House Eliopolous House Eliopolous summoned another warmoot, arguing for further mobilization. When the local manorial lords were about to walk out however, Eliopolous marched in trays of regals, to be sprinkled to the manorial lords in exchange for their troops. In fact, at the end, the manorial troops dedicated every single troop they had available to them, while the Baroness dedicated another 6,000 troops to the state. House Rote House Rote gave away all of their ships, 3 to Frisque as payment for their support in the war, and the last ship on lease to Nyström for their endeavors. Then, their treasury was emptied to pay of Brilonde, von Rahm and Eliopolous respectively. Their army moved to support Yaotl colonies, while some were sent to defend their own colonies also. House of Brilonde The Countess of Brilonde agreed to the stipulations of the treaty, demobilizing her Essalonian troops and handing the land back to Rote, while receiving finances in return. A warship was also given to Frisque for their support in the war, and another bale of Regals was sent to House Blackjaw as compensation for the manpower losses. The Peirgarten colony was de-facto (but not de-jure) sold to Frisque by House of Brilonde, while 10,000 troops of Brilonde were put under Norrvakt control and another 2,000 sent to help Peirgarten colonize Old Ceardia. Tyrannian colonies remained occupied. House Black House Black attempted to stir the locals in Narlas to be vigilant against Tyrannian revenge, but didn't pay anyone a dime to do so, so everyone sort of concluded that the Duke's orders were pointless, because they would just ask for people to stop doing their jobs which they needed to do to survive from day to day, and nobody paid attention to anything. But then again nothing happened anyway. House Delmotte House Delmotte preached for more troops to be mobilized, but the warmoot remained staunchly against the request, citing that the Letoirneau mercenaries were in fact shipping away from the Veer. Delmotte's fleet shoared up to the Basta region, 10,000 mercenaries being bought to help defend the homeland, while another 10,000 was sent to the Veer to invade van de Veer's lands. Since van de Veer didn't have any troops left at home, the mercenaries raged and pillaged through their lands, destroying the economy and leaving the people broke and ruined. House Delmotte however didn't invade anyone, just tighten their defences against a Tyrannian invasion which had no means of actually arriving since Tyrannian had no ships left and was locked down on the Veer. House Frisque House Frisque ended the blockade of Essalonia, moving some ships around to help the Viduggla colony. Money was sent to both Norrvakt and of Brilonde, while another 2,000 troops marched into the Veer colony, which was defenseless, and simply occupied it. House van der Veer House van der Veer sold the Hadarian occupation zone to Yaotl for a pittance of Regals, while then shelling the vast sum of their finances on mercenaries to help defend Tyrannian from the incoming invasion. Finally, the family attempted to summon the fourth warmoot to ask for more troops. This time however, the manorial lords essentially rioted against the Baron, and pulled back what little troops they had even given, citing that "A perfectly reasonable treaty was on the table, and now you're destroying us and lying about the treaties that have been offered", evaporating the last manorial support van der Veer had left. No outward rebellion was formally started yet, but it seemed that any bad news would push the van der Veer manor lords over the edge and rebel against their Baron. House Yaotl House Yaotl started a joint colonial venture with Sorenvik, bordering one another. Their entire army demobilized as finances were flooding to Harhold and van der Veer to owe up to land sales. 2 Warships were sent back to Yaotl ports, and all the occupation zones were renamed to their original names, with both Blackjaw and Sorenvik using a manner of fanfares and peaceful transition to limit losses and problems in the colonies. Despite Sorenvik and Blackjaw's honest attempts, and Yaotl's diplomacy, a point of no return had been achieved with the Ailor population. The Occupation zone was once 80% in control of the Ailor, and had now been reduced to a pitiance of the Ravenstad occupation zone and a few low population islands. With nearly 60% to 70% of the land falling in control of the Cro-Allar, the Ailor population suffered a sudden mental shock as fear overrode any sensibilities about the Allar taking control and silently assassinating the Chrysant War treaty by reverting the occupation zones. Overriding xenophobia and fear over loss of priviliges held by Ailors in Ailor administrated lands resulted in a mass-exodus from not only the recently acquired occupation zones, but even the ones still owned by von Rahm, Black, Howlester, Kade and Ravenstad, in the rising fear and tension that these lands would inevitably fall under control of Yaotl who was quickly amassing the largest army in the Noble realms. People started leaving from all segments of society, from soldiers who moved back with their commanders to their homelands, to merchants and shop keepers who packed up their business and moved back home. Allar were capable of picking up most of the business again, minimizing economic damage, but the Allar lands quickly brain-drained the Ailor element, and started becoming more homogeneously Allar. With the departure of the Ailor, most of the military installations fell silent and were abandoned, reducing the military troop numbers of everyone involved, and breaking open the debate in Regalia whether the Allar should be allowed to self-rule, with an essential silent end to the treaty that closed the Chrysant War. Neo-Bulwark elements immediately started protesting, saying this was a reversion of the pride of the Empire, and a travesty to the Unionist Faith, while Allar mounted counter protests against the reactionary elements that this was a restitution movement. Racial tensions in the Empire increased as the departure of the Ailor also resulted in a drain of the other races departing from these regions, the Dwarves going to Essalonia on urging of Blackjaw emissaries, Orcs following their Ailor mercenary captains and Qadir following the Ailor back to Regalia. Indeed, with the sudden agglomeration, the Digmaan Yaotl (who already started being called Qar-Digmaan, Digmaan of Digmaans by some Allar) would come to realize that his problems were no longer local, but as pseudo-near-royalty, would start having to deal with global events, which presented far more nuanced layers than ever dealt with before. While Court spoke favorably of the power grabs by the Digmaan, equal noises started expressing the disgruntlement of the Emperor over a Cro-Allar undermining a peace that had stood between their races for sixteen years, and in essence concluded that the Allar were undermining their position in the Crown Alliance. House Peirgarten House Peirgarten sent some finances to House Yaotl and Harhold, while mobilizing their army for self-defence, yet at little success. Some of the Manorial lords had turned against the Duchess, believing she was humiliated in the recent war, and that she wasn't even important enough to be tabled at the peace conference, only added as an afterthought. Finally, Peirgarten colonized part of Old Ceardia. House Sorenvik House Sorenvik returned all troops home, being faced with a sudden influx of 500 Norrvakt troops on their coast. The Norrvakt troops, carrying supplies beyond what a normal army would, stated they were present for relief efforts, to give food and medicine to the people, but while armed, the Sorenvik troops perceived them as a foreign invasion. As a result, Sorenvik troops attacked the Norrvakt soldiers, outnumbering them twenty to one and capturing them all, save for a few casualties. Aside from this, Sorenvik also experienced some unknown demagogues speaking out against her rule and saying she betrayed the people of the north, the source of which could not be traced before they left again. Some Manorial support was lost in the wake of the war however, the people having made up the balance of two wars leaving house Sorenvik but nothing save for the burnt out husks of shipyards and a fledgling colony in Old Ceardia. House du Brierüst House du Brierüst paid for a new ship, and sent money to Ravenstad on a loan. House Nyström House Nyström sent 20,000 mercenaries, including their 1,000 soldiers on a host of Rote ship to Skarpsten lands and invaded, attacking fort after fort. While much of the land was captured, the mercenary army failed to actually besiege the capital, which would always take more than a couple of days to take, and exceeded the mercenary contract. As such, while 70% of the Skarpsten land was now occupied by Nyström, their forces essentially evaporated down to just 1,000 men loyal to the house, who maintained the occupation of the land. House Blackjaw House Blackjaw demobilized some troops, while also sending troops to help the colonies. House Skarpsten House Skarpsten paid for a mercenary band of 10,000 soldiers to protect House Tyrannian. House Krupp House Krupp sent finances to House Tyrannian. House Ravenstad House Ravenstad bought 10,000 mercenaries to aid in their invasion of House Tyrannian, coupled with their 10,000 soldiers in Harhold's lands sent forth. House Viduggla Housae Viduggla gave their colony to Frisque, but not without emptying it first. As opposed to the Hadar situation where literally everything was dismantled, the people in Essalonia were given free choices to either join Viduggla in their new colony in Old Ceardia, return to Norrland, or stay behind and be ruled by a non-Ailor, non Old-Gods believer. Naturally, despite being presented the options on paper, everyone chose to simply join Viduggla in the Old Ceardia colonies, turning the Viduggla colony into a land filled with ghost towns, and setting back Frisque control by some time as Varran would be needed to supplement the population. But at least he left the buildings standing, this time. Furthermore, a new ship was bought, and money was sent to Yaotl. Count Viduggla tried to reason with the Groonenland Autonomous region that they ought to pay taxes, and leave the islands to the west of the landmass. The Groonenland Autonomy indicated however that these islands were the natural extension of the populated landmass of Norrland, and integral to the fishing business of the locals. The Groonenland Autonomy agreed to pay taxes as formally stipulated under a feudal contract, thus normalizing the Viduggla economy again, but refused any relocation attempts, sometimes even violently. The courts given authority in the Autonomy always decreed in favor of the Groonenlander Anglians, who then started pressuring Velheimers away from the islands by sending in Plugger crews to bust up their businesses. The rest of the Viduggla lands obviously didn't feel anything of this, the Groonenlanders kept neatly to their side of the borders, and upheld the stipulations, paying taxes, and establishing the irregular defence force of Groonenland that would henceforth protect Norrland. The relevant question would be, if Viduggla should care about his own locals being pushed out of their lands they had lived on for generations however. House Norrvakt House Norrvakt attempted to get Dwarves to relocate to their homeland, however these Dwarves refused to move as peace had returned to Essalonia. Furthermore, the growing local economy grinded to a normal pace again, given that peace had returned to Drixagh also, bringing an end to financial boom in Norrvakt lands. Norrvakt did not sell his colony. House Harhold Large sums of money were used to bribe the local lords at a new Warmeet to send troops to attack Tyrannian, which they all too greedily accepted. House de Letoirneau House de Letoirneau re-positioned its mercenaries in the Veer to their Altery lands, before buying 2 ships, and then sending said ships to blockade the Delmotte colony, cutting off financial gain and thus ruining the local economy. Furthermore, a large sum of money was sent to Harhold. House Tyrannian 30,000 Mercenaries were bought to defend Tyrannian lands from an invasion, while a further attempt was made to court the Groonenlanders for support against Harhold. The Groonenlanders replied to Tyrannian by unceremoniously sending him a letter with a crudely drawn anus on it, with the subwriting explaining that Tyrannian should go fuck himself, because he mistreated the Veer Pagans during their time there, assisted or tried to forcibly convert them, subjugate them, and generally abuse their position as meat bags to defend against a Harhold invasion, and that they weren't anyone's puppet to play around with anymore. Manorial support was lost as some of the mayors believed that Tyrannian was essentially just griefing his treasury and lands now despite a reasonable peace offer on the table, with little to no troops coming to the aid of the Baron's army with the Harhold and Ravenstad troops on the horizon (because Delmotte was too busy bunkering for a Tyrannian attack that could never even have happened). Harhold landed 40,000 troops, while Ravenstad followed with 10,000 mercenaries and 10,000 Knights. The army moved further inland, as according to plan, before the van de Veer 30,000 mercenaries (and no troops, because the manor stopped supporting their Baron) 30,000 Tyrannian mercenaries, 10,000 Skarpsten mercenaries and 5,000 odd Tyrannian troops descended on them, with the home field advantage and with a numerical superiority of about a quarter. Needless to say, Harhold's army was defeated twice in the field and forced to retreat. Proportionally, Ravenstad lost a considerable amount of its soldiers, while Harhold also lost some, and Tyrannian viritually nothing, all the damage being absorbed by the Mercenaries. They were however unable to eject the soldiers from the coastline where their base camp was, with the support of the fleets, leaving 35,000 odd Harhold troops and 3,000 odd Ravenstad troops parked on the Veerarm peninsula, with all the mercenaries disbanding after their treaty had been completed, leaving the Veer with only 5,500 Tyrannian troops to defend it and two very empty treasuries which could not possibly support another such mercenary army. House Sterke-Enn Sterke-Enn did nothing. Just sort of accepted the loss of their colony. The Baroness lost considerable support among the Manorial lords for ruining the colonies and just generally running the country into the ground by supporting pointless wars that only got soldiers killed.
“The houses van der Veer and Tyrannian consist of sulky, ill-mannered babies. I offered gracious and merciful terms not once but twice, but like greedy children, they wanted more than what I will ever offer them. Their idiocy is a blight on the Angle-Veer people, who have had to suffer through hardship for far too long.” Despite the relatively positive news, Louis’ tone was one of outrage, brimming with fury over the fact that a simple war had been drawn out for so long. He pulled a scroll of parchment from the shelves and started to write, later having a retainer pin the third iteration of terms pinned up on a public forum.
Meanwhile, in the breakfast room of the Black estate, on the Crown Isle, a tinge of genuine sadness had set upon the thrifty Duke of Narlas, as he read over the scribe's morning news reports. "So many bloody pointless wars, so many lives lost for nothing. Are we really no better than the Songaskians and their civil strife?" he muttered, in particular as he reached the final piece of news about the House Sterke-Enn losing a colony. He put the parchment containing the scribe's notes aside, then rubbed his temples with his fingers, his thoughts turning to other matters. "Dianne, Damian, let's organise a meeting with the Digmaan." Christopher rose from his seat, and set off in search for the pair. @darkarely @MrFluff1 @Carlit0o
