I said I was going to post some commentary about Duke Cronos once his section of the story came to a close and now is as good a time as any to do so. If you haven’t read through his section, turn back now because below there be spoilers.

Duke Cronos was originally named Cromwell before I settled on a pseudo-Byzantine culture for Zephyr. The name was, of course, a reference to Oliver Cromwell. I wanted to evoke Cromwell’s military genius, even though the character himself is more of an inversion. It’s actually Rowland, the leader of the Promethean Alliance, who has more in common with Cromwell, politically speaking at least. Anyway, ‘military genius’ is the key setting when I was devising the character.

I needed Cronos to have demonstrated his abilities beforehand, so I devised the Nanoi Campaigns. When Solon became King, he sent out olive branches to the non-human communities of Zephyr: the Elves of Goldleaf and the Dwarves of Delate and Vione. (In-universe, the two races are known as the Xotikes and Nanoi respectively.) Were anyone other than Xanthe Queen of Goldleaf, the Elves probably would’ve just dismissed the Zephyrian envoys and that would’ve been the end of it. The Dwarves, on the other hand, were much more suspicious of Solon’s overtures. The King of the Vionan Dwarves in particular was paranoid that the Zephyrians were simply trying to find a way through their defenses to plunder their cities. Rather than simply rebuff the Zephyrian envoys, the Vione Dwarves declared war and when the Zephyrians responded, the Dwarves of Delate joined in as well.

You’ll see a little more of this in Garm’s scenario in Book 3 (Garm being a refugee of Vione resettled in Notos), but the Dwarven side of the war was horribly mismanaged. (What would you expect when the primary driver of the war is mad with greed and paranoia?) Cronos happened to catch on to this and use it to his advantage, thereby bringing the war to a quick end. (The Nanoi Campaigns didn’t even last four months, though they were rather bloody.)

Cronos’ star rises after this, as you might expect. He goes from being a common knight to a peer and is later selected to become the new Governor-General of the Protectorate and Legate of the Third Legion (the two were previously separate positions, a sort of duumvirate, but because of his famed ability, Cronos was entrusted with both posts).

I’d mentioned in an earlier post that in the earlier draft of the story, Cronos felt terribly incompetent to me. You may still get that impression, but I was kinda working two angles in the current draft. On the one hand, I wanted Cronos to actually live up to his name, but on the other, I wanted to cast some doubts. Cronos himself suffering so much self-doubt is a major part of this new development. It’ll become especially clear in Book 3 that the Promethean Alliance has a lot going for it that really doesn’t make it a fair fight, though wars are never fair. It’s worth noting that the position of governor-general is typically for eight years (though some have served longer and many have served for much less) and Cronos was winding down his term of service when the challenge from the Monarch Lich was first issued.

Waging insurgent warfare is a very different beast than fighting an insurgency and when the Duke’s attention is also divided between fighting the rebels and preparing as much manpower and materiel for the war effort in the Darklands, it’s little wonder he fared as poorly as he did. Cronos was always looking on the horizon to the Dominion and he fought the Alliance with one hand tied behind his back, though Rowland proved to be an opponent that you have to pull out all the stops to take on.

You might think that Cronos’ failure in the Darklands seals the deal. If he really was as great as he was celebrated to be, he wouldn’t have lost as badly as he did. Well, even there I have to cut him some slack. Sir Caligo, the Knight of Chaos, who went unnamed in Cronos’ scenario, happens to be an ancient vampire who was once one of the most celebrated generals in all of Euros. Again, the deck was wildly stacked against poor Cronos and so he comes off looking much worse than he would have in a more conventional campaign.

Looking back, I find Cronos as a man to be pitied. He rose to greatness in his youth and it cast a long shadow over the rest of his career. He faced odds that perhaps no man could’ve won against and ultimately died in a bid to salvage what honor he had left. It’s a shame. It really is.

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