Thraxian-Saladian War

Thraxian-Saladian War
Thraxian "army unit" preparing for deployment
Date 15 August 2023 - present Location Salad Land
Belligerents
Zargothrax	Salad Land
Commanders and leaders
Shapur XIV Prince Jahangir	Bastien de Salad Valentin Daucourt
Strength
280 humans 400 lizards 100 hawks 10,000 cats	1,368 humans
Casualties and losses
8 dead (lizard) 94 captured (lizard) 80 captured (human) 3,400 captured (cat)	0

The Thraxian-Saladian War is an ongoing conflict between Zargothrax and Salad Land which began with a formal declaration of war on Salad Land by King Shapur XIV of Zargothrax on the 15th August 2023. Two days later, Zargothrax attempted to invade Salad Land using an army composed primarily of domestic cats.

Background

On June 26th 2023, a Thraxian ship, the Cosmic Paragon, carrying an illegal cargo of approximately 400 lizards docked in Salad Land to refuel, issuing the harbormaster with a bribe to avoid inspection of cargo. During the night, one of the crates was knocked over, leading the lizards to escape into Port Salad. The lizards then attacked and bit numerous individuals, leading the Salad Land Police Service to track the lizards to the Cosmic Paragon, impounding the ship on charges of violating the ban on dangerous animals.

On July 18th, the vast majority of lizards were still at large, leading the Saladian government to form the Salad Land Lizard Capture Service. The Cosmic Paragon remained impounded while there were still lizards at large. After the new service failed to tackle the lizard problem, King Shapur XIV of Zargothrax sent around 100 hawks on August 13th to "eat the lizards" in order to encourage Salad Land to release the ship. This backfired, with Marquis Bastien de Salad writing an angry letter to the King which included the phrase "a pox on your cats". This led to the King declaring war on Salad Land.

"Invasion"

On 17th August 2023, two days after the official declaration of war, a Thraxian "invasion force" arrived in Saladian waters, consisting of 4 relatively small warships and 11 landing craft. It transpired, after the first landing craft reached the beach, that the invasion force consisted of approximately 10,000 cats. During the first "battle", one Thraxian ship was captured along with its crew; while the other three ships fled, and the cats dispersed across Salad Land. One Saladian ship was also damaged when it was rammed by an out-of-control Thraxian ship.

Diplomacy

On August 21st, King Shapur appointed his 10-year-old son Prince Jahangir as the commander of the Thraxian military, and sent his 11-year-old daughter Princess Leila to Salad Land in order to deliver a message threatening to escalate the war into the sending of dogs and mice, unless Salad Land surrendered and returned all creatures; lizard, hawk and cat. This led the Marquis to declare that he would visit Zargothrax to speak with King Shapur. Princess Leila would remain in Salad Land, where she volunteered to work with the Salad Land Lizard Capture Service.