Kandaran Resistance

   Stoikiy Elbiru is the founder of the resistance and won the war but did anybody bother to ask who were his officers? Both of them has a tale as great, if not greater than Stoikiy rescuing Kandaran! Let's start with his Right Hand first, the second-in-command of the Resistance, the logistic genius of the operation, Grimm Hans. 

   Grimm Hans is an Elf originally from the border town of Hyphagor. The city is small-sized but it has a huge population thanks to the military base nearby. The black market in the city has many Hastanor smuggled goods too. It is from these shady under table dealings that Grimm mastered logistics.

   As a criminal, he tends to rob the rich a lot. However, the long war made him realized something about his targets: there are fewer and fewer rich people when taxes keep increasing. He briefly considered robbing peasants for awhile before remembering how he relies on peasants to cook his favorite meals (He makes it a rule to never eat rich people food even if he has enough money for it after a bad incident with a luxury fish bone stuck in his throat.)  

   He disagreed with the war but he lacks the means to end it until one fateful night in the tavern where he was drinking with Stoikiy Elbiru and their friends. A whole bunch of them talked about politics until Elbiru got up from his seat and screamed "Enough! Look at each of us here, we have talked and talked about what is wrong with Kandaran for months! I am sick of this barking! Tonight, we start biting! WHO IS WITH ME?" The whole tavern joined the Resistance that night, including Grimm. 

   Grimm started by offering the Resistance weapons and information. He taught them a new cipher code to communicate without being detected. He built several safe houses for the Resistance (some were shared with criminals). He recruited hungry criminals with the lure of glory and gold. When the Resistance got too big, he suggested to Stoikiy to scatter everyone into small teams all over Kandaran. 

   A team in Mouth of Haar to acquire desert weapons from Sands of Haar. Their specialty: Scorpion Poison, is commonly used by the Resistance in assassinations. Many cruel nobles died after eating the food that peasants cooked. The same peasants that they bully. Even their own poison tester is part of the Resistance and drank the antidote first!

   A team in Salderam to recruit people and spread propaganda. Salderam, as one of the huge cities on the trade route, relies on trade a lot. It has a huge population with a lot of people coming and going. Perfect to train small Resistance teams and plant them in another city. The team(s) in Salderam is also responsible to spread as much false information as possible. Bards are hired or recruited to tell very epic tales of evil Kandaran nobles forcing teenagers to leave their homes to fight wars. Each version of that tale ends with a dead only child for a farmer family. Some other tales includes highway robbers who target military supply trains to feed the poor. There is even one tale of royalty forcing a married peasant woman to be his new concubine! 

   A team in Daragon, the capital, to assassinate corrupt leaders. The Resistance keeps a close watch on the ruling elites of Kandaran. They know which leader is corrupt and which is trustworthy. Usually, they will also act as hidden bodyguards for trusted politicians.   

   A team in Matakorn, the warehouse city, to steal supplies. The city is a distribution point for Kandaran since it is located in the middle of the country. It is estimated that Matakorn alone have a year's worth of supplies for the whole of Kandaran. 

   A team in both Kaimher and Hadari with the same purpose: recruiting and funding. There are still parts of society in both places that hate being part of Kandaran (partly because of heavy taxes and partly because Kaimher was conquered). It is by using this hatred as a seed that the Resistance can recruit very quickly in these places. Nobles there even donated their wealth to the Resistance!

   A team in both Viravern and Garaffin, the agriculture cities, to gather supplies. Here, the Resistance do legal business by buying and selling crops. Farmers always face the trouble of not having people buy their products fast enough. The Resistance buys them quickly to feed their own growing army and to build rapport with fellow farmers. Stoikiy never forgot his humble farming roots. Food is distributed quickly to other cities and their Resistance teams since no bandits will rob them on the journey (they are the bandits).        

   His famous saying: "A mosquito bite is enough to kill a giant," is still used today to describe small things achieving greatness.

   And how can we forget the great Beerlin, human bard and master tactician? If Stoikiy is in charge of the assault team, Beerlin is in charge of the planning team. Just like how the hand needs the head to give instructions. Beerlin is the Left Hand, a genius strategist who planned every combat in the Resistance. They cannot afford to lose too many comrades like armies do in open battles, so they have to maximize efficiency on the battlefield.

   For example, when the Resistance publicly declares their intention to destroy Kandaran monarchy, the army was ordered to hunt down every Resistance member they can find. A few months before that, propaganda teams were hard at work trying to spread the popularity of one particular tale: The Dragon Warrior. The epic tale features a protagonist that got his power from a very peculiar dragon-shaped tattoo. The tattoo was so popular that many members of the working class have it. When the army tried to purge the Resistance, several members willingly sacrificed themselves to be caught with that same Dragon Warrior tattoo on them. Kandaran army was tricked into thinking every working class member is part of The Resistance. The hunt was so brutal to the point the Resistance members doubled in less than a month. That was one of Beerlin masterpiece.    

   Beerlin also engineered the collapse of the nobility by using his political skill. He convinced the nobles that each strong political faction in Kandaran wants to destroy each other. A simple rumour here, a few false death threat letters there, plus stolen bodyguard uniforms make a very convincing case. A divided enemy is easy to handle for the united Resistance.  

   "Every book is a goldmine," this famous Beerlin quote alone birthed many Kandaran scholars. 

   With these three men leading The Resistance, how can they fail?

Written by,
Horus
Kandaran Historian.