Redguards, History and Heroes                                   Destri Merlarg                                                                                                                                                     )	   T    K
    >    E     %  A*      Redguards  Their History and  Their Heroes       Notes on the Redguards, their history and their heroes.    This is a publishers proof of the initial draft of my book, "REDGUARDS, THEIR HISTORY AND THEIR HEROES".    The following is a collection of the tales, myths and history of the Redguards. Much of their history is shrouded in mystery and in the mists of time. It is hard to distinguish between myths, and real history.    Below are the first chapters of the draft by Destri Melarg   Author's note as translated into the Modern Tongue of Hammerfell: Frandar Hunding was born in 2356 in the old way of reckoning, in our  beloved deserts of the old land.  The traditional rule of emperors had been overthrown in 2012, and although each successive emperor remained the figurehead of the empire, his powers were very much reduced. Since that time, our people saw 300 years of almost  continuous civil war between the provincial lords, warrior monks and brigands, all fighting each other for land and power. Our people once  were artisans, poets, and scholars, but the ever evolving strife made the way the sword inevitable - the song of the blade through the air, through flesh and bone, its ring against armor: an answer to our prayers.    In the time of Lord Frandar the first Warrior Prince, lords called Yokeda built huge stone castles to protect themselves and their lands, and castle towns outside the walls begin to grow up. In 2245, however, Mansel Sesnit came to the fore. He became the Elden Yokeda, or military dictator, and for eight years succeeded in gaining control of almost the whole empire. When Sesnit was assassinated in 2253,a commoner took over the government. Randic Torn continued the work of unifying the Empire which Sesnit had begun, ruthlessly putting down any traces of insurrection. He revived the old gulf between the warriors - the sword singers - and the commoners by introducing restrictions on the wearing of swords. "Torn's Sword-hunt", as it was known, meant that only the singers were allowed to wear swords, which distinguished  them from the rest of the population.    Although Torn did much to settle the empire into its pre-strife ways, by the time of his death in 2373 internal disturbances still had not been  completely eliminated. Upon his death, civil war broke out in earnest; war that made the prior 300 year turmoil pale in comparison. It was in this period that Frandar Hunding grew up.    Hunding belonged to the sword-singers. This element of empire society grew from the desert artisans and was initially recruited from the young  sons and daughters of the high families.  They built the first temple to the unknown gods of War and build a training hall "The Hall of the Virtues  of War". Within a few generations the way of the sword - the song of the blade - had become their life. The people of the blade kept their poetry and artisanship in building beautiful swords woven with magic and powers from the unknown gods. The greatest among them became known as Ansei or "Saints of the Sword". Each of these began their  own training schools teaching their individual way of the sword. Those Ansei of the highest virtue wandered the country side engaging in battle,  righting wrongs, and seeking to end the strife.    To sum it up. Hunding, was a sword-singer, a master, no, a Master Ansei at a time when the peak of the strife was reborn out of the chaos of Torn's death. Many singers put up their swords and became artists, for the pull of the artisan heritage was strong; but others, like Hunding pursued the ideal of the warrior searching for enlightenment through the perilous paths of the Sword. Duels of revenge and tests of skill were common place, and fencing schools multiplied.    Frandar do Hunding Hel Ansei No Shira, or as he is commonly known Frandar Hunding, was born in the far desert marches in the province of High Desert. Hunding is the name of the High Desert region near where he was born. No Shira means noble person or person of noble birth and Hel Ansei is his title of Sword Sainthood.    Hunding's ancestors reach back to the beginning of recorded time in the high desert and were artisans and mystics, his grandfather was a retainer of the Elden Yokeda, Mansel Sesnit, and led many of the battles of unification prior to Sesnit's assassination.    When he was 14, Hunding's father died in the one of the many insurrections, and he was left to support his mother and four brothers. His prowess with the sword however, made his life both difficult and easy. Easy in that his services came in great demand as a guardian and escort. Hard in that his reputation preceded him, and many awaited their turn to face him in battle and gain instant fame through his defeat.    By the time Hunding was 30 he had fought and won more than 90 duels killing all his opponents. He became virtually invincible with the sword, gaining such skill and mastery that he finally stopped using the real swords created through the artisanship of his people and began using the Shehai or "way of the spirit sword".    All sword singers learn through their intense training and devotion to the gods of war and way of the sword, the forms of discipline that allow the  creation of the spirit sword.  This is a simple form of magic or mind mastery where by a image of a sword is formed from pure thought. The sword singer forms the sword by concentrating, and it takes shape in his  hand - usually a pale thing of light, misty and insubstantial, a thing of beauty perhaps, a symbol of devotion to the Way and the gods, but no weapon. However, those Ansei of the highest level and sensitivity and those with talent in magic, can at times of stress, form a spirit sword, the Shehai which is far more than light and air - it is an unstoppable weapon of great might, a weapon which can never be taken from the owner without also taking his mind.    The Shehai became Hunding's weapon, and with this he slew bands of brigands and wandering monsters than infested the land. Finally upon finishing his 90th duel, defeating the evil Lord Janic and his seven lich followers, he was satisfied that he was indeed invincible. Hunding then turned to formulating his philosophy of"the Way of the Sword". He wrote his Learnings down in the BOOK OF CIRCLES while living as a hermit in a cave in the mountains of high desert in his sixtieth year.    In that year Hunding having enlisted in the many battles of the empire, defeating all opponents, had thought himself ready for death and retired to his cave to capture his strategy and mystical visions to share with other Sword Singers. It was after his completion of the scroll of the Circle that the Singers found him composing his death poem and  preparing to join the gods of war in final rest.    At sixty he was a vigorous man, who thought himself through with life, but his people,the sword-singers needed him. They needed him as never before.   Torn's Sword Hunt, had separated the Singers from the common people, and the rise of the Last Emperor began the last great strife of the desert empire. The Emperor and his consort Elisa's final effort to wrest control of the empire from the people by  destroying the sword-singers. Hira vowed to search out every Singer with his Brigand army composed of Orcs and castoffs of the wars of the empire, and to scourge them from the face of the planet.    The Sword Singers were never a numerous people. The harsh desert kept the births few, and growing up in the unforgiving wastes eliminated all but those of iron spirit and will. Thus the final strife which became knows as the "War of the Singers" found the people of the sword unprepared and unready to join together their individually great skills into an army that could defend their homes and lives.    Frandar Hunding was sought out, his death poem interrupted, and unceremoniously command of the singers was thrust upon him.  To the unknown gods of war great thanks is owed that Hunding had the  time in his cave to write down his years of accumulated wisdom, of strategy, of the way of the Shehai. The singers fled from their camps up  into the desert hills and mountains. Fled to the foot of Hattu "the father of Mountains" where Hunding had gone to write in peace and to die,  and there these remnants formed into the Army of the Circle - they learned Hunding's Way, his strategies his tactics, and the final great  vision for a master stroke.    Hunding devised a plan of seven battles leading the Armies of Hira further and further into the wilderness to the foot of Hattu, where the final battle could be fought. Hunding called his plan the "Hammer and the Anvil". With each battle Hunding's Singers would further learn his strategies and tactics, grow strong in the use of the Shehai, and be ready to defeat their opponents in the seventh battle. And thus it was, the six first battles were waged, each neither victory or defeat, each leading to the next. The larger armies of Hira following the small army of  Hunding. Outnumbered thirty to one, the singers never faltered from the Way. The stage was set, Hira and his Army maneuvered to the base of Hattu Mountain, where the hammer blow was delivered. The battle was pitched, and many singers fell that day. Hunding knew, that the  singers who lived would be few, but Hira and his empire of evil would not live and so it went.    At the end Hunding and less that twenty thousand Singers survived the day, but no army of evil was left to pillage and murder, more than three  hundred thousand fell that day on Hattu. Of those who were left to run and live, all were scattered to the four winds, and organized force no  more.    The singers packed their lives, folded their tents, mourned their dead, and followed Hunding to the great port city of Arch, in the province of Seawind. There Hunding had a flotilla of ships waiting. The Singers left their desert for a new land. No longer welcome in the desert empire, they left to be sung about and spoken of in legend.  The final great warrior, the singers of Shehai, the Book of Circles, all leaving that land where their virtue was unappreciated. Red, red with blood they were in the eyes of the gentle citizenry, never mind that they had saved them  from a great evil.    The singers vowed to learn new ways as they traveled across the great ocean to their new land. To adopt a new name, but to honor the past. In  honor of their final battle, they named their new land Hammerfell and adopted the name Redguards.   In honor to Hunding the great warrior prince, each household in Hammerfell has a place by the hearth an alcove really, just a niche, big enough to hold the scroll - The Book of Circles.  