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In the First Age, the nation that would be known as Harbourhead had been "the South's Garden", a place where the wealthy went to relax and enjoy themselves. Its beautiful beaches were filled with sunbathers and seekers of pleasure, while the quaint coastal towns boosted hot humid nights where any sin could be indulged and raucous parties that went on all night. Even then, the provinces capital was the venerable city of Kirighast, with its wealthy Street of Palms filled with resort hotels and fancy resturants. It was a paradise.
The coming of the Great Contagion changed all that: the beaches, towns, cities, ranches and farms all falling to the plague. The fall of Harbourhead was even greater than in many other places. The people along the coasts and in the hills survived as best they could, while those further inland left the towns and cities to return to a nomadic existance. Warleaders arose, kingdoms rose and fell apart, powerful weapons were unleashed, tragedy and pain were repeated time and again until there was nothing to do but build again upon the rubble. Slowly, the Five Peoples that mark the modern day Harbourhead began to emerge.
In numerous small fishing villages along the coast, the Krantiri emerged as a dispirate and vibrant people marked by the sea. The widely scattered but numerous Izhalvi came out of the hills along with their brothers the Brakhani. Close allies among the people, the Izhalvi live out rich existances in their villages dotted through the wooded hilllands of Harbourhead, while the smaller and more isolated Brakhani people engage in herding and some light agriculture. The Shayanti and the Totikari migrated into the lands of Harbourhead from deeper within the south. The Shayanti, the most politically powerful of the people under the rule of the Realm (despite the much more impressive heritage of the Izhalvi), are by far the most cosmopolitian of the Five Peoples. Lastly, the Totikari live nomadic existances deep in the South and through the Jungles abutting the Summer Mountains.
The Five Peoples are not united; quite the contrary, they raid cattle and war against each other constantly and often the entire nation teeters on the brink of ethnic war. Yet the one thing that all the Peoples share is the worship of Ahlat as the God of Cattle and War. While the Shayanti and the Totikari are the most devout of the peoples, with the Izhalvi and Brakhani even holding the Unconquered Sun in higher regard, all peoples recognize the importance of their bull god. It is in his name that they seek to perform the hecatomb, the ritual sacrifice of 100 cattle to seek the favor and blessing of the bull god.
For many years the nation of Harbourhead evaded the interests of the Scarlet Empress, a chaotic region of warring tribes. In RY 385, the God-Blooded Hero "Blood on the Horns" rose up and built up a massive army with hopes of building an Empire. This great general united the five peoples and even looked set to drive her empire into the rest of the South. She had taken Kirighast as her capital and built a bureaucracy that would run her kingdom, rebuilding the Fane of the Upturned Horns as the main temple of Ahlat, and forged an Empire that might have even matched that of the Scarlet Empress were it given the chance.
The Scarlet Empress could not allow this God-Blood to so challenge her, however, and so she dispatched her legions to conquer the new nation of Harbourhead -- the legions were told to kill Blood on the Horns, but preserve the bureaucracy she had created to govern her kingdom. It took the legions six years to accomplish this, but in the end the general Cathak Madran turned control of Harbourhead over to the Empress. Ever since the fall of fall of Blood on the Horns in RY 422, Harbourhead has existed as a petty client state under the care of a Cathak Satrap. There have been brutal rebellions put down with military force, and lesser uprisings and shifts of power. The Izhalvi were slowly rooted out of power, replaced with the more pliable Shayanti people.
This likely would have continued as such had not Jade been found in Harbourhead in RY 728. Not just a meager deposit, but literal boulders of the magical material were discovered deep in the interior of the satrapy. The Realm finally had a reason to develop Harbourhead, building the infrastructure that would be needed to mine and ship the Jade to the Blessed Isle. Yet this was not without side-effects of its own, as the nation grew richer and experienced more freedoms. The Empress no doubt had some clever plan in store, but after her disappearance those plans disappeared with her.
The years since the Empresses disappearance have not been kind to Harbourhead. The last bastion of Izhalvi power, the ruling family of the Leopard Seat, was taken from them after the last Leopard got a bit too greedy after the disappearance of the Empress and was assassinated by the Satrap. Events teetered on the edge of rebellion, conquest or civil war for over 5 years.
Then, a large hungry empire emerged seemingly overnight on the very doorstep of the Nation...
In the later years of RY 769, five years after the Empresses disappearance, a great teeming mass of refugees arrived on the very borders of the Satrapy of Harbourhead. None knew where they came from or what had brought them to the South, except that they were garbed in rich clothing and bore the look of one unused to hardship. They were also very very hungry.
The refugees at first attempted to attain food peacefully, with limited success. A few Varangan villages offered some meager rations, but it quickly became clear to the Lungzao Johann Illhousen that if the people of Del Roh were going to survive they would need more food than any would willingly trade away. The early months thus consisted of some of the most widespread and efficient cattle raids that had ever been witnessed by the Five Peoples. Entire villages were swallowed up by the mighty host, some slaughtered when they refused to surrender. Even so, it was not nearly enough.
Only a few short weeks after the Rohans had arrived in the South, the legions of the Zintoban and whatever conscripts the Lungzao could gather were marching on the borderstates of Varang and Harbourhead and fighting small holding matches. The fighting was especially brutal along the borders of Harbourhead, particularly when the Zintoban Legions fought battles against a desparate 47th Legion eager to hold them back. The early gains were great, but battles quickly bogged down and it became clear that an invasion through this method would pose too much risk of allowing the 47th Legion and the Harbourhead Royal Guard to wait for the Rohani to starve to death.
The invasion of Harbourhead took only 2 weeks. In a masterful pincer move, leaving a portion of his forces to fight battles against the Harbourhead captaincies and the 47th Legion, the Lungzao took the mass of his troops down the Bloody Pass in an attempt to outflank and attack the Satrapy from a totally unexpected direction. The move was perfect in two manners: First, the people of Harbourhead nor their Realm watchdogs never would have imagined it would work. Second, it only worked in the first place because the Lungzao and his circle were -- unknown to all but a few within Harbourhead at that time -- powerful Celestial Anathema, in the possession of an ungodly powerful weapon known as the Spear of Light.
The Zintoban Legions marched up the pass, bypassing or destroying several forts in the process, emerging into the dry lands of Harbourheads interior. Taking provisions on their march, the mass of troops marched right toward Kirighast itself. While the main armies of Harbourhead had been manuevered to guard the border with Nei Roh, the main march of the Lungzaos legions did not go unnoticed. The Wyld Hunt rallies from the Imperial Garrison, riding out against the demons. Nine strong among the Dragon-Blooded, including the Satrap Cathak Voper himself as well as three Immaculate Monks (one of them the amed Mnemon Remah), the Wyld Hunt fell on the circle like a hammer from the heavens. The Circle was hard pressed in battle, particularly against the Immaculate Monks, but ultimately managed to kill most of the Dragon-Blooded involved in the hunt and scatter the rest to the winds. It was then that the Rohani Legions marched right up to Kirighast itself, resting aside the Street of Palms, cutting the Old City off from the Imperial Garrison.
The Lungzao and his circle met then with the rulers of the Kirighast to negotiate their surrender, while the Realm Garrison retreated back to the Blessed Isle (with considerably more ease than Johann thought would have been possible). The war was over before all of Harbourhead had even learned it had begun.
The Harbourhead only remained in the possession of Harbourhead for two months before the Realm attempted to regain their lost Satrapy. The escaping Dragon-Blooded and Imperial Citizens of the Garrison returned to the Blessed Isle with a great amount of information, including the fate of the Wyld Hunt that had been hastily dispatched against the invading Anathema. This news shook the Deliberative into awareness, and particularly roused House Cathak into awareness due to the loss of its Satrapy.
The invasion plans began even as the Circle was settling in to gathering up cattle, grain and other foodstuffs with which to feed their people. House Cathak and Ledaal were the first to seriously consider the endeavor, and formed the core of the invasion effort in the early stages, with other Houses either not as commited or content to simply wait and see how things developed. The All-Seeing Eye gathered what information it could on the conquered region and even Nei Roh itself, presenting it before the Deliberative. By the time the Regent approved the dispatching of Legions to Harbourhead, House Sesus and Vneef had both joined the coalition.
The last of the five houses to join was House Mnemon, its mistress only joining the invasion at the last possible moment -- she might have even been turned away, but she carried with her the patronage of some of the Sidereals and a large boon. A traitor from within; Mnemon had contacted Merkan personally, offering him amnesty, respect and power in exchange for betraying his "companions" to their doom.
Thus began what the Rohani call "the Dragon and Lion War." The Legions liberated Harbourhead with little difficulty, enlisting the various armies of the former Satrapy so quickly that it was obviously arranged ahead of time. Illhousen had tried to disarm what soldiers he could, but Harbourhead is a large country and it can be easy to lay low with a suit of armor and a spear. The five legions strength more than matched that of Nei Roh itself, while the Realm also enjoyed the support of Harbourheads own troops and their own Terrestrial Exalted.
Nei Roh suffered from several assaults, and the Solar Exalted were attacked directly by Legion detachments and the Wyld Hunt at several occasions. There were many close calls in both areas, such as when Balthasar was almost isolated and cut down by a hunting fang of Five Immaculate Dragon Blooded or when an advanced element of the 27th Legion managed to get within 8 miles of Nei Roh and even launched one battery from their long-range essence artillery before Illhousens counterattack managed to push them back.
In the end, however, it was not force of arms that almost doomed the Circle but instead betrayal. Merkan managed to lure Illhousen and Balthasar away from the main force, into an ambush at which waited several Elder Dragon-Blooded, a number of Legionnaires and Terrestrial support, and a solitary Sidereal that positively radiated power and secrets. In the very moment of defeat, a figure upon a far off mountainside lit up with the fury of the sun iself. All fighting died away, and the following immortal words were etched onto the brain of everyone within leagues.
KNOW THAT I AM BURNISHED IVORY. KNOW THAT I AM THE GHAL ASUN, AND THAT IT IS MY FIRE THAT SCORCHES YOU.
Then the sky rained with fire, as great hurling bolts of fire fell down from the heavens. The South had once again felt the fury of the Adamant Circle for the first time since the Usurpation.
The Realm's legions, after their scarring at the hands of the Ghal Asun, retreated back across the Inner Sea but they did not go along. Most of the elite of Harbourhead left with them, including the Shayanti who had taken the Leopard Seat, Oshom Kurgaz. The jade mines at Bent Creak had been deeply sabotaged as well; it would take years to fully bring the mining operation up to speed.
The Rohan returned to the nation of Harbourhead, and this time they were not as forgiving of their enemies as they had been before. Even if they'd desired to do such, many of those who had been left in charge had fled over the Inner Sea with the Realm. Thus, much of the control of Harbourhead has fallen into the hands of the Rohan.
This is not a thing that sits easily in the minds of the Five Peoples, either. Long have they suffered under the boot of the Realm, and they are not so easy under the rule of the Rohan. They are a warrior people and a culture that holds nothing higher than battle and blood. Those Rohan among the people of Harbourhead can see the anger of these people growing daily, and many of them fear the very thing they do not truly know how to prevent: Rebellion.
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