Difference between revisions of "The History of the Temple"

From Wiki Confrontation
Jump to: navigation, search
(→‎Chronology of the Temple)
Line 183: Line 183:
 
been pacified. A new age opened before the
 
been pacified. A new age opened before the
 
Empire of Akkylannie and patriotic momentum seized every Akkylannian.
 
Empire of Akkylannie and patriotic momentum seized every Akkylannian.
 +
 +
== The Griffin Takes Off ==
 +
 +
Once the peninsula was pacified, the Empire of Akkylannie transformed to adopt its
 +
modern shape. Its institutions were formalized. Zelios studied the inventions of Arcavius, his best friend, and trained the alchemists of Merin. Karl was given the Chair of
 +
Foreign Aff airs. Th e task was signifi cant: he
 +
was to rally all of Aarklash to the flame of
 +
Merin. To assist him, he founded the Order
 +
of the Temple. Kelgar was put in charge of
 +
Internal Affairs, which included enforcing
 +
public order in Akkylannie and keeping an
 +
eye out for traitors and spies.
 +
In the meantime, Arcavius and Jen had
 +
been journeying on and on. Without the
 +
Fire of Merin the prophet proved unable to
 +
convert new believers. However, during his
 +
travels, he trained Jen to succeed him and receive the Eye of Merin. During a communion,
 +
Arcavius entrusted Jen with the Elixir. Jen was transformed
 +
forever. Jen now craved power. Not only did he want spiri-
 +
tual power, he also wanted to lead the Akkylannians for the
 +
greater glory of Merin... and himself. Arcavius on the other
 +
hand was in no way able to lead Akkylannie anymore; he had
 +
lost all mystical powers and his faith blurred his judgment.
 +
As the pilgrims wandered deeper and deeper into the
 +
Bran-Ô-Kor, Arcavius realized he had lost his powers and
 +
sank into despair. Tension rose between him and Jen. Despite how ambitious he might have been, Jen truly wanted
 +
to raise the spirits of his mentor. But he had neither the
 +
strength nor the means. Finally, Arcavius and Jen had one
 +
argument too many. During a stop in a cave in the Bran-Ô-Kor, Jen murdered Arcavius in his sleep. In 590 Jen made it
 +
back to Arcavia alone, bearing in him the Eye of Merin. He
 +
told that he and Arcavius had been captured by servants of
 +
Darkness. He added that Arcavius had died at the hands of
 +
their jailers and that he had been the only one who managed to escape. When Honorius raised an army to avenge
 +
his father, Jen claimed that their jail was protected by spells
 +
of Darkness, and that he would be unable to tell in which
 +
country he had been held captive. No-one doubted his word.
 +
Honorius felt the Eye of Merin on Jen;
 +
he appointed him pope of Akkylannie and reformed the Church to give
 +
him more power, since it was now
 +
led by one of Merin’s chosen ones.
 +
Nevertheless, Karl remained suspicious. He reformed the Temple in
 +
secret and prepared to fi ght the excesses of the Church.
 +
Honorius and Jen prepared their
 +
successors: the council of priests set
 +
up by Arcavius would choose a pope
 +
worthy of the Eye of Merin. The pope
 +
would then use his power to find the
 +
one capable of bearing the Fire of
 +
Merin and make him the Emperor.
 +
However, the council of priests
 +
never managed to agree on someone to bear the Eye of Merin. Its
 +
choice was political in the end: after
 +
Jen died, the Eye became a relic that
 +
the priests hid in the crypt under
 +
the cathedral of Arcavius, in Arcavia. Without the power of the Eye,
 +
successive popes were unable to find
 +
emperors capable of withstanding
 +
the Fire of Merin. The emperors died
 +
quickly, consumed by the relic, and
 +
were unable to impose themselves
 +
against the popes, who became the
 +
true masters of Akkylannie.
 +
Nonetheless, the Empire of Akkylannie thrived after the death of
 +
Arcavius’ first followers. The population was still united by the same patriotism and the country developed
 +
quickly. Contingents were sent across
 +
the continent to find Arcavius’ tomb.
 +
The Ways of Light were soon in need of Akkylannie’s
 +
help. The Order of the Black Togas had stepped out of the
 +
shadows and the barony of Acheron had seceded from
 +
the rest of the kingdom of Alahan. The baron of Allmoon, a repentant Black Toga, raised an army to fight the
 +
Meanders of Darkness. Yet he knew that he could not
 +
do it alone; he sent an angel of Light to warn Centurion
 +
Viriis, whose company had been searching for Arcavius’
 +
tomb in the Behemoth. The Akkylannian commander
 +
did not hesitate for a second. He rushed his soldiers into
 +
an exhausting forced march. The Griffi ns dashed through
 +
the passes and valleys and made it to Kaïber Pass in time
 +
to fight alongside the Kingdom of Alahan. This battle was
 +
known as the Battle of Kaïber, the first great battle of the
 +
Order of the Temple. It was a military victory, but it led to
 +
a political disaster: the Order of the Temple sent almost all
 +
its men to Kaïber to build the impregnable fortress, thus
 +
effectively handing Akkylannie over to the Inquisition.
 +
When the templars returned from Kaïber, they found their
 +
country had changed completely. Th e heresy of Dirz had
 +
spread and the Inquisition had fought back by burning thou-
 +
sands of people who had been declared heretics. Th e templars
 +
were horrifi ed. Th ey protested and appealed to the emperor,
 +
but the Inquisition was just too powerful. Th e Pope ordered
 +
the Temple to hand over its best men to create the Templars
 +
of the Inquisition.
 +
Fearing civil war, Emperor Octavius II instituted conscrip-
 +
tion, the new melting pot of Akkylannian patriotism. Thus
 +
he created the imperial army and gave it the responsibility
 +
of enforcing law and order. In fear of being overtaken by this
 +
new force, the Inquisition maneuvered. It managed to have
 +
a cardinal lead the imperial army and created the office of
 +
Prelate General of the Armies. Soon after, and for no obvious reason, the Cynwäll offered a firearm to the emperor.
 +
Scholars studied it and discovered the secret of gunpowder.
 +
Their powder was coarse compared to that used by the Cynwäll, but it was easy to produce. The fusilier corps was created and attached to the imperial army and civilian peace
 +
was secured. Gunpowder also became a source of revenue
 +
for Akkylannie as it established a profitable trade with the
 +
Kingdom of Alahan. It is only centuries later that the guild
 +
of Architects of Cadwallon has put an end to this lucrative
 +
monopoly.
 +
 +
== The Crusades ==
 +
 +
The situation had stabilized in Akkylannie, but there were
 +
still two crises to deal with: the constant tension between the
 +
Temple and the Inquisition, and the flight of Dirz to the Syharhalna. Hitting two birds with one stone, the pope invited the
 +
emperor to declare a crusade, in order to bring an end to the
 +
heresy of Dirz and to conquer the Syharhalna.
 +
The Temple was put in charge of organizing this crusade
 +
since its lodges, scattered across Aarklash, gave it good knowledge of the terrain. However, this maneuver had also been devised to channel the Temple’s patriotic ardor.
 +
Commander Daéryn, of the Temple of the South, was chosen to command the invasion: his temple had a large navy at
 +
hand, indispensable to land troops in the Syharhalna. The
 +
Kingdom of Alahan also entrusted Akkylannie with many
 +
ships to assist it in the crusade.
 +
During this seaborne expedition the
 +
templars fought many perils. The Syhars spread a plague epidemic amongst
 +
the men and sent monsters of the deep,
 +
called kraken, to sink their ships. Tired,
 +
sick and sometimes demoralized, the
 +
templars still had to fight waves of
 +
clones when they landed near Djaran.
 +
 +
Safe inside Djaran, Daéryn organized
 +
the methodical pacification of the entire region, as Karl had done to rid Akkylannie of the raiders. Unfortunately,
 +
the desert itself was a deadly trap: the
 +
heat killed just as many templars as the
 +
clones, and the sand performed marvels concealing the impious laboratories. And with no other known town
 +
between Djaran and Shamir, far to the
 +
West, the Army of the Griffin could
 +
make no progress in this hostile desert.
 +
The templars were stuck in Djaran.
 +
The First crusade found itself wasting its forces for several years, until one
 +
day Daéryn heard a report concerning
 +
a Syhar fortress being built nearby. He
 +
knew he had to act quickly. He mustered all his templars and marched
 +
them out into the desert. Harassed by
 +
alchemical beasts and deceived by the
 +
technomancers’ magical mirages, the Akkylannians eventually made it through the Ivory Dunes
 +
to within sight of Danakil. The construction of the fortress
 +
was well advanced; Daéryn’s chances were scant. The commander split his contingent in two: he led the first half towards Danakil to keep the Syhar busy. The other half was to
 +
begin the construction of a fortress on the other side of the
 +
Ivory Dunes.
 +
Daéryn never made it back; but thanks to his sacrifice, the
 +
fortress of Light was finished in time. The successor of Daéryn
 +
made it the new Temple of the South and carried on the crusade from this fortress.
 +
In the meanwhile, back in Akkylannie, the Church was enforcing its hegemony. Over the centuries the emperors had
 +
become more and more submissive and the stakes had been
 +
burning more and more often. The inquisitors had become bogeymen. The Empire of Akkylannie frightened even its allies.
 +
Yet the spark of hope began to shine again: Octavius IX was
 +
not an emperor like the others. He was determined to bring
 +
Akkylannie back into the Light. Notably, he relied on Proteüs
 +
– commander of the South who became the grand master of
 +
the Temple – and Tarkhyn – commander of the West and childhood friend of King Gorgyn of Alahan. When he heard
 +
that mystics had located the tomb of Arcavius somewhere in
 +
the Bran-Ô-Kor, he immediately decided to organize a new
 +
crusade. The Inquisition was not opposed to it, seeing a further
 +
opportunity to keep even more templars out of their way.
 +
Commander Arkhos, the most virtuous and famous templar commander, was chosen to lead this crusade. The entire
 +
Order of the Temple was mobilized behind him: the templars
 +
hoped to find a relic, a teaching or some other clue in the tomb
 +
that would help put an end to the Inquisition’s rule of terror.
 +
Once in the hostile canyons of the Bran-Ô-Kor, Arkhos built
 +
a fortress. This fortress was to serve as an operational base for
 +
many archeological expeditions. The research was hampered
 +
by the orcs living in the area. One of them in particular, Avangorok, kept harassing the researchers and pilgrims. Instead of
 +
combing out the canyons like his predecessors, Arkhos chose
 +
to send small scouting parties of templars and legionnaires of
 +
repentance, rogues who had been given a second chance by
 +
the Temple. In this way he was able to locate Avangorok’s lair
 +
and attack him directly. The Battle of the Marauders weakened
 +
the orcs long enough to allow Arkhos to further reinforce his
 +
position and establish a solid bridgehead in the Bran-Ô-Kor.
 +
He was then able to finish building the fortress that became
 +
the Temple of the East. He then dedicated himself entirely to
 +
finding Arcavius’ tomb.

Revision as of 14:54, 18 March 2013

Retrieved from "http://en.wiki.confrontation-games.com/index.php?title=The_History_of_the_Temple&oldid=183"
Personal tools
Namespaces

Variants
Actions
Navigation
Index
Toolbox
Other Language