The Liberation of Tenh

An accounting of the glorious campaign of the Theocracy of the Pale, 594 CY.

The time had finally come for the Theocracy of the Pale to stand against the forces of chaos threatening her border. The Theocrat called for the Prelatal Army and all those loyal to the Pale to gather for war. The city of Atherstone, liberated from chaos years before and held in the name of order under the light of Pholtus, became the rallying point. For a year the forces of the Pale gathered here in this tiny city. New fortifications were built and a temple to Pholtus was constructed at the heart of the city.

The armies of the Pale spent the month of Patchwall sending out scouting missions into the Stonelands (as the former Duchy had since been renamed). These scouting missions discovered that Stoneholders had once again returned in the north, although not as strong as they had once been. In the south, the scouts found Iuzians once again on the move; these were remnants of Iuz's troops that had occupied Tenh before the Ether Threat emerged. Worst of all, it was discovered that a group of Stoneholders, devotees to Erythnul, had summoned a fiend two years ago but had not yet sealed the bonds of servitude and so he remained imprisoned, waiting... Sadly, this demon was released by desperate heroes with no choice but to turn to a fiend for salvation. A pact was made and the consequences of said pact have yet to be felt.

With the scouting missions over, the Prelatal Army began to build supply lines leading to the northern and southern reaches of the former Tenh. Throughout the month of Ready'reat the supply lines were set up and during this time came under the attack of forces loyal to the Troll King in the Troll Fens. He plainly intended to disrupt the plans of the mighty Pale, but again heroes of the Pale answered the call and stopped the Troll King from destroying the supply lines before they were even in place.

Finally, with winter looming, the Prelatal Army called upon the heroes of the Pale to aid their nation once more in its time of need. The Prelatal Army had recruited many new recruits, but in doing so had swelled beyond the capacity of its officers to command it. The Prelatal Army felt that experienced heroes, veterans of many skirmishes, could be used as an auxiliary officer force. The heroes came and they were given command of forces of the Prelatal Army, the Church Militant, the Pholtan Knights Valorous, and the Faithful Flan. The dwarves even sent troops to stand with the dwarven heroes of the Pale as the Liberation of Tenh finally began.

In Sunsebb, 594 CY, the Prelatal Army marched into the Stonelands, upholding the promise they had made to the Faithful Flan years before.

The supply lines of the Pale were defended by heroes who were stout of heart but had barely begun their adventures. Knight-Captain Louis Phillip Gaston II, Pholtan Knight Valorous and Provisional Governor of Tenh, commanded the troops along the supply lines. They defended the lines first against displacer beasts and vermin who sought to gain for themselves the food they smelled. The heroes saw this as a good sign, in that no enemies of the Pale dared strike at the supply lines while the Prelatal Army marched on Calbut and into Southern Tenh.

But the Iuzians of the south chose this lull as a time to strike. They sent ogres and ogre mages against the supply line leading to the south. The heroes were hard-pressed to defend the lines against an ogre mage, but the power of the Prelatal Army once again won the day.

A few days later came the hardest blow of all, when Tenhas attacked the supply lines. Even worse, they were led by men and women once thought to be heroes of the Pale. They led the strike and destroyed several wagons of the supply lines. Tenha bards, who had infiltrated the Prelatal ranks, were hidden amidst the supply trains. When they began to beat their drums, the Prelatal Troops and loyal Pale Heroes thought they were being bolstered but instead found the enemy fighting more effectively. It was a hard-fought battle, but in the end the Tenha loyalists and the Pale turncoats were driven back and not heard from again during this month-long campaign into Tenh.

To the north, the First Dawn Command of the Prelatal Army marched on Calbut while relying on the strength of Pholtus to hold the supply lines. The formidable fortress-city of Calbut had withstood Stonehold and Old Wicked ten years before, until a traitorous Tenha turned the tide in favor of the dark forces and fed the Greyhawk Wars. This time, the heroes of the Pale marched forth from three sides of the great city, now occupied by barbarians from Stonehold. At the gates, the heroes rushed forth in a feint, while the other forces moved tentatively forward against two walls to test the strength of the worshippers of Erythnul and hopefully gain an advantage and take the city.

At the gates of Calbut, a devout Palish sorceress and an elven druidess led their troops forward, only to lose all of their troops and almost their own lives to the Stonehold archers on the walls. These two were rescued from certain death by a monk and warrior-mage, who used quick thinking and travel-magic to bring the two heroines back from the hail of arrows.

While the archers concentrated on the forces of the fallen heroines, a battle-hungry half-orc from Nyrond led his troops in a charge directly against the gates. All but twenty of his troops fell, but in the end he alone did break through the gates, only to find himself facing the unfettered fury of the Man-Ripper, Dehzbah, bloodthirsty niece of Rhelt Sevvord Redbeard. Following close behind the half-orc was a renowned Nyrondese archer, but his magic brought him unwisely between a mighty barbarian warrior and a priest of Erythnul; their brutal blades and magic killed him. Here would have fallen the half-orc also, except for the bravery of a devoted defender, who flew through the enemy’s blade barrier barricading the fallen gate and rescue the Nyronder from Dehzbah’s savagery.

In the ensuing chaos at the gates, a Pholtan battle-priest built a stone ramp using divine magic to carry troops up to the walls of Calbut. A Nyrondese bard led the charge up the ramp to aid the priest, but the Stoneholder archers felled all of the attacking soldiers. The power of Pholtus did not retreat, though, and the priest's divine power retaliated against the Stoneholders for having slain so many loyal Pholtans.

As the battle at the gates waged on, heroes of the Pale began to assault the walls of Calbut. On the eastern side of the city, a diverse band—a dwarven warrior and dwarven priest, a Pholtan bishop, a Baklunish bard, and the monk and warrior-mage mentioned earlier—threw off the defenders of Calbut. They appeared close to the walls with all of their forces centered in a massive formation and drove forward on a section of the wall, far from the feint at the gates. The bard's bracemen rained arrows upon the Stoneholders, while the priests and the warrior-mage raised a stair of stone up to the walls. To protect their Prelatal troops on the stairs, the heroes summoned huge air elementals to foil the hail of Stoneholder arrows. On the ground below, the dwarven heroes led their sappers, kindred in race though not in clan, to the foot of the walls and began the timely task of bringing down a 150-foot section of wall. As this section of the walls of Calbut fell, the Pholtan sorceress returned newly healed to the gates, but failed to capture Dehzbah the Man-Ripper in a sphere of force.

When another faithful wizard finally succeeded in disintegrating a hole through the wall, the elven archer there led the only remaining troops at the gates to break through and claim the city of Calbut in the name of the Pale and the Faithful Flan. The eastern and western walls fell to the might of Pholtus soon afterward. Sadly, the Man-Ripper escaped from the battlefield and will no doubt plague the Pale further.

In the south, the Iuzians were driven in rout before the power of Pholtus, but not without heavy losses as well. The Prelatal forces of the Sixth Dawn Command encountered a small encampment of humanoids under the banner of Old Wicked. The humanoid armies fell quickly to the power of the Pholtans, but some managed to retreat into supply lines leading back to an even larger encampment of Old Wicked's troops.

As the heroes on the southern front marched forward, following the supply lines of the enemy, they soon came to a fortified encampment of Iuzian regulars. Here the true threat of Old Wicked in the south was realized. Only moments into the charge against the fortified levies of the Iuzian Encampment, the Prelatal Army looked to their rear guard and a cheer went up—reinforcements were approaching from behind, albeit slowly. But then the light of Pholtus showed the Palites the truth: the reinforcements were actually their fallen comrades from the previous days of battle, returned to unlife to crush them between the powers of darkness. This would have been devastating to the troops if not for the power of Pholtus, channeled by his priests. The units of the Church Militant, together with the power of two heathen dwarves (a transmuter and a priestess), held the rear against the zombies.

Finally, the Prelatal Army broke through the lines and pursued yet another supply line back to its source. The Prelatal Army was about to face the remaining strength of Old Wicked in the Stonelands. Below them, around the ruined village of Valandil's Mill, stood the last of the Iuzian regulars that had gathered here. The heroes of the Pale led their troops forward after a full night of rest.

On the new day, as the Palish troops closed on Old Wicked's troops, the Iuzians stood fast and let the evil of Old Wicked engulf the Palish troops, in a huge cloud of poison. Thousands fell dead in a matter of moments, leaving only thirty heroes of the Pale to stand alone against over a thousand Iuzian regulars… and a demon recently released from its bonds by the worshippers of Erythnul.

The heroes faced a choice: flee from this threat and waste the lives of those loyal Pholtans who had died or face the darkness and strive to survive. They did as any true hero would do. Walls of fire and many other divine magics burst around the Old One's array; the power of Pholtus quickly left the Iuzian command standing alone as well. Old Wicked's minions would pay dearly for their part in the destruction of the Duchy of Tenh.

In the end, the demon escaped, but Old Wicked's command had been broken by the power of Pholtus and the heroes of the Pale. Long is the list of the names of heroes who fought for a month to destroy the forces of chaos moving in on the Pale's western border. Long, too, is the list of those who fell in battle against this evil, but now the Pale could begin the rebuilding of the Stonelands for the Faithful Flan and the Tenha people.

As the heroes returned to Atherstone and the armies began the job of occupying the liberated lands of the former Duchy of Tenh, the Theocrat himself stood above them and spoke, "Heroes of the Pale, you have served your country and your god well once more. We have begun the Liberation of Tenh and the Faithful Flan know we are loyal to their cause as we promised, unlike the coward, Ehyeh, who will no longer be called Duke by the people of the Pale. I ask all of you to remember the true heroes of the Pale in your prayers.

"The Hospitalers of Pholtus have begun the healing of the Tenhas, but they, too, have paid the dear cost of life as they serve. Though we were greeted warmly by the people of Tenh, still there was treachery, as Old Wicked's soldiers attacked these peaceful convoys, and bandits proved they still hold sway in the ruined land of Tenh. The Hospitalers also found some of the heathen druids exiled this past spring acting as allies to Ehyeh's troops. This so-called Duke must be desperate indeed to accept aid from such unscrupulous sources. These druids refused to aid us in liberating the people of Tenh. Their pride prevents them from seeing the good that Pholtus will bring to the Stonelands, just as it kept them from seeing how the Theocracy would have aided in healing the scars left by their fiend-worshipping ancestors in our own lands.

"The most grievous wound of all, though, is the crisis of faith undermining the very foundations of our Church, the very thing that sustains the brave citizens of the Pale. I will tell you that even I wrestle in my soul, over a decision made when I ascended to the Throne of the Sun following the death of our beloved Theocrat Ogon Tillit, Pholtus grant him rest. I have seen what the festering chaos and this crisis of faith have caused; men and women known to me as Heroes of the Pale, once trusted by our great nation, have turned against us. Many of you stood fast with your countrymen—even some foreigners, who put aside their worldly loyalties to serve in our glorious campaign. But when even a few turn aside from the light and set their steps counter to the One True Path, our whole nation dims in the eyes of Pholtus. I will reflect on this in meditation, but I know, as should you all, that the irrefutable strength of Pholtus will support us as we turn back the tide of chaos. The Pale will stand strong in the light again."