Siege of Krakens and Kings

See also: History of Absalom

The Siege of Krakens and Kings was one of the many unsuccessful sieges of Absalom. Waged in 2502 AR, it was an internal conflict between the two foreign factions who already controlled the Grand Council of Absalom at the time: the Taldan Blue Lords and Keleshite Cult of the Hawk.

Background

See also: Proxy Laws

Absalom's native nobles increasingly refused to involve themselves in the governance of Absalom, considering both the work and the city's populace to be beneath them. They instead began hiring out their responsibilities, including voting, to foreign contractors in 1997 AR.

Soon after, these proxy agents of the Grand Council, led by the Blue Lords of Taldor and the Qadiran and Osirian Cult of the Hawk, enacted the Proxy Laws to officially require that all municipal labor be performed by outside professionals.

The Cult of the Hawk and Blue Lords then competed for control of Absalom for the following centuries of the city's Age of Excess, escalating over the centuries until it reached open conflict by the 26th century AR.

Events

The two rivals engaged in a proxy war fought by mercenary troops hired by each side. In 2502 AR, the Blue Lords commissioned Counterfeit Peak, a magically elevated 150-foot-tall siege castle of earth in the Cairnlands designed to allow siege engines to target Cult forces within Absalom.

However, an attack by the Cult forced the Blue Lords wizards performing the ritual to rush to an unstable completion. This caused a thinning of, and eventually a planar rift in, the barrier between the Plane of Earth and Universe at the peak's site, and earth elementals and other creatures from the elemental plane soon overtook both armies and chaotically reshaped the hill. Soldiers were pushed from or crushed upon the peak by spontaneously forming columns of stone.

Outcome

The Blue Lords abandoned Counterfeit Peak, leaving the platform as a wary blight on Absalom's horizon; as of 4719 AR, it remained one of the tallest siege castles in the Cairnlands. The Foreign Quarter of Absalom also suffered extensive damage in the conflict.