The Myr-Pentos war, also known as the War of of the Five Daughters, began in the year 186AC, and would not end until Pentos, defeated by Myr, Tyrosh, and Lys, surrendered entirely.
Background[]
The Triarchy saw its end in 130 AC, when a civil war, aided by the newly allied Pentos, Braavos and the normally isolationist Lorath, who brought it down with a swift, decisive blow. The pact between those northern free cities only lasted a decade more before the Lorathi closed themselves to the world once again, leaving Braavos and Pentos to fight amongst themselves: The city of Slaves and the Slaver city vying to impose their ways on the other.
It was a bloody war for the cheesemongers, who saw their naval strength weakened, and their slave-economy eradicated. It was a harsh situation the one Pentoshi Magisters found themselves in and, halfway through the II Century, they began to seek better economic prospects, adjusting to their new reality. The slaves were gone - de facto, at least - and trade intensified. Pentos moved west and south. Savvy in matters of trade and commerce, a young Arelio Aellorys, scion of a well-respected Pentoshi family, took control of the Magister’s council, ruling behind the scenes as the Princes feasted and deflowered maids. He focused on strengthening trade ties with the Seven Kingdoms, particularly with the Crownlands and the Vale, an activity that continued well into Aegon’s Rebellion, where they sent aids and supplies to the Loyalists - not without price, of course.
He also proposed a motion to send the smallfolk that crowded the city to man the ports and trade hubs of the south-eastern coast, once again restoring the fading Pentoshi influence in Essos. Of course, the Neighbouring Myrish territories saw it as dreams of conquest. The trading post of Alaros, a newly founded daughter of Pentos and, Ghyr Hanys, founded by the Myrish instead, were built extremely closed between one another, on the opposing banks of the estuary of the Myridhos, the short river that empties in the Sea of Myrth, and signals the border between the two Free Cities’ domains.
The Sea of Myrth had been Myr’s sphere of influence for centuries, if not millennia, and now, the Pentoshi were starting to monopolise its trade routes, the best road to commerce Essosi olives, amber from Myridhan forests, and other luxurious and exotic produce with Dorne, the Stormlands and Oldtown. Myr’s monopoly over those routes was over, with the Pentoshi winning themselves more and more customers due to their lower prices. The first attritions happened between mercantile ships, encountering each other on common routes. Whenever a Myrish ship would see a Pentoshi one at sea - and vice versa - petty attacks and forays were bound to happen. It was because of his eagerness to maintain peace, in fact, that at the time of the Rebellion, Arelio ceased most of the commercial activity in the south, focusing on the West,.
With the rebellion put to an end, however, the Magister’s council decided that those assets could not be lost; the Southern colony was gradually put to use once more, discouraging, however, rivalry with the city of Myr. In 189 AC Mayor of Alaros, sailed for Pentos on his biennial trip to report to the prince and the Council only to see his ships destroyed by Stepstone pirates - Of course, they wouldn’t be the ones to be blamed for this.
The Myrish-Pentoshi War[]
Casus Belli[]
Word of Mayor Edanio Natharys’s shipwreck soon reached the city, and the ears of Prince Madaro. As incompetent as he was popular, Prince Madaro held a moving speech in the Plaza of Dragons, inciting hate towards the cruel and vile Myr men; the council didn’t like it. They should have slain him then, but only reprimanded him for his words, and pushed for a diplomatic meeting there, in the city, with an important magister of Myr: the tension between the two cities had to be solved once and for all. The less blood it was solved with, the better.
Gallhadorhos of Myr was a much more serious man than Madaro, and a much more competent one. He accepted the meeting, and reached Pentos at his earliest convenience. The prince held a lavish twenty-four-day long festival in the city with jugglers, dancers, music, and rivers of wine that should have ended with the Two figures of state planning a peace, or an alliance between their cities.
It wasn’t to be: on the fourth day, the Prince, heated by wine, had an intense debate with the magister on local women that quickly turned into talks of the superiority of his city over Myr. When Arelio Aellorys, now old and respected, urged him to stop, the Prince threatened to have his throat cut, and after accusing Gallhadoros of the Mayor of Alaros’s murder, he declared war.
Needless to say, the magister left the feast on its fifth day, never to return. The prince was slain, finally, but the damage was done.
The Vengeance of Myr[]
The sellswords of Myr were swift, brutal, and skilled in their work. They carved a red path along the border between the two states, leaving no village unsacked, nor town unburnt.
Myr didn’t wait. With almost the whole of its naval force, they attacked and conquered Alaros, burning it to the ground as the Pentoshi navy retreated.The city, however, only celebrates the victory for a few more days: Ships arrive from Pentos - and Braavos, Pentos’s protector and puppet-master, since the end of their war. Myr’s defeat is bloody and taxing.
Proud Myr, however, resisted stubborn, attacking once again. Their fleet roughly beaten in the battle near Erighos, a small islet in the Sea of Myrth, they decided to hit from land, employing the Company of the Rose and the Long Lances, who crossed the Myridhos on the last day of 189 AC, headed towards Pentos. They sieged, raided and sacked every Pentoshi colony they found in their way: the pre-eminent city of Pentos and the magnanimous city of Myr were too deep into this war of annihilation to stop, now.
A Response in Steel[]
The united force of Pentos and Braavos responded once more; Braavos went as far as sending an envoy to Lorath, demanding they joined once again their northern triarchy. The envoy, however, never returned and Lorath remained as isolated and removed from Essosi politics as it always had been. Pentos, on the other hand followed Myr’s example and employed the Second Sons and Bright Banners. Mercenaries fought mercenaries, sellsails fought sellsails, and each city received its fair share of crushing blows. The sacking of the villages and colonies on the Pentoshi coast, was countered by the devastating defeat of the Myrish troops on the field of Sandos, south of the city of Pentos. A Myrish victory in the Narrow Sea was thwarted by the autumn storms. As much as that war was a game of push and pull, Myrish forces seemed to weaken at every clash, while Pentos, thanks to his Braavosi “overlords”, maintained its strength.
Messages to the South[]
It was time for proud Myr to get off its pedestal, seeking help of its own. The Triarchy had been dissolved sixty years before, but Myr was in dire need of an alliance, and the other cities in need of stability. They sent two envoys, one to Tyrosh, and the other to Lys, with two high ranking members of the council, to make them hear their reasons and convince them to join the war through diplomacy. The Tyroshi envoy came soon, with a negative reply. It seemed like the Tyroshi were ready to join Myr’s struggles, until they found out about Lys’s involvement. They remained on the sides, waiting out the storm. The city of Lys, instead, was concord with the envoy’s argument: they reached the city of Myr on a triumphant day, in 191, the Lyseni fleet and the sellsword armies they hired moving north.
The Three Daughters[]
The conflict took place on the seas as much as it did on land, with mighty fleets and skilled admirals testing their strength both against one another, and the gods of wind and storm.
The battles that followed were fierce, bloody and useless. Lys and Myr, and Pentos and Braavos had comparable forces, that clashed again and again. A turn of luck occurred during a particularly brutal autumn storm, sending the Pentoshi fleet adrift: most of it ended up on the shores of Tyrosh, where the archon, who decided to keep the city out of the war, made yet another wise choice: to wait. The Pentoshi “guests” were held in the island, and the city remained silent.
Meanwhile, the Myrish-Lyseni alliance was gaining a foothold in the northern front, the mercenary companies they hired succeeding in a series of attacks. That, and the weakening of the Pentoshi fleet, brought them at great advantage; that was when Tyrosh decided to put their hostages to good use, revealing them to Myr, and joining, belatedly, the alliance. Tyrosh’s opportunism didn’t escape the Lyseni, who joined the cause from the beginning, enhancing the attrition between the two Free Cities. The war was swiftly won, however, with the Triarchy once again united, albeit briefly. Pentos had no choice but to wave the white flag.
Resolution[]
The war was officially declared over when an armistice was signed between Pentos and the three southern cities. Each city was given their turn to demand concessions in right with Pentos, and Pentos, on the brink of collapse, was forced to agree to crushing conditions. The Pentoshi would reduce the size of their military fleet significantly, and be forced to pay war reparations to all three cities. Favorable trade agreements were forced upon the city state, as well as Myrish and Lyseni trade ships being shown favor in all Pentoshi ports.
These demands were presented to the Pentoshi in the Seventh Month of 196 AC, and, though outraged, the Pentoshi were in no state to resume the war. Their military was in disarray, and their fleets were heavily damaged.
Such concessions affected the Pentoshi greatly during the first years of the treaty’s effect. The wealth of Pentos was reduced significantly, and has put them in crippling debt. However, the resilience of their noble families has allowed the city to continue paying war reparations.
While their wealth grew, the Pentoshi grew more brazen. Their navy was repaired quickly, and expanded upon once more. By the year 200 AC, war reparations were no longer being paid to Myr or Lys. Myr reached out to the other city states for a triple-alliance to help reinforce the treaties placed on Pentos, but both cities rebuffed the Myrish, not willing to risk another prolonged war.
Nevertheless, the precedent was set.