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Ash and Blood: The Imperial Simulacrum in Morrowind: Volume I
The close of the fourth century brought to an end the period of peace and prosperity Morrowind had enjoyed since the reign of Empress Morihatha. Emperor Uriel VII Septim's betrayal and kidnapping at the hands of the usurper Jagar Tharn cast all of Tamriel into chaos, and the Eastern Provinces were not spared. Intent on sowing chaos in Morrowind's capital, Tharn and his minions moved swiftly to destabilize Almalexia City. Granaries, trade-ships, and warehouses were mysteriously set aflame, Imperial officials were found dead in their beds, and orders from Cyrodiil abruptly turned provocative. Lured by these strange occurrences to the Imperial City for an audience with the Ruby Throne, Queen Barenziah decamped from Morrowind with her two young children in early 390.
The popular queen's departure allowed Tharn to begin his plans for Almalexia in earnest. The difficult harvests of 389 and 390 were exacerbated by the arsons of the previous year, and soon the city was in the grip of famine. In First Seed of 391, a peasant mob led by a radical agitator calling himself "Zirik" descended on the Mournhold complex, demanding bread, kwama eggs, and the return of Queen Barenziah. The King-consort Symmachus (never insensitive to the plight of the commons) made efforts to distribute food and drink, which mollified the crowds somewhat. But the aged general's generosity was his downfall. Tharnite agents in the mob incited the rioters to throw stones at the royal entourage, one of which struck Symmachus in the head. He died immediately.
With most Imperial leadership at Mournhold now slain or absent, the streets erupted with violence. The Lord General of Morrowind's Legions had recalled the bulk of Almalexia's troops to their Ebonheart headquarters in 389, and only the barest skeleton of a garrison remained to guard the royal palace. Indoril authorities kept order where possible, but the citadel-lords have no love for the Emperor, and did little to restrain the hordes surging into Mournhold. Indeed, witnesses claimed to have seen Indoril retainers quietly abetting the revolt, unlocking gates and standing by while the throngs ransacked the high halls of Imperial authority. Only when Zirik rashly declared himself "King of Mournhold" from the pillaged throne room did the native troops deign to intervene; the self-declared "King" thereafter ruled over his rabble from a prison cell until his mysterious escape in 392.
To their credit, the authorities of Morrowind's native Temple preached calm and order throughout these days of unrest. Indeed, the goddess Almalexia herself appeared to plead for the restoration of civil order -- though she stopped short of re-affirming her loyalty to the Empire, a detail which casts a concerning shadow over the modern status of the Armistice. Nevertheless, the Dunmer are resolute in their faith, and these appeals from their goddess did much to mellow the furious crowds.
But Tharn had achieved his ends already. Queen Barenziah and her children were branded traitors and forced to take refuge in the Iliac, rather than return to Morrowind. In the queen's absence, the minor Hlaalu councilor Athyn Llethan claimed the throne for himself. Llethan, Barenziah's uncle, was not an obvious candidate; before his ascension, he was known primarily for an embarassing scandal concerning a Coronati gambling ring. Many therefore found it strange that such a minor dynastic relation of middling political importance suddenly found himself ruling all of Morrowind. But with no other immediately viable candidate at hand, the Elder Council acknowledged Llethan's ascension in the hope of restoring stability. With the capital despoiled and an inexperienced king on the throne, however, it mattered not that order had been restored to Almalexia. The rot had set in, just as it had throughout the Empire. The stage was now set for an expansion of the bloodshed, abetted as much by the failures of Provincial leadership as by Tharnite treachery.
Ash and Blood: The Imperial Simulacrum in Morrowind: Volume II
During the Imperial Simulacrum, the vile agents of Jagar Tharn initially spared Firewatch, focusing their efforts in Morrowind on sowing discord in the country's heartlands. While Almalexia City fell into anarchy (as described in the previous volume), Ebonheart was consumed by treason. After the Duke of Vvardenfell abruptly died -- apparently of natural causes -- in 396, the city was seized from within by the traitorous commander of the Morrowind Legions, Lord General Casik. An upjumped commoner who had risen to command despite his low birth, Casik had been responsible for the disastrous withdrawal of the Legion garrisons from Almalexia in 389. He now consolidated his rule over Ebonheart, then persuaded the troops under his command and the captains of the Inner Sea Fleet in port to wage war on Firewatch, Imperial capital of the remote Telvannis District. Firewatch's Duchess Bredami Vaynth, Casik claimed, was in thrall to to the native Great House Telvanni -- an alarming charge. Duchess Vaynth had indeed made attempts to cultivate good relations with the locals of Telvannis District, and was herself a Dunmer, facts which persuaded many of this slander. So began the conflict that would become known as the War of Lies.
When war broke out, the golden years of the Far East Fleet were a distant memory. Firewatch in 396 could only bring to bear a single galleon and a handful of light cutters -- none of which were fit for battle when Ebonheart began moving its forces. This little flotilla managed to avoid an outright engagement with Casik's larger fleet until early 397, by which point Duchess Vaynth had arranged for several native vessels to be outfitted and added to her forces. When battle was finally joined, these allied boats proved crucial; though the Battle of the Inner Sea was indecisive, it surely saved Firewatch from an attack by water it could not have repelled.
But the traitor general had no intention of ending the bloodshed so easily. The usurper turned his forces west and north, linking up with admirals at Firemoth and Cormaris who had little reason to believe that the Lord General would lead them astray. Casik assembled an armada in the Sea of Ghosts, sent it east, and in late 397 struck the unprepared village of Nivalis on the isle of Althoa. The subsequent sack and occupation of this innocent Imperial navy station ranks among the most infamous treasons of the eastern Legions during the dark years of the Simulacrum.
Fearing the dire consequences of a defeat at sea by Casik's now much-enlarged fleet, Duchess Vaynth left Firewatch in 398 with loyal soldiers of the Dustmoth Legion for a difficult overland trek to Althoa. Crossing the Nedweisra Straits in early autumn, the expedition set up a siege of Nivalis, aided by locals friendly to the Duchess. After more than a month of little progress, Vaynth ordered that Nivalis' keep be stormed, in order to avoid prolonging the siege into the winter. The subsequent Battle of Nivalis was a bloody affair. Vaynth herself was killed in the fighting, and although the keep was taken, nearly a third of the Dustmoth and Hawkmoth Legions and half of the Firemoth Legion lay dead in the aftermath, all slaughtered on their former comrades' swords.
Without its Duchess, the precarious situation in Firewatch unraveled. Vaynth had left no heir, and kept no formal consort, and the bandits of Telvannis District now took advantage of Firewatch's absent forces to harass its supply lines. With Casik still in control of nearly all the Empire's forces in central and northern Morrowind, and the cream of the Dustmoth Legion dead at Nivalis, the Dustmoth Legion seized power, backed by the city's merchants. Although the war with Ebonheart abruptly ended with the mutiny of Casik's forces in 399, Firewatch remained in turmoil for another year. Legion rule swiftly became untenable; the officers of the Dustmoth garrison who had not gone along to Nivalis behaved abominably in the absence of command, allowing the rule of law to wither, frivolously wasting the city's scarce resources on imports of wine and fine clothing, and eventually even seizing wealth from their erstwhile merchant backers. The "Dusters" were finally deposed in a mostly bloodless coup by the grim Theurgist of the Chapel of Akatosh in late 399. This second coup was supported by the nobility and commoners alike, both of whom resented the arbitrary and callous rule of the drunkard Legionnaires. The head priest ruled - unofficially - until the end of the Simulacrum, when the restored Emperor appointed Perulia Jandacia, the scion of a Delodiil loyalist family, to rule as Duchess of Firewatch.
The legacy of the bloody civil war between Ebonheart and Firewatch is confused and muddled. Rumors have swirled for decades around the figure of Lord General Casik; it is difficult to explain why a high-ranking general who owed everything to the Ruby Throne would violate his oaths so flagrantly. Many have claimed that Casik was in fact murdered in 396 (or even 388), and that his wars were fought by a Daedric double bent on destruction in his name. Others point to the meager circumstances of Casik's upbringing, and the wealth and lands he acquired through his position atop the Legion's hierarchy -- perhaps this limited access to gold and power awakened the general's greed, to a dire end.
Ash and Blood: The Imperial Simulacrum in Morrowind: Volume III
The story goes that the Arnesian War began with an Argonian massacre of innocent pilgrims. Of course, anyone who was in Arnesia in those opening days could tell you that the fighting began long before that tale came to life. But it makes no difference. The slavemongers of House Dres manufactured the conflict to fill their chattel pits, King Llethan sought to commemorate his new throne with a military victory, and Redoran and Indoril, so eager for glory long kept from them, sought a chance to once more draw swords in defense of Resdayn. And so war erupted between Morrowind and Argonia. It mattered little to the combatants that the war would leave thousands dead or mutilated, or that the contested land was inhospitable and ill-favored. By 3E 396, war had enveloped Tamriel, and the Dunmer refused to be left out of the fray.
Though the initial engagements of the war took place on Argonian soil, Dunmer forces fared poorly in the early months of the conflict. Argonian troops managed to hold the north bank of the Arnesian river against repeated assaults, and pressed onward to Tear by Sun's Dusk. But the Siege of Tear lasted barely more than a month. Though the details of the infamous "Skylamp Night" are scarce, it is said that the Dres used fire and dark magic to set the sky ablaze, forcing the Argonian armies back to the riverbank. By the time Redoran reinforcements arrived in spring 397, the Argonian forces were outmatched, outflanked, and losing badly. The winding bends of the Arnesian River itself were taken by Morrowind's armies by 398, while Dres slavehunters scoured the south banks, capturing hundreds of Argonians and slaughtering those who resisted.
But where were the Legions of Arnesia? True, the Simulacrum was a bloody affair throughout Tamriel; but while Tharn and his co-conspirators have earned their infamy beyond measure, it took no Tharnite conspiracy to set Arnesia ablaze -- only the indolence of the Empire's incompetent regional commanders. Lord General Casik had not recalled the borderlands' garrisons, and the forts remained well supplied throughout the crisis. There was no lack of Imperial strongholds in Arnesia, as was the case in the bloody Bend'r Mahk. Nor were the garrisons of the region preoccupied with their own survival, like the beleagured troops at doomed Woodhearth. And despite several mumbled excuses about "Daedric impostors", modern historians are confident that the Tharnite menace focused its energies on destabilizing the prosperous Morrowind heartlands, not its remote borders. No -- the Legions of Arnesia chose to stand idly by, doe-eyed and shiftless, as the Imperial Law they had sworn to protect crumbled around them.
Months after the Siege of Tear, a party of Argonians some three score in number approached the stout gates of Fort Arnesia. They had been driven southwest, their leader said, by burning of their home village north of the river. The refugees, carrying everything they owned, requested that the Legionnaires escort them further south or allow them to camp for a time within Fort Arnesia's walls. The fort's commander, a Nord named Joreld, rejected both entreaties, and ordered the desperate Imperial citizens outside the walls dispersed with a volley of arrows. The next afternoon, sentries reported seeing a party of armed Dres warriors pass the keep, each bearing a fresh Argonian skin fashioned into a macabre standard.
Such are the costs of cowardice.
The Arnesian War was a dark mark on the storied history of the Ruby Ranks. Would Titus Alorius or Liara Virgilus have passively ensconced themselves in their strongholds for half a decade, waiting for orders that would never come? Imagine if mighty Tiber himself had encamped meekly outside Old Hrol'dan, rather than storming its crumbling walls! Never has the Empire seen such farce. One may only hope that Tamriel never suffers its like again.