Civil War in Goldshire

Civil War in Goldshire
Date:	24 Rugaall 1639–the present
Place:	Goldshire
Casus belli:	Martial Law in Goldshire, Avakair Massacre
Outcome:
Participants
House of Ayreon-Kalirion (Kingdom of Goldshire) ESB-Jörmungandr Group Ministry Of Military Affairs Royal Iron Company of Goldshire		House of Mercaja (Duchy of Goldshire) The Assayers
Commanders
Queen Noor Ernst Cryptsinger Thorgils Tarjeisson Villiam Al-Basani		Tudor ap Rimetar Grigory Mazower Mo'lluk Hawthorne (GLF)
Strength
Imperial Navy Imperial Army Directorate of Security Goldshire Regulars Iron Militia: 9,000		Army of the Golden Dawn County Militias
Casualties
Notes

Background

Martial Law in Goldshire was declared after the assassination of the Goldshirean and Elwynnese Princes Arn and Rostam Ayreon-Kalirion by parties unknown in the year 1639. This being the third such attempt on a member of the Ayreon-Kalirion bloodline in which poison was administered in a secure environment, suspicion quickly turned to the Leonid Guard whose duty was to protect the family of the Emira of Sathrati.

Towards the end of her reign Queen Noor was increasingly depicted as a depraved and blood-thirsty pseudo-Babkhan, as can be seen depicted here in an unsympathetic artistic portrayal created by noted local artist Raul Benedict, who was subsequently fed to a herd of pigs in the Kingsgate Fighting Pit.

Concerned about wavering morale amongst the Goldshire Regulars, the Royal Government, on the 11th of Araroqpinu 1639, invoked its right under the Martial Code of Shireroth to seek the assistance of Imperial Forces. The Imperial Government had already taken steps to order Leonid Guards based overseas to return to ESB run rendition facilities in Goldshire and Zy-Rodun. Now, with an official invitation, it could act with full force.

These actions led to an inevitable moment of renunciation when during Muulantooqu 1639 the Lunatic Legion had risen against the ESB Group and broke with the Royal Government, in so doing openly taking up arms against the House of Ayreon-Kalirion to defend the people of Lunaris and the articles of the Codex Aureus that Queen Noor was so flagrantly violating.

Following the example of the Lunatic Legion which defected from Royal Government to the Army of the Golden Dawn, the County Militias of Ran and Elsenar also rose in late 1639/6232. The spread of organised resistance into the southern counties of the Kingdom marked the beginning of the Civil War in Goldshire.

Jaysh al-Sathrati

With the Leonid Guard deemed to be unreliable and subsequently purged, a new personal force was recruited by Queen Noor in her capacity as Emira of Sathrati. This force, known as the Jaysh al-Sathrati, was brought into being on 23 Fasmas 1639.

Queen Noor intended that the recruitment process for this new force was so stringent than only the most loyal would be chosen for the more advanced programme to become guardsmen. More than half of the volunteers in the initial batches died in training. This had an impact on the recruitment and retention rate so a new policy was implemented whereby Doctors Ernst Cryptsinger and Tokaray al-Osman initiated selection procedures for the psychological and behavioural conditioning of the most suitable candidates for Queen Noor's personal guard. The washouts from this process, rather than being wasted through ill-considered brutality, were assigned to a new militia under the banner of the Jaysh al-Sathrati, and it was this force that was unleashed on Lunaris when the Queen ordered their deployment to flush out Assayers she believed were hiding amongst the villages and clans of that unusual county.

The Jaysh al-Sathrati, the core of whom were recruited from the Babkhi communities of Alalehzamin and Utasia and Agnesia and Wintergleam, became a militantly racist and Imperialist organization which stressed the 'Elwynnese' character of the Kingdom. A kingdom which, it held, had been donated to Elwynn in the previous century by Duke Leo Dine. Accordingly they had neither sympathy nor mercy for those Lunatics the Royal Government had sent them to police when they were first deployed on the 17th of Rugaall, 1640. Such indeed was Queen Noor's intention for she wanted Assayers being so fearful of capture that they would rather kill themselves on the spot[1].

The well armed Jaysh al-Sathrati quickly gained made their mark on a dumbstruck Lunaris. Several thousand people had been killed and as many as a million more had been driven from their homes, causing a major humanitarian crisis. Over 100,000 refugees poured towards Lune Villa, pursued by militiamen who clashed with detachments of the Lunatic Legion who were trying to direct the displaced into the Eth Lune Forest and away from the fighting. More than 70 Sathrati militiamen and 10 Legionnaires were killed in one gun battle in late Rugaall. An Imperial Army observer team reported that Lunatic villages and Octalune encampments were singled out, while the homes of migrant families were left untouched.

Now, with all the southern counties openly in revolt, the last pretence of restraint was cast aside and the Jayash al-Sathrati was unleashed to vent its full fury upon the people of Lunaris. With Imperial Forces advancing into the county to secure an area identified as the 'Southern Martial Law Zone', the Jaysh al-Sathrati had the task of holding open the rear, the so-called 'Feudal Zone' under the notional rule of the Khan of Cabbagefall, to allow lines of communication to be established and held. The Growth of partisan bands in Elsenar, Lunaris and Ran, the defection of the County Militias and threatened disintegration of the Goldshire Regulars, complicated the task and stretched the deployed forces of the Jaysh and the Imperial Army over a vastly increased area and to breaking point.

To protect the rear therefore, the Jaysh al-Sathrati was to crush the gangs of bandits it encountered with a singular brutality in order to annihilate them. One of the orders issued in the name of the Khan of Cabbagefall specified: "It may be necessary to seize the entire male population of a ward, insofar as their immediate liquidation is not an operational imperative on account of their participation in or support of the insurgency, and insofar as they are capable of work, to bring them to the ESB Rehabilitation Facilities of Meadowhall, Trafford and Arndale, for reassignment to areas where their labour can be utilised and their actions properly monitored and supervised." In short, if it proved too difficult to distinguish between a partisan and a lunatic, and the commander on the ground didn't feel sufficiently able to execute them on the spot, the answer of the Royal Government was to have the Jaysh al-Sathrati empty the county completely, creating a dead zone and calling it pacified.

Rebel Offensive

The Army of the Golden Dawn went over onto the offensive on the 2nd of Gevrader 1640 with an audacious raid on the island of Mediguttula using the previously unknown triskele to destroy a pair of radar installations [2] operated by the Imperial Order of Technomaezji as part of the Imperial Republic's air defence network. The destruction of these two units created a gap in radar coverage and a blind-spot over southern Goldshire where the venerable Ikol Anti-Ballistic Missile would now be useless in combating the hallucinogen tipped missiles of the C'ort Somnis of the Lunatic Legion[3]

The Bashembazooks of the Tripudium were the most feared headhunters in Lunaris. Formerly a troupe of entertainers they subsequently learned to turn the skulls of their captives into musical instruments.

Iron Company

The Royal Iron Company of Goldshire which had been granted a number of trading concessions it regarded as being political concessions in Goldshire, began to move battalion strength formations of men into the ports of New Harbour, Chryste and Erudition in response to the deteriorating security situation, in addition to 20,000 men-at-arms dispatched to Goldshire at a theatre level and an unspecified number of operatives aligned with the Office of Shadows [4]. This deployment was a source of unease for the ESB Group which was, by this stage, and after having ostensibly crushed the Assayers, increasingly jealous of the powers and privileges it had amassed in Goldshire since its inception in 1634. However, since both corporations were the beneficiaries of the patronage of Queen Noor, they remained, ostensibly, on the same side.