Noble Progression Story A Wealth Of Bad Investments

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House Black Funds an Arloran Reconstruction zone, House von Rahm Funds an Arloran Reconstruction zone, House dei Olzolli Funds an Arloran Reconstruction zone, House Norrvakt Funds an Arloran Reconstruction zone, House de Letoirneau Funds an Arloran Reconstruction zone, House Ravenstad Funds an Arloran Reconstruction zone, House Peirgarten Funds an Arloran Reconstruction zone, Blackjaw settles a colonial region in Jorrhildr, using some clever retinue support to avoid future Url conflicts, House Black and de Letoirneau settle a colonial region in Jorrhildr also. Oh and because so many families helped with the reconstruction of Arlora, all the land is filled up now.

A mobilization is called by House Black, which is refused by the manors. The warmeet indicates that House Black currently has no enemy, and the locals don't feel like being conscripted to be sent to subzero temperatures without an explicit threat on the horizon. Eliopolous dedicates another 9000 soldiers to the Kathar war, while also attempting to secretly send finances to Tyrannian, but due to the scope of the financial transaction, it becomes pretty obvious where it came from on the other end. Another amount of soldiers are demobilized, and another number sent to the colony in Old Ceardia to protect the growth zone. Finally, House Eliopolous attempts to buy land from the South Dukelands. Obviously, the south Dukelands being fond of their independence, refuse any land sale option, as one would be prone to do in the archipelago, land being far more valuable than any regals could express.

House Kraus attempt to mobilize their army, however the manors refuse to send any troops, saying that at the warmeet, no satisfactory casus belli was called upon for Kraus citizens to be conscripted and pulled away from their business and homes. They do however send colonists to the Essalonia region. House von Drachenburg send another 2,000 soldiers to protect their colonial growth in Old Ceardia, and demobilize the rest of their army. House Typhonus quickly follows suit with a demobilization order also.

House du Brierüst dedicates another 5,000 soldiers to the Kathar war effort, while House Delmotte sends 1 wealth token to House Ravenstad, and demobilize all troops save for another 5,000 sent to the Kathar war. Demobilization of mercenaries is attempted, but mercenaries on principle refuse a refund or to depart without fulfilling their contract, so they remain where they are. In Calemberg, the death of the von Dietrich Baron causes a ruckus among the manorial caste, eventually culminating in a coup against the family which the manors have indicated was "inactive, inept and docile beyond reason". In the vacuum of power left behind, a Rote proposal reaches the court with a substantial sum of money to be invested in titled nobility of the archipelago. Given the vacuum that just created itself in the Archipelago, House Rote is essentially invited to take the land left by von Dietrich, along with a few additional Dragenthal Baronies to round out the County. As a result, nearly eighty percent of the population of Rote's homeland charter moves in a massive exodus to the Archipelago, leaving only a bare colonial claim region behind, and finalizing a set of moves that would reduce von Dietrich to landless nobility. Rote furthermore also sold their remaining to House von Rahm for 1 wealth token, and received a wealth token from Harhold, to fund the entire move, closing all their actions with a full demobilization of their army.

Baron van de Veer hands all of his lands to Harhold, completing the transfer of ownership, thus reducing the House to having no land. Van de Veer announced a big plan to colonize new land in Essalonia then, though finding that his homeland was essentially no longer interested in his machinations, and the fact that his colony was fully occupied and could not support him any more, Baron van de Veer arrived alone, with just a few servants and guards in their supposed new homeland. With such few support for a new colony and their Frisque occupied land essentially "giving up the fight and accepting Frisque rule", House van de Veer has lost all land and reverted back to a title-less noble, dobbering around in the ocean of Essalonia somewhere without support, without land and consequently with just a single chest full of Regals left.

Von Rahm colonizes some land between Sorenvik and House Black, while Yaotl hands their ex-Sterke-Enn colony to Blackjaw. Yaotl furthermore also dedicates 40,000 troops to the Kathar war. House Sastra and de Letoirneau conclude a deal for the Altery land for 3 wealth tokens to be transferred to Sastra in exchange for the land. By the time the money arrives in Bragacao, the manorial caste hear of further plans from House Sastra to hand finances away for obscure deals. Before the order can be given from the capital to hand the Altery land to de Letoirneau, the manorial caste conspire in a coup against the Sastra family, inviting the Coivra Duke in with an army who quickly clears out any Sastra supporters while the manorial caste open the doors and gates of all castles and manors to the invader, who peacefully installs a new Count, while the Sastra family is ejected from the land. The Manorial caste anounces that "Ever since our dear Baroness departed, her successor has been running the land into the ground, and now stands to sell off the last wealth House Sastra has left for absolutely nothing of value in the eyes of the people, enriching only its own complacent and idle indulgences, while inviting disgrace onto the people of Bragacao with their ungodly lustful behavior". The court essentially recognizes the move as de-facto, nothing could be done about it, the people so fundamentally revolted against Sastra that even if the land could be reclaimed, they would constantly rebel against their unwanted ruler. Furthermore, the transition was peaceful, with the Coivra Duke quickly retreating again after being awarded with the Letoirneau gold that was intended for the Altery sale. The Altery lands, regardless of the circumstance, were lost either way, neither being retained by the new Count of Alveraca, nor being given to de Letoirneau, as the local Altalar simply reclaimed the land on the premise that the previous Baron was unable to retain control over the region legally speaking.

This all obviously left de Letoirneau 3 tokens poorer, no land gained to show for, and only a bad investment to remember.

House Nystrom bought another Mercenary force, marching directly onto Skarpsten's capital, Skarpsten who managed to scrape the barrel in a last-ditch mobilization attempt. Despite the troops gathered, Nystrom strongly outnumbered Skarpsten's 1500 soldiers with 10,000 mercenaries sent by de Letoirneau and 10,000 mercenaries bought from own pocket sent to attack them, and as such this army was wiped off the field. When the Nystrom led force arrived at the capital, they would find that Krupp forces had already been camped outside. Unbeknownst to Skarpsten however, Krupp was cooperating with Nystrom, as Krupp had camped the vast majority of his soldiers outside, yet kept a few inside the capital. Those soldiers would then open the gates, and let in the combined Krupp and Nystrom army, who easily overpowered the capitals defences. With their contract done, the mercenaries disbanded, while 1000 Nystrom and 7000 Krupp soldiers retained control of the capital. Not all was doom and gloom however, as House Viduggla landed 20,000 troops behind Nystrom's invasion, and started reclaiming land as they went, releasing the local population and allowing Skarpsten to mobilize 2,000 fresh troops. Now Skarpsten would hold at having retaken half his land with the help of Viduggla, standing at a total of 22,000 soldiers, while Nystrom and Krupp held the capital with 8,000 soldiers.

House Blackjaw sent 2 wealth tokens worth of Regals to House Tyrannian for the sale of the Tyrannian colony. Truth be told however, the colony was still occupied by of Brilonde. When Blackjaw emissaries arrived, they proclaimed that of Brilonde should vacate the land as they would be in violation of the Pomeroy treaty by remaining there, the land being owned by Blackjaw now. Problematically however, as the land which Tyrannian tried to sell was not formally in their control, it was not theirs to give away. Yet at the same time, the fact that they expressed the desire to give it away, meant that they relinquished ownership. Since Blackjaw only arrived after of Brilonde already occupied the land, the land was (rightfully so in the eyes of the court) annexed by of Brilonde, who then essentially told Blackjaw "Nice try, but no luck" and ejected their emissaries from the land. This situation proposed two problems for the nobility to remember: Firstly that publishing treaties before the stipulations are adhered to, is not only common sense, it's required. Because the Pomeroy treaty was published more than a week after it went into effect, the legality of the treaty was nothing. A treaty made public should always be publicized before finalization, otherwise anyone can simply modify the treaty and then after-the-fact claim that these stipulations were already in effect. When the Pomeroy treaty was finally published, it essentially became null and void, and anyone who signed it was free to ignore any part of the treaty. Secondly, nobility ought not to sell land they do not control. Even if legally speaking the Tyrannian colony was owned by Tyrannian, of Brilonde occupied the land and was in control. Noble families cannot sell things they do not own, but in the process of relinquishing control (according to what little property law exists in Regalia) allows the first present party to simply claim it without payment. In this case, it meant that of Brilonde, which was already present before the relinquishing occurred, simply annexed the land outright, and fully legally.

In the Veer, the situation was about to get a whole lot more interesting. Harhold started by spending a wealth token in regals to gather support from the Veer manors, doing so but only barely just avoiding an open revolt from them post-annexation, as Harhold had no troops to spare to actually occupy the land, like von Drachenburg had done to Brühl after their annexation. The manors were essentially bribed to avoid rebelling against Harhold, but only just. Furthermore, Harhold paid one wealth token to Rote, and instructed his troops to push forward, supported by Ravenstad who had just dedicated another 9,000 troops to the state war, sent another 10,000 troops to the Veer, and had his second mobilization refused, the Hinterlands manorial caste indicating that "enough troops had been mobilized for the Duke to wage a foreign war that wasn't explicitly going to benefit the Brissiaud people, unless the Duke was going to publicize what Harhold was planning to reward House Ravenstad with". the 34,000 odd Harhold troops pushed forward with the 20,000 Ravenstad troops, gathering up to 54,000 troops. Tyrannian made a couple of desperate moves regarding the war.

Firstly, he announced a tax decrease, which the people were relatively indifferent to, as the percentage was too low to make an impact. The second move of Liberum Veto however, promising the nobility of his land greater autonomy and demobilization, resulted in a fervent recruitment of irregulars and partisan forces into the military. A second mobilization drive again was launched, this time more successful, as the manorial caste had previously expected the Delmotte treaty to count for Tyrannian also, but the annexation of land by Harhold of van de Veer made it clear that this was an apocalypse-now type of war. The Liberum Veto cleared another 20,000 infantry and 4,000 horsemen as the Manorial caste themselves also went to war as knights and retinue, followed by another mobilization of another 11,000 soldiers, on top of the 5,500 soldiers already present. Finally, another 20,000 mercenaries were bought from the money paid by Blackjaw, pushing the total army up to 60,000 soldiers, more than the Harhold side had available. Finally, in a stroke of societal 4d chess, Tyrannian made a peculiar offer to the Harhold troops, while using a token of wealth to spice up the deal even further. Tyrannian was prepared to install Harhold troops on ex-Veer Pagan land (which had been left empty after they left), giving them bond-free farms outside of the Kade House of Trade, and away from the feudal control of Vlissinghelm. While this obviously fell on deaf ears to many of the peasants under Harhold's control, a still remarkable number of 7,000 soldiers turned coat just as the battle of Pilterdorpe commenced, pitching the Harhold-Ravenstad forces up to 47,000 against Tyrannian's patchwork army of 67,000. Both sides clashed, Harhold pressed into a wedge because of his own troops turning on him, into a battle where his troops were severely outnumbered, albeit the quality of Tyrannian's partisan forces was less than the mobilized forces.

Fighting for their homefront, the Tyrannian forces fought with great valor, defeating the Harhold force in the field and pushing them back to their original position. Because of the protracted nature of the conflict, and because of the intense hatred on both sides (including hatred for turncoats), casualties on both sides were tremendous. Half of Ravenstad's knights were bogged down and pulled into the dirt to be slaughtered, while a third of both Harhold and Tyrannian forces had disintegrated. When the battles were over, only 10,000 Ravenstad soldiers retreated to the beachfront, while 18,000 troops remained for Harhold. Tyrannian's mercenaries disbanded, while of his total 29,000 soldiers+7,000 Harhold turncoats, 24,000 soldiers remained in total. The war was looking like it would continue once more.

Peirgarten meanwhile was putting well learned techniques of colonial management into practice by pulling a "Viduggla" on the land they had recently lost to Frisque, essentially causing a mass-exodus of people from Peirgarten's colony to the new one in Old Ceardia. This obviously left Frisque's management miffed, as the population ripped anything of value out of the land, reducing it to a barren wasteland, resulting in a serious setback for Frisque. Furthermore, Peirgarten demobilized the rest of its troops and sent what remained to the Kathar war.

Viduggla amped up the rhetoric to try and get the Anglian pluggers away from the west islands. The Groonenlanders however took Viduggla's "We will help you resettle" message and sent that directly to the Velheimers who still remained, causing essentially the Velheimers to all leave the land and take up Viduggla's offer for assistance in relocation. In the end, the population swap from the islands from Velheim to Anglian was completed faster than expected, but there was no immediate concern or even negative outcome to this situation. The Groonenlanders continued to pay taxes and observe the legality of their agreement, and the Velheimer population was surprisingly indifferent to being moved elsewhere, as Norrland was just all "one big rock of nothing anyway", showing a piece of pragmatic realism that one would not easily come to expect of the Velheim people.

Viduggla sent another 1,000 soldiers to Sterke-Enn lands, ostensibly to restore order and help with rebuilding, however this move went in completely the opposite direction. Sterke enn faced a rebellion from their manorial caste, who inspired by Sastra and von Dietrich's rebellions, had enough of their weak-willed Baroness in an event that would quickly be called "Frihetnatt", or Freedom Night, where Sterke-enn people massacred the Viduggla soldiers in their sleep and started ejecting all kinds of emissaries from houses Krupp, Sorenvik and Viduggla. The general spell of "House Svakke-Enn needs our protection" saw a sharp rise in border resistance towards Sorenvik. Sterke-Enn's 1 wealth of regals sent to Krupp never left Sterke-Enn's lands, disappearing somewhere near the border, likely seized by the rebels who used it to pay for additional support from foreign troops. Sterke-Enn was not fully ejected from the land. Nominally speaking, the manorial caste still recognized the Baroness as their leader, however the manorial caste had installed itself as a regent of Sterke-Enn's lands in defiance of the Baroness's inability to rule like a strong willed ruler, putting what Sterke-Enn people remained under house arrest, and running the realm for her. Aside from the murder of Viduggla troops, no outwardly hostile actions were done, aside from the unilateral declaration that House Sterke-Enn had left the Northern Pact and chose independence from foreign houses, regardless of whether the Baroness's seal of approval was underneath it. Meanwhile all of this was going on, Viduggla and Sorenvik attempted to shore up support among the manorial caste in Sorenvik's lands who were not as badly dejected as Sterke-Enn's, but still upset at the ongoing events. Sorenvik marched 5,000 soldiers to the Skarpsten border but did not tell them to cross stating that she was "not interested in what happened to Skarpsten". The attempts to secure support from the manorial caste failed, the baronets indicating that they had no interest in honeyed words, as long as the Duchess was unable to satisfy their need for a strong willed, competent, and above all, a leader with status who exhumed being a leader, not a third down the line sister who happened to get control of the family property because all of her superior sisters were murdered by their own stupidity. The Manorial caste essentially called for the Duchess to "behave more like a Duchess" both in Regalia as well as on the political playing field of the world.

 

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