Tamriel Data:On Hammerfell

Book Information On Hammerfell
Added by	Tamriel Data
ID	T_Bk_OnHammerfell
	40		3.0
Locations
Found in the following locations: Old Ebonheart, East Empire Company: Offices Ebon Tower, Hammerfell Mission

On Hammerfell, the Imperial Province

by Erramanwe of Sunhold

A historical synopsis of the Imperial acquisition of Hammerfell

---

After the conquest of High Rock, the Imperial court of Tiber Septim received an envoy from the Redguards.

It had been a year since the Forebears of Hammerfell, a rural warrior underclass, began their revolt against the kingdom's urban aristocracy. Though Forebear militias made early strides in capturing key settlements, Crown knights and mercenaries had won countless subsequent battles with no signs of stopping, and after Sentinel, the rebels' fate seemed sealed.

It is no surprise that the Forebears turned to Cyrodiil to save them. When the Reman emperors ruled Hammerfell, their reign saw Forebear tribes raised into nobility, granting them rights the Crowns stridently denied them; several rebel leaders now claimed dormant Imperial titles as assertions of power. Furthermore, Tiber Septim had become known in the provinces as an effective leader and diplomat. Were he half as magnanimous as his ancient precursors, and his reputation suggested as much, many Forebears would find him a preferable sovereign to Crown Prince A'tor, the temperamental and ruthless heir to Hammerfell's throne.

So did Baron Volag, the leader of the Forebears, come to Tiber Septim with a bargain. It is unclear exactly what Septim was offered; while the official account only mentions a military and trade alliance, it is widely suspected that Volag also promised the Emperor a swath of lands on Hammerfell's southern border. It is clearer what the Forebears got out of the agreement. Not long after this secret treaty was ratified, Imperial legions came to Hammerfell and drove the Crowns out of Sentinel. Devastated by the surprise attack, many Crown forces deserted to the Dragontail mountains. The others made their last stand in the harbor of Stros M'kai, where the Imperial navy left no survivors.

With Prince A'tor dead and the war won, Volag would have been Hammerfell's new king, but in the chaos that followed Stros M'kai, he had vanished. Tiber Septim made a new treaty in his absence. A hastily assembled council of Forebear leaders agreed that the Emperor was to rule the kingdom in Volag's stead.

In truth, Tiber Septim had coveted Hammerfell for years. Many of the debts he assumed at the onset of his reign were due, and Hammerfell was a famously wealthy nation. However, various factors discouraged its direct conquest. The Redguards were undesirable foes, a race of fanatics protected by fearsome elemental spirits, and at the time, a common school of thought held that the Remans could have conquered Morrowind had they not wasted their assets taking Hammerfell. Now, however, Septim had been invited in. Though in theory he was preparing the throne for Volag's return, most assumed Septim had the baron assassinated. Hammerfell was his.

In the new province, Crown law was replaced with harshly enforced Imperial law. Provisional governors levied exorbitant taxes to fund expansion in Morrowind and imprisoned all who could not pay. The Yokudan desert nomads, once shunned in the cities, were banned altogether. Loyal Crowns were swiftly executed alongside Forebears upset with the Empire's betrayal.

The Emperor surely recognized this arrangement as unsustainable, but not even he could have foreseen how it ended.

Paying a favor to a Crown mercenary, a nomad witch called on ancient Yokudan magic to resurrect A'tor. With supernatural powers of persuasion, the revived prince then called on several dissolved warbands to reform under the banner of his uprising, and forced a second battle at Stros M'kai. Once the site of A'tor's grave, Stros M'kai became that of every Imperial official and soldier on the island. The admiral who sank A'tor's ship and killed him had by then become the local governor, whom A'tor personally slew.

Seizing on the opportunity, Volag then emerged from hiding with his personal retinue to take Sentinel, the city's fourth and final conquest in two years. Forebears across the province once more rose in rebellion under Volag's leadership, this time against a foreign crown. Taking their former allies by surprise, they swept over the mainland, often supported by locals regardless of allegiance. Some Forebears fought under barons, others under hetmans, and others still under Crown officers, reasserting local rule in any manner they could.

Soon, the Redguards had completely expelled the legions from Hammerfell. In the East, however, the Emperor had just signed a treaty guaranteeing Morrowind's acquisition as an Imperial province. If Hammerfell did not come to an agreement with the Empire shortly, it was only a matter of time until the legions returned.

A summit was held in Stros M'kai. A'tor and his consort represented the Crowns, Volag represented the Forebears, and Tiber Septim and Zurin Arctus represented the Empire. According to reports, tensions rode high until Zurin Arctus told a joke about Bretons, which moved all parties to laughter. Negotiations then proceeded in high spirits.

The kingdom of Hammerfell was to be restored, with High King A'tor succeeding his father. At the same time, Forebear lands would no longer be ruled by centrally appointed Crown officers, as under the old regime, but instead by local Forebear nobles and elected leaders. These territories would be united in one high kingdom, with A'tor as their symbolic head of state, but not their head of government. The Crowns had stewarded Hammerfell for millennia, and their efforts were recognized and appreciated even by the Forebears they had disenfranchised, but the war and occupation had decimated their numbers, and the Forebears had proven their worth on the mainland. By and large, the Crowns' time had come and gone.

The Empire's role in this new Hammerfell was to be minimal. While Redguard ports would be left open to the Imperial navy in its wars with the Aldmeri Dominion and other foreign agents, and certain resources in which Tiber Septim had more interest than the natives would be reserved as Imperial property, it was guaranteed that for as long as the Septim emperors reigned, all Imperial legions, magistrates, and census agents would be banned from Hammerfell, only able to enter under express Redguard mandate. Native militias and systems of land-based taxation had underpinned Redguard civilization for centuries, and Imperial attempts to erase them were key factors in the revolt; these would be left intact. Moving forward, the Treaty of Stros M'kai made clear that though the Redguards were not independent, they would rule themselves, "not as subjects of the Empire, but as allies."