The War of Durun's Ass

Before the tenth century, there was nothing so fearful for a country as finding out that the Selesteine Army was marching on your borders. Most of the world had a chance to experience this in AES 688, when Selestei waged the War of Durun's Ass. During the first session of the year of the Disputatious Assembly of Sovereigns, President Durun of The Union of Benric States spilled his eggnog on King Gristleton of Selestei. Gristleton became enraged and told Durun that he was going to "kick [his] ass". Durun responded that he had a busy schedule, but that if he wanted to come to Benri in the summer and kick his ass then, he was welcome to visit. Gristleton ominously accepted the offer and left to the bathroom to wipe the eggnog off. After he had left, everyone in the room simultaneously realized what was about to happen. When Gristleton failed to return to the Assembly at the end of the recess, everyone between Selestei and the Union scrambled to contact their defense ministries, which was pretty much all of them, because Selestei and Benri are on opposite sides of the planet.

Selestei marched into the Fractured Cities at the beginning of the following week, fully armed and angry. For one of the only times in recorded history, in the face of the foreign threat on their borders, the Fractured Cities banded together as one to defend their homeland. They were immediately crushed by the Selesteine army. Pausing only long enough to arm-wrestle the survivors and carry off food and barrels of beer, the invading force simply marched straight through to the Shastrian border. In the face of the foreign threat on their borders, Shaster rallied its forces to defend its homeland. They, too, were immediately crushed by the Selesteine army. Seizing all of the ships in the harbor, the rampaging mob set sail for Benri — in the wrong direction. It would take travelling several months and conquering many more countries, including every single country on the Careless Continent, before Selestei stood upon the beaches of Benri.

Durun, of course, had heard of Selestei's path of devastation on the way to meet him, and was terrified. His advisers, fearing for the worst should the Selesteines beat a roundabout trail of mayhem on their way to the capital, kidnapped Durun and delivered him to King Gristleton the following day. When the two sovereigns finally stood face to face once again, Gristleton pointed out that Durun had invited him there, and then promptly, in the words of the contemporary historian Pentex Lannogaster, "beat the shit out of him". The Selesteines then returned home, and at the following Assembly session King Gristleton acted like the whole thing had never happened.

President Durun would later blame this all on Gristleton, who, he insisted, had bumped his arm when he was holding the eggnog.

It's worth noting that most of the ships that Selestei hijacked in Shaster were Panarkian vessels. This would prove to be one of the formative moments for the young country, forcing them to band closer together for mutual aid to prevent a catastrophe of the same magnitude from reoccurring. Even today, the aftereffects of the War are visible in the chilly bilateral relations between the Fleet and Selestei.

Citations: The Panark Fleet