End of Empires - N3S III [Archive] - Page 12 - Civilization Fanatics' Forums

Thlayli

Jul 26, 2011, 12:39 AM

Tales of Varied Woe

The Conscript did not know where they were. He did not know where they were going. He had not known that for many years now. They were marching through desert. It was always desert. Sometimes it was near a river, and sometimes there would be green things nearby. But always the dust, the sand. The heat. Oh, Opporia, the heat.

He was born in a mountain valley. He did not know why he was here.

God of Light, save me from the darkness.

They always came in the night. They knew this land better than their own army. There would be no light, and then a ring of light, around their campfires in every direction. And then the arrows fell like falling stars, each one a little tongue of flame. The tents would alight, and the screams would begin. "The riders," their captains would say, "the riders!"

But the riders were gone. Another night. Seventeen dead. Another day. And the blinding heat.

The Conscript did not know where they were. He did not know where they were going.

He was born in a mountain valley, where he tended to a flock of goats and a small patch of arable land, irrigated from mountain streams. He had not married, yet. That was most likely why they took him. But he remembered the clear mornings, when you could see for miles. The whole world, small houses, small animals, small rivers, looked like a tiny box of woman's trinkets.

Nothing was clear here. Everything was a haze. After the years of dust and dirt, and smoke, and fire, he remembered little else. Except that somewhere in the world, there was cool water. Somewhere, once, where he had been.

They marched in a direction. "To the red city," their captains said. But they had been saying that for years. "To battle," their captains said, but for months, it had only been the terrors in the night.

Finally, though, things began to change. Perhaps the dirt was a slightly different color. Perhaps the sky was a different shade. Perhaps the moon cast a different shadow. "To battle," their captains said, but this time it sounded less like a refrain, and more like a warning. "To battle."

And then he heard them. Low, in the distance. So low. Like a cloud of locusts swarming around a tree. And then, joining the low drone, piercing high screeches. The horns.

The Conscript did not know where they were. But he knew, finally, where they were going.

God of Light, save me from the darkness.

The horns were blowing.

---

The Evil Prince looked at the Envoy. The Envoy stood before the Evil Prince and his entourage. The Evil Prince wore black armor with a silver scroll etched upon it. His men carried shields with that same emblem. The city was a great city with walls and corridors of stone, and a great watchtower-fortress sitting over it all. The curved, fortified constructions of the sea kings had been partially replaced with the angular columns and airy buildings of the horselords, but the old city was still visible under the new. Waiting to shake off her trappings of conquest, thought the Envoy.

The Envoy had eaten of the food that the Evil Prince offered. The Envoy believed that he would be safe. The food that he was offered was rich and sumptuous. The Envoy had believed that the Evil Prince's men were starving. Truly, he thought, the Evil Prince must be evil, if he sups so richly as his men starve.

The Evil Prince lounged back on his throne. The sounds of falling water trickled softly from two fountains on either side of the room. To either side of the Prince's throne were two masked statues, each holding out scrolls to the world.

"So," he drawled in the Envoy's language, "Did you enjoy your meal?"

The Envoy replied that it was to his satisfaction.

The Evil Prince said he expected as much. "Say your piece."

The Envoy gestured out the window towards the city. "We outnumber your forces five to one. We control the land, and we control the sea. You have no means of supply, and none is coming."

The Evil Prince smiled beneath his mask. "The wheel teaches us that what is high at one moment will be crushed into the dirt in the next. And again it will be lifted on high."

The Envoy frowned. "That may be true. But you have no means of escape. We will stay here for years if need be. Our men chant every night, 'Destroy the Destroyer!' They hunger for your defeat."

The Evil Prince smiled. "Then let them come."

The Envoy frowned. "My general has asked that we avoid such bloodshed if possible. Surrender now, and your lives will be spared."

The Evil Prince smirked. "Your general knows that this city has never fallen to an army."

The Envoy was consumed with anger against the Evil Prince. "Your Redeemer, Macrinus, took this city. He waited, for years, until the defenders died of hunger. And he walked his men through the undefended gates. THAT is how the Exatai claimed Kargan, and THAT is how the alliance will reclaim it. All of you will die. Not in glorious battle as you desire, but clawing your bellies, eaten up by your own emptiness."

The Evil Prince laughed. "I admire your hatred. Let me show you my own."

The Envoy was pushed to his knees by the Evil Prince's guards.

The Evil Prince rose from his throne, drawing a cruel curved sword. "I know the story of how the Noble Restorer seized my city. I will not lose my city in the same way. You have eaten richly this night, and all my men have eaten the same. For we eat the cured flesh of your countrymen, and of all the slave races, butchered in their sleep. My men will not starve. They have the blood and the flesh of thousands to sustain them. Until the coming of the Redeemer. Until the end of the world."

The Envoy was speechless with horror. He had eaten his own people.

The Evil Prince advanced on the kneeling Envoy. "Your body, we will eat, to sustain our host. But we will have another use for your head."

The Envoy closed his eyes as the sword of the Evil Prince flashed down upon his neck.

The head of the Envoy was thrown from the walls, where it was picked up by a grizzled sergeant. He sighed, having expected, and even bet money upon, this outcome. But it was still one he had hoped against. The Envoy had been a good man.

Looking at the severed head which he was to return to his commanders, he observed that a pomegranate had been wedged into the mouth. Considering the cruelty and barbarity of the Satar, he wondered what it could mean.

---

The Good Prince was praying in his tent. He had a blessed arrow which came from the quiver of Atraxes the Wise. It had been passed down through the line of the Arrow for generations. He prayed over the arrow, asking Atraxes and Taleldil the Great to bless him with a spirit of wisdom. It was alone in his tent that he wept, and none knew but perhaps some few of his tarkan. He usually wept after his prayers. But it was this night that his prayers were to be interrupted.

The Oracle stood there in his tent. The Oracle wore a mask of many colors. The Oracle stood tall, and grey, but for his mask. He had moved silently. The Prince had told his guards to admit no man.

That meant either that his guards were dead, or that the Oracle was no man.

"Counsel, Satores, second son of Eraxis, Satores the Grey, Satores of doubt and uncertain thought, Satores the Sorrowful. I know your heart."

The Good Prince knew that the Oracle held true power, for what he said was true, and known to none. "Speak then," he said simply, and the Oracle, who had known many men from the great to the humble, was struck by the stark absence of joy and light in this voice. In two words, he heard bleak desperation worse than a famine-stricken country, and his words left him.

But only for a moment.

"I know your kind, Satores. For every man you kill, you think of his family, his children. You bear a hundred burdens. In every victory, a thousand ghosts of the enemy shadow your footsteps, and in every defeat, a thousand ghosts of your own people. You cannot know peace, because every path is damnation."

The Good Prince cried, "There is no escape! If I but thought that the slaves would make finer masters, I would tear off my mask and join them! But I know that were the slave races and the southrons to win the day, that there will be a slaughter of my people. They have promised it."

The Oracle replied, "So, you must choose. To be victorious and be responsible for the massacre of your enemy's children, or to accept defeat and be responsible for the slaughter of your own."

The Good Prince put his head in his hands. "I have already made my choice. But I recoil from the terror of what I must do. How did Atraxes rule this? How can I be one tenth of what he was?"

The Oracle stood motionless. "Atraxes once said that he wished to free the slaves. The Satar upon the steppe of his birth were a country of free men. And he wished this land to be so as well. But the laws of this world were different."

The Good Prince looked up, temporarily distracted from his anguish. "That is not written in any scroll."

"Some things are not written in scrolls." The Oracle laughed harshly. "But you might still accomplish what Atraxes failed to do."

In the dark space behind his mask, the face of the Good Prince showed shock, and it came through in his voice. "Free the slaves?"

The Oracle pulled back his robe, and underneath was armor. Buckled on his belt was a dagger. He drew the steel, holding it up to the Good Prince's face. His eyes were reflected back at him in the cold metal.

"Free the slaves," the Oracle said, with iron in his voice. "Free. Every. Slave."

The Good Prince shook his head. "The Princes will never agree to this. How can I free the slaves?"

The Oracle merely handed him the dagger, and left the tent.

For a long time, The Good Prince simply sat and stared at the weapon in his hands.

Then he rose again. Striding from the tent, he addressed his gathering men.

"Sound the horns."

Masada

Jul 26, 2011, 05:24 AM

I think Thlayli just surrendered, kicked off a Civil War and killed himself all in one story. The Lady says: the only good Satar is a dead one and who are we to challange her?

Thlayli

Jul 26, 2011, 12:03 PM

Perhaps it will make more sense in retrospect.

North King

Jul 26, 2011, 02:27 PM

End of Empires - Update Fourteen
Nightmare
Ten Years
500-510 SR by the Seshweay Calendar
389-399 RM by the Satar Calendar
215-225 IL by the Leunan Calendar

http://i.imgur.com/rcvB1.png

“If you seek Exatai, the Silver Path is yours. Justice, compassion, tolerance, tempered strength. If you seek apocalypse, the Gold Path is yours. Arrogance, righteous anger, unbridled aggression. You shall destroy everything and build nothing.” – Talan the Elder

“Faeiao brought his army to us
With countless bloody spears
They burned and plundered for a year
Until we turned to fight.” – from Of the Fall of Faeiao of Salei

Still and warm, night lies silent over the city. Behind the walls and around them, men already settle into the mind-numbing, incredibly boring deadliness of a siege. Always it goes like this: the eagerness of the first march, the heat of battle, but inevitably the slow, slow siege afterward.

War reduced to a facsimile of daily life. No battles here, just chores. Cook food. Seal up breaches in the walls. Observe the other side, boredly. Occasionally take an arrow in the gut and die in agony. Daily life.

The night is insidious, almost a blanket. Campfires burn, little flickering candles in the darkness. The city is utterly, completely quiet.

The besiegers, too, are quiet tonight. Word had it that Kargan was already on its last legs, its garrison simply too large to feed, as the noose of blockade tightened around the city. No sense throwing soldiers against the immense walls or harbor defenses when it was more likely to simply fall on its own, given but a little more time.

It is the perfect night.

Their teeth almost chattering with hunger, a few Satar soldiers move through the streets of the old city with grim purpose. The night is thick; like a cloak drawn fast around them.

They burst into a slave quarters, where the people within stand to attention quickly. It is not smart to annoy your superiors, not now, not when their tempers are so short. And so when the guards chain them together, only a few protest, only a few struggle. The vast majority are compliant. Children are taken from their parents, and when they protest, their mothers shush their cries, and tell them to be brave, to go with the men. For surely it is their only choice.

The soldiers leave one of their own to guard the prisoners in this block; he stands, sweating volumes. Men and women stare at him hollowly; he pointedly ignores them, remains aloof, but he will not tolerate the sound of anyone talking. His compatriots move to the next block, to do the same. And again and again.

The operation passes as quickly and smoothly as one might expect. There is too little resistance to note, and even if the actions seem bizarre, no one questions the Satar now.

It is a warm night.

Hours later, every slave in the city is chained in some fashion, and guarded. The children are taken to another quarter, locked away safely, far away from the night. And so it begins.

The soldiers return to their first blockhouses, and they take the group of chained slaves to another, clean room. There, their throats are cut as simultaneously as can be managed. There are not enough soldiers to make this quite work, of course, and the bubbling screams prompt some of the others to struggle madly against their bonds, kicking, biting, clawing, scratching at the soldiers, but it is of little consequence.

On and on they continue. There are many Aitahists, and there are so few hands. Heavy work. Throats to cut, blood to wash off the hands. Even with the doctrines of their commanders ringing in their ears, a few of the young soldiers are horrified by what they are expected to do. But after a hundred throats, what is one more?

They move to the next house, and repeat the whole process. Once or twice the slaves will already have stirred, hearing the cries from the next street over, and a few of the garrison are killed by an overwhelming crush of poorly chained slaves, but for the most part the restraints do their work well, and the entire Aitahist population of the city is coldly exterminated.

But this is only a prelude, for the butchers' work is only begun.

Calmly, they proceed to every body, drain the blood as best they can – they are inexperienced, of course, and are a little less than skilled. Messy even when careful. Some of the blood ends up in barrels, to be stored for later uses. Much more ends up in the floor, or on the clothing of the soldiers, or in their hair. Then begins the process of preparing the meat. The organs are removed, a quick slice through the belly and then some cleaning work in the abdomen taking care of much of the intestines; the lungs must be prised from behind the surprisingly difficult to penetrate ribcages. The skin is removed. Meat is cut away from the legs, the arms, the breast, the buttocks – few places are spared. The muscles and fat are taken to a central building in the city, where, even as more and more bodies are brought in, the meat is carefully salted and stored for curing.

Bizarre logistical problems crop up – such as what to do with the remnants of the organs and heads: ultimately the garrison decides there is a little they can do beyond dump them in the sea beside the city, or beyond the walls. But beyond this, there are few hijinks in the operation.

The non-Satar in the city – and there are many – cannot help but hear the screams, and see the carts pass by their windows. But it is confusing – most of what they see is covered by cloth, or by the darkness. No one quite knows what is going on. Thus, they are silent.

Even the next day, with the iron taste of blood heavy on the air, few know exactly what has happened. But the links between garrison and city are many. Men question why they do not see the Aitahist slaves in the streets anymore – or why soldiers, in addition to being covered in grime, now have a congealed crimson in their hair. And of course, some of the soldiers will talk.

But no one questions the meat. Food is food, doubly so in a siege.

And the rumors secret themselves between the lines of battle. Blockades, even in a siege, are never absolute. And word spreads.

* * * * * * * * *

It must be said that the Satar are not averse to showmanship; Nephrax-ta-Delphis ordered one of his catapults to launch a barrel of salted meat at the opponents' battle lines. It broke on impact, scattering only a little meat over the lines of circumvallation, but the message was sent quite clearly.

The commander of the besiegers, Folunlui Aramsayafa, absorbed the news stoically. To many others, it might seem that he was fighting monsters out of a children's tale, rather than men, but he knew better than to let that affect his decisions. The Satar clearly wanted to goad him into attacking their city, to break against their walls, despite their clear advantages, in the hopes of stopping further massacres, but his faculties remained intact. The preparations for such an assault would have to be very careful indeed.

And so the allied army began to dig trenches of approach, preparing sapping equipment, building battering rams, new traction trebuchets, and on and on the list went. The general went from group to group, talking to each in their native language, assuring them that justice would be served – one way or another – before the end.

As preparations continued by either side at the siege of Kargan, the focus of the War of the Three Gods (as it had come to be known) shifted southward. The Moti field armies maneuvered carefully around in the Upper Sesh, while Satar militarization reached a fever pitch. The acting Redeemer, Satores, ordered a levy of the entire able-bodied populace of the Satar, from all walks of life. The densely populated Sesh more than sufficed, and all in all he raised an army of almost absurd size – around a quarter of a million soldiers.

Of course, such a massive host was not without immense difficulties, and even with the Satar doctrines of racial superiority, they recognized the need to train the new soldiers before throwing them into the meat-grinder.

But just as obviously, the Moti were not content to simply let them train this new host in peace. They began to raid the countryside in earnest – helped along by a mysterious decline in the number of Satar cavalry. Fifth-Gaci was somewhat worried by this last development, but who was he to look a gift-elephant in the trunk? The more exposed estates of the Satar nobility burned by the torches of thousands of Moti cavalry, while the field army threatened multiple Satar cities.

For their part, the Satar garrisons had grown so large as to become logistical nightmares, requiring food supplies that simply weren't growing anymore. The Satar population had for the most part never been directly responsible for agricultural activities, but it certainly had been crucial to the maintenance of the slave system which had produced most of their crops. Slave rebellions, fed by rumors of Satar brutality elsewhere, started to flare up throughout the remaining land. On top of all this, the Upper Sesh certainly wasn't the more valuable part of the river valley.

But their commanders, surprisingly, seemed unworried by the problems they were facing. The Moti were not allowed a free hand by any means, and the steady erosion of the Satar lines of defenses was fought at every step, but few aggressive actions were taken. It seemed bizarrely out of character for the Satar.

And though the Moti quickly recognized this was a major warning sign, it didn't really matter either way, because they were not the first target of the Satar.

Instead, the greater part of the Satar cavalry force marched north.

* * * * * * * * *

A wedding in peninsular customs is no small affair, especially a royal wedding between the two premier powers in the region. Thus, it was with great fanfare and pomp that the Haina princess made her slow way through the Trahana country: first, through the great trading hub of Bashima, where they feasted for three nights on the finest fare from the whole Airendhe, then, in a grand procession, by massive pleasure barge through Lake Maregai, stopping by island monasteries and fishing villages nestled in secret marshlands, before finally coming to Mara, where they prepared for the ascent up to Traha proper.

The Enadanbar and the princess rode at the fore of a long, long tail of retainers and friends, and by the time that the colorful menagerie ambled through the gates of Traha proper, the populace cheered them both in great roaring crowds. The monsoons were due soon, and the dry air of the mountain capital seemed positively charged with energy.

Only then did the celebrations proper begin. A normal Trahana wedding spans two days; this one spilled over onto four, as it opened and closed with dazzling festivals. The spires of the Machaiambarai were hung with great lengths of colorful cloths, and drink and food flowed freely through the streets. On the second day, the bride was presented to the Danbar, who accepted her with grace and charm, and led her into her new home, while the groom stood outside and waited overnight to meet his beloved. On the third day, at the rising sun, she emerged from the palace and took his hand, leading him within, and the crowd roared its delight.

All seemed well in the country from then forward. The campaign against the northern tribes was ended – or perhaps simply paused – on a resoundingly positive note, with the frontier secured and its lands annexed. New temples were raised in the capital, larger than ever before. Put simply, peace and prosperity reigned supreme.

Yet by the end of the decade, there were hints that this was merely an illusion. News from the north told of the campaigns of the rising empire of Dehr, which even now was on campaign against the city states that lay between their aggressors and the Trahana. Many worried that Dehr would not stop before the whole peninsula fell under their hegemony, in an empire that matched the legendary tales of old. At the same time, however, diplomatic overtures from the Danbar seemed to meet with cordiality and friendship among the northerners.

Meanwhile, the Haina, now unworried by their friendly western neighbors, continued the colonial and exploratory enterprises with renewed vigor, sailing far to the southeast. The currents here were quite unfriendly despite their best efforts, and they were unable to make much headway, but a colony was established in a sheltered bay, and at the very least the return voyage to their homeland was extraordinarily smooth.

In the north, Dulama fears of collapse and ruin proved unfounded, for now at least. The Plague seemed to have largely run its course in fairly short order, and the Emperor was quite hale and hearty when he welcomed the great lords of the empire to Mora. The great central palace was quite an imposing site, with high vaulted ceilings and sunken amphitheaters, with glass from the east, masonry from the south, and gem-studded statuary from the rest of the country.

The new capital complex was perhaps only matched in grand imperial enterprises by the great canal from the River Thala to the city of Hachtli. Finally completed near the middle of the decade, the much improved communication to the western provinces and the ocean there meant the Empire's hold on its disparate parts was more secure than ever before. With the Hai Vithana preoccupied, and every other power relatively nonthreatening, the Empire had few worries, beyond the occasional recurrence of plague.

The Emperor thus began to preoccupy himself with a fight against corruption in the nobility, improving the records and bureaucracy of the various sub-imperial administrations, and establishing a new office of Imperial Auditor to ensure the proper destination for would-be wayward funds.

Simultaneously, however, some minor difficulties arose in the western provinces around Dula. While religious toleration and relative harmony was the norm for the land, many viewed the overzealous Iralliam preachers with suspicion and dislike, and the Iralliam preachers likewise found this new land to be a somewhat unwelcoming one at times. While these tensions were hardly life-threatening, they were certainly annoying for the majority of the citizens in the former capital.

The kingdom of Naran, legend had it, was as old as the pass which it guarded; it had lived through countless regional upheavals, outlasting the Amure and the Tollanaugh Empires, and through much of the life of the Dulama. Few even blinked when a new Ónnaran was crowned; though this lord might have grand ideas, it was likely that life for the prosperous little trading nation would continue as it always had.

The Ónnaran, however, had somewhat different ideas. He immediately led a campaign to secure new land for settlement, and extended his control further than any of his line had before. Though perhaps a minor development on the world scale, the people of the pass seemed poised to expand well into the coast land of the west, and maybe further, into lands unknown.

* * * * * * * * *

What words can you offer a dying cause? The ships gathered in the harbor of Cheidia, preparing for one last battle against the Empire, but all the inspiring rhetoric of a thousand orators would not have disabused them of the odds against them. There was always a chance that they could somehow manage to triumph, but things looked very bleak indeed for the Eastern League. No help was forthcoming, not from the Savirai nor from Leun, nor indeed anyone else.

They decided to give battle near the city of New Kalos, where the waters were narrower and would possibly give them a chance to even the footing against the superior numbers of Opulensi. And in truth, the battle was not as one-sided as it might have later appeared, and the Opulensi suffered many losses, nearly a third of their fleet. But even so, the day's verdict was never really in doubt.

The Eastern League, however, could not really match the Opulensi in a straight up fight, and their fleet scattered and dispersed before the enemy. After that, the campaign was fairly simple. The Eastern League had only ever really been a danger for its fleet; once that had been defeated, their land forces really could not make much of a contest of things. New Kalos surrendered rather than subject itself to a long, pointless, and devastating siege. Cheidia followed suit afterward. The colony at Paulinth was taken by a quick expedition, and without fanfare, the war was over and the Opulensi reigned supreme. For now, of course.

With their hold over the eastern trading routes seemingly secure, the Opulensi looked forward to a presumed boom in shipping, unbothered by tariffs and piracy. Alas, this was not to be, for even as the newly-freed Opulensi fleet swung into action against the already present pirate forces in the far east, the ships of the former Eastern League scattered to the winds, and many turned to piracy to remain in business. Thus, especially in the Nakalani off of Naelsia and in the Leunan Sea, trade became more dangerous than ever before.

Meanwhile, however, the western part of the empire thrived. Opulensi developments in ranged weaponry led to a new class of ballistae that helped somewhat against the pirate threat, while farmers inland in Spitos thrived on the sudden peace they had found. A new class of religious figures known as Iehorai were soon found preaching through the Empire, and the impetus of government pressure led to a new, unifying canon for Indagahor. On the other hand, lack of sponsorship meant the faith was still somewhat vulnerable to the evangelism of the nearby Aitahists, which did in fact win a few converts in the Empire's heartland, though hardly enough to really concern anyone but the most pious.

As most of the world convulsed with ongoing, vicious wars – the Opulensi, the cradle of civilization, the south, the north, and the middle as well – the far east had seemed comparatively serene. And indeed, peace continued through these years. But it was a strained sort of peace, with rivalries growing more intense by the year, and indeed threatening to boil over soon and bring war to this still-untroubled region.

Convinced of the value of Auona both as a strategic linchpin and as a piece of the heartland of their empire, Leun did not take kindly to renewed expansion of the Farean state. Though the newcomers were still far off from the borders of Leun proper, the rate at which their northern colonies grew astounded the oligarchs, who ordered a major southward effort to meet it somewhere in the middle.

Initially only copying Farean methods wholesale, the Leunans first offered gifts, then trade and alliances to the numerous natives on the island, the northerners followed this up by establishing strings of outposts in disputed land between the various small tribes. This did not particularly endear them to anyone, but it did ensure their power could be projected deep inland – an alliance with the great Leun soon became a valuable commodity indeed among the free islanders. This only increased in value when the remaining hostile tribes were conquered and their lands appropriated by Leunan allies.

Of course, Leun did not simply leave their allies be after this: they instead began to introduce settlers into the most “tamed” regions – by which point the outnumbered natives could only watch mutely as their lands were appropriated. Despite... well, probably because of its cynicism, this strategy effectively countered the Farean advance northward, which had stalled in any case. However, as either side entered new and unknown territories, frictions and disputes popped up in multiple places. Farean-aligned tribes on more than one occasion clashed with those backed by Leun. While the two militaries themselves hadn't came to blows – not directly, at any rate – they inched closer and closer to exactly that situation with every passing year.

The Leunan forces, quite incidentally, stumbled across a lost and previously unknown city deep in the center of Auona, on the shore of one of the smaller lakes there. The natives who live there in the present day seem to have little idea of the ruins' origin, and claim the original builders died some time ago; the Leunan explorers immediately dubbed it “Evetias,” after a legendary lost city in their own mythology.

Simultaneously, Leun aggressively pursued the cash crops of their smaller neighbors in Parthe, trying to corner at least a small piece of the growing trade. As it happened, the indigo did do well in the wetter parts of their country, and they joined Parthe as one of the leading producers of the dye.

This is not to say that they had an easy time of it. With piracy on the rise in the Leunan Sea and the Nakalani, they had difficulty exporting their new indigo crop to the west, which at any rate concerned itself more with its ongoing war than with new luxuries out of the east. New developments somewhat mitigated the former problem: the Leunan oligarchs had launched a series of expeditions to the northwest, which met with simultaneous southwestern expeditions by the Savirai. Though the Leunans worried that the desert empire would attack them, such anxieties proved unfounded – the Savirai were more interested in opening up an overland trade route to parallel the maritime one.

Leun, as one probably already imagined, echoed the sentiment.

However, for an already paranoid regime, the distractions kept piling on.

Reacting to an overstretched and aggressive Tazari chiefdom, the Acayan state of Iolha led a grand campaign against their northern marches, soundly defeating the barbarians and further cementing themselves as the premier power of the far northeast. At the same time, the Tazari launched an ill-considered series of raids against the Savirai, which some feared could bring the western empire into the east in full force.

Parthe, for its part, continued along in splendid prosperity. Settlers erected new plantations all along the northern frontier, while trade continued to boom. Extensive experimentation by the king with ships from Leun and the Kitaluk proved somewhat inconclusive. The Kitaluk ships proved quite superior in handling on the open ocean, but the Leunan vessels were certainly easier to construct, and easier to scale up in order to hold large cargoes. Ultimately it seems most prudent to use one or the other when the situation merits it.

* * * * * * * * *

The Evyni Empire had been able to take control of the Accan periphery of the Exatai with almost shocking ease, a combination of surprise, overstretch, and slave rebellions toppling the garrisons there. In almost a single stroke, they had eliminated the entire powerbase for the Princes of the Sun – the ruling dynasty of the Exatai – and moreover bowled over a whole Satar army on their way.

Determined to reclaim the northland and reduce the war to a single front, the Satar joined with their new Vithana allies into a single host, and in a ceremony full of elaborate ritual, made the Vithana Redeemer Jahan a Satar lord. He was proclaimed Prince of the Moon; in turn, he swore that he would defeat the various challengers to the Exatai, restore the justice of Exatas to its distant northern marches, and finally reclaim the south.

The Evyni had not been idle, either, and had quickly regrouped their armies after their initial victories for another series of campaigns. Advancing southwards from the Rhon, they took Elova with fairly little difficulty, the Vithana forces only offering token resistance, and plunged through the former land of Elets.

From here on, however, they started to run into problems. The steppe was nowhere near as easy a campaign ground as might be imagined; the sheer logistics of keeping an army fully supplied in such barren lands were difficult enough; meanwhile the Vithana harried them at every turn. The steppe cavalry continually drew them deeper into their own territory, only to melt away whenever the Evyni chanced to catch them in battle. The Evyni commanders were almost unbelievably patient, but they lacked an ultimate objective – the Vithana army couldn't be pinned down.

At the same time, the Redeemer's armies delivered a stunning counterattack through the southern Rhoms into the Evyni-held Oscadian lands. The Evyni garrison there was considerable, but it was largely composed of immobile infantry forces. Consequently, as soon as the initial defenses were passed, there was little to stop the Ardavai and Vithana forces from rampaging around the region, wrecking havoc and generally raising an Accan rebellion against their new overlords. The Evyni forces held together despite all this, their legendary discipline proving vital.

The Empire desperately reshuffled its armies – including those on campaign against the Vithana across the Rhoms – and reinforced their garrison in Acca. Initially, Jahan's forces attempted to continue their raiding and harrying strategy, isolating Evyni detachments and cutting their supplies, but this proved impossible in the face of numerous newly-constructed Evyni fortification and cohesion, not to mention the fact that they were entering into increasingly built up terrain that resembled their steppe home less and less. Frustrated and perhaps a little overconfident because of their initial successes, they engaged the Evyni directly with mixed success.

In the end, the Ardavai forces reached Acca proper and managed to take the city through treachery, but they had already shot their bolt. Jahan was immediately pressured by the Ardavai nobility to reconquer the Sesh Valley, which most of the Ardavai elite considered far more important than Acca (seen as a largely superfluous frontier province by those whose lands lay on the Sesh). Leaving Accan levies as garrisons and reinforcing them with some of his best cavalry, he marched for the south.

The Evyni lay bruised and battered from the Exatais' assault. Though they faced fewer foes now, their armies had lost tens of thousands of soldiers, and they needed time to regroup in their own lands before a new campaign could be launched.

In the west, the Xieni took advantage of the weakness of the Evyni to launch a renewed campaign against them, driving back the skeletal forces that had been left to stop them, and putting the old city of Naiji under siege. Many in the Empire feared that the primarily Ming population could become a fifth column and effectively give the city to the steppe invaders, but such worries proved unfounded. As Xieni forces had been stopped at the Einan's third and fourth fork, the most important parts of the Empire remained safe from their depredations... for now.

For their part, the Vischa had come out of the campaign quite well – practically no losses, plenty of plunder, and even a gift from the Moti which they did not even need to do anything for. Naturally they had annoyed many among the Vithana and the Xieni leadership – who had received little to no help from their eastern cousins but had watched them take a share of the loot anyway.

Thus, the northern war ground to a screeching halt. But the situation would radically change with the news out of the south.

* * * * * * * * *

North King

Jul 26, 2011, 02:28 PM

* * * * * * * * *

Back ships. Black harbor. Black night.

Hard to see how the city could hold out for much longer. The walls are strong, and they do not lack for food, but it has been a dry summer. Water is getting scarce. And scurvy has been rampant for three years now, weakening or killing.

The plague came soon after. The Satar seemed happy to tell the world of the horrors of Kargan. The Faronun replied in kind, catapulting bodies of plague victims into the city. A man whose body already fails is easy prey to the disease.

Black ships. Black harbor. Black night.

The best blockades are imperfect, and smugglers have no morals if the money is right. For a week, they have done their best to get in, to slip past unwary ships and then a gap in the harbor boom. A lantern flashes now, signaling. They slip in the tiniest of gaps, and wander a silent harbor, where only a few merchant ships remain. Caught, and trapped, and rotting. The newcomers lower muffled oars into the harbor waters, which plunge into the waters again and again.

Slowly, near silently, they settle next to the docks, and toss ropes ashore. Men waiting there tie the ships with the quick efficiency of lifelong sailors – Accans, not Ardavai. But they are clearly not Aitahist. No Aitahists left in this city.

Slowly, the men lower a long, long plank from ship to shore, and the first of them clambers onto it, and scampers quickly down onto the dock, where he wobbles a little at the unfamiliar feeling of land under his feet. He looks about for a moment, and then comes calmly to the dockyard commander, whose sword is already drawn and pointing at his throat.

“Are you the Opulensi?” Even though it is their city, and has remained so for decades, their voices are hushed.

“That I am. That we are,” he says, and his accent echoes that.

There is a quiet little celebration. Years ago, they had sent entreaties to the Opulensi, begging them to come to the city and relieve them. Now, it seemed, prayers were answered. The men scarcely dared to believe it. The commander, of course, didn't believe it at all. His face remained hard, his sword pointed at the captain's jugular.

“We'll need to see your holds. The grain that you're bringing. And water.”

The Opulensi man nods. He may have been a merchant once upon a time, but he is a military man now. He understands the need for absolute surety, the desperate determination to get everything perfectly correct here. The Ardavai commander comes on board their ships, goes below decks, and, after a few minutes of checking, calls his men aboard the ships. Kargan had been saved.

Ardavai laborers begin to unload the ship, crate by precious crate, while the sailors and soldiers stand watching. The Great Cloud rises behind them, sprawling across a whole patch of the sky, in an endless dance with the stars. The men cut impressive silhouettes against its bright white light, even with their thin, ragged bodies.

But then there is a shout from the guards. The two commanders come over, and everyone begins to gather. “This one,” the guards call, “this one was trying to slip away.” The dockyard commander eyes the smuggler suspiciously, and begins to ask him a question.

The smuggler shrugs. It was worth a try. “'Ware. My kin lie everywhere, eternal. Waiting,'” he says.

And then he cuts the dockyard commander's throat.

The smugglers draw a dozen blades from hidden places, and killed the stunned Satar quickly, though there is a lot of noise, and a lot of blood on either side. A watchman on the harbor wall sounds a warhorn, but there are already smugglers on the other side, through before the gates have closed. The Aitahists burst through the city, setting fire to storehouses, to armories, to everything that might burn, and they move to kill guards just roused from their sleep.

And at the same time, the subtle and tireless work of sappers comes to fruition as a section of the outer wall begins to sag, while signal fires flare and a hundred catapults unload at the city at the same time. Men who have advanced far ahead of the walls of circumvallation in protective trenches surge forth, towards the beginnings of a breach in the wall, and elsewhere – with ladders, with rams. Arrows flit from side to side.

An assault is a deadly thing – for everyone. The grounds just outside the wall cover themselves in a thick death-colored blanket, and men trod on their fallen comrades, boots squishing in blood and entrails. The men at the walls stagger back with arrows in their eyes or mouths, choking on the liquids that well up.

As the ladders slam against the wall, the men who mount them are easy targets, even when covered by their comrades' arrow fire, and so many fall to their ground and perish that it is scarcely believable.

At the breach, fighting is, if possible, even more vicious. The soldiers clamber over a great pile of wall-shaped rubble, and men on either side give no quarter if they can. There are no formations here, and though the battle line and discipline hold, this makes it only a tidier type of horror. Swords are made to hack off limbs or disembowel, and those who fall are immediately trampled by the push and shove of the carnage above.

The Aitahists made for the central of the three gates, and there a ferocious tussle breaks out behind the walls. They do not make it to the actual gatehouse, but as they occupy the besiegeds' attention, the gate is pounded into splinters by an ingenious new mechanical ram devised by the Seshweay engineers only a decade before – for the attack on Neruss.

Reports come in that ships are beaching themselves on the seaward walls, and soldiers issue out of them, clambering up the defenses, even if they know they are at best a distraction for the real assault. And the others continue pouring forth, a great army, and even as the defenders hold out as best they can – knowing, surely, what would come next – they are weakened, they are tired...

Finally, defenses fail. The city that everyone swore could not fall begins to fall. And the carnage begins, as Aitahists and Faronun alike pour into the city, burning and slaughtering in a mad frenzy of rage that their commanders only halfheartedly try to restrain. It is a damned city, a cursed city, and it burns under the twilight skies of early morning, and the cries of the wounded and dying make a symphony that echoes across the seas.

Smoke billows through the streets like a noxious fog, clouding everything. Men and women are pulled out of their homes and killed on their doorsteps, and their blood runs crimson down the gutters on a long slow run down to the harbor. This is not to say the slaughter is indiscriminate. Distinctions are made – soldiers hail the inhabitants, and those who answer with the rising cadence of the Accans or the thick Satar vowels are gutted. And there is blood – so much blood.

Time passes.

In the morning, the sun rises. We always think the natural world indifferent to our struggles, but the sky is hazy with smoke, and the sun turns a dull, burnt red.

A wind blows from the Lovi sea, and a general stands in a square, the blackened ruins of a city about him. Before him kneels Nephrax-ta-Delphis, Prince of the Scroll, Lord of Kargan, enchained and manacled. Aramsayafa looks to one side, as if considering something far off, but then his gaze slides, his attention focuses on the Satar.

“Do you know what my people tell me?”

There is a pause.

“They tell me that I should make you pay in some fashion for the men and women you killed. Some of the suggestions are most compelling.”

“Kill me if you like.”

“You are a civilized man. Or so I thought. So the Scroll are supposed to be. Why did you order... it?”

The Satar Prince grins. He has been living on cured meat and minimal water for the past four years, and his gums are ragged red with scurvy. His teeth and eyes alike are streaked with blood. “What would you have eaten?”

Aramsayafa frowns. He gestures to his guards.

“Houa Pahouaia.”

* * * * * * * * *

Quiet settled over the Had. The river lapped low against the banks: warm, gray, and muddy, moving slowly through a country that was brown and green by turns. Through the country of Bisria, tense, and concerned over the possibility of a Kothari invasion – concerns which had not yet come to pass, of course, but which looked not too unlikely these days. By the cities of Tynet, Salgaron, and Jaffna, raising and repairing fortifications by equal measure. Down to the ocean, the blue gulf between Helsia and Palmyria; here the two nations still raided one another at times, the traditions of hostility persisting even in an era of official peace.

The Kothari Exatai seemed much better off than their northern counterparts these days, having capped their southern conquests with a decade of peace. A new civil service academy had been constructed in Jaffna, modeled after the Opulensi forms, and already graduates had begun to filter out through the bureaucracy of the country. Hanakara had been settled by one of the more successful generals, with many of his retiring soldiers, and finally the interior of the Hamakuan Peninsula bustled with inhabitants, after long, long centuries of decline.

The ceremonial conquest of Zhish finished somewhat after the real fighting had long since been over and the cities all surrendered – the once king of Zhish agreed to fight with seven of his warriors in the traditional Satar death match to determine rulership. With the Kothari being represented by the Argai aspect warriors, none doubted the eventual outcome – though the Zhish soldiers fought bravely, the Kothari dispatched them with only two losses. The satrapy passed under the rule of a Kothari general.

Indeed, the conversion of the lands from Indagahor proceeded along, too, even if the pace was slow and measured. The Zyeshu had never been particularly receptive to the religion, but the more pragmatic and worldly had started to attend Iralliam religious services. Hanakara, filling rapidly with new settlers from across the Kothai, converted even more rapidly. Naturally, some of the new converts to Iralliam were judged by the Grandpatriarch to be somewhat lacking in fervor, but the process had at least begun.

Of course, not everything was rosy for the newly enlarged empire. With little to no naval presence, the Kothari could only watch as Annua slipped into the hands of a local potentate. The city soon became a haven for pirates, who troubled the southern coast and the local trade routes.

In the neighboring Holy Moti Empire, outside of the war life proceeded much as it had for the past hundred years. Though a significant number from the population had marched off to engage the Ardavai, the advisers of the king, especially the enigmatic and brilliant Evanri, carefully tended to a growing and prosperous economy in the wake of the Plague.

Of course, in the absence of the Ayasi, leadership of the Empire was not so concrete, and Evanri often faced stiff competition from grasping courtiers and the influence of the increasingly powerful clergy. But the conflict never got out of control, with the war occupying so much of the realm's resources. Naturally, though, if the conflict were to be resolved...

Meanwhile, in the black rock gullies and endless verdant forests of the south, peace had finally come to a close. The Clan of Kogur, able to bully its way into retaking the old Kratoan settlement at Rangi, refused to content itself with such a meager prize. Having secured the island, they immediately demanded the old colony at Anzai as well, which, unlike Rangi, was actually a fairly prosperous and pleasant Putran town. Putra, of course, refused, and prepared to fight the northern invaders, mobilizing their forces, fortifying Anzai proper, and readying their fleet to do battle.

Alas, for all their fortifying, the Kogur managed to slip past their defenses and land an army nearer Putra proper, and attacked the capital itself. Despite the relatively even balance of forces, the factor of surprise meant the woefully unprepared capital garrison found itself unable to hold back the intruders; the king of Putra vacated the city and retreated, ironically, to Anzai.

Yet the Putrans proved surprisingly resilient, and the fall of the capital meant rather little to them. Assistance was soon en route from Parna, which had heard of the struggles of their brothers to the north, and sent forward an army to do battle; at the same time, the Putran fleet was actually around the same size as the Uggor, if inferior in design and equipment.

Thus, the Kogur retreated behind the walls they rapidly built and reinforced in Putra proper, and while their naval forces were able to guarantee supply of the city, they were unable to do much else. It was an unfortunate turn of events, for the Kogur had optimistically settled a number of other minor exile clans on the coast near Rangi. Without naval protection, they were rapidly overrun by the free-ranging Putran forces, who were only eventually stopped by an alliance of the more powerful Kogur vassals, and local tribesmen who had been bribed with gifts from the Chief himself.

Soon, the war escalated out of control, with Putrans and Kogur alike attempting to bribe and cajole the neutral tribes into joining their forces, and soon a proxy war raged deep into the jungle, with old tribal conflicts that had been buried for years resurfacing, and much blood being shed far from the lands which had started the war in the first place.

Meanwhile, having sent off a fairly large chunk of their army, Parna found its most distant frontiers somewhat vulnerable to the more powerful tribes on its borders, who resented the little empire's recent expansion efforts; a minor conflict flared here as well.

News of these wars filtered through the jungle slowly, if at all. Thus, the faraway Utugia only heard whispers of rumors – there were men in the east and north who were killing each other, men who built stone houses and sought to bring all the jungle under their rule. The chiefs of the Utugia scoffed at the supposition that these stone-dwellers would be able to affect them at all, and continued with their fairly isolated existence in peace.

Also on the periphery of civilization, but far away, across many hundreds of miles of ocean, the Baribai began to emerge from their long period of isolation, on more than one front.

Firstly, in the north, the immense strength of the Opulensi navy was apparent even to the Baribai, who decided that, instead of raiding, they would rather begin to trade and make contact with these strange northerners. While of course the Opulensi establishment couldn't care less about the newcomers in their uncomplicated, small ships, the merchant class were more than happy to sell their wares to these strange people, who brought island curiosities to their markets.

On the other hand, the Boar People have discovered a people nearer and to their own hearts. These neighbors are called the Ilfolk, who are quite disunited, but seemed to be easily the most powerful tribe the Baribai have ever encountered, aside, possibly, from the far-off Opulensi. These people seem fond of numerous bloody rituals, many conducted at a mysterious Temple of Snakes which seems to lie deep within the territory of their jungle island. On the other hand, they don't seem to be terribly aggressive, and some of the Baribai have already extended tentative overtures to them; where they will go is a question that will doubtless be answered in a very short time...

* * * * * * * * *

The procession did not pass under the red cliffs, nor within sight of the banded citadel, pale sandstone, its greatest tower carved in the image of a great vessel. It came from the west. Yet even from the west, Magha awed.

Through the outer walls they went, companions and retainers of the Prince of the Moon. Vithana horse archers on their steeds, small as ponies, trotted side by side with cataphracts on great chargers. They passed beneath the gates, red garnets glittering in the clouds that clung to the lakatar, the wind spirits that intertwined over the portal to the city. A few elephants went by their sides, purchased from a Moti trader long ago, purchased before the war, howdahs rocking gently from side to side with each step, like the deck of some bizarre ship.

Beneath the second wall they continued, a high face of massive red blocks, and onto the great avenue of the city, shot almost straight through the city to the the Den of Wolves and the palace complex, they rode. A crowded street on any normal day, it had been cleared, and long lines of guards stood on either side, pikes lining the road like leafless trees, swaying slightly in a low heat. A great cheer rose. The people stood on either side, many jubilant, many quiet. Anxiety and excitement mingled, though both were hidden behind masks.

Many of the Vithana riders were stunned by the grandeur of the buildings they passed. Though they had seen Acca, too, that city's low palaces were old and weathered. The buildings here towered several stories, their columns carved with cockatrices, their windows lined with balconies. And far down the avenue, they could already see the bulk of the Matraxas, white stone walls against the dull red of the city, bright marble pillars and arches, and the curve of an astonishingly blue dome, like the swell of the world.

Through the city. If Jahan felt as impressed as his Vithana companions, he hid it well. The Vithana Redeemer and Prince of the Moon rode on a massive silver horse, draped in crimson and gold, white and black, flanked by the Princes of Shield and Spear. His mask was of silver, with a sleek inlaid crescent adorning a cheek.

The greatest roar of all was saved for when they entered the Den of Wolves, the sun hazy beyond the clouds of dust. The Princes made their way in one by one, Spear and Shield, Sword, Arrow and Wheel, and newly masked Scroll and Moon. The arena had been cleared and lain with the whitest of white sands, a blinding mirror to the sun above; the seats of the amphitheater were packed to the gills with thousands of eager spectators.

The Oracle entered last, and the cheers died down as he raised his hands for silence.

He was an old man, but his voice could be heard above all the whispers of the crowd. “Attend!” he boomed, and they attended. He told them of the ancient Satar, how they came to these lands, how Arastephas conquered this city, and Atraxes rebuilt it.

He told them of the story of how Taleldil had once been but a man, but he forged his mask and conquered the heavens, waging even now his war against the rest of the gods; how we fight for his eventual triumph. How he must triumph.

And he told them of exatas.

Of the might of kings, of their justice and brilliance, of cleverness and strength in battle. His arms swept about him, and he bid them, again, “Attend!” For here was where Redeemers were born.

The trial was as old as the Satar. He who rules the Exatai must be the greatest. He who rules the Exatai must defeat all would-be challengers on the field of battle. He who rules the Exatai must be triumphant, and victorious. He bade the Princes draw their weapons, and retreated before the ritual of combat.

The Prince of the Moon stood in the middle, his silver mask gleaming. He called forth, “Elikas-ta-Tisatar!” And the Prince of the Shield stood forth, and raised his sword in salute, then lowered it. His sword, his Shield, went at the feet of the Moon, and all could hear him say, “Yours is exatas; for that I bend my knee.” Jahan touched him on the head, and told the waiting crowd, “Ours is the Shield, that which shall stopper our craven foes' spears, and force him back to the Kothai! Ours is the might that shall bring us Exatas!”

“Itarephas!” The Prince stood forth, and offered his sword. “Yours is the exatas...”

“Ours is the Sword! That which shall carve limb from trunk! The Sesh shall be Satar, and so shall the Kothai. Forever onward! All shall fall beneath the might of exatas!”

And so it continued. Spear, Wheel, Scroll. Last, the Arrow, Satores laying a single, golden-tipped quarrel at his feet. Only then did the Oracle enter the Den once more, and with this, the crowd fell utterly silent. Not even a babe at the breast mewled, for the Oracle carried a golden mask.

“You are the Redeemer, he who will lead us into the darkness and out once more. You shall have fire and wind and men at your command. Forth from Magha, into the Sesh, to crush the Iralliam heathen, to kill the Aitahists, to reclaim all that is forever ours with force of arms. None shall withstand you, to the end of your days.”

And with that, Jahan unclasped his mask. Some in the crowd turned away; they watched something utterly intimate. None went unmasked in the Exatai; children were fitted with little bronze masks by their parents until they were old enough to forge their own. Only once would they ever see the Redeemer's face, weather-beaten from his years on the steppe, lined and tanned. He held up the golden mask for all to see, and placed it once more over his face.

The crowd roared.

The Redeemer was born.

* * * * * * * * *

After the destruction of the Indagahor faction at the court of the Savirai, the Empire's new faith seemed secure. The remaining loyalist forces were crushed, one by one, in the south, while the northwestern Maninists were brought to heel by a strong force of cavalry. Missionaries spread in all directions, a new land route to Leun was opened up by far-ranging expeditions, and Eastern Aitahism spread like wildfire; already a civil war in Occara raged, with some supporting the Aitah, and more opposing the growth of the new faith.

Reforms of the military began, the Emperor fashioning a more disciplined and organized force than that which had suited for conquering the far-flung Empire – he was more interested now in creating one that allowed it to fight evenly with its numerous civilized neighbors. At the same time, the Aitahist government began to tithe those of other faiths within its borders, while otherwise showing toleration – a strong incentive for conversion, and also a convenient new revenue source.

All things considered, however, it was likely naïve to expect the Empire to be content with this position.

Indeed, it was not.

Though it had been scant years since the conversion of the Emperor to his new faith, the Savirai already turned their eyes towards their nearest neighbors. Despite the old nobility champing at the bit for another chance at an engaged Opulensi Empire, the Emperor (probably wisely) decided to eschew that option. He went west.

With the Khivani preoccupied by their war against the Airani Roshate, both the eastern frontier of the Khivani themselves and the outposts of their allies the Astrians lay open. The Savirai struck the latter first, swooping down on Caon and immediately defeating the Astrian forces that attempted to stand against them in the field. In less than a season, the Savirai put all of Astria's cities under siege, and one after another fell to treachery or their siege works.

It was at this point that two goddesses met.

The Aitah, savior of the Savirai and the prophetess of the desert had led the the Savirai army in its siege of Tadon. After its fall, ships arrived from the east – most bore food, or trade goods, and carried away indigo, cotton, and spices.

But one carried another prophetess.

The first Aitah had long ago lived in the Sesh, and fled after the Satar horde conquered her homeland – to some place in Helsia, it had been said, where she helped that land begin to convert. It was said that there, too, lay the last Scion of the great Aya'se, legendary hero of the Seshweay. And so the title and the bloodline had passed from generation to generation – naturally many of these stories were more rumor than anything else, but the end result was a goddess all the same.

And so it was on the docks of a small city in the scrubland of Astria, in the shadow of an old temple of the Cult of Hulos turned trading depot, that the two Aitahs walked towards one another and embraced.

The two goddesses then retreated into a private hall, having much and more to discuss of the faith and its spread, emerging after hours to the adulation of a crowd of curious Savirai soldiers who had gathered outside. And just as quickly, the somewhat odd meeting ended, with one going on her way, supposedly far to the east, to convert still new lands to the faith, and another continuing with her armies, for the Savirai were far from content with the cities of Astria.

Sweeping across the coast of the Khivani Roshate, the Savirai armies reached the River Peko in only a few weeks' time, and there met supporting fleets out of the Aitahist Union in the west, crossing the river and threatening Reppaba faster than anyone would have believed possible. Speed was of the essence here, for if the Savirai could catch the Khivani unawares, they would be able to defeat their army, and the Airani alone would remain a threat among the Roshates.

But the Khivani army, on campaign against the Airani in the midst of the desert, had received news of the conquest of Astria some time before, and reacted quickly enough to send reinforcements Reppaba before the Savirai attack could reach it. Yet, as the Savirai surely knew, the Khivani forces alone would be unable to stand against their own armies without a lot of luck. The Khivani sent an offer to the Airani – to join with them, their age-old, mortal enemies against this new power which threatened to upend the Roshates completely.

There were merits to acceptance and refusal, of course. The Airani would face encirclement by the Aitahist powers if the Khivani fell... Yet on the other hand, the potential fall of the Khivani promised to net them quite a lot of gains.

Ultimately, however, their calculation came down on the safest side of all – they hung back and waited to see what would happen. The Khivani did not disappoint, deciding to relieve the siege of their capital in a pitched battle under the walls of Reppaba.

Though they had started the campaign with some twenty thousand foot and nearly as many ahorse, the Savirai had lost a fair number of men in both taking and garrisoning Astria; the force that lay beneath the walls of the old Siran capital numbered only some thirty thousand, about as large as the Khivani themselves – though the Savirai at least had a large advantage in cavalry. Both armies arrayed in somewhat similar deployments – the classic approach of cavalry on the wings and infantry in the center.

With both sides of similar quality and composition, it was a fiercely fought battle, with neither side gaining the upper hand initially. With far more light cavalry especially, the Savirai were much better able to harass the flanks of their opponents, and steadily pushed them back, but their infantry were disciplined enough to avoid getting caught between the advancing horns of of the Aitahist formation. In the end, though, this fight turned into a more general retreat, and the Khivani withdrew in good order, having bloodied the Savirai's nose but little more.

The siege unbroken, Reppaba fell somewhat into the next campaign season, but the Khivani Roshate, their Rosh still alive and their army still intact, showed surprising resilience, as yet delaying further Savirai progress.

* * * * * * * * *

North King

Jul 26, 2011, 02:29 PM

* * * * * * * * *

Marona had been a lovely city, before the war – nestled between the hills as they gently rolled down to the ocean, a river flowing by the western wall and a creek trickling through its center, high stone banks supporting close-set red roofed houses. But the High Ward's governor took less notice of its beauty, and more of its defensibility – his army fortified in encampments all around the city, the olive groves and vineyards but a distant memory underneath ten thousand feet.

And when those armies left, the administrators stayed, the better to communicate with the front line, and the city found its population swollen a little, makeshift houses creeping up the sides of the hills, extending from the walls in all directions. The camps came and went, as new armies were raised, sent off, and came back in victory or defeat. And the city watched.

The war had not gone well. Incompetence and inaction had let the rebellion, handicapped as it was in some ways, gain the upper hand. The western cities fell, one by one, and the Stetin reduced the easternmost valleys. In the south, the Rosh had began to venture northward, and the defenseless cities there fell quite meekly into his clutches. Gallat's grip on its empire was starting to fall to pieces, and though Marona was prospering, the city was subdued. All in the wineshops and the dockyards wondered when the city's turn would come, and to whom it would fall in the end.

They needn't have waited long. The governor, a vain and – to put it kindly – stupid man, barely even reacted as his empire broke into shards. They say he was captured in his palace, engaged in foul and depraved activities in his private quarters even as the armies of the Bhari descended on the city. The defenses, undermanned and barely commanded, simply turned and ran when the foe came, trying to defend their families from the inevitable sack.

What an end for such a state. Older than the trees itself, Gallat had gone through much – from lesser power to dominant empire in the north, from backwater to center of one of the world's greatest religions. It had gone from kingdom to theocracy to de facto tyranny. And now, all of that mattered little, for the hubris of its last general dwarfed his abilities.

On the periphery, the people survived, of course, but even pretensions to the old trappings of power died away. In exchange for peace, the eastern governor relinquished claims to the rest of Gallat, instead raising the banner of the new state of Tarena. In the west, Sirasona and the other city states remained independent, cunning and powerful enough to avoid attacks from the Roshate, for now. But in Senden? In Edrim? In Sern? In Marona?

The city watched. And the people waited.

* * * * * * * * *

The news of Gallat's fall completely overshadowed other developments in the north – at first, at least. Few noticed the rather low key war between Luskan and Cyve, for Luskan raiders were unable to really do more than burn and reave on the Cyve shores, while Cyve did not really bother to do more than defend against these attacks, holding a line of coastal fortresses that prevented the brunt of the attacks from ever reaching the inland areas of Glynt's Kingdom. Fewer still noticed sweeping measures by Osric, Bayuk of Luskan, who instituted an imperial bureaucracy on the model of their southern neighbors, wrote a new code of laws, and oversaw their implementation throughout his kingdom. And practically no one noticed the gradual increase in influence of the Aulfrelesti house.

But what came next... everyone noticed that.

Luskan, apparently uninterested in continually trying to exert influence over the isle of Ederrot, instead turned their raiders towards the Frelestican coast. The first few ships, passing in the autumn storms and emerging from gray and troubled oceans, took the outer parts of the Frelesti coast by surprise, and managed to take a considerable amount of plunder back home before they were spotted by the Frelesti garrisons.

However, the Frelesti had been expecting the raids (if not their timing), and moved to secure the coastline, raising numerous fortresses, and repelling seaward invasions with much bloodshed. Though the work of driving off reavers proved difficult for the less mobile, land-bound armies of the Frelesti, with no other flanks to guard, they were able to systematically pinch off and annihilate raiding parties, drive off larger armies, and generally prevent large-scale damage to the more important parts of their territory.

Thus it continued for some time, with the Luskan raids beginning to slow, and in some places even stop as the raiders themselves saw less and less of value there. Overtures to the Nech monarch had met with little response, and the war effort seemed to be fizzling before it had even begun.

So it was that when Glynt landed in the southern part of the Aulfrelesti dominion, there was almost no opposition.

The Cyvian King showed little mercy in his campaign, burning and pillaging as he made his way north to the city of Aulfrelesti proper, and generally destroying any resistance that formed against him – indeed, what little there was withered in the face of this assault, and the Cyve forces reached the heartland of the Frelesti lands before the latter had even managed to get word to their northern forces to return home in defense.

From here on, however, Frelesti resistance stiffened considerably. Though Luskan raids forced them to maintain numerous garrisons in the north, the greater threat had become clear. They drew away most of their army to face the Cyvian army in the south. Unfortunately, the defenses of Aulfrelesti impressed no one, Glynt least of all, and the southern king overwhelmed the undermanned city garrison before the relief force could even arrive.

At a stroke, Aulfrelesti was sacked, and Cyve had crushed the most important of the Frelesti potentates before he could react.

Nonetheless, the House of Aulfrelesti at the least refused to go down without a fight, and attacked Glynt's forces near the shattered capital. Lord Aulfrelesti's army gave a good account of itself in the battle, but ultimately was unable to do much more than get a stalemate; each of the armies retreated to nurse their wounds after a bloody and rather pointless confrontation.

The news got worse, as, while Aulfrelesti's armies were away, the Luskan raids intensified in the north, and indeed one of the more minor Frelesti states in the center of the coast fell entirely to the western raiders. At the same time, Aulfrelesti was now left without his homeland, and his army remained in the territory of another lord, who was not so eager to feed his erstwhile rival's sizable force. Yet he also could not risk enraging Lord Aulfrelesti, who had enough soldiers to make a play for the northerner's realm and use the invasion as an excuse to make himself King of all the Frelesti.

But if the Frelesti were disunited and divided, so, too, were their rivals. Luskan and Cyve, after all, continued their own war in the west, and did not cooperate on even the most basic of matters – indeed, Luskan raiders began to hit the Cyvian garrisons in former Aulfrelesti lands. Thus, the Frelesti were able to escape destruction or even widespread losses beyond the Aulfrelesti seat itself. Still, no one was fooled – if the Frelesti could not find a stroke of luck or genius, what hopes they had for continuing independence might evaporate quickly.

* * * * * * * * *

News of the fall of Kargan had disappointed the new Ardavai high command, but none believed it more than a minor setback. Kargan had fallen to the Satar some time before, when they had driven out the old masters in their triumphant ride through the cradle. Should they defeat the Moti now, there was little doubt in anyone's mind that they would be able to recapture any and all losses, and impose a new Exatas across the lands that they had ruled for so long.

Naturally, no one regarded the task of crushing Moti lightly. Too long had the Satar battled their southern neighbors to remain naïve about their abilities and determination. Also, importantly, no Moti had any illusions as to the grit of the Satar – and none at all doubted that the enemy knew these things as well. No one would retreat simply because their army had suffered heavy losses, if the enemy suffered proportionately. Any strike that could really change the fortunes of either side in the war would have to be bold – like the initial Moti march into the Delta.

And while both armies prepared for some great armageddon, the other facets of the war grew still more brutal. The Iralliam armies spared none of the lands they occupied – they tore down every Ardavan temple they could find, stone by stone, breaking them and reusing the material for any number of other functions. Ardavan priests who were slow to renounce their faith found themselves executed by the occupiers. The Seshweay rebellion was surprisingly a little more kind to its prisoners, mercifully enslaving them and using them to rebuild many of their defenses and shattered infrastructural pieces. The Ardavai crushed dissent as they always had.

And yet it was still the Ardavai who fell into the most desperate situation. The slave rebellions and the shortage of workers, combined with the loss of the most fertile lands, meant the harvest had simply evaporated. An army as large as theirs could only be kept in the field for so long – if they did not retake the rest of the Sesh, that was. And the Moti – indeed, the whole Alliance – maintained their supply lines deep into Ardavai territory.

Thus, the nobility and military commanders of the Satar urged the Redeemer to push forward, engage the Moti in battle, and liberate their remaining occupied territories. Jahan, however, seemed to have different ideas.

Vithana and none too interested in watching his horde dashed away against the armies of the Moti in a decisive battle, the Redeemer urged caution and harassment of the Moti, instead of directly challenging their foes. Jahan initially ignored the resulting noble dissent and friction in the upper echelons of the Exatai, or at least, tried to quiet it by seeming to take a more proactive stance against Fifth-Gaci.

Bizarrely, the ploy seemed to work, thanks to a strange degree of compliance on the part of the Moti. Falling back before the harassment, unwilling or unable to challenge the more numerous mounted forces of the enemy, their forces began to fragment, and seemed to be on the verge of disintegration.

Watching the Satar press forward, the Moti forces became increasingly less coordinated, and almost sloppy, with detachments several times only barely escaping the marauding outriders of the enemy. Naturally, they left the land behind them increasingly devastated – any inch yielded to the Satar was scorched land, unable to support their increasingly ravenous host. But all the same, the common soldiers began to wonder at the wisdom of invading such a prepared enemy.

Things went worse and worse for the would-be conquerors. On a quiet night before the end of all things, the Satar struck. The shadow warriors attacked from darkness and assassinated many of the Moti generals, including, it was rumored, Fifth-Gaci himself. Already uncoordinated, the main field army fell back in disarray towards Kirost.

Jahan was convinced to take the field. The Satar pressed hot on their heels in pursuit, believing that their enemy was entering into a full-fledged rout.

But then, quite suddenly, the fortunes reversed once again. The Moti army, far from being in a rout, had simply drawn the Satar into an exposed position – even though the losses their leadership had incurred were real, they still had quite enough organization to turn and face their enemy. Perfectly positioned, the other Moti army pounced at the same time, and though the Satar were able to see the blow coming, they were unable to catch either army by itself. The Moti were far more coordinated than they could have expected, given the presumed lack of leadership with the death of Fifth-Gaci.

On the other hand, the Satar still maintained a slight advantage in numbers. They withdrew slightly to more advantageous terrain, where the enemy could not easily strike from more than one direction, and arrayed their forces for battle. Within a few days, the Moti approached.

Thus was the stage set for the greatest battle in recorded history.

* * * * * * * * *

The air shimmered weakly over gold-brown scrubland, waves of heat rippling slowly off the earth. The sun hovered quite high, but it felt as though it sat on the back of every neck, an orb of brilliant heat just beside the skin, roasting men in their armor. The moon slogged through a pure blue sky, red-gold, yet tinged blue by the air blow. And to the south rose those mountains, the great Kotthorns, the legendary Kothai, black foothills rearing over the plain below.

Two armies faced one another across a wide-open space, arrayed in line upon line upon line. Spears grew from the earth like ten thousand thickets, and horses and elephants danced nervously at the sight of their foes, knowing what this silence meant. Red banners from one side, white from another. Four hundred thousand stood there that day, if the chroniclers can be believed – a number scarcely imaginable... a number greater than all but one or two cities in this world.

And on either side, the generals. Jahan, every inch the conqueror, astride a massive horse, surveying his soldiers. Opposing him? A ghost.

Fifth-Gaci lived. Perhaps the assassins destined for him had been intercepted; perhaps they had been stopped at his door, or by his bedside, or in the process of trying to kill him. The how of the matter scarcely mattered. After all the rumors of his demise, the sight of his calm figure atop his great war elephant gave heart to his soldiers, who raised up a great cheer. The terrors of the night had passed – their Ayasi yet lived.

But all this was just a prelude.

The Satar arrayed in three great masses. The center, their infantry, and a few elephants procured before the start of hostilities – though their elephant corps was much inferior to that of their foes – many of the beasts had aged or hungered and died, with no replacements in the intervening years of warfare. And on either side, the wings, composed of rank upon rank of the finest Satar cavalry, cataphracts, horse archers, everything from the most heavily armored to the great body of Vithana steppe cavalry that the Redeemer himself had brought.

The Moti host was still the larger force, thanks to its allies, a vast array that seemed to stretch to the very horizon. Their infantry numbered tens of thousands of pikes, archers, and swords alike, and was supported by units of cavalry and elephants, the latter among the most splendid of any corps that set foot on the battlefield that day. Though traditionally their cavalry rated as inferior to their foes in number and quality, today, they were no inconsiderable force. Moreover, despite expectations of a low-quality conscript force, the Moti infantry contained more professionals, more veterans, and was better armed.

For hours, the armies assembled here under the baking sun, their sheer size necessitating a long, long deployment.

But all this was just a prelude.

The battle began swiftly, as the Satar cavalry sprang into motion on either flank. Quickly, as a haze of dust rose around them, they closed the distance with the Allied cavalry, who gradually gave ground, pinning the Satar cavalry in combat in order to allow their other forces to reinforce the wings. The Satar then withdrew from the flanks slightly, and sent forward the Vithana horse archers to harass their opponents with a storm of arrowfire – though the Moti's position on somewhat higher ground neutered these attacks.

Meanwhile, the infantry bodies of the two forces began to clash in the center, and though the Satar cavalry had been well-trained to withstand the Moti elephant corps, here in the center, the great beasts proved much more decisive, and the Exatai's infantry gradually gave ground, the less experienced soldiers among them panicking in the confusion of the battle – the dust kicked up by the elephants alone blinded many, and the noise was absolutely deafening.

But suddenly, the Satar warhorns sounded, startling the beasts, and the infantry were reinforced by cavalry detachments, the Exatai's own elephant corps, and the more professional of their infantry, who better knew how to deal with these beasts. For their part, the elephants began to turn and panic, running among friend and foe, disrupting both alike. Both sides opened their formations to avoid casualties from the elephant rampage, and it took the Moti some time to regain control of their mounts.

At the rear of the Allied formation, assassins struck at Fifth-Gaci once more, but the leader's bodyguards had been alarmed by previous attempts against his life, and were now all the more ready to defend him; the attack fizzled before it had even begun.

Without their elephants, the Allies advantage in the center of the field faded, and the battle there stalemated fairly quickly. At the same time, however, Satar attacks on the wings were unable to get the upper hand either, and the battle quickly turned into one of attrition, something no one wanted – least of all the Ardavai Redeemer Jahan, who preferred a more conservative approach. Argument broke out between Jahan and Satores, the Satar commander, and their lack of coordination began to tell as their forces gave ground to the Allies across the battlefield. On the other side, the ailing Fifth-Gaci directed his soldiers with precision.

The first day, then, belonged to the Allies, though only narrowly, and when the sun started to set in the west, neither force had truly gained the upper hand. Skirmishers remained on the field for some time later, but in time each force withdrew to its respective encampment, waiting for the dawn to return.

Even as the stars still faded overhead, and the last hint of the Maw remained in sight just above the horizon, each army mobilized, hoping to steal a march on their opponents.

This time the Satar overloaded their right, hoping to force a breakthrough against the enemy there; the Moti forces stood strong, however, and Allied elephants rapidly reinforced them, charging downhill into their opponents' formations; the use of horn and arrow to startle and frighten the beasts proved effective once again, but the Satar found they could not reform in order to drive off the enemy infantry, and withdrew once again.

However, the Moti could not truly capitalize on this; the sheer size of either force had made them excruciatingly difficult to control. After an hour, the gap in the Satar lines closed once again, and the golden opportunity for the Allies vanished.

And so the battle still raged on, neither side willing to concede the field, neither side able to completely overpower the other. The Satar seemed to break first, in the center, but Fifth-Gaci feared a trap, and refused to pursue with more than a screening force of cavalry – the Satar indeed reformed and marched once again towards their foes, connecting as the sun wound and wended down the western sky, the empyrean turned a gray brown from the sheer amount of dust kicked up by the forces.

So ended the seocnd day.

At this point, Jahan considered retreat once more, wanting to return to the raiding strategy, but Satores rightly argued that the army would rapidly dissolve if they could not secure a victory at the field today. The Redeemer grudgingly acknowledged this point, and so the stage was set for the third day of the Battle of Karhat.

On the third day, the battle was lost.

On the third day, the battle was won.

Once more, the armies closed for battle, and this time, the Satar sent a force of cavalry forward to screen their movements by kicking up a great cloud of dust. The Allies, too, hid their movements, keeping a large reserve of their elephants and their most mobile infantry behind a ridge, and otherwise arraying their force in a line across the high ground, as if daring the Satar to come and attack them.

The Exatai obliged.

First a number of Vithana raiders struck the Allied left once again, harassing them, and forcing the enemy to reinforce that flank. Then, seeing their foes committed, Satores ordered a charge of the finest cataphracts the army could must, plus the greater part of their professional infantry, all plowing into the foe's right, before they could react or send reinforcements.

It was an awesome sight – a whole array of cavalry, spears and armor shining in the noonday sun – looking for all the world like the bringers of apocalypse.

The charge broke the enemy's first lines, and plunged deep into the second line of their formation, but Fifth-Gaci had already called up his reserves from behind the ridge, and as he saw the true intentions of the foe, he ordered the elephants to lead a countercharge directly into the great mass of battling soldiers in the middle of the field. The Satar once again panicked their foes' elephants, but at this point it hardly mattered; the armies were too tightly packed, and everyone took casualties from the beasts now.

In the end, the Satar levies broke first, and though Satores valiantly rallied them again and again, he could not stem the tide alone. The Redeemer collected his own most loyal forces and left the battlefield, and the main body of the infantry withdrew in good order due to Satores' efforts, but the levies melted in the face of the enemy tide.

In the end, the Allied army had triumphed – and though a hundred thousand lay dead or wounded on the field, they accounted it a good day. Helsian, Aitahist, and Moti banners flew all across the horizon, tattered, ragged, but intact.

* * * * * * * * *

The Exatai made good account of itself from then on, but time and numbers were against it now, as the problems they had faced before only redoubled with defeat. Nikros fell all too rapidly after the battle, as had to be expected. The numerous fortress monasteries held the southern border against their foes, and Satar river boats prevented the enemy from crossing the Sesh safely, but when the whole Allied army, bearing down on the Exatai's heels rounded the headwaters of the Jaffa, they could not be stopped.

Xephaias held out for much longer, being a ludicrously well fortified citadel, but the Moti force outnumbered its foe to such a degree that they could both cover this and the monastic forces even while continuing its own advance. Fording the headwaters of the Sesh proved to be a much more difficult prospect, as Satores managed several victories against their advance parties, but when the full Allied army was brought to bear, they had to retreat once more.

The Siege of Magha would not end by treachery this time; rumors of the sacks of various other Satar cities had spread, and no one wanted to see that fate visited upon their beloved capital. But this time, there were no Accan forces out of the north, no relief. The Seshweay, still the best in the world in siege warfare, constructed ramps, sapped the walls, engineered magnificent towers of kinds which had never been seen before.

But though the city stood strong, the strength of the Exatai's armies had faded in battle. The city resisted for a year – longer than it ought to have, by rights – and ultimately the Allies broke its walls, and utterly laid waste.

Silver City, Sapphire City. No more.

The Matraxas burned, its sapphire dome torn to pieces, a smoking crater in one side opening before the whole edifice tumbled down upon itself. Allied soldiers graffitied the ruins, and those of the Den of Wolves, and though the Citadel of the Arc was left fairly intact, it was occupied by Allied soldiers. The monasteries of the Red Cliffs of Magha, too, burned away in the siege, and though the cost was dear to the Allies, the city had fallen.

The Exatai burned, in all its glory. Cities smoked and fortresses fell. Yashidim stood, they whispered, but the old home of Satores was without its Prince, who had withdrawn to the north, to the Rath Tephas, to try and salvage what could remain of the Exatai. Where was Jahan? Few knew, though raids continued in earnest all along the line of Allied occupation. The Redeemer had not burned himself, nor died in battle – that much was known.

Where had it all gone wrong? Ten thousand tomes of the old faith and histories were squirreled away by wit or trickery, but more burned in the fires of Magha. Thousands of babes were pulled from the breast, their heads dashed against walls as slaves rose against masters. The whole of Satara was aflame.

In an encampment outside Magha, the Ayasi Fifth-Gaci passed under a smoke-red sky, his kidneys failing, but his glorious task completed. The northern Empire, of silver and gold, sapphire and dust, had fallen, and even as twilight dimmed overhead and turned to midnight, even as his eyes faded, he felt as though he finally passed into the light. Not so far away, Aramsayafa walked among the ruins of the hated foe, and marveled at what beauty could spring from evil – the cockatrices on the pillars of the Den of Wolves shimmered a pale red in the setting sun.

And far from either, in the north, a Prince who had once been a boy looked at the Veil of the Lakatar. Stars, sapphire and ruby, burned like hidden coals, swathed by streams of distant sun-cloud, newborn worlds far from this blood-soaked one. His thoughts wandered back to his father. How prescient they had been, so very long ago.

Ten thousand prayers answered.

Ten thousand ignored.

So the night passes.

* * * * * * * * *

North King

Jul 26, 2011, 02:29 PM

* * * * * * * * *

Maps:

Political

http://i.imgur.com/jf3XH.png

Cities

http://i.imgur.com/UgkMh.png

Religious

http://i.imgur.com/csOQA.png

Economic

http://i.imgur.com/ZV4Yk.png

* * * * * * * * *

OOC:

Theige is booted from Gallat for not only failing to send orders twice in a row, but failing to do anything other than to stop multiple other people from being more productive with the country. It's really hard to overstate my annoyance at this.

Apologies for the tardiness. The extreme tardiness. Yeah. I will hide in shame.

Also, some parts suffered somewhat in quality, especially near the end of writing... fortunately I spaced them out enough geographically that I think only a couple of players really got shafted. :p

alex994

Jul 26, 2011, 07:55 PM

OOC: I passed out from joy. Now if I can only remember what I was doing...

Masada

Jul 27, 2011, 01:17 AM

If Thlayli is getting whole updates spoiled, and I can't even get a highly relevant religious thang spoilered in the slightest, I'm not going to be a happy camper.

Lord_Iggy

Jul 27, 2011, 01:32 AM

NK, don't give in to interrogation. :p Let us all learn the results at the same time, or else Thlayli will be able to torture us with information of the war! ;)

Angst

Jul 27, 2011, 04:15 AM

OOC: Can't wait to see what's going on with my fledgling nation.

Masada

Jul 27, 2011, 04:24 AM

NK, don't give in to interrogation. Let us all learn the results at the same time, or else Thlayli will be able to torture us with information of the war!

Oh baby, the Canadian is angry - HULK IGGLES SMASH!

Thlayli

Jul 27, 2011, 09:59 AM

What exactly are you people talking about?

Lord_Iggy

Jul 27, 2011, 10:27 AM

Huh? I thought my smileys made my attitudes clearer. I assumed from Masada's post that Thlayli was interrogating NK for update results, which wouldn't really bother me unless he decided to lord that information over us. At any rate, we know his kind are evil cannibals anyway. ;)

Thlayli

Jul 27, 2011, 10:30 AM

Assuming things from what Masada says was your first mistake. I've done no such thing....in fact I think he just made that up.

North King

Jul 27, 2011, 10:02 PM

And since I need to bump this because of the update, here's a deleted scene from the update (it was getting long in length and this scene was rather redundant after the final section anyway):

Obviously, spoilers if you haven't read the above.

A boy walks through the desert. Who can say where he comes from? Perhaps not even he. All that came before was just a dream, barely remembered. Did it even happen? Hard to tell now. Maybe this is reality; just him, walking through the desert. One foot in front of another. The horizon never looks to come any closer; the mountains behind him never any further. The desert, featureless – or perhaps too featured. The rocks are so numerous that they lose all meaning as markers; after half a hundred go by it is impossible to tell if he's passing the same rocks over and over again.

Perhaps he is going mad. Perhaps all that came before was the madness, and this is the one moment of clarity. One foot in front of another. Over and over, the same step, lifting the foot from the trail of prints behind, swinging it through the air, muscles screaming with exhaustion, settling it down. Is time even passing? Is this literally the same step? Perhaps he is dying, and his mind, in protest, is remembering this last step over and over again. Perhaps if he tries to stop, he will find that he is already dead.

No, no, he says to himself. The day sky is fading over his head. If there is day and night, he is still alive.

Or is he? Maybe the sky is not fading, and his vision is. Maybe this is simply a slow way of giving up. Peaceful. It is no shameful thing to die in battle, he muses. And surely, he died in battle. For it was the battle that drove him into the desert, with no food nor water, stone rending the soles of his feet, blood appearing in his trail. Yes, he was slain in battle. It has simply taken a long while for the blow to fall.

Into the golden valley, eating the silver dust. Thirst beyond imaginable thirst. His vision blurs. A shiver runs down his spine. He hears the voices of his friends. An illusion. He shakes his head, and feels his brain press hotly against his eyes, thumping against the sides of his skull. His tongue swells, as if to plug his mouth and stop that precious spittle from leaving into the desert air. He hopes that he is not asked to speak when he dies. He doesn't think he could manage more than a croak.

The sky is definitely fading fast now, and the stars are beginning to come out. That calms him. If he were dying, he would not see the stars. He knows he will probably die in the frigid desert night, or at least be too weak to continue come morning, but there are worse things. At least he will watch the night spirits fly, one last time.

Minutes pass, and he realizes he is no longer moving, indeed, that he has slumped sideways against a boulder. It is strange how quickly a desert cools. The rock is still warm to the touch, but the air is already cold. He looks up at the cloudless sky.

Above him, the stars, spinning in great, slow arcs. The Maw is low tonight, the strange wisp of star-cloud looking like the sun's fire slowly wafting into the night. Across from it, the moon, a deep blood-red, dark and crescent-shaped, barely lifting above the horizon. And between them... what is that?

Another light, one not familiar. A fire? Why is there a fire in the desert? Voices? The cold of the night cramps his muscles, but he forces himself to his feet. He begins his journey again, one foot in front of the other. A wolf howls somewhere in the night. A good omen. He goes faster, limping with exhaustion. He will not perish, not tonight...

A long darkness.

Nothing.

A boy wakes in the desert, every inch of his body aching. His gut clenches from hunger, his cheeks are salty from tears. His mouth is too tumescent for speech, even after he grabs a canteen and guzzles the water inside ferociously. He wipes his lips clean, and his hand scrabbles by his side, where he finds his mask, the bronze still cool to the touch in the early morning twilight. Carefully, he fits it over his face.

Then, and only then, does he sit up.

Others are moving here. One nods at him. He tries to say, “I think I was dead.” He's not sure what came out. It still hurts to make noise.

The man nods, his mask a dull crimson in the lightening sky. “Dead boy,” he agrees. Then he glances at the sky. Even as the sun ascends over the desert flats, and the tiniest hints of clouds glow a golden-red like copper-gold, the northern sky darkens. Storms are coming, the dead boy realizes. Storms after sunrise.

* * * * * * * * *

Matt0088

Jul 27, 2011, 10:15 PM

Yeah I'll take waiting 3 months for this everytime. I mean... :eek:

Thlayli

Jul 27, 2011, 10:17 PM

An excellent update, NK. In the end, I did all that I could.

Lord_Iggy

Jul 27, 2011, 11:16 PM

War makes monsters of us all.

Some more than others.

Luckymoose

Jul 27, 2011, 11:40 PM

TO: Bayuk of Luskan
FROM: Glynt, King of Cyve, Lord of the Isle of Ederrot

Do you take me as a man of lesser means than yourself? Am I some lowly prince of the wastes in your eyes? Has your defeat by my hands not proven your inferiority to my kingdom? Haste will be made in Luskan raids ending on my people. No war shall last between us that will end well for you Bayuk. I offer my wisdom to you, as the great man I am, and with it grant you this chance to walk away and accept my dominion of the Isles. My prowess on the field of battle will hold no ground in your favor, my armies will march to your belly and slice it open as we would a fresh hunt. Your blood is on the table of diplomacy Bayuk. Do what is wise and modest of a noble. Know my power and fear it.

Northen Wolf

Jul 27, 2011, 11:50 PM

Awesome update, Thanks NK!

Lord_Iggy

Jul 28, 2011, 12:53 AM

What Was Once Lost

The Grand City Burned. A collection of Faronun forces stood in a plaza, littered with masonry and wreckage. The battle was over. The hunt was on.

Say Tarofa o hayaera,
Sayfin raian gaio mourai?

Poluhai Sirou's bloodlust had abated. It had been sated by the three Dahaiaou who had graced his sword, and now, he sat in wonderment, gazing at the burning city.

Loaifa o Saraebaha, Hailsia o Paraiafo,
Fouru o ieraita,

Hierofaen Aramsayafa whispered the words hoarsely, a mantra, a hold onto sanity amidst the destruction of Caroha. His eyes moved quickly through the ruins, the memory of the map of the city burned into his mind by a lifetime of study.

Dahaiaou o Treda,
Farapay haigao rosaida said boroaf, ioura.

Poluhai was not a learned individual. He had been raised in the Port of Aramaia, raised as a tailor's child. He had been taught how to read by his uncle, and knew the old stories. He knew of the time that Farou the Great had existed, when Haiao shone brightly upon all and Istria was banished to the far corners of the earth. But the bad times had come, and the Dahaiaou had slain the old order, setting brother against brother and bringing the time of light to its end. The Dahaiaou had stolen much on that day, but some could be recovered from Kargan.

Say Tarofa o hayaera, sarafay daiaigoa cora,
Say Farou o hayaera, raesha daiaigoa thaera,

Hierofaen's frantic searching was rewarded. The squat domed building ahead of him held the treasures he sought. The scholar prayed for their safety, and motioned towards the building. The soldiers advanced, moving in twos into the building. A few tense seconds passed before they returned. One spoke in the affirmative. Hierofaen was overjoyed.

Daera say robouru,
Daera say parcouru,

Poluhai marveled at the interior of the archive, a rich mix of browns and reds. The architecture was alien to him, yet at the same time strangely familiar. Yet at the same time, the wonderment was best with disgust. What good people had these demons enslaved to build such a beautiful structure? The young soldier firmly resisted the urge to race to the books and parchments carefully placed into the heavy wooden shelves, keeping his eyes on the outside. The time to read would come later.

Radmafae raena dae,
Fanai houa pahouaia.

Hierofaen could barely keep tears from his eyes as he read the titles on the seals of the ancient, cracked scrolls. Slave. The Fall of Salei. A compendium of the old fables. Yet there were not only old fables here, more had been collected. Literature from every nation of the world, some familiar, others written in scripts and languages completely unknown. But there was more! A copy of The Beautiful Turns, translated into the runes of the Satar, and what must have accounted for the complete works of the old playwrights, again translated from flowing Faronun script to the forceful blocks of the Satar. The Dahaiaou had stolen, they had pillaged, yes... but they had also embraced and adapted. Faronun works were known to these people. It was a perversion, the existence of these corruptions of the original texts... yet it was deeply moving at the same time. Unable to restrain himself further, tears began to fall down the old scholar's face.

andis-1

Jul 28, 2011, 03:37 AM

spryllino

Jul 28, 2011, 08:11 AM

As a final act of the Eastern League:

Cynta and Serkos pledge their undying and complete allegiance to the Emperor of Leun.

conehead234

Jul 28, 2011, 08:13 AM

OOC: Yay update

to: Clan of Kogur
from: Parna

We will defend Putra and our brothers from your aggressive actions. The jungle will become your final resting place, your soldiers will make substance for the jaguars. We demand you withdraw and return to the lands from which you came.

to: Putra
from: Parna

We must stand united against this Kogur threat. I will be contacting you over private channels on how to conduct this defense.

to: Shentha
from: Parna

If Putra falls, you will be next, join as against the aggressors to the north.

to: Surrounding Tribes
from: Parna

The Kogur threat is indeed real, let us end our feuds and unite against a common cause. You hear rumors of destruction of each other by the men of the north, let that not come to us. The Kogur Clan will bring that to us! Their actions show no regard for the land that is ours and that our ancestors have lived on for thousands of years.

andis-1

Jul 28, 2011, 08:54 AM

Excerpts from monk Enegros' letter to the monastery of Rhunos:

"Arasos was correct on viewing truth as precursor for enlightement, as well as saying that truth will almost certainly lead to pain. Truth needn't even remove the ignorance, just as he taught. However he made an error by assuming that finding truth in itself would eradicate the suffering and open the gates of enlightement. He didn't realise that finding truth and pain are necessary for reaching enlightement, as one cannot be freed of pain until he understands it's nature and causes. When one understands the cause of pain and suffering, he is able to release his grasp of it's source, and in return the pain will free it's grasp over him. And that ascension, my friends, that freedom from suffering is the very essence of enlightement."

"Now, seeing that learning truth is important step into enlightement, we must now define what actually is this truth, or could there even be several truths that define the existance of all things. Some of our monks here believe that the truth is the freedom of desire, as desire is, in most cases, the reason of suffering and pain. Myself I don't think desire in itself is a bad thing, however. How could a desire to do good, for example, be bad thing? How could helping those less fortunate or those who are lost in the darkness that is suffering, be against enlightement? Relieving others from pain does indeed help them closer to enlightement. Therefore I believe that there is no single truth, no single way to ascend from pain and to reach Iehor. As Arasos said; there is no man who is not wise in his own way. The ways to finding truth and Iehor are as many as the people on this earth."

"Since ascension essentially requires one to find the sources of pain and suffering, we must ready ourselves in body and mind before embarking on the journey to enlightement. This preparation I call Azar-I-Iehor, path to enlightement. Physical and mental strenght, patience and discipline, honesty and loyalty, love and compassion, these all are the virtues everyone on Azar-I-Iehor must learn to value and embrace."

"Arasos' remarks about ignorance are ones that puzzled me most. After much thought, I've realised the wisdom in age-old teachings of indagahor. Learning alongside improving and honing one's skills are the way to eradicate the mist of ignorance that clouds our daily lives and path to enlightement."

Enegros read through the last lines of his letter, finishing the proofreading his written teachings. Finding his work satisfactory, he scrolled the paper and sealed it with wax. The letter was to depart with one of his pupils to the monastery at the coastal city of Rhunos. Enegros had learned that the monastery where he had studied in his youth had since become known for the new martial art, Kara-Kudo, that the warrior monks of the monastery had perfected in the recent years. Enegros' interest in martial arts, namely due the discipline and mental focus they required, made him all the more eager to go and train the new art in Rhunos, yet his obligations in Epichrisi wouldn't allow it. Thus he agreed to send his best pupil to learn the secrets of new art. The letter contained his recommendations for his pupil, as the warrior monks wouldn't allow anyone but the best champions of Kara-Ka, the older, existing martial art, to learn the Kara-Kudo.

"Iehorai, monk Aelinas asked to inform you that the new pupils have arrived. They are waiting for you at the monastery gates." The man who spoke was Enegros' pupil, Tereion.

Tereion had just arrived to the monastery's garden where Enegros had been writing his letter beside a large, white, flat central stone of the yard. Stone had been brought all the way from the mountains in central Spitos by the time when Crannaior-Karash built the monastery for his favourite monk, Arasos. The garden's of Opulensi monasteries were curious in the fact that plants weren't as much in a central role in them. The harmony and balance between plant's, trees, rocks and even the sky was essential in creating a conclave of peace where the monks could meditate in.

Enegros nodded and handed the letter to his pupil. "This contains your commendations as well as my greetings to the head of the monastery." He then rose up and faced his pupil, before speaking again.

"I've aided you as far as I can on your path, the rest is upto you. I hope that the warrior monks will be able to teach you something new and valuable with their art, just as I teached you patience and discipline with my Kara-Ka."

"However, it is time to end my part as mentor on your Azar-I-Iehor."

Enegros raised his hand on his pupil's forehead, and started performing a ritual where he blessed the pupil's head for the wisdom of his toughts), arm for his strenght and chest for the compassion and care for those lost in darkness, while uttering the words:

"Through pain and suffering..."

To which his pupil answered,

"...To Iehor and peace."

Both men stood still in the silence for few moments, before Enegros spoke again.

"You are ready. Now on your way."

das

Jul 28, 2011, 10:07 AM

Determined to reclaim the northland and reduce the war to a single front, the Satar joined with their new Vithana allies into a single host, and in a ceremony full of elaborate ritual, made the Vithana Redeemer Jahan a Satar lord. He was proclaimed Prince of the Moon; in turn, he swore that he would defeat the various challengers to the Exatai, restore the justice of Exatas to its distant northern marches, and finally reclaim the south.

...Really? Really? :p

That aside, a suitably epic update, NK.

Cannae

Jul 28, 2011, 10:14 AM

I'm not pleased with this update at all... Are there any other nations I could take?

Matt0088

Jul 28, 2011, 11:37 AM

As a final act of the Eastern League:

Cynta and Serkos pledge their undying and complete allegiance to the Emperor of Leun.

Wut...

Thlayli

Jul 28, 2011, 11:56 AM

OOC: We're talking about a different paradigm of statesmanship, das. Exatas doesn't always pass from father to son, in a dedicated line. In times of defeat, it's INCUMBENT upon the line to pass to someone else. Sort of like the Mandate of Heaven, but different. Exatai are not Empires.

From: Satores the Grey, Prince of the Arrow
To: Fifth-Gaci, Chief-of-Chiefs

I seek to treat with you, as Atraxes treated with your forefathers. I have broken with Jahan, and his karapeshai of the desert. Their lust for blood knows no end.

You have conquered Satara. But unless you accomodate the Satar there to your rule, you will know no peace. It will be a conquest built on sand, which will rebel for any pretender who wears a gold mask.

I am not as great as my fathers. I have no more grand dreams of conquest, only dreams of peace. Give me Satara, and I will do you homage. I will not seek to reconquer the Delta from the slave races.

I simply wish to repair the damage that reckless slaughter has done. Grant me this, and Satara will know peace, and trouble you no more.

In the four hundredth year of the mask.

Ninja Dude

Jul 28, 2011, 12:03 PM

To: Putra
From: Diru, Hno of Kogur

Your struggle is admirable, but futile. We have already captured your capital, as well as Anzai. Many of your wise kin have taken my side, realizing that in the end they will be on the winning side. And your people still have a chance to do the same. Surrender, and you will be incorporated into the world's mightiest empire. Great cities will once again arise in the jungles of the south, and the land will flourish under our guidance.

To: Parna
From: Diru, Hno of Kogur

You claim that we seek the domination of your kin, yet you are the one who calls them up for war. It is you that calls them to die in a pointless war. Parna is a snake, preying on both side of this conflict.

conehead234

Jul 28, 2011, 01:36 PM

....you will be incorporated into the world's mightiest empire. ...

To: Parna
From: Diru, Hno of Kogur

You claim that we seek the domination of your kin, yet you are the one who calls them up for war. It is you that calls them to die in a pointless war. Parna is a snake, preying on both side of this conflict.

If that does not describe seeking domination then I shall eat a clam shell.

Ninja Dude

Jul 28, 2011, 02:06 PM

They will be joined with us, not kept on a leash like you already treat them. Incorporation doesn't mean domination. We will teach them our ways, and civilize them. Their lands will grow rich under our guidance and council. You seek to keep your kin in the darkness of barbarity, to drag them down to your level and completely control them. Disgusting.

North King

Jul 28, 2011, 03:39 PM

Phew. That's just massive read. And the most epic battle in history. Wow.

Just one thing NK, you forgot my campaign against Cynta :p (not to complain much, everything went smoothier than expected. I'd still like you to check that one up).

That's a good point, and Cynta should probably be under your control. I'll update the map soon with that and a couple of other changes.

As a final act of the Eastern League:

Cynta and Serkos pledge their undying and complete allegiance to the Emperor of Leun.

See above for Cynta; as for Serkos, it would like to state that it is not a member of the Eastern League. It would also like to exchange cordialities with Leun and the Opulensi. :p

to: Putra
from: Parna

We must stand united against this Kogur threat. I will be contacting you over private channels on how to conduct this defense.

Certainly.

to: Shentha
from: Parna

If Putra falls, you will be next, join as against the aggressors to the north.

We will consider it.

to: Surrounding Tribes
from: Parna

The Kogur threat is indeed real, let us end our feuds and unite against a common cause. You hear rumors of destruction of each other by the men of the north, let that not come to us. The Kogur Clan will bring that to us! Their actions show no regard for the land that is ours and that our ancestors have lived on for thousands of years.

The answers are mixed and mostly noncommittal.

I'm not pleased with this update at all... Are there any other nations I could take?

Any NPC, or PC who doesn't show up in the next week or two.

To: Putra
From: Diru, Hno of Kogur

Your struggle is admirable, but futile. We have already captured your capital, as well as Anzai. Many of your wise kin have taken my side, realizing that in the end they will be on the winning side. And your people still have a chance to do the same. Surrender, and you will be incorporated into the world's mightiest empire. Great cities will once again arise in the jungles of the south, and the land will flourish under our guidance.

Your mighty empire must not be all that strong in geography. Anzai is still in our hands.

Cannae

Jul 28, 2011, 04:39 PM

Claiming Rihnit

Immaculate

Jul 28, 2011, 05:04 PM

@NorthKing,

If you still have my orders can you send them back to me. I sort of deleted them and would like help remembering what i was doing.

Ninja Dude

Jul 29, 2011, 04:34 AM

Your mighty empire must not be all that strong in geography. Anzai is still in our hands.
Excuse our messenger's error. ( :p ) Your empire must not be strong in arms though, for your capital is in our hands. Choose your next actions carefully.

Terrance888

Jul 29, 2011, 06:33 AM

@NorthKing,

If you still have my orders can you send them back to me. I sort of deleted them and would like help remembering what i was doing.

Seconded.

Shadowbound

Jul 29, 2011, 04:51 PM

I've since switched laptops. Seeing my orders again, since I've lost all my Kothari notes,would be handy.

Masada

Jul 31, 2011, 08:54 AM

The Senate of the Third Union henceforth decrees that:

No horse-man shall sleep with horses.

Signed in HER name in the five-hundred and tenth year of the Second Union.

das

Jul 31, 2011, 01:29 PM

Drastic measures, but they are sorely called for. *nods*

Oruc

Jul 31, 2011, 01:37 PM

Nope!

Thlayli

Jul 31, 2011, 03:52 PM

Masada, your proclamation is irrelevant, you don't have any populations of Satar (left) in your territory. :rolleyes:

But replicate the same relationship of conquest and antagonism with the Satar of the Sesh, and you shall reap bitter fruit.

Lord_Iggy

Jul 31, 2011, 11:10 PM

I thought you just said that there weren't any remaining Satar of the Sesh. Or are you talking about the ones that still live upriver?

Masada

Jul 31, 2011, 11:20 PM

Simply put Thlayli, we ain't you: we have laws, we have rules and most important of all we're human.

The Senate of the Third Union henceforth decrees that:

No horse-women shall be mounted by stallions and that children of such a union shall be given unto HER for judgement.

Signed in HER name in the five-hundred and tenth year of the Second Union.

Thlayli

Jul 31, 2011, 11:23 PM

I thought you just said that there weren't any remaining Satar of the Sesh. Or are you talking about the ones that still live upriver?

The upper Sesh.

And we have laws. They simply recognize that the gypsy boat-people are inferior.

Just look at their goddesses, any woman on a power trip can call herself Aitah and get worshipped. :p

Masada

Jul 31, 2011, 11:27 PM

And we have laws. They simply recognize that the gypsy boat-people are inferior.

Mine don't recognise you as people.

Thlayli

Jul 31, 2011, 11:37 PM

Mine don't recognise you as people.

Your little banana republic can proclaim whatever it wants. It will never be relevant. Only what das does matters now.

Lord_Iggy

Jul 31, 2011, 11:42 PM

Then why don't you bring that up with das? You use that line quite a bit Thlayli.

Thlayli

Aug 01, 2011, 12:51 AM

If das would attempt to talk to me, I'd be happy to do that with him. :p

das

Aug 01, 2011, 03:07 AM

I think I'll leave you hanging for a bit longer. :p

Ninja Dude

Aug 01, 2011, 11:39 AM

Your little banana republic can proclaim whatever it wants. It will never be relevant. Only what das does matters now.

Because NESes are about constantly shoving yourself in the spotlight amirite?

Thlayli

Aug 01, 2011, 11:53 AM

Because NESes are about constantly shoving yourself in the spotlight amirite?

I'm not the one making gigantic inflammatory proclamations about bestiality.

Ninja Dude

Aug 01, 2011, 12:19 PM

His shenanigans are cheeky and fun. Your shenanigans are cruel and tragic.... which... makes them not really shenanigans at all.

Evil shenanigans

Thlayli

Aug 01, 2011, 12:21 PM

Consider how boring the world would be without them, though. ;)

Matt0088

Aug 01, 2011, 12:28 PM

Consider how boring the world would be without them, though. ;)

Who are the Satar? Are the rumors true that they mount horses?

North King

Aug 01, 2011, 12:50 PM

Aaaaaaaaanyway, here's a revised political map with a couple of changes requested by certain parties:

http://i.imgur.com/HXyCN.png

@NorthKing,

If you still have my orders can you send them back to me. I sort of deleted them and would like help remembering what i was doing.

Seconded.

I've since switched laptops. Seeing my orders again, since I've lost all my Kothari notes,would be handy.

Sending now.

Oruc

Aug 01, 2011, 01:44 PM

Nope!

qoou

Aug 01, 2011, 01:51 PM

Has Mahid been conquered by aitahists? I can find no mention of it in this update or the previous. Mahid was still on the map in the previous update.

It has tag-shifted from Mahid to the Aihatist Union; it's the same country.

North King

Aug 01, 2011, 01:52 PM

Yeah, Mahid joined the Union voluntarily. Should the update have mentioned this? Yes. But it was a long update.

Climate map, per requests:

http://i.imgur.com/r2zlM.png

Azale

Aug 01, 2011, 05:44 PM

I'll nab Tarena!

Thlayli

Aug 01, 2011, 05:56 PM

I'll nab Tarena!

Good call. The Maninists do in fact need a motivated, skilled player. You'll have to do. :p

Lord_Iggy

Aug 01, 2011, 06:41 PM

Consider how boring the world would be without them, though. ;)We can, in fact, be exciting without the Satar. :p In fact, I expect things will get much more interesting in the cradle after the Dahaiaou have been driven out.

Matt0088

Aug 01, 2011, 07:14 PM

One of Three! :)

http://i478.photobucket.com/albums/rr145/Matt0088/AnimatedEconomic.gif

Ninja Dude

Aug 01, 2011, 07:32 PM

Behold the mystery of the disappearing Kratoan wheat production. WOOoooooooooOOOooo.

Matt0088

Aug 01, 2011, 07:44 PM

Two of Three! The Political Map!

http://i478.photobucket.com/albums/rr145/Matt0088/AnimatedPoliticalTake2.gif

Matt0088

Aug 01, 2011, 08:15 PM

Three of Three! The Religious Map!

http://i478.photobucket.com/albums/rr145/Matt0088/AnimatedReligious-1.gif

:salute:

North King

Aug 01, 2011, 08:17 PM

Behold the mystery of the disappearing Kratoan wheat production. WOOoooooooooOOOooo.

Well, one of those maps was before the Satar raided, and one was after.

Ninja Dude

Aug 01, 2011, 09:07 PM

It's been hundreds of years, I reckon. It still hasn't recovered?

Thlayli

Aug 01, 2011, 10:16 PM

Sometimes after a catastrophe, it just becomes simpler to rely on imports of a certain good than to invest in repairing the infrastructure.

That minerals key needs to come back to the map. :p

Masada

Aug 02, 2011, 12:48 AM

Mahid's been a constituent part of the Union(s) for the duation of it's life. It goes without saying that it joined.

Hightower

Aug 02, 2011, 06:33 AM

Wow, looks great! Glad I kept lurking.

qoou, are you still around/playing as Haina?

Kal'thzar

Aug 02, 2011, 07:52 AM

Back....looking good

qoou

Aug 02, 2011, 08:29 AM

Wow, looks great! Glad I kept lurking.

qoou, are you still around/playing as Haina?

Yup; waiting on some diplo with Dulama atm.

Vertinari118

Aug 02, 2011, 08:58 AM

OOC: Would it be possible NK for me to take the Khivani Roshate? Or are there other NPCs you would prefer to have filled?

Oruc

Aug 02, 2011, 11:33 AM

Nope!

Thlayli

Aug 02, 2011, 02:59 PM

Learn to take a joke, emu.

Luckymoose

Aug 02, 2011, 03:33 PM

Fantastic casually insult me and luckymoose, what a "Vagina".

Must have been just you. :3

alex994

Aug 02, 2011, 11:05 PM

Yup; waiting on some diplo with Dulama atm.

OOC: I'm on vacation so haven't had the time to properly read it over.

Oruc

Aug 03, 2011, 12:11 PM

Nope!

Luckymoose

Aug 03, 2011, 06:59 PM

Cyve isn't maninist?

Are you going to answer my diplo or whine some more?

Oruc

Aug 04, 2011, 01:01 AM

Are you going to answer my diplo or whine some more?

internet tough guy

Luckymoose

Aug 04, 2011, 08:05 AM

From Bayuk Osric of Luskan
To King of Cyve

You are an ignorant little man, I offered the olive branch, you ignored it and the messenger. This is a war you have declared King of Cyve.

TO: Current Occupant of the Throne of Luskan
FROM: Glynt, King of Cyve and soon to be Luskan

Get off the throne so I can burn down everything you've built in front of you.

das

Aug 08, 2011, 02:36 AM

Well, Thlayli, I guess I'll take that as a no.

Thlayli

Aug 08, 2011, 10:16 PM

I've been considering it...but not allowing Magha to be rebuilt is a sticking point for me.

If you could cede ground on that, I'd be more willing to cooperate with your proposal for the Tarkanai.

Lord_Iggy

Aug 09, 2011, 01:54 AM

The Moti Emperor is negotiating with the Dahaiaou?!?

*rumours abound*

das

Aug 09, 2011, 08:29 PM

Just to clarify, you do understand that I have no intent of restoring it to you any time soon, right?

Thlayli

Aug 09, 2011, 10:34 PM

Well, that depends on what *I* am. I'd prefer it if Magha was under the control of a Satar puppet state entirely subservient to you, but I don't plan on playing that entity. In fact, I'd rather it be entirely at odds with the Karapeshai. Makes more sense from a roleplaying standpoint.

das

Aug 10, 2011, 12:09 PM

Still, would you negotiate from their standpoint, or should I cut out the middleman, i.e. you, and talk to North King about it instead?

Theige

Aug 10, 2011, 12:30 PM

OOC:

Theige is booted from Gallat for not only failing to send orders twice in a row, but failing to do anything other than to stop multiple other people from being more productive with the country. It's really hard to overstate my annoyance at this.

I seem to remember missing the "deadline," asking if I could submit late orders, and being told no.

Once again, I'm sorry. I'm a very busy man.

Northen Wolf

Aug 11, 2011, 12:31 AM

I seem to remember missing the "deadline," asking if I could submit late orders, and being told no.

Once again, I'm sorry. I'm a very busy man.

What's the deadline for current orders anyways?

North King

Aug 11, 2011, 12:39 AM

About a week after I put stats up. Which should be soon.

Lord_Iggy

Aug 11, 2011, 01:28 AM

Houa Pahouaia! Lo, Kargan is reborn as a testament to the unending friendship of the Peoples of the Sesh and Helsia. Long may she stand. May the last Scion live eternal!

Masada

Aug 11, 2011, 02:01 AM

So it shall be: time eternal, eternal time and for times eternal: all things in three!

North King

Aug 11, 2011, 11:49 PM

Stats up, let me know of oddities, discrepancies, or problems.

Orders due in just under a week and a day (midnight between Friday and Saturday next week).

~Darkening~

Aug 12, 2011, 12:35 AM

The Lawgiver of Evyn speaks out against the Gluttonous Glynt, so-called King of Cyve, and his lustful ways. He warns the said king that any aggression shown eastwards may be perceived as an attack against the Empire itself. Furthermore, He announces that the Empire itself shall no longer quarrel with the Karaphesai and has deemed that all trade may once more resume. Finally, he announces a peace pact between the Empire, and that of the Xieni, sealed upon his marriage to one deemed worthy from their clans.

Luckymoose

Aug 12, 2011, 04:27 PM

Glynt continues to have his cake and eat it too.

~Darkening~

Aug 12, 2011, 06:25 PM

And in the end, he may truly bite off more than he can chew.

Luckymoose

Aug 12, 2011, 06:34 PM

And in the end, he may truly bite off more than he can chew.

Maybe you should understand the diplomatic situation before jumping to silly conclusions. I'm defending myself from Luskan, foo'.

~Darkening~

Aug 12, 2011, 06:49 PM

Yeah.....aaaaanyways, -points to above.-

Thlayli

Aug 12, 2011, 06:53 PM

The Karapeshai acknowledge the Evyni offer of peace.

OOC: das, I would be willing to continue negotiating on their behalf.

Luckymoose

Aug 12, 2011, 07:53 PM

Yeah.....aaaaanyways, -points to above.-

I'm going to touch your empire in a way that it won't remember until later in life.

Lord_Iggy

Aug 12, 2011, 08:00 PM

He's good at that too, so be careful.

dominatr

Aug 12, 2011, 08:01 PM

Utugian Tale of Yurundewasa

Several Generations of Utugians recall a man back in time, a long, but not TOO distant time, where the Utugians were unorganized, just bands of 20-30 beings lumbering about the brush in search for food. There was a man called Yurundewasa or the Hunter. Now he was attributed to the survival of the Utugians, because he made up for the shortcomings in Utugian hunting skill in the earler days. He would bring in massive amounts of meat for the tribes to eat, and he showed them techniques that lasted into the current times of hunting.
The part where the story deviated though, is where they said the Hunter was a giant. Utugians have yet to prove it, but rumor is that Yurundewasa was a very rare occurance of giant which occured every so often, but the giants never interacted with humans by documented knowledge, until the Hunter. After half a hundred years of guidance, the Hunter vanished, never to be seen again, but it is a common theory among Utugians and whenever someone draws a bow, they try to honor the great being that may or may not have existed.

~Darkening~

Aug 12, 2011, 11:50 PM

Posted by Luckymoose

I'm going to touch your empire in a way that it won't remember until later in life.

So, even more reason why I should go ahead and attack now, then?

Luckymoose

Aug 13, 2011, 12:05 AM

So, even more reason why I should go ahead and attack now, then?

We can dance until the sun comes up!

~Darkening~

Aug 13, 2011, 12:08 AM

Your attempt at bravado is cute :).

tuxedohamm

Aug 13, 2011, 09:53 PM

Stats up, let me know of oddities, discrepancies, or problems.

There are still no stats for Naran.

Immaculate

Aug 14, 2011, 06:56 AM

My stats havnt changed and the link to the wiki hasn't changed. What about all that stuff i wrote and sent you?

North King

Aug 15, 2011, 10:34 AM

There are still no stats for Naran.

Fixed.

My stats havnt changed and the link to the wiki hasn't changed. What about all that stuff i wrote and sent you?

Actually, you acquired a treasury roughly equivalent to some countries' entire income.

Shadowbound

Aug 15, 2011, 11:35 AM

Kal, no one is going to talk to you on #nes if you just pop on for five minutes and then leave.

Kal'thzar

Aug 15, 2011, 06:05 PM

Kal, no one is going to talk to you on #nes if you just pop on for five minutes and then leave.

Its a technical issue. Not a social one.

alex994

Aug 16, 2011, 01:49 AM

OOC: Sorry for the hassle, but will stats for Limach or Ther in the Western regions be posted soon? Thanks!

Angst

Aug 17, 2011, 03:26 AM

I want my stats so I can send orders and then write a story.

Immaculate

Aug 17, 2011, 07:25 AM

EDIT: wrong thread- so sorry.

Cannae

Aug 17, 2011, 05:07 PM

Rihnit Economic System

Food Sources: fish (onjika), sheep (kironka), cattle (itogonla) chicken (santanga), cacti (giandron), beans (lukan), sorghum (shrianroo) watermellon (nanaroo), sea weed (sangromdi) and coconuts (onluko)

Detailed Infomation
For the most part farming isn't practiced on a large scale by the Rihnit (to the exclusion of the more fertile costal areas) due to the land (granhadli) instability and limited water (wanahi), supply. In the areas farming does take place the most commonly grown crops are beans (lukan), sorghum (shrianroo) watermellon (nanaroo), watermellon (nanaroo), cacti (giandron) and coconuts (onluko). Out of those the two most valued crops are watermellon (nanaroo), and cacti (giandron) because of their large water (wanahi), content. Seaweed (sangromdi) is also used as a food (ombindro) source but also to create fishing nets.

Most of the Rihnits food (ombindro) comes from herding sheep (kironka), cattle (itogonla) but also chickens (santanga), and even camels (quindi) and locusts (kango) are used as animal (sindalo) based food sources. But the Rihnit aren't limited to eating the animals (sindalo) listed above and if given the opertunity almost any food (ombindro) sources (with the exception of domestic dogs (maranga), crocodile (maha), domestic cats (dingralo), and falcons (bringla)). Any excess meat (mopidula) is created into pieces of jerkey (inrandi) which is also heavly covered in (salt (satangi) to help preserve the meat (mopidula)). However if the jerkey (inrandi) isn't consumed within a reasonable amount of time (within a week or in drastic situations two weeks) the meat (mopidula) is fed to the "domesticated" crocodiles * (maha), to prevent the food (ombindro) from rotting and attracting vermin (orhandru). Some meat (mopidula) though is intentionally left outside to rot (a good distance away from the city (anborbadi)) so that potential scavengers (strinhadi) could be found, hunted, and used as a meat (mopidula) source.

* Domesticated Crocodiles are crocodiles that are raised in ponds near the town's local shrine (ropongira) or local temple (pongira) and are raised/fed by the preists (longia). These preists (longia), aren't preachers but they help mantain their local shrine (ropongira) or local temple (pongira) so it doesn't become run down and unsuited for worship.

Industrial and Commerical resources: wood (vengi), stone (maran), salt (satangi), leather (hando), iron (rhinga), clay (congrado)

Detailed Information

Due to the scarcity of wood (vengi), the only premited use for wood (vengi), is for ships (tamarai). Along Amaroo Atani (meaning Surreal Lake in Rihnit), there is an unusal amount of trees sutibal for creating ships (tamarai). But it's strictly forbiden to use wood (vengi), for anything else and the punishment for using it illegaly is death (dranhi) or banishment (halindu).

Various types of stone is present in the Rihnit's lands but the most commonly used types are granite (gandri), limestone (madu), and sandstone (ringu). They are used for the construction of city walls (handra) and buildings (kandinu) of importance. (Eg: shrines(ropongira), temples (pongira), and goverment palaces (dandi)). Strangly enough in the middle of the desert (demroa) there is an abrupt change from normal desert sand (demroingu) to a black (ondigrao) basalt (grandilu) for several miles and at the middle of this Samaroara (roughly means bizzare rocks) is Amaroo Atani (means Surreal Lake in Rihnit). What's so weird about this place is that outside of Samaroara (bizzare rocks) basalt (grandilu) is rather uncommon. Along various rivers (hingida) that are connected to Amaroo Atani (Surreal Lake) a basalt (grandilu) like silt forms which creates an area somewhat suitable for farming. Another important industry along those rivers (hingida) is the abundance of clay (crindali) that's ideal for creating pottery (ingdalu) and buildings (kandinu).

Pottery (ingdalu) is a very important part of both commerce and industry because of it's use as a container for liquids (not nessacerly water (wanahi)), to construct various buildings as well as for artistic value. The pots (sangridi) created for artistic value are often extremely ornate and detailed, thus making many decrative pots (sangridi) very expensive. Clay (crindali) is rarely used by itself as a construction material and is often mixed in with other local substances.

Salt (satangi) is very common in most of Rihinit, especially in the arid reigions. Because of this it is frequently used as a meat (mopidula) preservative and made into jerky (inrandi). However, other than for preserving food (ombindro), salt (satangi) is seen as having little use.

Interestingly enough, iron (rhinga) is also very common and is actually often right at the surface. But the highest and most valued type of iron (rhinga) is found in a very dangerous and remote desert (demroa) area. What makes the area so dangerous is the steep hills (opandio) and cliffs (cringidi) which aren't very tall but because they are often covered in loose and unstable sand (idhlu). It is prone to shifting when being walked on and if someone isn't careful their likely to die (if lucky) or unable to move because of severe injury and/or paralysis. The second fate is far worse due to being exposed to the elements and being potential prey to both animals (sindalo) and other people (fahida) desperate for supplies. But even with this people still go to the reigon because the iron (rhinga) that's present in the area seems to be a lot stonger and durible than regular iron (rhinga).

North King

Aug 18, 2011, 12:19 AM

OOC: Sorry for the hassle, but will stats for Limach or Ther in the Western regions be posted soon? Thanks!

If you REALLY need them for this update, I can post them. However, otherwise, they'll come with the next update.

I want my stats so I can send orders and then write a story.

Well I wasn't intending on giving your people stats seeing as they are rather disorganized. But if you really insist...

the Ilfolk – lord_joakim
Culture: Ilfolk, Uninfluential but strong
Religion: Tribal, sacrificial
Government: Tribal Theocracy
Income: 750
Military: 1,000 Infantry (Upkeep: 200)
Manpower: 5,000
Description (http://endofempires.wiki-site.com/index.php/Ilfolk)

Angst

Aug 18, 2011, 05:48 AM

Well I wasn't intending on giving your people stats seeing as they are rather disorganized. But if you really insist...

the Ilfolk – lord_joakim
Culture: Ilfolk, Uninfluential but strong
Religion: Tribal, sacrificial
Government: Tribal Theocracy
Income: 750
Military: 1,000 Infantry (Upkeep: 200)
Manpower: 5,000
Description (http://endofempires.wiki-site.com/index.php/Ilfolk)

Ah. I just assumed I needed stats to send orders and that they were simply delayed. If you prefer to leave the stats out, just let them go, and I'll write orders/stories without them. I can surely make it without them. I'll wait for your reply before sending you anything. :)

North King

Aug 18, 2011, 09:18 AM

Not much reason not to use them if I've already made them. Go ahead. :p

Matt0088

Aug 18, 2011, 09:36 AM

Cannae

Aug 18, 2011, 10:58 AM

My orders have been sent.

Terrance888

Aug 18, 2011, 02:35 PM

Jarshuan watched with interest at the harbor outside his palace. The two boats, 'Dortose' "Many Spines" and 'Guntos' "Great Spined" wheeled around and between arriving ships. The ship Dortose was a ship of Kitalukan design. It boasted a large central hull for storage and stabilizing hulls around it. The Leunian-style ship Guntos, meanwhile, had a single hull with a deep spine cutting into the seas. Many times when the waves are choppy, Guntos seemed to be at the verge of sinking while Dortose rode the waves. However, none of his advisors can deny the ease of the building of Guntos compared to Dortose, and the ease of making it larger without experimenting with the delicate balance which pervades the Kitalukan ships. Neither can they deny the superior seaworthyness of the Dortose.

News continue to come in from the north. It seemed that the weather continued to cool, until sometimes, a strange substance called 'snow' was noted to fall when the sun seemed lazy, and hung low and dim in the sky. The trees are different as well, forming looser forests compared to the humid south, with the area packed with bushes instead. Indigo seemed to not fare well here, and many settlers were not used to the changing seasons.

He slowly unpeeled an orange as a mock battle was staged on the two ships of the Partheca fleet. As he ate it the men on the Guntos overpowered the Dortose marines with shear numbers, batting men into the sea with wooden training swords and claiming the boat. However, the remaining Dortoseca sailors cut free the ropes and escaped to choppier waters. The now outnumbered Guntosca marines were pushed into the water themselves, and found their ship too unstable to follow the now-safe Dortose.

He swallowed as he watched. Interesting things indeed, these ships are.

Northen Wolf

Aug 18, 2011, 11:03 PM

TO: Farea
FROM: Leunan Empire

Friends, we have always thought of our respective countries as peaceful ones, reaping the rewards of prosperity, borne out of the fruitful cooperation with which our leaders have always enjoyed, and advocated. It has reached our ears, however, of adventurous folk, who, sponsored by both parties, have entered into an environment of mild hostilities in the acquirement of land on Auona, lands we both seek. To leave this matter alone, to run wild upon the plans of all, is unacceptable. A solution, proposed by a wise scholar of the Leunan court, beautiful in its simplicity, is to propose a pact of friendship with yourselves, Farea, a pledge to actively avoid conflict, and to always promote friendship between our respective lands and peoples. It is thus, in this wish, best to end any “competition” for the riches of Auona, to respect the properties of which we both already possess, and to strive for a otherwise happy pacification of Auona, this, in the name of friendship.:)

We are not interested in war with anyone. We do not want any harm to come to humans who inhabit Naelsia. We are interested in cooperation and trade, war does not go together with our beliefs, however, we were here first - and we live here - meaning we will not stop our trading and living here. Which means, we will continue living here, which causes a lot of trade and some conflicts to rise. But We will try to keep natives on this isle peaceful, but we can not guarantee that natives in your lands, facing your destruction and forceful methods, will remain peaceful. Go in peace.

North King

Aug 19, 2011, 12:58 PM

Orders due in just under a week and a day (midnight between Friday and Saturday next week).

This is fairly soon, fyi.

Lord of Elves

Aug 19, 2011, 09:58 PM

My ability to send in orders of any quality is limited at this point. If at all possible, I can have orders in by tomorrow afternoon. If such an extension isn't tenable, I'll see what I can do.

Hightower

Aug 20, 2011, 06:22 AM

Slightly belated orders sent. My apologies!

Terrance888

Aug 20, 2011, 08:03 AM

My ability to send in orders of any quality is limited at this point. If at all possible, I can have orders in by tomorrow afternoon. If such an extension isn't tenable, I'll see what I can do.

I add my voice to this request. Tomorrow being Sunday.

conehead234

Aug 21, 2011, 12:24 AM

i WILL SEND SOONISH

North King

Aug 22, 2011, 12:16 PM

I am still accepting with prejudice, but I'd suggest late people send sooner rather than [even] later.

alex994

Aug 22, 2011, 05:11 PM

OOC: Sorry, my internet was down. I just sent in orders :(

Thlayli

Aug 27, 2011, 07:15 PM

It's mostly my fault that the culture of Acca has been so neglected. Hopefully this will begin to fix that; this can also form the basis of what will be the Accan article on the wiki.

A Brief Reintroduction to Acca (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG7m1L6vSoU&feature=related)

To foreigners commonly used to monocultural nations, the lasting Accani-Satar union might seem strange, even contrived. How an equestrian semi-nomadic entity of steppe and desert and a sedentary civilization of coast-dwelling traders could come to the 'great entwining' mentioned so often by later historians is easily incomprehensible to those not intimately familiar with the two races, especially since the Satar possessed an almost untarnished record of devastating and enslaving settled, urbanized peoples such as the Accani. Indeed, to the Exatai of the Satar, the Accani were low hanging fruit.

But the Accani are an opportunistic and pragmatic people, and the Accanon (singular, “The Acca”) was a state well prepared to adapt itself to changing times.

The reasons for this pragmatism were self-evident. The last independent scion of the ancient Lutto culture, Accani history was one of watching their cousins steadily encroached upon, defeated, and eventually annexed by the 'barbarians' of the Prokym. The Autocritiate’s centralized conciliar government (with the elected king for life, the Autocracces, advised by a league of powerful hereditary nobles responsible for maintaining order and collecting taxes, the Censoratta) was built in direct response to the failures of the Lutto republics.

The Accani themselves maintained neutrality with the Prokym and even expanded south, but they were always painfully aware of their more powerful northern neighbors. However, as long as the interminable wars between the Unionists of Seshweay and the great admirals of the Triluin Empire continued, the Autocritiate of Acca needed only fear northern invasion, a threat for which they were well prepared.

With the catastrophic sack of Seis under Arastephas, that changed. Now the Accani had to face an ancient enemy to their north, and a newer, more fearsome threat to their south. Before the coming of the Satar, cultic gods of the Lutto were invented, mutated, and thrown aside as the political winds demanded. As a result, when the political winds demanded the Accani change to survive yet again, they did so, famously sending an emissary to Magha offering to pay tribute and convert to Ardavan. The conversion itself was child's play; Talledi (to use the god's Lutto name) simply expropriated the numerous mythical characteristics that had once belonged to Satoccos and other Lutto god-heroes.

The Exatai was taken entirely off guard, but Second Redeemer Atraxes, known for his good discretion, accepted. It was a natural alliance in ways more than ideological. Both states had slave-based economies; the Satar had a penchant for acquiring slaves, and the Accani had the resources and trade ties to sell them. Accani merchants acquired an almost exclusive monopoly on trade with the Exatai, and made a heady profit in shipping the Exatai's more lucrative goods (like gemstones and horses) abroad. In return, Satar Princes acquired credit and liquidity from their successful conquests and landholdings.

The position of Autocracces dwindled to that of a ceremonial figurehead after the death of Atraxes’ contemporary Govados, in large part due to the actions of the Censoratta. After the treaty with Atraxes, Censoratta were the ones most aggressively pushing the adoption of Ardavan, and the Satar mask-culture, using Satar ties as a means of making Accanon their personal fiefdom. The Censoratta began to style themselves as ‘Princes of the Accan Tribe’ in diplomacy with their Satar neighbors, and used Satar acknowledgment of their authority as leverage to weaken and ultimately eliminate the institution of the Autocracces by the end of Atraxes’ reign.

Contrary to the opinion of many misinformed historians, there was a lasting Accan-Satar partnership for generations before the campaigns of Macrinus, which brought about political union.

As for the history of Macrinus, that needs no telling.

This abbreviated history, however, tells us little of the aesthetics and nature of the Accan culture.

But it is not impossible to learn.

The Nuccia of Acca

To an outside observer, Accani cities like Acca, Alma, and Onessa are fairly unimpressive. They are well defended, with the angular towers and crenellated double blockhouses favored by their southern neighbors. But the houses themselves are fairly blank, uniform stucco walls and ceramic roof tiles, with small black doors presented to the world. Public squares have slightly more ornamentation, with statues of Talledi and the occasional Lutto mythic hero, or more commonly Macrinus, Regalius Tephas, and other long-dead Princes of the Sun. But especially compared to the vistas and architecture of ancient Satar cities like Magha or Xephaias, the Accan cities are unimpressive.

Or rather, we must clarify again, unimpressive to an outsider.

This reveals, despite the many similarities, one of the key differences between Accani and Satar. Where the Satar revel, even in their architecture, in the public expression of power and might, the Accani stress critical emphasis on the private and secret nature of power. To quote Govados, the last successful Autocracces of Acca, “Deception is power.”

We can begin to unravel this deception by looking at the street plan of the Karapeshai-era Accani city. One will always find a twisting, beguiling maze of streets and alleyways. This is designed to confuse any interloper, be it a foreign invader or, more likely, a rival family from another part of the city. Accani clans have been known to alter the street plans at will, and accurate maps were more closely guarded than gold. Without a local Accani guide, it would be notoriously easy to become hopelessly lost in the maze, and then subsequently to lose one’s possessions or even one’s life.

Besides the complex shifting web of narrow streets, the Accani city is divided by many interior walls; using them as a defense in a siege takes a secondary role to keeping rivals out of the part of town controlled by one’s family. The Lutto are a notoriously clannish culture, with generational rivalries spilling blood across centuries. The competition to achieve a level of power sufficient to become a Censoratton is intense, especially since the Censoriate is hereditary: In order for any new family to succeed to the mask, all the Censoratta’s heirs must die. This sponsored a culture of assassination, and in turn a culture of paranoia. So, the most powerful families simply walled off the sections of the city under their control, and tightly guarded the gates. This would not deter a skilled assassin, but it certainly limited public bloodletting. (Not to mention, the truly dedicated will find a dozen secret entrances away from the gates.)

If one is lucky enough to get out of the ‘neutral’ or ‘public’ parts of the city into one of the private quarters, something reasonably impossible without a personal invitation, everything changes. In the public city, the Accans wear their masks, and wear somber clothes of grey and brown. In the private quarters, they go unmasked among their friends and family, and wear bright linens of remarkable hues, colored by imported Opulensi dyes.

Within the heart of every private quarter is a nuccion. To call it a garden would not do justice to the nuccia; they are eloquently sculpted paradises of private serenity. The Accans revel in their public secrecy and privacy, making the nuccia, their one place of complete emotional liberation, their greatest treasures. Were a family to have its nuccion burned in a clan war, it would be considered both a mortal wound and a cause for an eternal vendetta, more so than killing a newborn babe.

In a traditional Accan city, neighborhood, family, and friendship are all closely intertwined. The upkeep of the nuccia, the locations of which are kept secret even within the private quarters, is everyone’s responsibility, and the wealth of the clan contributes to its enrichment. In the accounts which have managed to escape destruction, we hear of fountains ornamented with wrought-silver grape vines, filling tiled pools with cold and warm water for swimming, the tiles themselves forming a mosaic of Talledi’s battle with the sea spirit. They describe latticed garden paths smelling of citrus and xetai, the trees manipulated to form a maze of green tunnels, within which benches and kalis-boards carved from lapis lazuli and purple marble are arranged in secluded bowers. Others describe glass canals filled with exotic fish from the Nakalani. It is difficult, in many cases, to discern truth from wild speculation, as many accounts claim that the nuccia are filled with secret treasure, while others, almost certainly fabrications, tell lurid tales of orgies and human sacrifice.

Those nuccia that remain, if they remain, are nigh impossible to access. It remains difficult to ascertain if the nuccion is built with a certain pattern in mind, or if all nuccia are unique. Some historians have denied even their physical existence, claiming that the idea of the nuccion is simply a ‘mental garden’ of interior fulfillment. Curiously enough, there are some Accans that make this argument. The rest are silent on the topic.

Regardless, the nuccia show, more than any other cultural artifact, the nature of Accani culture: Their secrecy, their insularity, and their closely, cautiously guarded wealth, power, and beauty.

Abaddon

Aug 30, 2011, 02:11 PM

Really not feeling this anymore, sorry. Consider myself "out".

Lord_Iggy

Sep 12, 2011, 04:25 AM

Hailoaia

It was in the confluence many the tectonic shifts in culture that she was formed.

Farubaida, they called her.

Built in the bosom of a ruined city.

Caroha, they called her.

It was raised on the rising tide of the liberated, powered by the fury and grief of ancient allies, armed with a flaming blade of vengeance and inspired by a yearning for a golden age many centuries lost to the present.

Farubaida. It could be said that if Opporia was her father, Aitah was the mother, and Haiao presided between them all.

Still, this would not truly express the Furubaida o Caroha in its totality.

More than any other rival before her, she had been built upon a foundation of political ideology. A foundation of strength in unity, seeking to transcend the boundaries of states, empires and petty kingdoms.

Farubaida. Federation. A new beginning for an exhausted people, a beaming beacon of new hopes and dreams.

A grand dream drawn from uncertain times.

Masada

Sep 13, 2011, 05:47 AM

...when she was young, a man of Farou came to her Father's door, and said unto the Father, our Lord Aya'se: I have heard Haiao speak of thee and he calls you Lady and Mistress both? What am I to do, for I am much vexed? To which the Father replied: it is of my daughter that you speak, for she is our Lady and Mistress both. To this the man of Haiao knew not what to say, save this: take me to this lady and mistress both. To which Aya'se replied: she is asleep now in her crib but I shall let you sit by her side. Now the man of Haiao knew not what to think but he followed and this was how the Hundred began.

*

She is the light of the world: the sun turns his face upon the world for love of her: she is honoured in the flowering of trees. She is Aitah, she is the Lady, and she is Here. Furubaida o Caroha. Furubaida o Caroha. Furubaida o Caroha. She is three, she is thrice, all things in three!

Masada

Sep 16, 2011, 12:28 AM

The Senate of the Third Union henceforth decrees that:

Kargan shall henceforth be ruled as a condominium of the great peoples of Farou, Trilui and Seshweay.
The Faerouhaiaou are henceforth under the protection of HER Third Union.
HER Union shall take as constituent states Neruss and the Empire of Dremai.
The Empire of Helsia are henceforth brothers and allies of the HER Third Union.
The Third Union shall undertake with the blessing of HER to establish the Hundred so that HER light may be spread upon the world.

Signed in HER name in the five-hundred and tenth year of the Second Union.

So shall it be now and forever. Wa.

* * *

The Senate of the Third Union henceforth decrees that:

A Federation shall be formed, the Federation of Kargan, the Constituent Members of which shall be:

The Third Union, composed of HER Constituent States of Mahid, Hanno, Neruss and Seshweay, Dremai;
Faerouhaiaou, as HER own state; and
Helsia, as HER own state.

That these states, shall, with the exception of Seshweay, Dremai and Helsia be granted one vote each, with the aforementioned granted two, in matters of Federation business, and that Faerouhaiaou in recognition of her service be given the role of Convenor of the Council.

That the business of the council be fixed to matters of foreign policy, for which there shall be one, and matters affecting the Federation, and that all members are bound, henceforth, and in perpetuity, to defend the rights and dignity of all the other members.

Signed in HER name in the five-hundred and twenty-fifth year of the Second Union.

So shall it be now and forever. Wa.

Thlayli

Sep 16, 2011, 12:52 PM

I recommend Diadem Reforged, by the eminent Vol Jului, for advice on your imperial project. You can find it at your local library. Well, the ones we or you haven't burned. :p

Lord_Iggy

Sep 16, 2011, 01:06 PM

Ah, Imperial. It was once such an impressive term- but alas, now its majesty has been usurped. Once again, a Council holds sway over the heads of Emperors.

Thlayli

Sep 16, 2011, 04:51 PM

Government by Committee: This time, it works!

Lord_Iggy

Sep 17, 2011, 06:21 PM

The confusion here being in your use of the term 'committee', which is an appointed group subordinate to some other group, which does not accurately reflect our government.

Masada

Sep 17, 2011, 06:33 PM

The Satar are ignorant. They need someone to order them around. Without orders they'd forget to feed themselves hay. Without orders they wouldn't take themselves to water. Or fix their own bridle.

Thlayli

Sep 18, 2011, 12:23 AM

What a compelling argument for anarchy. :rolleyes:

Masada

Sep 18, 2011, 01:15 AM

Ehhhhhhhhhh it isn't our fault the horses need to be led to water.

Lord_Iggy

Sep 18, 2011, 01:17 AM

But still, no leader can force them to drink.

Thlayli

Sep 18, 2011, 02:09 AM

Ehhhhhhhhhh it isn't our fault the horses need to be led to water.

You have a serious inferiority complex. :p

Lord_Iggy

Sep 18, 2011, 02:33 AM

Your guys' arguments are giving me a complex! :p

Masada

Sep 18, 2011, 02:37 AM

We admit it. We don't have horse members. But while we might have a defect in size. We can say confidently that we don't routinely kill our mates, or drown them while enjoying their mouths.

Thlayli

Oct 28, 2011, 11:17 AM

Prologue

"What can you remember?"

"They tore the masks off the statues of the animals guarding the temple. And they wore them, in parody, as they slaughtered the monks. In the flickering of the fire, casting more shadow than light, we were hunted by beasts. Here, a boar, there, a wildcat, there, a falcon, the cruel bronze faces and straight iron swords pursued us. I killed a serpent with my polearm and fled until I found the Redeemer. But the desert was alive with cries as the slaves tortured and killed their masters."

"When Acca fell, the kind women fed us. They gave us a sweet drink which I had not tasted before. And then, they took us to the homes of the traitors. The fathers, we took them on small boats. And we bound three of their limbs, for Satoccos in the stories swam across the sea with three limbs bound. And the Sensora said, 'If you have as much exatas as the ancient heroes of Lutto, you will swim to shore.' And they drowned."

"The women painted signs on the faces of the mothers who had been traitors. Who had said, 'Better Evyni than Vithana to rule our people.' They were glyphs of shame. And the women were chained before the gates of the citadel. We asked the kind women how they knew the name of every traitor. They laughed, and said, 'Our friend told us.' Tecca was the word they used. Tecca. Tarkan. I knew then that it was of the Sarturro that they spoke. And after that day, though the Redeemer's banner flew, the Sarturro had the mastery of the city."

"Do you know how many tunnels are under the Red City? There have been tunnels since before the First. And the monks burrowed very deeply. There are secret rooms, and chambers. Even caves were turned into dormitories. These sects that never saw the light and chose to train in darkness were shunned by the monks of the cliffside. But we were the foolish ones. Our bridges and holds were cast down. My Avet-ha threw himself down, screaming, his body bouncing upon the wall before plunging into the torrent. But I lived for weeks in the tunnels under the city, where many monks had fled. The Opporians would not go into the darkness, choosing to rule the city above. They feared the places where their lord the sun does not shine. But Taleldil has mastered even the demons under the dark places of the earth. And in mastering demons, he turned them to our purpose."

~Darkening~

Oct 31, 2011, 11:11 AM

Cândyr
Prykmë qurœ
Spring 513.

Isr ē nôet.[1]

Home.

Unconsciously, I swallowed the bile that had lodged suddenly in my throat, threatening to fight and spill out onto the open road. Willing myself back into a stoic stance, I took a quick glance at the manor that lay off in the distance, tucked neatly beside the low hills. The grounds surrounding it were quiet, deserted in the early hours of the morning; most of the servants and slaves regulated to their beds. From my position on the road I could make out the few scant glows of the few lanterns burning. The brightest being quartered on the path leading to the main house, guarded by the single sentry on duty who, judging from his reclined position, was fast asleep himself. Something that would not do.

I let out a quiet sigh, dismounting from my perch in a single, swift motion before moving off to a small creek that ran beside the road. The moonlight was dim, but enough that to allow a dim return of my visage in the water. Unlike the manor, which had escaped time almost unscathed, ten years away fighting the vile satharī had taken its toll on me. Hair that had once been as dark as the unbroken night had lightened over time, now tinged with veins of gray running throughout its length. Time had corrupted once smooth skin, leaving my face with numerous wrinkles crisscrossing its surface like jagged valleys. Even the trip back had taken its toll; weeks spent sleeping on the open ground had engrained soil and dirt, leaving a grimy surface to my skin. I briskly scrubbed as much possible from my hands and face, before taking the horse's reins once more and leading him down the path, to the manor.

I was upon the sentry before he awoke; the man slumbering as if with no worries in his life. He didn't even stir once the horse impatiently snorted, displeased with the delay. A firm cuff to the back of his head, however, did manage to stir him from his dreams, allowing him to bolt up as if he had never been caught unaware in the first place. “Wim zuryt!” He called out, apparently forgetting the need for proper speech in his haste. I frowned; who in the right mind had placed this man in such a position?

“Speak proper or not at all.” I chastised the man. His eyes fluttered quickly in surprise, but he managed a coup and steeled himself once more.

“Who are you and what is your business here?” especially at this hour, I imagined him adding in his mind. The voice was vaguely familiar, though it was entirely unpalatable. The man sported a forsaken accent, one which would have even the lowest of Anyāis cringe in horror. I took a quick stock of the man, raking him with my good eye before responding. Even afterward, I was unable to identify him and resigned to the task at hand.

“The better question is to why you were sleeping- were I here on much less noble intentions, your throat would be spilling open at this moment.” I shook my head sadly, taking little note as the man's eyes opened slightly with shock, and then his nostrils flaring with anger. “Tell me who is the owner of this manor?”

He only waited a moment before fulfilling my request. “The Quir[2] Bemeoim.” He shrugged the question off, as if it was a common occurrence. “Her husband, more proper, but its been the Quir in charge for ages.” He then tacked on- “That still doesn't explain who you are or your purpose.”

I shook my head; the man was entirely too dense. “I wish for you summon the Quir, and a servant to stable my horse. Do this, and my identity and purpose shall be established.” I thrust the reins into his hand. “Inform the Quir that I will be awaiting her at the arana[3].” I frowned as he lingered. “Go, and don't waste a moment”. With that, I left him and made my way to the arana, and without waiting entered.

It was barely five minutes later that the Quir rushed into the room, face aflame with anger. I couldn't help but chuckle at her appearance; where as most of the ladies in Anyāis would have preferred waiting to be fully dressed and proper, she had none of that- her hair was down, hanging limply around her shoulders. She was dressed only in the bare necessities- a nightgown that did little to preserve her modesty. This did not phase her in any form, and her anger drove her forwards with no fear. “Who are you and what purpose do you have at my home?!” She almost snarled the words, her displeasure so fierce.

I gave her a small smile, before opening my arms for an embrace. “One would hope that you would recognize such a familiar face, no matter how much time has passed.”

The Quir's eyes went wide.

[1]Isr ē nôet (aisr ee noheht)- “I am home.” Line spoken by the Thorsrdyn Roech upon establishing the city of Anyāis (Arrile).
[2]Quir {quo-air}- a title of respect for an upper-class, married woman. Translatable to “Lady”.
[3]Arana {ahr-ahn-ah}-room most often used for entertaining guests.

Thlayli

Dec 13, 2011, 09:38 PM

NK did 95% of this. Satar script as of 300 RM. Typically read in vertical columns, left to right.

http://imgur.com/Ae6HL.png

http://i.imgur.com/IVyOc.jpg

Thlayli

Jan 06, 2012, 10:03 PM

The Lay of the Unbowed

Part the First: The Satar, The Shield, The Fire-Light

“Know then, know then, this is a song of broken men.
And see, that fear, is never heard in broken ear,
Or seen in broken eye.”

-First Call, The Lay of the Unbowed [Karapeshai Tela]

---

“Know.”

I felt the rain. It was pattering through the tree branches. It was falling softly on my face. It was so rich and green here. I had never seen a forest like this before.

And a grey man walked through the trees, and his mask was the color of dusk.

“Know.”

I was stalking him as if a deer, but he was all around me and he knew my every step. A bird chirped, but it sang the latan-hymn that I composed when I was a boy. The leaves crunched underfoot.

I took another step and the grey man was right before my eyes.

“Know.”

“No!”

---

My eyes opened.

“Did you know this place was green once?”

I was on my back, surrounded by a ring of men. They stared down at me. There were stars, I could see broken columns, rising up towards the sky. Their eyes were dark in the reflection of the fire, which always seemed to cast more shadow than light. It was night. It was cold. I was alive.

“Ten fountains my men have found and wells, and channels for the clear bright water that flowed throughout.” The voice was one of command, but I could only stare up at the stars.

“You slept for ten days. And here we find you awakening in a place of ten fountains. My oracles said it would be so.”

I tried to move my arm. I managed to flex a finger.

“And I asked the men of this place. Your pheasants, not my wolves. Rath Athex they name it in the holy tongue. The Court of the Snake. They say it was a place where spirit-worshippers dwelled. And in their orgies of blood they called a great spirit into the world, a snake the size of the sky. And in its hunger it drank the city dry.”

I knew the voice. It was…

“All is change. Not simply in this place. The victors are vanquished, and then victors again. That is our fate. But you do not believe that, do you?”

I could hear someone groaning.

“Your awakening is slow, and painful. But speech will return to you.”

“Jah.”

The voice turned stern. “Elikas. You do not die this day.”

It came into my vision, the face of the speaker.

“Jah…han.”

“You ride with me.”

My eyes closed.

---

The prince slept in a circle of his men. The ruined city was filled with hungry wolves, and the wind granted them little peace. The sand hissed across cracked slabs of stone, once the floor of a great temple, little whirlwinds cavorting across the forgotten ruin. The small fires dimmed, one by one, until the dying embers were like eyes in the darkness.

---

I was in a forest.

“Do you know?”

“Seer, I see.”

“Know your doom.”

The mountain broke, and I walked between the two halves.

The land below was…a different land. And it smelled like pine and briar, and cold iron.

“Know.”

I saw the dark shapes pouring down the mountainside. And the sky was alive with fire.

---

As the slow, dirty, brown column of cracked leather and dinted steel wound north, I was approached by a close tarkan, Shelak-ha.

"Come and see the thinker," he laughed.

Together we cantered towards the back of the column, where a man rode attired in strange clothing, one of the tall hats of the eastrons, an ill fitting suit of chain, and a bow slung along his back.

"Acha!" he exclaimed, bowing in a queer way. "I am presenting myself. Acciles, of the Accanon. Do you know what they call you, Elikas my prince?"

"You are under my exatas, Axilias. Tell me what they call me," I said.

"When you pass, the Vithana touch their forelocks. They call you the Last Prince."

I narrowed my eyes, staring at a Vithana outrider as if to penetrate his mind. "Why would that be?"

Axilias smiled, his eyes twinkling as he shifted in his saddle. And he seemed to say, As if you, in your pheasant-plume helmet, your breastplate covered in runes, look any stranger than I?

"Why would that be?" he replied.

"It is the fishermen who weather every storm, not the herders."

"Yes, we Accanon have been wise in not allowing our cities to become ashes and dust, whoever the victor may be. But your loss haunts your eyes."

"Are we...dying, Axilias?"

The smile did not leave his eyes, but it changed. Became more Satar.

"That is what I am here to determine."

---

Far away in a cold, bleak vale, the Good Prince wiped the sweat from his brow, urging his survivors towards a far mountain where they would dig a bastion. The Good Prince would get on his hands and knees and dig next to them. He would drink water from the same skin. This would not be the end of days for his people, he knew.

Further away, the Oracle turned towards the pale city in the breach. His entourage chanted thanks that they had passed the harsh road, and come at last to that holy place. Arastephaion. They would ascend the mountain, and there build a new shrine.

Further away still, a hunter stalked a shy young deer in a valley where he had never seen another soul. Had he been an oracle, he might have heard strange foreign words on the wind. The tramp of boots, the flutter of wind-worn pennants.

He did not know.

---

They came, upon, the city camping on the height.

They saw, below, the cunning places, fine and bright.

The lords, and masks, they swore to never cease the fight.

Their sons, they pledged, their arms they slashed below moonlight.

“We are, unbowed. Our glory and unending plight.”

Said Elikas the Fire-Light.

North King

Jan 09, 2012, 11:37 PM

End of Empires - Update Fifteen
Storms Without Calm
Ten Years
510 - 520 SR by the Seshweay Calendar
399 - 409 RM by the Satar Calendar
225 - 235 IL by the Leunan Calendar

http://i.imgur.com/0ATfe.png

We shall cross this river, somehow, until we find our home. – Hashaskor, Founder of the Kothari Exatai.

What hope is there for a twice-chained man? – Slave, Salai of Therefau

We return to a world we have visited many times before. A world under a foreign sky, under a moon of sulfurs and brimstones, under a starry cloud with a hundred names – Opporia's Eye, the Veil of the Lakatar, Aitah's Cloak. A world washed by a long sea, with canyon-carved cities, blood-soaked harbors, misted vales and red-stone citadels.

We return to a world with a storied past. Already, we know the names of a dozen heroes. Villains, too – they are certainly in great supply. And names that are as yet unlearnt, names of heroes from lands beyond the edges of our civilization, peoples who have never heard our music.

We return to a world in disarray, a world where the hammer-blow is fresh fallen. In the cradle of civilization, that most ancient of lands, the eternal war between the Satar and their neighbors has finally ended, or at least one of volumes had – the Ardavai Exatai has fallen from a thousand wounds. The horror of Kargan has come and gone, the Red City obliterated by a lengthy siege. The newly remade Karapeshai Exatai promises to continue the fight, but war on one front and uneasy peace on the other makes for a nervous empire at best. The end of the Khivani Roshate seems close at hand, while renewed war in the north threatens to boil over and engulf all of that region.

Even now, the dust has not settled. Conflicts that seemed straightforward but a decade ago are complicated by further madness, and even men in regions far from strife rest uneasily.

And still the steel circle of war widens...

* * * * * * * * *

Let me tell you of the sunset – of the far off western lands. Astride a peninsula on the horizon of the known world, these peoples have seen little of the brutality that dominates the cradle. Wars have been waged here, of course – numerous wars – but few recently, and none with such mindless slaughter as in the east.

But all that has begun to change.

Alarmed by the upstart nation of Dehr and its steady expansion into the divided peninsular regions, the King of Trahana called his nobility to court, and declared that he would not stand idly while this new rival rose in the north. Vowing first and foremost to save the city of Rakuts from its besiegers, and to stave off the destruction of the other independent city-states, he raised a tremendous army and marched north to confront these new foes, not so far from the placid waters of Lake Normegha. One part of this force was to distract the enemy around Rakuts and pin their main force; the other part was to swing around them and march on the capital of the rising empire itself.

Such a plan required a great deal of luck, however, and unfortunately for the Trahana, King Caille of Dehr had already planned an assault on Edris. Consequently, he already had a second army in reserve – right in the path of the Trahana armies. This force quickly headed off the Trahana attack on their heartlands before it had even begun. At the same time, the campaign so far form the traditional Trahana heartland had put a serious strain on the southerners' supply lines; they instead withdrew southward and prepared to relieve the siege of Rakuts – genuinely, this time.

Caille had no desire to get caught between the walls of the city and the advancing Trahana force – he wisely withdrew and prepared to hold onto his previous gains; meanwhile a secondary Dehr force captured Edris. The Trahana king, not satisfied with these meager gains, pressed onwards and engaged Caille north of Rakuts. After a three day clash, both of the armies withdrew, each bloodied and neither making much headway against the other.

Of course, neither king contented himself with the results of such a fight. Each prepared new designs, and soon the Dehr had sent a flying column down the east side of Lake Normegha, threatening the rear of the southern army; the Trahana seized Edris from an unwary garrison and launched a renewed attack against Caille's army at Moiran. Both efforts stalled in the face of unexpectedly stalwart opposition, and the Peninsular War continued unabated.

And still, conflict spread.

The Dulama Empire, long decaying and seemingly on the brink of decline, had finally been woken from its stupor. Much-needed reforms had staved off long-looming problems, for a little while at least, and under the direction of an increasingly confident emperor, the Dulama looked to reassert their regional dominance.

Obeisances had been received from the Haina, and several other peripheral nations had acknowledged the power of the Empire. But from one people, apologies were deemed insufficient – the Sechm. The strange hill kingdom from which Machaianism had originated untold centuries ago had done ill unto the empire – it had seized outlying Dulama territories in the south during a moment of weakness. This affront had happened so long ago that the idea of it had been preserved much more by historians than by the populace on the border.

But it made for an excellent pretext.

Taking a crack group of Dulama soldiers, the Emperor launched a massive campaign to subjugate Sechm and reclaim the old Dulama territories. The forces committed bordered on overkill; they easily crushed the outmatched Sechm armies in a lakeside battle, pressed on south, and secured the head of the king on a pike, installing a petty noble who swore fealty to the Emperor in his place. In short, the military campaign went almost absurdly well.

But even such a simple campaign exposed serious problems that had heretofore been mostly covered up. The Imperial reforms had been in full swing for some time, but they were hardly without their discontents. Unified and rewritten legal codes made for unhappy nobility, especially on the periphery, and the Emperor's more or less obvious abandonment of the traditional Dulama religion for the more trendy Machai faith – and his abandonment of Dula itself – infuriated the traditional elite. Soon, a veritable storm of religious, economic, and social problems flared up.

The Imperial army, even with such a minor exertion as crushing the Sechm, had still been stretched perhaps further than might have been wise in a period of reform. Rebellion, which had been only the shadow of a rumor ten years before, suddenly became a very viable possibility. In short order, the old homeland of the Empire revolted, supported by the religious and aristocratic elite – and indeed, even some of the military. Though the rebels had not yet made much headway beyond the old capital itself, the Emperor feared their potential for mischief. Simultaneously, border raids by the Hai Vithana reached a new level, making serious incursions into the hinterland of the Empire.

The wars and rebellions unfortunately buried many positive developments – an academy at Aeda, the merchants of the Haina meeting a new people far to the southeast – all were lost in the midst of these new threats to the greatest empire in the western world.

And even far beyond the frontiers of the Empire, war flared. The King of the Narannue launched an attack against their neighbors in Limach, putting the ancient city under siege in only a few weeks. Even the Vischa were on the move – fresh from their raids in the east, their warriors launched a series of expeditions westwards, meeting another great tribal confederation on the steppe – the Adanai. It took very little time indeed for the two to begin fighting – though thus far the conflict had not escalated into full-blown war.

At the same time, surprisingly xenophobic policies by the Vischa khagan and the eruption of further conflict to the east disrupted trade across the eastern half of the confederation; though seemingly a minor distraction to the warriors of the Vischa, even this group took notice when the luxuries they had grown accustomed to trading for with their more settled neighbors vanished, and especially as their Hai Vithana neighbors had none of these difficulties. To say the least, the Vischa tribes were not happy.

Of course, the Hai Vithana had problems of their own...

* * * * * * * * *

The palace at Amhatr had lost some of its luster since the khagan had been a boy. Ten years ago – 502 by the Seshweay Calendar – ten years ago, his world had been shattered. The memory was not pleasant. He frowned slightly, and spurred his horse on. The golden palace, weathered, lay ahead.

His father was a just man, by every account. The khagan barely remembered him; a man only sees the shadows of faces that a boy once knew. But that shadow was still an imposing one – one that had taught him to rule fairly, to take the measure of a man before passing judgment. Half-faded conversations still lurked in the recesses of his mind. Yet the one memory of his father that remained vivid was that of his death.

Ten years ago. Much had changed since. The Lakatar Gate opened to greet his arrival; he brought his horse trotting beneath the old carvings of wind spirits, his escort by his sides. The gatehouse looked far different than it had all that time ago – the carvings splattered with blood and bodies of his father's comitatus lying about the palace, eviscerated.

Assassins had struck that day, killing his father in his sleep. The many tribes had torn each other to pieces. Amhatr itself became a bloodbath, with Iralliamites, Aitahists, and Ardavani at each others' throats; soon rival claimants to the throne had emerged. The khagan, caught by one of these rivals, had been rescued by his grandfather and uncle from the fighting – he still remembered galloping out the Lakatar Gate at full tilt in his uncle's saddle, looking back as his grandfather dismounted, calmly strung a recurve bow.

His grandfather had been but one more of the bodies that day.

Slowing to a halt, the khagan dismounted. The courtyard looked much as it had back then, minus the stains, though now he felt far more secure in his person, and far more retainers waited upon him. He had fled all the way to Karamha, in the southeast corner of the Hai Vithana state, and there he had gathered his support. The new khagan raised in Amhatr had been by all accounts an unlikeable man, fond of cruelty and unwise in his rule; men of all classes suffered throughout his reign.

It should have been easy to reclaim the mantle of his father. Repression and murder should never sit well with a people. Yet somehow it does.

He sighed once more. What was done was done. As much of his life had been spent now in fighting for his crown as had ever been spent in rule. Somehow, he had weathered the storm; the Golden Palace was his once more. The Hai Vithana were his once more. And the southernmost of the three great tribes of the steppe could rise once more. Already, raids had begun on the frontier with the Dulama – a risky move, but one bound to unite his people. No matter.

He entered the throne room by the southward gate.

* * * * * * * * *

A city rose in the wilderness. Thraeldirnë, they called it, and it was a brave enterprise, carving away at the forests of the Settōn to create some sort of northern parallel to the old cities of the Evyni heartlands. Broad avenues, covered in slow-melting snow, courtesy of a late spring. Red-columned temples in the eastern style – dedicated to a new god. Construction had now all but stopped, the workers long since removed southward to fight a new war. The tale of that war was already a long one by the spring of 511 – and a tangled one as well.

Two decades after the beginning of the War of the Three Gods, the Evyni and the Karapeshai Exatai had concluded peace on unsurprising terms: the resumption of trade and borders as they stood at the end of the conflict. But the treaty had no sooner been made than it had already started to show cracks – albeit subtle ones. Both sides drew down their armies, but before too long, emissaries from either nation ended up at the court of the Xieni king.

The Xieni, for their part, had already achieved everything they could have wanted from the war – only the city of Naiji remained intact to threaten their realm. With their Satar allies gone, they asked for peace with the Evyni, asking for fairly sensible terms – the unrestricted opening of Evyni border cities to their merchants and a royal marriage to seal the pact and ensure the Evyni did not immediately betray them. Both of these seemed to be sticking points for the Evyni, but especially the latter, as it would dilute a long-pure bloodline.

The Satar approached the Xieni more covertly, offering the king a tempting deal – to be named one of the princes of the Karapeshai in return for aid in their war against the Evyni Empire. Risky, no doubt, but certainly worth it if they won out in the end. The Xieni stalled for time. The king did not want to rebuff the Satar, in case the Evyni proved intractable, but he was far more wary of the closer and larger Evyni Empire than he was of his southern neighbor.

For one reason or another, the Evyni finally caved to both of the terms. The Xieni princess Chongorzol, or Ashar, as she would later become known, began the long trek from her homeland to the capital at Anyais.

Ashar arrived in Naiji as the first snows of the winter were falling, and decided to winter there, both for safety and to learn the ways of her new homeland before she finally arrived in Anyais. In the midst of all this activity, she heard the preachings of a man by the name of Essril, the founder of a new faith – Enguntith. This, a sort of evolution of Ytauzi (and borrowing elements from other faiths of the north), declared the existence of a mystical, powerful god Yleth. Despite the difficulties that such a radical new faith might present, Ashar converted that winter, and resolved to bring the holy man with her to court.

They did not quite reach it.

* * * * * * * * *

The world lay in northern spring. Meltwater streams ran down dark mountainsides, their slopes shaded by pines with fresh-sprouted cones. Everything had that wet glint of ground just uncovered by snow. The road fell in a winding switchback, unpaved and muddy in places, the earth eroding around upturned rocks like little buttes that threatened to twist incautious ankles or horses' hooves.

The column churned onwards, crimson banners hanging limply in the still, damp air. Behind them lay peaks coated in snow and ice, but before them... before them lay a different kingdom.

The Evyni Empire.

Thickly-wooded valleys and rills extended before them to the very horizon, forests climbing dangerous slopes with narrow paths and deadly clefts. The Satar had some trouble here, as they had for the entire march, but they were nothing if not persistent. All, thus far, had gone to plan, and that if nothing else raised the suspicion of Elikas. His outriders had spotted nothing, but then they had not happened upon the nearest of the Evyni outposts yet. They, surely, would mount some sort of response.

And indeed, though they had emerged from the most dangerous part of the march unscathed, before the Satar host could fall upon Croalle, the Evyni emerged from the valley to give battle.

Even before the first skirmishes, it became clear that it was a battle that favored neither side's strengths. The terrain about the city was a patchwork of verdant hills and new-sown fields; rains the week before had made the entire landscape slick with mud and the rotting leaves fallen last autumn. As they converged on one another, the footing grew worse still; soon it became difficult for either side to maneuver at all.

The loss of his cavalry's mobility troubled Elikas, but their opponent's ordered formations faced difficulty on broken ground. Disordered and ragged, they seemed easy prey for the larger Satar force, which, largely dismounted, showered them with arrows from afar before the battle had even been joined. The Evyni sent forward their own archers, and thus battle was joined.

Even as the archery duel continued, each commander looked to probe the other. The Satar searched for gaps in the enemy's lines, hoping to disrupt them or turn them, while the Evyni looked for more general weaknesses in the horselord's front. Neither was terribly successful at the start, and either side drove back the subtle prodding of the other with much bloodshed, the cries of the dead and wounded sounding through the blackened woods, forest animals and farmers alike awaking from their hibernation to a cruel spectacle.

If the battle had continued thus, the superior discipline of the Evyni might have won the day. But Elikas sensed this, and he also waited for the next day, when the ground was somewhat less slippery, and far more inviting to his strengths.

The Satar cataphracts rode out with their lightest armor, avoiding being bogged down as best they could; the angles of attack over the open fields or level groves, avoiding the rills and creeks that might break their attacks before they started. The cataphracts smashed the lines of the Evyni army, who, to their credit, withdrew in good order. Elikas tried his best to cut off their retreat, but in such narrow spaces this proved impossible. In any case, the Evyni fell back towards the rest of their forces in the Rhon Valley; Elikas swooped down on Croalle and captured his first base on the northern side of the Rhoms.

But time could not be wasted. Even though, as we shall see, others tied up much of the enemy forces in the east, initiative was key to minimizing losses. Leaving a significant garrison, the Satar continued onward into the valley of the Rhon.

Here, the land was much more built up. Cellena fell reasonably quickly, but the greater cities in the way, Asyvedr and Alusille, seemed much tougher targets. Once again, the Evyni came forth with further reinforcements; now they met the Satar head on in the greening fields of the lowlands.

The Battle by the Rhon only matched the second largest armies of the Satar and Evyni alike, but each side fought fiercely despite that. From the start, the Satar attempted a rather unimaginative double-envelopment maneuver that had been the staple of their tactics; the Evyni met each of the flanking attempts with reserve forces and repelled them without too much loss. The false retreat and the harassment, too, were familiar to the Evyni, fresh off of their war with the Xieni.

Abandoning traditional tactics, Elikas now tried a different maneuver. By means of several probing strikes, he drew one wing of the Evyni army forward, onto more exposed ground; then a crack corps of Satar infantry emerged from a riverside grove and attacked the enemy flank, driving them back. Thus encouraged, the Satar pressed forward and were able to turn the Evyni positions; their opponents drew back, and it looked like it would be yet another fairly indecisive battle.

But in this more open terrain, the massive Satar advantage in horse began to finally tell; they rode down the retreating Evyni, and even though the iron discipline of the latter prevented a full-scale rout, they were able to drive them a considerable distance further. Soon, they seized Asyvedr and put Alusille, one of the greatest cities of the northern empire, under siege.

Even as the Satar pressed forward, they began to send feelers out to the various Ming city-states, proposing to establish one of their aristocrats as a new prince of the Karapeshai and join in the war against the Evyni. Yet this song did little to sway the Ming people, who had not been all that badly mistreated under recent years of Evyni rule. Moreover, the sheer risk of joining an endeavor such as this – with the Evyni still not even close to defeated – was not attractive.

The Satar invasion of the Rhon valley stopped Ashar in her tracks; she had planned to continue to Anyais after the first spring melt, but a rather large enemy force lay in her way. With Essril in tow, she decided instead to travel to Beixang, far upriver, and circle around the northeast to reach Anyais. Her native Xieni people, converting to their faraway princess' new faith, stayed surprisingly true to their alliance with the Evyni – they attacked the Satar's northwestern frontier. Seizing Harasai on the southernmost tributary of the Einan, they began to launch large-scale raids across the steppe to distract their opponent from the other parts of the war; though, in the end, this was to little effect...

* * * * * * * * *

For even as Elikas' fell upon the River Rhon and stunned the Evyni defenders, the Redeemer Jahan led two more armies into the east of the Empire. Jahan's defeat at Karhat had not resulted in his ruin, as such losses had for so many other Satar Redeemers. Instead, Jahan led what forces he could into the Kotir and gathered up the other remnant Satar that trickled out of the Sesh part by part. Some grumbled that a leader so humbled should not lead the Exatai, but these whispers were quickly quelled by Jahan's steadfast hand. To divert their attention from what they had lost, he promised them new gains – a renewed campaign to the north.

Jahan's last foray into the region had ended with mixed results – Acca had been recovered, but the Evyni had not been defeated. This campaign had entirely different aims: to strike north of the Rhoms and create a new Exatai in the northern reaches of the world.

The first move was to catch the Evyni off-guard. To this end, Jahan ordered the construction of a large war fleet, crewing them with the various merchants or privateers that could be scraped up on the Accan coast, and using a significant force of marines to gain the upper hand in combat. Coincidentally helped by chaos on the other side of the Kern Sea, a surprising number of volunteers could be gathered; they were headed by a grizzled former merchant captain – Arto Rutarri.

The size of Rutarri's fleet would have caught the Evyni off-guard even had the attack been expected – as it was, the combination of the two meant Rutarri had by far the easiest road of any of the three Satar commanders. Hopping from island to island on the old Ritti lands, Rutarri seized the ancient city itself with little resistance, and soon turned his attention to aiding the overland campaign of Jahan's.

For the Redeemer led the largest army of all – 55,000, all told, directed through Rutto and towards Anyais itself. The Evyni armies had not fully demobilized, and though the Lawgiver's forces proved unable to stop the fall of Ceralle, they gathered themselves in defense of the ancient capital of the Empire, and faced the Satar before the walls of the great city.

The Battle of Anyais was not quite so large as Karhat, nor as decisive, but the forces involved were surprisingly similar given the differences in climate and peoples. The Satar, fully ahorse, attempted yet another double envelopment of a primarily infantry army, driving off the Evyni cavalry before encircling the large and disciplined center of infantry.

The Evyni had superior numbers in the field this time, and though their cavalry proved of a decidedly inferior quality compared to the Satar, they held long enough to allow the reserves of the army to catch up. The Satar certainly pummeled the Evyni from three sides, but the Lawgiver had stopped them short of encircling his army outright. On the other hand, with his forces fully engaged, he could make no adjustments or decisive maneuvers; for the moment, the initiative belonged to Jahan.

Losing no time, the Redeemer led his personal guard of cavalry into the center of the battlefield, and then carefully drew out the Lawgiver's center; the enemy line advanced to follow the retreating Satar center. Thus exposed and disordered, Jahan led a series of attacks from several sides that shattered the Evyni center and allowed the Satar to make a major breakthrough; the overcommitment of the Evyni forces proving too much to overcome.

The Lawgiver made a good account of himself in the denouement of Anyais, extricating the majority of his forces to fight another day, but he could not allow his army to be trapped in the city itself. Its relatively weaker fortifications were no match for the Satar siege equipment, designed far in the south; the Satar engineers managed to effect multiple breaches in the wall and drive the Evyni from the city wholesale. Anyais fell.

What followed could only be described as retribution for what the Satar had always viewed as a stab in the back – the attack that had broken the Satar in the War of the Three Gods. The Satar absolutely ravaged the city, wrecking its buildings and plundering its wealth; the people themselves became slaves to the various soldiers that had participated. In that maddened week, the most ancient home of the Evyni was destroyed.

Jahan quickly styled himself a Lawgiver and prepared to renew the campaign, to strike further into the north and subdue the remainder of the Evyni Empire, but the northern armies were far from broken. The Satar had inflicted two very serious defeats, to be sure, but the losses suffered did not cripple the Evyni war effort, while much of the productive centers of the Empire remained far from the front.

All the same, the Empire has been thrust into a harrowing situation. Even as the Karapeshai forces occupy much of the heartland, word out of the eastern extremes of the empire runs that someone is fomenting a Maninist rebellion. Though the Lawgiver himself has converted to the more syncretic faith of Enguntith, the difficulty of holding onto the farthest extremes of the Empire cannot be underestimated. But then, perhaps more allies could be sought...

North King

Jan 09, 2012, 11:38 PM

* * * * * * * * *

Even the ocean could not stem the tide of war. Far though they were from the battlefields of the broken and the breaking, the Gallatenes earned no respite from conflict.

Oddly, the hammer fell first in Aldina. A quiet, unassuming port city off the coast of the Nahsjad peninsula, it had long earned the reputation of a rather seedy place, relatively far from the more watchful eyes in Sirasona; tariffs were still raised but questions were not. With the only neighbors being the landlubbing Sirans, the garrison was barely even watchful – indeed the great majority of the Sirasonan fleet was stationed to watch their home city.

All that came back to bite the Sirasonans. A fleet with strange markings arrived at midmorning; by the time the sentries realized that it might have been a hostile invasion force, it was already upon them. The small fleet Sirasona had tasked to prevent the city actively falling into the hands of corsairs had little staying power, and their foes easily cut through them at the mouth of the harbor. Enemy soldiers unloaded onto the docks – perhaps the only real resistance came from an ornery merchant captain, for the garrison saw how hopeless things had become and quickly surrendered.

The city had fallen in the course of a few hours, and it was not until all was said and done that the Gallatenes even knew who had attacked.

Aitahists.

For even as the greater part of the Seshweay engaged in politics, a smaller number had been sent forth to spread the word of the goddess to the north – and perhaps more importantly secure ports and trading privileges at a few strategic places. Aldina was the first, but certainly not the last; Seshweay agents came all the way to Tarena to purchase the island of Gilot (perhaps a poor idea, as the island had few natural harbors and none large enough to keep safe a significant fleet), and even began to saber-rattle at other peoples in the region – specifically Cyve and the Frelesti.

Infuriated with the Aitahist attacks but unable to really summon the strength to strike back, Sirasona reluctantly decided to join the League of Gallasa in order to protect what remained of their commercial interests; swiftly, the enlarged alliance levied a significant tariff on goods coming from the Union of Aitah.

All the same, however, the Maninist holy land must have felt besieged. Savirai forces had intervened in Occara on the side of the Eastern Aitahist rebellion there and finally swung the civil war decisively in their favor; soon the Roshate became a glorified puppet of the much larger empire. Fearing that much the same might happen to him, the tyrant of Tarena converted to the eastern faith, and quickly began supporting conversions to Aitahism in his heartland. The aristocratic and mercantile elite of the kingdom gave only token protests, but discontent spiked throughout the rest of the country, especially in the stridently fundamentalist southern regions of Selessan.

Things were not helped by an impromptu campaign against the weakening Bhari Roshate. The fighting against the Sirans here proved a relatively simple one; their forces were crushed in a short battle at Sern, and the attacks were soon supported by opportunistic Airani and Gallatene forces. But all the same, the reduction of garrisons in Selessan (combined with the deaths of hundreds of Tarena's crack troops in fighting against the Bhari) threatened to turn the religious conversion bloody.

For its part, Cyve continued its campaign against the Frelesti, defeating in three quick battles the remainder of the Aulfrelestican forces. The most powerful of the Frelesti city states extinguished, the Cyvians took Llendel and Orfrelest with few complications. The remaining Frelesti peoples already seem on the verge of disintegration. Even the raids by Luskan had been mostly driven off; the islanders preferring not to fight what seemed like a lost battle.

An island of calm, perhaps, in all this chaos, the Savirai prosecuted their war with the Khivani almost as an afterthought. The Roshate, fortunately enough for the easterners, was in an awkward position – if it focused too much on the defense of the Peko it would leave itself vulnerable to the attacks of the Airani, and vice versa. The Savirai adopted a rather cautious approach, harrying and turning the opponent all the way up the Peko; sadly the Airani proved much more willing to take risks, and managed to seize the upper parts of the valley before the Aitahists could even arrive there. With no definitive war plans against one another, the two sides mostly eyed each other in a vaguely menacing way for a while before de facto peace set in.

For their part, the Aitahist Savirai found their new western frontier somewhat troublesome to hold. An accident of geography had placed them next to the most fanatical of all the Maninists, and they did not take well to the impositions of their heretical rulers, even if it was mostly limited to increased tax rates rather than actual repression. Few registered surprise when the Savirai decided to install a puppet ruler in Astria rather than rule the difficult kingdom themselves. Indeed, the new Astrian kingdom directed most of its energies at the subjugation of the various rebels loyal to the previous regime.

Yet even as they relieved themselves of some of their burden in the west, the Savirai seemed to be gearing up – for something. Despite the aforementioned campaigns into Occara and a similarly effective one into the Tazari lands, they raised new armies, and levied a massive tariff on Opulensi goods to pay for it. The real effect of this (combined with a noticeable rise in piracy in the Kbirilma Sea) was to more or less extinguish seaborne trade with the Opulensi and force their merchants to focus on overland trade with Leun, with mixed results. The landward route proved reliable enough, but rather slower than the old sea routes; moreover the Nahari cities understandably protested at the reduction in their own trade revenues – even if other factors eventually mitigated this...

* * * * * * * * *

As we have already seen, the remnant echelons of the Karapeshai forces had gone north, picking a fight with the Evyni instead of their longtime foes in the south. But what of the war they had left behind? What of the Moti and the Seshweay?

At first, of course, the allied armies had very little idea of what had happened. Jahan's armies regrouped to the north of the Sesh, in the half-desert, half-grassland Rath Tephas – there, they had not yet penetrated. Moreover, the more pressing issue seemed to be the security of the new conquests, where strong Satar forces in Yashidim and the foothills of the Kothai still roamed, under the command of the wily Satores.

But even though the Satar fought well, the Upper Sesh was clearly a lost cause. Satores' bands might be able to survive and fight on indefinitely, but political control could not be regained in the face of the tremendous Moti armies that remained in the area. The allied forces therefore turned their main attention to the Karapeshai in the north, who still threatened the river valley at any moment should they regroup.

Mindful of the endgame in the War of the Crimson Elephant, which had seen his predecessors lose the entire Sesh in similar circumstances to a stunning counterattack, governor Twelfth-Frono stuck to a more cautious approach, launching only small-scale raids and sticking to the uneven ground that favored his forces. The approach was unlikely to score huge victories, but his forces lost no ground. Meanwhile, after a heavy spring rain, the besiegers of Yashidim launched several sapping attempts which – after a few collapses and many dead – successfully undermined the walls. The city fell soon afterward.

With time, of course, it became apparent that the Satar forces had withdrawn. Twelfth-Frono's forces had met almost no resistance in the Rath Tephas, and Seshweay ships brought word from the north of the renewed bloodshed between the Evyni and the Satar. It seemed like a golden opportunity. The Allied armies switched to a rather more aggressive strategy and attempted to secure more land – all the region south of the Rahevat (the Rhoms).

Yet despite their redoubled efforts, they made little headway. Allied armies crossed the Rath Tephas more easily than the Satar had hoped, but the citadel at Arastephaion proved impossible to reduce, owing to the difficult logistics involved. Onesh might have been a simpler affair, but the garrison there seemed sufficient to drive back Seshweay forces. In the end, Allied control over the Rath Tephas and the Kotir was ephemeral at best.

Even as the war ground to a halt, though, change still swept the lands that it had already left behind. Most obviously, settlers from Bysria and the ancestral family lands of Moti began to move into the upper Sesh, constructing and rebuilding fortified settlements and enslaving particularly recalcitrant Satar remnants. Meanwhile, the Aitahists slowly consolidated their grip on the lower Sesh, castrating or killing the Satar who refused to convert and swear allegiance, though it is entirely likely that Ardavan remained a popular underground religion just as Aitahism had been before it.

But for all the work of resettlement and fortification, the Sesh remained a broken land, and a hotbed for rebellion. Outside the Delta, none of the cities or estates had reached their old levels of productivity. Meanwhile, the Moti redoubled their efforts to catch and suppress the rebel Satar, who continued to fight under the wily Satores – who escaped numerous traps set for him and continued the fight from the foothills of the Kothai after his stronghold of Yashidim was taken. The garrison force in the Sesh remained entirely too large to dislodge or do more than harass, but at the very least the Satar proved a nagging thorn in the side of the Moti military aristocracy who settled the valley.

The most radical enterprise, though, was built on the corpse of Kargan. In the shadow of the ruined city, the Sesh and Faron had forged a surprisingly strong friendship in their war with the hated Satar. Though the Empire of Helsia remained to one degree or another Iralliamite, they and the Aitahists had both witnessed the horror that was Kargan – and they had worked together to destroy the Satar garrison there in a long, bloody siege.

And it was in Kargan that the first signs surfaced of what was to come. With the Ardavai Exatai extinguished and the Karapeshai far from the thoughts of these men, the urgency of war faded and the long process of rebuilding began. The city became the symbol of this effort – the various sides agreed to make it a free city, a center of trade and culture for all the peoples of cradle. Soon, this idea evolved even further.

Desperate to regain their old glory and with their ancient foes defeated, the Faron dreamed of the reunion of all of Helsia under one banner, while the economic benefits of a stronger alliance with the rising Seshweay – who already had a framework in the Union of Aitah – could not be underestimated. The Seshweay, for their part, campaigned to put all Aitahists under the same banner, and desired greater protection from the larger powers of the region, Satar and otherwise. The Farubaida o Caroha (or the Federation of Kargan, its Senate based in that city) was born.

Even from the start, the Federation was a complicated affair.

The balance of power between each of the consituent states, which retained a great deal of domestic autonomy, was a delicate one – despite the era of goodwill, the Faronun of Dremai remained ambitious, and the Faerouhaiaouans remained suspicious of the power of the other two Faronun states. The rift between the Seshweay and the Faronun, oddly, was less of an issue, with either mostly staying out of the others' way. The only real policy the Federation made, after all, was in the sphere of military and foreign affairs – where the objectives of both peoples remained nearly identical. Still, it was clear to all involved that the coalition was still a fragile one.

Political issues (as they have a habit of doing) hid the real impact of the alliance. With trade barriers much reduced across the Lovi Sea in a way that had not happened since the long-dead Empire of the Trilui, and peace reigning at long last, the economy of the region absolutely flourished. Seaborne trade boomed, and formerly minor ports like Sarou (near Aramaia), Breia (in the north of Helsia), Cyre, and Hanno suddenly stepped into the spotlight.

Likewise, old Seshweay texts were recovered and the treasure trove of knowledge that had been built up in the highlands of Helsia began to disseminate westward. Nascent philosophical schools rose in the reconstruction of Kargan; some scholars even translated a few old Satar tracts for the libraries of the Federation. The arrival of the Moti into the Upper Sesh and Gyza allowed ideas from the south to join the exchange. Of course, with the war only ten years gone, none of these trends had really fully solidified or made serious headway. But the seeds had been planted.

In the neighboring Holy Moti Empire, by contrast, victory had brought seemingly few positives. The ruin of the Sesh had at least temporarily enriched Bysrium, Gyza, and Het as the axis of north-south overland trade, while contact with the Aitahists brought still more wealth; meanwhile the city of Gaci proper flourished. But with the apparent defeat of the Satar – or at least their being driven north of the Rhoms – these were all overshadowed by new problems. The aforementioned resistance in the Upper Sesh was a nuisance, but intensifying rivalry between new and old nobility at the royal court and even in the countryside loomed large. Inconsistencies in the laws and bureaucracy across the Empire increased corruption and friction.

Compounding these problems, most saw the new Ayasi Fourth-Frei as relatively weak, while the real power behind the throne lay with the aging councilor Evanri – whose death near the end of the period created a serious power vacuum which no small number of men tried to occupy. Only caution and the continuation of the northern campaigns and the demands that placed on the military manpower of the Empire ensured the issue did not come to blows.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the turmoil in the Empire benefited the rising power of the Church. The Grandpatriarch in Opios proved a powerful legitimizing force for Fourth-Frei, while the “civilizing mission” of Iralliam priests contributed heavily to the rebuilding of the Upper Sesh. As a source of credit, they ran into new competition with the resurrection of Seshweay banking in the north, but profited immensely nonetheless. Conversions, forced and otherwise, swept both the former Satar lands and the newly Iralliamite regions south of the Kotthorns. With the new wealth and power came considerable risk – thus the Church began to hire a dedicated corps of mercenaries independent of the Empire's (ironically, many of these soldiers were converted and newly unemployed Satar fleeing the devastation of their homeland).

At the same time, however, these mercenaries seem largely powerless in the face of a wave of murders that has swept the region – clergymen of all ranks found dead in suspicious circumstances.

Patronage rose tremendously throughout the Church, and thousands of artists in the Empire pursued work in a dozen fields under their auspices – sculpture, glassmaking, painting, and music. The first three culminated in a series of new temples raised in Gaci, Opios, and Tilegun – masterpieces of engineering and architecture, filled with ornate pious depictions of the eternal battle and the presumed triumph of Opporia. Echoing through their halls, music started to be written down in earnest for the first time, while musicians experimented with the sounds of Seshweay instruments from the north – particularly the percussive Se'ta'ai.

Further still from the conflict, the Kothari Exatai stagnated somewhat. Rumors surfaced of discontent among the elite in the far south, but despite the Redeemer's relatively loose grip on that periphery, nothing came of it. Piracy, by contrast, was a very real threat, as the outlaws established enclaves all along the coast.

More concerning to the Church and the Redeemer alike, a certain Iralliamite heresy rose to prominence in the lands between Karidil and Bursun. Led by a Zyesh priest turned quasi-mystic by the name of Zurinad, the Zurinites believed in an odd syncretic mixture of orthodox Iralliam and the more popular Indagahor faith of the countryside – Opporia became the avatar of the enlightened and much time was spent in meditation and contemplation.

This in and of itself would be merely obnoxious, but the heretics denied the authority of the Grandpatriarch and questioned the legitimacy of him, the Redeemer, and the infallibility of the Prophet himself.

* * * * * * * * *

In the south of the world, the Clan of Kogur continued its campaign against the Putrans, attacking their stronghold at Anzai. With Parnan support growing less and less enthusiastic, the war began to wind down as the Uggor captured, one by one, the most significant cities of the natives. In short order, Putra collapsed entirely, with only scattered resistance remaining in the southern forests.

Across the Nakalani, the Ilfolk had begun to take to the waves – perhaps in response to or spurred on by the arrival of the Baribai. For the most part, their naval presence was limited to a few fishing vessels, but nonetheless they discovered a few more islands to the north and south – and indeed rounded their own island entirely. Meanwhile, the complex at the Temple of the Snakes saw several new buildings, each broken in by celebratory feasts and sacrifices. Smaller, imitative shrines started to be built across the island, though the priests at the Temple maintained their monopoly on the most important rituals.

Their new neighbors, the Baribai, by contrast, seemed to stagnate a little; little of interest had happened for years.

* * * * * * * * *

Even though only a decade had passed, the Eastern War had been almost forgotten. The Opulensi Empire seemed stronger than ever before. Perhaps it could suffer reverses on land, but most regarded it as invulnerable by sea. The empire was free to invest heavily into its infrastructure, bringing in new farming techniques, funding their implementation well; it also started to experiment with cash crops like indigo and cotton brought in from Leun in an attempt to break their monopoly – though little progress had been made as of yet. Probably of more interest was the Emperor's creation of a new order of warrior monks, steeped in martial arts traditions as well as their faith. Soon, the decision would look almost prescient as Indagahor fell under siege from yet another front.

But easily the most distressing problem, especially in light of their supposed command of the waves, lay in the increasing piracy of the east.

To this end, the Emperor took an eminently sensible course of action: he launched a sustained campaign against the pirates. First, the fleet was deployed the Leunan Sea – raising the hackles of the Leunans, of course, but the Opulensi cared very little about that. In surprisingly little time, several pirate strongholds were rooted out from the various coasts, and more than a dozen ships had been set afire.

Later, it would become evident that this had more to do with the pirates shifting westward than the naval campaign. But by the time that new piracy in the Kbirilma Sea had surfaced, a much more pressing issue overshadowed it.

The Opulensi fleet had chased some of the pirates to their hideouts in the Cynal Sea and the Nakalani, and indeed found that some of them had been operating near or from Farean ports. When the Empire's ships attempted to seize these vessels, they were more than once approached by Farean vessels who politely but firmly insisted that these “merchants” were under the protection of the Naelsian people – indeed, several times the two fleets came to blows.

In short order, of course, much of the Empire's elite called for war against these upstart people. The Farean council went into a panic, fearing their new ally would listen to these calls, and that their northern neighbors in Leun would use the opportunity to attack them as well.

Leun, needless to say, viewed this southern fracas with keen interest. Their rivalry with Farea had nearly come blows already – the colonization of Auona brought them into dangerous proximity, and neither one was wholly willing to accept the dominance of the other over half the massive island. Each had brought large native groups under their wing, weaving a network of mixed trade and force together; each had built a central city to oversee the consolidation effort – Farea's Mirof and Leun's Escas. But the Fareans had been deterred by Leun's strength, and Leun by the threat of Opulensi intervention. With the Empire infuriated at Farea, prospects for peace seemed grim at best.

Except, perhaps, in Rihnit – the tiny nation had survived relatively unscathed through hellfire and trade wars alike, mostly through sheer anonymity. But recently, the King of Rihnit has begun to make changes – reforms have expanded the tax base, and a successful campaign against the Alare in the lake district has raised his prestige significantly.

In the meantime, life in the Leunan Empire plodded along much as it had before – with one exception. Admittedly, the arrival of a series of mysterious prophets from the west seemed inconsequential at first. It was only when the people began to convert that the elite took notice.

The Aitah had arrived.

Her procession was an unassuming one – smaller than many a trade caravan that wound its way out of the desert into Issaos. But before she had even left the little city, word raced ahead of her to the Leunan capital, speaking of a woman – beautiful and fair – bearing the word of some foreign god. It is no small task to convert a nation, but the Aitah had those peculiar gifts of charisma and the mysterious that made such an undertaking possible. By the time she arrived in Leun proper, her procession had swelled to hundreds of newly converted faithful, telling anyone they met that she had healed their wounds, cured their ills, and given them contentment.

The Ruling Council and the Emperor had always been reasonably friendly towards the Savirai and their religion – both invited the Aitah to treat with them personally, and both were favorably impressed. So, too, were the people of the city, who flocked to hear her speak; some converted on the spot. Still more heard the Word through her disciples. In less than a few months, Leun had a small but fast-growing Aitahist minority. The Emperor and the Council had not officially endorsed the new faith, but their tacit acceptance of its growth allowed it to flourish. The Aitah herself remained in Leun for some time, preaching in small communities that had never seen an emperor, yet had now seen a god.

Far from the word of the new faith, Leunan ships prodded at the edges of the known world, sailing further north than they ever had before. The voyage of discovery their Empire had tasked them with nearly ended in disaster thrice. The violent waters around the northern cape capsized a number of ships without warning at all; soon after the strong headwinds and currents in those waters delayed them so long that provisions nearly ran out. Finally, having determinedly battled their way into a northern sea, having treated with the King of Lesa, and not three days out of the northern capital, they ran into an ice storm of tremendous proportions that coated their vessels in thick layers of the stuff.

For a people who had rarely seen snow before, let alone ice, the crew dealt surprisingly well with seeing their vessels bedecked in white. A lucky spell of warm weather melted the ice before too much damage could occur, and though a few vessels were entirely destroyed, the majority of the expedition had somehow come through unscathed. Unwilling to press their luck too much, they stopped only to exchange gifts with the local Berathii chieftains, and turned back for the far easier voyage back to their homeland.

Even in the short span of that voyage, however, the complexion of the Acayan had changed dramatically. Iolha was on the warpath once more, inflicting a serious defeat on the Tazari tribes and earning much prestige; in little time they subjugated the city of Tanat with ease, and loomed large over the remaining independent Acayans. The Tazari, meanwhile, had themselves been crushed by the rising Savirai state; through the westerners seemed to have no intentions of continuing on to the coast, the new player in the region had everyone wary.

As for Parthe, their corner of the world seemed less and less paradisaical as the years passed – their most recent bout of expansion had brought them into serious conflict with the northwestern tribes. These peoples, far more ferocious than their southern kin, resisted any attempt at expansion into their region; moreover the plantation crops that the Parthe tried to plant struggled in the far colder western half of the island. At the same time, their near-monopoly of cash crops slipped further and further away as Leun started to steal and plant them; even the Opulensi tried (unsuccessfully) to get in on the act.

* * * * * * * * *

A foreign moon rises into a foreign sky. Yellow sulfur flares from the southern hemisphere, spreading across a white surface. The hints of the birth of the waning crescent have begun to crawl across it. And as soothsayers look to the heavens and worry of the ailing moon, so too does the world ail. Wars spread, and the aftershocks cannot be stopped.

* * * * * * * * *

Maps

http://i.imgur.com/rWjB8.png
City Map

http://i.imgur.com/nwDkO.png
Religious Map

http://i.imgur.com/yOMHk.png
Economic Map

http://i.imgur.com/KCwsL.png
Political Map

* * * * * * * * *

OOC:

This update is not my best. Maybe my standards have become unreasonably high, but in fact I think it is among my worst. At the least, it was uninspired. Nonetheless, this is not, in and of itself, a serious problem – its probably temporary.

Though I'm sure my excuses are largely meaningless at this point, what I'm really sorry about is the tardiness of this update, and I'm really grateful to all of you who have stuck with it through the ridiculous waits (and even a little grateful to those of you who pestered me repeatedly about it). For what it's worth, my last year has been absolutely brutal, and while that doesn't exonerate me, I hope you'll understand that I genuinely want this NES to keep going and succeeding.

Indeed, I hope this next year will prove a lot more conducive to quick updates. We'll see.

On that note, if you have any questions, as usual, fire away.

If you happen to be new and want to join in the fun, just let me know... we have an increasing number of vacancies (which is understandable) and a few which haven't even been revealed yet.

Amusing orders prize of the update goes to Kal'thzar – his started with a very eloquent “Mhmmm.” I might do some cool additions and whatnot later this week. Stats likewise.

Next due date: currently unknown.

Lord_Iggy

Jan 10, 2012, 02:07 AM

Great update! Just curious about one thing, shouldn't Neruss have internal borders within the Farubaida o Caroha?

North King

Jan 10, 2012, 02:35 AM

It does! Look closer. ;)

Lord_Iggy

Jan 10, 2012, 03:35 AM

I did a bit of work on one of the wiki's many articles. Hopefully I'll do more of these in the future. :)

Trovin (http://endofempires.wiki-site.com/index.php/Trovin)

Thlayli

Jan 10, 2012, 10:35 AM

I disagree with you NK, this was a great update, if slightly less apocalyptic than the last few.

I remember you were considering possible stat changes, as well. Maybe you could solicit some feedback?

North King

Jan 10, 2012, 12:39 PM

The most significant stat change is that I'm probably getting rid of manpower. It's never been terribly useful and I always forget to update it properly. Other than that, probably different maintenance costs for units depending on their place of origin and quality.

Also, my computer is malfunctioning pretty badly, so no telling how often I'll be able to get online.

Lord_Iggy

Jan 10, 2012, 02:50 PM

I've put together a little recording (http://www.mediafire.com/?x8yjfwjwcs2c44h) to demonstrate what a standard (Southern) Faronun accent from around this time period would sound like. The idea's based on the Speech Accent Archive (http://accent.gmu.edu/index.php), which catalogs various different accents. One of the ways of doing this is through the diagnostic paragraph, which contains a broad set of English's phonemes:

Please call Stella. Ask her to bring these things with her from the store: Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob. We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids. She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station.

Would anyone else like to try this?

Kraznaya

Jan 10, 2012, 05:27 PM

You stand before us today. Your host is few and less, and it dwindles every moon as ours strengthens. Yet you stand before us. You fly the banner of an old faith, torn and ripped asunder by corruption and decay. Yet you stand before us. You claim a crown whose jewel we possess, a claim as empty as your future. Yet you stand before us. We offered you the branch of peace, should only you kneel. Yet you stand.

You are a brave prince. We understand your devotion your traditions, your land, and your people. A man who has not yet seen the brilliance of her light can be forgiven for forsaking its beauty. Yet you are wrong. Your faith is incomplete, corrupted, missing the spark of the divine. Your Wards to whom you bow will offer you no solace. It will fail you.

If you are so convinced of your righteousness to continue to defy us, sally force and meet us in the field. We would be glad to meet a prince of honor in battle.

If she is not who we claim to her to be, then we may fail and you may yet depart in glory.

But do you really believe such?

Angst

Jan 11, 2012, 02:07 AM

I did the same as Iggy.

http://www.mediafire.com/?7e438q29c2i7kno

However with a twist. It begins by reading aloud a poetic phrase in Illian.

Lord_Iggy

Jan 11, 2012, 02:27 AM

Coolio! I should record some spoken Faronun as well, for comparison.

andis-1

Jan 11, 2012, 09:59 AM

To: Farea
From: Opulensi Empire

The Emperor would like to inquire about these reports of pirates and corsairs taking refuge in Farean ports. Harboring enemies of the Empire hardly contributes towards the "better mutual relations and economic growth" as was stated on the treaty of Mirof.

Would your leaders be willing to explain themselves?

Sincerely yours,

Laerthalion-Karash

Thlayli

Jan 11, 2012, 12:25 PM

A Proclamation of Jahan, Tenth Redeemer of Man, Prince of the Moon, High Prince of the Karapeshai Exatai, Autogracces of Accanon, Lawgiver of Exatas, and Protector of the Ytau

The faith, and the true faith, of the Exatai, is Ardavan. The worship of the God-King Taleldil shall forever be closest to our heart. Only those who follow the Lord of Wind and Thunder may rise to the office of tarkan among myself or my Princes.

I proclaim respect and toleration for the path of the Ytau. The lords of this realm who wish to retain the old ways will not be harassed. Those who follow the path of light and shadow may rise to small offices under my exatas. They may be vatakasai and serve in my armies. They may possess and inherit land. They may practice their faith freely. However, they must pay a tax to the state for the cost of their protection. All the same shall be true for those who follow the path of Manin.

We shall defend the path of the Ytau against the heresy of Enguntith. The false god will not be tolerated. His followers will be put to the sword and cast into the seas and the rivers. The Redeemer calls on loyal lords of the Evyn to flock to their Protector Jahan, who will defend their Path from the false Lawgiver, inventor of Gods.

From: Redeemer Jahan, High Prince of the Karapeshai
To: Fourth-Frei, Ayasi of the Moti

I wash my hands of Satores, who cared more for his cities and riches than is right for a Satar. Kill him or enslave him, I do not care. But if you exile him to me, I will kill him.

We send a gift of horses to the Ayasi, similar to the gift which Atraxes the Great sent to Third-Gaci so many years ago. We have none but the greatest respect for the Moti, in war and in peace. We will formalize the borders as they stand, if you accept.

~Darkening~

Jan 11, 2012, 02:50 PM

The Thorsrdyn of Evyn, Isathmæyr, aware of the ignorance that the Horselord possesses of the North and our customs, issues the following clarifications upon previous issued words. The title of Lawgiver (Thorsrdyn) is a hereditary throne passed down through the Imperial Line, from the founding by the Great Roech, down to his 20th successor, myself. By claiming the title, one argues that they are fit to rule by their relationship to the initiator- which he is clearly not, being a southernling. Furthermore, a Lawgiver is honor-bound by word- a declaration is binding. By signing peace with the Empire, and the prosecuting a vicious betrayal of that peace, Jahan has proven that his word is worthless. Even were he of the required royal blood, he is invalid to be Thorsrdyn due to his dishonesty.

In addition, the false Jahan proclaims himself a defender of the Ytauzi- yet he does not seem to realize that by ordering his horde- for that is what they truly are, a barbarian horde- he has wrecked devastation upon the community. With reckless abandonment, he and his horde burned the oirnaoss of Anyāis, scorched countless libraries, and slaughtered countless scholars during their siege of that city. Which is nothing to speak of the wreckage inflicted upon Asveydr, the other Learned City. He also seeks to paint the Lawgiver as intolerant, yet all that live within the Empire know that the Ytauzi are without restriction within the Empire. Furthermore, the minority religions are allowed – with tax- to operate within their strongholds, as has been the tradition for over hundreds of years.

The false Jahan seeks to sow discord where there is none to be found. All the quem of Evyn are honor bound in their loyalty to the Thorsrdyn. Perhaps it is a concept that Jahan is unaware of, as he is well known in his treacherous ways, but the quem of Evyn take their honor in detail. And perhaps Jahan is unaware that every qurœ of the Empire is ruled by a noble of their own people, as has been tradition for countless centuries. Perhaps Jahan is unaware that by asking the loyal lords of Evyn to betray their proper liege, Jahan insults that honor. There is much that the Horselord does not know.

But the Lawgiver of Evyn does not berate the false Jahan for his desperate attempts to secure some foothold in the North. Even as he begs for peace from the Righteous Moti in the south, he recognizes that his horde can not hold the North. His armies lie thin, in a vast land which they are ignorant about. All that his trickery and surprise have bought him lie in danger, as the true host of Evyn has yet been introduced to combat- has yet to even be called up. The Might of the North shall be brought against the false Pretender, and in the end there will be no sparing him from judgment.

Issued by word by Isathmæyr, Thorsrdyn of Evyn.

Thlayli

Jan 11, 2012, 03:42 PM

Too many times has the craven Isathmaeyr fled from my all-conquering armies. He will do so again until I burn his palace and his false god.

The blood of the heretic Lawgiver grows thin and dilute, and he even turns to Xieni to bolster it. A wise choice, to turn to the steppe to strengthen your weak blood, but a late one. Far too late, for a coward and a failure.

Thlayli

Jan 11, 2012, 11:30 PM

The Lay of the Unbowed

Part the First: The Satar, The Shield, The Fire-Light (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11173781&postcount=2907)

Part the Second: The Accanon, The Out-Caste, The Sea Lord

We lie, to fight, with word and whisper set alight.
To run, so fleet, but never to concede defeat,
To win, we have to cheat.

-Second Call [Call of the Accans], Karapeshai Tela [The Lay of the Unbowed]

Steamed, herb encrusted feliocca. When cooked perfectly, the fish’s pale lavender flesh turned a delicate orange, and tasted like God’s divine reward. The creatures were rare to begin with, worth a day’s wages for a fisherman lucky enough to catch one. In the highest circles of society, it was eaten with spiced rice. The rice came from the far northwest of the world, and the spices from the far southeast…so the clear implication was that anyone wealthy enough to eat feliocca with spiced rice could get anything from anywhere. His only personal addition to the dish was lime juice. He had seen far too many undersupplied ships straggle into port filled with malnourished sailors, pallid skin and toothless gums a sure sign of scurvy. Men cannot live on flesh alone. As we now know.

Then, veal filets, breaded in flour, with a dark brown wine reduction sauce. It was covered in parsley and served over some sort of purple, leafy vegetable. The wine, a blushing light pink during the first course, changed over to a deep, rich red that tasted like the earth. Hot strips of crispy white bread were on hand, for dipping into the sauce after the meat itself was consumed. The bread was a concession to the flatbread which dominated much Satar cuisine, and replaced their plates. He found their habit of eating with their hands somewhat repulsive, and like most of his people, consumed his food with a knife and a two-pronged silver fork.

The final course consisted of two peltas, a tiny snow-white bird that lived in alpine valleys far from human civilization. To snare a peltas was considered the highest refinement of a hunter’s craft. They had been broiled quickly, under high heat, and bathed in pure butter, the small amount of meat on each bird incredibly sweet and tender. Table manners aside, it was impossible not to eat these delicacies with one’s hands. A salad of peaches and plums covered in sugar-syrup served as the garnish, and the wine was almost as pale as water. As tradition dictated, after the last bite of the meal he drank a glass of cold rainwater, an act with as many meanings as there were shades of shadow.

Each evening, the Letoratta, the Sea-Lord, observed the formality of this traditional three course meal. Sea, to land, to sky. Another hallmark of a culture obsessed with hierarchy. Each of the great families had its place in the order of precedence. Sarturro came first, deeply tied to the Censoratta. Then Atteri, the old dynasty of the Princes of the Sun, hugely discredited but still immensely old and powerful. Catta, Tepecci, Secutto. The great names, whose glory could almost not be hidden behind nuccia walls. They were the silent strength that had upheld three centuries of Satar dominion.

They were vindictive, fratricidal, brilliant, and guarded. And they hated him.

Here he was now, the favored of the Redeemer. The second most powerful Accan in the Exatai by a stroke of chance, and he had done it without being an inhabitant of the High Nuccia. The Letoratta slept on board his ship, surrounded by his guards, or he would have long since been assassinated by ‘Aitahists’ and replaced. In truth, he would never be assassinated by Aitahists. Some of his sailors were Aitahists, and his body servant Naasi kept a tiny shrine of the Lady in his closet of a bunk, surrounded by the indistinct shapes of the ancestors. The Letoratta worshipped the Lord of Wind, He Who Calms the Waves, Talledi. But he did not care if his sailors worshipped some foreign woman or one of the toes on their feet, as long as they rowed, grappled, and fought when he said so.

And for that, he knew he should have been killed by now.

His fault was having seen the world on his own terms. All of the great mercantile houses were controlled by the High Families or their puppets. Even if he had possessed the connections to become one of their captains, (and the young Rutarri did not,) most of the wealth was siphoned away by the voyage’s backers. Thus increasing the holdings of the High Nuccia, and perpetuating the pseudo-enslavement of families outside the circle. So Rutarri sold his family home, an act of near-blasphemy in his society, and moved his entire family onboard his first vessel. Until they had enough money to purchase slaves, his elder sons were among his rowers.

This changed. The dye trade was good, the saffron trade was better, and the slave trade made him rich as a prince. Rutarri gained a reputation for being a well-paying, well-feeding captain, and he enforced those standards fiercely among his sub-captains when his wealth became sufficient to control a small trading fleet. Having cut almost all ties to the homeland, the fleet became his nuccion, his ships well built and perfectly maintained. He became a man of repute in the less…restrictive Accan Quarter at Seis. He gained the friendship of the young Redeemer Vespelian Atteri, a reformist like himself. His life was reaching a golden, glorious perihelion.

And then the Censoratta ‘repurposed’ his growing mercantile empire as a warfleet, giving him the dubious honor of its command only because his sailors would mutiny if not. The disaster off Neruss was not simply the destruction of the fleet of the Ardavai Exatai. It was the death of a lifetime’s worth of hard labor and invested wealth. And more poignantly, it was the death of his son, Etto. That he survived, cast ashore clinging to a wooden spar, salt crusting his eyes and his lips and stinging in his wounds, that he survived despite everything…how could that not be a sign from Talledi that his time was not yet here?

Jahan would not step on a boat if his god descended from the heavens to demand it of him. But he seemed to see in Rutarri the same resilience in the face of abject defeat that he himself possessed. Over the objections of Tarkas Sarturro and his coterie, he gave the disgraced Letoratta a new fleet. But this time, it would not be the fat, contented fleet of a merchant prince sailing for doom.

The Letoratta stood, wiping his mouth with a sleeve.

It was the purpose-driven fleet of a merchant of death, driving like an arrow of cold iron, cutting through the northern sea.

It had been a delicious meal.

---

He raised, his hand, and moved at Rutarri's command,

The wood, the cloth, the hundred ships of deadly troth,

The Sea-Lord’s fleet cast off.

~Darkening~

Jan 12, 2012, 02:53 AM

It is the foremost flattery that despite being such a 'failure' and 'coward', you still bolster my prestige by claiming my title. I do not flaunt around calling myself the Horselord of Barbarians, do I? It is because we both know which of the two is more prestigious- and which of the two carries more weight. Yet, I grow weary of the bickering- let these be my final words for you, False Jahan. Being the deceitful curd you are, you caught me off guard by invalidating our treaty. You and your horde advanced into lands your ilk do not belong to, and like a unknowing hunter who awakens a sow bear from her slumber, think you stand in no danger. Your arrogance and cruelty will be you downfall, and as the Empire clambers from her slumber, enraged by the danger to her young, you will soon see the error of your ways.

Pray for mercy from your invalid god, False Jahan, for the next time we meet in battle, you will surely receive none from I.

Matt0088

Jan 13, 2012, 03:03 PM

NK what would you say the population of the major cities of the world currently are? (And Leun + Asardias) Random tangent. :)

North King

Jan 13, 2012, 03:46 PM

As it happens, I was partway through a city list just about a week ago. Didn't get to the east, or by extension, Leun, which I would put around 50,000.

All these are VERY provisional and I would not necessarily take any of them at face value.

West

Aeda: 85,000
Amhatr
Anraugh
Ardebal
Atlama
Bashima
Caghin
Caidi
Cairhay
Dael
Dehr: 20,000
Dula: 350,000
Edris
Elapo
Fetlar
Ghaon
Gialla
Hachtli
Haina: 50,000
Kerch
Leon
Limach
Luchas
Mara
Marheshi
Mora: 60,000
Muyan
Naranue
Navah
Nechta
Noaunnaha
Obragha
Ochu
Rakuts
Saigh: 65,000
Shealuh
Suibni
Tara
Ther
Tiagho: 90,000
Traha: 35,000
Unnaha

Cradle

Aloa
Anuua
Aramaia: 35,000
Arastephaion: 10,000
Arkage
Asandar: 40,000
Athas
Banh: 15,000
Beran
Bursun
Bysrium
Caon
Cartugog
Cyre
Dremai: 40,000
Evui
Gaci: 185,000
Goso
Gyza
Hala
Haleaka
Hanakahi
Het
Hiuttu: 80,000
Hulos
Jakauii
Jahip
Jania
Kargan: 35,000
Karidil
Katdhi
Kea
Khead
Kirost
Kona
Krato: 65,000
Laowosh
Leuce
Lokos
Lotumbo
Lumada
Magha: 85,000
Mahid: 45,000
Minar
Moti
Nali
Nasri
Neruss
Nikros
Onesca
Opios: 55,000
Pa
Palmyra
Piatrata
Pisos
Puri
Reppaba
Salei: 30,000
Salgaron
Saorei
Seis: 65,000
Sivao
Sivi
Subal
Talis
Tarr
Temish
Thaylon
Thearak
Thura
Tilegun
Tisatar
Treha: 35,000
Trovin: 40,000
Tynet
Xephaias: 5,000
Yashidim
Zeray

North King

Jan 13, 2012, 03:52 PM

While I'm here, I might as well ask who all is playing. It can be unclear sometimes. Obviously I know of everyone who has posted since the update. ;)

I've put together a little recording (http://www.mediafire.com/?x8yjfwjwcs2c44h) to demonstrate what a standard (Southern) Faronun accent from around this time period would sound like. The idea's based on the Speech Accent Archive (http://accent.gmu.edu/index.php), which catalogs various different accents. One of the ways of doing this is through the diagnostic paragraph, which contains a broad set of English's phonemes:

Please call Stella. Ask her to bring these things with her from the store: Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob. We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids. She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station.

Would anyone else like to try this?

I did the same as Iggy.

http://www.mediafire.com/?7e438q29c2i7kno

However with a twist. It begins by reading aloud a poetic phrase in Illian.

These are super cool, guys. :)

You stand before us today. Your host is few and less, and it dwindles every moon as ours strengthens. Yet you stand before us. You fly the banner of an old faith, torn and ripped asunder by corruption and decay. Yet you stand before us. You claim a crown whose jewel we possess, a claim as empty as your future. Yet you stand before us. We offered you the branch of peace, should only you kneel. Yet you stand.

You are a brave prince. We understand your devotion your traditions, your land, and your people. A man who has not yet seen the brilliance of her light can be forgiven for forsaking its beauty. Yet you are wrong. Your faith is incomplete, corrupted, missing the spark of the divine. Your Wards to whom you bow will offer you no solace. It will fail you.

If you are so convinced of your righteousness to continue to defy us, sally force and meet us in the field. We would be glad to meet a prince of honor in battle.

If she is not who we claim to her to be, then we may fail and you may yet depart in glory.

But do you really believe such?

We hear your challenge, o heretic, and we sneer at it. You must think us quite the fool, to take your challenge and meet you on your own terms. Perhaps you have spent too much time in Astria, where I hear the cities challenge one another to army-duels and prearrange the date and place of meeting -- or perhaps you have spent too much time around your Nahari courtiers, who I hear have not had half a wit about them since the death of Ruman.

The point, quite simply, is thus: if you wish to meet us in battle, we will gladly give you battle. But you must sleep in fear, for we will not tell you when or where.

alex994

Jan 13, 2012, 04:07 PM

OOC: There's 350,000 people in Dula? How can there be so many more people there than in other cities? :eek:

Matt0088

Jan 13, 2012, 04:19 PM

OOC: There's 350,000 people in Dula? How can there be so many more people there than in other cities? :eek:

I believe NK mentioned it to be a million at one point. :lol:

North King

Jan 13, 2012, 07:44 PM

I believe NK mentioned it to be a million at one point. :lol:

This. Though Aeda's probably a slight underestimate in retrospect.

Thlayli

Jan 13, 2012, 08:18 PM

OOC: There's 350,000 people in Dula? How can there be so many more people there than in other cities? :eek:

Seis and Magha are both running far below their historical peaks at present, for obvious reasons.

I'd estimate that at its height during the end of the first Union of Aya'se, Seis had at least a quarter million, though NK is free to correct this.

Azale

Jan 14, 2012, 06:09 AM

Tarena is hurr, doing nonsensical things! I havn't posted yet because I see you on #nes enough and I am gathering my thoughts. A very non-Tarenian thing to do.

Angst

Jan 16, 2012, 12:14 AM

I'm still playing.

Lord_Iggy

Jan 16, 2012, 01:15 AM

You're one of the people who posted. ;)

North King

Jan 16, 2012, 02:38 AM

But good to hear nonetheless. :)

Kal'thzar

Jan 16, 2012, 03:18 AM

I am playing...

Murders and the Paths of the Righteous (there are so many now!).

Masada

Jan 16, 2012, 03:29 AM

Union might and Union glory! Union strength and Union arms! Union faith and Union prayers! Victory! Victory! Victory!

Lord_Iggy

Jan 16, 2012, 04:48 AM

Masada, sadly, is no longer playing.

:p

Masada

Jan 16, 2012, 06:08 AM

Bah, tis a shame. :(

Cannae

Jan 16, 2012, 11:57 AM

Dawn of the Rihnit ~ Part 1

Several hundred ago, back when the Rihnit were non-existent there was a city off in the distance. It was especially large at the time with a population of approximately of 12,000 at it’s peak and it was also extremely wealthy and powerful.

Trinity of Thorns
Honor, Hope and Courage

No matter how difficult and bleak life gets
The trinity shall always honor you and your loved ones
No matter how fearful or desperate you become
The trinity shall always give you hope and wisdom
No matter how much sacrifice or casualties occurs
The trinity shall always inspire unwavering courage and strength
As long as you honor the trinity of thorns you shall succeed

But around 500 years ago and on an early dawn when a mother heard knocking on the door to her house. She walked over to the door thinking her husband had returned with some money and supplies he got from working but instead it was three guards demanding tribute.
Her face soon became a reaction of anger when she asked, “what do you want this time?!? I already gave you everything I had!”
The shortest guard said with a chuckle of sick sadistic amusement, “don’t raise your voice at us, and we want your child.”
“No! Never! I’ll never sacrifice them!”
He swiftly grabbed her by her shirt and said, “I already told you not to raise your voice! If you say one more thing I’ll kill you!”
So while the mother was kept restrained the two other guards picked up both of the children and walked off. However, the last guard who walked out said something unusual to the mother, “honor the thorns and the trinity will be with you.”

dominatr

Jan 16, 2012, 12:23 PM

Texts of Urut Behaatur- Utugian pahvet (a type of scribe of some sort)

The wind's song was not sung for a day, and the plants remained still and you could hear a fish swimming out past the coast. His descent from the heavens was not seen but felt. One could be asleep and his night visions would tell a story which he didn't think he would think. Broken branches and patches of dry ground were scattered about and a god was about. This god didn't speak with word but with thought. The local villagers called him Durumsuhay'Mbatayun (The Head Speaker). He bore a cloak of a color that was not native to the jungles and his skin was not like the earth. The words he told through mind were not decipherable, rather they brought the fire of emotion to spark.

He left and nothing was the same. The villagers were making things for him. They had never been so motivated. Soon the chief began speaking highly of this god and the Central Chief of Utugia, Kofaso Timbi, was notified and this left him in a state of puzzlement. The earth which has served the Utugu was now being brought under the shadow of a god who descended from the sky. Maybe he was greater than the earth herself. What will happen?

tuxedohamm

Jan 16, 2012, 01:14 PM

I'm still in it.

Northen Wolf

Jan 16, 2012, 01:17 PM

Farea is reporting for duty. Diplo response coming (hopefully) tomorrow.

DarthNader

Jan 16, 2012, 01:22 PM

I'm still in.

Oruc

Jan 16, 2012, 01:58 PM

Nope!

Terrance888

Jan 17, 2012, 01:34 PM

Playing, just saying.

Ninja Dude

Jan 19, 2012, 04:43 PM

Might not do much these days, but if I had to do one thing around here, it'd be playing this.

Thlayli

Jan 19, 2012, 07:23 PM

*golfclap for ninja*

I'm probably still playing.

das

Jan 21, 2012, 02:05 AM

I'm here, I'm here. Just need a bit of time to get a better look.

Hightower

Jan 22, 2012, 10:36 PM

I'm still in. Been checking in every few weeks for a long time to finally see this.

Terrance888

Jan 28, 2012, 08:59 PM

The Order's due already? Huh. Only noticed because I was doing the Census.

I'll get it in tomarrow if I can.

North King

Jan 28, 2012, 09:09 PM

They aren't. The stats aren't updated. I haven't had time to fix the front page.

Terrance888

Jan 28, 2012, 09:19 PM

Ok.

Probably have to adjust the Census notation, then.

Thlayli

Jan 30, 2012, 09:56 PM

The Satar Lexicon

sword - shaim
shield - exal
wheel - lath
scroll - atam
arrow - itas
spear - ithras
star - vana

snake - athex
horse - ele
dog - kul
wolf - shav

black - xul
red - vesa
silver - trax
blue - hen

man - eta
humanity - etai
hand - tegh
bone - xevh

[personal possession] the - ta
[object] the - nal
to/from - ven
here - sin
in/at - ev
why - takh
[plural suffix] - -ai

above - nah
below - devh

high - ha
new - shim
bright - tes
strong - vala
wise - sefa
evil - xek

moon - Aresha
wind - tephas
sky - era
sea - vesh
earth - keph
fire - shal

army - ksa
city - aliot
fortress - sarion
market - hekel
court - rath
university - sefashim

journey - kaphai
vision - avai
law - ephexas
life - atan
death - vex
wisdom - sefa

god - vata
Redeemer - Vaxalai
Praetorian - Argashim
prince - sartas
captain - vatakasa
lord - tarkan
oracle - ras
servant - kasa
slave - nath
shaman - kapha
warrior - talik

??? - exatas
aspect - arga
lay - tela

Etymological Notes:

1. Vatakasa 'captain' literally means 'god-servant,' more appropriate on the surface to a religious position than a military one. In the context of Satar culture however, it makes perfect sense.
2. Tarkan 'lord' was originally the Satar word for 'friend,' and it still carries that connotation, but it applies more closely to a trusted lieutenant entrusted with power. Note similarities to Latin comes.
3. Kapha 'shaman,' literally means 'journeyman' or perhaps 'wanderer'. Note similarities to the word 'kaphai,' and the monastic position 'kaphet-ha,' an attempt to institutionalize the shamanic practices in a more warlike form.
4. On the two forms of 'the,' in Satar Language. "Aphas the Sword." Aphas-ta-Shaim. "Aphas, [the] Prince of the Sword." Aphas, Sartas-ta-Shaim. Or, "Xephaion, [the] High Oracle of Magha." Xephaion, Rasha-ta-Magha. Compare to "The city of Magha." Nal Magha-aliot. "Magha, the city of Prince Atraxes." Nal Magha-ta-Atraxes, Sartas-ta-aliot. Literal trans. "The Magha of Atraxes, Prince of [this, his] City."
5. Rath 'court' not in the sense of 'courthouse,' more in the sense of 'space,' or 'field,' has connotations of rulership like 'the king's court,' but are more centers of mythic power rather than concrete political power.
6. Ven 'to/from', dependent on placement. "From the city of Magha," Ven nal Magha-aliot. "To the city of Magha," Nal Magha-aliot ven.
7. Sin 'here', when combined with nal, describes a specific object of which there are many. Compare "The horse," Nal ele, to "This black horse," Nal ele xul sin.
8. In describing objects with proper syntax, the name of the object comes first, then any adjectival qualities, then its positioning. "The strong black horse in Magha," Nal ele vala xul-av-Magha. Literal trans. "The horse, strong, black, at Magha."
9. Ev, a temporary locational qualifier, comparable to ta, a permanent locational qualifier. Elikas-ev-Magha means that Elikas is staying in Magha for a time. Elikas-ta-Magha means that Magha is Elikas' home and an essential part of his being.

Thlayli

Jan 31, 2012, 11:19 AM

Expanded the vocabulary and added some more notes. Iggy, I'm going to do your accent thing soon; I've been practicing my Satar accent as I walk around school and drawing weird stares.

Please don't ask me what exatas means, as I'm not a Satar and I couldn't properly tell you. :p

North King

Jan 31, 2012, 02:02 PM

Cool stuff, Thy.

@anyone: I'm nearly out of my particular hellhole of thesis-related work, so I'll update stats fairly soon.

Matt0088

Feb 18, 2012, 03:40 PM

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNKKKKKKKKKKKKKK KKKKKKKKKKKK :cry:

http://i478.photobucket.com/albums/rr145/Matt0088/EoETurn15Animated.gif

Thlayli

Mar 02, 2012, 02:22 PM

OOC: Update your damn stats already. :p

The Lay of the Unbowed

Part the First: The Satar, The Shield, The Fire-Light (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11173781&postcount=2907)
Part the Second: The Accanon, The Out-Caste, The Sea Lord (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11185350&postcount=2923)

Part the Third: The Moon, The Scroll, The Challenge

Did you, forget, that to the plains you owe a debt,
Your walls, of stone, have caused you to be overthrown,
So trust your spears alone.

-Third Call [Call of the Vithana], Karapeshai Tela [The Lay of the Unbowed]

---

Being a warlike people, foreigners have often ascribed to the Satar and their Vithana cousins a lack of subtlety. This is true even among my own people, who might claim to know the Satar the best; for so often unwary Accani even believe that they control the Satar, guiding their passions into forms which can be more useful for the Exatai, and the benefit of Talledi our God. But it is the Satar who rule us, rather than the reverse. When the first Accani to meet with the Satar asked Atraxes why he wore his mask at all times, the Satar responded simply, “I do not bare my naked genitals before your eyes. Do not bare your naked face before mine.”

The idea that the sensory organs of the face were somehow intimate and private seemed so strange to our ancestors, but is so naturally accepted by us today. We revile the maskless peoples as having no culture, as if masking was an Accan invention to begin with. While the Rutto have had mask-culture since the ancient days (more support for my claim the Satar and Accani are brethren,) the gift of the mask was not extended to all until after the Great Tribute to Atraxes-ta-Vaxalai.

Even the beggars in Alma with their wooden masks, seeing Satar riders cantering through the streets, say, “Thank the sky-God that they wear masks like civilized men.” How far, indeed, we have come.

But to return from the hill to the mountain; this question of subtlety. If the Satar truly are an unsubtle people ruled by their passions, why do they conceal their emotions behind a mask?

-Axilias-ta-Alma, The Third Exatai

---

The Redeemer held court atop of the corpse of a dead empire. It was a tableau, he realized, that would be made into murals. The restoration of the lost tribe, saving their wounded god from death. The host of three peoples overcoming the barbarian north. Unless we are the barbarians. He admitted, considering the sack of an ancient and beautiful city of men, that it was a valid argument.

They had claimed the palace of some lord. Quem, they called them. Someone had broken the windows of colored glass and torn down the wall hangings. A few Satar men-at-arms were busy making holes in the wall so that the Redeemer could feel the wind, which was necessary in order for the building to be holy.

The lord himself lay writhing at his feet. Limbs bound, he thrashed like a snake.

As his men grew amused at the barbarian’s impotent rage, Jahan noticed that “satharī” was one of the words he spat most frequently, followed by what could only be the most vile curses in his tongue. “Good!” Jahan roared. “They know who we are!” And they heaved with laughter, as he knew they would. One of his tarkanai strode forward sneering, and slammed a spearbutt into the man’s ribs, transforming his curses into whimpers.

Jahan motioned to him to cease before the beating became too brutal. These evnai were a proud nation unused to defeat. But pride could be tempered into something…useful. One of the simpering men from the akano was asking him something about tribute, and he called over his oracle Seikar to advise him. “Find this…quem’s enemies in this city,” he said softly to Seikar. “His debtors, his rivals. Give him and his property over to them. Then bid them come to me.”

The quem was dragged from the room as his servants watched with wide eyes.

The Redeemer shivered despite himself, as the chill autumn breeze flowed in thorough new-made holes. This was a cold, wretched, barbarian land. It was perfect.

---

The mask was covered in elegant silver engraving, the interlocking runes that spelled ‘scroll’ etched across the border. Two green eyes took in the scene.

He saw the Accans in their bulky armor, bows slung behind their backs, shortswords at their sides. They were in small groups talking quietly amongst themselves, unassuming. Their hair was sandy brown compared to the jet black hair of the Satar and Vithana. Accan eyes were also lighter, blue and blue-green. There was also a coterie of Accan indenture-scribes given as a gift by the High Families of Alma, translating the Vithana-accented trade-Satar of the Redeemer into the hieratic Atractid Satar of government, and into Accan as well. They were also here, he suspected, to gain control of Jahan’s new bureaucracy.

The Satar and the Vithana occupied opposite sides of the hall, while the Accans were closely arrayed around the Redeemer’s dais. Despite the campaigns of the last fifteen years, the oldest warriors still remembered the days when the Vithana were hated enemies that constantly raided the Gap of Phalen. Some of the bad blood had been washed away, but not all. The princes were not at all reconciled to the idea of a barbarian warlord leading them.

Avetas approached the dais, walking slowly between the lines of men.

The Redeemer’s cronies parted to let him through.

“Prince Avetas-ta-Delphis,” Jahan rumbled.

“Jahan of the Moon,” Avetas replied, simply.

There was silence in the hall. Avetas had addressed the Redeemer by his princely title alone. The Accan scribes were retreating into the shadows as surreptitiously as possible.

The tarkan who had beaten the quem before, an uncultured enforcer by the name of Narrak, spat at the floor dangerously close to Avetas’ feet. “Your disrespect endangers you, ketris.” [1]

“As do your three wives, in the eyes of Taleldil,” Avetas simply replied. Narrak snarled, but before he could throw himself at Avetas, the Redeemer’s hand clapped down on his shoulder.

“The ire of a servant,” Jahan intoned, “lies in defending his master.” The calm tone of the Redeemer lessened the tension in the room, but only slightly. Elikas-ta-Tisatar was not here, but the other princes in the room (some newly acclaimed) looked ready to come to Avetas’ aid, if he called for it. The Vithana looked equally ready to try and stop them.

“So tell me, my young sartas,” said Jahan to Avetas, “What have I done to deserve such disrespect?”

With all the dignity of a Satar prince ancient in lineage, Avetas replied, “Your men have violated the sacred laws of Atraxes. They have committed rape in the sack of this city, and taken more than the allotted number of slaves. They have stolen great treasures, and burned the sacred places of these people. Your tribe made themselves monsters…and they have done so with your consent.”

Absolute silence in the hall.

“Against those who have no exatas, anything is permitted.”

“And a Redeemer who has fled, rather than accepting noble death on the field of his defeat, has no exatas.”

“Karhat was not a defeat, but a lesson from Taleldil.”

“Jahan-ta-Vaxalai, Sartas-ta-Aresha, you face the battle challenge.”

---

The scroll, unfurled, before the dais, and Jahan's world

Would shake, would shake, as scroll-prince did his challenge make

Exatai was at stake.

---

[1] Satar (and by adoption, Vithana) word for pheasant. Derogatory term used by Vithana to refer to Satar.

Matt0088

Mar 02, 2012, 04:53 PM

New little project I've been working on:

http://i478.photobucket.com/albums/rr145/Matt0088/SomeClimate.png

Lord_Iggy

Mar 03, 2012, 07:08 PM

Cool!

Luckymoose

Mar 03, 2012, 07:17 PM

“Chancellor, our prince needs more time to delegate on these matters. You understand, of course?” Said the rather portly advisor; he rested, lounging, in a large goosefeather mattress on the lawn of the king’s summer palace in the south of Cyve. A gold plated bowl sat like a shell on the belly of an otter, filled to the rim with imported fruits from Acca. His loose fitting clothing left little to the imagination as it revealed the majority of his tanned and oiled body to the sunlight.

“I do, Lord Hynasf, and I will respect his majesty’s wishes to leave these matters in your… capable hands.” The much thinner and rather healthier, black haired chancellor replied with all the dignity of nobility. His fine linens imported from the far corners of the world just as Hynasf’s meal had been. Cyve was in an economic upswing, ships left her ports and sailed the world for new wares. All of those of means benefited from advancing style and taste.

“My capable hands… yes, these capable hands,” Hynasf replied lazily, dropping plump red fruits from their clustered vine directly into his mouth. Juices dripped from his smacking mouth and splattered about his exposed hairy chest. “The weather is just a pleasure this time of the year, Chancellor. Do you agree?” He queried the standing man with a wave of his hand. Both of their eyes scanned the well maintained meadows outside the archaic stone palace.

“His majesty’s house has come far from the conquering days of old. A beautiful sight, this kingdom of ours, I will agree to that at every opportunity.” His reply came as if rehearsed, with the silky smoothness of a young girl.

“A true politician, Gryn, a true politician indeed,” he laughed deeply, momentarily choking on a seed in one of the fruits. “All the joys of life, right here in my bowl, on this lawn and sprawled across this mattress. Sit, Gryn, and talk a while.” He gestured to the short grass next to him, not offering a piece of his comfortable bed for his friend. Gryn sat, smiling, and laid back into the soft grasses.

“What do you think’ll happen with those savages across the sea?” Gryn asked, breaking the playful tone.

“Which ones?” Hynasf chuckled, his bowl nearly slipping from his belly-table in his jiggling.

“Either, I guess,” Gryn smirked. It was true that all men not born on the isle were heathens. “But I must say those Evyni women put up a good tussle. Savages the men may be, but those women are animals.”

“Ha ha ha,” Hynasf rubbed his stomach in a slow circular motion. “Mmm, tell me… have you ever lain with a Satar? They ride you like a wild stallion. I tell you, Gryn, I wouldn’t mind their warlords burning the north if just to steal a few of those tan firewalkers from their fathers.”
“You’re a cruel man, you know that? What would our wives think of this talk?”

“Since when has a woman, even your wife, kept your trousers in place?” They both joined in a long laugh, only interrupted by obnoxious smacking by Hynasf on those last few fruits he cherished so.

“Would these veins run with pure Cyvian blood if I let a maiden control me?”

“Ah, Gryn, your spunk brings the fires of war back into my heart. I could use a few more women.”

“The greatest treasure we can bring home.” Gryn acknowledged with a long sigh. “Fulwarc seems distant, though, and I regret his indecision.”

“I’ll speak with him,” Hynasf sucked the juices from his fingers, licking his lips of every last drop of flavor. “For the sake of our health.”

They did enjoy a long laugh that day.

Terrance888

Mar 03, 2012, 07:24 PM

Very cool.

Matt0088

Mar 03, 2012, 11:44 PM

Not sure if I like the color scheme, any ideas?

http://i478.photobucket.com/albums/rr145/Matt0088/AlottaClimateRiver-1.png

Thlayli

Mar 04, 2012, 12:48 AM

Good color for semi-arid, make the desert color more yellowish and the mountains more straight up grey. And the dark green stuff is weird too.

Terrance888

Mar 04, 2012, 08:37 AM

I would say to make provinces smaller, but then, the map is still very very big so, carry on.

Are there going to be "Continent Bonus" areas?

Thlayli

Mar 05, 2012, 02:30 PM

The Lay of the Unbowed

Part the First: The Satar, The Shield, The Fire-Light (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11173781&postcount=2907)
Part the Second: The Accanon, The Out-Caste, The Sea Lord (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11185350&postcount=2923)
Part the Third: The Moon, The Scroll, The Challenge (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11306612&postcount=2958)

Part the Fourth – The Bloodshed

“To break, to cow, and fight again is not to bow,
To bleed, to die, is greater than to live a lie,
We war to save the sky.”

-Final Call, The Lay of the Unbowed [Karapeshai Tela]

---

It had been raining that night, and their ironshod boots were wrapped in rags for silence. They thumped wetly on the cobbles. They wore the black-lacquered light armor of Accan marines. A beggar stirred from slumber as the armed men crossed the square. Armed men moving quietly with no torches. Men such as him, who were forced to live like animals, had a basic sense of self-preservation. He slunk towards the darkest alley possible, where he intended to hide for a very long time.

“Censoratta Etto Tepecci. You are summoned to the Letoriate.” The grim-faced captain said.

“Censoratta Zettani Sarturro. You are summoned to the Letoriate.”

“Censoratta Sarian Atteri. You are summoned to the Letoriate.”

Tepecci was stupid enough to go. When they halted him in front of a street which he knew led nowhere, and the emotionless marine captain intoned “For your betrayal of Redeemer and Accanon…”

I wonder, was all he could think. Which of them drew the lot.

“…we cast you to the wind and the waters.”

Zettani Sarturro answered the summons with curses, and tried to wait out the storm in his personal fortress. Three battalions of marines battered down the outer gate and swarmed into the Sarturro nuccion. The fighting raged all night, but Sarturro died at last, arrowed through the leg as he tried to flee the city through a small postern gate and hacked to pieces by the marines.

Sarian Atteri, surely no younger than eighty, came to the gate in his sleeping robe. To the marine captain, he merely replied, “Young Arto may seek me at his convenience in the morning. It would be my pleasure to receive him.”

And in the morning, Letoratta Arto Rutarri arrived at his gates with an army in tow. Which shows what a low-caste dog knows of subtlety, he thought.

His mask was blue as the sea, not gold, observed Atteri as he thanked his luck.

This was a power-play, not a civil war. And he could manage it.

Until Tarkas Sarturro returned. Then they would kill this upstart.

---

The salakh was the traditional weapon of his tribe. Two curving bladed flanges attached to a wooden shaft. It was a brutal way to sever an arm.

Knowing this, the Redeemer had chosen two long knives. It was a deft and mobile way to turn his blade and get inside his reach.

Pride of the Scroll be damned, he should have used a spear and shield. But there had to be blood. They will not accept it if there is no blood.

As one, the host roared out the ancient words, a distant echo of Taleldil’s challenge to the Priest-King of Sarnax so many centuries ago.

“VANAK TALAD EXATAS?”

---

They had met outside the ruined city under the desert moon. And only their wives knew.

“How many years do you think are left to me, Avetas?”

“My oracles say six, Redeemer. I say twice that number.”

“My son will succeed me as Prince of the Moon, but a boy will not claim the Golden Mask from seasoned Satar warriors. I would not have his blood stain the circle when I die, Avetas.”

“And you know my price to protect him.”

“The Mask.”

---

Jahan did not wait. He rushed in with his knives, yelling in Vithana. The Redeemer was not young, but he was still fast.

He caught the downward arc of the salakh with one knife, his arm trembling with the strain, and thrust the other towards the Prince before he could pivot the lower flange towards his legs. Avetas turned, but not fast enough, and the dagger scored his skin.

Appearing to panic, the Prince flailed a kick at the Redeemer’s pelvis, which connected with a snap.

The Satar cheered, and the Vithana howled. But to Avetas’ dismay, Jahan only took a few stumbling steps back.

And he began to laugh.

---

“I am all that Nephrax was and more. I have studied the lays, the strategies, even the writings of foreigners. I defeated four challengers to take my father’s mask, and proved my worth on the field at Anyais. You cannot deny my exatas.”

They stared at one another until Jahan’s horse shied.

“Protect my son, and I will support you to follow me. But Tarkas Sarturro and his circle will support Elikas-ta-Tisatar. Sarturro speaks of your father Nephrax with less than contempt.”

“The sensorai-ta-akani are weak men who think that they can control the future from the shadows. Sarturro is no better. His schemes destroyed Vespilias-ta-Vaxalai...and my father’s life.”

“Child-prince, your father’s false cunning and his feud with Sarturro ensured his death. You would do well not to…banquet at his table.” The warrior of the steppe grinned behind his mask.

“…yes, my Redeemer.”

“Even so, Tarkas has outlived his usefulness to me.”

“Then we kill Sarturro to ensure my accession.”

“Not just Sarturro. We kill the Censoratta. We kill them all.”

“And the guilt of Karhat will be absolved…”

“Because it was all the Accans fault.”

---

The Letoratta did not violate the sanctity of his nuccion with his soldiers. He came alone, and for that at least, Atteri would not poison him. Today.

They sat and drank pomegranate juice out of crystal glasses, sitting on crystal chairs, with a crystal table between them. Around them, a few pheasants clucked gently, strutting lazily through the immaculate garden.

“This is nice,” said Rutarri.

“Quite,” said Atteri.

“I knew your nephew.”

I knew your wife. “He was a golden sun to all the Exatai.”

“I would prefer that you not share his fate.”

Atteri chuckled warmly, and it turned into a hacking cough. “Come now. I may not pass the next winter. It matters little, your sword today or my bed tomorrow.”

“Yes,” the Letoratta replied. “But of course,” he continued as if remembering something, “I would also kill your children, and your grandchildren, and anyone with the Atteri name. Burn down your nuccion, smash your table, and wring the necks of your pretty little birds. And if I don’t walk out your gates unharmed in an hour,” he added, “my men will do it for me.” His eyes flicked towards the outer walls of the Atteri Quarter.

The Censoratta merely closed his eyes. He was too used to brutality.

“The Satar way.”

“We ARE Satar.”

“And do you think the Redeemer will agree?”

The Letoratta produced a scroll and handed it to the Censoratta. “I do.”

Sarian Atteri scanned its contents. His eyes widened. "...dissolve the order of the Censoratta..." And then he exhaled. Slowly and deliberately, he removed his jet black mask, and carefully placed it on the table between the two men.

“You set a fine kalis board, for a low-caste dog,” he said at last.

“And you concede gracefully, for a high-caste snake.”

Then the true negotiations began.

---

Roaring in pain from a long cut across his chest, Jahan came at Avetas with an overhead slash, which the Prince countered by holding his salakh over his head. But the Redeemer’s vicious, even unheard of strength shattered the wood, which exploded in a cloud of splinters, the two flanges falling to the ground on either side. Vithana and Satar hissed in amazement.

Outwardly showing all the terror of one confronted by a monstrous beast, Avetas thanked Taleldil that he had hollowed out his weapon just enough to break at the pivotal moment. He fumbled for his dagger, which the Redeemer quickly tore out of his hands with a savage arcing slash from one of his longer knives.

Now fully disarmed, Avetas fell to his knees, as Jahan placed his knives against the veins of his neck. “I…accept my death,” he said. “As befits a prince of the Satar.”

Bloody but triumphant, Jahan held back from the death blow as the army watched in total silence.

“Why?” he said simply, chest heaving with exertion. “Prince Avetas…you are like my son. I would give you my last horse. Why would you do this thing?” Some of the Satar openly wept.

“My…Redeemer,” Avetas replied, his voice soft. “I was…convinced.”

“Who?” cried out Elikas-ta-Tisatar. “Who would have you challenge our Redeemer in this time of dark trial?” Despite his wounds, Avetas almost grinned. He plays his part perfectly, and does not even know it.

Avetas stood, the Redeemer pulling him up from his knees. “Tell me, Avetas, and all will be forgiven.”

The Prince raised a bloodstained finger to point at the black-robed, black-masked Accan standing at the center of a group of Accans. “Tarkas Sarturro.”

“You lie,” he said flatly, in a voice without passion. The voice of someone who knew he was caught in a very well-laid trap.

“No,” said Avetas, as if coming to a realization for the first time, “You lie, Tarkas! You whispered in my ears to convince me that it would be exatas to challenge our Redeemer over my grievances rather than simply approach him as a friend.”

One of the veteran tarkan of the Sword stepped forward, as they had planned. “You were in the retinue of Vespilias-ta-Vaxalai when he met his end.”

“You argued against sending men to aid Prince Nephrax in his time of need!”

“And what will it be next!” snarled Sarturro, whirling to face the circle of his accusers. “That I worship the slave whore?”

Jahan pointed directly at the Censoratta. “Bind him.” Tarkas was roughly shoved to his knees by the Redeemer's tarkanai.

“Every drop of my sweat has served the Exatai. I have given everything!”

“No,” said the Redeemer. “But you are about to. Prince Elikas, send this man to the battle beyond.”

The tall shape of Elikas-ta-Tisatar stepped forward. He drew his sword uncertainly, his posture (if not his hidden face) effecting profound sorrow. “If it is your holy will.”

“Elikas, please,” Sarturro said, his voice finally wavering. “You know–“

Blood gurgled from the orifice where the Censoratta’s head used to be.

It had all happened so fast. The Accans in particular, were too stunned to react. But that would change.

Now comes the final act, thought Avetas.

Jahan stood on top of the corpse of what was once the most powerful man in the Exatai. It made an excellent platform. Placing his hands on the two princes’ shoulders, he cried out to the army. Heralds translated his words to the Accan soldiers, many of whom were afraid and even hostile after the execution of their commander.

“I do not doubt the loyalty of the Accans! I have made Sea-Lord Arto and all his heirs Tarkanha-ta-akani, to take possession of all akano in the name of the Redeemer. With him, and with my most favored Princes Avetas and Elikas, we shall make the world tremble. Not simply in fear of what we have burned, but in awe at what we shall build.

The evnai and all the peoples of the north will not be treated as slaves, except for those which shed our blood. I will open my arms to them, and grant them lands, titles, and riches. We will not disturb their ancient beliefs. And though Avetas admitted his wrong in challenging me, his grievance was right. Never again shall we repeat the destruction of Anyais. For this is our conquest no longer!"

"It is our home.”

As one, the army knelt, removed their masks, and pressed their naked faces to the earth.

---

Translations:

Censoratta - Bureaucratic judge-inquisitors of the Exatai, all Accan. In Satar, sensorai.
kalis - A popular tile game played in the Sesh Valley and in Acca. In the most popular version one competes to control quadrants of the board with differing point values, with different tiles behaving differently in each quadrant.
Letoratta - Roughly equivalent to admiral. Letoriate is an anglicization derived from this to mean Admiralty.
Nephrax-ta-Delphis - Previous Prince of the Scroll, orchestrated the horrifying Feast of Kargan during the War of the Three Gods in which he was killed. Known for his intelligence and his overambition, he was also the father of Prince Avetas.
nuccion - An elaborately beautiful secret garden, at the heart of the walled quarters of Accan cities controlled by their most powerful families.
tarkanai - Lords or knights. Member of the retinue of a princely figure in the Exatai.
Tarkanha-ta-akani - First Lord of the Accans
Vanak Talad Exatas - Scriptural motto from Hieratic Satar, very roughly trans. "Who can level my might?"
Vespilias-ta-Vaxalai - Vespelian Atteri, final Accan Redeemer and Prince of the Sun, killed during the opening battles of the War of the Three Gods. Commonly believed to have been a puppet of the Censoratta. Nephew of Sarian Atteri.

Northen Wolf

Mar 06, 2012, 04:12 AM

NK, we love you.

North King

Mar 07, 2012, 03:08 PM

Stats have been updated. Please let me know about errors, oddities, etc. I'm setting the due date for about two weeks from now, I hope to get things back on track soon.

Matt0088

Mar 07, 2012, 09:43 PM

An income increase of over 3000! And manpower is gone?! March 7th is officially a Leunan national holiday for life. :D

Cannae

Mar 09, 2012, 07:37 AM

Dawn of the Rihnit ~ Part 1

Bleak Prosperity

While we were drowning in an abyss of poverty
They celebrated with extravagant festivals and feasts
While we were famished and we dying from thirst
They ate the finest meats and owned entire oceans of water
While we worked all day just to make ends meet
They sat around doing nothing productive
This is only a time of prosperity for the elites

A decade or so had passed after the mothers child taken. Agamar was entrenched in the life of the elites and was able to participate in their activities and become educated in the Ngarrma customs and culture. However, even when he was a part of all of this, he still felt different. He was naive, and obviously wasn’t very athletic. But he was very curious and was always asking questions. His habit of skipping important celebrations to go collect and study plants didn’t help him either.

One evening though he was summoned by a guard who said to him, “Agamar, the rest of your family is starting to become suspicious of your habit of skipping family dinners and events. But I can sense why you do this...”
Agamar replied “oh... I doubt you do...”
He walked off but left a note saying, “come to the courtyard tomorrow night”

So the time had passed and he escaped his room and went as he was instructed to the courtyard. The first thing he noticed was that under a bush a note was placed which said, “listen to the leaders outside the window but don’t let your presence be known. The guards will kill you if they catch you listening on this conversation. Do all of this and you shall be safe.”

He did as the note said and listened to the conversation going on in the meeting room. The first thing I saw was Ahidawo consulting with a high priest. He said, “Ahidawo, your father is becoming older and less decisive while the people are starting to loose confidence in the oligarchy. Your father needs to be eliminated quickly or who knows what will happen!”
Ahidawo said, “I have thought about this myself and agree it needs to be done. However, we can’t be caught killing him, if we are caught we will be killed and known as traitors.”
“Yes, yes I know, which is why I feel we need to frame Agamar for the murder. I mean think about it, it would be so easy for us to frame him considering his behaviors and current status among the family.”

But then another figure came into this meeting room, his voice sounded so familiar, and then he proposed another solution to the two of them,
“I can agree that Agamar is being a major thorn in our side but I think that rather than killing him, we should just exile him to some where far away so he can’t cause us any problems.”
Ahidawo said cautiously, “I don’t know, I mean couldn’t Agamar cause us some problems in the future?”
The high priest said, “I’d have to agree with the guard, perhaps it is a bit excessive to kill him, while hes at such a young age.”
“Fine, so be it!” Ahidawo said annoyed tone of voice and with that the three people parted and went to bed for the night.

Soon Agamar was smothered with a rag which quickly knocked him out. But the last few seconds before he lost his consciousness, he heard a voice saying, “honor the thorns and the trinity will be with you.”

The next day he found himself inside a wagon with his mouth covered and his arms and legs bound on a wooden chair. His eyes were open though as he saw an audience listen to Ahidawo give his speech, “
“We have noticed the commotion that all of you have been expressing about the news of the
People of Ngarrma, we have caught Agamar with killing our Jagarak (king/ruler) in cold blood!”
The audience gasped with horror with various people yelling intermittently, “kill the bastard!”
Then Ahidawo continued reassuringly, “due to our merciful and wise leadership, we have spared him and instead are sending him into exile.”
A roar of applause occurred and then soon enough, the wagon that Agamar was in soon went off into the distance.

Strangely enough, his eyes weren’t covered so as he left the palace he saw what the rest of the city was like. Downtrodden, poor, and unsanitary. It didn’t help that the sewers from the palace all drained out into the streets of the main city. He saw how there were people dieing from disease, starvation and poverty. It gave him a picture of what the world was really like. By the time he got to the outskirts of the city however, he became sleepy from exhaustion and it was a long while later before he woke up again.

Angst

Mar 09, 2012, 07:56 PM

Matt0088: Is that intended as a RISK map or something... Greater? I'm intrigued and smirking.

NK: I've slowly begun to make an entry for Ilfolk on the wiki. It's not done yet, at all, because I hate formatting it, but I'll get there.

Luckymoose

Mar 16, 2012, 05:25 PM

Exatai of the North: Part 1

The flag of the Exatai flew strongly in the winds of the Yadyevu Sea. A fall storm approached with them. The cool winds of the north collided with the dry air of the south to create a rough sea the Satar had never experienced. These were diplomats of the Horse Lord come to grovel at the feet of the prince of the northern sea. They made port at Lmehugu and it was there they first laid eyes on the blond haired guard of his majesty Fulwarc. A thousand men of copper skin stepped from their ships to greet their northern hosts and were welcomed into the lands of the Cyvekt king.

The diplomats and their entourage of guards, slaves and whores were ushered through the city to the Palace on the Rock, the king’s coastal resort built onto the rocky shores by Glynt III. A massive structure of stonework, built of rock quarried from the far reaches of Cyve and decorated to the fashion of the northern kingdoms with defensive walls of stone built atop an earthen mound. The Satar brought with them a thousand horses as gifts, with slave drawn carts of fine silks and spices from the south not far behind. They marched up the slopes to the entrance of the palace. There they saw the royal guard, a well-disciplined group of young men as tall as two Satar and as strong as oxen. They wore their blond hair long and their beards matched, all braided with smooth stones of all colors as jewelry tied within. Through the stone archway and the open oaken gates they were led into the grand hall, there on his plain wooden throne sat Fulwarc surrounded by guard and advisors of court.

A young Satar man approached, his clothing was ill suited for the northern climate and his knees were of goose flesh in the hall. He spoke in broken Cyvekt.

“Prince of the North, King of the Cyvekt and of your conquests,” he spoke with an outward chest and no fear of failure. Fulwarc remained seated in a half slouch, expressionless. He wore finer furs and leathers from his kingdom and a crown of gold with inset rubies stolen from the Frelesti. His face was young and his hair and beard were a dark color. A group of young boys, the eldest no more than a young teenager, watched intently from the side with their mother – the princes and queen. “I speak on behalf of –“

“I know of who you speak for,” Fulwarc roared from the depths of his lungs. His hands now gripped the edges of the arm rests on his throne and his feet met the floor perfectly flush. The Satar man bowed his head.

“We bring tribute to your crown,” he said without looking up. A group of slaves from behind him jogged forth with samples of their goods, baskets of spices and folded pieces of fine silk. A warrior rode into the hall on horseback and reared the horse back in front of the royal court. Many of them showed fear at the beast, but Fulwarc showed no sign of concern. “Your highness,” the man spoke again, kneeling as he stepped forward and up the stairs before the throne to within reach of Fulwarc. “Our prince has demanded your alliance against the Evyni Empire.”

Fulwarc stood, his towering height dwarfing the kneeling man. He looked down at the man with disgust. He placed his left foot upon the shoulder of the man and with a great heave kicked him down the short stairs. The man rolled and grunted, stopping only when he had reached the flat stone base.

“I am the Prince of the North,” he shouted, looking down at the warrior on horseback. “I fear no horse lord.”

The translator recovered himself to a kneeling position. “Our prince means no disrespect, only friendship and tribute. We have heard of your people’s plight under the rule of the Law-Giver in Evyni.”

“He gives no law that I cannot take away,” Fulwarc pounded on his chest, his guard grunted at the edges of the hall.

“Our prince offers you the lands of the Law-Giver for your allegiance. All of the lands you conquer will be yours by the grace of his will. Will you accept his gifts?” he said without missing a beat.

“I will accept your gifts,” Fulwarc said as he brushed his dark beard. He surveyed the group before him, a group of seductive Satar women waited in the wings. He raised his hand to them and called them forward with the snap of his fingers and they obeyed without hesitation. “I will consider your prince’s offer, boy, over a night or two with your horse whores.” Behind him his queen frowned and looked away, but the princes studied every detail. “If your women cannot please the king, your prince has not a chance in hell. Take them from my hall,” he said as he motioned to his advisors. “They will camp on the fields like they do in the southlands. A Satar has no civility for a palace.”

Masada

Mar 16, 2012, 07:04 PM

Thlayli is like the Napoleon of N3S, trading paper promises for concrete gains. I wish I had that level of self-assurance.

Luckymoose

Mar 17, 2012, 01:25 AM

Exatai of the North: Part 2

And he lay with them for three nights, ravaging the slave women with the fury of all the northern storms. His diplomacy had worked on the Horse-lords. They now camped along the palace lawns outside the city with Cyvekt guards watching over them. A chilled wind rode the hills from the north and crashed against their encampment throughout the day and night. A number of Satar slaves came down with a swift sickness and were tossed from the rocky cliffs and into the sea. The thousand horses sat pastured by makeshift fences built of the young wood that grew at the tree line of the fields, their many colored coats shined even under the cloud filled sky.

His highness came from his room on the fourth day with a glowing aura of sweat and a mean expression upon his face. The queen sat with her servants upon the lawn high above the encampment, studying the ways of the Satar. His young princes played outside the walls with dulled blades, practicing the ways of war under the supervision of the various highborn soldiers that commanded the guard. They did not carry swords, but axes of great weight and size; even dulled they could crush a bone like a boulder rolling from a high hill. The bearded prince of the north came to watch his sons learn the ways of war, to witness their growth into men. A circle of high ranking Satar, with their masks of many colors, stood around the princes examining their efforts. The crimson masked captains, Vatakasa in their tongue, grinned as they took in the combat of youth. Fulwarc stepped forward as his eldest two sons, Unger and Glynt, fought in the style of the Cyvekt warrior.

The boys were both in marvelous shape thanks to their hard training as soldiers. Unger, of fourteen years, held the body of a growing man with muscles that an adult would be hard found to have. A thin layer of brown and red hairs lined his jawline and neck, a few more years and he would be a well bearded warrior. His younger brother, Glynt, held a fine head of red and blond hair similar to his namesake but even his twelve years showed no inexperience in his smooth face. They both circled one another, without clothing on their chests as is the way of the Cyvekt during such combat, and roared their own battle cries with the strength of grown men. With deep shouts of power they swung their heavy blades at one another but both boys missed and dodged in their own right. They carried about with their duel for a number of minutes before Glynt was disarmed and knocked to the ground by a crushing blow to the stomach. His skin ran red and would surely bruise from the impact. It was in this moment that the true way of the Cyvekt warrior came out in the boys as Unger dropped his weapon and taunted his younger brother. Glynt charged from his position on the ground and they began to roll about the soil in a fist fight of rage. Fulwarc stepped in and pushed them a part with a smile.

“This is the spirit that won the north, Satar,” he said to a nearby crimson-mask. The Vatakasa spoke in his tongue and the same young translator from the great hall rushed to tell his words to Fulwarc.

“He says the way your sons fight is rough and untamed,” the translator spoke with a shaking voice. Fulwarc narrowed his eyes, staring into the eye holes in the blood red mask.

“Hahaha,” he laughed, “there is not a fight worth fighting that is tame or pampered, Red Mask. War is not a pillow or blanket of fur, war is hard as stone and as jagged as these cliffs. War is not the horse whores that I ravaged in my chambers. War is my cock that did the ravaging. War is the savage molestation of civil ways, Satar. War is brutal. War is this,” he said as he pointed to his sons. The Red-Mask spoke again and was translated into broken Cyvekt.

“War is the way of life, Prince. War is beautiful.”

“Do you wish to test your ways against ours?” he said to the Red-Mask with a smirk. The Red-Mask nodded his head in acceptance. Fulwarc summoned the greatest warrior from his guard, a burly man of some six and a half feet in height. A head of long shaggy blond hair dangled from his head in a series of braids, and his beard mimicked it. His chest was massive and covered in tattoos of fanciful green, black and blue inks. They were symbols of the old languages to protect him in battle. The Red-Mask chose his weapon, a spear and wooden shield of light weight and the Cyvekt guard wielded his mighty steel battle axe. Both men stripped of clothing on their torsos as custom in the land of Cyve. Other Satar climbed the low slope to aid in creating a circle around the two men and intermixed with soldiers and nobles of the Cyve.

The Red-Mask circled with light feet, shuffling back and forth within the circle. His shield arm rose to play host to his spear that pointed at the Cyvekt man. The guard walked slower and with broader steps as he let out shouts of insults at his enemy.

“No one dies, the loser is the first to yield,” Fulwarc commanded.

The Cyvekt charged at the Satar, cleaving his heavy axe over his head and down at the man with great speed. The Red-Mask side stepped and parried with his shield. The impact of the powerful hit sent a shockwave up his shield arm and staggered him for a moment. They circled one another again. The Cyvekt guard charged once again, but this time the Satar spear stayed to meet him and force his movement. The edge of the spear caught the Cyvekt man in the shoulder, slicing an inch deep into his muscle, he did not flinch. His great axe swung once more in long horizontal arc and the Satar withdrew his spear as he jumped backwards, tucking his stomach to narrowly escape the blade. The Cyvekt ran his hand over the cut and ran the blood across his face, growling.

“And the ends of the world meet,” said Fulwarc to the translator.

The men continued their dance. The Satar jabbed a few small holes in his prey’s arms and legs, but those did not stop him. The Cyvekt fought tooth and nail, kicking and punching to substitute his great missed and the Red-Mask staggered beneath his blows. His axe came at the Satar once more and the spear clashed into his forearms, forcing the axe out of his grip and spiraling to a thug just before the king. Blood ran down the Cyvekt guard’s arms and into his hands. The Red-Mask raised his spear to jab, thinking the guard would yield, but he did not. He lunged forward and grabbed the Vatakasa’s spear by the handle and ripped it from his grip, tossing it away to bring the fight back to equal grounds. The Satar dropped his shield and raised his hands defensively to his face. They boxed at one another for a moment before the Cyvekt grabbed him by his arm and tossed him to edge of the circle of onlookers. The Satar was outmatched in strength, but not speed and he quickly returned and struck kicking blows to Cyvekt’s shins and bloodied arms. Neither man flinched at the other’s blows.
The Red-Mask spoke a simple word and the translator echoed it, “I give tribute.”

“What does that mean?” Fulwarc asked the translator as he waved the two men to stand down.

“He pays his respects to his fellow warrior, but wishes it to go on no longer. They are allies now,” the translator explained.