Note: Players will be receiving detailed stats by e-mail.
Thanks for sending orders early everyone. Next orders expected for next Saturday.
Marignon soldiers patrolling in Man don't see any sign of troglodyte activity.
In Mictlan, atlantean priests have captured many people and thrown them in jails under the high temple of Mictlan. the relatives are distraught but have been told this was necessary for the greater good of Mictlan and the holy Mantis, therefore this enslavement has been accepted by the population, already accustomed to slavery.
Arshnoc authorities offered a wedding gift to the Baikal faerie ad her husband, and rewarded the miner who found the cave drakes egges.
Citizens praise lord Stheran for his generosity.
In Seul, water from poisoned springs have been sold by a charlatan pretending the water could heal. In small doses, this elixir seemed to have beneficial effects on a few persons. But as some people bought his bottles and drank more of this water, many fell ill and died.
The charlatan fled after hoarding a nice amount of money.
In Caelum, a hen was found to lay gold eggs, and was offered to the church by a devout inhabitant. The animal laid gold eggs every day until a fox seized it and killed it. The animal was hunted down, and the hunters split the fox's belly looking for gold, but they found nothing, much to their disappointment.
In Man Ch'i, a huge boar has started ravaging the land. Peasants are afraid, their crops destroyed, and they ask their rulers to send them troops or hunting parties to take care of the monstrous beast.
In Arshnoc, an old man without children gives his old family talisman to the state before dying. It is rumoured to give the agility of a cat and help avoid blows in battles.
In Slavia, all observers say that Ermor is running low on money, but the Emperor seems to be able to produce money out of thin air, or maybe out of mana.
How long he can keep his retinue of wizard priests and pay his troops with these magic tricks remains to be seen.
Anyhow, he made a pilgrimage to the Mound of ancient kings, a forlorn place in central Slavia, where he convinced kings dead a long time ago to join his armies.
A few vanir wizards from Helheim ask lord Thordai to accept them as his new priests. They realise the wrong of their past ways and want to help Thordai with the magicks they learnt with the Hangadrotts, and want to serve the new lord of Vanheim.
Abysia:
In C'tis, abysian priests erected a temple on the ruins of Sslaah's old castle. During the works, they found a cache of magic gems that must have belonged to the false god.
In Nubia, bandits caused trouble in the province, plundering and killing. These bandits are a mix of lizardmen and humans who claim Nubia should be independant. They are not organised and far too weak to overthrow the local Abysian garrison, but they managed to steal and plunder a lot.
Jotunheim:
In Polgard, humans complain against the unjust rule of the Jotnar. They say that the weather is becoming colder since Magni's people invaded them, and they don't have enough crops to feed all their children, and they fear famine.
The giant governor decides to make an example and kills all the dissenters. Many inhabitants flee Polgard, afraid of their new masters, and leave for Colchis.
Meanwhile, Jotun giants led by their lord Magni invade the country of Utgard, inhabited by giants and men.
Several Ulm inhabitants near the coast of sunken lands are moving away from the sea. They say their children are having too many nightmares and this place is cursed.
Pythium:
A field of ancient statues has been discovered in a forlorn valley in Arcoscephale. The many statues are in the shapes of both animals and men, and all are extraordinarily realistic.
Further studies reveal these statues were living beings turned into stone by an ancient power, including several fighters petrified with their weapons and armors.
In Pangaea, Celes ordered dogs to be trained to seek the maenads still hiding in the woods. Hunting parties sent into the woods found a few wild women, slaughtering all they could find.
Also, in order to prevent them from joining the maenads, women were prevented from going into the forest, which was a real problem as most of the population lives off the forest.
The result has been massive upheavals from the population against Pythium forces, as their wives and sisters were slaughtered in the woods or imprisoned in the cities, upheaval which had to be quelled by troops. Only the presence of many patrols in the east of the province prevented a massive exodus to Arshnoc.
Many women and in fact many men were sent to jails that had to be built for that purpose, and so many people had to be put in jail that in some villages there would have been no free woman left. The situation is exremely unstable as a result.
The monkeys of Lanka built a big fortress complex in Ashdod, with small forts near the borders and on the coast and a bigger fortress in the middle of the province.
In Lanka island, the goddess Hanman has performed miracles, healing monkeys and rakshasas, restoring youth and curing diseases. She used her powers to heal old rakshasa and monkey veterans and made them fit to fight again.
In Gath, a few heretic giants called the Abba had long been tending to the wounds and diseases of the human population. An oddity among generally bloodthirsty giants, the Abba have also started tending to the monkeys' illnesses.
Local authorities decided to allow them to continue their healing trade, despite their heretic claims that only the Pantocrator whould be worshipped, but Lanka priests may demand something in exchange for this freedom of theirs.
In Patala, a wave of patriotism leads small monkeys known as Markatas to take arms in order to defend their land from outside invasion.
The invasion of Lanka:
A big fleet, made of Shinuyama and Arshnoc triremes, sails southwards towards Lanka. They are soon met by the navy of Lanka, which is outnumbered two to one.
The monkeys immediately realise that this is an invasion fleet, and their sailors try to stop the opponents before they reach their island.
The triremes first try to ram each other. The initial shock sinks Arshnoc nobles' triremes and most of Lanka navy. Afterwards, vastly outnumbered, the monkeys fall to the allied navies. The rakshasa commander, seeing his fleet doomed, orders to scuttle his last ships in order to prevent the opponents from seizing them.
The battle was short and one-sided, but the lost of some Arshnoc ships ment that many soldiers who were onboard sunk and died. In particular, the whole noble chariot regiment was aboard vessels that got rammed and they all died before ever reaching the island.
Many Arshnoc footmen also drowned in the battle, but the army managed to land after sustaining minimal damage.
Arriving on the island, the troops and wizards try to burn down a vast area of jungle to clear a landing area.
The fire is put despite the moisture of the wood, and Arshnoc wizards manage to contain it and clear just the area they want.
The army lands there and starts building a fortified camp. The soldiers grumble and complain a lot for working in the middle of soot, with dark stinking dust flying around at every step on the newly cleared land, as they still have to get rid of burnt but still standing tree trunks and breath soot during the work.
Meantime, Lanka prepares for invasion. Monkey lookouts are sent, and an extraordinary proportion of these are caught by the allied forces, but some manage to reach the capital and report the situation to their officers.
At first, Lanka doesn't seem to react. The huge army that landed finishes fortifying and cleaning the area. In the camp, bakemonos and humans of different nationalities try to live together peacefully, waiting in the sultry camp for orders to move.
After a while, some monkeys (small markata and chimp-like archers) move towards the camp stealthily in the jungle. Despite all their stealth, they are spotted by Arshnoc armies, who realise these can't be the main forces. Indeed, Lanka main forces regroup near the capital city, where they wait for their scouts and markatas to bring back information.
Markata and chimps try to harrass the allied troops, shooting arrows at their foragers. Allied wizards retaliate by starting fires in the jungle, trying to burn the monkeys'camps. However, as they did that, unnaturally strong winds blew, and the smoke and flames were fanned towards the allied camp. Arshnoc wizards had to quickly stop their spells and caused rain in order to stop the backfire.
As a result, many markata died burnt, but the allied armies breathed a lot of smoke. They were in a camp in the middle of burnt forest, and it became increasingly difficult to find food for the army.
Despite the presence of some guerilleros in the jungle, Stheran and Shizen, who had both decided to lead their armies themselves, realised that they had to move before they ran out of supplies. Already, the quarrels between soldiers were numerous, and they lacked fresh food.
Therefore, they started towards Lanka capital, hoping to get rid of the guerilleros as they moved forward. The army was so big that it couldn't easily move in a single column, nor could they avoid all ambushes, but they still managed to progress without suffering too much from the monkey partisans.
One morning, several leaders were found missing. Two were dead: the corpses of an Arshnoc celestial master and a bakemono priest were discovered in their tents, bearing wounds looking like they had been attacked by a tiger. Another Arshnoc wizard priest went missing.
Further investigation revealed that these men had been visited by a marvelous woman during the night, and one of them had fled with her, and she killed the other two. Despite the death of an Arshnoc mage, dissent rose between Arshnoc and Shinuyama troops and leaders. Shizen and Stheran had to be extremely strict to avoid their armies turning on each other.
In fact, the missing mage had been seduced and abducted by a rakshasi, one of those demon wizard-priestesses of Lanka, who are able to change shape and could fool all of Arshnoc and Shinuyama defenses.
The missing mage had been seduced by a rakshasi, a beautiful Lanka sorceress able to change shape and a mistress of illusion. He told her all he knew about Stheran and Shizen's plans, and how they were able to foil the guerilla tactics of Lanka thanks to a wizard doing some kind of rituals in the far-away province of Seul.
Lanka officials appraised the situation and decided to send word immediately to their colonies on the south continent, and all other nations, so they would know what was happening.
Lanka armies finally marched towards the allied invasion forces, knowing their harassment tactics couldn't work very well, and they decided to fight the opponent in the forest rather than inside their city.
The allied armies spotted the battleground chosen by Lanka and prepared for battle. They sent wizards to burn the area, clearing the forest so their cavalry would have clear ground to fight in.
Unfortunately, Lanka knew of that plan, and had chosen this spot precisely because it was easy to guide winds in this pass. As Shinuyama wizards burnt the forest, a raksharaja caused the winds to blow towards the allied army, and flames started going back towards them. Only Shizen's intervention managed to calm down the winds, letting Arshnoc wizards call upon rain to quench the fires.
Once again, this burning jungle affair resulted in lots of soot in the eyes of the allied soldiers, and many trunks remained on the field.
Arshnoc cavalry decided it was too difficult a terrain to fight in, and decided to stay with their archers, while Shinuyama mounted samurais refused to act in such a cowardly manner.
Finally, the armies met, under the rain which had been evoked to control the fires.
Shinuyama and Arshnoc had twice the numbers of Lanka, but Lanka had managed to pick the location of the fight, and knew the enemy's battle plan.
Lanka troops started blessing their biggest warriors, both apes and rakhasas, and cast sleep spells at the bakemono frontline, and shot the first volleys of arrows.
One of these arrows was lucky and hit Stheran in the neck, killing him immediately. Many other Arshnoc wizards were turned into pincushions before they had time to cast spells to protect themselves from the missiles.
Allied Arshnoc and Shinuyama troops beat Lanka armies.
After the battle, the few remainging Lanka troops sacrificed themselves to buy their goddess time. She managed to get off the island on a small fihserman boat along with the rakshasi and a few wizards, but her army in Lanka has been annihilated.
The allied troops had suffered many losses, not the least the death of Stheran, but they now had complete control over Lanka island.
Now Arshnoc priests talk about praying in order to call back Stheran from the death, as a god like him cannot be forever dead. Others say that they should call back his two brothers so they can take over his rulership while the priests do their duty.
New map:
Thanks for sending orders early everyone. Next orders expected for next Saturday.
UPDATE NINE
The invasion of Lanka
The invasion of Lanka
Marignon soldiers patrolling in Man don't see any sign of troglodyte activity.
In Mictlan, atlantean priests have captured many people and thrown them in jails under the high temple of Mictlan. the relatives are distraught but have been told this was necessary for the greater good of Mictlan and the holy Mantis, therefore this enslavement has been accepted by the population, already accustomed to slavery.
Arshnoc authorities offered a wedding gift to the Baikal faerie ad her husband, and rewarded the miner who found the cave drakes egges.
Citizens praise lord Stheran for his generosity.
In Seul, water from poisoned springs have been sold by a charlatan pretending the water could heal. In small doses, this elixir seemed to have beneficial effects on a few persons. But as some people bought his bottles and drank more of this water, many fell ill and died.
The charlatan fled after hoarding a nice amount of money.
In Caelum, a hen was found to lay gold eggs, and was offered to the church by a devout inhabitant. The animal laid gold eggs every day until a fox seized it and killed it. The animal was hunted down, and the hunters split the fox's belly looking for gold, but they found nothing, much to their disappointment.
In Man Ch'i, a huge boar has started ravaging the land. Peasants are afraid, their crops destroyed, and they ask their rulers to send them troops or hunting parties to take care of the monstrous beast.
In Arshnoc, an old man without children gives his old family talisman to the state before dying. It is rumoured to give the agility of a cat and help avoid blows in battles.
In Slavia, all observers say that Ermor is running low on money, but the Emperor seems to be able to produce money out of thin air, or maybe out of mana.
How long he can keep his retinue of wizard priests and pay his troops with these magic tricks remains to be seen.
Anyhow, he made a pilgrimage to the Mound of ancient kings, a forlorn place in central Slavia, where he convinced kings dead a long time ago to join his armies.
A few vanir wizards from Helheim ask lord Thordai to accept them as his new priests. They realise the wrong of their past ways and want to help Thordai with the magicks they learnt with the Hangadrotts, and want to serve the new lord of Vanheim.
Abysia:
In C'tis, abysian priests erected a temple on the ruins of Sslaah's old castle. During the works, they found a cache of magic gems that must have belonged to the false god.
In Nubia, bandits caused trouble in the province, plundering and killing. These bandits are a mix of lizardmen and humans who claim Nubia should be independant. They are not organised and far too weak to overthrow the local Abysian garrison, but they managed to steal and plunder a lot.
Jotunheim:
In Polgard, humans complain against the unjust rule of the Jotnar. They say that the weather is becoming colder since Magni's people invaded them, and they don't have enough crops to feed all their children, and they fear famine.
The giant governor decides to make an example and kills all the dissenters. Many inhabitants flee Polgard, afraid of their new masters, and leave for Colchis.
Meanwhile, Jotun giants led by their lord Magni invade the country of Utgard, inhabited by giants and men.
Spoiler :
Several Ulm inhabitants near the coast of sunken lands are moving away from the sea. They say their children are having too many nightmares and this place is cursed.
Pythium:
A field of ancient statues has been discovered in a forlorn valley in Arcoscephale. The many statues are in the shapes of both animals and men, and all are extraordinarily realistic.
Further studies reveal these statues were living beings turned into stone by an ancient power, including several fighters petrified with their weapons and armors.
In Pangaea, Celes ordered dogs to be trained to seek the maenads still hiding in the woods. Hunting parties sent into the woods found a few wild women, slaughtering all they could find.
Also, in order to prevent them from joining the maenads, women were prevented from going into the forest, which was a real problem as most of the population lives off the forest.
The result has been massive upheavals from the population against Pythium forces, as their wives and sisters were slaughtered in the woods or imprisoned in the cities, upheaval which had to be quelled by troops. Only the presence of many patrols in the east of the province prevented a massive exodus to Arshnoc.
Many women and in fact many men were sent to jails that had to be built for that purpose, and so many people had to be put in jail that in some villages there would have been no free woman left. The situation is exremely unstable as a result.
The monkeys of Lanka built a big fortress complex in Ashdod, with small forts near the borders and on the coast and a bigger fortress in the middle of the province.
In Lanka island, the goddess Hanman has performed miracles, healing monkeys and rakshasas, restoring youth and curing diseases. She used her powers to heal old rakshasa and monkey veterans and made them fit to fight again.
In Gath, a few heretic giants called the Abba had long been tending to the wounds and diseases of the human population. An oddity among generally bloodthirsty giants, the Abba have also started tending to the monkeys' illnesses.
Local authorities decided to allow them to continue their healing trade, despite their heretic claims that only the Pantocrator whould be worshipped, but Lanka priests may demand something in exchange for this freedom of theirs.
In Patala, a wave of patriotism leads small monkeys known as Markatas to take arms in order to defend their land from outside invasion.
The invasion of Lanka:
A big fleet, made of Shinuyama and Arshnoc triremes, sails southwards towards Lanka. They are soon met by the navy of Lanka, which is outnumbered two to one.
The monkeys immediately realise that this is an invasion fleet, and their sailors try to stop the opponents before they reach their island.
The triremes first try to ram each other. The initial shock sinks Arshnoc nobles' triremes and most of Lanka navy. Afterwards, vastly outnumbered, the monkeys fall to the allied navies. The rakshasa commander, seeing his fleet doomed, orders to scuttle his last ships in order to prevent the opponents from seizing them.
The battle was short and one-sided, but the lost of some Arshnoc ships ment that many soldiers who were onboard sunk and died. In particular, the whole noble chariot regiment was aboard vessels that got rammed and they all died before ever reaching the island.
Many Arshnoc footmen also drowned in the battle, but the army managed to land after sustaining minimal damage.
Arriving on the island, the troops and wizards try to burn down a vast area of jungle to clear a landing area.
The fire is put despite the moisture of the wood, and Arshnoc wizards manage to contain it and clear just the area they want.
The army lands there and starts building a fortified camp. The soldiers grumble and complain a lot for working in the middle of soot, with dark stinking dust flying around at every step on the newly cleared land, as they still have to get rid of burnt but still standing tree trunks and breath soot during the work.
Meantime, Lanka prepares for invasion. Monkey lookouts are sent, and an extraordinary proportion of these are caught by the allied forces, but some manage to reach the capital and report the situation to their officers.
At first, Lanka doesn't seem to react. The huge army that landed finishes fortifying and cleaning the area. In the camp, bakemonos and humans of different nationalities try to live together peacefully, waiting in the sultry camp for orders to move.
After a while, some monkeys (small markata and chimp-like archers) move towards the camp stealthily in the jungle. Despite all their stealth, they are spotted by Arshnoc armies, who realise these can't be the main forces. Indeed, Lanka main forces regroup near the capital city, where they wait for their scouts and markatas to bring back information.
Markata and chimps try to harrass the allied troops, shooting arrows at their foragers. Allied wizards retaliate by starting fires in the jungle, trying to burn the monkeys'camps. However, as they did that, unnaturally strong winds blew, and the smoke and flames were fanned towards the allied camp. Arshnoc wizards had to quickly stop their spells and caused rain in order to stop the backfire.
As a result, many markata died burnt, but the allied armies breathed a lot of smoke. They were in a camp in the middle of burnt forest, and it became increasingly difficult to find food for the army.
Despite the presence of some guerilleros in the jungle, Stheran and Shizen, who had both decided to lead their armies themselves, realised that they had to move before they ran out of supplies. Already, the quarrels between soldiers were numerous, and they lacked fresh food.
Therefore, they started towards Lanka capital, hoping to get rid of the guerilleros as they moved forward. The army was so big that it couldn't easily move in a single column, nor could they avoid all ambushes, but they still managed to progress without suffering too much from the monkey partisans.
One morning, several leaders were found missing. Two were dead: the corpses of an Arshnoc celestial master and a bakemono priest were discovered in their tents, bearing wounds looking like they had been attacked by a tiger. Another Arshnoc wizard priest went missing.
Further investigation revealed that these men had been visited by a marvelous woman during the night, and one of them had fled with her, and she killed the other two. Despite the death of an Arshnoc mage, dissent rose between Arshnoc and Shinuyama troops and leaders. Shizen and Stheran had to be extremely strict to avoid their armies turning on each other.
In fact, the missing mage had been seduced and abducted by a rakshasi, one of those demon wizard-priestesses of Lanka, who are able to change shape and could fool all of Arshnoc and Shinuyama defenses.
The missing mage had been seduced by a rakshasi, a beautiful Lanka sorceress able to change shape and a mistress of illusion. He told her all he knew about Stheran and Shizen's plans, and how they were able to foil the guerilla tactics of Lanka thanks to a wizard doing some kind of rituals in the far-away province of Seul.
Lanka officials appraised the situation and decided to send word immediately to their colonies on the south continent, and all other nations, so they would know what was happening.
Lanka armies finally marched towards the allied invasion forces, knowing their harassment tactics couldn't work very well, and they decided to fight the opponent in the forest rather than inside their city.
The allied armies spotted the battleground chosen by Lanka and prepared for battle. They sent wizards to burn the area, clearing the forest so their cavalry would have clear ground to fight in.
Unfortunately, Lanka knew of that plan, and had chosen this spot precisely because it was easy to guide winds in this pass. As Shinuyama wizards burnt the forest, a raksharaja caused the winds to blow towards the allied army, and flames started going back towards them. Only Shizen's intervention managed to calm down the winds, letting Arshnoc wizards call upon rain to quench the fires.
Once again, this burning jungle affair resulted in lots of soot in the eyes of the allied soldiers, and many trunks remained on the field.
Arshnoc cavalry decided it was too difficult a terrain to fight in, and decided to stay with their archers, while Shinuyama mounted samurais refused to act in such a cowardly manner.
Finally, the armies met, under the rain which had been evoked to control the fires.
Shinuyama and Arshnoc had twice the numbers of Lanka, but Lanka had managed to pick the location of the fight, and knew the enemy's battle plan.
Spoiler :
Lanka troops started blessing their biggest warriors, both apes and rakhasas, and cast sleep spells at the bakemono frontline, and shot the first volleys of arrows.
One of these arrows was lucky and hit Stheran in the neck, killing him immediately. Many other Arshnoc wizards were turned into pincushions before they had time to cast spells to protect themselves from the missiles.
Spoiler :
Allied Arshnoc and Shinuyama troops beat Lanka armies.
After the battle, the few remainging Lanka troops sacrificed themselves to buy their goddess time. She managed to get off the island on a small fihserman boat along with the rakshasi and a few wizards, but her army in Lanka has been annihilated.
The allied troops had suffered many losses, not the least the death of Stheran, but they now had complete control over Lanka island.
Now Arshnoc priests talk about praying in order to call back Stheran from the death, as a god like him cannot be forever dead. Others say that they should call back his two brothers so they can take over his rulership while the priests do their duty.
New map:
Spoiler :
