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The Charcoal War
Description: The Kingdom of Frank decides to log the Forest of Pern for charcoal (the seven thousand and fifty six square miles of hardwoods). He needs fuel to cook food and heat homes in his port city of Thenfish (Pop.78,567).
Year One
The initial logging camps are attacked by war-bands of Red-Deer Riding Elves (Mounted Archers) who burn the camps down at night with a rain of fiery arrows (400 Mounted Archers).
King Frank brings up Foresters (archers) to guard the Camps and put down the raiders (300 Archers).
The Elves take out villages further in the Kingdom and poison their wells. Burn down their wheat crops and plunge the Kingdom into a Famine.
The King declares the forest open to any mercenary who wants to be a Baron if they can secure and log fifty six square miles.
The Elves flush monsters out of their forest into the Kingdom. There are a number of Undead.
The King, confronted with famine in the capital turns fifteen thousand poor out of the capital and pushes them north to settle the entire Forest.
So The Ally of the elves provides 400 archers (Foresters) to counter the foresters of King Frank. In the Forest the deer riders are near impossible for heavy cavalry to engage in close combat.
King Frank brings up Steam Cannons by riverboat and places two at each of the six reinforced Logging Camps that serve as the Strongholds for the New barons (450 mercenary light footmen, 300 Heavy cavalry).
The Kingdom of Frank marches troops through the "Neutral" Barony of Estwynd who is drawn into the conflict for having allowed the Kindom of Frank to march 200 heavy footmen through it's territory.
The Duchy of Illwind recognise Dobey Mandu of the Mandu family as the rightful Monarch of the Kingdom of Frank and pours 200 Medium horsemen into the Kingdom via the barony of Estwynd where they encounter the army of King Frank.
The "Neutral" Barony of of Estwynd becomes a battleground.
The Barony of Estwynd deploys its fifty heavy Horsemen to support King Frank's troops.
While Mercenary Barons engage the elves and their forester support at the forest edge, there is a fully fledged war in the Neutral Barony next door.
The Famine is now full on in the Kingdom of Frank (1000 peasants are dying each month) and has spread to the Barony of Estwynd.
There is your first six months.
King Frank now faced with traitors in his own kingdom, and famine must bankrupt his kingdom to import fifty shiploads of grain.
The Conflict in the Barony of Estwynd collapses as elf deer riders take out the Resupply wagons heading northwest into the Barony.
Soldiers loot the harvested grain reserves of the Barony as they besiege Castle Estwynd and the surviving soldiers of King Frank. Peasants in Estwynd are forced to eat dead horses from the battlefield. A Plague spreads through the Barony.
A Rebel army supporting Dobey Mandu attacks the Port to Secure the Grain now being offloaded only to find the ships have mercenary troops for the king.
The Kingdom of Frank having lost its Army in he ongoing conflict, must now rely entirely on foreign troops. it despatches half its new grain reserve north-east with two hundred mercenary medium footmen.
The troops from the Duchy of Illwind must settle into a siege of castle Estwynd as their own supply wagons catch up with the last of the Dukes soldiers (100 Light Footmen-recruited from Peasants).
Year Two
The Ongoing Siege in the Barony of Estwynd begins to turn as mercenary troops from the Kingdom of Frank push into the Barony over the winter.
By spring the Duchy of Illwind must pull back to the Border of the Duchy as over four hundred Mercenaries pour into the Barony of Estwynd.
The Baron of Estwynd finds his barony under occupation as he is confined to a Tower cell, his few loyal troops with him. The population of the Barony are hunted down and herded into labour camps. He soon finds out that King Frank has annexed his Barony. The Mercenaries settle in abusing the Women of the Barony and mistreating the population at large as they build a fortified frontier in the northern edge of the Barony and begin raiding into the Forest for timber.
King Frank’s Spies report the Duchy of Illwind is now poorly defended and if He were to pay The Bishopric of Gernau (located beyond the Duchy) to invade the Duchy, they might control between them the Timber of the Forest of Pern. As further enticement, King Frank offers the Bishopric State Religion Status.
Bishop Gernau would be Archbishop of the Frankish Church of the Greater Kingdom of Frank.
Bishop Gernau dispatches fifty Crusaders to Besiege the Dukes Castle. This breaks the Ducal Frontier Defences and Mercenaries (200 Heavy footmen) from the Estwynd Territories enter the Duchy to Support the Crusader Siege of Castle Illwind.
The Fifty Heavy Footmen can hold out for several months more on Castle reserves While Mercenaries Pillage the Duchy. Warbands roam the Duchy and start occupying and fortifying villages as estates.
The Bishopric of Gernau offers seed-grain for the territories in Estwynd and Illwind.
By End of the new sewing season, the Forest of Pern is surrounded on three frontiers. Living off a rationed food supply, the populace settle in under the rule of many Baronies now under the control of Foreign Troops. They must settle in until harvest time so they can begin pushing into the Forest of Pern by winter of year two.
Assailed on three sides, the elves have lost some of their forest to Mercenary Barons setting up in the southern edge of Pern Forest. There is also logging in the Western edge at the forest’s narrowest end. The Mercenaries must now build a fortified embankment around the edge of the forest to control raids by the elves. They cannot allow the elves to torch this year’s crops. The Kingdom has little money left and will no longer be able to support mercenaries beyond the end of year two.
At the end of the growing season, the Elf deer riders begin torching crops. The dirt and timber palisade is intermittent and King Franks’ army is predominantly foot-soldiers. They are hard pressed to stop the raids but harvest most of the crop and press into the forest of Pern. By deep winter the mercenaries are prepared to raid the forest. King Frank can no longer pay the mercenaries their wages.
Year Three
Many unpaid War-bands begin pillaging the Inner Kingdom of Frank. Order breaks down and The Kings own Barons are unable to defend themselves against Mercenary raiders.
Once the Mercenaries raid the Capital, the King takes his two remaining steam cannons and one hundred loyal troops and flees by ship abandoning the kingdom to its new mercenary Barons.
The Neutral Good Bishop of Gernau, and his Crusaders find themselves in the company of Lawful Evil Foreign Barons and their Mercenaries as the dream of becoming Archbishop of the Kingdom of Frank falls through. The Bishop falls back to the Bishopric and fortifies against the new threat.
The Lawful Neutral King Frank has fled abroad and his Barons are fighting his unpaid mercenaries just to hold their own baronies, The mostly Chaotic good Elves of the forest of Pern (along with refugees and Foresters from the Duchy) are under Siege, The Neutral Barony of Estwynd has been subjugated and the Chaotic Neutral Duchy is partitioned into further baronies.
Before the third year sewing season, there is a large “C”-shaped region Known as the Free Baronies ruled by Lawful Evil Barons. The Surrounding Neutral and Good Lands begin mobilizing for possible war as a refugee crisis spreads the problem beyond the Free Baronies.
The lawful Evil barons begin rounding up half elves in their peasant population (even third generation elf will do) and start killing them. The Baron in occupation of the Port City declares that the population (56,000 people) of the Port city are to be sold to the Baronies as serf labour.
The Eastern Border of the Kingdom collapses back to the river. Count Welks declares it occupied by the County of Welk.
Three Year Briefing Summary: A simple conflict over Fuel escalates resulting in the collapse of the old order and foreign occupation.