As the fledgling kingdowm of Olivantia grew it attracted the attention of its largest neighbor, the southern nation of Reverian. Reverian consisted of six large cities, three situated on the southern coast, three at important inland locations.
The kingdom had grown wealthy serving as a trading port for ships from the Elentian empire, but when the Fall occurred the influx of wealth abruptly ceased. All three booming trade cities along the coast were thrust into economic hardship. This forced a number of residents to leave town in search of work, and many headed inland to the smaller towns and villages.
This influx of people encroached on Orokh lands, most of whom had already been subjugated by the new dreadlords serving Olivanticus. The knights of Reverian erradicated the first few tribes they ran across, but before long they ran afoul of a tribe controlled by a vampyr.
The vampyr’s potent magic and powerful servants were more than a match for several battalions of knights. Rather than wipe them out the vampyr enslaved the knights, seeding those who’d proven themselves worthy on the field of battle.
Word of the missing battalions reached the captial, causing much debate among the king’s advisors. As far as they knew the knights had fallen to the Orokh, a turn of events they’d never anticipated. The Orokh were strong, but didn’t use sorcery. The Reverians were used to overwhelming the savage brutes with battlemages and well organized cavalry, and were greatly concerned that their usual tactics had failed.
After much deliberation the king decided he could solve two problems at once. He gathered the throngs of unemployed dock workers and day laborers into several legions of militia. He detached some of his most elite cavalary and officers to oversee this militia, and sent them to clear out the Orokh tribes in the six valleys where his battalions had disappeared.
The idea was that the militia were of no use to the coastal cities, so if they were slaughtered it would remove the burden while weakening the Orokh. Had they been facing a traditional Orokh horde the plan would have been sound.
As it was they were facing a carefully controlled Orokh force, guided by intelligent vampyr with a solid understanding of tactics. The dreadlord in charge sent a large force of Orokh to engage the militia, allowing his forces to be slaughtered without revealing any trace of the vampyr.
That militia was heavily bloodied in the fighting, but their commanders were confident that they’d overcome the Orokh threat. The dreadlord waited for them to camp that night, then ambushed them with an army of consumed led by his vampyr servants.
The Reverians had never encountered the vampyr, and had no idea how to deal with them. They were completely overwhelmed, though their battlemages managed to kill a few consumed. The shattered remnants of their army retreated to the safety of the capital, bringing the disastrous news to the King.
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Olivanticus Responds
Nevaritus, the dreadlord who’d led the assault against the knights, returned to Mountain Shadow to tell Olivanticus of the engagements with Reverian. Olivanticus was pleased at the victories, but worried that Reverian now knew of the vampyr presence.
In attacking with the consumed Nevaritus had given away the secret of their power, and Olivanticus knew Reverian couldn’t afford to ignore the vampyr. They’d have to respond with as much force as they could muster, or risk destruction at the hands of his forces.
Rather than give them a chance to respond Olivanticus marshalled his forces. He gathered an Orokh horde larger than any that had ever been seen, stiffening its ranks with vampyr and packs of consumed. Less than two weeks after the destruction of the Reverian legions this army gathered at the border of the small kingdom.
Instead of hitting the smaller towns and villages Olivanticus marched his entire army directly to the capital under the cover of darkness. Reverian’s outlying scouts didn’t detect them until they were within a few miles, and while they were able to evactuate their citizens behind the safety of the city’s walls they had no time to lay in stores of food or to send word to other cities.
Olivanticus began his assault by flinging consumed over the walls with catapults. At first the defenders assumed he was flinging corpses, but as those corpses rose to begin assaulting the defenders the awful truth dawned on them. They struggled to drive back the consumed, many of whom were loose in the crowded city streets.
Hundreds of unarmed civilians were killed by the consumed, and the ill prepared city watch was decimated when they attempted to put down the consumed. They had yet to learn that piercing the heart with redwood would kill them, so all they could do was burn them with fire or hack them apart.
Unbeknownst to the defenders some of the ‘consumed’ who’d been lobbed over the walls were in fact powerful vampyr dreadlords. They gathered their forces, making a fast march to attack the city gates. With the defenders scattered all over the city dealing with the consumed they were completely unprepared for the assault.
The vampyr seized the gates and opened them to Olivanticus. His army flooded the city, forcing the defenders to fall back to the king’s palace. This put the rest of the city in the hands of the vampyr just under three hours after they’d begun their assault.
Since the attack had come so unexpectedly the king didn’t have time to lay in proper supplies, and was ill prepared for a seige. His most powerful battlemages and warmasters had fallen back to defend the palace though, and they were able to rebuff the vampyr’s first few sorties.
Olivanticus didn’t mind. With the King and his followers trapped it gave him free reign over the capital. He ordered all the flags taken down, replacing them with the flag of Olivantia. He also seized all the ships in the harbor, claiming Reverian’s navy as his own.
He ordered riders sent to each of the other cities informing them that the capital had fallen. Each was given a simple ultimatum. Capitulate to Olivanticus or be destroyed. Both neighboring coastal cities refused the order, as they’d received messengers from the beseiged king that he still lived.
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A very short war
Many of Olivanticus’s advisors recommended dealing with the king before moving on to attack the other cities. The dreadlord of dreadlords disagreed. He left several hundred consumed, several thousand Orokh and two dozen of his most trusted dreadlords to garrison the capital and continue the siege.
The rest of his army boarded the ships they’d commandeered, sailing immediately to the neighboring coastal city of Barstow’s Cove. At the same time several thousand Orokh spread out to attack every town and village within fifty miles of the capital, burning and pillaging as they went.
Barstow Cove received word of the incoming fleet, and gathered their forces for an extended seige. They left the villages and towns around them completely undefended, ripe for conquest by the vampyr led Orokh horde. The Orokh took thousands of slaves, food for their vampyr masters as well as a source of new consumed.
Meanwhile Olivanticus reversed course, heading out to sea and backtracking to the coastal city of Mantera. Mantera had marshalled their forces and marched overland to try to break the seige on the king’s keep. This left their city virtually undefended when Olivanticus arrived.
He quickly and easily seized the city, killing all who opposed him and installing a vampyr garrison to oversee the city. Then he turned around with the bulk of his forces and sailed back to the capital. His troops landed behind the Manteran army, trapping them between the walls of Reverian and his superior forces.
The Manterans were slaughtered to a man, though they inflicted high casualties among the Orokh attackers. The king and his advisors took the opportunity to lead a sally from the keep, which devestated the garrison left to occupy the capital.
He may have retaken his city, save for the timely arrival of Olivanticus. The dreadlord led his forces into the city and fought the king in single combat, slaying him easily with his incredible strength. Rather than kill the king’s advisors each was given a blood seed. Those who survived with their sanity intact were given positions of power, while the rest were unleashed on the countrside as an example of what happened to those who resisted.
With the capital and Mantera secure Olivanticus drafted a second letter to Barstow’s Cove, the largest remaining city in Reverian. It simply said Enjoy the Winter. His Orokh horde had devestated the surrounding countryside, leaving the city with little food and thousands of hungry refugees.
Rather than attack them directly Olivanticus opted to wait them out. He sent his hordes to pillage the smaller cities across the kingdom, easily overwhelming them. All the while Barstow’s cove was forced to watch as the nation fell. Their reserves of food dwindled and riots soon broke out.
Then and only then did Olivanticus marshal his army and approach. He surrounded the city on land and sent his new fleet to barricade the city’s bay. He called for parley and met with the city’s Lord, the Marshal Tenovis. Tenovis surrendered unconditionally, a decision which Olivanticus respected. He ordered Tenovis to take a blood seed, which the man accepted. Tenovis survived the transformation with his sanity intact, and Olivanticus allowed him to stay on as the city’s lord, effectively ending the kingdom of Reverian once and for all.
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Olivantia Emerges as a Power
With control of both the Orokh tribes and the kingdom of Reverian there were no remaining threats to Olivanticus’s budding empire. He declared the nation Olivantia, and began creating an elite class of vampyr to rule over the farflung cities, towns and villages.
Each vampyr councilor was put in charge of a city or valley and ordered to oversee it. The entire nation, from the southern ocean to the blood wood to the south sea was portioned off and given to Olivanticus’s most trusted followers.
This expansion period lasted for nearly twenty years, as Olivanticus spread his power from coast to coast. This nascent empire enabled him to fight the Tree as never before, gradually enslaving more and more consumed so that the tree had fewer servants with which to enact its evil will.
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Mountain Shadow & the Blood Seeds
Olivanticus spent more and more time in his laboratory in Mountain Shadow. He knew that the Tree grew stronger by drinking the blood its minions gathered, and was determined to find out how. He spent years in virtual solitude, but the effort was worth it. Olivanticus found a method to ingest the blood intended for the tree, thus increasing his own strength.
He ordered his vampyr to bring their consumed to Mountain Shadow once a year, and he used a potent ritual to drain them of the essence they’d gathered. Olivanticus grew stronger with each infusion, while depriving the tree of that same essence.
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The Arrival of the Maw
Olivanticus reigned over his new nation for nearly forty years before encountering a threat he couldn’t deal with. That threat was the Maw, a ferocious hurricane that roamed the southern ocean of its own accord. Along with the Maw came the Maw Pirates, undead pirates of unknown origin.
By conquering Reverian and making it his capital Olivanticus had made his kingdom a coastal nation. This exposed much of his infrastructure to the maw, which drifted over Olivantia during the fortieth year of his reign.
Maw pirates by the thousands descended on every town, city and village along the coast. Worse, every corpse within a hundred miles animated. These corpses attacked anything living that they found, killing without prejudice or need for sleep.
The hordes of undead decimated the populace, though they met stiff resistance from the vampyr and their consumed minions. The crisis spread for several days before word reached Olivanticus, who responded immediately. He gathered every dreadlord in the nation, along with their strongest vampyr men at arms.
This group travelled to the coast and bound every maw pirate they could find. They seized dozens of vessels, turning them against the very pirates who were assaulting them. Three weeks of bloody warfare ensued with high casualties on both sides.
In the end the Maw continued its course and the bulk of the Maw pirates followed. However, this single event shaped the history of Olivantia for centuries to come. It taught something critical to Olivanticus. Why create your own navy when you could simply enslave the Maw Pirates?
It was the perfect plan. Maw Pirates were universally feared, so by controlling them the vampyr gained their fearsome reputation without having to build a single ship. At the same time they removed the Maw Pirates as a threat, protecting their coasts by enslaving any Maw Pirates who came close enough.
This secured Olivantia as the dominant naval power in the Southern Ocean, and gained them a foothold in the South Sea.
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Olivanticus & the Merfolk
Olivanticus was not just an authoritarian dictator. He was a talented strategist and a consumate politician. He understood that his nation would be far more powerful if it allied with its neighbors rather than taking an antagonistic stance.
He might be able to conquer them, but why? More territory was useless to him. Access to catalysts was tempting, but rather than conquer the people controlling them why not strike a bargain to gain access?
His first target was the water catalyst of MerfolkCatalyst (placeholder). In order to unlock Summoning and Binding for his vampyr Olivanticus needed access to Water. The closest catalyst available lay near the center of the South Sea, but it was guarded by a very zealous nation of trolls who called themselves the Merfolk.
The Merfolk prided themselves on honor, worshipping the catalyst and protecting the seas around it. When Olivanticus discovered them they were already at war with the Families, a group of ruthless merchants who dominated trade on the South Sea.
The Families led a massive armada into merfolk waters in an attempt to catalyze thousands of their people. This attempt failed spectacularly. The families suffered enormous losses, though they were able to inflict a fair number of casualties on the merfolk as well. The Families pulled back to their Flotilla, but the Merfolk never forgot the assault.
Ironically this made it startlingly easy for Olivanticus to make a deal with the merfolk. He approached them humbly, explaining that in order for his people to hold back the ferocious maw pirates they needed the magic of binding.
If they would allow a small number of students to journey there each year Olivanticus would sacrifice offerings in the name of their god, and would also agree to help defend them against the ever present Maw Pirates. He would also offer them the power of the blood seed, taking merfolk as apprentices and teaching them both binding and summoning.
The Merfolk respected Olivanticus and approved of his humility. They agreed to his request, striking a bargain that would last for over three centuries. Vampyr were allowed access to the catalyst, in exchange teaching the merfolk the secrets of binding.
This enabled the merfolk to better defend themselves against the Maw pirates, and with the vampyr’s aid they were able to repulse the Maw Pirates without suffering the same catastrophic losses they’d felt previously.
It gave Olivantia even more power, allowing them to build a caste dreadlords taught by Olivanticus himself.
