The Battle of the Highridge Estate (100. p.n.)

The war between Sir Desmond Highridge, a wealthy manor owner, with ambition to claim all of the Circa as his own personal kingdom and Lord Adrian Banner, an Ex-Parliamentarian military captain. For the past several months the two have been caught in a series of brutal skirmishing between their properties, amounting to almost forty dead. Banner, has finally gathered his assets, from his old military days and is moving to eliminate his rival and make the Circa an independent and powerful state.  With the forces of Banner marching down from Hidelburg, and the Crested Ridge, Highridge is left scant hours to gather his immediate friends and family into an ad-hoc fighting force.

Order of Battle.

Forces of Lord Adrian Banner. 

- 2x Battalia of Ex-Military Line  (both Pike and Shotte,  approx. 100 men) 
- 1 Light Cannon 
- Hidelburg Fire Brigade  (Mounted on horse, armed with pistol and sword, acting as forward Recon.)

Forces of  Sir Desmond Highridge

- Friends and Family of Highridge.
- Highridge Estate Farmers              (60-80 personnel)
- Adam Highridge and the "Ommenbach Young Mens Riding Club"  (light cavalry) 



The opening shots of the battle come as The Hidelburg Fire Brigade rides into the lower stables of the Highridge Estate and are met by Highridge's 15 year old son, and his riding club buddies, escorted by Hierm, the only member of the defending force to have actual military experience and Highridge's own man servant.

Overview of the Stables as the groups close

The Fire Brigade Scout up Banner's left flank. 

Adam and his mates ride out of the stables, towards the right,  Highridge yells after his son to be careful

The Fire Brigade Over extends, and finds itself in a world of pain. 

Line Infantry Meet

Adam and the riding club chase after the fleeing Fire Brigade and attempt to flank the Muskets of Banners forces, but are scattered by a disciplined volley from the hard bitten soldiers.  None of the boys are killed, but tragically, Adams' horse Buttercup, was slain by the volley.  Highridge, saw the boys scattering, and the firing of musket, due to the largest stable blocking his view. Fearing his son dead, Highridge orders his forces to retreat back to the Manor house.


Part 2

As the forces of Highridge, retreat further up the hill. Banner's men loot the lower stables and barns, and capture Adam. As the fires of the pillaging lights the night skies, word of Banners success spreads, and glory seekers flock to the foot of the Highridge Estate.

The next day, Banner's men march up the main road towards the house in an impressive display of force.  The defenders take hidden positions in the forest, and behind stone walls, firing volley after volley into the advancing enemy.   The light cannon booms from the small hilltop, but does no immediate damage.

However, as the Pikes of Banners troops reach charging distance from the defenders, the cannon shatters the barn and the Friends and Family that Highridge had relied on to hold his estate, retreat in good order, across the fields and make their way back home,  no longer seeing merit in their relations cause.

It is not until Adam is brought out by Banner that Highridge, actually surrenders his holdings to the usurpers...

Banner's bolstered forces, advance on the Manor House

Despite artillery fire, the defenders withstand the bombardment to deliver much well disciplined resistance

Highridge finally surrenders to Banner.

Aftermath

The engagement, though relatively small, with casualties in the 50's or 60's, placed Lord Banner firmly in command of virtually all of the Circa. However, it also shone a spotlight on the Circa,  showing everyone on a national scale just how unstable the region actually was.  Embarrassed,  but sensing opportunity,  the Orpheian Allegiance parliament, takes action,  giving Banner the ultimatum to relinquish all of his holdings and surrender his "Terrorist Army" to the Parliament,  or be force ably  made to do so by the Allegiance military. Angry and disgraced, Banner surrenders peacefully and ventures west into the frontier.

It was thus that the territory of "Orpheia" was born, from the holdings of Lord Banner in Circa. It functions as an area under the direct jurisdiction of the Allegiance Parliament, and is suspected, as a result to grow significantly in power.

 

(100 p.n.) The Exchange of The Protectorate of Jandii

Since the defeat of the notorious Sardindada Pirates, the isles of the Sardindada have existed as a group of Sultanate Protectorates. This day marks a change in the policy of the Burnzined Sultanate. As a gesture of friendship and in the hopes of fostering trade with the Orpheia Allegiance the small chain of islands in the northern Sardindada will now exist as a Protectorate of the Libertus Wing.

A full map of the Sardindadas.

New territorial borders of the Jandii Archipelago.

The sparsely populated Jandii Archipelago will now be considered sovereign territory of the Libertus Wing. Laborers from the nearby city of Sambala will be sent to help the new colonists settle the Jandii into a land that will be productive and prosperous.

(100 p.n.) Orpheia Allegiance Folklore - Unten Den Kirsten

The Story of Unten Den Kirsten  or  "The Sad Girl Kirsten"  was brought over by the original settlers of what is now the Orpheia Allegiance  The story starts with a family of three, a wife, a husband, and their daughter Kirsten. The Husband is called to fight in the wars, but refuses to answer the call. After the war the militias come to the families home to exact vengeance on what they see as a coward,  as they drag the father from the home and move to cut the wife's throat. The girl Kirsten offers herself to the militia in the stead of her parents and the militia take the crying girl away from her family.  Rather than killing Kirsten the militia leader is so inspired by the little girl that he adopts her for his own and raises her in the honor of a son. She grows to much glory in her kingdom, but every victory comes with an aura of sadness and listlessness for Kirsten.  The story will at times end there,  other renditions will continue with Kirsten either being reunited with her parents, slain by her enslaved father in a far off battlefield in a quirk of fate,  and even sometimes bringing a sense of happiness and closure to the girl-warrior's story as she becomes an arch-duchess and forms her own family. The ending will usually change from region to region and teller to teller. With the modern re-telling's often omitting the adoption and simply killing Kirsten.  In any sense the main idea of the folk tale is to stress the importance of heeding the call-to-arms and taking responsibility for ones own actions. While a usually dark tale, the veiled message of unity of arms and adherence to a system of crime and punishment, although a barbaric one, is a leading cause to the cultural identity of the Orpheia Allegiance which helps to form the glue that holds the often at odds states that make it up in a suspension of mutual cultural unity that keeps them from constant civil war,  in addition of course to political and economic concerns.
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A note on "Classica Orpheian Linguistics"

The basic linguistic form of Orpheian uses a base of simple root words that are usually 3 to 4 letters in length and a series of prefixes that are added to form more complex words, with a small section of conjunctions, such as "Den"  which, depending on their distance on a written page,  or time passed since the base word-prefix was uttered,  is either a verb or  the word "the".

so for instance in the phrase  "Unten Den Kirsten"

"Un"  is the prefix, meaning  the opposite of in this instance

"ten"  is the base word, which means literally in common tounge  "excited feminine child"

therefore the combination of Un and ten means "sad girl"  or the "Not Happy feminine child"  and "Den" placed as it is approximately 1cm away from the original phrase means "the"

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(Year 100.pn.) The Orpheia Allegiance National Summary

A forward Scout Pikeman looks across the fields of the Sun Tears

The Orpheia Allegiance. 

A Conglomeration of three different nations, the Papolia Bloc, Libertus Wing, and Free Circa Peoples. All united under a single parliamentary council which supposedly makes decisions for the good of all three nations within the Allegiances' borders. The Allegiance is rife with political rivalries and internal strife, but still a symbol of great power, due in most part to the vast amount of people and industrialization that take place there.

The Papolia Bloc is a nation that adheres to a loose communist creed and it is heavily concerned with the creation of new technology such as new gunpowder formulas and better armors. It has little interest in the more agrarian concerns of most nations as it relies on the other two members of the allegiance to supply grain, and beef in order to feed its quickly growing populace.  It has its own council of elected officials which are drawn from business owners and other prominent members of Bloc society.  The Bloc Communists Committee or "B.C.C" controls internal concerns for the bloc, such as negotiating relations with the two other nations in the allegiance and electing members for parliamentary council. They also have the ability to raise their own levy of troops separate from that of the Parliament's Army. However the Bloc's food dependence on the Wing and the Circa keep it fairly hesitant to start anything with its sister nations.

The Libertus Wing, is a democratic republic that works primarily on maritime pursuits. They provide virtually all the naval power for the Allegiance navy, and bring in much of the fish and other oceanic resources to the allegiance.  The main political opponent of the Wing is the Bloc, however the Bloc relies on the Wing for food and the Wing relies on the bloc for advanced ship building materials and navigation equipment, so both need one another, limiting the amount that each interferes with one another.  The Wing uses direct democracy, to count every vote from every region in the nation and then use the results to elect a single individual who carries the almost spiritual title of "Libertus" which is viewed as a demi-god figure of justice and supremacy. The Libertus has the ability to command basically anything that they want of the entire nation, and is responsible for the well being of everyone who lives there.  The Libertus always attends any important state event, be it the National Carnival at the Nexus,  or parliamentary meetings.  The Libertus holds their position for exactly 5 years and 5 days until the next Libertus is elected.   Libertus Wing Armies typically add hints of light blue or cyan to their uniforms to pay homage to their Libertus.  This is also visible in traders, and explorers.

The Free Circa Peoples is an anarchistic region of nobles, lords and upstart bandit kings. It's peoples are hardy and mainly agricultural. Typically the land is controlled by the most powerful noble/lord/king  who happens to have conquered it at that point in time. Fortunately perhaps this means that the rotation of rules is typically cycled out every view years, perhaps giving a broader spectrum of representation of people in the "nation".  It's traders mainly send out grain, ore, and beef to the wing and bloc nations. An army drawn from the Circa might be drawn from any number of sources so its impossible to tell what it is that you might be getting when the levies are drawn from Circa.

The Parliamentary Council elects members of each of the different nations within it. Based on the merit of their country in terms of their benefit to the allegiance as a whole and the need of the people within that region concerning invasion, drought, disaster to be represented.  Typically their are 33 seats in parliament the exact proportion of representatives from each nation in the allegiance differs as stated prior. The Parliament is based in Ophei giving it a central location from which to act on its dominion. It is able to collect a national tax, summon its own Parliamentary Army from each of the three nations, declare war, and many other powers.  The Parliament meets typically 4 times a year to discuss a variety of things concerning the nations,  though they have been known to meet more when the allegiance is threatened.

Political Map of the Allegiance 

Current Time

Currently the Bloc is in power in the Parliamentary Council, with 20 seats to  the Libertus's 8  and the Circa's 5.  This overwhelming heaping of power in the parliament is due to the Bloc's sizable mercantile gains after conquering a rich nearby city state with it's personal army and bringing great wealth to the region.

The Circa is being torn open by internal strife between Lord Banner and  Sir Desmon Highridge's  personal estates.  A minor civil war already claiming close to 40 lives.

The Wing has just elected Susanna Jerhico as the new Libertus, a beautiful woman in her early 20's it is hoped she might, through marriage bring new nations into the Allegiance's fold.

Sebastian Pella  has been named as the Arch Castellan of Parliament, placing him in control of the National Army.

Adam Sunner is the current head of the B.C.C.  giving him power over internal affairs in the Communist nation. He is a powerfully charismatic man in his mid forties, and it is thought that he has strong ambitions of conquest  and a longing for war, as evidenced by his conquest of the Eastern Traders Confederation, a city state of some small renown to the north of the Allegiance territories.