Chapter 2: Climbing the Ladder
In times of chaos great men can achieve great things, for chaos presents a ladder. All one need do is climb.In the span of a few years nearly a dozen monarchs and princes had been assassinated, killed in battle or imprisoned, their allies destroyed and the Seven Kingdoms' armies laid waste. Grain stocks were depleted, young men taken from the fields, rogue bandits roamed the land and wild dragons soared over the skies, hunting from their home in Dragonstone. The Chief Architect of this Chaos was the Hand of the King, Lord Petyr Baelish, Guardian of the boy-King Tommen and Hand of the King, executor of his will. Petyr Baelish led Tommen's vast spy network, collecting useful blackmail or assassinating what few persons were capable of mounting immediate resistance, all the while amassing the forces of the Vale, Riverlands and Northlands to his own banner. When King Tommen grew too old for Lord Baelish to control, when Tommen increasingly grew wary of this exceptionally powerful Lord, he sought to rid himself of Lord Baelish.
King Tommen died in uncertain circumstances, stepping on a weakened platform atop his castle, plummeting to the ground below. His son and heir Tyros Lannister was declared King of the Seven Kingdoms, Lord Baelish declared regent of the Seven Kingdoms and guardian of the King. In this era of swords, daggers and dragons, the political situation of the Seven Kingdoms was frenetic at best, where only the most paranoid could survive. In order to solidify his hold upon the Seven Kingdoms, Lord Baelish relied heavily upon his own Riverland and Northland soldiers, supplemented by all the forces under the command of his two pawns - the young Lord Paramount Robyn Arryn, and the even younger King Tyros Lannister. His forces remained continually under brutal pressure from pirates, raiders, rebellions and rivals drained troops from the higher Lords in the Vale, leaving a power vacuum ready to be exploited by a certain Lord called Jon Lynderly.
Lord Vojislav Miroslav sent forth his chief councilor to begin fabricating claims upon a rival Lord, of equal strength in terms of manpower, but no equal in terms of martial skill. If Vojislav took that castle he would surely have enough troops and castles to challenge his nominal liege, Lord Jon Lynderly, for supremacy over the Lordship of the entire High Lordship of Northweald. After waiting a great deal many months, months turning to years, Vojislav felt disheartened. His window of opportunity was decreasing as the Lords (relatively) recovered from their wars and hardship, and winter was encroaching upon the mountains of the Vale. A critical setback would occur when Vojislav's chancellor died - not slain or assassinated, he was simply an old frail man who could not survive the harsh winter that had descended upon the land. His mission to expand would have ended in complete failure were it not for High Lord Lynderly being even more ambitious than he.
Lord Lynderly was evidently rather angry that Vojislav refused to marshal his armies, only reluctantly gave a few troops as levy and was obviously making moves to eventually usurp him - not to mention, Vojislav's castle was very nice. Thus one fateful day, Lynderly declared war upon the Stepstones, a bunch of insignificant islands to the North. Vojislav took no notice of this until Lord Northweald's armies were the gates of Newkeep.
Jon accused Vojislav of aiding the enemy, outrageously in disregard of the fact that Vojislav had never communicated with anyone from the Pebbles before. His siege continued unabated and it seemed he was determined to imprison Vojislav, which if successful would allow him to force Vojislav to surrender the castle and his Lordship. Lord Northweald had over 900 men at his command, Vojislav had 457. Still, this situation was far from hopeless. Vojislav was a brilliant strategist whilst Jon Lynderly had few military merits about him at all, being nothing more than a misguided scholar more suited for incompetent study than competent warfare. His few merits, of being an honest, kind man who believed family was important, could not translate into success. Vojislav adopted the most mundane but most effective of plans: Do nothing.
Unable to assault the walls of Newkeep and win, Lynderly attempted to starve the defenders out. When Winter set upon them, very soon their men started dying of exposure to the unnatural cold. This they perhaps could have tolerated were it not for Lynderly's coffers running empty, his gold flowing like wine down an alcoholic's gullet. Seeking loans from the Braavosi, he was given a healthy injection of gold to revitalize his stalling campaign, convincing more men about the exciting merits of standing outside Newkeep's walls all day. Despite all this, Newkeep still stood impervious to his attacks. Failing to steal Newkeep and her treasures, Lord Lynderly found himself unable to repay his Braavosi creditors.
These Braavosi creditors offered Vojislav an offer he couldn't refuse. They would give Vojislav some gold, some mercenaries, and the chance to take the High Lordship of Northweald for himself. Of course, they wanted Vojislav to repay Lord Jon Lynderly's debts too, but Vojislav thought those were details for dealing with later.
Lord Jon's armies were depleted and stiffened by the cold, whilst Vojislav's were all fresh from the hearth's fire or tavern's warmth. They routed Jon Lynderly's forces, laid siege to his castles and forced his surrender. Vojislav became High Lord Vojislav of Northweald, which then gave him the legal basis to reunite all of Northweald, conquering the Lord he previously tried to fabricate claims upon. Newkeep, Snakewood and Coldwater all fell into Lord Vojislav's hands, though in uncertain terms - the Valelanders distrusted him, both within and without Northweald. Thus Vojislav saw something unique when a foreign Red Priest arrived on his door.
Vojislav converted from the faith of the Seven to the Red God, using the religion of Rh'ollor to unite his lands under a new creed, a new purpose. Being the fire in winter certainly created a definite mystery with which to attract support from zealous peasantry and nobles alike. This religious magnetism was greatly aided by the relatively bloodless takeover of Northweald and its intense consolidation under one man, where other realms were still split by damage and feudal infighting. Where before Vojislav was insignificant, now others were beginning to notice him. The Braavosi were the first to notice after Vojislav declined to repay his predecessor's debts off, musing that he never promised to repay them to begin with. The second was Lord Paramount Robyn Arryn, ruler of the Vale, who wished to employ the Warlord of Northweald as the Vale's own Marshal of the Knights. The third was Petyr Baelish after Lord Vojislav declared a war for independence against Lord Robyn.
By declaring his independence from the Vale, Vojislav immediately rose in ranks to become one of the key players in the game of Thrones, a direct vassal of the King in King's Landing. Legally, Vojislav still was not of the same rank as any of the great Lords, and certainly he possessed less troops than many of the Great Lords' vassals, but with one declaration he could be answerable only to the King. This same King was a boy who was unconcerned with what the people in the mountains did for as long as they were loyal, thus Vojislav gained immeasurable freedom to increase his power in the Vale. The flipside of this was that Vojislav
had to expand his power in the Vale or else his family would surely be stripped of all their lands, or even exterminated. Jon Lynderly was surely incompetent, but surely also had powerful friends ready to back his claim to his ancestral holdings. Moreover by consolidating his hold upon his lands by adopting the fiery rhetoric of the Red God, all the Lords of the Vale and the faith of the Seven turned their backs upon him, and readied their pitchforks. It seemed that any time soon, the frail Lord Robyn Arryn would die and be replaced by a more virile Lord, one ready to revoke all the titles of heathen Miroslavs. Thus Lord Vojislav had to strike first, and inflict as many casualties as possible.
From his three castles and his vassals Vojislav could muster 4,000 men, notably with 300 Knights and Gusars, whilst Lord Robyn could call upon the support of 28,000 soldiers, amongst them hundreds of Knights. The Vale was damaged by the wars of the many Kings, but clearly one of the least damaged Kingdoms. If it should seem hopeless that 4,000 men could ever defeat so numerically superior a foe, Vojislav realized that if he did not strike then, then the Vale would only vastly widen the gap between Arryn and Miroslav forces - this would be the smallest the power gap would ever be. In addition although Vojislav's forces were smaller, they were also more consolidated and more mobile. Where it would take months for the Arryn army to unite into one grand host, Vojislav could raise and disperse his army in a matter of days, launching devastating raids against isolated Arryn units and retreating into the fortified walls of Northweald's castles whenever too large a foe approached. Lord Vojislav held the castles firm in the face of adversity and siege warfare whilst his firstborn son Nenad Miroslav marauded through the Vale, emerging from the snows to wreak havoc on Arryn supply lines. Even the larger hosts which were simply too large to risk fighting were eventually worn thin by attrition, the unnatural winter intensifying immensely upon the land and causing many to starve or freeze to death.
All of Robyn's bannermen calling for Nenad or Vojislav to fight honourably in the field of battle were ignored, as were personal challenges to a duel. Frustrated, freezing and poor, eventually the Arryn resolve turned to demoralization, and capitulation. To the absolute surprise of the Lord Paramounts of the Seven Kingdoms, a warlord with 4,000 men had defeated a Lord Paramount and won independence. The hand of the King Petyr Baelish noticed this turn of affairs, and saw a talented individual ripe to lead the King's armies against his, er, rather the King's enemies.
Thus all of Robyn Arryn's attempts to legally force Vojislav into accepting Arryn suzerainty went down the drain. Chief General of the Seven Kingdoms > Frail child
Fresh from victory, a somewhat inglorious and prestige-less one, Nenad nonetheless felt the glory of victory. His time campaigning had made him cruel, wroth and cowardly, A considerably deadly mix, armed with just the right amount of competence to be dangerous, but with the right amount of incompetence to not be indispensable.
Thus Nenad was disqualified from the line of succession very directly, via castration.
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Topic: The Miroslav Dynasty, Paradox Interactive AAR (Read 24178 times)