[RV] Banastre Lornebridge's Essay on the Five Night Plot & Kolann's curious ascendancy

[Elven Doritos]

[spoiler]Keep in mind that "The Former Regime" is an in-character reference to the former Kettan Emperor, Gregorium IX. Kolannic law prohibits mention of Gregorium, who is damned from memory.[/spoiler]

It has been suggested that the current regime installed in Rhodon is a revolutionary movement that has largely dispensed with precedential law. Calicus Sendaeus advances the argument that Emperor Kolann Deovus has, in fact, sabotaged the legitimacy of the Kettan Imperial House by using undue influence to secure his status. This claim rests on three pillars:

1. That the lineage of Kettan Emperors can be directly traced, prior to Kolannic usurpation, to the houses of ancient Kettonia, and thus Kolann has irreparably disrupted the momentum of history;

2. That Kolann has assumed many titles and positions long considered obsolete or distributed throughout Imperial offices, with the intent to consolidate his power to the exclusion of freedom and the promotion of personal tyranny;

3. That Kolann is a populist whose ascendancy was certified by imperial powers under severe duress, fearing the potential of a massive uprising and subsequent civil war.

Each of these claims, while appealing as a whole, begin to lose traction when placed within the context of the Kolannic ascendancy. The Former Regime had become bloated, self-serving, and sycophantic to both foreign powers and internal dissidents. A treaty with a rebel faction  (hereafter referred to as the Baltian Resistance, though in reality functioning as a loose-knit confederation of tribal and ethnic guerillas) operating in the  recently-conquered Southern Marshes became the primary interest of the Former Regime. These actions outraged Maximelius Detrivan, the Commissioner of Rhodon, whose military victories in the Marshes and abroad had restored prestige to a military force that had stagnated for centuries.

Upon hearing of the Former Regime's intent to initiate bilateral peace talks with several key Resistance members, Maximelius issued a formal statement of protest from his base of operations, Citdael of Soben, a fortress on the Dekarran peninsula. Long entrenched in an unofficial war with Cazuran natives, Maximelius was unable to commit troops or personnel to rally support in Rhodon for the continuation of the Southern Campaign, of which General Gavrel Broggen had been placed in command of.

The Former Regime had numerous reasons to seek peace with the Baltian Resistance. Several members of the Resistance were connected to powerful merchant families throughout the southern ports, each of which could provide the Regime with tributes and the appearance of legitimacy among the southern peoples. In its attempt to avoid further bloodshed between native Panethelian tribes, the Former Regime was perhaps too accommodating; many of the rebels were little more than bandits and pirates, and the Resistance was known colloquially as the "Scoundrel's Army."

Maximelius had encountered enormous difficulty at the onset of his Southern Campaign as his soldiers were largely unaccustomed to unconventional warfare. As a result, he had conscripted a number of compliant militias that had been either hostile or ambivalent to the extant political hierarchy of Lower Panethelia. Among these was a religious organization known as the Order of the Black Talon, commanded by an ambitious priest of the war god Iothor. This priest, known to his soldiers as Father Anjou the Red, had captured scores of Kettan soldiers for the sole purpose of securing the Commissioner's attention. When Maximelius personally led a failed rescue operation and was captured by Anjou and his men, an unexpected exchange occurred.

Rather than attempt to barter with the Imperial government or turn Maximelius over to the Avonese government, who were funding and effectively controlling the Resistance, Anjou instead proposed that he and Black Talon become a new wing of the Kettan Military, one that operated differently than the traditional legions organized by the Commissioner. As a mobile, subversive force, Black Talon could perform important counter-resistance operations that the larger armies were either too cumbersome or too rigid to perform; Black Talon knew the territory, knew the key targets, and knew the tactics of the Resistance.

Maximelius was hardly in a position to deny Anjou. After securing Anjou an adoption by a Kettan equestrian, the Commissioner deputized the Black Talon commander, who took the name Kolanus Deovus, of which Kolann Deovus has become the familiar form. Advanced to the rank and pay of a Lieutenant Colonel, Deovus became a vital asset in the Southern Campaign, especially after the Southern Occupation began in earnest.

The Commissioner's thoughts on Kolann and his religious mercenaries can be found in Record of the Southern Campaigns, his lurid account of the various wars of attrition the remnant Baltian Resistance groups had waged upon the Occupation. In it, he states:

"Each of these men was a murderer, a thief, a beggar, a madman, a dog. Their leader was the mangiest, unruliest beast to ever face the Rhodonian Standard and suffer neither death nor surrender. Rather, with his wit and wile, he placed his group of religious radicals beneath the banner of the Kettan Military, reimagining the paradigm of Kettan tactics and securing his personal fortune in a singular fashion. I understood the value of men like Kolanus Deovus, but I did not underestimate their treachery."

While relations were hardly cordial between the Maximelian legions and the largely unaffiliated branch of Black Talon, the Occupation and the Southern Campaign had scored several key victories against Resistance forces, and Maximelius nearly had the notion of a Baltian state eradicated from popular memory.

As such, the Commissioner was distraught to hear that while he was abroad the Former Regime had made overtures to courting the very rebels that the military had expended so much effort into dislocating and impoverishing. A protracted naval war between former Baltian Alliance warships and the sophisticated Avonese fleet had become tedious for Maximelius, who had always been more comfortable leading expeditions by land than by sea.

Kolann saw a cleavage between the Former Regime and the Commissioner of Rhodon forming and made great haste to exploit it. As tensions mounted between the Former Regime and the Office of the Commissioner, several liaison positions remained unfilled, as neither party could agree on suitable candidates. Due to this vacuum of communication, Kolann established Black Talon as the sole mechanism through which either party would communicate, largely through a campaign of false information geared towards fermenting mistrust between the Regime and the military.

In 1234 RA, the Kettan Navy had scored numerous victories against the Avonese Armada, leaving the island nation nearly helpless. Maximelius and his soldiers were poised to control most of the Molodorian Sea, a notion which perturbed the Regime; Kolann exacerbated these fears by circulating rumors of a Maximelian coup.

By early 1235 RA, Kolann had ousted the Imperial Guard and secured a position as High Minister to the Former Regime. Maximelius, entitled to a triumph march by Kettan law, was adamant that it occur before the Festival of Biaton, heightening the suspicion of the Regime. When Maximelius legally marched his legions into Rhodon, Kolann instigated a brief, but violent, coup d'etat.

Several elements of government, including the Kettan Senate, suggested that Kolann dispense with the trappings of the Imperial government and establish a revolutionary republic, but Kolann refused. In Declarations of Kettan Governance, he declares:

"The people of the Kettan Empire are subject to the laws and edicts issued of the Imperial Throne, not of men in chambers. Maximelius and his legions stand outside this city's walls having fought for Empire and for Emperor. To disestablish and destabilize the most glorious government in the world when soldiers sworn to defend it are near enough to cut your throat is, at best, supreme folly."

As High Minister, Kolann had secured allies in most levels of the Imperial government, many of whom feared the possibility of Maximelian tyranny as much as they had loathed the Former Regime. As a result, Kolann became an ideal candidate for ascendancy, as most factions believed the outsider to be easily manipulated and corruptible, a figurehead from whom they could sap the vast powers the Imperial throne had collected in the past century.

Kolann Deovus was created Emperor of Ketta on 9 Biatonus 1235 RA, hours before Maximelius Detrivan and his legions would march in triumph for their victories in the south, in Cazura, and against Avon. When the triumph ended, Maximelius, although wary of the radical turn of events, bowed before the newly-crowned Emperor, a gesture that formally recognized the legitimacy of Kolann's ascension.

Matters became more complicated when Maximelius and Kolann entered power-sharing negotiations. As the most prestigious and celebrated man in the Empire, Maximelius was a viable political threat and therefore a target for much of the civil government; conversely, Kolann could not hope to match the loyalty and devotion the legions had for Maximelius, nor could Kolann afford to replace the Commissioner. As a result, Kolann proposed to Maximelius what he called "the Empire of Two Kettas," wherein Kolann would administer the traditional bounds of the Kettan Empire while Maximelius administered any present and future territory he conquered. Maximelius, in turn, would cede naval command to the former Avonese Admiral Mohen Lorell, who in turn would secure and transport foreign tributes to Kolann. Maximelius subsequently returned to the Citadel of Soben and established it as the basis of eastern Kettan power, content that his status and power had been augmented by an unexpected turn of events.


Kolann is an usurper, certainly. Through brief, though violent, revolution, he transformed himself from a curious figure on the fringes of Kettan society into the most powerful man in the world. Any student of Kettan history knows that this cycle is not unique, and that the imperial houses that have ruled prior to the House of Deovus can be traced not to the founders of Kettonia but to some rebellious clan. Kolann has proven himself willing to share power with both elements of his civil governance and the military, rendering any claims of tyranny or absolute rule as superficial.

As for his alleged populism, there is no denying that Kolann sets a precedent for wildly popular monarchy that has become all but unknown in western Ornaea. Could Kolann's example or influence reverberate in violent revolutions abroad? Certainly.

But perhaps revolution is what Ketta desires.