Do not believe in Bad Player, here is the only true story of the heroic death of the allmighty Branding at the hand of the evil and scheming Balseraphs.
In the early years of civilization Cassiels scouts found out that their land was completely surrounded by heathens (you know, those people that believe in gods). Unfortunately they had found no technologies in the two tribal villages they encountered and the Grigori woud only be able to build one more decent city.
Seeing that one of his neighbours were the insane Balserpahs he knew that a war was unavoidable. So rather than wasting his ressources at founding the second city he decided that total war was the way to go, the Grigori had to be protected! In the early years he gave the order to only build warriors and one worker to improve the land. Mining was researched so that the Grigori would be able to work the gold near Midgar. After the allmighty Branding was born Cassiel decided that he would be trained up for some years before finally joining his army of warriors. The next technology to be researched was Bronze Working, Cassiel was confident that some copper would be found either in the land of the Grigori or in the land of the Balseraphs (soon to be land of the Grigori as well).
Some turns before Bronze Working was invented, Cassiel in all his wisdom declared that it was time to finally end the threat from the Balseraphs once and for all. The allmighty Branding marched forth with the warriors. The Balseraphs had already founded a second city near Midgar. This city was chosen to be liberated first. Cassiel praised the insanity of the Balseraphs as his scouts reported that the city was only defended by two or three merrymen. He ordered Branding and three of his best Warriors (well they all had 0 xp) to take the city while the rest of the army defended his border, those troops would be joined with Branding to assault the Balseraphs capitol right after the fall of their other city.
As Cassiel was preparing his declaration of war a messenger from the Balseraphs arrived, he delivered a clear message from the ruler of the Balseraphs: "If you dare to attack me now, there will never be peace between us again. We will fight untill one of us is vanquished." Those fools Cassiel thought, no one was able to withstand the power of Branding and now they were threatening the Grigori with eternal war, he had done wisely ordering Branding to destroy them. Dismissing that message as the newest insanity of the baleraphs leader Cassiel sent the messenger back with his declaration of war
*.
A year later the allmighty Branding was standing at the gates of the balseraph city. When he saw that the defending merrymen were no match for his power (99,3%) he declared that he would take the city by his own hands, so no brave grigori warrior would need to die. But something went wrong that fateful day, Branding died without taking a single merrymen to the grave, he who had once been called the most heroic and allmighty defender of Midgar was henceforth known as Branding Weakling. When Cassiel heard of Brandings death his Generals urged him to order an all-out assault on the city to avenge Branding, but Cassiel in all his wisdom knew that the Grigori wouldn't be able to liberate the city without reinforcements from the second army which was currently guarding their border against counterattacks. How could they hope for any luck in battle on the day that Branding had died? Thus Cassiel ordered the surviving troops of Brandings army to move back. A few years later Bronze Working was invented, but no copper was to be found in the lands of the Grigori and Balseraphs. Cassiel knew now that the war was only bringing harm to the Grigori but the Baleraphs were true to their words, the war would go on for all eternity!
Cassiel had negleted economy in the favour of military, assuming that his army would be able to make up for it by liberating cities, but the military had let him down. The Grigori were now far behind the other civilizations, but Cassiel was not going to give up, the Grigori needed him.
After many years Branding was reborn in Midgar, disguised as a woman. Cassiel declared that he/she should be named "Branding Weakling reborn" and ordered him to train up to the power Branding had posseded before his death. A few years later a new Grigori Army marched from Midgar to that damned city. Many warriors had come to avenge Branding under the command of the new Branding. Arriving at their destination they saw that the evil Balseraph had some highly trained merrymen in their city, they had been under constant attack from barbarians. Brandings army hadn't fought before, even the barbarians weren't foolishly enough to attack the Grigori. While the Grigori prepared the siege some Balseraph troops were marching through the nearby desert to aid the city. They were quickly dispatched by grigori warriors.
All forces were in position, the Grigori had many more men than the Balseraphs and were commanded by a mighty hero. Cassiel gave the final order to start the assault. This time the warriors were sent in first, it was a fierce and bloody fight. And again all went wrong. All Grigori were slain without killing a single Balseraph, Cassiel ordered the two surviving warrios and Branding Coward back.
Cassiel vowed that the Grigori would come back to finaly liberate the city. There would never be peace again between the Grigori and Balseraphs. Avenge would be take for all the brave warriors that died. And if the Balseraphs should eventually assault Midgar he would not plea for mercy, he wasn't going to grant them mercy either.
*offical declaration of war:
If you did dot recieve it ingame, your insane messenger must have lost it 
The Burning Of Coombe View
Far From Paradise
Where The Winds Of War Are Blowing Freely
In My Tired Eyes
Run The Bloody Hosts Of Ares' Slaughter
Face To Face
With Fear And Death And Hate
Time To Say Goodbye
Draw Your Last Breath For I Conquer
). On the way to the land of the Lanun a sighting of and enemy Typhoid Mary occured, but I was unable to dispatch her (she later died on an assault on the Lanun capital I believe). Now that my first wave of dwarves ( the second wave of about 10 were en route at this point) had made it to their desination, they headed straight for the capital to defend against an assault of wood golems, various hunters and warriors. The defense was successful, so we decided to use the combination of Lanun seapowr, and Dwarven muscle to make an amphibious assult on the enemy front line city (I cant remember which civ was on the front). The assault was smashingly sucessful, but the reinforcements became overwhelming after the city was razed. An extraction was in order. The Lanun ships arrived at the designated rendevous point just in time, and the dwarves were once again headed back to the Lanun capital for defense. During the attack, Sureshot had devised a quite ingenious defense system comprised of pirate cove bottlenecks. This proved very effective against the oncoming hordes of enemy golems/hunters. Around this same time, I had managed to send an expeditionary force of 5 dwarves (one being a lvl 7 dwarf appropriately named Chuck Norris 
) all the way NE to the Hippus capital to help scout/support. The heat was intensifying on the Northern front, so I figured what better way to turn the tide than to counter attack. With Mufin constantly streaming axemen to the aid of the Hippus, I managed to send "Chuck" and his pals all the way across the northern border through the hills 
. Unfortunately, a few turns later after Bambur was born, the biggest enemy of all decided to rear its ugly head.......SLEEP! The game was saved, and I personally am eagerly awating the finale of this truly epic battle. 
