02 - Iron Kingdoms W.. - Captain Spud Is Amazing

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22 Iron Kingdoms
neighboring territories. Khardov’s army was a welltrained,
brutal fighting force that subjugated nearby
settlements and continued to seize territory from the
Kos and Skirov people. In 1,421 BR Sveynod Skelvoro
declared himself the emperor of Khard.
During the spring of 1,415 BR, the Khard-Kos
War began at Emperor Skelvoro’s command. The war
lasted for 33 years and saw some of the fiercest fighting
in the north since the fall of the Molgur as armies
numbering in the hundreds of thousands clashed.
The Khardic Empire rapidly subjugated the Kos and
brought them the teachings of Menoth.
By the end of the Khard-Kos War, Emperor Tzelevya
Skelvoro, heir to Sveynod, continued his father’s
legacy of conquest by marching on the warlords of
Tordor to the south. United against the Khards, the
Tordorans repeatedly withstood Khardic offensives
into their territory. In 1,330 BR, Emperor Skelvoro
had once again turned his attentions to the north
and persuaded the powerful horselords of the north
to join the Khardic Empire. Though they submitted
to Khardic rule, the horselords would not swear fealty
to the Khardic emperor. With the horselords’ aid, in
1,319 the Khardic Empire assailed the last strongholds
of the Skirov. By 1,263 the last of the Skirov warchiefs
abandoned their Devourer worship and pledged
loyalty to the Empire and Menoth.
As time passed the strength of the Church of
Morrow increased with many worshippers, churches,
and temples throughout Caspia, Midlund, Tordor and
Thuria. It grew to rival the strength of the Old Faith.
By 1,250 BR, the Church of Morrow finally announced
that it would no longer tolerate Menite persecution.
In retaliation, the Menites dispatched Scrutator
Khorva Sicarius to assassinate the reigning Morrowan
Primarch Lorichias. The first Menite ever to visit
the Divinium in the Wyrmwall Mountains, Khorva
pretended to come on a mission of peace. Khorva was
successful, but his success led to scandal and woe for
the Temple of Menoth. As Khorva slew the Primarch,
Ascendant Katrena appeared and slew Khorva. Khorva,
believed to be a devout Menite, immediately ascended
as a scion of Thamar. The resulting scandal shook the
Scrutators to their core, and High Scrutator Hevellor
Chasmius began an immediate inquisition to seek out
Thamarite heresies within their ranks. Unable to deny
Morrow’s divinity, the Temple of Menoth ceased open
hostilities against the Church of Morrow and declared
its worshippers capable of doing good work though
outside the wisdom of Menoth’s guidance.
Horselords settled the Umbrean region in 1,169
BR uniting through trade and arranged marriages
that established the noble lineages of the Tzepesci’s,
Umbreyko’s, and Chardovosk’s. By 1,102 BR Umbrey
was powerful enough to declare itself an independent
principality, and the horselords separated from the
Khardic Empire. Korska became their capitol, and to
the east of Umbrey, Gorlym of Hythyll established what
would become the kingdom of Rynyr in 1,073 BR.
The Age of Reason: The Clockwork
Renaissance
Around 1,100 BR an apothecary named Voldu
Grova wrote about how to admix reagents in order to
create a liquid explosive. The mixture, volatile when
exposed to open air, could be stored in a sealed glass
flask and thrown at an enemy to bathe him in fire.
By 1,000 BR Khards had devised a railed road upon
which a horse-drawn carriage could be moved with
speed. Although but thirty miles long, this innovation
made traversing between town and mine easier, and
many cities and mining communities built several
dozen such roads. With applied engineering the rail
systems soon appeared in mines to extract ore, move
miners, and increase production to new heights.
Around this time in Mercir a reknowned rector
of Morrow named Janus Gilder, an innovator by
profession, built high quality clocks. Using his
expertise, he applied a technique in making woodcut
prints and combined it with clockwork. Janus
commissioned a skilled woodcarver named Bortle
Manhussen to hand carve reverse images of each page
of the Enkheiridion in plates of hardwood. Using a
clockwork mechanism, Janus ran ink across the blocks
and fed sheets of vellum into a rolling mechanism
passing them over the carved blocks. In this way,
Rector Gilder produced a few dozen copies of the
Enkheiridion in the space of a few days. This mechanism
known as the Janus block press in time evolved into
the Janus type press, and soon after paper printing by
moveable type had been born.
Scholars say at this time the Age of Reason began in
earnest. During the next two hundred years, clockwork