Chapter Text
Bonus Feature: Konrad, Duke of Weselton – the nemesis of the Southern Isles
Konrad, age 75 – the current Duke of Weselton. Though a military genius and creative mastermind in his youth, he is now ultra-conservative and exactly the opposite of the reformist King Johann IV of the Southern Isles. Konrad’s family, like so many other northern Baltic people, suffered from the heavy hand of Southern Isles hegemony. His father taught him how their world worked, but it never hit home for the boy until his mother was raped by a man whom the police dared not prosecute because he worked for an important Southern Isles person. The defeated look in the eyes of the Weselton policeman sparked something in young Konrad, who gave up his dream of being an architect to join the army instead – so that he could learn to fight and stop the humiliation of his people. His timing was perfect; just a few months after he enlisted, the great Catan War broke out, a coordinated uprising by the eight cities of the Christian League against the Southern Isles.
The eight allied armies, with Konrad among the Weselton men, arrived on Catan, where in their third battle, Konrad’s officers were killed by a lucky shot from an enemy trebuchet. With confusion spreading through their ranks, Konrad quickly grabbed a dead officer’s jacket (with its rank insignia) and started shouting orders to rally the men. His initiative saved the day, preventing an early end to the war. Konrad’s tactical brilliance was soon recognized and earned him promotion after promotion.
The Southern Isles expeditionary force was reinforced with more and more men, but still could not break the allied hold on northern Catan. Decades without serious challenge had fostered a smug complacency throughout the Southern Isles military, and it took several months before the true urgency of the situation finally filtered up the ranks to reach the ears of King Johann III.
But the Southern Isles monarchy, once finally alerted to the true situation, responded as they customarily did – with massive force. The Isles’ entire standing army came to Catan on the entire Southern Isles armada, with King Johann III personally taking command. At Catan, he disembarked with half of his army, which together with the remnants of his Catan garrison, outnumbered the League’s eight armies combined. Crown Prince Hans – not to be confused with his more infamous nephew – led the other half of the Southern Isles army to Weselton, together with most of the fleet, hoping to break the alliance by forcing its leaders to surrender.
The news of Weselton’s surrender, along with the Duke’s orders recalling all Weselton forces from the alliance, arrived on Catan just as the allies were celebrating their biggest victory so far – they had just repelled King Johann’s first assault after three hard days of fighting. As the disappointed Weseltonian troops packed up for their return home, Konrad gathered his unit and told them the story of what he had seen eight years ago, hiding in his mother’s closet as the Southern Islander tax collector took more than he was legally entitled to. He praised his men for having done their duty and fought honorably for the past year; he, however, had not done his. His duty was a self-imposed one, and one which he was more likely to die trying than to actually fulfill.
Konrad’s time as a Weselton soldier was over – or so he thought at the time. Weselton could not afford to sacrifice her own survival in the pursuit of revenge; Konrad, however, could sacrifice himself – and he did.
Leaving his colonel’s rank insignia on the ground in front of his men, Konrad fled into the forest, allowing the men to choose for themselves. Several dozen of his regiment chose to follow him, accepting that their own country would be forced to outlaw them. And for the next twelve years Konrad waged a guerrilla campaign all over the island, his fame and legend growing with every daring escapade. Supply carts were sabotaged, cavalry horses poisoned, ships burned to the waterline, colonial officials’ severed heads appeared on pikes, entire infantry patrols disappeared without a trace. On three separate occasions when the rebels assassinated Southern Isles tax collectors sent from the home islands, the corpses were found with bloody letters carved across their bodies: “Mom, this one’s for you – K.” Within a few years, various cities began to covertly offer aid and deserters and civilians alike began turning up in increasing numbers to offer themselves as fighters or sympathizers. The Southern Isles had made many enemies, and every rebel victory brought more rebels out of the woodwork.
As the drain on the Southern Isles treasury increased, the kingdom was forced to demand more and more tribute from its subject states. The heavy-handed tactics that had worked in generations past now only fanned the flames. Random executions of Weseltonian civilians in reprisal for Konrad’s actions on Catan did nothing to protect the Southern Isles villages on the island, but instead inspired aggrieved Weseltonians to copy Konrad’s methods of resistance. Riots and disturbances became an increasingly frequent occurrence throughout the northern towns, even in those nominally friendly to the Isles. The core cities of the Christian League tacitly settled on a new strategy: the new goal was to bankrupt the Southern Isles, since they had already tried and failed with overt military opposition.
Konrad had now stalemated 25,000 enemy soldiers with fewer than 400 men of his own, while inspiring copycat rebel groups throughout the northern mainland to tie down even more Southern Isles occupation forces. None of the other groups, however, could match his success in raids. None had found a leader of Konrad’s skill or devotion to the cause, and the casualty rates of the mainland rebels were significantly higher than that of Konrad’s men on Catan Island. Still, with the constant disturbances all over their empire, King Johann’s ministers were barely able to keep enough money and supplies flowing to their armies…
Then, in the 12th year of the war, Konrad finally got his big break. For 12 years, the aging Duke of Weselton had cooperated with the Southern Isles occupation of his nation. But the 68-year-old Duke suffered a heart attack and was succeeded by his 42-year-old son, a more daring and headstrong man than his father.
At his coronation, the new Duke pledged his loyalty to the Southern Isles and instituted the harshest censorship regime in Weselton’s history. Under his father’s reign, only the more vocal or active dissenters were punished for their opposition, usually by public flogging or short imprisonments, and only when Southern Isles garrison leaders actively demanded their prosecution. But now anyone who spoke against the occupiers simply vanished – people naturally assumed the worst.
But the young Duke was playing a dangerous double game. The “disappeared” dissidents were not being executed and dumped into the sea – but instead, were being exiled: smuggled to points just off the Catan Island coastline, then thrown overboard with a wink, a nudge, and three days’ rations, warned never to return to Weselton on pain of death. The vast majority of these men made it to shore and found their way into Konrad’s rebel force – and within just one year Konrad had gained more recruits than he had in the last ten.
The new Duke was not only more sympathetic to Konrad’s cause, but also had more faith in the young man’s ability to prevail against the odds – for he had witnessed Konrad’s military talents in his capacity as Prince of Weselton and Konrad’s fellow army officer 12 years ago, during their brief first year on Catan together. For this reason, even though he officially supported the Southern Isles, he secretly did much more to promote the rebellion than his father had.
The increase in rebel activity on Catan Island was soon noticed, and after several months of covert operations the Duke’s treachery was discovered. In the resulting outrage, King Johann III made a decisive strategic blunder. Rather than changing his strategy or recognizing his failures, he attempted to turn up the heat even further. His three elder sons did not question it, for that was how things had always been done in the Southern Isles – apply increasing force until you get your way. The youngest son, Prince Johann (later King Johann IV), expressed his doubts, but was overruled.
Johann III decided to destroy the Duchy of Weselton and massacre its entire population – an example to deter future opposition throughout the empire. So, over the course of three days, the armies of the Southern Isles rampaged through the city and then spread across the countryside, killing anyone in sight, carting off everything of value and burning the rest to ashes. The Duke and several hundred of his men sacrificed themselves in a heroic rearguard action which gave thousands of their people a few more hours to flee. Weselton’s last census three years prior counted a population of 125,000 throughout the duchy. In the first census after the end of the great war, there were fewer than 60,000.
News of the massacre spread along with the Weselton refugees and almost instantly triggered massive popular uprisings across the northern lands. The already stretched-thin Southern Isles occupation forces in all seven remaining cities of the Christian League were quickly overwhelmed, some fleeing while others found themselves besieged in the citadels of their cities, as the local gendarmeries turned against them and joined the revolting populations. The newly re-established League was shortly joined by most of the smaller cities in the area, including several that had remained neutral up to this point.
At this point slightly more than half of Konrad’s men were of Weseltonian origin, and the news of their hometown’s destruction was received with shock and disbelief. Konrad himself was unaccountably gleeful upon learning of the massacre, as he now finally had an opportunity to turn the tide of the war once and for all – his long-sought revenge against the Southerners was finally within sight! Only later that evening, after overhearing some of his Weseltonian men remembering their lost friends and family from back home, did Konrad realize with a jolt how much of his humanity the long quest for revenge had taken from him. Shaken by his realization, Konrad began to doubt his mission for the first time in 14 years, even as its prospects were looking brighter than ever.
The following morning Konrad assembled his senior commanders and asked them to join him in a new cause: re-founding the lost Duchy of Weselton. He was tired of destroying things and wanted to build something, instead. Konrad’s lieutenants, even the few non-Weseltonians, approved heartily of the idea. They had all been outlawed by the old Weselton government, but that no longer existed – so in their minds, they were now the only true Weseltonians left in the world.
Konrad’s men proposed that he should become their new Duke and bring his tactical skills to the mainland to take advantage of the new outpouring of sympathy for their cause. Konrad agreed, and three days later the rebels managed to sneak Konrad and a few handpicked men off the island during a series of diversionary attacks.
In disguise, Konrad reached the allied city of Aabo and officially claimed the vacant dukedom of Weselton, becoming a Duke without a country – for the moment. Survivors from the former land of Weselton and other opponents of the Southern Isles flocked to his banner. When King Johann III arrived with his army a few months later, Konrad confronted him outside the city with an army of his own – eight thousand new volunteers, about a thousand of whom were Weseltonian survivors of the massacre.
But the volunteers were a decoy: Konrad’s real army was in fact the one thousand professional soldiers, guards, gendarmes, and other such armed men hiding in the long grass of the battlefield, lent to him by the Aabo city council. As the Southerners charged at what appeared to be an untrained mob, spears popped out of the grass and impaled them in the middle of the field. Then hundreds of crossbowmen – the bulk of Aabo’s official military – popped up on both flanks of the Southerners. King Johann III was shot in the back as he fled from the rout of his army. And thus the legendary guerrilla rebel became a legendary general.
The Christian League proclaimed Konrad their commander-in-chief and successor to Weselton’s place on their council. Over the next six years, Konrad led the allies to a string of victories across the realm, shrinking the dominion of the Southern Isles to almost nothing and killing three Southern Isles princes in battle.
Following the death of King Havard I, who reigned for only three months after succeeding his older brother, the Kingdom of the Southern Isles consisted of only its original home islands and a single citadel on the southern end of Catan, besieged by the League’s forces.
So it was that the crumbling throne of the Southern Isles devolved upon the youngest of the four princes – 25-year-old Prince Johann, who became King Johann IV upon his brother’s death. On the very day of his coronation, the new king received word that four of his last six allies had switched sides, lacking faith in his ability to succeed where his brothers had failed.
The following morning, young Johann IV sat on the throne that still didn’t feel like his own, indeed was never supposed to be his own, and once again read the list of demands written to him by Konrad, Duke of Weselton, on behalf of the League. If he agreed, the Southern Isles would come to an end; he would abdicate, and the Isles would be split into individual colonies, each occupied by League forces until a sufficient indemnity had been extracted for the past 19 years of war.
The young king started to sign his acceptance – then hesitated. A messenger brought another letter that had arrived late.
The unmarked letter was addressed to Havard I (having been sent two weeks ago) from King Magnus VI of Arendelle, one of the last two cities on the Southern Isles side of the war. Magnus informed his ally that the Arendellians had just defeated a combined siege by the secondary forces of Christiana and Weselton and were now finally on their way to help the Southern Isles. King Magnus also believed that he was close to persuading his brother-in-law, Frederick IX of Corona, to risk committing his main army to help.
King Johann promptly emptied the palace, bringing all his guards with him. He summoned all available soldiers and gendarmes to his main harbor. In the dead of night, the young king and his last few thousand fighting men set out to save their homeland.
Konrad and his League commanders were aware that two armies were coming to break their siege on south Catan. King Magnus and his army landed on the northwest side of Catan. Konrad took his best men to confront them, leaving his less-skilled troops to fend off King Johann’s expected arrival. The Arendelle army at nearly full-strength represented a greater threat than the demoralized dregs of a once-proud Southern Isles military.
But during their days at sea, King Johann made his way from ship to ship, introducing himself to his men, gaining their trust, and sharing a vision that strongly appealed to his war-weary people. When Johann’s men arrived on Catan they were no longer the dispirited washed-up Southerners that the allied armies were expecting, but instead an inspired band of brothers who finally believed in their cause and knew themselves to be on the right side of history. Johann led the Southern Islanders on foot, charging through a hail of crossbow bolts to break through the allied lines.
Magnus had known Johann as a teenager and had an instinctive feeling of what the kid was capable of. Konrad, lacking that same knowledge, had underestimated his latest opponent.
Suddenly, the war was once again in the balance. On one occasion Konrad almost succeeded in defeating the combined forces of Johann and Magnus, only to be denied his victory by the timely arrival of King Frederick’s Coronan army on his flank. Another time, Konrad and his Weseltonian veterans managed to get within two sword-lengths of Johann himself, but the Arendellian royal guards held their ground and saved him. Konrad never fully understood his adversaries’ intense and seemingly unjustified loyalty to Johann, who was barely of age and the untested monarch of the region’s most hated kingdom. But after a year of fruitless stalemate Konrad admitted that he had met his match on the battlefield, and grudgingly agreed to sit for peace negotiations.
Each of the League’s cities had a representative at the treaty table, with Konrad speaking on behalf of the Weseltonians, a scattered people who hoped for the restoration of their homeland. Much to Konrad’s surprise, King Johann opened the negotiation with an immediate offer of massive reparations to Weselton, along with smaller amounts to other League cities which had been wronged prior to the main course of the war. Johann’s offer, to be paid over 30 years, was nearly what Konrad had intended to demand as his opening position. The rest of the negotiations went smoothly after that. The disputed territory, Catan and its island chain, were evenly split and Johann agreed to limits on the size of the Southern Isles military.
Thus, after two decades of adventures abroad, Konrad the carpenter’s son returned to Weselton an international hero and virtual founding father of his nation. A minority of the Weseltonian diaspora remained abroad, but the vast majority, over 50,000 people, returned to rebuild their homes. Konrad proved to be as talented a civil administrator as he was a military leader, and although the new Duchy of Weselton was far smaller than the old one, it was efficiently run and quickly prospered.
This also meant that the now 42-year-old Duke was the region’s most eligible bachelor. Initially the Duke was hesitant to marry, still fearing a potential resumption of hostilities as the Southern Isles continued to rebuild, but as years passed by the need to secure his new throne became pressing and King Johann showed no sign of reneging on the peace treaty. Eventually, at age 46, Konrad chose his duchess, a pretty princess from the kingdom of Malmo, and she bore him a son and a daughter.
The Duchess never made much progress in mellowing out her husband, but she proved to be a moderating influence on their son, the Prince of Weselton. The Duke made sure their son learned the military arts, but the Duchess taught him to appreciate the finer things in life.
Even in peacetime, raising children while running a nation takes its toll on a middle-aged man. A few years ago, Konrad and his family were invited to the royal wedding of Princess Rapunzel of Corona, widely known for her 17-year disappearance and dramatic return. Konrad declined, out of lingering paranoia from his war years – Corona is still allied with the Southern Isles, which Konrad still considers a likely enemy of his nation – and for the same reason, refused to allow his son to attend – he will not risk having his only heir vulnerable in enemy territory, even in peacetime. But Konrad’s wife and daughter were both eager to see Corona’s “Lost Princess” for themselves, and so they went.
While at the wedding, Konrad’s daughter found her first love – who unfortunately turned out to be a prince of the Southern Isles, the eighth son of King Johann IV. Unsurprisingly, Konrad was quite unhappy to learn of this, and absolutely refused to allow the courtship, despite much pleading by his daughter.
Duke Konrad retired to his room with a headache that night, and a few days later, decided that his son was ready to take on more responsibility in ruling the duchy. Interestingly enough, this was exactly what both the Duchess and the Prince had been telling him for the last two years.
Meanwhile, the young Princess of Weselton, always a classic good girl (and unlike a certain contemporary of hers, never needing to struggle with hiding any magic), obediently wrote to the eighth Prince of the Southern Isles to inform him of her father’s disapproval. He wrote back expressing his regret and understanding. In subsequent years, however, the two of them have frequently run into each other (by genuine accident) at gatherings throughout the region. After this happened a few times, the two young royals agreed to be “just friends” and have now struck up a frequent correspondence. As is typical of close friends, they often complain to each other about their various suitors – always being careful not to cross a certain line.
The Duke of Weselton has since handed most of the administration over to his son and now serves in a semi-retired advisory role. Where formerly the Prince did most of the traveling and diplomatic work of the duchy, while his father remained at home to govern, they have now reversed roles, and the Duke has come to enjoy seeing how the desolate and war-torn world of his youth now thrives with commerce. Of course, his always-active mind, even at age 75, is constantly coming up with new ways to bring more of that money back home to Weselton – and indeed his trade partners constantly marvel at how sharp he remains, seemingly undiminished from one year to the next.
The Duke of Weselton is still unaware of his daughter’s correspondence and if he ever finds out, it sure won’t be from either of the women in his family.