The Golden Antler regime was part of the Plight of the Shattered Greens, during which time House Golden Antler brutally ruled its wood elven subjects.

The primary perpetrators were Patriarch and Lord Protector Tymahe Hunter-Seer, his two "antlers" or generals, the White Devils, the Stag Guard, a Mystraleth principle called Favored Falcons, and the Thousand Sons mercenaries.

History

Mystraleth made Tymahe the Lord Protector of the Woodland Greens. Soon after, the wood elf created the new House Golden Antler out of three houses, and began a period of autocratic rule.

Rule of Order

Tymahe, a logistician by trade, decided to properly organize his dominion, so he would be able to rule it effectively. In a first step, he properly equipped his Stag Guard with heavy armor, made sure its soldiers were completely loyal and not a threat to him, and grew its ranks by raising levies. He also hired a group of thanor mercenaries, who became known as the White Devils, as bodyguards and elite troops. He knew there was no chance a mercenary thanor could hope to rule in his stead, so he made both his generals a White Devil. Finally, he made certain that his rule as Patriarch Golden Antler was uncontested, first by staging a ceremony in Mossy-Green Grove during which daughters of all three predecessor houses united their families under his leadership, and then by making sure there would be absolutely no potential threat to his rule. The Stag Guard was loyal; 100 experienced allied Mystraleth soldiers were garrisoned in the Grove; and all potentially important wood elven nobles were either exiled, killed, or imprisoned in the Purple Palace.

Deciding that isolated villages in forests were too hard to control, Tymahe ordered the construction of new villages modeled after high elven farming communities. Stretches of forest were burned down to make way for fields, and hundreds of wood elves were forcibly relocated into the barracks-like villages. The Stag Guard began making registries to keep track of all individuals in the villages, and state taxes in the form of grain deliveries were introduced.

Mystraleth's witch hunt for insurgent Black Spider elements continued, though relatively few individuals were arrested and executed for treason in the initial years of Golden Antler's regime.

Rule of Terror

Tymahe's regime started to grow more controlling and brutal in 4'147.

The Blossom Relocation, 4'147 b. OW. Where before, relocation to farming villages had been kept on a moderate scale, Tymahe decided to move every single subject in the most rebellious region - 200'000 individuals in total - to new villages. To this end, he sent 2'000 Stag Guard, and the recently hired Thousand Sons, to burn down vast stretches of forest, forcing out whoever was living in there. Thousands died in the violence. The spring blossoms were already long gone when the relocation was finally completed, two years and many deaths later.

Village Flower Levies. The Lord Protector, during a visit to a northern farming city called Tamm, was introduced to the local community manager. The woman's daughter caught his eye, and he decided he would take her back with him to the Purple Palace. The community manager protested, and a White Devil cut her down. The Tamm girl would be the very first concubine Tymahe took, and the Village Flower Levies would become an increasingly common occurrence afterward: as a form of tithe, villages would be required to send their most beautiful citizen to the Purple Palace, where they would live in misery as a concubine.

Obedience by Terror. Discontent started to spread ever more. The Stag Guard was busily forcing ever more people to relocate, and very unpopular measures like high taxation and Village Flower Tithes increased tensions. In several locations, villagers tried fighting off the Stag Guard, and many more attempted to flee overland or overseas. In response, Tymahe turned to increasingly violent methods, including executing anyone attempting to flee, decimating a village if one of their own fled, and torturing community managers who went under quota. The overwhelmingly peaceful wood elven population could be forced into submission with these methods.

The Tuimmammunayen Genocide, 4'144 b. OW. Tuimmammunayen was a forest village that resisted the Stag Guard twice and served as a haven for people fleeing the Golden Antler's regime. In response, Tymahe sent a sizeable force under the command of one of his generals to first burn down stretches of forest near the village, and then overrun it. Every single elf - around 900 people lived in Tuimmammunayen - was executed. There were numerous cases of rape as well. And this genocide was not the first: complete eradication of rebellious villages became another tool in the toolbox of terror.

War

The Woodland Greens were drenched in blood. The Stag Guard was committing unspeakable horrors, and the peaceful villages suffered the most, because angry Stag Guard found defenseless peasants far easier targets than rebellious rangers in the woods.

But Tymahe, surrounded by embermoss vapors and luscious slaves, did not have enough. He had grown tired of the pleasures of rule, and wanted to seek something new: war. The moon elven House Suuyne was a good target, and he decided to send his bully force of Stag Guard against the veteran forces of the moon elves. During the disastrous year of fighting, the Stag Guard attempted to raise more levy forces from the battered population, often using violence to force people into the ranks. These levies served as little more than fodder.

The business of war absorbed Golden Antler's forces to the extent that it could no longer suppress its population. Whole regions broke away and stopped paying taxes, and the regime was collapsing as much economically as it was losing the war militarily. Finally, in 4'139, the Golden Antler regime ended with the fall of the Purple Palace and Tymahe's death.