Emperor of the Fading Suns
Turn 2- 4802 by Terran Calendar
Byzantium Secondus
Incarnate Preachers (4802)
Archbishop Quelus Haventi and High Inquisitor David Ghul continue to work very closely together with the Orthodox archbishop offering material support to the Red Robed inquisitors who in turn continue to investigate across Byzantium Secondus widel. The inquisitors are not subtle, conducting kidnappings under the dead of night and breaking down doors, flame-throwers in hand, to deliver purification and holy purity to the incarnates as they hide in their blasphemous holes. Where minor nobility (or simply more influential freemen) are concerned, the Orthodoxy offers a trial, or at least the pretense thereof. David Ghul’s investigators are rapidly losing the support of the people as fear, terror and ash trails in their wake and the opportunity for political revenge (or revenge in love or whatever else) wanes and fear of the flame waxes.
Ultimately, these attacks, potentially led by the Church spies are much more accurate than they have been in the years past and incarnate heretics are finding it more and more difficult to avoid discovery and capture. At the same time, the political pressure on the nobles to support the hunt is increasing as the priests of both denominations are including a call to action in weekly sermons, specifically detailing how local minor and Major House nobles can assist in the hunt. One of the few to pre-empt that call are the D’Glace.
Within the D’Glace fiefdoms, Angelique D’Glace coordinates directly with Archbishop Quelus Haventi’s investigation, providing intelligence and administrative support and providing material support to investigations, trials, and punishments, executing a number of D’Glace serfs and even minor nobles found guilty of heresy. Despite this punitive action, by cooperating with the Orthdoxy directly, the D’Glace have been able to avoid the worst of the mob aggression whipped up by inquisitor witch-hunts and widespread fear and panic that comes with their dead of night kidnappings.
Adaeze and her disciples aren’t finished though, their message continuing to find fertile ground, especially in regions where the Avestite have been particularly aggressive as their message simplifies simply to death by fire, or our loving simplicity. The message, anti-corruption, direct connection to the Pancreator, is a powerful one and the appeal of their message is not losing any momentum.
As an interesting aside, the inquisitors are making enemies of many, including those armed with lasguns and on an increasing number of occasions, these fearsome warriors of god are ambushed by criminals, lasguns striking from allies or rooftops and igniting fueltanks, delivering the inquisitors to the Pancreator in purifying fire.
+legitimacy D’Glace, -influence all other houses with presence on Byzantium Secondus
Proscription Flaunted (4802)
Well-armed criminals are growing more and more aggressive, launching attacks not only on wealthy freeman but on isolated estates of minor nobility and against the Authority guildhouses and warehouses. Despite police action, it is clear that the cheap lasguns continue to flood the market, their numbers increasing and their presence increasingly common. Isolated noble guards are occasionally overrun, their charges killed and looted and this is doing much to encourage further and bolder attacks even as some of the criminals are stopped or executed. Some houses respond with force however.
Duke Averi leads House Hawkwood’s effort to establishing security by instilling security checkpoints, patrols, curfews and random searches. In the short-term this leads to violent confrontation with well-armed gangs and the death of several Hawkwood soldiers but within a few months many of the criminal elements seem to leave the Hawkwood fiefdoms or at least make their activities more subtle. As a result of the increased local security a number of freeman businesses move into Averi’s administrative region, taking advantage of the local law and order to conduct their affairs in relative safety.
House Decados’s Byzantium Duke, Karl Vladislav, leads an effort to hunt the well-armed criminals, taking a page from the Averi playbook and setting up checkpoints and patrols to limit the distribution and spread of these weapons in the Decados fiefdom. Ultimately this does lead to criminal elements avoiding the Decados fiefdoms in favor of other, less well-defended regions.
Jose Marcado, second son to the Hazat throne, leads a security operation within the Hazat fiefdoms, employing the Bureaucrat guildsmen to assist him. Unfortunately, his attention soon turns to pursuing a vendetta with a minor noble’s son for some slight incurred at a recent kite-fighting expedition put on for the local Hazat court. Ultimately the vendetta ends in a duel and the death of the minor noble, cementing the honor of Jose Marcado even as security operations languish. Ultimately, despite himself, Duke Marcado is able to initiate some limited patrols and checkpoints to limit the activity of the well-armed criminals operating in his fiefdom, though these are of relatively limited scope and scale at present.
+influence Hawkwood, Decados, Hazat Great City, - legitimacy and influence all other houses
Other News
o Oguzhan Azhgeya, the Azgheya Duke of Byzantium Secondus organizes the transfer of serf volunteers from the overcrowded slums of the Byzantium Secondus fiefdom to Herbert where they join the ranks of those working in the Azgheya oil industries.
o Rogi Rémillard, keen to solve the food and energy issues of the Rémillard fiefdom follows the example set by the al-Malik vassals of House Shinna and launches a colonizing expeition into the floodlands, occupying, stabilizing, repairing some of the more intact high-rises poking from the polluted floodwaters. From here he establishes water purification and aquaculture operations, using primitive solar and tidal harness energy capture technologies to empower these efforts.
May
The cinders float serenely on the wind.
Gently they alight, red moths, on black ash.
Other News
o The Beaulne dynasty has abandoned the traditional D’Glace fiefdom to the minor nobility. With Charlotte Beaulne focused on Asssimov, there is no on from the Beaulne dynasty to lead the ancestral fiefdom, the matron Charlotte Beaulne herself having no heir. It is said that the minor nobility are jockeying amongst themselves for power and position. If they can coalesce under new leadership and convince the military to support them while the house matron is away, her return may be more problematic than expected.
o Duchess Shekhis, vassal to house Azgheya contracts the Prospector’s guild to assist in expanding mining operations within her ancestral fiefdom, founding two new mining villages on promising iron ore veins and importing guild machinery as well as organizing her own serf’s construction to expand mineral production. Smelting and processing operations are similarly expanded. It is said that Cevher Azgheya spends the summer season with the duchess, assisting where he can but generally seemingly finding little reason to accompany her to the new villages or smelting operations.
o Anya Valushnya leads her house in developing coal-mining operations within the fiefdom, expanding their capacity to recover this precious burning stone for both domestic and foreign markets.
Assimov
Xyall Beast Raids (4802)
The Xyall beasts attacks on the Inland Sea region continue, with a particular focus on the fiefdoms of the Decados, D’Glace, and House Vaureliel. The beasts attack do not abet with the passing of the long night, using their camouflage to creep through crops and ditches, along rooftops and in alleyways, seemingly learning to avoid the guns of the soldiers, and striking where soldiers are not in greater numbers and with more coordination than previously observed. They also attack soldiers’ barracks directly, sneaking into compounds (not always successfully) to attack the soldiers while they rest. The effects on the morale of the people and the soldiers cannot be overstated and panic is rife throughout the fiefdoms.
House Rémillard is there to lend a hand to its vassal, dispatching both Paul Rémillard himself who seems to be leading a trade contingent, and General Maurice Rémillard, who coordinates with Duchess Danielle Vaureliel in leading the Vaureliel rangers as well as their regular forces. Despite valiant defensive efforts and the strategic insight of the House Rémillard general, House Vaureliel loses several villages and two developed towns. Its armed forces are appearing increasingly thin and demoralized.
House Decados is at the heart of the Xyallbeast attacks, suffering near constant infiltration and ambushes despite significant investment in defenses. Thankfully general Iosif Mikoyah is there in person to lead defensive operations, organizing serfs to build ditches, palisades, and watchtowers, etc. A propaganda campaign to motivate the serfs is launched, which isn’t really required because if the serfs don’t defend themselves it is very clear they will be dragged into the jungle and eaten. Ultimately however, the numbers and the ferocity of the Xyallbeast attacks is too much and multiple hamlets are overrun and many a soldier slain.
House D’Glace would have been overrun this year had it not been for the military support of the Decados and Vaureliel Houses. House matron, Charlotte Beaulne arrives in March (terran calendar), six months after her last visit, having sped back to May, loaded the House freighter with supplies and soldiers and returned as quickly as she could, to find devastation and ruin, with much of the colony overrun and just at tiny toehold remaining where her Grimson legions have been able to establish a small secure green zone. Unloading her infantry, led by General Édouard Allard, House D’Glace is able to reclaim more territory but by the end of the year, very little has changed with the colonists trapped behind tall walls and men with guns while beyond, the alien other waits to strike at any moment. Thankfully however, Beaulne is able to complete a command and control center for her nobles to operate from, and this may at least make colony management easier.
The Al-Malik colony, distant from the D’Glace, Decados, and Vaureliel, is perhaps luckier, suffer much fewer attacks. Despite this, Sabiira Rashid, Duchess of the burgeoning colonial effort, orders the training and outfitting of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, importing a massive number of guns through the Coachmen in exchange for food and exotic imports. When the Xyall beasts come, she is ready with more firepower than any other House on Assimov and able to hold her own against the alien tide. At the same time, she also uses some of the Coachmen imports to improve her colonial offices to proper noble estates, attracting minor nobles and improving her command and management infrastructure.
(to varying degrees: -influence, all houses with influence on inland sea, -food, energy, materials, exotics, inland sea)
Other News
o Annemijn Van Dijk, vassal to House Van Gelder faces relatively little attacks by the Xyall beasts, their fiefdoms primarily in the deep jungle and far from the focus of the Xyall attention. Duke Van Dijk, recognizing the needs for building materials, turns to the jungle for lumber, developing lumber recovery and processing facilities this year and improving their capacity to generate raw production materials.
Clarke
Religious Palavar (4802)
The tolerance of Archbishop Leonid Mirmah proves to be a trigger for a major division both within the clergy and within the wider religious laity with many falling within the Mirmah camp and advocating for reconciliation, education, and forgiveness (where possible) and others, led by Father Tang Juntasa, Bishop of the Li Halan Eparchy advocating for a much harder line.
Mirmah makes it clear that he will not forgive incarnate missionaries or those who prove unrepentant but simultaneously calls for the clergy to reject corruption and remember their vows of humility and service and for both clergy and laity to seek to forgive their errant brothers and to win them back to the Church through patience, good works and gentle reminders of the Church’s teachings. Bishop Tang Juntasa advocates for a much harder response, a traditional one that involves Avestite inquisitors, trials, and purging fire.
Within the fiefdom of the Eahibera, the role of hypocrisy and corruption by the clergy in dissuading the lay faithful is the subject of attention by the House’s leadership, Céleste Eahibera. She meets repeatedly with clergy loyal to Archbishop Mirmah, sharing with them reports of inappropriate use of funds or abuse of influence and advocating for corrective action. Mirmah is only too eager to make use of the information, replacing many of the Eahibera priests charged with corruption with priests loyal to his vision of tolerance and at least not too overtly corrupt.
Eirrun Garetheade spends the year at the Planetary See meeting the major political influencers within the Orthodox church and advocating for Mirmah’s vision with undecided clergy and supporting the vision of the Order of Eternal Wisdom being proposed by the Decados. Garetheade is a competent political lobbyist and her influence and resources are soon reflected in the discussions taking place within the seminary hallways and in weekly sermons.
The Decados, led by the heir to the house, Sergey Vladislav, lead a domestic effort to found a holy brotherhood, the Order of Eternal Wisdom, managed by lay nobles. The Order of Eternal Wisdom is dedicated to tolerance, non-violence and education of Orthodox teachings. They initiate the construction of a capital chapterhouse (which remains incomplete) while joining with Garetheade in advocating the establishment of chapterhouses within the various fiefdoms and gaining direct support from the Orthodoxy.
Despite all these efforts, the hardliners are not to be outdone and they have invited the Avestites to assist them in seeking heretics throughout the planet, focusing particularly in the southern hemisphere. The avestites are obviously unwelcome by many, their flame-throwers not always as specifically targeted as many would like. They are not nearly as forgiving and take advantage of the culture and teachings of tolerance to identify incarnates that would otherwise hide themselves more carefully, infiltrating their missionary work and brining holy flame to the blasphemous.
Within the Church, the division is growing more and more into open fracture and it remains to be seen how Patriach St. Rami Sanya will respond to Mirmah’s teachings of tolerance.
-influence Orthodoxy, +influence heresy, southern hemisphere regions
Grey Manta Pirates of the Typhoon Seas (4802)
After seemingly taking a year to allow police pressure to dissipate, the Grey Manta are active again this year, striking at the inter-island shipping of the Garetheade, Gwung-Lou, Eahibera, and even the Orthodoxy. While in most cases the pirates are able to strike, seize loot, and disappear, the Gwung-Lou are reporting more luck, having successfully engaged the pirates in a high-speed firefight before finally losing them in the deeper seas between Awroth and Uyish. Similarly the Church fleet was able to intercept the Gray Manta but lost the pirates when these fled to deeper waters in their generally faster ships.
While the Li Halan are not affected directly, having minimal trade relative in the southern hemisphere relative to the extensive domestic shipping of the houses of those archipelagos, a planned exchange of resource between that house and the Gwung-Lou is ultimately abandoned due the intercept of this rather significant Gwung-Lou shipment by the Grey Manta.
Near the end of the year, the Brother’s Battle orbital fleet consisting of several escort ships and a half-dozen drop infantry, as well as a freighter providing logistic support, all led by the elite order of the Templars of the Faithful Celestium, arrive in orbit over the planet.
- planetary resources for listed Houses, -legitimacy for Hawkwood and D’Glace (failure to protect vassals)
Other News
o Upon hearing news of the pirate attack upon the incoming Gwung-Lou trade shipment, Li Halan Matron Naganaka Ichika focuses her efforts instead on domestic development, developing industrial development, mining, and expanded agricultural investments in Awroth.
o Zheng Gwung-Lou leads the development of domestic development within that House’s fiefdom, clearing lands in the upland hills and mountains for a new mining village and establishing a new fishing village along the shore.
o Naganaka Akari, heir to the Li Halan throne, initiates a wide program of medical clinics to support the serfs, freemen, and minor nobility of the House. By virtue of the massive populations they serve, the clinics are soon at capacity. Despite this, the common view is increasingly that the Li Halan nobility are truly the servants of the Pancreator, bringing his benevolence to all reaches of their fiefdoms.
o Li Halan conduct wargames, focusing on amphibious operations with orbital support. The Li Halan battleship launches orbit to ground kinetic weaponry at unpopulated islands at the fringes of the Awroth peninsula as part of this exercise. For many, it is a very clear message regarding Li Halan patience and the growing presence of incarnate heresy on the planet.
o General Helrik Vidar, brother to the throne of House Hawkwood and High Knight of its forces travels to Clarke where he assist Duke Eirrun Garetheade in the training of local forces and even expands planetary defenses, investing particularly in an expanded navy.
Herbert
Tales of Buried Artifacts (4802)
When the Azgheya army sets out into the desert, trailing a long umbilicus of baggage trains and support logistics, much of it water, few doubt their destination and the site of the ‘Riah Hariqa artifact’ soon becomes widely known. At the same time, negotiations between the Azgheya and Riah Hariqa results in the sale of the nomads’ rights to the artifact (for whatever that is worth, since there is no real definition, legally, of ‘finders’ rights) to their more urbanized brethren the Azgheya for a significant number of horses, goats, camels, and sturdy desert cattle, significantly increasing their herd sizes and the wealth of these nomadic people. Very soon, enriched, the Riah Hariqa disperse into the desert from which they came.
The Azgheya army forms up within the deep equatorial desert, patrolling their logistics very carefully and making full use of the Sun-Bleached, teams of desert-born and desert-trained House Azgheya rangers to secure their logistics and communications, fully aware of how deadly the desert can be without these critical support. They establish improvised fortresses, ditches, and barbwire around a 15km square area in the seemingly blisteringly hot and inhospitable middle of nowhere.
Shortly thereafter, the al-Malik military also gets involved, perhaps following the Azgheya military. Initially the al-Malik numbers are greater than the Azgheya but the Azgheya, their Kizmet intelligence services giving them eyes on local mobilizations, quickly react by ordering further reinforcements of their numbers. Upon the al-Malik military’s arrival amongst observers and rumor-mongers, there are tales that not all shimmering ‘heat haze’ in the desert sun are mirages and that the al-Malik Iridescent knights, in their ‘blur suits’ keep careful watch over the coming and goings of the Azgheya at the site.
The Agichi, vassals to house Li Halan, are not to be outdone, though arrive sometime later as they have awaited instruction from the Li Halan homeworld of Clarke. The Agichi arrive in similar numbers to the al-Malik.
Finally, also present are the holy monks of the Brothers Battle, and although only present in very limited numbers, are led by the famously deadly Monastic Brotherhood of the Five Sacred Forms, elite soldiers who are said to have as tranquil a mind as they do a steady and unflinching rho shields.
And so, deep in the desert, far from water or food or even shade, the three armies stare unflinching at one-another, not sure what to make of the stand-off. The artifacts themselves are soon revealed to be mostly buried urban ruins of the Grand Republican era, though only the Azgheya are able to gain direct access with their soldiers controlling access to the ruins themselves.
All the major houses are claiming the Church as their ally, with the Azgheya requesting the orthodoxy to join them in blessing any potential technology they may find, assuming it not of a heretical nature, the Agichi in close discussion with the Brother’s battle, and the al-Malik opening stating that they will work with the Church to ensure no unholy blasphemies fall into the hands of the unworthy (presumably meaning either the church or maybe themselves?). Finally, perhaps attracted by rumors of heretical artifacts, Avestite red-robed inquisitors have been spotted amongst the armies of the Agichi, though it is clear the later did not invite them.
Rumors of Scaver interest continue to swirl though these, if present, do not show themselves openly. It remains to be determined who will control the Grand Republic era ruins and what treasures, if any, they may hold.
The Drumbeat of Herbert’s Sirocco (4802)
Following on their very clear threats of the year past, the Hazat demand the surrender of the Io-Ian. The latter, knowing their military forces are both quantitatively and qualitatively inferior to those of the Hazat, and hearing nary a dissenting voice from the Al-Malik, Azgheyi or other Houses of Herbert recognize that they have no real option but to surrender. And so, despite the absence of a real causus belli (though with excellent propaganda), and without a shot being fired, the Hazat are able to force the surrender of House Io-Ian and reduce them to a Hazat tributary.
Mok Io-Ian, ruler of the Io-Ian and his heir Tan Io-Ian, attend Hazat Izan Marcado at their palace in southern Herbert and ceremoniously offer their swords to the latter to jubilant cheers of the Hazat serfs and nobility alike. The festival continues far beyond the palace with a week of celebration prescribed by the Hazat and the granaries and foodstores open to all in celebration of the might of the Great House.
While Tan Io-Ian remains a ‘guest’ of the Hazat heir Ronan Marcado at the royal palaces, General Raphael Evuardo establishes barracks and logistic infrastructure to maintain Hazat soldiers within the territories of the Io-Ian on a permanent basis. Once these are in place, Tan Io-Ian returns to his homelands and Ronan Marcado makes a great tour of the Io-Ian minor nobility, where as with his visit to the Herbert Orthodoxy, his unrefined and often crude personality make him an unpopular visitor. Despite this, he represents the new power of the fiefdoms and his visits are seen as an unpleasant but necessary path to relevance for the minor Io-Ian nobles.
+popular trait Izan Marcado, General Raphael Evuardo, +legitimacy (a lot of legitimacy!) Hazat, +influence Hazat, southern savannah, - legitimacy Io-Ioan, -influence Io-Ian southern savannah
Other News
o Cevikar Azgheya, lord of House Azgheya focuses on welcoming the immigrant-colonists from Byzantium Secondus who have abandoned the cramped slums of that planet to take on the challenge of homesteading in the Azgheya fiefdom frontiers. Many are not well suited to shepherding or farming and instead take positions at the Azgeyha oil wells and refineries, which Lord Cevikar Azgheya is able to expand significantly this season. A major investor in the Azgheya oilfied is Anas Raschid, lord of House Al-Malik who is able to accelerate development considerably through investments of both labor and, more importantly, a significant amount of specialized industrial machinery. By the end of the year, the joint oilfields are significant expanded, particularly in the northern equatorial region.
o Jan-Dirk Van Syth also invests in oil field development, expanding his fiefdom beyond the polar sea into the northern reaches of the great dessert. Van Syth coordinates with the alchemist guild, paying a premium, but managing to develop modern oil wells and transportation infrastructure to get the oil back to new refineries also developed in coordination with the Alchemists guild.
o Lyndis Ooray, heir to the Ooray throne, engages in a large-scale trade operation with the Coachmen, spending significant time and trading huge volumes with the guildsmen of the agora.
Watts
Dreams of Imcinkyl Return (4802)
Shadowy Rémillard activities continue this year with the ‘Conteurs’, House Rémillard spies, particularly active at Rémillard court and among the minor nobility, the scale of their activities making complete subtly impossible. What they are seeking to accomplish is not clear.
Other News
o A violent and early fall soon turn into a particularly storm-heavy early winter and tunnels that have remained open for decades are soon collapsed and the paths between the forests overcome by avalanche. Throughout the northern hemisphere, an unseasonably fierce winter leads to loss of life, resources, and infrastructure for the Lojan and Remillard.
o Ulf Vidar, heir to the House Hawkwood throne, organizes a significant expansion of the Hawkwood fiefdoms of Veflyn, with a particular focus on mining operations, transport infrastructure, foundries, and especially engines and armament manufacture. The bastion of knightly chivalry is now, more than ever, ready to bring justice to the worlds’ villains!
o Admiral Snorri Averi, grand commander of House Hawkwood space fleet, conducts a series of drills and exercises focusing on the deployment of drop infantry using the carrier aerospace fighters as a screen. The renown Knights of the Lion Banner, favorites of the serfs, draw crowds of proud peasantry as they alight in their gleaming red and golden ceramasteel armor, great metallic wings humming and sizzling in the air with the heat of atmospheric re-entry and spent jetfuel.
o Duchess Sam Lojan, vassal to House Li Halan spends the year expanding her fiefdom with a particular focus on mining, industrial production, and expanded fur trade.
o Nabiya ibn-Rahiman, loyal vassal to house Al-Malik continues the expansion of mining and industrial operations within the ibn-Rahiman fiefdom.
o Raúl Amontillado expands farming operations on the ancestral family fiefdoms of Western Veflyn.
o House Dulcinea, vassals of House Hazat, continue their focus on artistry and craftsmanship, initiating a wide-scale artistic sponsorship program that reaches across all of Clarke and sees many artists and craftsmen flock to the Dulcinea fiefdom.
Memorium
The winds blow over a scorched radioactive wasteland.
Guild of Leagues Diplomacy:
We have completed the construction of a new freighter and are establishing a new trade route between Leagueheim and a food-rich world. We are looking to import (food) and can offer (comms or industry).
We have one (stealthcraft) available for purchase this year. The minimum bid is 550 raw resources.
