Fight for the Field of Plenty

The Fight for the Field of Plenty, sometimes called the Motherland Massacre, was a skirmish between Motherlandian commoners and the armed forces of Fatherland. Fought during the height of The Great Famine of Motherland, the source of the conflict was the bountiful farmland on the Fatherlandian side of the Novoya Volga River. The Motherlanders were sick of starving, but the Fatherlanders—fearing their filthy neighbors and their year-long famine—had no interest in sharing.

Background

In 114, at the start of the Second Age in Eden, the native halflings ceded control of the South to a septet of human refugees who’d survived the most recent end of the universe. The halflings believed these seven men to be the second coming of the heroic Bekiskapan, but they were, in fact, not.

These False Kings divvied up the territory amongst themselves and ruled with varying degrees of benevolence and tyranny. And though the halflings eventually realized their mistake, it was too little too late. By the time they realized their folly, the False Kings had already consolidated enough power to solidify their control.

These usurpers would not go unpunished forever, though. In the year 126, twelve years into his reign, the sins of King Vladimir I came back to haunt him—and, as it turned out, the whole of his country. Early that year, Cherno’s Curse began wreaking havoc upon crops throughout Motherland, and by summer the Great Famine was in full swing.

For the rest of 126, the Motherlanders did their best to survive. But as summer turned to fall and fall turned to winter, the citizens in border communities along the Novoya Volga could not help but notice that the farms on the Fatherland side of the river had been spared. They did their best to respect the international border, but empty bellies do make it hard to respect imaginary lines invented by men of means. And that is how, on Christmas Eve of 126, the fuse that would ignite the conflict between Motherland and Fatherland was lit.

In the dead of night, hoping to provide one good meal for his family on Christmas Day, an eleven-year-old boy snuck out of his home in Watersmeet, crossed the Novoya Volga in a row boat, and ransacked the first farm he saw. He might even have gotten away with it, if not for the fact that the farmer who owned that field was an insomniac with a rifle who liked to walk his property by starlight.

The boy made it back to the boat with his haul, but got a bullet in the gut for his troubles. Then, in pain, he made it across the river. But he couldn’t make it any further than that. The embankment was too steep and now he was too weak. And so, the boy died in his boat—bleeding out upon the veritable cornucopia he’d gathered as a gift for his mum and dad.

For the rest of December and right on through February, protestors from Watersmeet filled the bridge across the Novoya Volga. On the other side, a small militia of Fatherlandian farmers kept watch. Then, on March 1, a platoon of King Oskar’s finest arrived to relieve the locals. A rotating squad of 10 Fatherlandian soldiers stood guard from then on, hoping each day that the crowd would disperse.

That’s not what happened.

While the Motherlandian protestors had thrown little more than insults at the militia, they had much more in store for the official armed forces of the enemy. Seeing as they had more rotten vegetables than they knew what to do with, the Motherlanders decided to start throwing those. And, of course, they kept hurling insults at the soldiers as well.

Incident

On the morning of March 5, the father of the boy who had been killed finally joined the mob. He hoped to beg his neighbors to disperse, lest any more blood be shed. Instead, he was ushered to the front of the crowd and a cudgel was thrust into his hand. The father tried to refuse the weapon, but the men around him held his hand aloft, with the cudgel clutched in his fist. It was meant, the father supposed, to be some sort of signal to the soldiers that a new phase of the fight was about to begin.

Upon seeing this, the sergeant in charge of the squad shouted for the crowd to put down their weapons and disperse. He then ordered his men to prepare themselves for a fight.

The father shouted back that the cudgel was the only weapon they had, and that he did not intend to wield it in anger. He dropped the cudgel to the ground and turned to face the mob. Then he pleaded with them, as he had planned to do. But as he spoke, the man who’d forced the cudgel into the father’s hand then crouched the retrieve the weapon.

Across the way, the sergeant watched the crouching man with great interest. The soldier to the sergeant’s right asked if they should take aim and the sergeant said, “Not yet.”

But then came the moment of truth. As the father continued to make his case, the crouching man rose to his full height. Then, with great vengeance and furious anger, he threw the cudgel at the sergeant’s head.

The sergeant ducked and was unharmed. And yet, his right-hand man took it upon himself to shout “FIRE!”

Three Motherlanders fell straight away, killed on the spot: the father, the cudgel-thrower, and one other. Then, as the mob dispersed and fled for their lives, a further two Motherlanders were trampled to death in the stampede.

Within minutes, the full platoon of Fatherlanders had gathered on their side of the bridge. They weren’t sure what was coming, but the platoon’s lieutenant knew that this aggression would not go unanswered. And while it did take several hours for them to get their answer, the answer did come—and it was more frightening than the Fatherlanders could ever have expected.

A full company of wooden soldiers, commanded by King Vladimir himself, marched from the castle at Watersmeet to the bridge. Then Vladimir, with the Nutcracker’s Saber drawn, crossed to the middle of the bridge and demanded the lieutenant come forth to treat with him.

The lieutenant complied. Then, after a tense meeting, the lieutenant called forth the soldier who had given the order to fire. The soldier came forth, the lieutenant stepped aside, and Vladimir beheaded the soldier in one quick stroke.

Vladimir and the lieutenant nodded to one another, then parted. The lieutenant waved two men over to collect the executed man’s body. Meanwhile, Vladimir picked up the severed head and tossed it over the side of the bridge. For a moment, he watched the current of the Novoya Volga carry the head off towards its confluence with the mighty Bü‘ükopo Oadü. Then he marched back to his platoon and marched them home.

Aftermath

In Motherland, the king’s defense of his people was enough to break the hold of Cherno’s Curse upon the nation. Soon, the health of their crops was restored and the famine came to a close.

In Fatherland, the borderland farmers soon discovered there were pixies living in their fields. Not understanding that the pixies had been there all along, the superstitious Fatherlanders believed they’d found the cause of Cherno’s Curse. And so, with great haste, the expelled the pixies from their homeland. Then, in the hopes of easing tensions with Motherland, King Oskar shared his farmers’ discovery with King Vladimir.

It was only months later, as Fatherland’s farmers began to see their crops fall victim to Cherno’s Curse, that everyone realized the truth. The pixies were the only thing that had been keeping the blight from crossing the river and making the Fatherlanders pay for Oskar's sins the way that the Motherlanders had paid for Vladimir’s. Fortunately for the people of Fatherland, Oskar was smarter than Vladimir. Realizing that good deeds towards the people would fend off the curse, he took the unusual step of organizing a massive country-wide festival during what looked like the beginning of a famine.

Everyone was hesitant to celebrate at first, but they all soon discovered that a happy people makes for a happy land. And so it was that Cherno’s Curse disappeared from Eden for a good, long time.