Sacrificing the Messenger Hawk
How Asardaea Declares War

Asardaea is an ancient kingdom, steeped in militarism, tradition, and bravado. It has been ruled solely by a long and unbroken line of famed Queens since it’s founding under the Hero Queen Maude, who held her family’s collapsing homeland together, even as their continent-spanning Enayran Empire crumbled around her. Many of Asardaea’s monarchs have been Warrior Queens, others, Philosopher Queens, and others still (though thankfully a small handful) have merely been adequate, or unremarkable.

Perhaps one of Asardaea’s strangest traditions is the way in which it declares war, and announces said choice to its people and other nations.

It is said this is a tradition that dates back to the legendary Maude herself, who, upon the collapse of the Enayran Empire under her father’s ineffective and corrupt rule, vowed to keep her family’s homeland–the first to be united under the banner of her uncle, the late Emperor Volesus–together at any cost.

To that end, she had all messenger hawks in Asardaea slaughtered upon the altar of the Malatrion’s Temple of Volesus (the burial base of the Emperor, and where his deified soul was worshipped by the people). Maude declared that there would be no diplomacy, no negotiating with the other Imperial provinces and warlords who sought to rise up and claim the throne of the Enayran Empire for themselves. Her family’s legacy was not to be conquered, nor to be sold.

Asardaea would stand on it’s own, and fight for it’s place in a new Enayra, post-Empire, or it would be consumed in the flames of war. But it would never negotiate.

This story is agreed by most historians to be apocryphal. Even the most die-hard Asardaean nationalists, or Imperialists admit that the story was likely an exaggeration of an even that happened, though likely to a smaller scale. Messenger hawks were likely very crucial to the war effort of Maude’s new Asardaean kingdom, and would have been necessary to send messengers from one end of the kingdom to the other to coordinate the defence of the nation against multiple incoming attacks from hostile neighbours. They would have also been necessary on the battlefield to pass messages between commanders and units when messages on horseback were too slow, or ineffective.

Regardless, it has become Asardaean tradition to declare war in a similar–if much diminished manner.

When the monarch and her ruling council decide Asardaea must go to war, it is upon the Queen to dress in her full armour, and ride a white horse through the streets of Malatrion, from the Palace of the Seven Marbles to the Temple of the Divi Reginae (formerly the Temple of Volesus. It was renamed shortly after the death of the Hero Queen Maude, when her body was buried in the temple near her uncle. It has become the burial place of all Asardaean monarchs since. It is where they are deified and worshipped as Saints.)

With the Queen comes her retinue of councillors and advisors, and since the advent of diplomatic missions the ambassadors of other nations are summoned to join the procession as well.

Upon reaching the Temple, the Queen enters the temple, with her blade drawn, and throws open the doors to the Inner Sanctum of the temple, symbolically unleashing the spirits of the long-dead monarchs to aide Asardaea in its time of war, and help her armies strike down their enemies.

With the doors open, the ancient marble altar within the Sanctum is brought forth out onto the portico of the temple, where the Queen sacrifices but one of her personal messenger hawks in a symbolic recreation of Maude’s actions centuries prior. Sometimes, more than one bird is sacrificed, if more than one nation is be warred against.

The decapitated bird’s corpse and head are then presented to the ambassador of the country on whom Asardaea is declaring war. The ambassadors are asked to bring the hawk to their monarch, along with the written declaration of war. From that moment the enemy nation’s embassy is declared closed, and it’s mission asked to vacate until such time hostilities are over. Refusal to do so leads to the embassy being seized, and it’s staff being placed under arrest within the royal palace. While the mission is cared for, treated as guests of the monarch, they are essentially hostages until the cessation of hostilities.

The doors of the Inner Sanctum remain open, and the bloodied altar remains on the portico (it is only covered during rain and snow, to avoid the blood being washed from the altar), until the war has ended, whatever the result.

Upon the end of the war, the altar is finally cleaned by the hands of the Queen herself, and then returned to the Inner Sanctum, and the doors of the Sanctum are closed once more.

If the war ends favourably for Asardaea, before the altar is cleaned and the doors are closed, a glorious parade, known as Triumph, is held, where captured war booty, prisoners of war, and the honour dead of war heroes (both lowly soldiers whose actions are especially noticeable, and high ranking officers) are carried to the temple. Prisoners of war are presented before the Inner Sanctum, and the spirits of the deified monarchs, before being set free, fed, and returned to the lands of their origin. The war booty is placed within a vault beneath the Inner Sanctum as an offering. And finally, the honoured dead and war heroes and cremated within the flames of the Eternal Flame, situated in the centre of the Outer Sanctum, and then their ashes are interred within a vault beneath the floors of the Outer Sanctum, in urns of gold.

If the war does not end favourably for Asardaea, the honoured dead are burned within the temple’s fire, but are not interred in the Outer Sanctum, but within the grottoes beneath the hill atop where the temple is built, in urns made of stone. The prisoners of war are not presented to the ancestors, but returned home with respect and dignity. Finally, the altar is cleaned by the Queen, and returned to the Inner Sanctum, and the doors closed, with very little pomp and circumstance, but with much sorrow and sadness.