Arx Season 1 Recap

Answer: It had been a tumultuous decade for the Compact to begin with. The Tor-Southport War in the Lyceum had cost thousands of lives, and left tensions between two of the larger duchies. Then there was the Tyde Rebellion out in the Mourning Isles, and the disappearance -- and presumed death -- of King Alaric Grayson III upon his return from trying to negotiate a peace among his warring vassals.

Luckily, he did not die without heir. Though his son, King Alaric Grayson IV was many things: a scion of a long and time-honored line, a well-loved king, the sort who genuinely wanted to know all of his courtiers, an individual always ready with a smile, eager to be friends with all his subjects.

What Alaric IV was /not/, however, was a particularly good king when it came to any of the real aspects of rule.

Easily influenced by those who could bend his ear, Alaric was inconsistent and lenient in his rule. And when his wife, Queen Genevieve, died in a tragic fall in the palace late in 1002 AR, it left the king vulnerable to those whispers. And so he was led a merry dance by those who'd see him used for their own ends, slowly weakening the realm.

As a result, the young king was left ill-prepared to respond when disaster struck the Oathlands: the Tragedy at Sanctum, wherein Prince Radley Valardin, the High Lord of the Oathlands, and most of his immediate kin were slaughtered by a force of shav'arvani who attacked the seat of Valardin power. The grieving young Prince Edain Valardin became the new High Lord of his people.

In the end, the plots against the King culminated in 1003 AR when he, the leader of his guard, and most of the remaining High Lords went riding out for a hunt in the Gray Forest. A hunt which interrupted a sacred ritual being held by the mythological Nox'alfar, the Night Elves who, rather inconveniently, turned out to be real after all. Even more inconveniently, when the King's party saw the nature of the ritual -- human sacrifice -- they chose to attack the Nox'alfar, who proved to be rather unfortunately good at killing things. It was, it turned out, something of the primary pastime for the death-obsessed elves.

The High Lords were slaughtered and the king left in a coma-like state, unresponsive to anything even though his eyes remained open. Heirs inherited the throne in most fealties, while the king's bastard half-sister, Dawn Baseborn, ended up acting as regent in his stead. (The last meant little change other than in title, given that she'd been doing much of her brother's work in keeping the realm running as it was.)

Research was done into what, exactly, the Nox'alfar had been up to when the king's hunting party was lured into attacking them. A treaty between the Compact and the Nox'alfar, dating back to the era of Queen Alarice the Great five hundred years before, was uncovered and translated, and it came out that the Nox'alfar had promised their aid to the Compact in times of great need, in exchange for intermarriage -- introducing elven blood to the Compact to bind them closer together -- and a promise of noninterference in the ritual of the Teind. A ritual consisting of the sacrifice of thirteen willing individuals, their lives spent to supposedly seal away a great evil known as the Silence. Thirteen individuals from a tribe of Abandoned known as the Keepers of the Teind, who had nearly been wiped out after a hundred years of warfare against the Abandoned in the Crownlands.

A ritual, unfortunately, that the king had been led into disrupting.

Many didn't believe it. The blood-magic ritual, involving human sacrifice, went against everything the Arvani faith stood for -- and indeed, shamanism as well. What sort of threat could the Silence really pose? Many of those those who cleaved to the Faith and traditional wisdom viewed the Nox'alfar as the enemy, especially after the deaths of the leaders of the realm.

Some believed it still important, however. Quiet investigations were conducted, and an organization known as the White Stewards was uncovered. An organization who, supposedly, believed they were serving the gods -- bringing order, crushing dark magics -- but who were, in truth, serving as agents of the Silence. Indeed, they'd been working for the better part of a hundred years to convince the Crownlands that the Abandoned tribe Keepers of the Teind were a threat to be wiped out -- and they were some of the most notable voices whispering to the king that his hunting party should go to this place at this time, leading him into the disruption of the Teind.

Around this time, strange creatures began to appear, ones known as Bringers of Silence. Some claimed they were the bodies of humans -- indeed, of White Stewards in many cases -- who had given themselves over to the Silence, now soulless and animated by abyssal magic. Others claimed they were merely particularly beastial shav'arvani. Yet they seemed to possess inhuman strength and speed, and just like in folklore, weapons of diamondplate or alaricite did particular damage to them.

In light of the seemingly abyssal threat, and at the insistence of Lady Regent Dawn, letters were quietly exchanged with the Nox'alfar Twilight Court -- carefully, to avoid the messengers being capriciously slaughtered. After a group of emissaries were able to speak to King Calithex himself, ruler of the Night Elves, an agreement was made to try to mend the broken treaty provided the Compact pay the Teind in the place of the Abandoned tribe known as the Keepers of the Teind.

Many of the High Lords were outraged that the Lady Regent had reached out without involving the entire Assembly. Despite this, three of the five High Lords voted in favor of paying the Teind, while two stood in opposition. Denied a unanimous vote -- and with no agreement on how to find thirteen volunteers -- the Assembly seemed stymied. In frustrated response, Lady Regent Dawn tendered her resignation, announced her intention to pay the Teind herself, and left with a small cadre of volunteers from the King's Own before she could be stopped. Lady Nekarris Darkwater also slipped away to join them in paying the Teind, revealed only after her death to have been an agent of the Nox'alfar all along.

For reasons they did not explain, the Nox'alfar refused to allow Dawn to pay the Teind -- presumably due to her own part-elven blood, through the Grayson line. Instead, she and others beyond the thirteen sacrifices fought alongside the Nox'alfar to prevent the Silence from spilling into the world. The Teind was completed, the sacrifice made, and the Silence sealed. Dawn returned to Arx, and the regency was taken over by the High Lords as a council.

Unfortunately, while the Silence had been sealed, it turned out there was yet one more desperate gambit to be made: a weak space in the fabric of the world, known as the Thinnest Point, could be pierced to create a new gate for the Silence to spill through. And so while no more Bringers of Silence could be made, the massive army that had already been created could still act in this world. Tolamar Brand, a figure known as the Herald of Silence, led his Silent Army towards Arx on a slow and inexorable march, while part diverged to march for an attack on the Bisland seat of Pride Hall.

Around this time, the Dominus of the Faith, Fawkuhl, made what some claimed was a pious move, and others claimed was a naked bid for power: he excommunicated all the High Lords and Voices of the realm who had voted in favor of paying the Teind and allying with the elves once more. Several claimed to have information proving Fawkuhl was corrupt -- notably including Princess Lark, the High Lord of Grayson.

While several of the excommunicated sat in vigil on the Sovereign Bridge, Grand Duchess Esera Velenosa vanished entirely, only later announcing she had turned herself in to Fawkuhl for judgment. However, when Fawkuhl brought her out supposedly to show her repentance, he ended up throwing her from the Sovereign Bridge to her death. Worse still, two others of those accused -- Duke Leo Fidante, and the now-legitimized Princess Dawn Grayson -- were also found to be missing, possibly the victims of Fawkuhl's plotting. Fawkuhl was stripped of his position as Dominus, taken into custody... and there he vanished, only a black rose left behind to mark his disappearance. The former Archscholar of Vellichor, Aldwin Aurum, was elected as the new Dominus.

It was also around this time that the elderly Prince Donrai Thrax was found murdered within the Thrax ward, having survived the tragedies that took so many of his contemporaries among the leaders of the realm. When his heir, Prince Dagon, went to claim the throne, he was challenged for it by Prince Victus (much to the surprise of other fealties, who thought the entire succession by combat somewhat gauche). When Victus laid his opponent low, he claimed the title of High Lord of Thrax in place of Prince Dagon.

Meanwhile, with the Teind paid, the Nox'alfar sent envoys to the city as promised: two representatives of the Nox'alfar traveled to Arx to negotiate a new treaty with the Regency Council. Indeed, rumors spread that the elves would be providing alaricite weapons to many warriors of the realm, to better fight the abyssal forces of the Silence. But somehow, it all went wrong.

Many fingers were pointed, many claims about the fault were made, but in the end the one who was given the responsibility for the failure was Prince Anze Redrain, who agreed to do penance for a year in order to atone. However, the damage was done, and the Nox'alfar envoys left once more.

Denied the alaricite and magic aid of the elves, a new solution had to be found. Investigations were launched into forgotten bits of religion, and along with various hints at past encounters with the Silence a thousand years ago, humanity managed to rediscover information on the three gods of the Pantheon they had somehow misplaced: Aion, the dreamer whose dream is all of creation, Skald, the god of freedom and choice, and the Queen of Endings. (The last, the goddess of death and rebirth, of reincarnation, proved to also be the goddess whom the Nox'alfar venerated.)

It was around this time in 1006 AR that the King reawakened, supposedly through the blessing of the Queen of Endings. However, his three-year coma had seemingly driven him mad, leaving him unsuited to rule. In the interests of a more traditional regency, Duke Gabriel Bisland -- who had once been Alaric IV's regent when he was younger -- was appointed as regent again.

Meanwhile, as a result of all this research, and through the efforts of a number of Scholars, explorers, and other researchers, an ancient ritual was uncovered that could empower five individuals as 'paladins', granting them protection enough from the Silence that they might be able to slay the Herald, Tolamar Brand. However, the cost of this ritual would be the sacrifice of millions upon millions of silver worth of materials. A huge drive was made to raise the necessary resources, and then the ritual was performed to empower five individuals: Prince Ainsley Grayson, Lord Killian Ashford, Sir Aleksei Morgan, Lady Juliet Fidante, and Mistress Leola Allenatore.

And then Arx settled in to wait impatiently for the army to reach its walls.

The Siege of Arx, once the army finally arrived and settled in, was prolonged. Bringers of Silence disguised as normal citizens of the city slipped inside the walls, and attacks were frequent at any public gathering. Many heroes arose during the fights, and were honored by their fealties. But in the end, when the final attack came, it was those five paladins who held Brand himself off from reaching the Thinnest Point and ending all life.

While Arx was rebuilding in the wake of the Siege, a coup within the House of Questions led to the death of Master of Questions Shreve Tyde, and some of his most loyal Inquisitors. Rumors swirled of accusations into blood magic, or even of some sort of demon fought outside of the palace -- ridiculous rumors, of course, not to be believed. In the wake of this, Prince Laric Grayson was appointed the new Master of Questions, and tasked to clean up the Inquisition. To bring in new -- and ideally, less corrupt -- blood, and turn the Inquisition back into a force for good. (Or at least, one not rumored to be actively engaged in human sacrifice, as a start.)

It also became clear around this time that the Nox'alfar had taken the broken treaty, attack on the Teind, lack of a new treaty, and general perception that the Compact didn't respect them as excuse enough to consider themselves no longer bound against treating humanity as a plaything. As a result, those who ventured outside the walls of Arx and into the Gray Forest found themselves risking life and limb at the hands of elven 'follies', games the Nox'alfar played that often ended in a rather fatal outcome for the hapless human involved.

Efforts were made once again to reach out to the Nox'alfar, and -- once again -- a delegation came to the city.

This time, a much smaller group was appointed by Duke Regent Gabriel Bisland, and they quietly negotiated a treaty that was largely identical to that which Queen Alarice had put in place five hundred years before, with one notable new addition: just as Prince Tyrval Ael'Noctis of the Nox'alfar had once wed Queen Alarice Grayson, the Lady Symonesse Marin'luna of the Nox'alfar would marry King Alaric and use her magic to help heal his wounded soul. And, to avoid any future misunderstandings, an embassy for the Nox'alfar would be established within the walls of Arx.

Not everyone in the Assembly, or indeed within Arx itself, was entirely happy with this decision. But the follies in the forest came to an end, the King was healed, and Arvani could travel safely once more.

Still, not all in Arx are convinced that this means peaceful times ahead. Many claim there are other threats on the horizon -- perhaps even greater ones. And there's still so much of the world that the people of the Compact have forgotten. Truths and history to rediscover, secrets to reclaim, and dangers to face.

There are stories still to be told, heroes yet to rise -- and others who will fall.

Bisland History

Question: Could I please get relevant details regarding House Bisland's events of importance, across Arvum's timeline, that led to shape their existing allegiance to Grayson, and affiliations to their underlying fealty houses. (Kaia is House Bisland's Minister of History and would appreciate it if more detailed information regarding such topics could be provided.

Answer: Legend holds that House Bisland was the first house to answer Grayson's call to arms during the time of the Reckoning, and the personal commander of King Alar Grayson the First was Duke Zadkiel Bisland, who led several battles in the Gray Forest before helping see to the defense of Arx during the Reckoning. The Stonewoods were a march that survived the Reckoning due to Bisland aid, and became their vassals, while the Stonewoods were created as a result of the carnage of the Crownbreaker Wars. So House Bisland has been a staunch Grayson vassal and ally since the time of the Reckoning, and has proven it in every conflict for the past thousand years.

History Introduction

Answer: An excerpt from Scholar Tobias the Dubious's "A Brief History of Arvum":

Early histories, before the founding of the great capital city of Arx, are poor enough to drive any dedicated scholar to drink. Incomplete at best, maddeningly vague, contradictory, and written in a poetic style far more concerned with the weave of a good tale to make a better song, not a one before The Reckoning can be relied upon.

A scholar then relies only upon what we can be reasonably certain is true, rather than being another small voice contributing to the great cacophony of dubious history. We know this to be true: the great noble houses of the realm predate the Reckoning by at least centuries, and we can place the time of the Reckoning at roughly a thousand years ago.

"What was the Reckoning?" A question only a child or foreigner from outside of Arvum might ask, since every man or woman grown in the Realm knows the tale. A thousand years ago, men had grown arrogant enough to ignore the warnings of the gods to not meddle with the dark realm beyond the Mirror. Magic, the writers of the time tell us, was too strong a lure and the gods were forgotten in the face of the great power the dark forces on the other side were willing to bestow upon willing petitioners. Scholars should remain skeptical of these tales. Much and more of this is surely poetry, the metaphor and allegory of the writers of the day to represent man's hubris, since we have little evidence that magic or demons or any of the like ever truly existed. None the less, the tales tell us that the practice of dark magic grew so wide-spread, that the demons were finally able to cross into our world in a great sundering we all call the Reckoning. The new invaders had little interest in being the minions of mere mortal men, and set upon a great war of subjugation, exterminating all in the realm that refused to bend the knee before the demonic onslaught.

We scholars can presume that such a great war did happen, though were they demons? It seems wiser to presume that the invaders were some great host from another continent, men of a fierce sort certainly, but men none the less. We can likewise agree with the tales that the houses fell one after another, outmatched by these invaders, whatever their nature. And we can find some veracity in the claims of what happened next. The great noble houses, finding themselves pushed to the brink of extinction and annihilation, banded together in one great last stand, creating the fortress of Arx.

The priests tell us that the gods themselves defended in the final battle of the Reckoning, throwing back the demons. Each great house has their own heroes that echo back to those halcyon days, with their own tales of valor and final victory as they threw back the demonic host from Arx. We can imagine there is a grain of truth in all the tales, if only the great battle of Arx was made of mere men fighting other men of a fiercer sort. We do know the traditions that arise from the founding of Arx as the last bastion that saved the realm; the family of each of the great houses traditionally live in Arx, even if though the seat of their power still resides in the capital city of their homelands. At the time of the Reckoning, the Compact was not as we know it today. One of the kings spoke as first among equals, but power was still equal between each of the houses, and the Compact lost all meaning in the centuries of rebuilding that followed the time of the Reckoning, even if Arx grew and prospered as a central hub between each of the five kingdoms of Arvum.

All five of the kingdoms of Arvum had been ravaged during the Reckoning, with few men surviving outside of Arx's protective walls. Some descendents of those survivors still harry and trouble the kingdoms today, uncivilized clans that cite a thousand year-old grievance of being abandoned and left outside of Arx's protection, and do not obey the Compact's right and proper ban on the practice of witchcraft and magic. The Abandoned, as they call themselves, are hardly a threat to the great houses and their kingdoms, but are a sad reminder that not even our greatest victory came without cost.

We can presume it was one of these sad tribes that harried our ancestors terribly during the centuries of rebuilding. Commonfolk and legends will call these new enemies the elves, but wise scholars are advised to take such names with a great deal of skepticism. Riding on beasts of the forest, creating great living siege weapons of earth and tree, wielding fantastic magic- all these are the stories that are told of the elves, who had grown furious that the expansion of man resettling the lands lost during the Reckoning threatened lands they now claimed. Skirmishes led to small wars, which were settled in fragile peace treaties, and so it went for generations during rebuilding. A particularly bloody war led the soft hearted King Alaron Grayson to seek a lasting peace with the elves, bringing the heads of the great houses to meet with the elf king at a great peace summit under a flag of truce.

Unfortunately, the King of the Compact was more kindly than wise, and the peace summit was an elaborate trap, where these treacherous so-called elves slew the king and most of the great leaders of the day, then proceeded to launch a devastating war against all of the kingdoms of Arvum, intent on wiping out men for good and all.

The king left no sons, and the great houses were in chaos from the deaths of their own leaders, with a number of the heirs unprepared for the ferocity of the unexpected attack by the elves. The king had left only a daughter, and every great house followed male primogeniture, which left all in doubt of the young woman's capacity to rule, and the elves did not take her seriously as a threat. The elves mocked the very notion, sending to Arx the defiled remains of the king, with his head to be delivered to his daughter. But that young woman would go down in history as Queen Alarice the Great, known as the Elvenbane, First of her name and the greatest ruler House Grayson ever produced.

It was Queen Alarice that rallied the great houses, invoking the almost forgotten Compact for mutual defense that had not seen the houses fight as one since the days of the Reckoning, starting the count of the calendars we still use to this day. It was Queen Alarice that led the armies of the Compact, taking back the lands of Arvum inch by bloody inch. And it was Queen Alarice that killed the Elven King in single combat, driving out the so called elves for good and all, and founding the Elfbone Throne. Many of the traditions we still honor, such as the right of the eldest child regardless of gender to inherit are derived from her reign, and the High Kings and Queens have often been seen as the true ruler of Arvum rather than just an arbitrator of disputes between the greatest of houses. Sadly, in the last five hundred years, few of our rulers could prove her equal.

It is in one of these troubled times that we now live. The young King Alaric Grayson, Fourth of His Name, has fallen ill and is unable to rule. The regent Bisland is torn between the different competing interests of the Great Houses, and the young king has no issue of his body, with no obvious heir remaining. In times of old, this would mean the Compact elects a new high king of their number, but no election has been forthcoming. We face not the myths and dangers of the past, but the ambitions of all those mighty enough to wield power in Arx. Those ambitions are dangerous indeed.

Reckoning

Answer: Unfortunately even the most devoted scholars of the god of knowledge Vellichor claim that virtually no true records of the events of the Reckoning have survived to present day, leaving what we know shrouded in myth and legend. Many conflicting legends and tales exist on the nature of the Reckoning, but most agree that men and elves strayed from the wishes of the Pantheon of the Gods, practicing forbidden magic and researching spells to enslave demons of the void below for power. The folly of this hubris was not long unpunished. The great eastern kingdoms in the land we now call Pyre were invaded, as the legends claim, by an onslaught of a massive demonic horde that enslaved, butchered and razed all in its path. The eastern continent of Eurus fell quickly, and to this day travel to those lands is seldom attempted, and our lands in Arvum came under assault in short order. Many tales exist of the heroic delaying actions by noble houses in fighting back that first demonic vanguard, as our strength was marshalled at Arx. Through the grace of the gods of the Pantheon, the demonic forces were broken at their assault upon the then fortress of Arx, resulting in the founding of the Compact that has lasted a thousand years.

Do scholars truly believe such events occured? Certainly there was some attack and impetus that resulted in the founding of the Compact, but a wise scholar takes the notion of 'demons' or 'magic' well salted indeed. One Arch Scholar of Vellichor once posited that the Reckoning was an attempted mass invasion by the lost kingdoms of the continent of Eurus, defeated after a long war by our Compact, and the name 'Pyre' for the most destroyed remnants of the far eastern lands was likely the result of well deserved retribution. Whatever the truth of the Reckoning, we may never know.

Timeline

Answer: An overview of the eras of the world, by Scholar Tobias the Dubious

10000+ BR to 1 BR - Age of Dreams, of which there are only guesses.
-Founding of Cardia, that great southern kingdom.
9000~ BR-Founding of Caer'Alfar, the 'city of the High Elves' where Pyre now stands.
6000 BR~The earliest men settle in Arvum.
- The schism of the elves and the flight to Arvum.
-The Dance of Skulls, when 'the dead were restless.'
-The founding of 'the Great Necropolis of Arvum', lost to time.
-The Pax Celestis

1 AR to 500 AR - Age of Songs, history as told by the bards. Exact times are lost to us.
1 AR- the start of the Reckoning, 'demons' scourge the world.
- Destruction of the Marin Fleet, House Marin and many others extinguished.
- King Alar Grayson I founds the Compact, uniting the great houses in defense at Arx.
The Houses of Arvum that fail to reach Arx fall under demonic control, become the Abandoned.
- The Demonic Host is broken at Arx, Caer'Alfar reduced to the smoldering waste of Pyre.
-The Reclaimation begins, the great houses fighting to regain their lands from the Abandoned.

500 AR to 713 AR - Age of Queens, from Queen Alarice the Great's ascent to the start of the Crownbreaker wars.
500 AR- King Alar IV (informally known as King Alaron), his son and all the assembled high lords are treacherously slain by King A'kioh of the Sylv'alfar, the so-called 'wood elves'.
500 to 504 AR - The Time of Red Fields, the period of slaughter and sylv'alfar destruction of numerous cities.
505 AR - Queen Alarice the Great is crowned, calls the banners of the Compact and leads the unified forces against the Sylv'alfar.
506 AR - The Great Fire of Arx, all ancient records are destroyed.
The Night of the Southern Sun. To the south the Lyceum the night blazes red, the Suthyrn Reaches become The Wastes.
510- King A'kioh slain by Queen Alarice, the last sylv'alfar bastions fall. Absolute primogeniture recognized by all but House Thrax.
510 to 620 AR, The Three Good Queens time period of rebuilding after the so-called Elven War marked by three strong grayson queens in succession.
620 to 713 AR, the Peace of the Queens. Height of the power of the Compact in Arvum, Abandoned mostly driven out, more land under control of the great houses than any period since.

713 AR to time of this writing, 1003 AR - Age of Crowns.
713 AR - Prince William Thrax seizes the throne of Arx in a bloody overthrow. The Crownbreaker Wars begin.
714 AR to 805 AR - The Bleeding Realm period with the complete breakdown of the Compact. The crown changes hands numerous times, eventually settling on the Thrax Dynasty. Constant wars between the great houses make them unable to stem onslaughts of the Abandoned.
805 AR - The crown prince and heir of House Thrax is assassinated by the Redrain woman known as Sirikit and House Velenosa is blamed. The resulting war ends the Thrax dynasty and re-establishes the Grayson dynasty. The Crownbreaker Wars end.
989 AR - Tor-Southport War. Count Lucien Malvici of Southport allegedly murders his wife and attempts to delegitimize her heir, the future Duke Leo Fidante. Fidante loyalists eventually triumph with the aid of House Valardin.
990 AR - House Tyde rebels against House Thrax.
993 AR - King Alaric Grayson III travels to the Mourning Isles to end the bloodshed and bring his warring vassals to heel. The Tyde Rebellion is crushed by Prince Donrai Thrax. King Alaric's ship is lost at sea while returning to Arx, Duke Gabriel Bisland appointed regent to crown prince Alaric IV until he comes of age.
Early 1002 AR - King Alaric IV and Princess Genevieve Thrax marry.
Late 1002 AR - Queen Genevieve Thrax dies in a tragic accidental fall in the Palace.
Late 1002 AR - The Tragedy at Sanctum. Prince Radley Valardin, Prince of Sanctum and high lord of Valardin, is slain with his eldest children by shavs. Prince Edain Valardin becomes high lord.
Late 1003 AR - The King's Rest. After King Alaric Grayson IV traveled outside of Arx with a large party for reasons unknown, the king is found in a coma outside of Arx, eyes sometimes open but responding to nothing. All members of his party found slain, including Prince Sherrod Redrain, the high lord of House Redrain, and Archduchess Carlotta Velenosa, the Grand Duchess of the Lyceum.
1003 AR to 1006 AR - The King's Rest and the Silent War. The Silent Army, a large army of Abandoned following Tolamar Brand and his 'Bringers of Silence' fight several engagements with forces of the Compact culminating in the siege and then storming of Arx. Tolamar Brand is slain, the Silent Army is destroyed. King Alaric Grayson IV awakens, but is unwell.
October 1006 AR- King Alaric Grayson IV recovers and marries the Lady Symonesse of the Nox'alfar and re-establishes a treaty with the Twilight Court.
Early 1007 AR to present: Threats from a pirate king known as the Gyre and a shav chieftain known as the Horned God plague the north and east.

Tyde Rebellion

Question: How destructive was the Tyde Rebellion? I know there are stories of Tyde Reavers taking holds that didn't surrender and crucifying the defenders on the cliff, and that the Redtyde March was destroyed, were many new houses forced to rise to take up old holdings after the war? Did any of the Tyde vassals publicly forswear their oaths? Any crossovers from Thrax in the same way? I know the war went back and forth for 3 years, but did Tyde ever look like they might win?

Answer: Tens of thousands dead, several houses completely destroyed with their lands given to loyal Thrax vassals and Tyde's duchy was personally controlled by Thrax until Victus granted it back to Margot. At first, Duke Eugine Grimhall didn't answer Thrax's call of banners and delayed, and House Helianthus (the third Thrax duchy) was thought to have uncertain loyalty, so Thrax fought Tyde on its own resources, and the Duke of Tyde managed to win a few victories by avoiding battle with Donrai's main fleet and raiding outposts around Maelstrom while Donrai smashed Tyde vassals in slow isolation attacks. When Redrain looked about to come into the rebellion on Tyde's side, with numerous Northlands 'volunteers' fighting on Tyde's side, which started to tilt things towards Tyde's favor including some bloody land battles near Maelstrom, which led to Helianthus and Grimhall finally answering their banner call, and the Lyceum indicating they would assist Thrax, which threatened to create a much larger war, which is when Alaric III sailed for the mourning isles to end it. Donrai did not wish to have a peace dictated to him, which he'd have no choice but to accept if Alaric demanded it in person, so he immediately launched an attack to take Tydehall by storm, resulting in a massive slaughter against its entrenched defenses.