The Peace of Gerovia is a peace treaty signed in 407 Conflict. It ended the War of the Great Coalition after the Sack of Gerovia (407 Conflict).

The Peace of Gerovia (407 Conflict) outlines and establishes rules of war, code of conduct in battle and rules of engagement on the battlefield. It created an observable list of war crimes, a method of trying those who violate these precepts and commit atrocities during war.

War since the creation of the Peace of Gerovia has been less violent and less brutal, though it was not stopped war entirely.

Some Background

The Enayran Empire has fallen.

It collapsed with the assassination of Emperor Gaius Tarquinius in the year 94 Conflict. 41 years after it’s original founding, and 56 years after Emperor Volesus Tarquinius began his conquest of Enayra in the name of his love Zosime.

The Hero-Queen Maude Tarquinia, daughter of Emperor Gaius, raised an army under the banner of her family, Gens Tarquinia. Using the remaining Asardaean soldiers that had been loyal to her uncle and family, she staved off an invasion of Asardaea by the newly formed Kingdom of Ethon (now known as the Kingdom of Estion).

Despite having lost the Battle of Tolrund Pass, and losing most of their army, Ethonian Kings refused to give up their desire to claim the title of Imperator and become Emperor of Enayra.

After the fall of the Empire, Queen Maude I refused to take her father and uncle’s title of Emperor (Imperatrix). She focused only on her homeland of Asardaea, and the rest of Enayra fractioned into several other kingdoms and nations.

The Region of Altimara fractured into the Kingdom of Altimara in the north. In the south, the Kingdom of Xiar declared its independence once more under its once exiled king. The Qiri’ar Confederation ruptured forth from the Enayran Empire’s corpse in the south-east of Altimara, as did the Lau’thanese off the eastern shores.

Espias had secured its borders, and had remained independent since the conquest of the region.

In what is now Danaen, the Danaesh had split into separate tribe-based city-states that vied for control of their land, and would do so for many years to come.

The old city state of Gerovia, that had once ruled in an on-again, off-again relationship with what is now Estion, had declared a new kingdom, the Kingdom of Ethon, with their capital at Gerovia. This nation was as unstable as it had been before Volesus conquered it.

Though declaring itself independent in 94 Conflict, within six months after their defeat at Tolrund Pass, the Helgeven Dynasty that ruled the Kingdom of Ethon had come to an end after two rulers. In the year 95 Conflict, several nobles rose up against the Helgevens, lead by the Baron of Dorial, who claimed the throne for himself, founding the Dorial Dynasty.

Six dynasties would sit upon the throne by the start of the War of the Grand Coalition, and the Kingdom of Ethon would be renamed two more times. It was renamed the Kingdom of Gerovia in 97 Conflict, and then its name was later changed again to the Gerovian Empire in 204 Conflict after it had conquered much of northern Danaen and parts of eastern Altimara, as well as putting the Lau’thanese under its suzerainty.

Four centuries of bloody and brutal warfare enveloped Enayra after the collapse of the empire. Each new nation attempted to claim the legacy of Volesus for themselves and conquer all. Only six nations, not including the Qiri’ar and Lau’thanese, remained by the Peace of Gerovia.

The War of the Grand Coalition

In the year 376 Conflict, The Gerovian Empire had declared war on Asardaea for the fourth time since the collapse of the Enayran Empire.

It had lured Danaen to its side by promising the return of Northern Danaen in exchange for help conquering all of Asardaea. Gerovia also recruited Espias to its alliance against Asardaea due to previous conflict between the ever-quarrelling nations.

Altimara, seeing an opportunity to gain back its western territories from Gerovia met with Asardaea, Xiar, Lau’than and the Qiri’ar and proposed an alliance against Gerovia.

Asardaea agreed to the assistance in defending its nation. Xiar offered the use of their soldiers, arms and armour, and provided generous loans for both nations for the financing of this war.

The Qiri’ar, who had entered into an informal agreement with the Altimaran kings, entered the war by joining the Altimaran Foreign Legion to battle the Gerovians.

Lau’than promised ships to the alliance, and raided Gerovian, Espian and Danaen shipping across Enayra, and doing what they could to disrupt naval operations.

Together, Altimara and Asardaea launched preemptive strikes into Gerovian territory.

Altimara battled Espias in the south and Gerovia in the east, while Danaen landed an army on the south-western shores of Asardaea with the aim of splitting Asardaea’s attention away from its front with Gerovia.

For 31 years the war raged on.

About halfway through the war, in the year 394 Conflict, the King of Danaen was killed, and they withdrew from the war to settle their succession rites. As per Danaen tradition, the king and queen mother are elected as a diarchy, chosen from one of the many tribes after a series of physical and intellectual competitions and a vote by the people of Danaen. When a king is elected, his mother (or aunt, if his mother has passed, or sister, if there are no aunts, or wife if there are no sisters), known as the queen mother, is also elected as his second, his highest advisor, and a check on royal power.

However, in 395 Conflict, when the new King of Danaen, Tsem’bashwa I, and the Queen Mother, Koru’wiya were elected to the throne, they reentered the war on the side of Asardaea, turning on Danaen’s former allies.

King Tsem’bashwa and his mother recognized that Gerovia had no intention to return northern Danaen, and would likely turn on Danaen once they had taken Malatrion and brought Asardaea low. Gerovia sought to control all of Enayra, and the previous king had been too naive to realize this.

With Danaen now firmly a part of the anti-Gerovian alliance, they became known as the Grand Alliance.

This Grand Alliance turned the tide of the stalemate war against Espias and Gerovia, and by 407 Conflict, the armies of the alliance had marched to the gates of Gerovia city, and sacked the city for the eighth time in its history.

386 members of the Gerovian Royal Guard gave their lives for their king and country. Markers can be seen today at the spot where every member of the Royal Guard fell. The markers start about a kilometre from the city, and lead up in a jagged, zig-zag to the steps of the palace and the heart of the throne room.

It was after this war that Gerovia became known as the Sacked City, for it has been sacked, ruined, burned and conquered several times by armies both foreign and local more than any other Enayran city–a testament to the country’s instability over the centuries, even to this day.

When finally the Gerovian Emperor had been captured, his armies were forced to surrender to the Grand Alliance.

Espias had recognized a lost cause, and had surrendered several weeks before, and was given clemency for its early penance, suffering less damage, and no sackings of its capital.

During the peace conference in Gerovia, the Gerovian Empire was dismantled, the kingdom reduced to much the same borders it retains today, and the Emperor and his dynasty were replaced by a young Gerovian nobleman who had turned on his empire for its wicked crimes against the peoples they had conquered.

The War had been one of the bloodiest in Enayran history, killing about fourty-two percent of the population of the continent in thirty-one years. Atrocities had been committed, and people brutalized in the most horrible of ways. One account by an Gerovian general denotes that during the Siege and subsequent Massacre of Belisar (a town in western Altimara), that the slaughter of the townspeople had lasted three days, and only ended after he saw several of his men hacking a pregnant woman to death, while she was in the process of giving birth.

It was because of these atrocities, and the chaotic, violent nature of the world since the Empire had collapsed, that the Peace of Gerovia was meant to end war, or at least brutal war, across Enayra.

War crimes were outlined, and tribunals established for the restitution of those who had suffered. Criminals were tried and executed, fines were paid, and it was ensured that crimes like these would never happen again, and any who broke these laws would be summarily punished to the fullest extent of the law.

It also established the rules for declaring war, the rules of engagement for warfare, and other such laws that dictated proper decorum and chivalry on the battlefield. It outline some of the earliest laws for the taking of prisoners and their upkeep.

The Peace of Gerovia would also establish the Enayran principle known as the “Balance of Power.” The nations would police themselves and each other in an attempt to maintain a somewhat equitable balance of power between all nations. No one nation would rise above another like Gerovia had attempted, and no empires would be tolerated on Enayran soil ever again.

The Aftermath – The Gerovian Anarchy

With Gerovia in ruins, the capital near razed to the ground, the victors went about rebuilding the country in an image they felt was best suited for the Enayra they wished to see.

The irony of the Peace of Gerovia was that the Sack of Gerovia was so thorough that the city’s population of 50,000 was reduced to 10,000 after the sack, and anything of any kind of cultural or monetary value was looted by the Coalition armies.

The Baron of Yeshta, who had gone against his Gerovian Emperor and aided the Grand Coalition at great personal risk to himself, was installed as the new king, and the Gerovian Empire was reduced to the Kingdom of Estion, centred at the new capital of Ethon (Gerovia, but rebuilt and renamed.) The borders of this new kingdom are much the same as their current borders.

King Vedir I, of the House of Urul’vethas, worked with the Grand Alliance nations to rebuild Ethon and Estion. He attempted to turn the once power-hungry, unstable Gerovia into a stable and peaceful nation.

His dream was not be.

In 415 Conflict, the Grand Alliance withdrew their soldiers and returned home. Ethon had been rebuilt sufficiently enough to stand on its own, and they felt the country stable enough to support itself and stand strong, despite internal divisions between the Crown and nobility.

It was not a week after the Grand Alliance withdrew their soldiers that King Vedir I was slain by an assassin while using the garderobe. His body was thrown down the chute of the garderobe, and he was presumed kidnapped. It was not until about two weeks after his murder that his body was discovered (by the smell, of course), stuck halfway down the chute, covered in shit, piss, and rotting horribly.

The confirmed death of King Vedir I caused the central authority of the Crown to collapse, and the conspirators raised their soldiers against the Crown in attempt to take it for themselves.

This set off a chain of events known as the Gerovian Anarchy. Three sides fought in this chaotic time, each seeking to dominate the other.

There were the Gerovianists, who sought to restore the rightful line of Gerovian Emperors to the throne and rise from the ashes to reclaim their imperial birthright. They opposed the Peace of Gerovia, and new Kingdom of Estion. This faction had been the ones who orchestrated the assassination of the king that allowed the central government to collapse.

Opposed to them on one side were the Royalists, who upheld the Peace of Gerovia, and championed King Vedir I’s son, Mendir, as the one true king, and the rightful heir to the throne.

A third faction erupted about half-way through the war. The common folk armed themselves and rose up against both factions. Centuries before Xiar overthrew their monarchs, the Common Cause, as they called themselves, better known as Republicans, or Anti-Royalists (also called Rebels by their enemies), rose up against both of the other factions in an attempt to instill a republic in place of a hereditary monarchy. The Republicans sought to instill an elected, representative government.

The leader of the cause was the former headman of a small town known as Vestillus, Carolus Vingrus. Moderately educated at Gerovia University in the capital, he was the first to propose a rule for the people, by the people, made up of elected officials–similar to the headman position he held–where the government would be beholden to those they represented.

The Royalists begged the Grand Alliance for their help, but the Alliance refused. The former Grand Alliance feebly cited the Sovereign Independence Clause of the Peace of Gerovia that declared no foreign nation shall impugn on the sovereignty of another nation without invitation. They could not, they claimed, be drawn into a civil war without stepping on Estion’s sovereignty.

In truth, the once mighty Grand Alliance could no longer afford to field armies and soldiers in another Gerovian conflict, as the previous war had left their people weary and near impoverished. The taxes that had been levied had stagnant the economic growth of their nations, and the citizen levies for the war had thinned the working professionals and peasant farmers that remained at home, causing shortages of goods and food.

On top of that, the fragile peace as already beginning to fracture, and while war was still a generation away due to financial concerns, Asardaea and Espias were already beginning to circle one another like hungry wolves, each side sizing up the other in an attempt to dominate their enemy.

Rumours of unknown origin circled across the continent, stirring Altimara and Danaen to action. Each nation feared the worst of these rumours: that Asardaea was looking to abandon the Peace of Gerovia and the Balance of Power in order to take advantage of the chaos in Gerovia to conquer their enemies to the south.

Altimara, their diplomats having been the one that suggested and drafted the Peace of Gerovia, stood by their Balance of Power ideology, and sought to stem what they viewed as the coming Asardaean claim for continental dominance. They feared that Asardaea would easily restore the Empire in a bloody wave of slaughter and death if left unchecked.

Danaen too shared these fears. They had faced a hostile northern neighbour under the Gerovian Empire. They had been dragged into an unnecessary war by an ineffectual and weak leader on the promise of the land being returned, but without an collateral or proof of these actions. They were lucky to have switched sides and gained their promised land back, but they certainly did not want a strong Asardaea bearing down on their northern borders like the Gerovia of the past. They would not trade one imperial conqueror for another.

Meanwhile, Asardaea had lured in the allegiance of Xiar, Lau’than and the Qiri’ar Confederacy. Asardaea played on these smaller nations’ souring relationship with Altimara. While Asardaea had no plans to invade Gerovia, they certainly wished to stamp out the flame of Espias and lay their enemies low.

But that war is another tale for another day.

Back in Gerovia, the Anarchy raged on for 27 years. It had been 27 years of bloody fighting and conflict. Gerovia lost about 15% of its total population to the slaughter and madness. Entire noble families were wiped from existence. Families turned inward on themselves and collapsed into discord and infighting. By the end of the war, none of the original leadership had survived, all being survived by children and grandchildren, or sometimes new powerful families that had quickly climbed to power and dominance among their faction, utilizing the chaos of the times to reach a new zenith of control in Estion.

The new Royalist leader, no longer a descendant of Vedir I but of an entirely different noble family, brought an end to the fighting by calling a summit of all leaders of the conflict.

Estion had bled itself to death. Between the Gerovianists and Royalists, there remained nothing left of their original goals.

For the Gerovianists, there was no Gerovian Might to reclaim, for it had withered in the anarchy. Whoever became Emperor would inherit a weakened and overlooked nation with a strong Asardaea to the north, and a vengeful Danaen to the south. Altimara would not help them, for they were preoccupied with the tensions brewing between Asardaea and Espias.

For the Royalists, there was no Urul’vethas monarch to restore to the throne, for the entire house had perished on the field of battle, and those who had survived the devastating Battle of the Burning Lake (mere children) had had their skulls dashed against the stones of the shoreline by the Gerovianist army.

Only the Republicans still had a cause worth fighting for, and they were slowly gaining ground by picking at the rotting flesh of their two dying enemies. Divide and conquer.

So the future king, Baron Belchor de Graftenhoft, called the Gerovianists and Royalists together. He promised to settle the score between both sides in single combat, but first they had to unite against the Republicans who stood against everything both sides stood for, and who would upset the careful order of the world with their ideology. Both sides, weary, exhausted, and fearful that all they had fought and bled for would be lost to a republic, joined forces to wipe out the republican army.

Baron Belchor kept to the Peace of Gerovia, and did not rape, burn and pillage. He forbade his soldiers from committing the atrocities that had pervaded the previous war, and had sunk into this current conflict.

Instead of slaughtering Republicans and all their families, he bade all commanders to capture only the soldiers, and to touch only those of their family who refused to renounce their captured relatives. All threats were held captive until they could be put on trial for treason against the Estion or Gerovian Crown (depending on who would win between the Gerovianists and Royalists.)

The war between the remaining two sides would never come.

As the two sides feasted and celebrate their victory over the Republicans, and eagerly awaited the coming final clash between their two sides, Baron Belchor had all of the Gerovianist leadership drugged and slaughtered as they slept upon their dinner plates.

Their leadership dead, their families held captive by Belchor’s armies, the remaining Gerovianists surrendered to Belchor’s hegemony.

They and their families did not last the week.

There was no room for Gerovianist desires in Belchor’s kingdom. Anyone who had ever been, known, or spoken to a Gerovianist was purged. Baron Belchor took the throne as King Belchor I, of the House of De Graftenhoft. He and his descendants would bring stability to the Kingdom of Estion, and would replants the towering forests, forging friendships with the Green Dragons of the Emerald Vale. But their peace would forever be cursed. Estion would be more stable than it had ever been, and yet not stable enough.

Peace is not forever in Enayra.

It’s said at the time of their death, those Gerovianists who surrendered to Baron Belchor placed a curse upon him and his descendants, known as the Curse of Gerovia. They cursed Belchor with the instability that had plagued Gerovia in its early days as a city state. The instability that had carried over into the post-Imperial world, and eventually brought low the Gerovian Empire. The curse that had caused the great city of Gerovia to be sacked repeatedly through history. No one knows if this curse is true, but it certainly hasn’t helped Estion.

Republicanism never truly died, and so the people have always sought more power for them and less for the absolutist monarchs. Their zeal ebbs and flows with every monarch, as some are kinder and more benevolent than others. The kings have slowly lost more and more of their power to their nobles and their people. Absolute monarchs no longer rule in Estion, this day.

Every few centuries the people rise up, a new king is chosen. Nobility rebels and overthrows the king with a new one. New king, new line, new descendant of Belchor, but still the same cycle of peace and chaos. The eternal cycle of Gerovia and Estion.