This Thread will record all submitted Progressions as they are processed. Deadline for Period 5 is 27th of February, Midnight London Time. Submissions will be posted as replies until the Deadline is reached.
@NoctisUmbra Poncaire Support House Gishkim mobilizes its army and stations it in House du Poncaire's lands to guard against the Szabadok.
@NoctisUmbra Waddenland Exploration + Minor Financial Action House Gishkim sends 12 Wealth Tokens to the Legal Finance Ministry for development. House Gishkim travels Hoogeland to search information on where God Empress Elia died. Akurgal, Etsu, Enheduanna, Sarrapu and Darak walk into a library, and find the first book on the Emperors to read that Empress Elia died some decades after her husband well into the reign of the succeeding Emperors, cited as "unhealth, complications of age". She was buried in the All-Beacon Temple, before being re-interred in the Temple of Unyielding Perseverance. (Please put character application links on your submission next time. I cannot verify character skills otherwise). @festiveCorvid Marine Assault on Ruttgher, Finances House Petrou pays 6 Wealth Tokens to Mene'lain House Petrou pays 1 Wealth Tokens to Yariel Kearney House Petrou pays 2 Wealth Tokens ot Aaliyah Hithaerben House Petrou sends 2 Wealth Tokens along as supplies for the Army. House Petrou awards 3/4 of its naval forces to Yariel Kearney's command, while sending Count Avox Petrou to lead the soldiers. Specific orders are given to prevent pillaging and looting, which will presumably lead to a more expensive war as the army is no longer able to plunder livestock and food stores as the usual tactic during warfare, but one that leads to considerably less civil casualties. @ZiggyStarDusted A Check-in on Drowda. Va'la, Ell'Adzorwyn, Annaelyn, Nilolok, and Kenley travel to the Mae'ella banner hold ostensibly to summon the College of Sins. One of the scribes makes some sort of hushed "how dare you" mentions at the idea of low-ranking Sihndar deigning to summon the Elder council, and instead hurries them to some side room where another Scribe can deal with their questions. They are answered as followed: The Sihndar holds state they are happy about the Allorn invasion of Sendrass, as they could never send any sizeable groups of Demon Hunters there, and the Allorn Empire doing their work for them is a good thing. But, the Sihndar holds also state that they have no political stance or view on the supposed resurging Allorn Empire, because it is not their place to comment on the world's politics. Politics and nations are temporary, the threat of Demons is forever. They state they have tried to send a few Demon Trackers into the Allorn Empire to ascertain truth to rumor that there are many demons in the Allorn's higher government ranks, but they never returned. But again, the Sihndar are also pleased with the war against the Suvial Altalar, who they know have many Karamatologists (basically, Mages who summon Demons and make pacts with them for power) but could never tangibly prove it. They suspect that even if the Allorn Empire has Demons in higher ranks, then that serves the Sihndar as it's just one Demon lover killing another Demon lover. Nothing out of the ordinary has happened in Drowda as of recent and business is as usual, but they say that if the group is going back to Regalia, that the Holds would never say no to Regalia increasing its contributions with finances. Annaelyn makes some music to boost local morale and picks up a few new tunes from the locals that were created while they were away from Drowda. Kenley does some sightseeing but is mostly barred from entering the military areas or the walls, meaning only a very small section of public open space being available. Some children run up to them and start poking their skin, asking if they are sick or covered in mud (as many of the Sihndar children have never seen anything without the Northern Taint). They generally seem very amused with their animal-like Feka features as well, until one of the elder women hushes them away. @InversedGremlin Sabotage of Rutgher Generals and Nuisance Work Daenestra, Narla and Aylin travel to the Rutgher Theocracy to act on behalf of House Petrou to sabotage the Rutgher Theocracy. They start sabotaging the delivery of messages between the fraught head command in the capital and the generals in the field, paralyzing the state's relatively chaotic war effort against the Soren Kingdom. It's quite obvious that warfare in these far away Kingdoms is not quite as modern as it is in Regalia, and as such, sabotaging them proves much simpler. Daenestra uncovers several letters intended for Regalia, and burns them all as they were mostly requests for help and finances. @InversedGremlin Mercenary Skirmishes on Rutgher Theocracy… Take Two Petrou's fleet, part led by Avox Petrou and Yariel Kearney, blockades the strait between the Soren Kingdom and the Rutgher Theocracy, blocking what Rutgher troops still remain in the Soren Kingdom off from their homeland, and making communication further more difficult. Avox Petrou deploys several landings, attacking border forts and camps, and destabilizing the whole front. The Soren Kingdom well enough mobilized and captured all of the surrounded Rutgher troops, while many of the non-Unionists in the Rutgher army deserted or simply refused to fight. Collapse of the Rutgher Theocracy, as witnessed by Daenestra. Daenestra found themselves close to the military compounds in the capital of the Rutgher Theocracy, some of which, curiously enough, were carrying the Regalian banner, though a very make-shift one that had been hurriedly sewn together and was made with off-color dyes, nothing like the true rich deep lavender purple as was common in Regalia. Daenestra was still on their way out of one of the offices as some sort of commotion started gripping the city. Weaving from street to street and remaining largely unseen by the locals, Daenestra witnessed groups of men with axes and wolf pelts covering their faces marching through the city, barely being stopped by the few soldiers still in the capital. The men wore the traditional colors and furs of the Faithful of Bannor, the Cellik Old Gods variant of the Velheim Old God Basjtur. They roved through the streets, occasionally bursting into a building and dragging screaming people out by the hair and rounding them up in the town square. Eventually, they stormed the Theocracy's Council halls, where the Cellik Old Gods priests had previously ruled. They tore down the Unionist banners, and eventually, dragged out a number of Unionist Celates, their white robes completely covered in blood, presumably of their fellow Celates who put up a fight. Some sobbed as they were dragged off, others were screaming, and others yet were saying prayers to the God Empress Elia, for they knew, they were about to die, and so did Daenestra. When the Bannor men rounded up all the notable Unionist figures in the city, the rest of the Old Gods population of the city gathered round and started throwing rotten food at them. Mere moments later, the Bannor men doused the priests in whale oil and set them on fire in the middle of the crowd of other captives, screaming and begging for help, and accidently setting the others on fire who begged for mercy. What little of them made it out of the area where they were corraled in were beheaded by the men wielding axes. Eventually the mob reached such a fever pitch that Daenestra decided it was time to leave, as a Lesarra Altalar would not fare well in a religiously incited pogrom. As Daenestra tried to leave the city, they wove through streets, occasionally bearing witness to a mob storming a building and killing the inhabitants inside or throwing them out of windows, other houses were barricades and set ablaze with the people inside. Passing the city walls, Daenestra retrieved their horse, only to ride past the Unionist Celery, a small wooden chapel that stood on a hill, bearing the Insigna of Breizh Unionism with two distinct Breizh armored soldiers in front of it, in a clear state of distress. Daenestra witnessed one of the Celates and a few women who had escaped hurry a group of children from the city gates into the house of worship, while being followed by more Bannor men with torches. Daenestra decided not to watch what would happen next, and rode out. On their way back to the Soren Kingdom frontlines, the story was much the same elsewhere: the Rutgher Theocracy's Old Gods majority had risen up to counter-coup the fragile Unionist control over the region and were now executing a pogrom on the believers of the Everwatcher, beheading and live-burning them in the thousands, while more yet refugees tried to flee the collapsing state. In the north, the Serman Duchy invaded the Rutgher Theocracy, sensing an opportunity with most of its army caught in the Soren Kingdom, and military command completely paralyzed by a communications blackout. The Rutgher Theocracy had been delivered a golden bullet: Before its Unionist coup could properly solidify, the Celates who ran the country lost the support of the military, and then became an easy target for the revanchist movement, through a mixture of its army being caught behind enemy lines without supply, and their military leadership being paralyzed by sabotage. The Celates had prayed for the forgiveness of Elia, for they knew what their failure to consolidate meant: the murder of thousands of Unionist citizens which Regalia had slowly been building up through missionary efforts in the past 40 years. With the collapse of the Celates, and the disappearance of the Arch-Celate of Rutgher, the Old Gods priests regained control over the region. Upon retaking the capital, they immediately announced that they would break their Naval Act treaties with Regalia, citing Regalia's hostility against them (even while an illegitimate government ruled them), but also the fact that they blamed Regalia for staging the coup in the first place. Many of the Unionists in the other states of Carrhen saw the writing on the wall and packed up, fleeing north to the Archpelago as they suspected that their small minority communities would be next to face the Old Gods pogroms. They shipped along with the traders that were expelled from the Rutgher Theocracy back to Regalia, which should soon expect tens of thousands of refugees arriving in Vultaro, Daenshore, and the Greater Calemberg region. The Soren Royals and Generals congratulated House Petrou on a job well done in defeating the "evil" Unionists, and speculated that the Marcher Lords of the Rutgher Theocracy would soon sue for peace, even if religious fervor was gripping their cities in the meantime.
@Birdsfoot_Violet 10 wealth tokens to East Consul 10 Wealth tokens to Crookback Borough. @FireFan96 4 Wealth Tokens to House Novak 2 Wealth tokens to Cadwyn Marth @slurmancer An unconditional surrender is issued to the Rutgher Theocracy, which is unkindly denied. Navigation acts are offered to the Soren Kingdom, specifically Regal Currency and Missionary allowance with optional Regalian Trade Port. The same Navigation Acts are issued to the Serman Duchy, which is set as a condition to them to even be allowed to sit at the negotiating table to take land from the Rutgher Theocracy. This all goes wrong. The Minister severely overplayed their hand on the following conditions: The war between Soren and Rutgher was not started by the Old Gods elements, but by an illegal government. For all intents and purposes, Soren was planning to take some land, but that desire was very strained because it did not consider the Old Gods subjects of Rutgher responsible. There was already a heightened alertness against Regalia's religious motives, following the pogroms against the Unionists in Rutgher Theocracy. Many of the Old Gods nations here were looking for a culprit. The Serman Duchy was under no requirement of Regalia to monitor or control the peace process, as they were well able to complete the war by themselves. The implication that their allowance to be part of the war's end was contingent on Regalia's approval was highly insulting to the Duke's proud sensibilities. As such, the Soren, Serman and Rutgher Theocracy all make peace among each other, fronting their Velheim/Ceardian cultural and religious unity against a foreign aggressor, essentially painting this whole event, from the moment of the Unionist uprising, as a grand Regalian conspiracy to subject the whole of the Carrhen Continent to Unionist Conversion, as allowing missionaries in the majority of the nations would eventually pressure the rest to do the same. This has the following effects: Petrou's forces are declared illegal trespassers, and have to make a very hurried evacuation from the Soren Kingdom which has turned hostile to their presence. They are allowed to leave peacefully as gratitude for their assistance, but are told that if they come back, they will be treated as enemies. House Petrou has now lost their negotiating position and is essentially kicked out of the war that isn't happening anymore. The Soren Kingdom releases all prisoners of war and the armies of the Rutgher Theocracy that were not defeated or killed in battle, but instead imprisoned. Contrary to the Consul's statements, the Rutgher Theocracy actually lost very few soldiers in its conflict with Soren because they were surrounded and surrendered. There hadn't actually been any major battles either since Petrou only did skirmishes against border forts and cutting off supplies. With the Soren Kingdom now no longer being hostile, communication between the Old Gods government and the army was restored. The army is essentially still fresh and undefeated. @onearmsquid The Faure army is mobilized and joins House Gwentyr in invading the Rutgher Theocracy. Faure's army is instructed to focus on evacuating Tolonne people. The generals inform the Duke that there are no Tolonne people on Carrhen, a Velheim/Ceardian continent. @NebulaePrimo House Gwentyr sends 2 Wealth Tokens to House Petrou. House Gwentyr moves its army from Arlora & Torse to Rutgher. Because this rapid re-mobilization is costly, the army is billed 3 Wealth Tokens (not paid unless instructed) to cover the expenses of a rapid remobilization. House Gwentyr and Faure declare war on Rutgher and land in the north. The three nations, Rutgher, Soren and Serman consider this Regalia's answer after their ultimatum, so the three nations declare war on the /entire/ Regalian Empire in one go. House Gwentyr and Faura make a landing in the north of Rutgher, because all of their armies along with Serman and Soren are still in the west, but these two armies combined are expected to be outnumbered 9 to 1 when the Old Gods nations have fully mobilized to counter their attack. They hold their position near the coast for now. The other nations in the area start becoming unresponsive/vague with their statements. The implication is that if Regalia does not properly answer the Rutgher situation and resolve it, or properly express some strength in the region, it will likely cause a domino effect of Naval Treaties being broken by the other as of yet uninvolved Carrhen nations, as they largely are only maintained in the belief that Regalia has no strength to project. There are still multiple ways out of this situation, but it has certainly become a lot more complicated. The Rutgher Theocracy's answer is something along the lines of "The Gods will smile on my honorable death against the eraser of faith and the darkness in which the Old Gods are deigned to be smothered from the world, can you say the same, Imperial?"
@Lizmun Anglia trip Abigail, Bennet and Leo travel to Draackenrust in Bancroft territory to tour the area. Abigail uses her native name as she is from the area, but discovers quickly the fact that Anglians do not much like the Occult. Everywhere the group goes, Abigail gets weird stares and people murmuring in her direction, calling her a variety of names under their breath. Despite intentions to hide her magic, hiding a Silven eye is practically impossible when trying to speak to people, and they also seem to be getting shadowed by a couple of Isldar all the way they move around the province. The group passes the Sevensprongbrugge, a seven-part bridge construction with massive Dragon statues on each of them, covered in moss and plants and being in a severe state of decay from age. The group tries to venture into the hills and the mountains where Draackenrust Dragon sites are, but are firmly rebuffed by a number of Isldar and local checkpoints who call the group "outlanders" and refuse them entry to the more culturally important regions of the area. On the way out Leo does not decide to buy any of the local fabrics as they are "exceptionally dull". Draackenrust in general is a very boring province with little interesting in it, and the people themselves also seem exceptionally dour in comparison to other Anglian areas. On the way back to Regalia the group tours through Axenfoort where Abigail is considerably more welcome and even gets a few chats in with local business owners who hand waive the "people in the provinces" as superstitious and violent against the Occult, saying the situation only got worse when the Isldar arrived and enflamed the anti-Occult sentiments of the local Dragon worshipers. Leo does purchase some fabrics in Axenfoort which is a considerably more cosmopolitan city. The group does some sightseeing, going past Hero Vlaas's Temple (which Abigail remarks has exceptionally spiky towers, and many of them to the point it looks like a massive pin cushion). They tour past the Axenfoort bastion, the massive Kade residence that looks like a massive stick of rectangular butter made of stone and has barely any windows. Leo ponders "how do they even get any light in there?". Finally, on their way out, they go past the Thousand Blades Cloister, to indeed confirm that there are many blades stuck in the ground like a fence surrounding the Cloister. Abigail tries to count the swords to confirm it was indeed a thousand blades, but Bennet convinces Abigail to give up after Abigail gets a few cuts on her fingers as she keeps tapping the swords while counting them. The group then goes home. @DrKakio Hedryll trip House Viduggla gifts 5 Wealth Tokens to the Hedryll Kingdom. House Viduggla (through Yngvarr) inquires about the state of the nation. A local diplomat informs him that the Kingdom has "seen better days" and is still divorced from much of its historical land claim due to the Isldar and Vampires displacing them from mainland Ellador, but that the Kingdom is too weak to retake the land from those forces. They say they still have issues with Vampirism, and frequent outbreaks of Vampirism plague particularly their northern parts, while Isldar raids on the mainland of Ellador make rearching for any resources or recovering of territory impossible. Aside from this however, they say they are "holding on".
@LumosJared Scouting Ølovomm Silver, Arahael, Cyran, Elisen and Eletha travel to Ølovomm hold and attempt to scout the outside from the sky on Wyverns. There is nothing to be seen on the outside, just frozen wastes and snow, the hold has clearly been abandoned (at least on the outside) for centuries, and much of the stonework has started decaying from lack of maintenance. The Dwarven statues outside that double as watch towers have no lights in them, and some even were knocked over and cracked on the ground, meaning clearly, that if there were Dakkar inside, they didn't care enough to keep watch outside. Which brings them to the next point of making scouting difficult: Ølovomm is covered by a massive mountain-sized coverstone of a Dwarven relief. From what they can tell by shortly landing, the outside mechanism has completely degraded as all the metal has rusted away and caked the nearby ice red from disintegration. The inside mechanism is probably still functional, but the Dwarves here were never killed from the outside, but from the inside, and the fact that the Dakkar don't care enough to leave scouts outside, probably means they feel very secure that there is no way in from the outside. The group eventually concludes that they probably need 10 Wealth Tokens worth of excavation equipment or explosives to blow out the capstone. Though remark that the capstone is massive and a piece of art in itself, showing the founding legend of Ølovomm in decorative stone carving, and is far too large to move or salvage. The group finds no Primal disruption in the area. If there was any, it passed hundreds of years ago. @AtticCat Support House van Hal pulls their army back from Torse and Arlora and positions it inside du Poncaire land. House van Hal is forced to pay 3 Wealth Tokens in this move, as redeploying the army to a non-combat zone where they cannot use right of salvage or pillage to upkeep wages is expensive. House van Hal also sends a wedding gift to the du Poncaire capital: A large, ornate statue carved from marble of a Cheval du Ciel with a peacock resting atop its back; both figures staring into the distance together. Brambles and roses are cut into a band along the base, supported by other motifs of Ithanian sensibilities. It was perfect to top a fountain or some other space to be seen by all, made by Corathella Sireillan. Corathella is paid 2 Wealth Tokens. @NoctisUmbra Gishkim House Gishkim has to pay 3 Wealth Tokens to upkeep their army in peace time mobilization in du Poncaire lands, for much the same reason as House van Hal. @Simslp Kintyr Stuff House Guentyr pays 3 Wealth Tokens for the rapid remobilization of their army. Lynmard, Aldane and Alduir travel to the Ostyr Isles. The Seer they speak to is asked "why they changed faith", to which the priest goes on a long moralistic and theological rant, stating that the question is an ignorant one bereft of the simple realities of cognizant drift. By this he means: Contact with new people and new beliefs and new customs lead one to expand one's own beliefs, and this should be a most basic and simple to understand concept. No particular event caused them to convert, they just learned new information from contact with lots of new people, and modified their beliefs based on what they learned. The Seer did not receive a vision of the Old Gods, and above all refuses to be subject to wanton use of powers to extract his memories, and seems quite offended by the suggestion even that he should be read like a book. The group then departs from the Seer. The group then travels the rest of Kintyr and receives much the same response from the other Kintyr Weards: Paragon Unionism is heresy, but a relatively harmless form of heresy. The Kintyr Seers are not interested in hearing the Paragon version and remind the group to be careful about spreading the words of heresy, because they might accidently infect a group of people with a new faith through something as accidentally naive as just trying to "compare notes". They remind the group there was a reason why the Regalian Empire repressed information on Magic and Vampirism. @RaggedyGrace Payout House di Civita pays 5 Wealth Tokens to Briareth Sylphryalhn for the completion of a bounty. @Halsi Suvial Diplo Fabien, Kiyana and Lisette travel to the Suvial Principalities to inquire about the ongoing war. The Suvial seem not particularly thrilled to see them, and send only a low level diplomat to talk things out. The low level diplomat tells them "the campaign against the Allorn is going splendid, the Allorn have no defenses against the Suvial mastery of Magic, nor can their generals compete with Suvial marshal skill." The diplomat refuses to discuss casualties, captures or current occupied territory however. Regarding the Kathar, the diplomat simply states that the Kathar have been dulled into placidness to not attack the Suvial from behind while they invade the Allorn. The diplomat states that the Kathar know quite well that mutual assured destruction through fire-scars and void-outs prevents both states from going to war with one another as it would mean total annihilation on both sides.
@LeafMC Hellatos Celates Baroness Celate Alexi travels to the Petrou lands and convenes the Concilly of Athos and the patriarchs of the provinces to discuss the matter of Caeren refugees. She attempts to gauge their attitude to the refugees, as well as the feasibility for future settlement. The priests are are silent at first, before one speaks out and asks mother Alexi if she is aware that House Petrou is seen as responsible by these people for the killings of thousands of Unionists in Caeren, and that refugees are unlikely to try and live in the land of their aggressor. He expands that the bureaucracy already informed Hellatia that they would be unlikely to expect any refugees because they believe House Petrou is Demon-worshiping Pagan-loving possessed. Another comments about how he believes that, when the few Celates who did make it out of Cearen arrive in the Regalian Archipelago, they are likely to call for a conclave in Regalia to write a Writ of Sin against Petrou. They scoff at the idea and that it will unlikely affect Hellatia itself, as Etosian Unionists do not follow the "authoritarian goose-stepping of the dogmatic community", but that it probably will complicate relations between Etosian and Dogmatic Celates for some time to come. The Etosian Celates go into a further debate to discuss the moralistic implications of what House Petrou did, to what Alexi is mostly a backseat moderator, until they finally agree on a stance from the Concilly: "House Petrou was just in its execution of the Emperor's will. The Concilly ponders if perhaps House Petrou was too quick to reach for the sword, to not allow pen and ink to have some effect to preserve lives, but that at the end of the day, the gamble made by those Dogmatic priests was their own, and that they condemned the souls of the dead and dying to the Everwatcher, not Petrou." The Concilly essentially concludes that Petrou was justified in all of their actions, and that any response the Dogmatic community produces, will be one based on their own hypocrisy and attempt to cover up their own wrongdoings, and that they should not waste breath on the dogmatic priests, but instead see how the other religious communities respond.
@slurmancer Spying on Kabau Barbossa, Si'Zralli, and Zsedhu travel to Digmaan Kabau on a scouting mission in an attempt to discover more about Kabau's Juara duels. There are no duels ongoing currently, meaning it becomes hard for them to discover anything. Barbossa and Zsedhu are unable to discover anything from the locals beyond the point that they seem very much intimidated and/or loyal to their Digmaan, but they are unable to detect whether it is loyalty based on respect, or fear. Si'Zralli pokes a bit deeper and goes into areas where the others are not permitted, though something odd happens. Si'Zralli remembers going into a specific area of Digmaan Kabau's inner courtyards, but then has a complete lapse of memory and becomes conscious again on the steps stepping out of the Palace. Confused and dazed, Si'Zralli returns to the others, who promply oberve that there are fresh teeth-marks in Si'Zralli's neck. The necessary anti-Vampiric infection precautions are taken before the group returns home, having only more questions than answers from this trip.
@Arhbi Ithania Stuff House Delmotte builds a level of rapport and familiarity with the Ithanian Court and the various Hivre nobles with a 10 Wealth Token spree of gifts and expenditure, along with Markus, Colette and Rhea Delmotte. While this seems to have moderate success, one of the courtiers who sees through the obvious attempt to bribe favorability warns the Delmottes that "playing nice gets you invitations to secret parties, but that one should not expect the world from bribing popularity in Ithania, especially since everyone here is already richer than you". He is essentially saying that the 10 Wealth Tokens weren't a complete waste, but that they shouldn't expect massive political credit from it either. @AlphaInsomnia Nordskag The ongoing conflict with the anti-reform Velheim is still a relative stand-still. The rebels are either building up forces or afraid of acting out, and the King seems unwilling to move out and just slaughter people unprovoked, so the army is stagnant in a staring match currently while the King continues to push modernization efforts. @HydraLana Tryllejag Ardige, Yngvarr, Ivar and Ithelion travel to Tryllejag, along with a 2 Wealth Token donation to Tryllejag to assist in their troubles. Ardige takes command of the soldiers, but finds that they have largely been bogged down in the struggle against the Ogres. Notably: the scouts report that the Ogre population and army seems to be growing more and more, but also that the Ogres don't actually seem to have an actual army, but mostly a rabble held together. They report that some Ogre women even go to battle with infants wrapped in slings on their backs, which is extremely unusual. Viduggla ships scouting the coastline observe something even more peculiar: rafts and small ships of Ogres traveling south to Tryllejag, some of them even had a scant number of Thylans on them, seemingly cooperating with the Ogres to move south. The Viduggla fleet decided not to bombard the raft and small ships, as they seemed entirely unarmed and ramshackle put together. While some weapons were present among the Ogres and Thylans like spears and swords, they would have been unable to put up a fight and likely all sank.
@seoulmate Ruling House Peirgarten mobilizes its troops to join up the many many armies already in Torse & Arlora, and send 4 wealth Tokens worth of supplies with them to support Lillian Howlester's attempts. @ChapterDeath Foreign Consul East Lillian, Alesia, Alastair, Amelina, and Rodrigo travel to the authorities in Torse & Arlora. The East Consul pays out 10 Wealth Tokens from its (non existent) bank, thus spending in deficit. These Wealth Tokens are sent to reconstruction efforts in Arlora and Torse. Lilian Howlester brings orders for the Mac Conall and Peirgarten armies, however the Mac Conall army never shows up as it wasn't mobilized. Present in Arlora & Torse are de Azcoissia, von Schwarzkrau, Delmotte, Peirgarten armies. There are so many armies present that the local economy and colonial food production is unable to sustain the presence of tens of thousands of soldiers that now outnumber the locals. Attempts to spread them out is proving more and more difficult. As a result, @Arhbi @Birdsfoot_Violet @Hemingway7 These houses are billed 2 Wealth Tokens to send additional supplies because the local area is unable to supply this many armies. Peirgarten is not billed, because they already provided supplies this cycle. The realms indicate they have had very little contact with Hyttelåm, Kermån and Hålman, but they suspect that these nations fared better during the Bone Horror Crisis because their population had a higher degree of martial training, being Velheim. They say that even before the Bone Horror Crisis, these nations closed their borders to the Torse and Arlora states because they were waging war with one another, and say they have had practically no contact with them, but the border forts and towns still show some sign of life. There is also no contact with the Aontaithe realm, saying that since the Allorn basically took over, and the Asha started coastal raiding, they have closed their borders also, with only limited Allorn fleets sailing in and out occasionally. They remark that some of the ships going in and out closely resemble slaver ships of the past, but that they couldn't get hard confirmation on them. They have very limited information on the mainland Essallonian states as they are an ocean away from them. All they know about the Oltaran Hegemony is that they are a strictly atheist republic ruled by Oligarch families who have massive armies and wealth, and that they are in a constant sphere struggle with the hyper religious and occult hating Heser-Herriarch Theocratic Empire, ruled by the Supreme Primarch and the Council of the Clergy. They say occasionally Oltaran Hegemony merchants show up, but that they are always turned away because they are not signatories to the Naval Acts and as such aren't allowed to trade with Torse and Arlora. Mac Conall and Peirgarten set up the deployment of troops. While initially there were plans for Mac Conall and Peirgarten troops in tandem to be set up, since Mac Conall troops were never mobilized, they make do with Peirgarten troops.
@MyJhintuition Tressna Expedition Godrun, Roland, Asger, Valenia and Erland Helvig travel to Fendarfelle along with 30 soldiers and supplies to reach Mount Tressna and perform an expedition to the lone Seraph tower at the volcano's base. The group doesn't even reach Mount Tressna (which is deep in Fendarfelle's jungles) and nearly the entire Nordhjem soldier (npc) detachment is wiped out by the Bone Horrors along the way, massive constructs of magically cobbled together bone and dead animal mass into abominations sometimes as large as houses. The group returns home, with the Barons all penning a letter to the Duchess to "Please stop sending our sons into horribly under-manned expeditions to the most dangerous places in the world that obviously require an army". @soggytoenails Rehabilitation Capital Iranela, Kayhdin and Demetrius travel to Regalia rehabilitation clinics to discuss the effectiveness of them. They inquire and are answered: There currently are two populations who mostly consume opiates: nobles, and the poor. The nobles are still able to make use of their supplies in their estates, and have "other" means of acquiring opiates on the black market without much issue. While opiates have publicly disappeared from estates, they say that nobles "probably still use opiates as freely as they did before the ban with little impact." The other group, the poor, is faring considerably worse. Since opiate trade largely went underground, smugglers have hiked the prices and are hedging on the poor being desperate to basically extort them and their addiction. The issue is even worse in Crookback, where unemployment is so high that the locals just cannot go to the rehab clinics, as spending any amount of weeks there-in would result in them not being able to make a living, or having their house broken into and contents stolen. The poor often simply don't have the means to go to rehab because they either need to beg/go to soup kitchens to get food for their families, or need to work and taking time off work would just result in them being replaced by one of the many, many other poor workers in the city. The opium ban is largely ignored by vast segments of society. The only ones who seem really in favor of it are the religious and the middle to upper class aristocrats who have quickly changed their business model where necessary and are generally in favor of "decency improvements in the Empire", considering opiates indecent. @soggytoenails Rehabilitation Clinic in the North Iranela, Kayhdin and Demetrius travel to the rehabilitation clinic in Drixagh. This clinic is completely empty and the people just kind of sit around waiting for anyone to enter. The workers say that the ban on opiates is pointless in Drixagh because the locals rarely used foreign opiates, but hallucogenics from the local areas. The Velheim Raakr's aren't enforcing the Regalian opiate ban, and the noble families don't have an expansive constable presence in their own lands that would cause them to enforce the ban also. The locals just dig up hallucogenic roots and plants and continue doing whatever they liked. They basically say that the opiate ban has 0 effect in Drixagh, and that the rehabilization clinic was a waste of money so long as the nobles do not push for the removal of hallucogenics from Velheim
@NebulaePrimo Arlora Catacombs Viviwynne, Aldane, Lynmard, Alduir and Henric travel to Arlora to the Catacombs of the Arloran Kingdom to discover more about Gulbrand's actions. Unfortunately, the Arloran Catacombs are completely empty. One of the local priests regales that when the Bone Horror incident struck and the entire kingdom was lost, the catacomb corpses probably rose along with everything else and marched out, nowhere to be found (or slain somewhere in the forest years later). Furthermore, King Gulbrand never died, nor was he ever found. The Midnight Court and all his conspirators remain at large and haven't been seen for years. The Catacombs of the Kings are presently used as archive to store the books of salvaged libraries in a relatively environmentally stable condition. Nothing of interest is in the Catacombs however. On their way out, they talk to one of the Mage-Knights that Alduir recognizes, who hands him a report on the Arlora situation that is still under investigation, and states he is permitted to share some of it with the others. What he is allowed to share, is this: The Aelrrigan Order believes that the entity believed to be Estel, or at least a construct with the resemblance of Allorn depictions, was destroyed by Void Arken many centuries ago, and broken up, and spread to the many corners of the wind to keep the pieces of the statue seperate. They believe that over the centuries, Exist Arken have gathered these pieces / killed the Void Arken who held onto them, and put it all back together again. They are unsure how the King of Arlora was involved, because they believed he was just a mundane man and there was nothing special about Arlora, though entertain the possibility he was secretly a mage, or possessed by an Arken. They believe that the simple act of re-assembling Estel's pieces caused the construct to come back to life and start going on a murderous rampage. The Aelrrigan Order believes that the construct was constrained by magical restraints and that these were broken when the construct was destroyed, so that when it was put together, the construct was no longer operating on instructions and started doing whatever it wanted: which was to start killing everyone. They are unsure what happened to the Construct, as it disappeared along with several entities identified as Void Arken during the last battle in Arlora. ((quick point of correction: Alduir is not a Mage-Knight, his permission does not make him a Mage-Knight in the sense of progressions or the wider lore since players cannot play that level of cataclysmic powerful character. He's just an Aelrrigan Knight.))
@fantuinn Contacting Sol Fazais about the Cielothar refugees. Harlow, Cyrillian and Alesia travel to Sol Fazais to meet with the Sol on behalf of the West Consulate. They meet, and discuss a variety of questions, which the Sol answers: The Sol has no information about the rock that supposedly Cielothar were enslaved to mine, and the Cielothar that reach him presumably didn't get enslaved to mine. What he is essentially saying is that he only ever received Cielothar who escaped before being enslaved, he never received any Cielothar who escaped the supposed mines. He speculates that if the rumors are true, it might have something to do with technology. He states he is aware that many Regalians still believe in the Regalian myth of technological superiority, and that Regalia is the only nation with artillery, but states once more that this was proven horribly wrong when Montagaard got 200,000 soldiers including himself completely wiped out when facing a new unknown piece of Altalar artillery. He suspects that the rock might be artillery fuel.
@canaaa Kathar Contact with the Crimson Witch Cabal Rennyn, Laurel, Kinteh, Kobra and Kelvenne travel to the Dread Empire to seek contact with the Crimson Witch Cabal. A haughty cabal member eventually agrees to speak to them in one of the Kathar temples. While information and services are offered, the representative quickly cackles for an uncomfortable amount of time. Then responds: "You can keep your weeks-old outdated information and paltry services", going further to explain that "The Cabal has no interest in talking to a nobody with her fake-Cabal pets who aren't really Crimson Witches but just pretend to have the aesthetic of them to seem intimidating or dangerous. The representative leaves while commenting that the group should try one of their many Vampire/Hexenblood friends instead of the Cabal, because they don't have the credentials to "play with the big leagues". The group does a rotational visit to a few of the temples before returning back to Regalia.
