First AAR here, hope it's not too long. Written in a narrative style alternating between memoir and third-person omnipotent narrative. Memoirs will be written with an approximation regarding traits and Martial, Charisma, and Finesse. Okay, here goes.
First memoir: Kuji Savacid (4 Martial, 4 Charisma, 4 Finesse: Benefactor, Shrewd, Loving.)
These are, henceforth, the memoirs of Kuji Savacid, the Chief of the Tribe of Colchis for twenty-eight years, Conqueror of the Kingdom of Bosporus, Defender of the Kingdom of Armenia, Benefactor to the People of Colchis, Defiant to the Seleucids. . .
. . . And father to three children, whom I shall never see again.
From the first day of my reign, I fought to create out of our tribe something larger, something greater than a mere parcel of land on the coast of a sea. To our North there were bothersome Greeks, but a helpful tribe in the Rhoxolani. To our West, Pontus, another bothersome kingdom of Greeks. To our South, the Kingdom of Armenia -- people like us, who no longer believed in the spirits of the land -- and the Empire of Seleucia, the most bothersome of the Greeks, and the most dangerous. It was they that were my undoing.
Before the story of my downfall must come the story of my reign: twenty-eight years I led our tribe to lands far beyond our borders, and I expanded them thusly. I began my reign with change, stating to the council, the clans, and their heads, that men shall solve their disputes amongst each other: men must be left to their own business by their tribe, or else they shall rebel and destroy the tribe from within. Soon after I married my long-betrothed Rinu: perhaps insane, but loving and kindly and honest. From her came my three children, Mandone, Artavazd, and Barsine: if not the tribe as my legacy, then let my children be it.
By the eighth month of my reign, I had brought our standing men from 2,000 to 10,000 -- an act still disputed by some of the tribe -- and separated them into two warbands. The first of 4,000 was led by Astaspha Deiocid, capable and charismatic, both humble and assertive: a man of paradoxes. The second of 6,000 was given to Arasces Vardanide, the most capable of our commanders, light on the arts of speech and management -- perhaps even random -- yet loyal to the spirits and to his men. This man, however trusted and gifted he was by the spirits and me, would later take the tribe by force. My dictum, given at the beginning of my reign, later proved to be my downfall.
After a year and three months of my reign, we declared war with Bosporus over disputes of territory and unscrupulous sabotage of their leadership. Having known of their alliance with Pontus, I instructed Arasces to hold the Southern border with his force of 6,000; Astaspha took his 4,000 and marched on the Bosporan Greeks, while the horsemen of Rhoxolani came at our bequest. Within the next four months, Phanagoria was the site of several victories by Astaspha’s men, while we waited for a Pontus that was, seemingly, unaware of their ally’s strife to the north.
On the twentieth day of the seventh month, Armenia took Iberia, consolidating the tribe into their growing empire. We found it fit to begin diplomacy with the ever-growing nation. Perhaps because of this, in the eighth month we found ourselves resorting to unsavory methods to fill our treasury, with the war slowly draining it: an investment that would later come to fruition.
Over the next year and a half, to the beginning of the third year of my reign, victories were won by Astaspha in Bosporus. With my efforts recognized within the tribe because of his actions, the people felt more secure and blessed by the spirits, and joined together in greater numbers in support of the war. On the twenty-seventh day of the first month, Astaspha destroyed the Bosporan army at Maeotae, several months later he destroyed the second army they fielded at Phanagoria, and the rest of their forces at Panticipaeum in the second half of the year. With these victories, and all of Bosporus claimed by either us or the Rhoxolani, the Bosporans ceded peace to us: we gained Maeotae and Panticipaeum, while our allies to the North won Tanais.
At this, the fourth year of my reign, I found myself more open and receptive to people than ever before: I had become loving of the human spirit, of my people. Perhaps, because of this, the first nine months of the year found Panticipaeum and Maeotae joining our culture, and willing to provide men to fight our wars. These men, however, came too late: in the same month, we were again forced to unsavory methods to raise money for an army for a coming defensive against Pontus -- diplomacy had been failing, and our agreed truce was running out -- and, through this, our people lost faith in our tribe.
In the fourth month of the fifth year of my reign, war erupted between us and the Rhoxolani, and the Bosporans and Pontians. We began to require reports from our armies on the field, in the fashion of those kingdoms below and above us, and the first victory in the next month involved Arasces with his 14,000 men: he lost 860, while devastating the Pontian forces of 10024 with a loss of men that numbered to 4908. Arasces carried the march forward into the next month, and on the thirtieth day arrived to defeat the Pontians again in Trapezus, losing 1585 of our men to their 4908, their numbers at 16576, with ours at 13164. In four months, Arasces had taken Trapezus, and held it as a choke against the Pontians. In the same month, he won an astounding victory against the Pontians, taking 9746 of their 17268 men to our 431. Two months later, we won two more victories: Astaspha destroyed the Bosporan army at Maeotae, and Arasces devastating the Pontian army of 5604, killing 3034 of their men, on the twenty-eighth day. In the second month of my sixth year, Astaspha had forced the Bosporans to cede all their lands by Phanagoria, and to cede a percentage of their treasury per month. Three weeks later, Arasces won a battle at Amismus, destroying the Pontian army.
Artaspha marched down to Pontus in order to consolidate Trapezus, defeating the Pontians twice in the two months following his march. The next month, that being the tenth, Arasces took Amismus. Arasces, the next month, in Paphlagonia, defeated a force of 8000 men fielded by the Pontians, killing 2650 of them to his 42. The next three months saw another series of victories in Paphlagonia, until our losses were so great that internal pressures forced us to end the war in exchange for the Pontian lands of Trapezus on the ninth day of the second month. These negotiations gave me a shrewdness that I had not before.
In the fourteenth year of my reign, the spirits twice blessed us with a people united. In the tenth month, Astaspha, due to a wound, was relieved from his duties and placed into my personal guard. The command of his army fell to Vonones Savacid, of my family, a capable leader -- if brash and unorganized -- with a strange cunning to his speech that never belied his amibitions. Ambitions which he had many.
The next five years saw us at the most stable and prosperous we had been, but leaders within the tribe were divided among taking the lands of Meskheti to the south, or consolidating more of Pontus into our territory. In our diplomacy with the Armenians, we had provided them a guarantee that we would help them maintain their independence, and made it so both our nations could march men across each other. With an army beginning to be fielded in the fifth year of the peace, we fell into debt, once again needing to breach our values in order to refill our treasury. Our people’s faith in the tribe diminished, but it survived. For the next four years, peace would endure.
In the third month of the nineteenth year of my reign, the Great Peace ended: the Seleucid Greeks to the south had declared war on the Kingdom of Armenia. Due to our obligations, we also declared war on the Seleucids, bringing our Pontian enemies back to the front to fight. With war erupting between our four nations, we expected the Rhoxolani to meet their obligations to fight with us: they, in a display of unusual cowardice, declined. We were alone with Armenia, with whom we still were not comfortable, in fighting the Greeks.
Over the next sixth months, we lost Phasis, Panticipaeum, and Trapezus. Arasces and Vonones fought bravely at Soani, defeating a small Seleucid task force. Four days after this defeat, in the eighth month, the Seleucids offered us peace in exchange for several territories. Hard-fought territories, which we had gained with sweat and blood, would not be given to the Seleucids. People lost faith in our actions, but we would redeem ourselves toward the end of the year.
In the twelfth month, Arasces and Vonones defeated a Pontic-Seleucid force of 30,000 at Phasis: between the two of them, tey lost 543 men of their 19000. Four weeks later, another victory was won at Phasis. In the next month, the first month of my twentieth year, they again won against the Seleucids in Phasis: 4193 of our 18000 lost against their 6000 17000. In the next month, we took back Maeotae, and four days later all the capable Eastern States were now at war with each other: us with the Armenian and Rhoxolani, with the Greeks against us.
In the fourth month, we again lost Phasis, but two days later won a devastating victory against the Seleucid Greeks under the newly consolidated army under Arasces. He lost 805 of 14000 men while killing 3600 of their 15000. The next month saw another victory at Soani, 174 of his 14000 killed while 2600 of their 10000 were defeated. A string of victories at Soani over the next two months saw our forces fall from 14000 to 13000, but a force of at least 30000 Greeks had been diminished by 10000. In the last month of the year, we won another victory of Soani: destroying a Seleucid Greek army with a loss of 293 men.
The next year saw Armenia making headway in the Seleucid’s territory, while Rhoxolani lent us aid at a siege in Maeotae. Coraxi was under siege, but Arasces’ army rapidly approached Coraxi. Pontus had laid back, either regrouping or deserting from the war. In the fourth month, Rhoxolani ceded their lands of Rhoxolani to the Seleucids for peace.
In the sixth month of my twenty-first year, we defeated a Pontian force at Phasis, losing 2400 men of our 13500 man force to their 5500 of 25000. Again a victory at Phasis two months later, with them killing 358 of our 9500 men, and Arasces’ men killing 3400 of their 18000. The next three months saw two victories at Phasis, and another at Zinchi: we lost around 3000 while the Greeks lost 8000.
In the first month of my twenty-second year, we won another battle at Phasis, destroying the Seleucid Greeks’ Fourth Stratos. The next month, we won another victory, at Trapezus, losing almost all of our force against their 25500 army. At this, we could no longer fight. Two days later, I ceded Trapezus and a large tribute to the Greeks in return for peace. The War of the Eastern States was over, and I would now lose not only territory, but a trusted officer.
The first day of the sixth month saw civil war erupt, as Arasces took his army and claimed chiefdom of the tribe for himself. Rapidly, he took Phasis. In the ninth month of my twenty-second year, Armenia ceded their territories of Sophene, Meskheti, Gelae, and Armenia, and a large sum of gold for peace with the Greeks. In the fourth month of my twenty-third year, we lost Coraxi to the rebels. The first month of my twenty-fifth year, Maeotae. Separated from the rebels, in Panticipaeum, I waited for my work to collapse around me, betrayed by a trusted man of the tribe for my own assault against his honor, misunderstood by him that my prudence was a limitation of glory, and finally the tribe fell to his rule in the twenty-eighth year of my reign, in the seventh month.
Despite my reign, despite my expansion, consolidation, and reforms, despite my devotion to the spirits and to my family and to my people, I now sit lonely in exile. This world is not meant for the peaceful, or for the loving, or for the giving and generous. It is full of war, to our south, and north, and east, and west, it is full of the horrors of war. Women screaming for their sons and husbands, crops burned, armies marching, and lands lost. Perhaps it is best that I shall go to the spirits so soon after my life has begun. Perhaps it is best I no longer lead at the head of my tribe. Perhaps…but perhaps cannot change history.
First memoir: Kuji Savacid (4 Martial, 4 Charisma, 4 Finesse: Benefactor, Shrewd, Loving.)
The Reign of Kuji Savacid
280 B.C. - 252 B.C.
280 B.C. - 252 B.C.
Reform and Growth
These are, henceforth, the memoirs of Kuji Savacid, the Chief of the Tribe of Colchis for twenty-eight years, Conqueror of the Kingdom of Bosporus, Defender of the Kingdom of Armenia, Benefactor to the People of Colchis, Defiant to the Seleucids. . .
. . . And father to three children, whom I shall never see again.
From the first day of my reign, I fought to create out of our tribe something larger, something greater than a mere parcel of land on the coast of a sea. To our North there were bothersome Greeks, but a helpful tribe in the Rhoxolani. To our West, Pontus, another bothersome kingdom of Greeks. To our South, the Kingdom of Armenia -- people like us, who no longer believed in the spirits of the land -- and the Empire of Seleucia, the most bothersome of the Greeks, and the most dangerous. It was they that were my undoing.
Before the story of my downfall must come the story of my reign: twenty-eight years I led our tribe to lands far beyond our borders, and I expanded them thusly. I began my reign with change, stating to the council, the clans, and their heads, that men shall solve their disputes amongst each other: men must be left to their own business by their tribe, or else they shall rebel and destroy the tribe from within. Soon after I married my long-betrothed Rinu: perhaps insane, but loving and kindly and honest. From her came my three children, Mandone, Artavazd, and Barsine: if not the tribe as my legacy, then let my children be it.
By the eighth month of my reign, I had brought our standing men from 2,000 to 10,000 -- an act still disputed by some of the tribe -- and separated them into two warbands. The first of 4,000 was led by Astaspha Deiocid, capable and charismatic, both humble and assertive: a man of paradoxes. The second of 6,000 was given to Arasces Vardanide, the most capable of our commanders, light on the arts of speech and management -- perhaps even random -- yet loyal to the spirits and to his men. This man, however trusted and gifted he was by the spirits and me, would later take the tribe by force. My dictum, given at the beginning of my reign, later proved to be my downfall.
First Bosporan-Pontic War
After a year and three months of my reign, we declared war with Bosporus over disputes of territory and unscrupulous sabotage of their leadership. Having known of their alliance with Pontus, I instructed Arasces to hold the Southern border with his force of 6,000; Astaspha took his 4,000 and marched on the Bosporan Greeks, while the horsemen of Rhoxolani came at our bequest. Within the next four months, Phanagoria was the site of several victories by Astaspha’s men, while we waited for a Pontus that was, seemingly, unaware of their ally’s strife to the north.
On the twentieth day of the seventh month, Armenia took Iberia, consolidating the tribe into their growing empire. We found it fit to begin diplomacy with the ever-growing nation. Perhaps because of this, in the eighth month we found ourselves resorting to unsavory methods to fill our treasury, with the war slowly draining it: an investment that would later come to fruition.
Over the next year and a half, to the beginning of the third year of my reign, victories were won by Astaspha in Bosporus. With my efforts recognized within the tribe because of his actions, the people felt more secure and blessed by the spirits, and joined together in greater numbers in support of the war. On the twenty-seventh day of the first month, Astaspha destroyed the Bosporan army at Maeotae, several months later he destroyed the second army they fielded at Phanagoria, and the rest of their forces at Panticipaeum in the second half of the year. With these victories, and all of Bosporus claimed by either us or the Rhoxolani, the Bosporans ceded peace to us: we gained Maeotae and Panticipaeum, while our allies to the North won Tanais.
Consolidation and Preparation
At this, the fourth year of my reign, I found myself more open and receptive to people than ever before: I had become loving of the human spirit, of my people. Perhaps, because of this, the first nine months of the year found Panticipaeum and Maeotae joining our culture, and willing to provide men to fight our wars. These men, however, came too late: in the same month, we were again forced to unsavory methods to raise money for an army for a coming defensive against Pontus -- diplomacy had been failing, and our agreed truce was running out -- and, through this, our people lost faith in our tribe.
Second Bosporan-Pontic War
In the fourth month of the fifth year of my reign, war erupted between us and the Rhoxolani, and the Bosporans and Pontians. We began to require reports from our armies on the field, in the fashion of those kingdoms below and above us, and the first victory in the next month involved Arasces with his 14,000 men: he lost 860, while devastating the Pontian forces of 10024 with a loss of men that numbered to 4908. Arasces carried the march forward into the next month, and on the thirtieth day arrived to defeat the Pontians again in Trapezus, losing 1585 of our men to their 4908, their numbers at 16576, with ours at 13164. In four months, Arasces had taken Trapezus, and held it as a choke against the Pontians. In the same month, he won an astounding victory against the Pontians, taking 9746 of their 17268 men to our 431. Two months later, we won two more victories: Astaspha destroyed the Bosporan army at Maeotae, and Arasces devastating the Pontian army of 5604, killing 3034 of their men, on the twenty-eighth day. In the second month of my sixth year, Astaspha had forced the Bosporans to cede all their lands by Phanagoria, and to cede a percentage of their treasury per month. Three weeks later, Arasces won a battle at Amismus, destroying the Pontian army.
Artaspha marched down to Pontus in order to consolidate Trapezus, defeating the Pontians twice in the two months following his march. The next month, that being the tenth, Arasces took Amismus. Arasces, the next month, in Paphlagonia, defeated a force of 8000 men fielded by the Pontians, killing 2650 of them to his 42. The next three months saw another series of victories in Paphlagonia, until our losses were so great that internal pressures forced us to end the war in exchange for the Pontian lands of Trapezus on the ninth day of the second month. These negotiations gave me a shrewdness that I had not before.
The Great Peace
In the fourteenth year of my reign, the spirits twice blessed us with a people united. In the tenth month, Astaspha, due to a wound, was relieved from his duties and placed into my personal guard. The command of his army fell to Vonones Savacid, of my family, a capable leader -- if brash and unorganized -- with a strange cunning to his speech that never belied his amibitions. Ambitions which he had many.
The next five years saw us at the most stable and prosperous we had been, but leaders within the tribe were divided among taking the lands of Meskheti to the south, or consolidating more of Pontus into our territory. In our diplomacy with the Armenians, we had provided them a guarantee that we would help them maintain their independence, and made it so both our nations could march men across each other. With an army beginning to be fielded in the fifth year of the peace, we fell into debt, once again needing to breach our values in order to refill our treasury. Our people’s faith in the tribe diminished, but it survived. For the next four years, peace would endure.
War of the Eastern States
In the third month of the nineteenth year of my reign, the Great Peace ended: the Seleucid Greeks to the south had declared war on the Kingdom of Armenia. Due to our obligations, we also declared war on the Seleucids, bringing our Pontian enemies back to the front to fight. With war erupting between our four nations, we expected the Rhoxolani to meet their obligations to fight with us: they, in a display of unusual cowardice, declined. We were alone with Armenia, with whom we still were not comfortable, in fighting the Greeks.
Over the next sixth months, we lost Phasis, Panticipaeum, and Trapezus. Arasces and Vonones fought bravely at Soani, defeating a small Seleucid task force. Four days after this defeat, in the eighth month, the Seleucids offered us peace in exchange for several territories. Hard-fought territories, which we had gained with sweat and blood, would not be given to the Seleucids. People lost faith in our actions, but we would redeem ourselves toward the end of the year.
In the twelfth month, Arasces and Vonones defeated a Pontic-Seleucid force of 30,000 at Phasis: between the two of them, tey lost 543 men of their 19000. Four weeks later, another victory was won at Phasis. In the next month, the first month of my twentieth year, they again won against the Seleucids in Phasis: 4193 of our 18000 lost against their 6000 17000. In the next month, we took back Maeotae, and four days later all the capable Eastern States were now at war with each other: us with the Armenian and Rhoxolani, with the Greeks against us.
In the fourth month, we again lost Phasis, but two days later won a devastating victory against the Seleucid Greeks under the newly consolidated army under Arasces. He lost 805 of 14000 men while killing 3600 of their 15000. The next month saw another victory at Soani, 174 of his 14000 killed while 2600 of their 10000 were defeated. A string of victories at Soani over the next two months saw our forces fall from 14000 to 13000, but a force of at least 30000 Greeks had been diminished by 10000. In the last month of the year, we won another victory of Soani: destroying a Seleucid Greek army with a loss of 293 men.
The next year saw Armenia making headway in the Seleucid’s territory, while Rhoxolani lent us aid at a siege in Maeotae. Coraxi was under siege, but Arasces’ army rapidly approached Coraxi. Pontus had laid back, either regrouping or deserting from the war. In the fourth month, Rhoxolani ceded their lands of Rhoxolani to the Seleucids for peace.
In the sixth month of my twenty-first year, we defeated a Pontian force at Phasis, losing 2400 men of our 13500 man force to their 5500 of 25000. Again a victory at Phasis two months later, with them killing 358 of our 9500 men, and Arasces’ men killing 3400 of their 18000. The next three months saw two victories at Phasis, and another at Zinchi: we lost around 3000 while the Greeks lost 8000.
In the first month of my twenty-second year, we won another battle at Phasis, destroying the Seleucid Greeks’ Fourth Stratos. The next month, we won another victory, at Trapezus, losing almost all of our force against their 25500 army. At this, we could no longer fight. Two days later, I ceded Trapezus and a large tribute to the Greeks in return for peace. The War of the Eastern States was over, and I would now lose not only territory, but a trusted officer.
Rebellion and Exile
The first day of the sixth month saw civil war erupt, as Arasces took his army and claimed chiefdom of the tribe for himself. Rapidly, he took Phasis. In the ninth month of my twenty-second year, Armenia ceded their territories of Sophene, Meskheti, Gelae, and Armenia, and a large sum of gold for peace with the Greeks. In the fourth month of my twenty-third year, we lost Coraxi to the rebels. The first month of my twenty-fifth year, Maeotae. Separated from the rebels, in Panticipaeum, I waited for my work to collapse around me, betrayed by a trusted man of the tribe for my own assault against his honor, misunderstood by him that my prudence was a limitation of glory, and finally the tribe fell to his rule in the twenty-eighth year of my reign, in the seventh month.
Despite my reign, despite my expansion, consolidation, and reforms, despite my devotion to the spirits and to my family and to my people, I now sit lonely in exile. This world is not meant for the peaceful, or for the loving, or for the giving and generous. It is full of war, to our south, and north, and east, and west, it is full of the horrors of war. Women screaming for their sons and husbands, crops burned, armies marching, and lands lost. Perhaps it is best that I shall go to the spirits so soon after my life has begun. Perhaps it is best I no longer lead at the head of my tribe. Perhaps…but perhaps cannot change history.
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The memoirs are an interesting take on events. I look forward to your next update. 
