Ghyll:Army of Whunn

The founding of Bute University formally dates to -400 EC when a "group of freethinkers, teachers, landed nobility, and their respected hangers-on" established its beginnings. Originally, there were no divisions between them, and any scholar would undertake any topic of their choosing. This is why some of the earliest books in the University library dwell on such conflicting and confusing topics.

The University was almost destroyed shortly after its founding as, only three years later, the book that triggered the Civil War was published. The authorship of King H. is a Ninny and So's His Family Too remains unclear to this date, since the author's name was not printed in the volume. Most scholars attribute the text to the University's founding historian, Lapernees. Since no intact copies of the book survived the war, textual analysis to determine the actual author is impossible.

King Harandraff took extreme offense at the contents and called upon Lord Exis of Whunn to raise an army with which he would punish the entire town of Bute. And so he did, gathering peasants, sailors, shopkeepers, farmers and huntsmen into the new military force. But Lord Whunn sought to sharpen the power of the army he had gathered to a scalpel-like precision. While Whunn's army was armed with typical armor and weapons for the period, each soldier was also equipped with a pair of scissors and a bag of charcoal, allowing them to cut offensive portions from any page and immediately immolate the offending passage using the charcoal to ignite the required pyre. The whole army was given training in specific words, phrases, and concepts which they were to combat. Special commando units were formed for the targeting of rude words. Unfortunately, the soldiers were not issued flint and steel, and very, very few of them could kindle a fire unaided.

The Army of Whunn arrived outside the gates of Bute on the original Boxing Day of -397 EC. Ready to cut and slice and burn, they were completely unprepared for the city's gates to be closed to them. Although it had not been a part of their training, they were a rowdy bunch, and enough of a threat that the citizens of Bute kept their gates closed to them for the next six months.

Citations: Boxing Day, Bute University, Exis of Whunn.

--Brother Arfrus 13:57, 16 May 2005 (EDT)