The last ten years have transformed the eastern border of Drachenburg from a quiet, jagged mountain pass into a theater of cold attrition and sudden violence. This conflict is driven by the Hesan doctrine of Erbbruch—the belief that Drachenburg's independence is a "fracture of legacy" that threatens the cosmic order.
Ten years ago, Emperor Isen IV’of Hesa's decree that "expansion is destiny" trickled down to his northern provinces. @Lord Adalwin Fluchtrager, seated in the storm-swept northeastern reaches of the Hesan Empire, interpreted Drachenburg’s refusal to kneel not as stubbornness, but as a theological glitch in the world.
The Trade Choke: Rather than a direct assault, Adalwin began by strangling the trade routes moving through the Beslicherwec and the eastern passes. Hesan "bandits"—actually unmarked soldiers of the War Covenant—began harassing caravans in The Last Mark.
The Drachenburg Response: Lugal Torsten Hrolf of Eastborough mobilized the "Iron Tithe." Production in the Wyrmhearth increased, and the Stone Guard began aggressive patrols, turning the buffer zone into a graveyard for smugglers and spies.
(Character note: @Sir Alaric Rochefort, scion of the far afield southern Haus Rochefort, was among the Hesan forces during this siege. This was one his first assignments in his military career, sent there at the insistence of @Lord Otto Rochefort in an effort to harden his son. Sir Alaric later took part in the successful taking of Alendria as a commander, only to defect into the western kingdoms with Alendria's princess.)
Six years ago, the tension snapped. Under pressure to correct the "Drachenburg Dissonance" before his own house was declared in Erbbruch, Lord Adalwin launched a formal siege.
The Approach: The Hesan legions advanced through the morning mist, their discipline unmatched. They did not charge the walls; they established a blockade line just outside the range of Drachenburg's scorpions, intending to starve the city.
The Stalemate: The Hesan strategy underestimated Drachenburg’s preparation. The Deep-Keep Granaries beneath Trachenwacht held enough food for a decade. Inside the walls, the "Stone Arteries" allowed defenders to rotate troops and ammunition without ever exposing themselves to Hesan archers.
The Slag-River: When a Hesan sapping team attempted to undermine the East Gate under cover of night, the foundries of Eastborough engaged the defense system. Ceramic-lined chutes opened, and a river of molten iron slag was poured down the cliffside, incinerating the siege engines and fusing the sapping tunnels with solid iron.
The Withdrawal: The siege lasted through a brutal winter. The Hesan supply lines, stretching back to the empire, froze and shattered. Realizing the city could not be starved or battered into submission from the difficult terrain of the Last Mark, Lord Adalwin ordered a disciplined, sullen retreat.
The retreat was not total. In a move of strategic brilliance, Adalwin refused to cede the Last Mark entirely.
The Dead Angle: Hesan surveyors identified "The Broken Tooth," a ruined watchtower in a deep ravine barely three miles from the East Gate. It sat in a "dead angle" where Drachenburg’s ballistae and scorpions could not depress their aim low enough to strike.
@Vorposten Rothelm (Hesan Outpost) Established: Over a single month, Hesan engineers fortified the ruin into a subterranean bunker. It became a permanent thorn in Drachenburg’s side—a military hardpoint that the city could only remove by sallying out of their walls, a maneuver that violates the Stone Guard’s doctrine of "Immovability".
For the last three years, the war has shifted from siege engines to psychology and espionage.,
The Terror of the Mark: @Lady Charlotte Fluchtrager took command of the forward operations at Rothelm. She began a campaign of psychological terror, leaving Hesan banners and omens deep inside the buffer zone to prove to the Stone Guard that they are never safe.,
The Silk Assault: While Charlotte threatened the walls, @Konrad Fluchtrager infiltrated the city’s social elite. Masquerading as a soft intellectual, he has spent the last three years charmed secrets out of the drunken aristocracy in Westborough and Mediborough, searching for the "loose thread" that will unravel the city from within.,
Current Status: The Eastern Front is a powder keg. Vorposten Rothelm remains impregnable to artillery, the Last Mark is a no-man's-land of daily skirmishes, and the Emperor’s patience with Haus Fluchtrager is running out.