Theredin Ruin - A History
by Sesus Ketek
Theredin Ruin tells the story of an outpost in the Deep South. An ancient place, apparently, dating from before the overthrow of the Anathema and the dawn of the Dragonblooded's righteous rule over Creation. Broken during the war by an awesome power which reduced its glass-and-steel towers to dust, it was rebuilt along with the nearby roads to defend the trade routes between the Inner Sea and the 'southern cities' of the Shogunate. Theredin was an important military hub for the Shogunate, given first the remnants of Anathema evil which were scattered across the deserts, and later the Lion Fae who began to probe within as wyld madness infiltrated outlying villages. It held facilities to resupply both skyships and landships, accumulators to charge essence batteries, and garrisons for troops needing rest between rapid-reaction deployments. Its own permanent forces were drawn from the Ninth Legion of the Shogun, starting out at dragon strength but reducing to a single wing as the Shogunate aged. While numerical strength was low, the troops of the Shogun were ashigaru, well equipped with First Age artifice. Ketek notes that he retrieved several artifacts which were likely used by such soldiers: an appendix lists the recovered artifacts in detail, mostly fragments of furniture and pottery but including a fire lance and a shock pike, as well as parts for advanced armours of some sort and one 'unknown substance in hermetic glass urn'.
Political life at Theredin seems to interest Ketek... the commander of the post was nominally of Kazei rank, equivalent to a Dragonlord of the Realm's modern Legions. However, the post's remoteness gave little chance for advancement, and a chapter is devoted to tracking down the Kazei of Theredin as commander-in-absentia, revealing that the men occupying the post had spent centuries installed instead at the Daimyo's court in Chiaroscuro. The last Kazei survived the Contagion and the Fae invasion, leaping to the banner of the Seven Tigers when the Scarlet Empress took control of the Realm. There, he was certainly reduced to ash by the might of the Imperial Manse.
Actual command of the garrison at Theredin had thus fallen, by the Shogunate's later years, to an officer of Shozei rank (a Winglord), who seems to have been a warder of sorts. The Taizei and junior officers at the garrison were often relegated there due to having too much ambition or independent spirit, which threatened their superiors enough to merit a 'promotion' into desert life. Theredin's Shozei post changed hands many times, but each seems to have been chosen for conservative outlook and lack of major ambitions, the better to suppress the boisterous potential rivals in his charge. A litany of complaints, requests for additional discipline, and begging for transfers seems to make up most of the correspondence between Shogunate command and Theredin, or at least the portion of records which survived the Contagion. Several appendices provide almost-complete lists of Theredin's Kazei and Shozei, as well as a few minor officers from the earlier years. Here, Ketek notes that Theredin's own staff records, as well as those held by Shogunate archives, have been all-but-lost over the centuries since they were written.
The end of Theredin as a garrison came during the invasion of the Fae, when its Shozei followed orders from the Shogun to move all forces out to the edges of Creation and hold the line. There, according to accounts gathered by Ketek, a depleted garrison force held for only a short time before falling in its entirety to the hobgoblin hordes. Theredin itself was destroyed a second time by the advancing Fae, with only a handful of retreating soldiers on hand for its defense. After the rise of the Empress, the ruin was slowly covered over by the desert sands, the loss of records leaving it forgotten until Ketek stumbled upon it as he wandered the far reaches of the South, tracing the course of a Shogunate landship.
