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In the Anglian Veer, the first act in the Coalition war against House Tyrannian, House van de Veer decided to betray their Harhold masters and pay for mercenaries to be gathered on the Veer to bolster the Tyrannian forces, along with the last loyalists left. House Tyrannian also attempted to purchase mercenaries with money provided by House Eliopolous, which never arrived, being spent on mercenaries to support House Ravenstad instead. With the Harhold forces further bolstered by another 10,000 mercenaries bought for them by House Delmotte, the total battle count would be roughly 50,000 Harhold led soldiers against 35,000 Tyrannian led soldiers. The battles of Panne-Heuvel and subsequently Steenbrugge and Caerdam resulted in two consecutive losses for Tyrannian and a final stalemate. With all said and done, Tyrannian ended up losing about half their soldiers while Harhold lost a quarter, pushing them back and occupying half of Tyrannian's land, who was forced to retreat to the capital to bolster in a last stronghold. At the Imperial Court however, tongues started waggling more intensely than they already had before during the war against van de Veer, arguing that it's becoming preposterous that Harhold was leading an invasion force of two Dukes, one Grand Duke with the tacit support of a Banking clan Countess and another Grand Duchess, versus the lonesome Baron. Were it normally that only the victor would lose face at the court, minced words were aimed at all coalition partners now, while Tyrannian's regard was raised at court for continuing to scrape on by against what was quickly being called "Harhold's monster coalition of bullies".
House Tyrannian attempted further to interfere with Harhold's Manorial Support by engaging directly with them and using all kinds of dirt to try and cause them to pull back troops from the front. This was moderately successful, with numerous loyal baronets being ready to call back their troops from a forced mobilization, were it not for Harhold's own attempts to secure the support of his own banking clans. By promising extended debtor control (and essentially preparing the Tyrannian lands to be turned into one massive corporate penal colony), he managed to get the Gaekraan bankers on his side, who quickly shilled for the Duke by bribing the baronets to stay invested in the conflict, thus not only stopping the drop of Manorial support, but even increasing it ever so slightly, counteracting Tyrannian efforts. Van de Veer, having made one last stand, and having spent their last assets to try and fight Harhold, suffered the final disgrace at court that saw the Emperor revoke their noble privilege status, casting the family down from Nobility to be Fallen Nobility. House Ravenstad finally sailed all of its ships back to Brissiaud while House Delmotte sailed its ships in to blockade the Veer.
Another conflict that raged across the Archipelago was the Nystrom-Skarpsten war. With Skarpsten and Viduggla forces on the move against the Skarpsten occupied capital, 10,000 Rote mercenaries came to the assistance of the Nystrom and Krupp forces. While Nystrom's forces were small, bolstered by the mercenaries and soldiers to 18,000, they at least stood a chance against Viduggla's 20,000 aided by the 5,000 or so Skarpsten soldiers, totaling 25,000. When Viduggla led forces arrived at the capital, a clear order was given to wait for Nystrom to open the gates, which never occurred. Krupp had meanwhile built numerous defenses inside the city to try and lure the forces into a breach and then murder them in so called kill zones, though also expected de Letoirneau cash for mercenaries that never came. Unfortunately for all parties involved however, it was actually the citizens of the city itself who turned, after Viduggla had successfully lobbied to the Manors to support his cause. A popular uprising occurred in the capital with the people turning against the Rote mercenaries and Krupp defenders, who also opened the gates and told the invaders of all the kill zones prepared by House Krupp. Krupp soldiers were then told to enter the sewers, but discovered that the Baronial capital of Skarpsten was not a modern metropolitan city, and in fact had no sewers, only trenches that ran along houses with the excrement flowing down water flows out of the city. With nowhere to run and the city attacking them all around, the Mercenaries under Rote's service quickly capitulated and left the scene, not willing to die in a hellhole, and Krupp's forces surrendered short after when news came that Viduggla was also negotiating with the Manors of Krupp outside of the Baron's knowledge.
The events that occurred next came in such rapid succession that it surprised everyone, even in the capital. When the Skarpsten capital was properly cleared, the Manors then turned on Skarpsten himself, Viduggla troops quickly following suit after and attacking the Skarpsten who had just fought with them to retake the capital. The Skarpsten forces, outnumbered almost five to one, practically surrendered instantly, placing the entire Skarpsten land under Viduggla control. The Manors were supportive of Viduggla taking over ownership straight away, but according to the rules of engagement, war was still officially ongoing and the court would not recognize an outright annexation of Skarpsten lands without a formal treaty. Skarpsten and Viduggla were called upon to finalize a treaty, or to let the Manors negotiate one by themselves, which they would eventually do if Skarpsten would take more than a week to stall for peace. At the same time, Krupp's Manors ousted House Krupp from their lands and pledged allegiance to House Viduggla, who made a public declaration with the ascension treaty that he would "Work towards reclaiming the Typhonus and von Rahm held lands as part of the condition for Krupp lands swearing fealty to Viduggla".
At the exact same time, a massive amount of cash was sent to the manors in Sterke-Enn's lands, along with a speech and rhetoric of the Viduggla Count to support local autonomy in exchange for loyalty to Viduggla who would hold off foreign encroachment as Norrvakt cash, Sterke-Enn cash, and von Duerr diplomats were also courting with the Manors to pledge allegiance. Originally the Manors of Sterke-Enn had no intention of swearing fealty to a foreign lord, especially with the trinkets sent by the other Barons, but when the Count sent 3 wealth trains worth of Regals, and made a lucrative offer of local autonomy, the Manors quickly accepted, declaring in a treaty that House Sterke-Enn was unfit to rule and oust the family from their land. Within the time span of roughly a week, House Viduggla had somehow ousted 3 Barons from their land (one still pending sort-of), and more than doubled his army to become the largest in the Archipelago. The Imperial Court quickly followed suit by upgrading the title of the Count to Duke Viduggla of Norrlan, to recognize the rapid growth of the County and its clever politics in ensuring Drixagh hegemony. The only thing that did not go well for Viduggla was an attempt to court with the Url of Jorrhildr, which was quickly rebuffed when Ailor were present in the diplomatic attachment. The Url had taken a liking of the Dwarves in the region, but were against any Ailor settling, causing any would be colonial Jorrhildr settlement by Viduggla to fail.
Otherwise to act in the North were Norrvakt and Sorenvik, both with different tones. Sorenvik clearly sent diplomats to Sterke-Enn's lands not to cause any sort of issue, which was adhered to, after all, they were now loyal to Viduggla. Sorenvik went about disbanding more troops from mobilization, slowly returning to normal, while also sending diplomats to the Dwarves in Ellador in an attempt to reach them to see how the war with the Isldar was going. These diplomats eventually returned empty handed, saying they could not approach Isldar borders or occupation forces, warned to stay clear of the interior by Ellador humans who still lived under Isldar occupation and were blindsided by the Empire which was too busy attacking the Kathar to care about Ellador citizens. Finally, Sorenvik announced the severance of the Northern Pact, with Sterke-enn being ousted from her land, Krupp being usurped and Viduggla being the last member left now, essentially meaning the Northern Pact ceased to exist. This information was immediately picked up by Norrvakt diplomats who went about going to all the Sorenvik baronets and mayors, talking of how badly Sorenvik was ruling her own land and had been engaging in politics on the global scale. Norrvakt was essentially responsible for dropping Sorenvik Manorial support even further, and they weren't even very secretive about it. Norrvakt also colonized Jorrhildr.
House Kraus's orders were confusedly received by the locals. While the Baron could dedicate 5,000 troops to the State War, his orders for a mobilization were ignored by the Manors who cited absolutely no Casus Belli to mobilize any troops. Similar attempts to mobilize by House Rote were rejected, as the Casus Belli was being used for as the Manors stated "Imaginary enemies and foes". Some similar order by House dei Olzolli about the training of soldiers was ignored because of a lack of mobilization, thus the House had no troops available to use for anything.
House de Letoirneau was showcasing its finances, bankrolling Ravenstad, Rote and Viduggla, while also re-positioning its mercenaries. 10,000 were sent to defend Loiree, but when the other party was told to go to Jorrhildr, the mercenary band simply ended the contract without paying the money back saying they had been hauled around enough and refused to travel to a snowy shit-hole to guard against imaginary foes. This left House de Letoirneau with 10,000 mercenaries in their capital, and a diplomatic mission to the ex-Sastra lands to try and get recompense from the Duke of Coivra. The Duke, also flanked by Anahera advisors and even a Wodenstaff emissary, essentially laughed at de Letoirneau's diplomats, saying the Countess had absolutely no means to exact any kind of reparations, and shouldn't have sent her money in the first place, indicating that the locals took the money as their own form of cost reparations for Letoirneau's destructive behavior in seducing the ex-Baron to hand away valuable property. The others present made it very clear that the South was in some sort of cohoots with each other that most of the other lords and ladies of the realm were not aware of. Even with only Wodenstaff and Anahera men present, it was hard not to see Pileran wealth, and even Lampero residue clinging in the area like there was some sort of regional conspiracy going on, but the Letoirneau diplomats were not tasked with figuring out what it was, so they all went home empty handed. Rote gave the money Letoirneau sent to regain some Manorial support, which was moderately successful.
House Peirgarten bought a new ship, while House of Brilonde also sent 10,000 troops to the Kathar war. Another 4,000 troops were deployed to sabotage the Kraus colony in Essalonia, which was successful, thus destroying Kraus's colonial efforts and delaying their arrival by another week (unless someone would sabotage them again), since they had no troops present to protect their colonial growth. House Frisque passed a law of demilitarization of and relaxation of the levy laws, allowing the local lords to keep most of their manpower to themselves. Truly, this came at the right time, because the army was becoming so large that upkeeping the fleet was becoming too expensive. By forcing the levies to be kept at home, but also pressed into sailor service, the costs of maintaining a levy was reduced and the local manors ended up paying the lord some money in thanks. House Frisque could continue to be a naval power without risking tilting into being a land power instead, which would have forced the family to scuttle most ships.
Finally, House Black sent another 3,000 soldiers to the Kathar War and clarified that they still had 5 ships at the Kathar Front. The Kathar Front logicians however quickly replied that "While it was nice that Black sent 5 ships, of the 100 ships owned by all nobles, these 5 ships would not contribute a substantial amount of effort to the Imperial fleets, leaving the Imperial fleets outnumbered by the bone fleets. The logicians urged House Black to be more pro-active about supporting the war, or at the very least helping to convince the other lords and ladies to send in their fleets. An exploration effort funded by House Black stumbled into a deep cave that led to a small grove surrounding a Valei Root. The Valei Root was harvested, killing the grove immediately, but brought back to the surface and shipped back home. Elven scholars and Yanar who investigated the item ascertained that it had numerous properties and could be used to do any of four things: One: create a luscious plant-environment where previously barely any or no plants grew anywhere in the world, Two: bio-enhance a single Yanar with unforeseen powers, Three: Revive a dead Yanar or cure them of Dulofall, Four: Create a Pond of Valei somewhere in Regalia (in the in-game map) to create a wonderful pond with unique and rare beautiful flowers found nowhere else in the world (communicate the choice to MonMarty when you've made it, if you want to make it at all). News of House Black owning a Valei root quickly spread among the Yanar and Altalar communities in Regalia, eventually becoming common knowledge.
House Tyrannian attempted further to interfere with Harhold's Manorial Support by engaging directly with them and using all kinds of dirt to try and cause them to pull back troops from the front. This was moderately successful, with numerous loyal baronets being ready to call back their troops from a forced mobilization, were it not for Harhold's own attempts to secure the support of his own banking clans. By promising extended debtor control (and essentially preparing the Tyrannian lands to be turned into one massive corporate penal colony), he managed to get the Gaekraan bankers on his side, who quickly shilled for the Duke by bribing the baronets to stay invested in the conflict, thus not only stopping the drop of Manorial support, but even increasing it ever so slightly, counteracting Tyrannian efforts. Van de Veer, having made one last stand, and having spent their last assets to try and fight Harhold, suffered the final disgrace at court that saw the Emperor revoke their noble privilege status, casting the family down from Nobility to be Fallen Nobility. House Ravenstad finally sailed all of its ships back to Brissiaud while House Delmotte sailed its ships in to blockade the Veer.
Another conflict that raged across the Archipelago was the Nystrom-Skarpsten war. With Skarpsten and Viduggla forces on the move against the Skarpsten occupied capital, 10,000 Rote mercenaries came to the assistance of the Nystrom and Krupp forces. While Nystrom's forces were small, bolstered by the mercenaries and soldiers to 18,000, they at least stood a chance against Viduggla's 20,000 aided by the 5,000 or so Skarpsten soldiers, totaling 25,000. When Viduggla led forces arrived at the capital, a clear order was given to wait for Nystrom to open the gates, which never occurred. Krupp had meanwhile built numerous defenses inside the city to try and lure the forces into a breach and then murder them in so called kill zones, though also expected de Letoirneau cash for mercenaries that never came. Unfortunately for all parties involved however, it was actually the citizens of the city itself who turned, after Viduggla had successfully lobbied to the Manors to support his cause. A popular uprising occurred in the capital with the people turning against the Rote mercenaries and Krupp defenders, who also opened the gates and told the invaders of all the kill zones prepared by House Krupp. Krupp soldiers were then told to enter the sewers, but discovered that the Baronial capital of Skarpsten was not a modern metropolitan city, and in fact had no sewers, only trenches that ran along houses with the excrement flowing down water flows out of the city. With nowhere to run and the city attacking them all around, the Mercenaries under Rote's service quickly capitulated and left the scene, not willing to die in a hellhole, and Krupp's forces surrendered short after when news came that Viduggla was also negotiating with the Manors of Krupp outside of the Baron's knowledge.
The events that occurred next came in such rapid succession that it surprised everyone, even in the capital. When the Skarpsten capital was properly cleared, the Manors then turned on Skarpsten himself, Viduggla troops quickly following suit after and attacking the Skarpsten who had just fought with them to retake the capital. The Skarpsten forces, outnumbered almost five to one, practically surrendered instantly, placing the entire Skarpsten land under Viduggla control. The Manors were supportive of Viduggla taking over ownership straight away, but according to the rules of engagement, war was still officially ongoing and the court would not recognize an outright annexation of Skarpsten lands without a formal treaty. Skarpsten and Viduggla were called upon to finalize a treaty, or to let the Manors negotiate one by themselves, which they would eventually do if Skarpsten would take more than a week to stall for peace. At the same time, Krupp's Manors ousted House Krupp from their lands and pledged allegiance to House Viduggla, who made a public declaration with the ascension treaty that he would "Work towards reclaiming the Typhonus and von Rahm held lands as part of the condition for Krupp lands swearing fealty to Viduggla".
At the exact same time, a massive amount of cash was sent to the manors in Sterke-Enn's lands, along with a speech and rhetoric of the Viduggla Count to support local autonomy in exchange for loyalty to Viduggla who would hold off foreign encroachment as Norrvakt cash, Sterke-Enn cash, and von Duerr diplomats were also courting with the Manors to pledge allegiance. Originally the Manors of Sterke-Enn had no intention of swearing fealty to a foreign lord, especially with the trinkets sent by the other Barons, but when the Count sent 3 wealth trains worth of Regals, and made a lucrative offer of local autonomy, the Manors quickly accepted, declaring in a treaty that House Sterke-Enn was unfit to rule and oust the family from their land. Within the time span of roughly a week, House Viduggla had somehow ousted 3 Barons from their land (one still pending sort-of), and more than doubled his army to become the largest in the Archipelago. The Imperial Court quickly followed suit by upgrading the title of the Count to Duke Viduggla of Norrlan, to recognize the rapid growth of the County and its clever politics in ensuring Drixagh hegemony. The only thing that did not go well for Viduggla was an attempt to court with the Url of Jorrhildr, which was quickly rebuffed when Ailor were present in the diplomatic attachment. The Url had taken a liking of the Dwarves in the region, but were against any Ailor settling, causing any would be colonial Jorrhildr settlement by Viduggla to fail.
Otherwise to act in the North were Norrvakt and Sorenvik, both with different tones. Sorenvik clearly sent diplomats to Sterke-Enn's lands not to cause any sort of issue, which was adhered to, after all, they were now loyal to Viduggla. Sorenvik went about disbanding more troops from mobilization, slowly returning to normal, while also sending diplomats to the Dwarves in Ellador in an attempt to reach them to see how the war with the Isldar was going. These diplomats eventually returned empty handed, saying they could not approach Isldar borders or occupation forces, warned to stay clear of the interior by Ellador humans who still lived under Isldar occupation and were blindsided by the Empire which was too busy attacking the Kathar to care about Ellador citizens. Finally, Sorenvik announced the severance of the Northern Pact, with Sterke-enn being ousted from her land, Krupp being usurped and Viduggla being the last member left now, essentially meaning the Northern Pact ceased to exist. This information was immediately picked up by Norrvakt diplomats who went about going to all the Sorenvik baronets and mayors, talking of how badly Sorenvik was ruling her own land and had been engaging in politics on the global scale. Norrvakt was essentially responsible for dropping Sorenvik Manorial support even further, and they weren't even very secretive about it. Norrvakt also colonized Jorrhildr.
House Kraus's orders were confusedly received by the locals. While the Baron could dedicate 5,000 troops to the State War, his orders for a mobilization were ignored by the Manors who cited absolutely no Casus Belli to mobilize any troops. Similar attempts to mobilize by House Rote were rejected, as the Casus Belli was being used for as the Manors stated "Imaginary enemies and foes". Some similar order by House dei Olzolli about the training of soldiers was ignored because of a lack of mobilization, thus the House had no troops available to use for anything.
House de Letoirneau was showcasing its finances, bankrolling Ravenstad, Rote and Viduggla, while also re-positioning its mercenaries. 10,000 were sent to defend Loiree, but when the other party was told to go to Jorrhildr, the mercenary band simply ended the contract without paying the money back saying they had been hauled around enough and refused to travel to a snowy shit-hole to guard against imaginary foes. This left House de Letoirneau with 10,000 mercenaries in their capital, and a diplomatic mission to the ex-Sastra lands to try and get recompense from the Duke of Coivra. The Duke, also flanked by Anahera advisors and even a Wodenstaff emissary, essentially laughed at de Letoirneau's diplomats, saying the Countess had absolutely no means to exact any kind of reparations, and shouldn't have sent her money in the first place, indicating that the locals took the money as their own form of cost reparations for Letoirneau's destructive behavior in seducing the ex-Baron to hand away valuable property. The others present made it very clear that the South was in some sort of cohoots with each other that most of the other lords and ladies of the realm were not aware of. Even with only Wodenstaff and Anahera men present, it was hard not to see Pileran wealth, and even Lampero residue clinging in the area like there was some sort of regional conspiracy going on, but the Letoirneau diplomats were not tasked with figuring out what it was, so they all went home empty handed. Rote gave the money Letoirneau sent to regain some Manorial support, which was moderately successful.
House Peirgarten bought a new ship, while House of Brilonde also sent 10,000 troops to the Kathar war. Another 4,000 troops were deployed to sabotage the Kraus colony in Essalonia, which was successful, thus destroying Kraus's colonial efforts and delaying their arrival by another week (unless someone would sabotage them again), since they had no troops present to protect their colonial growth. House Frisque passed a law of demilitarization of and relaxation of the levy laws, allowing the local lords to keep most of their manpower to themselves. Truly, this came at the right time, because the army was becoming so large that upkeeping the fleet was becoming too expensive. By forcing the levies to be kept at home, but also pressed into sailor service, the costs of maintaining a levy was reduced and the local manors ended up paying the lord some money in thanks. House Frisque could continue to be a naval power without risking tilting into being a land power instead, which would have forced the family to scuttle most ships.
Finally, House Black sent another 3,000 soldiers to the Kathar War and clarified that they still had 5 ships at the Kathar Front. The Kathar Front logicians however quickly replied that "While it was nice that Black sent 5 ships, of the 100 ships owned by all nobles, these 5 ships would not contribute a substantial amount of effort to the Imperial fleets, leaving the Imperial fleets outnumbered by the bone fleets. The logicians urged House Black to be more pro-active about supporting the war, or at the very least helping to convince the other lords and ladies to send in their fleets. An exploration effort funded by House Black stumbled into a deep cave that led to a small grove surrounding a Valei Root. The Valei Root was harvested, killing the grove immediately, but brought back to the surface and shipped back home. Elven scholars and Yanar who investigated the item ascertained that it had numerous properties and could be used to do any of four things: One: create a luscious plant-environment where previously barely any or no plants grew anywhere in the world, Two: bio-enhance a single Yanar with unforeseen powers, Three: Revive a dead Yanar or cure them of Dulofall, Four: Create a Pond of Valei somewhere in Regalia (in the in-game map) to create a wonderful pond with unique and rare beautiful flowers found nowhere else in the world (communicate the choice to MonMarty when you've made it, if you want to make it at all). News of House Black owning a Valei root quickly spread among the Yanar and Altalar communities in Regalia, eventually becoming common knowledge.
