Tamriel Data:Ash and Blood: Volume II

Book Information Ash and Blood: Volume II
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Ash and Blood: Volume II

by Sila Merilia

An account of the Simulacrum in Morrowind

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During the Imperial Simulacrum, the vile agents of Jagar Tharn initially spared Firewatch, focusing their efforts in Morrowind on sowing discord in the country's heartlands. While Almalexia City fell into anarchy (as described in the previous volume), Ebonheart was consumed by treason. After the Duke of Vvardenfell abruptly died -- apparently of natural causes -- in 396, the city was seized from within by the traitorous commander of the Morrowind Legions, Lord General Casik. An upjumped commoner who had risen to command despite his low birth, Casik had been responsible for the disastrous withdrawal of the Legion garrisons from Almalexia in 389. He now consolidated his rule over Ebonheart, then persuaded the troops under his command and the captains of the Inner Sea Fleet in port to wage war on Firewatch, Imperial capital of the remote Telvannis District. Firewatch's Duchess Bredami Vaynth, Casik claimed, was in thrall to to the native Great House Telvanni -- an alarming charge. Duchess Vaynth had indeed made attempts to cultivate good relations with the locals of Telvannis District, and was herself a Dunmer, facts which persuaded many of this slander. So began the conflict that would become known as the War of Lies.

When war broke out, the golden years of the Far East Fleet were a distant memory. Firewatch in 396 could only bring to bear a single galleon and a handful of light cutters -- none of which were fit for battle when Ebonheart began moving its forces. This little flotilla managed to avoid an outright engagement with Casik's larger fleet until early 397, by which point Duchess Vaynth had arranged for several native vessels to be outfitted and added to her forces. When battle was finally joined, these allied boats proved crucial; though the Battle of the Inner Sea was indecisive, it surely saved Firewatch from an attack by water it could not have repelled.

But the traitor general had no intention of ending the bloodshed so easily. The usurper turned his forces west and north, linking up with admirals at Firemoth and Cormaris who had little reason to believe that the Lord General would lead them astray. Casik assembled an armada in the Sea of Ghosts, sent it east, and in late 397 struck the unprepared village of Nivalis on the isle of Althoa. The subsequent sack and occupation of this innocent Imperial navy station ranks among the most infamous treasons of the eastern Legions during the dark years of the Simulacrum.

Fearing the dire consequences of a defeat at sea by Casik's now much-enlarged fleet, Duchess Vaynth left Firewatch in 398 with loyal soldiers of the Dustmoth Legion for a difficult overland trek to Althoa. Crossing the Nedweisra Straits in early autumn, the expedition set up a siege of Nivalis, aided by locals friendly to the Duchess. After more than a month of little progress, Vaynth ordered that Nivalis' keep be stormed, in order to avoid prolonging the siege into the winter. The subsequent Battle of Nivalis was a bloody affair. Vaynth herself was killed in the fighting, and although the keep was taken, nearly a third of the Dustmoth and Hawkmoth Legions and half of the Firemoth Legion lay dead in the aftermath, all slaughtered on their former comrades' swords.

Without its Duchess, the precarious situation in Firewatch unraveled. Vaynth had left no heir, and kept no formal consort, and the bandits of Telvannis District now took advantage of Firewatch's absent forces to harass its supply lines. With Casik still in control of nearly all the Empire's forces in central and northern Morrowind, and the cream of the Dustmoth Legion dead at Nivalis, the Dustmoth Legion seized power, backed by the city's merchants. Although the war with Ebonheart abruptly ended with the mutiny of Casik's forces in 399, Firewatch remained in turmoil for another year. Legion rule swiftly became untenable; the officers of the Dustmoth garrison who had not gone along to Nivalis behaved abominably in the absence of command, allowing the rule of law to wither, frivolously wasting the city's scarce resources on imports of wine and fine clothing, and eventually even seizing wealth from their erstwhile merchant backers. The "Dusters" were finally deposed in a mostly bloodless coup by the grim Theurgist of the Chapel of Akatosh in late 399. This second coup was supported by the nobility and commoners alike, both of whom resented the arbitrary and callous rule of the drunkard Legionnaires. The head priest ruled - unofficially - until the end of the Simulacrum, when the restored Emperor appointed Perulia Jandacia, the scion of a Delodiil loyalist family, to rule as Duchess of Firewatch.

The legacy of the bloody civil war between Ebonheart and Firewatch is confused and muddled. Rumors have swirled for decades around the figure of Lord General Casik; it is difficult to explain why a high-ranking general who owed everything to the Ruby Throne would violate his oaths so flagrantly. Many have claimed that Casik was in fact murdered in 396 (or even 388), and that his wars were fought by a Daedric double bent on destruction in his name. Others point to the meager circumstances of Casik's upbringing, and the wealth and lands he acquired through his position atop the Legion's hierarchy -- perhaps this limited access to gold and power awakened the general's greed, to a dire end.