Some Ideas for historical events of the past few hundred years

[Runcible Spoon]

Some Possible Historical Events

I've always noted a bit of a lack of historical events between the War of the Book and the modern period. There are a few things here and there, but not a lot. So, in the interests of giving people in the modern era something to annoy each other with at dinner parties, to feed national rivalries, or to be the answers to trivia questions, I've drafted up some very rough ideas for some historical events in the last 400 or so years.

Currently I have some ideas for wars here, but if this seems like a broadly fun idea, I hope to add social movements, inventions, plagues, scandals, and general oddities.

Part I - Wars and Revolts


The Anaxi Civil Wars

• Probably in the last 200-300 years
• A dispute over the legitimacy of a particular headmaster led to a split in the support for the government. Initial skirmishes between forces allies with Headmaster A and Headmaster B
• Diverse clashes and battles. Initially more skirmishes
• Headmaster A and supporting Chairs are driven from Brunnhold and attempt to enlist the aid of Anastou in Bastia. The Bastians laugh them off
• More battles between the factions
• Headmaster A and supporters retreat west to Fen Kierden and form an Arcane Court in Mimsbury-in-the-Marsh
  • The Mimsbury Magisterium begins
• Vienda tried to stay neutral for a time. However, the death of first one of the Diarchs, and then the other left a vacuum which had to be filled by a headmaster’s choices
  • A and B each propose different Diarchs
  • The Mimsbury Diarchs remain in Mimsbury
  • The Brunnhold Diarchs attempt to enter Vienda
  • Parliament and the Lord Chancellor refuse to admit the Diarchs on the grounds of the dispute
  • Brunnhold loyalists attempt to force the issue
  • Urban skirmishes in the city. Eventually the Lord Chancellor and his forces are victorious and the Brunnhold Diarchs retreat to Brunnhold
• The Three Capitals
  • The Magisterium of Brunnhold
  • The Chancellery of Vienda
  • The Mimsbury Magisterium
• Diverse campaigns against each other for at least the better part of fifty years
• At the battle of Neaming Hill, the Brunnhold forces emerge triumphant, but shortly thereafter, they are told their headmaster has died.
• A treaty is drawn up wherein the next headmaster will be choses through a complex process of voting and sortition from a pool of candidates nominated by all factions

The Bastian Revolts

• Bastia seems prone to cycles of both urban and rural revolts from the lower classes
• The Commune of Florne
  • At some point in the last several hundred years, a lower-status galdori named Niccolo Lannia led a successful urban revolt against the monarchy, the nobility, and so forth. For a few years he was the de facto ruler of Florne and the surrounding region.
  • Florne essentially a city-state during this period under Lannia and his cabal
  • However, he over-played his hand when he tried to enact some fairly radical social changes (property and political rights for humans, etc) and was brought down by his former lieutenants and exiled
  • Later, Lannia was killed by his gardener
  • Lannia is considered a hero by many in the Florenese lower classes, and as a traitor by the elite
• The Yiannimachia
  • A peasant revolt in south-western Bastia which sought to overthrow galdori rule
  • The name comes from the galdori’s derisive name for all the male peasants in the region: Yiannis. So, in the local dialect the revolt means ‘The War of the Johns’. Or in the north as Rivolta di Giovanni

The Hessean Wars

• A series of conflicts between Hesse, Bastia, and Anaxas over border areas.
• Far northern Hesse is a very cosmopolitan area, there are ethnic Anaxi, Bastians, Hesseo-Bastians, and Hesseans proper, all tumbled together.
• The War of the League of Stranborough: In some of the eastern coastal towns near the Anaxi border, considerable unrest and discontent with the distant rule of Mestiga and with the government’s inability to handle pirates, led to those towns forming an mutual defense league centered on the port city of Stranborough
  • Fearing that this League was a proxy for Anaxi aggression in the region, Mestiga sent an army northward under the command of the newly appointed Marzoban, Ozdanadh Nankhaal.
  • The League, seeing the threat, and knowing Nankhaal’s fearsome reputation as a commander and as a ruthless governor, did indeed appeal to the Anaxi to come to their aid. Officially, the Anaxi government refused to offer military aid to the League, but quietly bankrolled privateers and mercenaries to bolster the League against Nankhaal.
  • Lots of generalized warfare, territory changing hands, and eventual negotiated peace whereby parts of north-east coastal Hesse were ceded to Anaxas in exchange for perpetual trading rights, and the return of a larger portion of then Southern Anaxas that had been annexed in a previous conflict. Anaxas was also required to pay some eye-watering reparations
• The War of the Seven Rivers - Fought between Bastia and Hesse over territorial claims to a number of towns and lands which had historically been culturally tied to Bastia, but long under Hessean jurisdiction. The Bastians, claiming abuses of their cousins in Hesse, swept over the border, and seized a huge swath of territory in short order. The Hesseans were otherwise occupied with dealing with a succession crisis and a plague, so the initial Bastian invasion was not repelled
  • When the political situation in Hesse calmed down, three armies were sent north and effectively crushed the Bastians in a number of pitched battles. The fact that the Hesso-Bastian population in general came to fight on the side of the Hesseans did not help the Bastian cause.
  • The result was a Hessean victory and tribute extracted from Bastia
• The Pashaan War - Hesse has long claimed parts of southern Anaxas, and, with their stalemate in the War of the League of Stranborough, they believed they had sufficient legal claim to press for the return of territory. The particular area of interest was the Pashaan Valley, which contained particularly rich gold mines as well as impressively fertile agricultural land.
  • An appeal to the Symvoul was rejected and the Hesseans were hopping mad
  • In an incredibly bone-headed move, the Anaxi ejected the Hessean ambassador for supposed plottings regarding the territorial claims
  • This gave Hesse caucus belli to declare war over the slight and press there territorial claims
  • The conflict lasted three years and ended with Hesse seizing the Pashaan Valley, but being forced to relinquish all claims to the lands they lost in the War o the League of Stranborough