A history
The war started exactly thirty two years before the current date in early spring as the end of winter thaw was getting under way. It was presaged by an influx of Kethian tribes whom crossed the border in late winter and told to those few who could understand tales of the dread giants and their minions having united and of their marching to conquer the south. Initially the bands where well ordered if alarmed and their migration south had been caused by second hand reports of the coming of a huge host of giants out of the far northern mountains. It was plain these people feared the giants which had always been present in such fragments of folklore as the few interested scholars had recorded but as at that point no civilized folk had seen a giant this was largely discounted as superstitious mass hysteria, by most.
What did seen odd to the leading scholar of the Kethian culture at the time a Mage called Amaric Sulitior was that fear of these reported giants had proved sufficient to overcome the Kethians well known fear of worked metals and to displace tribes form the deep interior who had not had contact directly with Varazzan civilization some of whom even he who had long studied these people had never heard of before. Amaric expanded his retinue and in so doing formed the beginnings of the company of adventurers who ultimately saved the north and defeated the giants. As late winter became spring the earlier organised migration became more a flood of refugees smaller ever more ragged and starveling bands telling horror stories of fleeing from the giants and a new foe a kind of creature half the size of a giant, but much more numerous and just as savage.
Eventually the north of the province became so over run with refugees that the local ability to supply aid to these people was over whelmed and the local military forces which at that time where few in the sparsely settled far north of the empire struggled to cope with the growing tensions between the Kethian refugees and the Settled Varazzans and the local militia could not be relied upon to keep order as they almost always took sides with the locals. The Sartrap in Irannaris sent troops north and called on the rest of the empire for aid as well as that of the imperial allies the Dwarves. These troops arrived and had begun to deploy when the vanguard of the giants arrived. Large numbers of the bestial half giants who took to raiding with near impunity and increasing frequency as the summer turned to autumn. The reinforced but still rather over stretched troops attempted to counter these raids when they could and some small but bitter battles occurred between Varazzan troops and half giant bands. These battles where often bloody as the half giants gave no quarter even when as they often where out manoeuvred by the tactically more agile Varazzans. Many Varazzan victories in these encounters where distinctly pyrrhic the lack of cavalry also made pursuit of escaped raiders back to their bases of operation and counter raiding in the barren northern plain almost impossible.
As the raids increased in savagery and frequency as winter approached the Kethians where displaced further south and increasingly their number was swelled by displaced Varazzan settlers
What did seen odd to the leading scholar of the Kethian culture at the time a Mage called Amaric Sulitior was that fear of these reported giants had proved sufficient to overcome the Kethians well known fear of worked metals and to displace tribes form the deep interior who had not had contact directly with Varazzan civilization some of whom even he who had long studied these people had never heard of before. Amaric expanded his retinue and in so doing formed the beginnings of the company of adventurers who ultimately saved the north and defeated the giants. As late winter became spring the earlier organised migration became more a flood of refugees smaller ever more ragged and starveling bands telling horror stories of fleeing from the giants and a new foe a kind of creature half the size of a giant, but much more numerous and just as savage.
Eventually the north of the province became so over run with refugees that the local ability to supply aid to these people was over whelmed and the local military forces which at that time where few in the sparsely settled far north of the empire struggled to cope with the growing tensions between the Kethian refugees and the Settled Varazzans and the local militia could not be relied upon to keep order as they almost always took sides with the locals. The Sartrap in Irannaris sent troops north and called on the rest of the empire for aid as well as that of the imperial allies the Dwarves. These troops arrived and had begun to deploy when the vanguard of the giants arrived. Large numbers of the bestial half giants who took to raiding with near impunity and increasing frequency as the summer turned to autumn. The reinforced but still rather over stretched troops attempted to counter these raids when they could and some small but bitter battles occurred between Varazzan troops and half giant bands. These battles where often bloody as the half giants gave no quarter even when as they often where out manoeuvred by the tactically more agile Varazzans. Many Varazzan victories in these encounters where distinctly pyrrhic the lack of cavalry also made pursuit of escaped raiders back to their bases of operation and counter raiding in the barren northern plain almost impossible.
As the raids increased in savagery and frequency as winter approached the Kethians where displaced further south and increasingly their number was swelled by displaced Varazzan settlers
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