Yaakni’ Páyyatha

The Wide Valley Kingdom.

yaakni’ hayaka’: valley, open ground
páyyatha: to be wide, broad; (of feet) to be webbed

Ranging between 20 and 30 miles wide, and roughly 160 miles long, the Wide Valley is bounded by the low hills of Gaeso to the North (beyond which lie the Orsinian marshes at the mouth of the An River) and the Coastal Hills to the South. The edge of the Coastal Hills is a sharp line of 500 foot cliffs, broken by steep stream valleys. There is a wide pass at the Western edge of the valley, which leads to the northern edges of the great Inland Fjord. The floor of the valley itself is a mess of oxbow lakes and river channels.

The Wide Valley Kingdom lies at the northern edge of Gaetan, as far from the main cultural and political centers of Gaetan as you can get. Within Gaetani culture, it is viewed as a backwater, only slightly better than the Coastal Hills region. The current Prince is named Kochchi.

About 40 years ago, the Ventrians began sending ships south to explore the coast beyond the Orsinian swamps. Although they were fiercely rebuffed by the King of Gaetan, they found an interested trading partner in the mayor of the main village at the mouth of the Wide Valley.

27 years ago, the mayor was succeeded by a new leader. About the same time, a newly graduated mage of the Choleic order, Circumcessor, arrived from Bethelion. Circumsessor befriended the new mayor and gradually convinced him that together the two of them could bring all the valley under the mayor’s control.

Over the next six years, the Prince (as the mayor now styled himself) and Circumcessor traveled the valley with a small army. Few villages put up much resistance, and fewer expected the Prince to do much once he had declared himself ruler. Most people thought that he was little more than a bandit and a trouble maker, best paid off and sent on his way.

In 404, after his band had marched from one end of the valley to the other, and every village had given tribute to him, he declared himself a convert to the holy church, and demanded that the people of the valley convert as well. Immediately, most of the villages of the valley rose up against him, lead by the Miller Priests.

Circumcessor traveled back home to Bethelion and talked several mages (including Caligatus, Calvus (not actually at Bethelion, but always eager for a war) and the young Lauratus Loriatus) into joining him in making war upon the theocratic Millers. Together with the Prince’s forces, they made war upon the Millers.

Now, the Millers magic consists mostly of preserving and maintaining certain Theocratic devices, and these devices made them largely impervious to magical attack and to physical harm. The Savacions were capable of fending off the Millers attacks, but they were also mostly incapable of defeating the Millers in combat. The Savacions and the Prince’s troops were better at defeating the peasant militias supporting the Millers than the Millers and the peasant militias were at defeating the Savacions or the Prince’s troops, so almost every battle went to the Prince, but the Millers were unkillable, and had powerful magic for swaying the peasantry to their side, so the war dragged on for years as the Prince and the Savacions marched up and down the valley, winning every pitched battle, but finding that as soon as they had conquered the valley, half the valley rose up against them, and as soon as they conquered that half, the other half rose up against them again.

In 407, as the war dragged on, Circumsessor sought out the aid of the Bethelion Touccians (under whom he had trained extensively). The Touccians worked out magical methods of suppressing the Miller’s magic, but they were never more than half successful, and the Millers remained unkillable, even when their magical devices were mostly suppressed. For several years, the mages sought out the secrets of the Millers unkillability and, around 410, they eventually began to suspect that it was tied to certain periods when all the Millers would leave their villages and travel to some well hidden location. Although the mages spent several years trying to find the place the Millers went, the Millers always evaded them.

Finally, in 412, Circumcessor decided to gain the help of the Wendellians. While Vyreth of Bethelion (a Wendellian Christopherian) was not interested in going to war, Circumcessor talked her into introducing him to her sister Lyceth, and, through Lyceth, he succeeded in convincing both Meles and Chirothecarum Caesiarum (also a Wendellian Christopherian) to join him in his war against the Millers. In 413, with the aid of Wendellian magic, the mages were able to find the hidden convocation of the Millers. From the content of the Millers' ritual, it was clear that during the ritual the Millers were completely without magical power. The Savacions immediately set upon them, slaughtering them to the last man.

The war of the Valley ended a few weeks later, when the town of Riverbend violently resisted the arrival of the Prince. Determined to demonstrate to the other towns of the valley that resistance would no longer be tolerated, the mages put to death everyone in the village who had born arms against the Prince.

After the end of the war, the Prince set about establishing his rule. Made cautious by his disasterous experience the first time he had demanded that his people convert, he did not ban any of the priesthoods except for the Millers. He also invited all the most powerful families in the Valley, both those who had supported him and those who had resisted, to send representatives to live in his court and serve as his Council.