A Recount of the Siege of Treehold by Othan Mallowater
Aug 11, 2018 6:34:44 GMT -4
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Post by Tikobe on Aug 11, 2018 6:34:44 GMT -4
(Tim asked for a repost of this from the Fantasy RP thread, so here we go.)
Othan Mallowater, when asked to tell about the Siege of Treehold by his nephew, Arnfried:
“Very well. We go back to when I was younger, to before your cousin Ielle was born. Back then I was under the service a man named Wyst Shan, the father of my best friend Raethus and the grandfather of young Thurum right over there. Raethus and I were knights whose original job in Wyst’s force was to command the frontline forces and keep things from falling apart. However, at one time during this I had proposed a strategic barricade that blocked off a part of the Crebehl Forest from the rest and convinced Wyst to follow this tactic. The barricade weakened the cordoned off section and left the soldiers there with a major fatigue that allowed your grandfather Thander’s forces to capture the area with minimal casualties. However, it’s not as if there were no challenges: The area that we captured was under the supervision of the city of Treehold. When in times of peace, Treehold is a major trading city of the Galbror region since it’s connection to the roads situates it as a convenient spot to move trade from the eastern Eredal and the western Orevod down to Galbror. Because of these connections, there were many enemy supply routes that ran through Treehold, and it became the basis of military operations for that region. The barricades received a fair number of attacks from forces sent from the city which angered your grandfather and after he finished capturing the area, grandfather Thander ordered Wyst to seize the city while he was off at a region south of Treehold working with the former Earl of Nargon,” I explain as I take a deep breath before continuing.
“Now, when in incompetent hands, Treehold isn’t a challenging city to capture. It’s separated itself into five districts and put a single, massive wall that closes off and divides the city. There are no stairs to this wall from anywhere in the city except from the central district where it connects to the large castle where Treehold’s ruling family lives. It’s rather an amusing city to see, actually, since they recognized that all it takes is a successful climb up a ladder and the enemy has an easy way to access the nobles at the center, so they actually had to make gates on the wall around the central district. Unfortunately for us, the city was in hands that were quite far from being anything like ‘incompetent.’ The man posted there was a man by the name of Darrien Gast, a vassal of the Duke of Estermere, the Duke who you’ll remember cost us the Second War by attempting to drag Lemmurath into it. Darrien himself is also an equally frustrating man, since a short time after we captured Treehold and moved our forces to rejoin with grandfather Thander’s, Darrien had gone and recaptured Treehold, restoring the supply lines and opening a hole in our attack, which was one of the many things that led to our defeat in the First War. Regardless of how much I can explain the annoyance of that man and about the two times I’ve had to meet his forces in the Second War and even suffering a defeat at his hands, I’ll keep things simple and strictly to the matter of Treehold. When we arrived, we quickly found out that ladders were not going to be effective here in spite of Treefort’s design flaws. After all, the first thing we noticed was the smell of oil and that Darrien had set the conditions in place for a controlled fire on the wall. If we were to set up a ladder, he would set the fire and even if a man were able to climb up the ladder before it burned and broke down, he would be stranded and left with injuries from the fire. Because of this, it was apparent to Wyst that our only options of siege were through tearing down the four gates on the city’s outer wall.”
I look at Arnfried to make sure I had his attention, and then did the same with Thander Marthus afterwards. There were questions I had about succession if I were to suddenly die. Naturally, it should be Thander Marthus, but even if I trust Kallian enough to not stab my back, I still wonder if he would try to pin up himself or Arnfried instead. Personally speaking, however, I didn’t care who would inherit the title of Earl after me, so long as that person was actually competent and carried on true devotion to the great lord Nizeston. Towards that end I wanted the boys to learn how I would lead an army and develop their skill as tacticians and not just mere fools with an army they don’t know how to lead.
“Wyst chose to divide his forces into three units for this task. The first and largest was lead by him, and it targeted the southern gate that was pointed towards Galbror and as such guarded the district that the rich resided in. After Wyst began his attack, his right hand Danir Maus led the second group to the east gate that pointed towards Eredal, the source of most of Treehold’s imports, causing the east district to naturally form into a market. The third force was given to Raethus and I as an experiment founded on a curiosity of Wyst’s that was piqued due to the barricade plan I devised. The task was initially much more daunting then it seemed. After all, I’ve already stressed the unfortunate reality the Darrien Gast is more than competent as a military leader. However, you’ll note that I’ve been telling you about the districts and their connections and subsequent roles in Treehold’s structure. The reason behind this is simple: It lead to Darrien’s defeat. To understand this, I will explain the roles of the western and northern districts. The western district was pointed towards Orevod, which, before the war, was the second largest source of imports running through Treehold. The city, if it is not yet apparent, is focused on it’s trade, and so it attempts to look nice to keep positive impressions on the merchants going through it. That’s why the east is a market, the south is a residential district for the rich, and as such the west is clearly a residential district for commoners. However, there is one important thing missing in this city: A slums. All areas, regardless of where you look in the world, will have a populace made out of beggars, thieves, thugs, unfortunate foreigners and the excessively poor. When laying out the organization of Treehold, it was noted that in the north was only poor and underdeveloped villages that brought in sub-par supplies of furs and lumber. As such the northern district became a slums, and the method I used in seizing Treehold,” I pause, after checking once again that the boys are listening.
“Darrien, in spite of being a military leader, is first and foremost a noble, and falls under the same notions that nobles generally do. This notion is a list on which to prioritize people by, a list that utilizes social and financial class to deem who is more important and who is not. And naturally, as a noble, the wealthiest and the most influential come first. This is not an incorrect manner of thinking. After all, when a siege ends we can expect the nobles to fund repairs to the city and the commoners to provide the labor. The peasants, however, are unruly and resistant to being forced into laboring for those who step on and bully them. They provide little to no use in a society regardless of the situation. Darrien Gast’s one fault in this thought, however, was that he expected us, who were also nobles, to also allow ourselves to be influenced by this idea and attack the more important people before anything else. I noticed this when I saw the heaviest defenses located at the southern gate. It occured to me that the forces that were fighting off Wyst’s men were too structured and prepared to have been sent there as an emergency to counter the larger size of Wyst’s forces. I realized what Darrien was thinking and as such noticed that he left the west to be more defended than the north. Seeing a hole in the defense, I chose to attack the north. At the time the attacks south and east had already begun and Darrien was so focused on them that by the time he’d realized I attacked somewhere he didn’t expect me to go I was already attacking the gate. He tried relocating the men posted in the west to stop me but the damage was already done and in two weeks time, in spite of the smaller size of my force compared to Wyst’s and Danir’s, I had torn down the northern gate of Treehold. This was where the second challenge of Darrien’s creation had reached me, for I soon discovered that not only did Darrien reinforce the gates that lead into the east and west districts from my location in the north, but the man ruling Treehold had despised the northern district to the point that there was no gate that lead into the central district from my location, and even though the gates in the northern district weren’t as well made as the ones on the outer edge of the wall, scouts sent from Wyst’s and Danir’s side came in and reported that Darrien had prepared a retaliatory force within the rest of the city, a force which was meant to attack us if we tore down either of the two gates not to mention a force my men wouldn’t be able to fight off in their present state. Even though I played my hand well, in the end Darrien had effectively killed any momentum that I had gained by capturing the north district. Unless I could gain more men to replace the soldiers I lost taking the north and to help make up for the drop in both stamina and morale among my troops caused by this second line of defense, I was at a stalemate.”
“Now, Wyst, Danir, Raethus and I had many meetings on this matter. We finally had our foot in the door, but the door was blocked from being opened further. We asked many questions: Should Danir and Wyst send some of their forces to my side? But if we did that, would there still be enough to strength to make Danir’s and Wyst’s attacks still be useful to our siege? Then should Wyst’s forces and mine trade positions? Wouldn’t that take up too much time and give Darrien the window he needed for a counter attack? Do we unite forces and concentrate on the weaker gates in the north district? Wouldn’t our soldiers be too crowded to do anything? Many ideas and objections were made, but finally I announced that I had devised a plan that could create troops seemingly out of thin air. Wyst and Danir looked at me like I was insane, but I told them I could handle things without assistance and that it’d be best for our side if they were to proceed as they had been for the past two weeks since we started the siege. It took a lot of convincing, but in the end they decided to take a vote of confidence and left me to my own devices. My first step was to have Raethus lead our men to attack the gate leading to the east district where Danir’s forces were. The second was to round up all of the men living in the northern district and put them all in one place. Peasants are interesting people in their concept. I’ve already explained to you that they have no inherent worth whatsoever in the eyes of us nobles, and if we look at it practically, not only is it true but there’s a lot more to the matter than that. You see, peasants don’t have a sense of loyalty. After all, when you think about it, why should they? Has their kingdom ever done anything to aid them? Have those who are better off shown them any kindness? Even on the best of days, they, who should share a sense of unity for surviving together under those conditions, can’t help but to fight, steal from and murder each other. They’re like their own community that we just allow to live with us, or more specifically under us and if our kingdom of Orevod, for example, were to be conquered and ruled by new men, the peasants living on our land wouldn’t be affected in the slightest, since in the end their treatment will not change, just the faces of those who rule have changed. The only thing we have keeping them in line is a crushing sense of hopelessness and defeat. Without giving the peasants those feelings, we’d actually have a serious headache to deal with. So, I broke that rule. While Raethus sieged the gate to the east, I began a propaganda campaign among the peasants and gave them hope. It’s not actually a hard thing to do, since all I said was that they would be rewarded with better lives if they fought for Orevod. Understand, not only did I not have the resources and authority to actually do this, but I also had no intention on actually delivering on that promise. But they still bought it with a vigor I’ve only ever seen animals have, and with what small time I had I armed them and taught them some basic formations and fighting techniques. When Raethus finally destroyed the gate a week and a half later, I had as decent a fighting troop as I could get with only those few days of training a malnourished and starving people. And when the gate was destroyed, they were the ones who stood on the front lines,” I stretch as I finally begin wrapping up the story.
“I was actually kind of disappointed with myself on just how poorly this militia performed. It was a one sided slaughter against them and frankly you could’ve made a betting game out when they would all be wiped out. The militia men did actually start trying to run away, but my men surrounded them and killed any who came close. With their line of retreat closed off and the evident fact that the enemy would kill them if they begged for mercy, they were left with no choice but to fight against their will. While this sounds like a terrible thing to do, in the end peasants are still inherently worthless and they should be frankly glad that in spite of their standing in society they got to work to spread the name of our great lord Nizeston. Regardless, the militia’s only purpose was to buy time for the enemy retaliatory force to get in formation and relax. Once their guard was down, our cavalry soldiers rode in on their horses and shattered their formations and overwhelmed the enemies. On that day we flanked and destroyed the east gate that was under siege by Danir Maus, leaving a hole in Treehold’s defenses that Wyst slipped his forces in through and that day we also stormed the central district and captured the city. Sadly, Darrien Gast and the nobles that he holed up with in the central district had somehow slipped out of the city undetected. We don’t know how he did it, and even after searching for secret passages we weren’t able to find anything before Darrien reclaimed Treehold. Even then, that is the story of the Siege of Treehold. Remember it and the lessons it teaches, Arnfried.”
Othan Mallowater, when asked to tell about the Siege of Treehold by his nephew, Arnfried:
“Very well. We go back to when I was younger, to before your cousin Ielle was born. Back then I was under the service a man named Wyst Shan, the father of my best friend Raethus and the grandfather of young Thurum right over there. Raethus and I were knights whose original job in Wyst’s force was to command the frontline forces and keep things from falling apart. However, at one time during this I had proposed a strategic barricade that blocked off a part of the Crebehl Forest from the rest and convinced Wyst to follow this tactic. The barricade weakened the cordoned off section and left the soldiers there with a major fatigue that allowed your grandfather Thander’s forces to capture the area with minimal casualties. However, it’s not as if there were no challenges: The area that we captured was under the supervision of the city of Treehold. When in times of peace, Treehold is a major trading city of the Galbror region since it’s connection to the roads situates it as a convenient spot to move trade from the eastern Eredal and the western Orevod down to Galbror. Because of these connections, there were many enemy supply routes that ran through Treehold, and it became the basis of military operations for that region. The barricades received a fair number of attacks from forces sent from the city which angered your grandfather and after he finished capturing the area, grandfather Thander ordered Wyst to seize the city while he was off at a region south of Treehold working with the former Earl of Nargon,” I explain as I take a deep breath before continuing.
“Now, when in incompetent hands, Treehold isn’t a challenging city to capture. It’s separated itself into five districts and put a single, massive wall that closes off and divides the city. There are no stairs to this wall from anywhere in the city except from the central district where it connects to the large castle where Treehold’s ruling family lives. It’s rather an amusing city to see, actually, since they recognized that all it takes is a successful climb up a ladder and the enemy has an easy way to access the nobles at the center, so they actually had to make gates on the wall around the central district. Unfortunately for us, the city was in hands that were quite far from being anything like ‘incompetent.’ The man posted there was a man by the name of Darrien Gast, a vassal of the Duke of Estermere, the Duke who you’ll remember cost us the Second War by attempting to drag Lemmurath into it. Darrien himself is also an equally frustrating man, since a short time after we captured Treehold and moved our forces to rejoin with grandfather Thander’s, Darrien had gone and recaptured Treehold, restoring the supply lines and opening a hole in our attack, which was one of the many things that led to our defeat in the First War. Regardless of how much I can explain the annoyance of that man and about the two times I’ve had to meet his forces in the Second War and even suffering a defeat at his hands, I’ll keep things simple and strictly to the matter of Treehold. When we arrived, we quickly found out that ladders were not going to be effective here in spite of Treefort’s design flaws. After all, the first thing we noticed was the smell of oil and that Darrien had set the conditions in place for a controlled fire on the wall. If we were to set up a ladder, he would set the fire and even if a man were able to climb up the ladder before it burned and broke down, he would be stranded and left with injuries from the fire. Because of this, it was apparent to Wyst that our only options of siege were through tearing down the four gates on the city’s outer wall.”
I look at Arnfried to make sure I had his attention, and then did the same with Thander Marthus afterwards. There were questions I had about succession if I were to suddenly die. Naturally, it should be Thander Marthus, but even if I trust Kallian enough to not stab my back, I still wonder if he would try to pin up himself or Arnfried instead. Personally speaking, however, I didn’t care who would inherit the title of Earl after me, so long as that person was actually competent and carried on true devotion to the great lord Nizeston. Towards that end I wanted the boys to learn how I would lead an army and develop their skill as tacticians and not just mere fools with an army they don’t know how to lead.
“Wyst chose to divide his forces into three units for this task. The first and largest was lead by him, and it targeted the southern gate that was pointed towards Galbror and as such guarded the district that the rich resided in. After Wyst began his attack, his right hand Danir Maus led the second group to the east gate that pointed towards Eredal, the source of most of Treehold’s imports, causing the east district to naturally form into a market. The third force was given to Raethus and I as an experiment founded on a curiosity of Wyst’s that was piqued due to the barricade plan I devised. The task was initially much more daunting then it seemed. After all, I’ve already stressed the unfortunate reality the Darrien Gast is more than competent as a military leader. However, you’ll note that I’ve been telling you about the districts and their connections and subsequent roles in Treehold’s structure. The reason behind this is simple: It lead to Darrien’s defeat. To understand this, I will explain the roles of the western and northern districts. The western district was pointed towards Orevod, which, before the war, was the second largest source of imports running through Treehold. The city, if it is not yet apparent, is focused on it’s trade, and so it attempts to look nice to keep positive impressions on the merchants going through it. That’s why the east is a market, the south is a residential district for the rich, and as such the west is clearly a residential district for commoners. However, there is one important thing missing in this city: A slums. All areas, regardless of where you look in the world, will have a populace made out of beggars, thieves, thugs, unfortunate foreigners and the excessively poor. When laying out the organization of Treehold, it was noted that in the north was only poor and underdeveloped villages that brought in sub-par supplies of furs and lumber. As such the northern district became a slums, and the method I used in seizing Treehold,” I pause, after checking once again that the boys are listening.
“Darrien, in spite of being a military leader, is first and foremost a noble, and falls under the same notions that nobles generally do. This notion is a list on which to prioritize people by, a list that utilizes social and financial class to deem who is more important and who is not. And naturally, as a noble, the wealthiest and the most influential come first. This is not an incorrect manner of thinking. After all, when a siege ends we can expect the nobles to fund repairs to the city and the commoners to provide the labor. The peasants, however, are unruly and resistant to being forced into laboring for those who step on and bully them. They provide little to no use in a society regardless of the situation. Darrien Gast’s one fault in this thought, however, was that he expected us, who were also nobles, to also allow ourselves to be influenced by this idea and attack the more important people before anything else. I noticed this when I saw the heaviest defenses located at the southern gate. It occured to me that the forces that were fighting off Wyst’s men were too structured and prepared to have been sent there as an emergency to counter the larger size of Wyst’s forces. I realized what Darrien was thinking and as such noticed that he left the west to be more defended than the north. Seeing a hole in the defense, I chose to attack the north. At the time the attacks south and east had already begun and Darrien was so focused on them that by the time he’d realized I attacked somewhere he didn’t expect me to go I was already attacking the gate. He tried relocating the men posted in the west to stop me but the damage was already done and in two weeks time, in spite of the smaller size of my force compared to Wyst’s and Danir’s, I had torn down the northern gate of Treehold. This was where the second challenge of Darrien’s creation had reached me, for I soon discovered that not only did Darrien reinforce the gates that lead into the east and west districts from my location in the north, but the man ruling Treehold had despised the northern district to the point that there was no gate that lead into the central district from my location, and even though the gates in the northern district weren’t as well made as the ones on the outer edge of the wall, scouts sent from Wyst’s and Danir’s side came in and reported that Darrien had prepared a retaliatory force within the rest of the city, a force which was meant to attack us if we tore down either of the two gates not to mention a force my men wouldn’t be able to fight off in their present state. Even though I played my hand well, in the end Darrien had effectively killed any momentum that I had gained by capturing the north district. Unless I could gain more men to replace the soldiers I lost taking the north and to help make up for the drop in both stamina and morale among my troops caused by this second line of defense, I was at a stalemate.”
“Now, Wyst, Danir, Raethus and I had many meetings on this matter. We finally had our foot in the door, but the door was blocked from being opened further. We asked many questions: Should Danir and Wyst send some of their forces to my side? But if we did that, would there still be enough to strength to make Danir’s and Wyst’s attacks still be useful to our siege? Then should Wyst’s forces and mine trade positions? Wouldn’t that take up too much time and give Darrien the window he needed for a counter attack? Do we unite forces and concentrate on the weaker gates in the north district? Wouldn’t our soldiers be too crowded to do anything? Many ideas and objections were made, but finally I announced that I had devised a plan that could create troops seemingly out of thin air. Wyst and Danir looked at me like I was insane, but I told them I could handle things without assistance and that it’d be best for our side if they were to proceed as they had been for the past two weeks since we started the siege. It took a lot of convincing, but in the end they decided to take a vote of confidence and left me to my own devices. My first step was to have Raethus lead our men to attack the gate leading to the east district where Danir’s forces were. The second was to round up all of the men living in the northern district and put them all in one place. Peasants are interesting people in their concept. I’ve already explained to you that they have no inherent worth whatsoever in the eyes of us nobles, and if we look at it practically, not only is it true but there’s a lot more to the matter than that. You see, peasants don’t have a sense of loyalty. After all, when you think about it, why should they? Has their kingdom ever done anything to aid them? Have those who are better off shown them any kindness? Even on the best of days, they, who should share a sense of unity for surviving together under those conditions, can’t help but to fight, steal from and murder each other. They’re like their own community that we just allow to live with us, or more specifically under us and if our kingdom of Orevod, for example, were to be conquered and ruled by new men, the peasants living on our land wouldn’t be affected in the slightest, since in the end their treatment will not change, just the faces of those who rule have changed. The only thing we have keeping them in line is a crushing sense of hopelessness and defeat. Without giving the peasants those feelings, we’d actually have a serious headache to deal with. So, I broke that rule. While Raethus sieged the gate to the east, I began a propaganda campaign among the peasants and gave them hope. It’s not actually a hard thing to do, since all I said was that they would be rewarded with better lives if they fought for Orevod. Understand, not only did I not have the resources and authority to actually do this, but I also had no intention on actually delivering on that promise. But they still bought it with a vigor I’ve only ever seen animals have, and with what small time I had I armed them and taught them some basic formations and fighting techniques. When Raethus finally destroyed the gate a week and a half later, I had as decent a fighting troop as I could get with only those few days of training a malnourished and starving people. And when the gate was destroyed, they were the ones who stood on the front lines,” I stretch as I finally begin wrapping up the story.
“I was actually kind of disappointed with myself on just how poorly this militia performed. It was a one sided slaughter against them and frankly you could’ve made a betting game out when they would all be wiped out. The militia men did actually start trying to run away, but my men surrounded them and killed any who came close. With their line of retreat closed off and the evident fact that the enemy would kill them if they begged for mercy, they were left with no choice but to fight against their will. While this sounds like a terrible thing to do, in the end peasants are still inherently worthless and they should be frankly glad that in spite of their standing in society they got to work to spread the name of our great lord Nizeston. Regardless, the militia’s only purpose was to buy time for the enemy retaliatory force to get in formation and relax. Once their guard was down, our cavalry soldiers rode in on their horses and shattered their formations and overwhelmed the enemies. On that day we flanked and destroyed the east gate that was under siege by Danir Maus, leaving a hole in Treehold’s defenses that Wyst slipped his forces in through and that day we also stormed the central district and captured the city. Sadly, Darrien Gast and the nobles that he holed up with in the central district had somehow slipped out of the city undetected. We don’t know how he did it, and even after searching for secret passages we weren’t able to find anything before Darrien reclaimed Treehold. Even then, that is the story of the Siege of Treehold. Remember it and the lessons it teaches, Arnfried.”