Redguards, History and Hero                                     Destri Merlarg                                                                                                                                                     )	
   6      [         }%  *    Redguards Their History and Their Hero    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 swor ds 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 liche  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 CIRCLESwhile 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. This strife was Emperor Hira 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 and  with his Brigand army composed of Orcs and castoffs of the wars of the  empire, scourge them from the face of the earth.   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 home 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 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 falteredfrom  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 livedwould be few, but Hira and his empire of evil would  not live to ravage the empire 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 an 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 or 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 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  Circles.  