End of Empires - N3S III

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.
 
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."
 
[size=+2]Cândyr[/size]
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.
 
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.
 
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




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...
 
* * * * * * * * *​

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


City Map


Religious Map


Economic Map


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.
 
Great update! Just curious about one thing, shouldn't Neruss have internal borders within the Farubaida o Caroha?
 
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.
 
I've put together a little recording 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, 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?
 
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?
 
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
 
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.
 
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