The History of Cambrecia

Foundation of Cambrecia

Original article: Foundation of Cambrecia

After completion of the Zetian conquest of Simmeria in 97 BI by Antonius Argentis of House Zetar, the Zetian Senate again elected three consuls to expand Zetian territory on Duria in an attempt to establish a near-contiguous trade route around the Betshaban Ocean. Septimius Varros, a legate loyal to Consul Rufus Voltina of House Livius, was sent with the Zetian armada to Duria with the intent to conquer the Freecity of Neptaris. He arrived on the eastern shores of the Maroshan Sea in 89 BI, where he chose to establish a beachhead at the mouth of a river then known as the Kambros River some 250 miles north of Neptaris. He sent envoys to the local tribe that called the river their home, the Kambros, and began developing a relationship with them. The Kambros quickly took to working with the Zetian Legion, even providing some physical labor for the construction of Legate Septimius' fort on the banks of the river. By the following spring, Septimius was ready to expand his influence and secure the region for his ultimate march on Neptaris itself.

While serving in the Zetian military in its northern frontier on Aurea, Septimius Varros certainly read at least the first four books of Meditationes de Bello Simmerio, those initial writings of Marcus Argentis of House Zetar detailing the methods and tactics he used in the first few years of the conquest of the Divian Peninsula eight years prior (Antonius Argentis, his successor, had yet to publish the final two books of the Meditationes). Legate Septimius put his understanding of Argentis' writings to good use in this new land. By Spring, the leader of the Kambros, a man named Dravos, had formally requested aid from the Legate against their rival tribes in the river basin (presumably, an act encouraged by the Legate or his officers). The Legate agreed, under the condition that the Kambros would consider themselves under the patronage of Consul Rufus Voltina of House Livius, the Legate's sponsor. Perhaps not truly understanding the depth of their agreement, the Kambros enthusiastically accepted the terms. The disorganized men of the local tribes, accustomed to personal combat settling most disputes, proved no match for the highly-trained, professional soldiers of the Zetian Legion. The Duvarna, along the middle of the Kambros River were first to fall, followed by the Sarnoi in the uplands. Hearing of the quick defeat of their nearby cousins, the Amesi, a neighboring tribe friendly to the Kambros, secured an alliance with Kambros by offering up one of their own princesses as a wife to Dravos. By the end of summer, the Legions had also brought the Arishei, Gweri and Moragi under their dominion.

With the northern reaches and much of the coastline secure, Legate Septimius turned his attention to the Kingdom of Kamaros and their allies, the Melvartans and Branduri tribes. For most of the following year, Septimius continued to wear down the Kamaran defenses. The Kamaran, to their credit, realized that they had mobility that the Zetian Legion did not and often would withdraw from a region, allowing it to be taken by the Legion, only to return once the Legion had departed to disrupt the Legion's supply lines. Septimius, however, was relentless in his march on the Kamaros royal seat at Cerunis. After a protracted siege, Cerunis finally fell. As a condition of surrender, the Kamaran King Aaronar VI challenged the Legate to a personal duel. To everyone's surprise, Septimius agreed. The two squared off in the central courtyard of the Kamaran royal castle and, after a lengthy battle, Septimius finally killed the King. This was a striking departure from what had become Zetian tradition: a victorious general was expected to return to Zeth to display his former nemesis in chains in a Triumphal march through the city, where they would then by executed by order of the Senate. Instead, by following local traditions, not only did he become a hero to the Cambrecians themselves, but led to the Napoci and Ossamei to voluntarily join under his Dracones. To ensure a lasting peace, the daughter and heir of Kamaros became a wife of Dravos, who Legate Septimius then saw crowed as King of Kambresia (it would take less than two decades for the spelling to change to Cambrecia). Thus, scholars count the founding of Cambrecia to this event in 87 BI.

The Legate wasted no time moving to pursue a large contingent of Melvartans and Branduri who had fled from the Battle of Cerunis. Both tribes, already semi-nomadic, migrated eastward en-masse to escape the Zetian Legions. They crossed the Krios River just north of Neptaris and, as the Legate Septimius arrived in pursuit, the spring rains came and made the Krios too swollen to safely cross. Septimius quickly realized that he was in a precarious situation... his Legion was now much closer to Neptaris than to the source of his supply lines back on the Kambros River and Neptaris was certainly aware of his presence and had been preparing its own defenses. He could withdraw and lose the gains he had made to encircle Neptaris (at least to the north), nor could he wait for the Neptaran army to come meet him in the field, so he instead chose to march on Neptaris itself. Upon arriving, however, he was surprised to find that Neptaris was not prepared for war. There were few solders manning her legendary walls and the great gates were flung open to greet the Legate and his army. Among those to greet him was a Zetian ambassador sent by a rival of Consul Rufus Voltina named Lucius Crassus of House Manilius. Crassus informed the Legate that Neptaris was undergoing a bloodless revolution from monarchy to democracy and had formed a direct alliance with Zeth for legal advice and assistance during the transition (not to mention a lucrative trade deal that hinged on Septimius keeping the coast secure). Septimius was ordered to stand down and return to Zeth. He obeyed without question, sending his best officers back to see to his colony and support King Dravos in stabilizing his new Kingdom... which was, nevertheless, a client state of the Zetian Republic.

Septimius returned to a hero's welcome in Zeth. Stories had already been circulating about how he purposefully claimed territory in the name of his sponsor instead of aggrandizing himself, had personally fought the Kamaran King to the death and had stood down at the gates of Neptaris in accordance with Zetian law, despite the sizeable, blood-thirsty and victory-stained army at his back. Where returning generals had once faced automatic trial for despotism upon their return to Zeth, Septimius was hailed an exemplar of Zetian adherence to law and order. After a week of deliberation (and celebration), the Senate announced that, for the first time since the foundation of the city by the Septira, they were elevating a family to the status of Great House. House Varro was thus founded in 85 BI. Septimius himself remained in Zeth for over a decade, serving both as Senator and as paterfamilia of his new House, but finally returned to the Cambrecian shore in 68 BI. Again, he was lauded as a returning hero. The settlement he had founded at the mouth of that great river had become the royal seat of the King of Cambrecia (now the young son of Dravos, King Tarnos I). By royal decree, the city was named Septarium and the river that ran through it is called the Septimia River, after Septimus' mother. The former Legate, Senator and Paterfamilia of the first new Great House lived out another three decades in peaceful retirement in the growing city that carried his name, passing peacefully at a Latrunculorum table in his favorite tavern in 34 BI at the age of 87. During this time, Cambrecia and her welcoming people became home to many retired Zetian Legionaires, who often constructed vast agricultural estates near Septarium and employed native labor to work, often becoming indistinguishable from the local people within a couple of generations.

When the Empire was founded by Octavius of House Zetar in 1 IC, Cambrecia, as it had become known, was one of the last of the outer territories of the Old Republic to swear allegiance to the Empire.

Imperial Cambrecia

Original article: Imperial Cambrecia

When word reached Septarium that the Senate had dissolved itself and that Octavius of House Zetar had been proclaimed Emperor in 1 IC, the court of King Tarnos II met the news with open dismay. Cambrecia's client status had been built on a personal bond of patronage: first to Consul Rufus Voltina, then, through Septimius Varros, to House Varro itself. An Emperor drawn from House Zetar, a family with no history of patronage in Cambrecia, offered the Dravosid crown no such assurance. Tarnos II delayed sending envoys to Zeth for the better part of two years and when he finally did swear allegiance, Cambrecia was the last of the outer territories of the old Republic to do so. Some court chroniclers of the following century would frame this hesitation as principled loyalty to the memory of House Varro and, perhaps, a growing sentiment towards the worship of Zelos Goldenhand, god of the state; others, less charitably, suggested that Tarnos II and his ministers, chief among them his uncle Vardanos (a local title roughly translated as 'guardian of the hearth') Aroneth, feared that direct Imperial oversight would strip away the informal privileges the Kamaran nobility had enjoyed as a favored client kingdom rather than a subject province.

The Emperor was not inclined to let the delay pass unanswered. In 6 IC, Octavius dispatched Legate Titus Nepos of House Gabinius, a family already notorious for its uncompromising governorships in Aescalapea, to formalize Cambrecia's place within the Empire. Titus Nepos garrisoned a cohort of the Third Legion within Septarium itself, the first standing Imperial troops the capital had ever hosted. T. Nepos also established a permanent legate's residence beside the royal palace, a deliberate arrangement meant to remind the Dravosid court exactly whose authority now took precedence in matters of war, law, and foreign relations. Alongside him came Procurator Gnaeus Falco, charged with conducting Cambrecia's first Imperial census and establishing the tribute rolls by which the province would be taxed. Falco's assessors moved through the fields and foothills of Cambrecia methodically, and by 11 IC the old exemptions once granted to Septimius Varros's veteran-settlers, whose descendants had, for two generations, paid only nominal dues to the Dravosid crown, were formally abolished. It is said that many of these descendants were worshipers of Zelos Goldenhand, god of the state, and among them there were murmured accusations of tyranny under the new Zetian Emperor.

It was both this loss of exemption and moral outrage that finally broke the Cambrecian people into open unrest. In 13 IC, a coalition of wealthy landowners descended from Septimius's retired legionaries, led by the orator Gaius Fufidius Cato, gathered in the forum of Septarium and petitioned Legate Titus Nepos for the right to elect a body of their own, a Concilium Septariae, to oversee taxation and local law, citing the example of neighboring Neptaris, which within living memory had cast off its own monarchy for an elected Council. What became known as the Sedition of Septarium gathered enough support among the capital's merchant class to shut down the grain markets for the better part of a month, but it found no allies among the Kamaran nobility or the crown, both of whom recognized a Senate of Fufidius Cato's design as no less a threat to Dravosid rule than to Imperial rule. King Tarnos II lent his own household guard to the Legate to help clear the forum, and the Legate had Fufidius Cato and eleven of his fellow petitioners exiled to Ylargebad Island rather than executed, a mercy some historians attribute to T. Nepos's wish not to make martyrs of them so early in his governorship. The Sedition failed, but the grievance did not: the dream of an elected Cambrecian Senate would resurface, in one form or another, for the better part of two centuries to come.

In the decades following the failed Sedition, Cambrecia settled into an uneasy accommodation with Imperial rule. The Kamaran and Dravosid nobility increasingly adopted Zetian dress, law, and even Latin naming conventions to curry favor with the Legate's court, and King Tarnos II's own household grew steadily more dependent on Imperial recognition to shore up his legitimacy against rival branches of the Dravosid line. Resistance did not disappear so much as go quiet. Rural landowners, particularly those descended from Septimius Varros's veteran-settlers, routinely under-reported their harvests to Procurator Falco's successors, and banditry along the upland roads toward the Cambrecian Mountains, often blamed on displaced tribesmen but just as often the work of disaffected settler youth, grew persistent enough that Legate Titus Nepos was forced to keep a standing garrison there for the remainder of his tenure.

Legate Titus Nepos commanded the Legion III Cambrecia for nearly three decades, ruling with the same uncompromising hand that had crushed Cato's rebellion at the Sedition of Septarium, but the Proconsul's refusal to ease taxation even as low-level unrest simmered on eventually drew quiet complaints to Zeth from the Cambrecian nobility itself, carried through channels the aging Legate never suspected existed. He died at his post in 44 IC, worn down less by any single crisis than by the accumulated weight of patrolling a province that had never forgiven him for the Sedition's suppression. His successor, chosen deliberately by the Imperial court to repair the relationship, was Cyricus Isidorus of House Livius, whose appointment in 47 IC was met in Septarium with genuine, if cautious, hope. House Livius had, after all, been Cambrecia's first Imperial patron, sponsor of Septimius Varros's own conquest generations before, and many among the Dravosid court believed a Livius Legate would restore some measure of the old client kingdom's dignity. It was a hope that would make what followed all the more bitter.

Cambrecia and the Derlic War

Original article: Cambrecia and the Derlic War

Under Legate Cyricus Isidorus of House Livius, Legion III Cambrecia moved into the trackless wilds of what had even then become known as the Cambrecian Mountains, chasing rumors of wealthy dwarven miners high in the peaks. In a mistake that would resonate for decades to come and permanently alter the political landscape of southern Duria, the Legion slaughtered an ostensibly peaceful dwarven ambassadorial party from the Kingdom of Derlos, which initiated what would become known as the Derlic War in the Empire with the express intention of conquering the subterranean Kingdom. The Legion spent the first few months of the "War" failing to even locate the entrance to the underground mountain kingdom. The dwarves were shocked by the behavior of humans they thought were friendly and prepared themselves for battle, but cooler heads prevailed and an envoy was sent to Neptaris, who had allied with the dwarves of Derlos some six centuries prior during the War of the Dark Rider. After brief deliberations, the Triumvirate of Neptaris secretly decided to maintain their alliance with Derlos and prepare for war against this new Empire. In 55 IC, Neptaris formally declared war on Zeth and immediately took one of their key military outposts in the foothills of the Cambrecian Mountains, Fort Pagulium.

What began as an exploratory expedition against Derlos quickly grew into a war Cambrecia had not prepared for. Neptaran Marshal Marshal Aador Manx, moving in concert with dwarven irregulars from Derlos, exploited the fall of Fort Pagulium to seize five more Imperial supply depots before the year was out, and for two years Legate Isidorus found himself fighting a war on ground he had not chosen. The tide turned only when the Imperial fleet broke Neptaris's navy at the Battle of Nimble Point in 57 IC and sealed Krios Bay, cutting the rebellious Freecity off from the sea it depended on. Any relief the victory brought was short-lived: a plague swept along the Cambrecian coast the following winter, and among its dead was Isidorus himself, the very Legate whose slaughter of the Derlic envoys had started the war in the first place. Command passed to Legate Valerius Lucius, who spent the next several years rebuilding the Legion's strength even as Neptaris, unbeknownst to the Empire, was doing the same in secret shipyards along its own coast. Marshal Manx fought on until his death at Fort Pagulium, and his successor, Marshall Greor Alcyon of House Markos, briefly seized command of the Maroshan Sea with a fleet of thirty warships, but Imperial spies located and burned Neptaris's hidden shipyards in the winter of 65 IC, and with reinforcement from the fleets of Paladinium in Imperial Simmeria, Valerius Lucius laid siege to Neptaris itself. The city fell within a fortnight when an Imperial sympathizer inside its walls opened the gates, and Marshal Alcyon, upon hearing the news, took his own life rather than witness Neptaris's surrender. With their human allies defeated, the dwarves of Derlos sealed off the entrances to their subterranean kingdom and disappeared into the roots of the mountains.

For Cambrecia, the years after the Derlic War brought no relief, only a change in the shape of their subjugation. The dwarven wealth that had first drawn the Legion into the mountains was never recovered; the Kingdom of Derlos had sealed its gates and vanished into the roots of the mountains rather than ever treat with the Empire again, so the war that cost Isidorus his life had, in the end, won Zeth nothing at all. Command remained with Legate Valerius Lucius, who spent his remaining years in Septarium keeping the Legion garrisoned and the tribute rolls full, but the endless cycle of rebellion made direct military rule an expense Zeth could not sustain indefinitely.

Cambrecia's own house was no steadier than the Empire's patience. In the plague-stricken winter of 58 IC that claimed Legate Isidorus, the same sickness reached Septarium and took King Tarnos III, leaving the throne to his young son, Prince Kestor, no more than five years old. A regency council, drawn from mostly Kamaros-descended nobility and backed by the increasingly influential priesthood of Zelos Goldenhand, ruled in the boy's name. With Zeth's full attention on the war against Neptaris and Derlos, no one in the capital was minding Cambrecia's own succession, and Bellenos Dravos, of the old Amesi-descended branch of the royal house, a line that had never accepted being passed over for the throne generations before, raised his own claim. The resulting Dravosid Kinstrife dragged on for sixteen years, a slow civil war fought in the shadow of the Empire's own occupation, until Kestor, grown to manhood, finally defeated and killed Bellenos in personal combat in 74 IC at the Battle of Vetrenos and reunited the kingdom under his own rule for the first time in a generation.

It was precisely this victory that doomed him. A legitimate, battle-hardened king who had reunified Cambrecia without any help from Zeth was a far more troubling prospect to the Empire than a child regency had ever been, and Emperor Emperor Leto I of House Livius had no intention of recognizing a monarch who might one day decide he owed the Empire nothing at all. In 78 IC, fresh Imperial legions arrived in Septarium, declared Kestor's rule illegitimate despite the regency council's own endorsement years before, and installed a man with no connection to House Dravos whatsoever, Quintus Sarnicos, as King of Cambrecia in his place. What became of Kestor Dravos, the last of his line, has never been settled. Some in Septarium still whisper that he was quietly put to the sword in the dungeons beneath his own palace and buried without rite, so that Zeth would leave the Cambrecian people no grave to mourn at and no martyr to rally behind. Others insist he escaped the city before the legions arrived and lived out his years in exile, some say in Neptaris, others in the depths of the Cambrecian Mountains, given quiet sanctuary by the dwarves of Derlos, who, whatever else divided them from the surface, understood better than anyone what it meant to be betrayed by the Empire's ambitions.

The Cambrecian Civil Wars

Original article: The Cambrecian Civil Wars

After years of neglect for its colony, the Empire informed Cambrecia that it would have to see to its own affairs of defense in 724 IC. The Cambrecian nobility, so reliant on the Emperor's support and guidance, immediately began to fall to internal bickering and strife, as civil war broke out across the land. For the next thirty years, war was the mainstay as monarch after monarch fell. Eventually, no heirs became apparent to the throne excepting a three year old child and the nobility, not trusting one another with the regency, elected to place the Pontifex of Zelos as regent to the crown. The Pontifex moved quickly and relentlessly in destroying the economic power of the local nobility, particularly the economies of those who opposed the Empire, Zelos, or him personally. By the time that the King came of age, it was apparent that the monarchy had power only so long as it was supported by the clergy of Zelos. That King's son, Jeremiah Tovex, abdicated his power of rulership to the Pontifex, making Geraldus the first Potentate of Cambrecia in 762 IC. Civil war again erupted over the rulership of the Potentate, but, unfortunately, the power of those rebellious nobles had already been waning over the last few decades, and they proved no match for Geraldus. However, instead of replacing the defeated nobles with more nobility, they were replaced by priests of Zelos. By 800 IC, the rebellions had ended, with nearly sixty percent of the nobility having been replaced by the church hierarchy. In 834 IC, the Potentate declared the laws of inheritance by primogeniture anathema, and by 887 IC, the entire noble hierarchy of Cambrecia had been replaced by the priesthood of Zelos. In 900 IC, the Emperor Metaurus of House Drusus recognized Cambrecia officially as the Holy See of Cambrecia, and the noble class was irrevocably and completely removed from its position of rulership in the nation. It was at this time that the name of the Cambrecian capital was changed from Septarium to Zelosia City. Only the lowest position of secular rulership, that of Urbis Praefectus, remained, and even they were chosen by the religious hierarchy and not permitted position by heredity.

Cambrecia and the Rise of Koramia

Original article: Cambrecia and the Rise of Koramia

After the conclusion of the Cambrecian Civil Wars, the Holy See remained a stalwart supporter of Imperial interests on Duria, assisting in the defense of Imperial naval interests in the Maroshan Sea and in the petty kingdoms of Koramia. When, in 1202 IC, the self-styled King of Koramia placed his own Prelate of Vortumnus in the holy seat of Paeldain, the Pontifex of Zelos handed that king and Prelate an even stronger denunciation than the Pontifex Maximus himself: the See broke off all trade relations with the Kingdom of Koramia, refusing to recognize its sovereignty. This harsh treatment sparked off a minor war between the two nations in 1208 IC and, though the initial fighting lasted only a decade or so, no official treaty was established between the two nations. By 1250 IC, despite a minor movement among some of the priests of Cambrecia, the Potentate was still strong in his opposition to the concept of an independent Koramian Kingdom.

Cambrecia and the Mage War

Original article: Cambrecia and the Mage War

When the Great Empire began its reconquest of Koramia in 1250 IC, Horatius IV, the Potentate of Zelos eagerly joined in the fray. The Potentate not only reiterated that all of Koramia was anathema to Zelos, but declared anyone willing to assist them and/or trade with the Koramians on an individual basis anathema. Despite the Potentate's personal eagerness, he could not commit all of the Cambrecian forces against Koramia: Cambrecia had long, sporadic conflict with the dwarves of the Cambrecian Mountains and soon after the Cambrecians began to withdraw from the mountains to attend to the Koramia campaign, the dwarves suddenly rose up en masse to attack Cambrecia from their ancient strongholds. Unbeknownst to the Potentate, the dwarves of Duria had allied with Koramia and were coordinating against Imperial forces.

While Imperial forces established a beachhead in Koramia, the Cambrecian front began to falter. Unexpectedly, the Mages of Lun Dorak, having quelled resistance among the clans of the nearby Calmerian Marches, began moving troops into the Cambrecian Mountains from the east. The Potentate quickly allied with the Mage-King Lucasa and the Dorakian forces under his command and the dwarves of the Cambrecian Mountains were driven underground. With the dwarves quelled, the combined forces of Cambrecia and Lun Dorak prepared their assault on the Cambrecian front of the war against Koramia.

Early in 1252 IC, word reached Cambrecia that the Emperor Publius Antonius had died and his successor, Lucius was actually the Mage-King himself. The heirarchy of Zelos in Cambrecia initially went into a frenzied debate as to whether the succession was legal according to the laws of Zelos, but the Potentate had already cast his lot. He voiced his support for Lucasa as Mage-King and Emperor, declaring any who disobeyed not only traitors to the Empire, but Anathema. It was at this point that some of the priests of Zelos realized that Potentate Horatius IV had gone quite mad.

The Zelosian Schism

Original article: The Zelosian Schism

After Potentate Horatius IV declared his allegiance to Lucasa as the Imperial Emperor, he commanded renewed attacks against Koramia. Nearly a third of his generals, all priests of Zelos and formerly loyal to Cambrecia, refused. They withdrew their troops to the city of Trias in northern Cambrecia and called the Council of Trias. Though they invited all priests of Zelos to this Council, those who remained loyal to Horatius IV refused. Somehow, the few priests of Zelos who followed the Koramian Heresy in Koramia made it across the Cambrecian Front and attended the Council.

Three weeks of heated debate followed, with those in attendance alternatively calling for unity in the Church of Zelos and for separation from the Office of the Potentate. After three weeks, Dorakian Mages arrived at the Council with documents in hand from the Potentate ordering the Priests to Zelosia City for trial as heretics and traitors, while they would assume command of the wayward armies. The Priests were furious, both at the unilateral decision of the Potentate and at the audacity of the Lun Dorakian Mages. Their decision was made... they would no longer obey the Potentate. The Dorakian Mages were subdued in a pitched battle within the Cathedral of Trias itself, quickly tried and burned at the stake for Heresy. The Council met for one more day... by noon, it had declared Lucasa and Horatius IV both Heretics.

Word of the Council of Trias spread like wildfire throughout Cambrecia. More priests declared their support for the priests, bringing their flocks with them. In the midst of one of the largest wars the world had ever seen, Cambrecia erupted in Civil War. Koramia assumed a policy of containment... they pushed Cambrecia back to their traditional borders and stopped there, instead concentrating what forces they had left against the Empire in central Koramia.

The civil war in Cambrecia eventually coalesced into three main factions. The Imperials were those who remained loyal to Horatius IV and the Mage-King. The Sacerdosi, under the Episcopus of Trias, Cyril the Scholar, declared for the Council of Trias. The third faction were the Royalists, lead by an underground amalgam of dissenters who believed that the people were lead to ruin by the lack of a hereditary monarch. The fighting between the three factions was so intense that few seemed to notice when the Mage-King was defeated in 1253 IC and his continent-spanning Empire collapsed.

For much of the early action in the war, the main conflict was between the Imperials and the Sacerdos, with the Royalists forces skirmishing from time to time with both. No one really took the Royalists seriously until The Freecity of Neptaris unexpectedly entered the fray on the side of the Royalists. Despite having a long and bloody history of fighting against Cambrecia, the Council of Neptaris decided that it would rather have a belligerent Monarchy than a fanatical theocracy as a neighbor. With new troops to bolster their ranks and arguably the world's most powerful navy at their disposal, the Royalists began to make ground against the other two faction or, at least, hold their own in battle.

By 1262 IC, the fighting had reached something of an apex. No faction was prepared to give way or compromise with the other. It seemed that nothing would end the wars. Only the impossible would end the conflict.

That is the year the impossible happened.

Cambrecia and the Recession of the Gods

Original article: Cambrecia and the Recession of the Gods

In the Spring of 1262 IC, the Crimson Plague reached Neptaris and quickly spread into Cambrecia. Despite the Plague's resistance to magical cures, the extensive priesthoods of the Imperial and the Sacredosi factions were able to provide some care to their populace and the disease was not as rampant in the central and northern areas of Cambrecia as it was elsewhere. The Royalist forces were decimated and Neptaris withdrew its military support to help deal with the Plague in their own city. It is generally believed that the Royalist leader, Drogo Garibald, was prepared to surrender by the end of spring and was en route to Zelosia City to lay down arms on the Summer Solstice.

On the Summer Solstice of that year, the Recession of the Gods began. Initially, it was believed in Cambrecia that only the priests of Zelos had lost the blessing of their god. Riots by people convinced the Schism had damned them all immediately erupted throughout the nation. By nightfall, Zelosia City was in flames and by the following morning, Potentate Horatius IV lay dead on the steps of the Great Temple of Zelos, having flung himself from its tower. It is said that when Drogo Garibald saw Zelosia City ablaze and received word that its priests no longer received blessings from the God of the State, he turned his entourage around and returned to the city of Tryscon. Trias, the defacto capital of the Sacerdosi, were faring little better than the Imperials as the people revolted against them. Cyril the Scholar kept his head and soon discovered that all priests of the Old Gods had lost their connection to the divine and showed signs of regaining some semblance of control over the angry mobs in Trias, but he was dead of the Crimson Plague within a week.

Without any divine healing, the Crimson Plague soon took Cambrecia by the same stranglehold it had elsewhere. In a panic and now without divine leadership, those who did not die from the Plague either tried to flee or rallied under corrupt charlatans claiming to have visions of the divine. Most towns and cities were struck the hardest by the Plague, with Trias losing three quarters of its population and Zelosia City some seven-eighths of its population by Autumn. In Royalist territories to the east and south, the leadership remained more or less intact and the people did not panic quite as much as in other regions of Cambrecia... many had already resigned themselves to being Anathema to Zelos, so few were interested in divine guidance already. Drogo Garibald himself was crowned Drogo I, King of Daredonia on the first of Mudens in Tryscon and immediately set about instituting draconian measures to stem the tide of the plague. He canceled all public celebrations, including religious celebrations, and forbade trade of any sort, even between villages. To ensure no one traveled the roads, he founded the Order of the Black Shroud, a band of knights who would grimly travel the roads of Cambrecia, slaying any they found not of their Order, but also forbidden from entering village or town themselves.

By 1263 IC, the wars had effectively ground to a halt. Justinian III, an adviser to Cyril the Scholar, became the leader of the Sacredosi in the north, though he had little authority outside Trias. The Imperials could not gather enough Episcopi to elect a new Potentate, so remained without a Head of State for almost a decade. King Drogo I was successful in stemming the tide of the Crimson Plague in the south and east, but his draconian imprisonment of the populace in their own homes was intensely despised by his people.

None of the three factions had any real ability to conduct war, though there were some skirmishes over the next fifty years. Despite the priesthood having no divine power, the Imperial Zelosians were able to retain power in central Cambrecia throughout the Dark Times by focusing on their traditions and now empty rituals (and, in part, because the people just didn't have the spirit to oppose them). In the north, the Episcopi Zelosians slowly turned over power to secular representatives, in part because of a lack of priests qualified to administer the region. By 1300 IC, the region under Episcopi control was generally known by its traditional, pre-Imperial name of Numentora and was conducting its own affairs as a sovereign nation, though this separation would not be formalized until 1313 IC.

It should be noted that, during these dark times, druids began to arrive in Cambrecia from the Calmerian Marches. Despite being welcomed by the Daredonians and, to a lesser degree, by Numentora, the powerless priests of Zelosia City treated the druids as a threat and forbade their interference and, eventually, even entry into territory they controlled. Unfortunately for the priests, this edict was generally ignored outside of Zelosia City, as the healing magics and wisdom of the druids were seen as a welcome respite to the powerless, corrupt priests of Zelos. Even in Zelosia City, a small number of druids established themselves, hidden from the priesthood's men by the populace.

Most believed that the Old Gods had abandoned the mortal world forever and were fully prepared to take on the beliefs of their Druidic saviors. Then, as abruptly as their gifts were taken away, the Old Gods suddenly returned.

Cambrecia in the Fourth Age

Original article: Cambrecia in the Fourth Age

When the Old Gods returned to the world in 1312 IC, Cambrecia was almost immediately reborn from the ashes of the Dark Times. With no Great Empire to remain loyal to, the few remaining Episcopi still loyal to Zelosia City elected a new Potentate, Gabriel I, and he formally issued the Edict of Absolution, which not only absolved all who had been condemned by the Church in the past (with the notable exceptions of Ditis Carnifex and the Mage King), but it formally declared Cambrecia independent of any civilian government, beholden only to Zelos himself, with the Potentate as his ultimate agent in the mortal realm. Even official priestly titles were altered to the local language: Episcopi and Archisacerdi became Archbishops, Sacerdos became Bishops and Flamen became Priests (the Potentate retained his title, though he declared himself no longer subject to a Pontifex Maximus). Not only were the schismatics from the Zelosian Schism restored to the Church, but ecclesiastic ambassadors were sent to Koramia and, in 1320 IC, Potentate Gabriel I formally announced the Edict of One State, which embraced those worshipers of Zelos following the Koramian Heresy, the Aebasan Orthodoxy and the Imperial Ecclesia, with preference for none. Essentially, the Potentate declared that henceforth, the Church would support the decisions of the legitimate local civilian government on how the gods governed themselves.

Despite having lost much of its territory to the war, strife and the depredations of the Dark Times, Gabriel I and his successors (Ambrose I, Urban IV and the current Potentate, Gabriel II) seem satisfied to rule over the remaining territory as the Holy See. Though ambassadorial overtures to the splinter states were initially received suspiciously at best, the Potentates recognized the legitimacy of Daredonia, Kamaros, Numentora, Auteria and even the Freecity of Neptaris. Zelosia City itself has grown quickly in the Fourth Age of Man as trade routes reopen and pilgrims travel to the Great Temple to pay homage to the renewed God of the State.