Renkida Vampire Crisis

The Shioru Vampire Crisis, often referred to as the Renkida Vampire Crisis, was a tumultuous event that comprised the bulk of the story of the 2nd volume in the series, The Crusade of Zulera. It is summarized primarily by a massive influx of vampires into the southwestern provinces of the Shioru Kingdom, particularly centered around Sezonzé. While the motives of these creatures was initially unclear, they rather vehemently asserted that their only interest was a consolidation of their kind and that they had no further intentions of hostility. However, experts and scholars disagree with this assertion, and the true "heroes" and "villains" of this event are thus unclear.

Summary
The Crisis was brought to a head after vampires took over the Four Cities of Sezonzé, and while they did not expel the existing citizens, they significantly altered the region by darkening it from the sunlight for their own protection, and as such, many of the regular residents moved out or left feeling displaced. Similarly, many citizens did not feel safe living around natural predators that had a history of feeding on their blood, and as such, no one who wasn't a vampire felt safe in the area. However, it seemed that the vampires had little interest in feeding on the locals, and documented evidence showed that these claims were true. However, due to their refusal to disclose where the blood they fed on originated, this only brewed further suspicion.

Inspiration
This general feeling of insecurity by the populace naturally came to the attention of the Shiorzé royalty, who issued an order for the vampires to expel themselves from the area as soon as possible. They refused however, and tensions rose and expanded. The situation remained tense, with Regent Isikiro doing what she could to try and keep peace as well as ensure that tensions between Renkida and Vampires did not come to a head.

However, as time went on, the already superstitious Renkida suspected an agenda behind Isikiro's actions, and while they were correct that she had a motive, they were incorrect in what it was. The consequence of this was that Isikiro's vampirism was revealed, and she was immediately expelled and accused of trying to subvert the Kingdom of Shioru, despite her efforts to help restore and uphold it.

Exacerbation
See also: Isikiro's Purge; Great Sezonzé Fire

Isikiro's exile only worsened the entire situation, with some sympathetic citizens claiming that her motives were true and pure, and that she truly had Shioru's best interest at heart. Her heroism in the slaughter of corrupt Arakan conspirators in what later became known as Isikiro's Purge won the hearts of many as she was promoted to Regent in the brief succession crisis, but it wasn't enough to convince the superstitious Renkida that she was not up to no good once it was revealed that she was a vampire. As such, she was exiled and swiftly replaced by a man named Koroda Harami Zaklash 1, who would shortly afterwards become king. Given the lack of peace between the Renkida and the Vampires, as well as the ever-growing tensions, Koroda resorted to more desperate means to try and save his people. Hiring the deviously resourceful Madizi mechanist Zulera, he told her to dispose of them by "any means necessary". In her usual feats of mechanical extravagance, Zulera built an enormous mechanical effigy of a young Mizulen adolescent named California, and took the machine up through the Sezonzé Canyon on the south end of the region surrounding the Four Cities.

For four days, it remained there as something of an inert monument, but on 27 Giléa 4610, Zulera returned to her machine, starting it up again and activating the weapons mechanisms—which turned out to be enormous element and chi-fuelled flamethrowers. With the heat of summer coupled by an unusually dry season, the entire canyon went up in flames, and set most of Sezonzé ablaze in less than 25 hours. Ultimately, three of the Four Cities: Natzuzhen, Zimahzhen, and Zapadzhen, were obliterated in the fire. Only the 4th city—Lenzizhen—survived.

Resolution
Zulera came clean and admitted that she had been the one responsible for the Great Sezonzé Fire, but turned the blame to Koroda, who had hired her by contract to "do whatever was necessary" to remove the vampires from Shioru. Her logic of "doing what was necessary" resonated with many of the vampires, who then turned on Koroda instead, since he had been responsible for ordering the attack and thus also deceiving the vampires. Shortly after this resolution, Koroda's son and successor organized a proper truce with the vampires, signing an independence treaty with the province of Sezonzé, allowing it to become an independent and sovereign nation. Once this had occurred, the vampires remained true to their word and left the Renkida—and anyone else in the arena—alone. It did create an influx of vampires who travelled and converged in Lenzizhen, but the fledgling vampire nation stayed true to its word and did not act belligerent towards its neighbours. And as such, the crisis was resolved, at least for the time being.

Belligerents
While it was clear that the Renkida and the vampires were the primary belligerents, there were factions that sprung up as well, and apologists on both sides that either sought for peace, joined a side as arms dealers, or interfered in the conflict for personal reasons. Most notably were the Madizi of Matsakan, who remained notorious for selling weapons and mercenaries to the highest bidder. Also present were the secretive Kagero-Kiza organization from Krawvill, representing the primary (and only) Shinzoka force present at the time.

Madizi
The Madizi that joined the Renkida in the war were not officially sanctioned by the government of Matsakan, but instead were freelance soldiers, mercenaries, mechanists, and businessmen who decided to try and make a profit off of the conflict by joining their allies in Shioru. None of these individuals were from the Royal Madizi Army, however, and as such, the sirens had avoided getting politically involved as a nation.

Kagero-Kiza
The Kagero-Kiza organization has existed in most nations for decades with little incident, although these curious women always seemed to appear in greater numbers during times of conflict, and the Renkida Vampire Crisis was no exception. They did not seem to favour a particular side, although it was purported that many of them sided with the vampires. Their motives behind getting involved in the war were never made clear, and the government of Krawvill disavowed any knowledge of them at all, leading to souring relations between Shioru and Krawvill.

Renkida
The Renkida's primary concern and the cause of the war was the annexation of the province of Sezonzé by the vampires, and thus their original cause of declaring war was to reclaim their lost territory. Since vampirism was spread across all of Mencu apart from Shahar-Eka and Krippa due to its negligent effects on Kumenza and Zaderei, many citizens of Shioru wondered why they were the ones that had to give up land for these creatures and be the ones that had to live next to them.

Vampires
Despite their malicious reputation, or being viewed as dangerous predators, the vampires involved in this conflict asserted that they only sought out a place where they could live together and away from the rest of the world. Sezonzé was chosen due to its central location and distance from other major cities or settlements. Contrary to the belief of the Renkida, it was actually not a personal bid against them even. Despite the actions of Zulera against them, most of them were also willing to forgive the remaining Renkida, even after learning that Zulera had been hired by King Koroda himself to perform the hit she did.

Arakos
While the Arakos had a notable sway over Shiorzé culture and politics at the time, and were many of the victims of Isikiro's Purge, they did not have as large of an involvement in this crisis as one might suspect they deserved. They offered their advice against the Vampires, but overall merely avoided them and focused on other problems to let Shioru deal with their own problems on their own.

Zulera Joanna Tallarico
While politically neutral in the Vampires versus Renkida debate, Zulera was hired on by King Koroda to 'deal with the vampires' in 'whatever way [she] would'. After asking to ensure she had full creative liberty to do as she pleased, she immediately got to work building an extravagant machine dubbed "The Berlinzé California" that later became infamous for setting nearly the entire Sezonzé province on fire. This fire caused enormous damage to much of the province, and razed three of the Four Cities entirely. After this event, Zulera's involvement declined rapidly, and she disappeared back into the shadows to continue some of her other projects, most notably, Zulera City.

Outcome
After the resolution of the crisis, the Kingdom of Shioru relinquished the province of Sezonzé to the vampires, allowing it to become its own indepdendent, soveriegn nation under the condition that there be no belliegerence against Shioru and to let bygones be bygones. Most vampires honoured this agreement, and so the deal was brokered between the new king Koroda the younger and Isikiro Sherazi.

Lenzizhen became the new country's capitol, and while Natzuzhen, Zimahzhen, and Zapadzhen bad been destroyed, all but the first of these were later rebuilt, as well as other small but thriving communities across the province. The vampires remained predators, although became more subtle and sought their prey from different sources, deliberately keeping Shioru out of their sights for the time being, not wishing to prompt another war so soon.