June Content Update: Warlords of Calligia (Pt 1) (Patreon)

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To His Excellency, Holder of the Onyx and Carnelian Seal

Excellency,

It has been made evident to me in recent days that the current mood of the Court has been placed in a state of some uproar as a result of the return of the formerly exiled Lord P____, and the circumstances of his return to the land of his birth in the company of the young Lady Y___ of V________. Given the nature of these circumstances, it comes to me as little surprise that certain more volatile and excitable elements within the Court of Sun and Heavens have now come into possession of a considerable interest in that young gentleman's cause. Distressingly, it has been known to me that the more ardent of these figures have been overheard expressing a desire to join the Lord P_____ in his ostensible cause. Even more alarming to me is rumour that some of the more influential of these figures intend to petition the Grand Staff to lend the aid of the Great Kian to this endeavour.

Your Excellency, this humble servant has for nearly thirty years served as one of the greatest scholars of note regarding the dispositon of the powers which currently hold sway on the Calligian continent. On rare occasions in the past, the most revered and well-remembered Emperor Sinne'jiao has honoured me by soliciting my counsel regarding the matter of these realms, although his grandson and successor has not yet done so. It is with this knowledge in mind that I must strongly urge your Excellency to advise that the Emperor avoid any involvement or entanglement with the Lord P_____'s endeavour, or any other course of intervention in the affairs of the Calligian Princes.

The way which the story of the matter in question may reach Your Excellency's office is thus: that the Lord P_____, having been cut off from his family and homeland during the recent disturbance in that country, has spent years being brought up amongst our own people, that he has learned our customs, our ways of governance, and the strengths of our way of life. Thus enlightened, he has conceived of a plan to return to his homeland and use the wealth and power of his family to spread the wisdom of the Great Kian, and to restore harmonious order to the realms of his birth, either through supporting, or by supplanting the Prince of Octobirit, who has shown himself to be unfit to that task. I am sure it is hoped that once this occurs - for there is no doubt in the minds of his supporters and admirers that Lord P_____ will succeed, armed with all of the knowledge and upright thought of the Great Kian against what is still considered a very barbarous land ruled by very degenerate and uncivilised peoples - that Lord P____ will be much obliged for any aid which the Great Kian has provided him, thus creating a great and powerful ally in the north, with whom we may do much to confound and overawe the designs and schemes of the Great Enemy.

This is a very stirring story, one with all of the necessary elements to heat the blood of young officers in search of a means of serving the Great Kian in a more proactive way than the current policy of the Ministry of Planning allows. However, it is also an inaccurate one.

The primary weakness of such a narrative lies in the way which the powers of the Calligian continent have been portrayed. We who are so used to the tranquility brought upon by the firm hand of the Great Kian and the harmonious intercourse of the Dominions too easily see the Antari as possessed of a similar, if more dysfunctional system as is the case with other Northern Kingdoms like Tierra. In this conception, the Prince of Octobirit serves as sovereign over many vassals who may be over-eager to assert their own interests, but remain subordinate to a central state. This is not the case. As far as any unprejudiced observer might be concerned, Antar - and thus, the Calligian continent - possesses no central authority at all. Real power rests in the hands of powerful aristocratic families who pursue their interests as independent states in their own right, with Octobirit serving only as a neutral gorund for the heads of these families to meet and discuss matters of their own common interest.

It is these families which I would write of to Your Excellency, and it is the interaction between these families which render what is being proposed now in the Court of Sun and Heavens so very dangerous.

The most illustrative example of such forces at play might be that of the most powerful family in Calligia, that of the House of Khorobirit. The Princes Khorobirit were integral to the foundation of the League of Antar, and have often claimed the position of hegemon among the far eastern reaches of Calligia. Possessed of wealthy and well-populated estates, the successive princes have ruled quite well by the standards of that land, and have gained a reputation for honestly, pragmatism, and ruthlessness which has served them well over the course of the past three hundred years. This reputation was much enhanced by the current prince, for during the Tierran War, he arranged himself at the head of a great coalition and demonstrated himself to be an able politician and a passable leader of armies, nearly succeeding in delivering a comprehensive defeat to the Tierran Army.

At this point, the Prince Khorobirit might have been considered in the same place as the illustrious ancestor which founded the current Imperial House, being possessed of great wealth, great prestige, and a victorious veteran army. Yet where the forces of Heavens and Earth favoured greatly the cause of the Duke of Zi'enne and lit his path to the head of the Grand Staff, the conditions of the Calligian continent worked against the Prince Khorobirit. In those lands, chaos is mistaken for freedom, and order for tyranny. Where a wise man might see Khorobirit as favoured by the Heavens, the Calligian lords saw him as a threat to their own privilege. In confederation with each other, they engineered his defeat at the hands of the Tierrans, and conspired to bring about his downfall.

It was perhaps only through the greatest of feats that Prince Khorobirit was not only able to overawe his assailants, but to recover his position of dominance within the League of Antar. The means by which he did so are still difficult to explain, but the truth remains that at this moment, he has become the effective hegemon of much of the continent, at the head of a vast alliance of the most powerful lords of those realms. For those who are aware of these truths, Khorobirit seems to have surmounted all obstacles, and appears to be positioned to secure overlordship in a manner fit to found a truly unified state. Indeed, it is into the service of this lord which our young Lord P____ intends to enter the service of, and it is to his cause to which he intends bind himself.

This cause has already bourne some fruit which might be considered promising: a small core of professional soldiers, institutions of governance and administration, and other institutions which demonstrate a far-sightedness uncommon among the Calligians. Chief among his more perceptive initiatives is the establishment of shipyards and facilities to maintain a war fleet, which no Antari lord has done in half a century. It is clear that Prince Khorobirit's goals extend not only to the domination of the Calligian continent, but the expansion of his influence beyond. This, some will tell us, is proof that he would make a valuable ally, that once his plans are made reality, he will serve as a friend to the Great Kian mightier even than the Varahdi.

Yet to assume the success of this cause to be assured is folly. Indeed, it would be perhaps more wise to say that it is one doomed to fail.

When two men swear an oath of blood brotherhood, it is expected that both will uphold such a bond unto death. To us, it would be easy to assume that such agreements carry similar weight in other lands. Yet to come to such a conclusion in regards to the alliances and fealties of the Calligians would only be the greatest folly. While the Calligians do honour certain oaths, the ones they swear of alliance and allegiance are not among them. Where such things are upheld as a matter of course for any gentleman of virtue in our own realms, they are easily made and broken as the shafts of sporting arrows in the Northern Lands. For any pretext, such a bond may be broken, and at many times for no pretext at all. Indeed, naked self-interest often seems reason enough for the sundering of even long-standing alliances, for the Calligian thinks only of how to secure advantage for the next week, month, or year. If such a matter should render circumstances difficult for his sons and grandsons, that is their affair, not his.

Thus the supposedly mighty coalition which Prince Khorobirit has built is one which is not only immensely fragile, but also the likely source of his downfall, for within its bonds exist those lords most able to secure advantage in betraying him, and in including them in his own strategems and arrangements, he has made it an easy matter for them to position themselves to do so. Thus it will be only a matter of course that Khorobirit will be betrayed from within his own faction, as he has already been once before. Though it is possible that he will weather such a calamity as he has before, it will certainly render his plans impractical as he fights to regain control, and it will almost certainly ensure that such plans will never come to fruition.

This is the true state of affairs in Calligia, and it is from such an assessment that I must advise that in no way might involvement in those lands serve the interests of the Great Kian.