance came up (particularly with the Violent and Searing Assaults, as well as The Assault of Blazes, where they seem to have retreated as soon as a stray bolt or a pothole full of sharp rocks came up. But then there's The Assaults of Savagery, which was the main strike.
Under the command of the Human Omo Lyricalwork, they marched through Amas' domain, and a combined force of humans and dwarves under the command of General Alath Deepwhips met them in battle. Despite the lopsided losses, it should be noted many of the dwarves and humans who died were untrained civilians, suggesting the attack began in some outlaying area before General Alath's men could respond. During the course of the battle, General Alath would be killed by the elf wrestler Coce Mirthvaulted in a lethal martial arts bout. This elf would die during a raid later that year against the humans on The Abbey's eastern border by another elf, a clerk in the employ of some hamlet.
In kind, the Dwarf Kivish Dutyiron would kill the elven company's commander.
Alath had also fought off The Assaults of Murdering which in hindsight had been a mere probing attack two months previously, in Opal of 540. Following his death, the greatest military mind in dwarven history would take the spotlight.
General Tirist Gatetargets
While she would hone her skills in very minor border raids launched by the Sweltering Saturnity (who were provoked into war by a raid from Battlejudge,) and Whimsical Sparkle, her true time would be two years after assuming command in 543, not long after King Uvash relocated to Battlejudge, when The Everlasting Tusks joined their cousins' war effort. After all, General Alath had been an inept rube who was dead by his second battle. Surely with their overwhelming numbers and fresh troops, they could run roughshod over the Abbey of Equity!
They couldn't.
Not only was General Tirist a deadly warrior in her own right by this point as you can see, she was a frighteningly
lethal tactician. The Routed Sieges for example saw nearly 1000 elves, humans, and beasts pitted against a motley mix of 103 humans and dwarves and a smattering of human-raised elves. This was a constant thing, and it really sets the mood for the war now. Instead of a barely iterate rube leading the defense of the homeland, General Tirist is working these poor bastards over like an unruly gimp.
The Sweltering Saturnity's campaign actually halted that year, as in they stopped trying to attack anything, and everyone else just kept getting their teeth kicked in by Tirist's army in the past two years. She isn't making any offensive operations, but god damn is she scary.
Show here is also other battles. She apparently whipped the Sky of Harvesters so badly in 543 (despite the body count being fairly low,)that it'd take two years for them to take another swing at the Abbey on the field.
And as you can see here she's fast become one of the best tacticians in the damned world. The only ones better at war than her are the elven princesses
who have been at war for almost 50 years. That's right kiddies, General Tirist is fast becoming as good a military strategist as people who have both been alive longer than her and been doing the whole "war" thing for far longer. Many of the nobility have also earned glory and proven themselves in the eyes of their subjects under the General. Some examples:
Baroness Cog Bridgedduty, The Dignified Lord
Baron Ushrir Inkedfaithful, The Time of Heaviness
Baroness Vucar Tombweight, The Unions of Reining
Baroness Dumed Holdtomes, The Bodice of Sorrow
Baron Urdim Bootnight, The Azure Trust of Scrapes
Baron Oddom Wheeledstirs, The Secretive Ocean of Spoils
This is setting a precedent for a warrior nobility, alongside Barons Morul and Adil, currently residing in Battlejudge (who have yet to earn their own titles, though they've taken part in numerous battles by now.)
It may also be very possible that General Tirist is beginning to be regarded as an avatar of Messog Takenbite, the Equitian goddess of War, Death, and Disease, back in the homeland.
Well, that concludes story time and a dive into legends mode since we started. It's basically an endless nightmare of war in the northern hemisphere, and while the humans are in downright terrible shape from decades of fighting, The Abbey of Equity is poised to demolish elven dominion over the northwest. It also seems that the elves literally cannot be bothered to bring their "A" game, sending woefully inexperienced general to lead their assault forces. If they keep doing that shit, eventually Tirist is just going to breeze by them in terms of raw skill in anti-elf tactics.
An actual update is coming soon, along with a portrait of General Tirist, as I went into adventure mode on the copy I used for the legends dive to see what she looked like.