"Retribution" is as ubiquitous a concept in tershere aristocrats' speech as "individual rights" is for nivharian ones.
With just 45.000 individuals, Tershelle-Val is the smallest city of The Steppes. Furthermore, it only belongs to The Steppes nominally, since it is actually located west in the mountain range that serves as a natural border with the protectorate of Malahs Kovoss.
With the New Court in Nivhar, the nivharian aristocracy continued to push for greater individual rights throughout The Steppes. There was nonetheless continuing resentment in Stallia and, to a lesser extent, Arrakans and Ill-Vess. These cities, or rather, the population that remained in them, grudgingly followed in on the new capital's steps, achieving a reluctant but significant spectrum of individual freedoms not unlike those of Nivhar
Given the increasing prosperity of The Steppes as a whole, however, not only beastfolk bandits, but also refugees were now starting to flock on the frontiers. Beastfolk are modified humans, so they were never technically excluded from the universal human rights heralded by the nivharian aristocracy, but this was a bone of contempt for reactionary aristocrats and the population that suffered the worst in the hands of beastfolk bandits.
As soon as beastfolk refugees, lifelong survivalists, wanderers and opportunist, started to pour into The Steppes, cultural conflict started to develop with the more law-abiding, sedentary inhabitants of The Steppes. These refugees' apparent inability to adapt to society and reject violence did nothing but to aggravate the problem.
The hard-working, no-nonsense stallians clashed particularly hard with the beastfolk refugees, especially as they proved unwilling to work in the tenant farming system. Rather ironically, the by now completely unmodified humans inhabiting Arrakans, themselves descendants of beastfolk, also clashed hard against the new refugees. Almost as unruly as the refugees themselves, arrakensis citizens have always defined themselves as the most loyal to The Court and were simply unable to stand for what they perceived as parasitism on the part of the new refugees.
The main cultural problem was that beastfolk vagrants had by then developed a deeply opportunistic behaviour, a behaviour they absolutely needed in order to survive in the jungles. For them, lone young men and women were easy chances to mate, stray pets and children were an easy protein intake, and anything that wasn't nailed to the floor in the streets or backyards was potentially useful furniture or construction material. Entire native collectives eventually became radicalized by these continuing offences and prone to violent organized responses in the form of vigilante posses.
But the worst was yet to come. The refugee problem truly threatened to overwhelm The Court as literally millions of beastfolk gathered ever closer to the frontiers of The Steppes following the favourable reports being spread by beastfolk bandits, smugglers and refugees alike.
This was the ultimate nightmare for the reactionary aristocracy of Stallia and Arrakans and a sticky situation for everybody else. The Steppes, with less than a million inhabitants, was simply unable to support, defend or police such a population of starving, warring and unruly individuals. This time, not even a tenant system would suffice, as the land itself was unable to yield enough food to sustain such a large population, even supposing they would all choose to peacefully adapt and cooperate.
These refugees, however, were still human and were entitled to protection and nourishment by The Court of All Humans, so there was no easy way out of this a situation.
While most of The Court and the aristocracy argued, the reactionary elements of the stallian and arrakensis aristocracy snapped, seized a large part of their cities' military, and went rogue.
Soon before the first reports reached The Court, a large section of the stallian and arrakensis military had launched a punitive, two-pronged attack westwards into the protectorate of Malahs Kovoss. Arrakensis ships climbed the Arrakans river while a stallian army swept the border southwards in order to drive both refugees and bandits away from The Steppes. Both armies agreed to employ the most ruthless means possible in order to leave as long a lasting mark on the beastfolk psyche as possible.
The remaining aristocracy was dumbstruck, outraged and furious at such an unilateral, murderous and potentially calamitous action. All forces on The Steppes were immediately mobilized in order to hunt down the rebels and defend the borders against the very likely retaliation of the mayor beastfolk clans.
Ill-Vess and the remaining forces of Arrakans sent vessels and troops to chase the arrakensis rebels upriver. Navigation was, however, nearly impossible at some points because of clogs created by piled corpses and old ships purposely scuttled in order to hinder pursuers. Southwards, Nivhar and Stallia put up a combined land force to search and confront the stallian rebels. The rebels left behind a similar trail of burning encampments and mass graves.
The 5.000 surviving stallian rebels out of the initial 15.000 were eventually located entrenched in the formidably fortified encampment of a beastfolk clan after liberating and recruiting over 20.000 human slaves eager to take arms in what they called "The Retribution War". An uncomfortable siege by the nivharian-stallian forces, which were forbidden to shell the emplacement, ensued.
Up north, after grueling months of scuttled wreckage removal, the veshite-arrakensis fleet and ground forces finally caught up with the rebel arrakensis fleet in a large lake next to a shore encampment. The arrakensis rebels seemed to have lost many vessels but suffered few loses, with at least 20.000 weary, ragged individuals inhabiting the encampment.
At that moment, the loyalist arrakensis fleet, ignoring all orders from their much more numerous veshite counterparts, advanced upon the encampment. Only 32 gunshots in quick succession were heard coming from the camp. The arrakensis fleet wavered, but it did not return fire. When the loyalist captains, lifelong acquaintances and friends of the rebel captains, resumed their advance and descended into the camp demanding an explanation, as observers on board the veshite vessels report, they openly wept.
It was then learned that the arrakensis rebel attack, claiming to be over 15.000 strong, was actually the bluff of just over 3000 old fashioned pirates in the arrakensis navy. The last 32 surviving rebels had just committed suicide after confirming the approach of their comrades. The 20.000 remaining individuals were, here as well, all also former slaves recently liberated by the arrakensis rebels. The severely undermanned and over-supplied rebels' last mission was their safeguarding until the forces of the court inevitably arrived.
The 3000 original rebels had commandeered the supply-ladden ships, with nothing but skeleton crews. This ruse exploited the lack of serious arrakensis military censuses. The rebels hoped to train the liberated slaves into efficient sailors, but they didn't have the time nor the manpower after fevers and beastfolk attacks decimated them.
The siege of the fortified rebel stallian position, meanwhile, continued with great reluctance. The liberated slaves up the Arrakans river, learning of the news, were gradually transported at their own request into Nivhar.
Once in Nivhar, the survivors practically stormed The Court, demanding an end to the siege on their liberated brethren. The stomach-churning tales of beastfolk cruelty and slave exploitation had a profound impact on the psyche of both the aristocracy and, above all, the general public. It was known by then that captured humans were ruthlessly abused and traded as any other good by beastfolk bandits, but the reality was more serious than perhaps even the rebels expected.
At that point, it almost came as a sudden realization to many that the refugee problem, previously threatening to overwhelm The Steppes was, at least in the short term, resolved.
The initial attacks of the rebels are calculated to have taken the lives of between 10.000 and 20.000 beastfolk bandits and refugees. But what truly drove the beastfolk off the borders was the subsequent mobilization and deployment of the rest of the forces of The Steppes, which the clans believed to be a larger scale continuation of the first murderous attack.
As the rumours spread through the protectorate, the different bands and refugees fled convinced that these solders, like the first ones, were out to get them. The much feared beastfolk retaliation as well failed to materialize because of the lack of understanding and cooperation between the different beastfolk clans. But this unprecedented mobilization was costly and it consumed many valuable resources.
The liberated slaves, however, despite their meagre manpower, offered themselves to patrol the border and keep "the beastfolk menace" at bay. This was a concession The Court was not willing to make, but many of the former slaves still took up arms and succeeded in making their way into the fortified encampment in the mountains, still under siege by the nivharian-stallian forces.
Completely forbidden from harming these popular heroes, the loyalist nivharian-stallian forces ended up lifting the siege and returning home. More revengeful, liberated slaves gradually found their way into the fortified mountain city now known as Tershelle-Val to join their brethren and the few surviving stallian rebels.
Presently, the city is a militarized society composed of soldier-citizens that takes on the self-proclaimed role of protecting The Steppes from the beastfolk menace. The rebel stallian aristocrats represent the city in an ambiguous an unique situation, since Tershelle-Val is not technically recognized by The Court. Nonetheless, the sympathetic native stallian aristocracy, and to a lesser extent the arrakensis one, allow the tershere representatives to vote as stallians or arrakensis and regularly bestow merits upon them.
Tershelle-Val, despite its relative insignificance, is therefore currently the cause of the most heated arguments inside The Steppes, dividing the population into those strongly opposed and those strongly in favour of them and their ruthless ways.
These events took place a few years before the Anamnesis cycles started. To this day, there are still highly debated and contested signs that the much feared retaliation by the mayor beastfolk clans upon The Steppes is, after all, a matter of time.
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