The Branding

The Branding was an event that took place in the mid Upheaval period of Aellorah's history, in which the Kingdom of Derunadel invaded Gothir, attempting to expand their territory. The attack began in Guruma, where Derunadel attacked by sea, using their naval weapons to overwhelm the Ettinor, who had never been a seafaring people, and thus had no defense against it. After capturing Guruma, the Letheni moved inland, capturing villages along the way, until they came upon Ebondel.

In Ebondel, the Ettinor put up a much greater resistance, as the Letheni were out of their element, and fighting on unfamiliar terrain. Though the Ettinor lost many in this war, Derunadel lost many more, and called for a retreat. Heading west back towards Guruma, the Letheni employed a tactic which is still largely considered to be the most monstrous act committed during wartime. As they passed a small village, Derunadel took its citizens hostage. The Ettinor initially ignored this, advancing upon the Derunadel army, until the Letheni executed a large group of villagers. The Ettinor backed off, and the Letheni negotiated with the Ettinor that they would release the hostages if allowed to retreat to Guruma and to leave Gothir.

The Letheni of Derunadel did not keep their word, however, and shored up their defenses in Guruma, keeping the hostages. They publicly branded them in view of the Ettinor with a mark that means "trash" in the Letheni tongue. They then put the hostages to work in nearby mines, working many of the hostages to death under cruel working conditions. The Ettinor were enraged, but what the Letheni did next sealed their fate. After working the hostages to death, they carefully burned the bodies, cooking them with fruit in their mouths, before launching the bodies over the walls toward the Ettinor, many of whom were the hostages' families, with a note that read "EAT UP", referring to the Ettinor's cannibalistic practices.

The Ettinor retreated, mourning their dead, before contacting other tribes around Gothir, telling the tale of the Letheni's crimes, and uniting the many tribes of Gothir for the first time in many years. They returned to Guruma and sacked the city, showing the Letheni no quarter and savagely brutalizing them. When they were done, they kept about one thousand soldiers captive. They gathered them all in the steppes outside Guruma and ate half of the captive soldiers alive, forcing the others to watch. The remainder were subjected to the ancient Ettinor capital punishment of Sari'negol, in which the prisoners were killed, then soulbound, and their souls placed back into their bodies under the Soulbinders' control -- after which they were placed in individual holes, one hundred feet deep, completely alone, to rot in isolation for all eternity.