User:Jimeee/Fiction/YsgramorDynasty16
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King Gellir was born into the Royal House of Asbjorn on the eve of the Skyrim Conquests in 1E 217. He is best remembered as the monarch who defeated the Dwarven city-states of Skyrim and for strengthening the kingdom's alliance with the newly established Alessian Empire.
Early Life
Gellir came from well-respected military family. His great-grandfather was the much-loved King Vundheim of Whiterun, his father served as a captain in King Harald's navy and his aunt was a powerful Tongue who commanded her own brigade of Voice masters. Gellir's father died at sea before he was born, leaving him to be raised by his mother and the matriarch of his house, Alva Jurgensdottir.
Gellir grew up during the Skyrim Conquests and was enthralled by tales of High King Vrage's campaigns against the Direnni elves of High Rock and "ash-heathens" of Morrowind. Shortly after he undertook his Proving atop the Throat of the World, Gellir joined Vrage's army in 1E 233. Around this time, Vrage's forces had taken much of High Rock and recently defeated the last remaining Ashlander army in Morrowind, but numerous insurgencies remained.
Despite his noble birth and influential family, Gellir was not given any special treatment or his own command as would have been the custom of ages past. King Vrage had decreed that such traditions were archaic, and under his rule, only those who could prove themselves worthy would be elevated.
Rise to Power
Gellir fought for many years on the front lines of the empire and proved himself a notable warrior and tactician, eventually earning him the position as one of Vrage's "dogs of war". When the Alessian Slave Rebellion broke out in 1E 243, his brigade was sent to Cyrodiil (or Cyrod as it was known then) to aid the Nedic rebels of the Heartlands while King Vrage went to war with the northern Ayleid city-states. According to legend, Gellir fought alongside the winged man-bull Morihaus himself when he led the charge to take the White-Gold Tower, and the two became staunch allies and friends thereafter. Such was Gelllir's respect for the "Breath of Kyne" that named the Nordic town of Morthal after him many years later. Following the establishment of Frostcrag Hold in northern Cyrodiil, Gellir remained in region for the next several years to serve as the first Jarl of Bruma.
Jarl Gellir became more familiar with his Nedic neighbors as time passed and grew fond of his southern cousins. Shortly after Gellir's appointment as Jarl he became acquainted with a famed Nedic general named Val-Yenna (said to be equally unmatched in both beauty and combat prowess). According to numerous eddic poems of the time, the pair fell in love and were married - but their union caused quite a controversy with the nobles back in Winterhold due to Val-Yenna's "mongrel blood". Regardless, the marriage was a great boon to the southern empire and strengthened the alliance between Empress Alessia and King Vrage.
The First Moot
In 1E 252, Gellir was summoned to Winterhold where the deathly ill King Vrage had gathered his Jarls and generals. Aware that his time on Nirn was coming to an end, the High King announced that he would not choose his successor. Instead, he decreed that the Jarls of the empire choose a worthy king from among the Skerd themselves.
This was a radical change in the traditional order of Nordic succession. Although Vrage sought to uphold the Blood Oath of the Skerd (a sacred law that dictated only Ysgramor's descendants were eligible to rule), he saw first-hand how the actions of a single unworthy king could devastate the empire. Vrage hoped that by granting the empire's Jarls the right to choose his successor from among the Skerd, it would ensure that an honorable and just ruler would be selected.
The First Moot unanimously chose Jarl Gellir to succeed King Vrage. Shortly after, Vrage passed and Gellir's coronation took place in Winterhold where he donned the Jagged Crown. As the new bearer of the Cartulary of Birthright, he vowed to continue King Harald and Vrage's campaigns for as long as he ruled.
The Eight Divines
During the settlement of the newly established Frostcrag Hold in Cyrodiil, Nordic settlers (fiercely opposed to the worship of elven gods) began openly destroying Aldmeri shrines and temples across the hinterlands. Despite being free of Ayleid lordship, many Nedes at this time were unwilling to renounce their worship of the Aldmeri pantheon and were angered by the destruction of these temples. So much so that they were willing to go to war with Skyrim for such transgressions.
High King Gellir (who himself venerated the Nordic Pantheon) was unwilling to stop his countrymen from committing such acts, much to the Skerd-Queen's disdain. Although he considered the Alessian Empire as allies, their continual adoration of Elven deities brought that alliance into question.
Alessia found herself in a very sensitive political situation. She needed to keep King Gellir as her ally but she could not force her subjects to convert to the Nordic pantheon. Therefore, concessions were made and Empress Alessia instituted a new religion: the Eight Divines, a synthesis of both Nordic and Aldmeri pantheons.
Alessia's subjects accepted the Eight Divines, but the Nords rejected this new faith entirely and stayed true to their gods. The High Priestess of the Sisterhood of the Hawk condemned the Eight as a blasphemous watering-down of their revered gods - particularly Shor, who the Nedes now called Shezarr. Despite their differences, it was enough to appease King Gellir and he continued his support of Alessia. The two rulers remained on good terms until Alessia's death in 1E 266. King Gellir traveled to the Cyrodiil to pay his respects at her funeral and attend the coronation of her successor, Belharza the Man-Bull.
Second Sunken Crusade
By 1E 267, the Nordic Empire had grown vast, spanning from Daggerfall in the west to Necrom in the east. Despite their success, Gellir was troubled by the fact that for centuries only one foe had successfully resisted all forms of Nordic expansion. The subterranean "deep folk", more commonly known as the Dwemer.
Skyrim's sole attempt to conquer the Dwarves was almost 200 years ago by Gellir's ancestor, King Hrogar Brass-Bane, whose failed crusade against them ended in a stalemate. King Gellir claimed that the conquest of the Dwarven cities beneath Skyrim was paramount to the empire's stability and safety. Conversely, other accounts claim he yearned for a great victory to cement his legacy, or simply sought revenge for the bloody nose his clan had received at their hands.
Unbeknownst to Gellir and the Nords, the Dwarven city-states of Skyrim were locked in a grueling civil war for the last century, drastically weakening them all. According to some scholars, the Dwarves uncovered a rare and powerful crystal in their deepest delvings. Although an alliance was initially formed between four powerful cities to mine the crystal, it quickly deteriorated into conflict and dragged the remaining city-states into the war.
When King Gellir announced his war against the Dwarves, he first marched upon the city of Nchuand-Zel with a vast army, expecting heavy resistance. Instead, he was met with a surprisingly meager first line of defense on the surface that was quickly eliminated. The subterranean parts of the city fared no better, as battle-chroniclers recount Gellir's troops sweeping through the city at great speed, crushing the Dwarves and their beastly slaves in every battle.
The vast city, which once withstood the full onslaught of the Nordic horde for an entire decade, fell within the span of a month. King Gellir collapsed the entrance to the deepest chambers and claimed the remaining city for the empire. The city was re-named Markarth (meaning "City of Stone" in the old tongue) and it prospered greatly in the years that followed.
In the span of three short years, almost all remaining Dwarven cities in Skyrim fell before Gellir's armies. As a symbol of his victories, he wore an enchanted Dwarven breastplate thereafter - crafted from supposedly the very material the Dwarves went to war over. Gellir took the name "Brass-Bane", possibly in honor of old King Hrogar (or an insulting display of one-upmanship depending on who you ask).
While Nordic chroniclers have historically ascribed King Gellir's impressive victory to his inspired tactics or the blessings of Shor, its important to remember that (much like Nchuand-Zel) the remaining Dwarven cities had been decimated by decades of infighting and were ripe for the taking. Regardless, Gellir's "conquest" of the Dwarves solidified his legacy as one of the greatest kings in the Ysgramor Dynasty.
Death
In 1E 272 High King Gellir died, and with him the Skyrim Conquests ended. He was buried in the royal crypts beneath Winterhold and the Moot was called immediately after in the grand halls of Vrage's Keep. After much deliberation, the Jarls named Princess Yrsa Winterblade of House Asbjorn as High Queen.
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