The Campaign of '68 was a disastrous attempt by British forces to invade Hell.
At What Cost?
In 1868, a mere six years after the Fall of London, the British Cavalry was tasked with mapping the vast new landscape of the Neath.[1] As they explored, the British forces found Rubbery Men, devils, and more excitingly, news of the lands beyond London's borders. True to both imperial and Christian ambition, they decided upon an invasion of Hell.[2]
However, it was the devils who struck first after learning of the British war plans. They invaded London through the remnant of the Fourth City, the Forgotten Quarter.[3] The Army set up their defenses: The Blues and Royals, The 23rd Neathy Rifles, Heavy and Light Brigades in the Quarter, but their visibility was obscured by the mist.[4] Undaunted, London's military charged straight into untold horrors and total catastrophe, and the remnants of the Empress’ cavalry were captured.[5] The captured soldiers were forced to work on Hell's slave ships, rowing endlessly on a dark river.[6] The devils demanded that for each prisoner released, they must be given a soul in echange.[7] Some soldiers' ransom were paid by their loved ones at great personal costs.[8]
Only a few units and troops actually managed to reach the hinterlands and breach the borders of infernal territory. London’s forces initially encountered little resistance. This, however, was no accident. Infernal strategists deliberately allowed the army to advance deep into Hell’s territory, channeling them towards a treacherous battlefield known as the March of the Roses. The culminating engagement took place at a natural chokepoint, the Lamentations of the Violet,[9] a gorge fortified with infernal artillery and diabolic defenses.[10]
At first, London’s forces were hopeful, and immediately tried to climb the walls of Hell,[11] but were repelled by the seemingly inexhaustible devils and their devastating arry of artillary.[12] Attrition was chosen as the battle strategy, and against Hell it seemed an asinine notion, but the Army continued with this path anyways. They were quickly forced into trench warfare, an unfamiliar and desperate strategy.[13] The battlefield, the Fields of Roses, bore the scars of intense combat. Wrecked siege engines littered the landscape, their rusting hulks testaments to the futility of traditional warfare against Hell’s defenses.[14] London's Army had an unconventional ally in the form of the Brazen Brigade, a faction of counter-revolutionaries devils who opposes the current governance of Hell.[15]
The war seemed to stretched on to the beginning of 1869. Soldiers played football with each other for entertainment, but on a game on New Year's Day the devils released some prisoners of war to play against their former comrades.[16] It was probably a tactic to further erode soldiers' morale.[17]
The final days of the campaign descended into chaos. London’s forces, running out of modern ammunition, resorted to medieval siege weapons: trebuchets, mangonels, and slings.[18] In contrast, Hell deployed an endless stream of devastating eldritch armaments that tore apart soldiers and warped their minds to desertion and turned them against their comrades.[19] The trenches became mass graves.[20][21] London’s troops, exhausted and outmatched, broke.[22] Desertion was rampant, some deserted because of the effects of Hell's weaponry, some because it was truly hopeless. The deserters were gunned downed by their former comrades. Some soldiers managed to flee eastward, hoping to return to London; others, disoriented, ran straight into the waiting grasp of Hell’s forces and put them into cages.[23] Infernal cavalry pursued the fleeing troops herded them into Hell.[24]
The few who managed to reach Hell and returned told of strange and terrifying sights: fields of burning roses, devilbone churches, brass triremes, a vast and pitiless bureaucracy, a throne that stands in the shadow of a gallows.[25] The ones who were captured were... altered. Some were changed into devils. Some into sapient roses.[26]
One battlefield was Moulin, now a small hamlet,[27] with some historians excavating and selling the remains of the Campaign.[28] The part of Moulin now called the Waste saw the most bombardment.[29]
Aftermath
After the war, London was grudgingly force to accept normalized diplomatic relations with Hell. The devils constructed their consulate, the Brass Embassy, on Baker Street (now known as Moloch Street) and set up an express railway back to Hell itself. They forced London to legalize trade in human souls, although it still remains strictly regulated. Hell does extensive business with London, importing souls and exporting coal, sulfur, nevercold brass, and devilbone.
One can find veterans of the invasion around the city: traumatized warriors in the bars of Watchmaker's Hill, peculiarly ambitious clergymen, drunkards passed out in the gutter. The weapons of Hell left deep physical wounds in the bodies of surviving veterans, roses that burrowed deep into their bodies.[30] Some were hit much harder than others.[31] The invasion left a long shadow on London,[32] but even after such a dramatic loss, there’s no way the clergy doesn’t have more plans in store for the devils.
Veterans
The Regretful Soldier, who was among those captured by Hell. His wife traded her soul for his return. He turned to drinking to drown his sorrows.
The Bishop of Southwark is a notable veteran of the campaign. He was the chaplain[33] for a brigade that was captured in battle; his scream of pain after touching a fiery hellish rose alerted the devils to the regiment's presence.[34] He was forced to work on Hell's galleys, until he signed a contract allowing him to keep his soul and go back to London. He became Bishop sometime after the war ended.[35]
The Thorned Manservant, one of the two survivors of his regiment, now working at the Palace, hosts meetings for veterans to share their memories and pain from the Campaign.[36] The Manservant's master, the Bellicose Prince, one of the Empress's sons, secretly went out to join the Campaign. He survived and still torments himself over his actions in the war.[37]
According to many veterans, someone fitting Nicator's profile participated in the Campaign, and lead the charge to defend London against the devils in the Forgotten Quarter.[38]
References
- ↑ Caught Up in a Soldier's Heartbreaking Tale, Fallen London "In '69, once the city had settled and the dashed bats had cleared off, we in the Cavalry were detailed to map out the Neath. [...]" [Editor's note: The date noted here is likely a typo or the Soldier misremembering the year, since it's known as the Campaign of '68 everywhere else.]
- ↑ Caught Up in a Soldier's Heartbreaking Tale, Fallen London "Soon we came across the rubbery chaps, devils and so on, and learned that there were lands beyond London's borders. [...] So we mounted up, loaded the pistols and set out to conquer Hell for Her Majesty..."
- ↑ Caught Up in a Soldier's Heartbreaking Tale, Fallen London "Well, the Devils got wind of our expedition to Hell, and decided to invade London first. They came in over the Forgotten Quarter and we drew up our battle lines. [...]"
- ↑ Caught Up in a Soldier's Heartbreaking Tale, Fallen London "[...] The Blues and Royals, The 23rd Neathy Rifles, Heavy and Light Brigades, all lined up among the broken stone warriors of another stolen city. And off in the mists... well... the voices..."
- ↑ Caught Up in a Soldier's Heartbreaking Tale, Fallen London "[...] When the bugler sounded the charge I felt my insides turn to liquid, I don't mind telling you. We lowered our lances and spurred into the fog. [...] The voices on either side of us... eyes in the mist... Led us deep into the marshes [...] The last thing I saw was a face..."
- ↑ Caught Up in a Soldier's Heartbreaking Tale, Fallen London "When I awoke, I was in a boat on a dark river. [...] It was a great shining brass-clad trireme, and I was chained to an oar, along with the ragged remnants of the Empress' cavalry. [...] At the helm was a fellow with a bandaged face."
- ↑ Caught Up in a Soldier's Heartbreaking Tale, Fallen London "A Devil in a velvet suit sauntered up to me. 'Ah, you're awake,' he said. 'So glad you could join our little cruise. You'll be our guest until the Traitor Empress agrees to pay a ransom. One soul for each of you. Until then, you row.' And he pointed to the North."
- ↑ Caught Up in a Soldier's Heartbreaking Tale, Fallen London "Agnes was waiting for me," he says at last. "I gazed into her empty eyes, and the happiest day of my life turned into the saddest. Agnes had given her soul to buy me back, you see. I still love her, of course. And she loves me. In her own way..."
- ↑ For All the Saints Who From Their Labours Rest, Fallen London "The Lamentations of the Violet" "The Scarlet Condottiere leads you towards a gorge carved into the fields. Smoke rises up from it in lazy plumes. Violet flowers speckle the rock, like the start of a rash. The Condottiere advises that you keep to the left, away from the smoke."
- ↑ For All the Saints Who From Their Labours Rest, Fallen London "This gorge is one of Hell's best defences. It marks the approach to London. In the war, Hell funnelled London's forces through the gorge, where they could be disposed of at leisure."
- ↑ "The first salvo. Morale is high in the ranks. The Sergeant Major sounds the bugle, and it is up and over. When you reach the top, you –"
- ↑ Hold back, Fallen London "The devils do not die. They rise, and rise again. Stronger. Or else the law furnaces belch their hateful acrid, and so may they never die. At the battle's end, your battalion is at a third strength. The policy of attrition is not revised."
- ↑ For All the Saints Who From Their Labours Rest, Fallen London "Deep trenches are gouged into the ground. Abandoned siege weapons are mired in the ruined earth. Roses, red as wine, bloom across the scarred ground."
- ↑ For All the Saints Who From Their Labours Rest, Fallen London "The Fields of Roses" "Rusting machinery dots the scarred landscape, ruined by the troop movements: the raising and toppling of defences; the casting down of commanders. Here and there, roses rise from the earth: red as open wounds."
- ↑ The Remembrance of the Rose, Fallen London "Hell's enemies – and your allies – the Brazen Brigade are at your side."
- ↑ The Laws of the Game, Fallen London "It was New Year's Day, as far as they could keep the calendars making sense. The game started as normal – the soldiers often played football to keep themselves busy between sorties – but a half-hour in they realised that there were more players than there should be. They wore the faces of friends they thought lost."
- ↑ The Laws of the Game, Fallen London "They were lost soldiers of the regiment, released by the devils to play one game. Perhaps it was meant as some kind of indecipherable olive branch, but more likely it was meant to harm the soldier's morale. Apparently they had to fix up the rules to account for uncanny infernal tricks: searing sigils and the wax that poured from former comrades, that sort of thing."
- ↑ For All the Saints Who From Their Labours Rest, Fallen London "Battered armaments litter the tops of the trenches; cannon here, a chain-gun there; a single benighted Cotterell & Hathersage 'Discouragement', poking forlornly from the mire. When London's forces ran out of ammunition, they turned to antique weaponry: the trebuchet, the mangonel, the sling."
- ↑ "Elsewhere, you can find the detritus of Hell's weaponry. A slumbering Utterance, never committed. The incandescent aftereffects of a Brazen Doctrine, still exuding perfume; the still-smouldering bulk of a War-Furnace; decreeing death, torpor and desertion."
- ↑ For All the Saints Who From Their Labours Rest, Fallen London "A gibbet stands above the command trenches; three bodies still hang. They have been preserved: an edict from the Law Furnaces. They are handsome youths in regimental dress; their eyes closed as though sleeping. But for the livid marks on their necks, they might be."
- ↑ For All the Saints Who From Their Labours Rest, Fallen London "Pictures of old sweethearts hang on rose-mortared walls. Corpses lie together, their hands entwined, their fingers bound by blackened roses. The command trenches bear witness to frenzied anarchy; knives in the back of uniformed officers, victims of a mounted Ordinance."
- ↑ For All the Saints Who From Their Labours Rest, Fallen London "The trenches are clogged with the thrown down weaponry of failed battalions. You find letters in the command trenches; maudlin poetry, last-minute wills. Bodies strewn with roses hamper your path."
- ↑ A Crown of Thorns, Fallen London "Alone, you crawl up an outcrop and fumble for your field-glasses. You watch helplessly as devils storm the glowing trenches, and herd the rest of the platoon into cages. This is your doing."
- ↑ For All the Saints Who From Their Labours Rest, Fallen London "The corpses here are human, but riddled with bullet-holes. No roses bind them. These were deserters, who tried to flee and were gunned down by their sergeants. Some were fleeing east towards London; others, lost, ran in the direction of Hell. Amongst the wreckage, you find evidence of mounted cavalry: hoof-prints in the dirt. Hell's chargers, come to shepherd the fleeing soldiers through Hell's gates."
- ↑ Remnants of the war, Fallen London "You examine regimental diaries and talk to historians. Few of the old soldiers from the ill-fated campaign of '68 are still in the Neath. [...] A few themes recur in the stories you do hear: slave-rowed triremes, fields of burning roses, a vast and pitiless bureaucracy. A throne that stands in the shadow of a gallows."
- ↑ Stay at your post, Fallen London "The Gospel of the Thorn 6:75. The boy found Hell not as expected. There was much he did not expect. He was welcomed to each district in time, and at the last, he was asked what he would like to be. There was only one possible answer. There only ever is."
- ↑ Build the station at Moulin, Fallen London "Far west, there is a muddy battlefield where London fought Hell, and lost. Within that battlefield lies a hamlet."
- ↑ A Hamlet, Fallen London "[...] You find no business of note, and little cause for human habitation, other than a cramped shop selling antiques. On the window, a sign proclaims the sale of Souvenirs & Mementos of the Campaign of ‘68."
- ↑ Carefully cross the fence, Fallen London "The Moulin Waste saw the worse of the ordnance of Hell. There are particularities to this place."
- ↑ "The Thorned Manservant raises his fingertips to a flower budding above his ear. He twists it off, and blood drops from the stalk onto his shirt. "It's a war wound, from '68. I try not to complain. Some of the stories I've heard in this room – well, let's just say I got off lightly." [...]"
- ↑ "At last, the cloth is away, and you can see the flesh exposed. His chest looks as though it has been tattooed from the inside. Except — except the tattoo is moving, and grows out from the bone. Thorns poke upwards out of the flesh. Roses bloom across the exposed chest, which bleeds incessantly. The man is entirely perforated."
- ↑ Submit your prisoner to the ministrations of Hell, Fallen London "The Grey Man has feared these walls for decades, even though he has existed (in this form) only for a few months. He whimpers as you get closer. He asks you to relent. London came this direction in '68, and it was sorry, very sorry, to have done so."
- ↑ The Brass Grail (Story), Fallen London "I was newly ordained back then. The army was in dire need of chaplains for the campaign and so I accepted a commission."
- ↑ The Brass Grail (Story), Fallen London "I saw a rose that I thought Mi... it doesn't matter why, but I picked it. The d_____ thing burst into flames and seared my arm! If only I'd kept quiet! But I was weak and I cried out and gave us away. The whole troop was captured."
- ↑ The Brass Grail (Story), Fallen London "All I knew at the time was that it would allow me to leave with my soul. That such a craven should rise to the mitre..."
- ↑ A Crown of Thorns, Fallen London "My memories hurt far worse than these do," says the Thorned Manservant, pointing at the barbs that rupture his scalp. "I thought sharing them with other veterans might help, so I began hosting these meetings."
- ↑ A Crown of Thorns, Fallen London "Most Londoners can tell themselves they're nothing but pawns, left to fall where they may. But the son of the Traitor Empress can do no such thing. He is troubled, and he is doing something awful to bear it."
- ↑ Describe a Nicatorean Relic, Fallen London "Many veterans of the Campaign of '68 attest to having seen an unknown cavalry officer, eight feet tall and sat atop a massive war-horse, leading charges against the forces of Hell. What these soldiers do not know is that their description of this unknown 'Knight of the Forgotten Quarter' matches effigies found on Elder Continent coins struck around the year 500 A.D..."
| |
