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UPDATE THIRTEEN
The North at war
In the southern continent, things are extraordinarily quiet.
The only incident worth mentioning is the fact that Nubian independentists keep causing trouble in
Abysia, hindering tax collection.
In the north, things are busier:
Pythium amazons revealed the location of the garnet village, where some of their kind used to perform blood magic in ancient times.
In
Ulm, several knights tried to seize treasures of the church in order to pay themselves for the services they rendered to the country. Priests refused and it quickly turned into a bloody argument. Several priests were killed. The Ulmish knights were cast out from the holy church and decided to flee to join the country of Marignon, moving into the province of Kymriu where they hoped they could sell thier services to Marignon.
The Ulmish armies stationed in the south moved northwards and freed Sauromatia from
Ermor's rule, easily killing the few velites and militia that defended the province, along with the thaumaturgs before they could sacrifice much of the population to their terrible deity. Sauromatians flock to Ulm's church in thanks for getting rid of Ermor's cultists.
In the province of Dacia, another tornado struck, killing many civilians. Ulmish authorities spent some gold trying to rebuild broken houses, but soon they realised this gold would have been better spent on defense, as
Pythium invaded with many legionaires, emerald guards, wyverns, cavalry and Celes himself, while Ulm only had a few infantry and knights to defend Dacia, which was easily conquered.
Marignon wizard-priests are running around the country, preaching and looking for volunteers for a holy crusade:
They say that the evil Mictlanese want to invade the sacred soil of Marignon, kill Marignon children, rape their daughters, sacrifice their sons to the bloodthirsty Mantis.
Archbishop Gulliver went so far as to say the Mictlanese eat eggs by the little end instead of the big end. As a result, many Marignonese stopped working the fields and regrouped to become flagellants.
The fanatic warriors gathered in Marignon capital, and took all food they could find. Most Marignonese initally approved of the levy, but they come to realise that if these fanatic warriors don't soon go and fight the Mictlanese, they are going to hurt their own people.
Some Marignonese secretly resent these flagellants and start doubting the wisdom of the Great Inquisitor, or at least of his priests. Others resent the loss of a wife or husband who joined the army and left them with children and work to assume all by themselves.
Anyhow, Marignon is now full of flagellants that the priests have some difficulties controlling and feeding.
Worse, a high ranking priests has been killed in mysterious circumstances, and another one has reported an attack by a demonic temptress that he managed to banish to hell.
On the northern side of the
Mictlan border, in Man, Mictlanese enslave many inhabitants. This leads to a lot of unrest and discontent, as men and women of Man are really cross to have to serve their new heathen masters. However unhappy they may have been, it is unlikely that it was unhappy peasants who managed to assassinate Mictlanese wizard priests. For an assassination was performed, which looked like the work of trained professionals and resulted in a unit of Mictlan wizard-priests to be eliminated.
In Cyprus, several minotaurs emerged from their underground palace in order to join Mictlan armies. They are ready to board the first ship to join in the fight against the evil Marignon.
But ships don't sail from Cyprus. They come from the coasts of atlantean ocean and the south of hot sea. Seven quinquiremes look for Marignon navy and force them to fight. The fight is disproportionate: There are only three triremes available to defend Marignon, two of them just finished and rushing to defend their shores. They are outnumbered and outclassed and easily sunk.
This allows Mictlan to land some of its troops in Marverni, while at the same time armies attack Marverni from the north.
This was not the only move by Mictlan navy however. Another fleet left Mictlan northwards to land more troops in Kymriu, where they joined other troops from Man in order to invade the northern Marignon province.
The battle of Marverni was short and violent:
Marignon troops from the south and the north quickly marched towards each other, and after joining they met Marignon army and crushed them:
In Kymriu, Marignon forces were slightly stronger than in the south due to the unexpected defection of Ulmish knights and their joining Marignon. The knights weren't well organised, however, and didn't coordinate well with the Marignonese. Furthermore, Mictlan troops were led by the holy Mantis herself.
Despite losing some jaguar toads in the battle, Mictlan troops were successful too in Kymriu.
As a result, Marignon is now confined to its own lone province.
In
Vanheim, unseasonal blizzards have caused the crops to freeze, lowering the amount of food and stifling growth.
In the
Jotunheim province of Agartha, some ancient pale one agarthans emerged from their tunnels and tried to free the surface from the frost giants, but they were repelled by the giants milita.
Polgard inhabitants are afraid of the war. They say Jotunheim can't possibly win against three enemies and ask their government to try to make peace as soon as possible. The local authorities answered by killing all the peace-lovers.
The Vanir in Niefelheim left some of their troops to supervise the building of defensive structures, while most of the army moved southwards into Jotunheim, where they were met with troops of Jotunhaim reinforced by others coming from Polgard (46).
Despite the support of their mages, Vanheim huskarls broke and retreated, and soon the rest of Vanheim army decides to flee. They managed to seriously dent the giants' defense, and kill mnay of their infantry, but the niefel giants proved to be too strong for them, being unnatural agile and hard to hit despite their size, and hard to hurt thanks to that same size.
Vanheim armies retreated into Niefelheim, pursued by the giants. They hid in their new fortresses, where they are now being besieged by the Jötnar.
As a result, Niefelheim is controlled in part by the vanir, and in part by the giants who siege the forts.
Some of the
Arshnoc wizards in Ural, while casting spells, committed an error in their magic ritual and didn't manage to summon the creature they had intended. After some investigation, it appears these wizard priests had been consuming too many mushrooms which they imported from Dark woods. This altered their judgment and spell casting ability, resulting in wasted mana.
Caelum wizards on the other hand managed to summon more than they had planned, in an unforeseen swing of magic.
The problem of Dark woods mushrooms was heretofore limited to the province and some people who had visited it, but some merchants of this province started selling their stuff around, and many people are becoming intoxicated. If nothing is done, health problems will spread to the neihbouring provinces.
In T'ien Ch'i, Lu Tung-Pin the immortal decided to withdraw from his hermitage and join Arshnoc in their fight against the giants.
Seul inhabitants improved their mining complex, increasing the infrastructure in their province.
In Baikal, the ancient presence, Infor Vadul, is still lurking in the woods, raiding villages and turning them into undead plant beings. Population dies and the local militia is unable to find the culprits who hide in the woods, rebuilding their strength, but new soldiers are being trained to prevent further aggression.
Pirates have been attacking ships moving into Arshnoc port, resulting in a loss of trade for that country.
Arshnoc starts building a fortress in Ural, hoping to defend from a Jotunheim invasion.
Unfortunately for Arshnoc, the worm was laready in the apple. Many wolf riders had been hiding in the woods of Ural, unnoticed and bidding their time. When they realised Arshnoc was organising a defense program, they did all they could to sabotage the work, effectively slowing it enough that when Jotunheim army invaded from Bogarus, the fort wasn't ready and they had to fight with only half made fortifications that Jotun threw boulders at and destroyed easily.
In the end, the battle had to be fought in open terrain because of the vaetti wolf riders' sabotage operations.
In the end, Arshnoc managed to repel Jotunheim's attack, but has still been unable to scratch Magni himself. Arshnoc finished constructing forts in Ural, hoping to better fend off any other attack from the giants.
Shinuyama tea merchants have started selling biscuits to go with their famous beverage. This led to an increased revenue for the province.
In a Kitajima mine, the grave of an old hero has been unearthed, and a magic shield and some gold has been retrieved.
In Lanka, some dai kabutsu soldiers were poisoned by local monkey partisans. The soldiers required expensive treatment in order to be saved.
The
Lanka fleet around their home island maintained its blocus when a fleet of Arshnoc quinquiremes accompanied by a ghost ship attacked them. Lanka pirates were slightly more numerous, and the ships were roughly of equal value, as Lankans had regularly replaced their old tiremes with bigger quinquiremes. The first shock was terrible, as ships hurled themselves against each other, oarsmen pulling with all their strength in cadence. Ships rammed into each other, oars broke and wood splintered, hulls creaked and broke. After the initial shock, ships went board to board and sailors and corsairs attacked each other with fury. The numeric superiority of Lanka made a difference, as they managed to put two of their ships against one of Arshnoc most of the times. The only crew that had superior fighting skills was that of the ghost ship. This «Flying Dutchman» wasn't a quinquireme, but a longship, a design unknown in most parts of the world but clearly of Vanheim origin. The superior strength of its crew, and the fear it instilled in its opponents, allowed the ghost ship to defeat two Lanka quinquiremes while its Arshnoc allies were killed. After this feat, it was still surrounded by six surviving Lanka quinquiremes, which managed to send it back under the seas.
The battle had been deadly on both sides, with all Arshnoc and Vanheim ships sunk, while the corsairs had lost four out of ten quinquiremes, but Lanka remained in control of the seas around their island.
New map:
- or that I'm a goner soon.
Now hes almost alone and facing a great many soldiers and summoned units, this time he will DIE!!!! ARGH!
