The Temanan War was a series of armed conflicts between the bandit forces of Temana, the Lieutenant Emperor, and the numerous nobility and forces of Southern Ravenna revolving around Temana.
Historians debate when the Temanan War officially started because there was no formal declaration of war and no one thought to chronicle the date, time, and day of the beginnings of Temana's conquests. There are arguments about whether or not Temana's raids on rich merchants and Obler-esque activities constitute an act of war, or whether it was the time that he first lead an army and crushed his first opponent in the field of war.
The earliest date that could be given for the beginning of the Temanan War was 250, when Temana began to accrue a reputation for himself. Unlike other bandits of the era, who were mostly driven by the continued weakness of any government and were using this time to raid caravans and merchants and towns in order to make a quick fortune through violence, Temana was more ideologically driven. Self-taught and more than sufficiently educated than most bandits, Temana was a strange sight, mixing both regal wear and worn common clothes. He was driven by his time on the streets, being born into poverty and only rising into his post as a bandit leader through hard work and a fair amount of luck, driven to make a new world or nation where the widespread destitution of the Kingdom of Ravenna would be but a distant memory, an idealistic goal but one he worked toward nonetheless.
Temana gained his reputation by seeking to carry out a more "moral" version of banditry and looting, like something out of a Obler myth made for children. He would only target the rich merchants and caravans, the nobility rather than the common folk. For the most part, he was successful at it. Not in anyway that made him rich or powerful or catapulted him up in the dark underbelly of Ravennan underworld reputation politics, but enough to make him a niche name, an ideologue to be forgotten with the turning of the wheel.
This perception of Temana would soon change as he snowballed in power. While he didn't always attract the most altruistic of recruits, he did make sure to pick the best and leave out the rest, forming an elite core (elite by bandit standards) of light infantry, mastering the crucial bandit strategies of hit and runs, along with guerrilla warfare and how to pick your battles. While he didn't have the flashy achievements of Dal Kar-Orqule's raids, he did master the tactical skills needed for any good commander of war.
During this time period, Temana frequently espoused his desire to create an independent Ravennan state "free of the corpse of the old kingdom", and stated that all his efforts were in pursuit of these altruistic goals. While a random bandit leader espousing crazy ideas is certainly no new thing in Ravenna, what happened next certainly wasn't. Temana, with his bandit forces, captured a traversing noble of the Hamnyar family, killed his security forces, subjected the noble to a trial, and sentenced him to death. This shocked local power blocks, most acutely the Hamnyar family. They mobilized a small army within their domain and set an exorbitantly high price on his head.
This set an array of forces against Temana, including mercenaries, forces of the nobility, and even fellow bandits intent on collecting the money that would result from his death. Leading his troops, he retreated into the Ravennan wilderness, gathering strength and occasionally striking out at the multitude of forces searching for him. After a few victories on his part and a few months without any progress made on capturing Temana, most parties gave up on trying to weed him out and focused on other endeavors. This gave Temana his first taste of military experience and combat, however limited.
In 261 he struck out again against the Hamnyar family, attacking tax collectors and their guards. Temana sought to gain loyalty from the local populations so as to bolster the ranks of his new army with soldiers who were decidedly not bandits prone to breaking a the slightest inconvenience. This only worked somewhat, with his ranks swelling with volunteers, but not as many as he had hoped. Temana began to seize a form of permanent influence by formally seizing the town of Kosville and ousting the local Lord there. From that new base of operations he began to attack and conquer new settlements, putting trusted commanders in charge of administration.
Now that Temana was beginning to encroach on the Hamnyar's territorial claims, they started to take him much more seriously than before. They mobilized their full armies and rallied their noble allies and few local vassals to march on Kosville and other bandit controlled towns. Temana heard of this preparation for a war ahead of time and as such had plenty of time to rally his own troops to counter the noble allies. When the Hamnyar finally began to march out against Temana, he was ready. He ambushed the noble army at the Jolkan Pass, and in a move that stunned Ravenna, definitively routed the superior forces using nothing but bandits and poorly trained peasants.
He routed them again when they tried to reorganize at Opio