380YE Winter Solstice winds of war

Overview

The empire is engaged in multiple campaigns with the barbarian orcs.

The eastern front is quiet. In Spiral, the Empire and the Grendel are both defending the territory they control. A few minor skirmishes between scouts take place but both sides appear to be more interested in deefense and consolidation that engagement. In Weirwater, the unwholesome army out of Karsk seems to be quiescent - although there are enough travelers tales to suggest that it is still a threat. Likewise, Imperial forces keep a vigilant eye on the southern coast of Necropolis and the eerie supernatural forest of north-western Reikos - but for now, no threat seems to be forthcoming.

Quiet on the Eastern Front

Winter is coming. It creeps in, slowly and inevitably. The nights turn cold, dark beneath starless skies. Unlike last winter the winds do not howl, just sigh mournfully with the promise of heavy snow. Mornings start with the quiet crack of ice being broken on water barrels, the sharp crunch of frost-gilded grass, and muttering about the frigid air.

We will bide our time, wait out the Grendel Storm and
make ready to stand heroically if they push any further.

General Sullik of the Northern Eagle

In Spiral, the orcs stay close to their campfires. The Broken Shore is warm and dry even in winter. The Grendel on the whole do not much care for the cold. Their forces still hold much of the south - and the Black Plateau of course. The Imperial forces keep a close watch on the uneasy borderlands between the territory they hold and the territory held by the invaders. In Ankra and Cinion, spires begin slowly to rebuild. It is almost peaceful There is some half-hearted skirmishing, mostly encounters between bands of scouts, but no clash of armies.

People are rebuilding in Reikos as well. The wave of Spring magic has entirely subsided. New forests spread across what was once ruined land. Here and there, in defiance of winter, the Highborn break ground on new chapters. Axe and saw are taken to hardwoods; pick and shovel bite deep into stone. Makeshift camps begin to be replaced by shacks and cottages, and slowly, stone walls start to rise again. Tamarbode is silent, however. No woodcutting or quarrying in the dark forest that Llofir claims.

Time to rest and recover. Dont get used to it!
We'll be back on the front line soon. Make the most of it!

General Estana I Mestiere I Guerra

At night, the builders in northern Grey Charge, and western Broken Ride, and north-western Longshire can see the faint luminescent glow of mushrooms beneath the trees. In the absence of the stars, it is eerily bright.

In Necropolis, the Quiet Step and the Red Wind Corsairs hold a long vigil against the possibility of a Grendel assault against Sanctuary Sands, but no such assault takes place. The scouts of the Quiet Step line the cliffs overlooking the Bay of Catazaar, searching for signs of danger. By the tomb of Atuman, they build a makeshift beacon to warn of any potential naval invasion, but the beacon is left unlit.

In Weirwater, the unquiet dead still wait beneath the trees. Six months ago they emerged from Karsk, from the Semmerlak, and marched south. Driven back from Astolat, they remain in the forests of Weirsmoor, and Hawksmoor, and southern Garthsmoor. Under the ebon night skies, corpselights dance, and emerald fires flicker. Questing knights and knights errant are drawn to Weirwater, to the unliving host. There are deaths, and stories of glorious fights alike. Some of the weavers of Applefel have cautiously slipped through the woodlands, wrapped in heavy cloaks against the cold, hidden from malicious eyes. There are unsettling stories. Pedlars, woodcutters, charcoal burners, scouts, poachers - people who have not come home despite the cold chill of Winter. The yeofolk mutter and grumble. There are probably good explanations for the people who have disappeared, but the easiest is that the army of the dead has eaten them. "Something must be done," becomes the refrain as the Winter Solstice approaches. "Someone must do something!"

Quiet on the Western Front

The Mourn rests uneasy. The Jotun took Greensward, and the Empire took it back less than a month later. The Jotun withdraw north and west as an early winter snow settles over the burial mounts they leave behind. The dark earth of the south-eastern farms is freshly turned, a final bed for the heroes of the Marches. After so much bitter fighting, the situation is back to what it was during the long months of the ceasefire

This is the war of a generation. We will not end it in one day, but we will raise the curtain on a decisive act.
By the time the curtain falls, you will be heroes and all the world will be your audience.
Take their breath away..

General Gabriel Barossa of the Wolves of War

The Empire defend what they have regained. The Jotun defend what they have taken. On the walls of Orchard's Watch, and Fort Braydon, and La Redotta Rezia, the sentries stand a nervous watch in wan daylight and pitchblack night, straining to hear the tread of orc feet signalling the orc return. It doesn't come.

Stories blow down from the north, of resistance crushed without mercy. Of armies of orcs moving across the hard, frozen ground. Of fighting, but not with the Empire. A week after the Autumn equinox nearly a hundred men, women, and children of the Mourn cross the border from Grey March into Graven Marsh. Many of them are Marchers only in theory - children grown up under the Jotun who have known no other way of life. Each of the adults bears a livid brand on their cheek of the rune Queros. Their passage is watched by five hundred silent Jotun on the hills above High Courage. These are some of those who rallied to the Empire when they came to liberate the Mournwold. Defeated by the Jotun, marked as oathbreakers, and set free as agreed with Tancred De Rondell. The last of them, exhausted from their long march, bring a message. "There will be no more mercy."

Autumn turns to winter, and a shroud of silence settles over the Mournwold broken only by the bitter cries of crows, hungry for war.

My Friends, take heart in knowing you fight for your home,
your nation and your people.

General Vrael i Sol-Devorador i Erigo of the Fire of the South

Further south, in Kahraman, the silence is broken by the roar of great beasts and the clash of steel on steel and stone on flesh. The Fire of the South, the Fist of the Mountains, the Summer Storm, and the Towerjacks sweep west through Serra Damata, supported by scouts and auxiliaries from Fort Braydon in the north. They encounter little resistance from the Jotun. The orcs have broken camp and marched west, ahead of the armies.

What they encounter instead is a citadel of ice and black stone. The castle dwarfs the town of Damata, as the giants that garrison it dwarf the soldiers who come against them. Massive warriors of the Summer Realm wrapped in leather and white fur, tough hides marked with curling spiral tattoos, they fight the Imperial troops without let or quarter, defending the Jotun retreat. The citadel cannot stand against four Imperial armies, but it holds for three days before finally the gates are broken and the fighting shifts to the halls and chambers of the magical edifice. Once the walls are breached, the Imperial soldiers find that the giant orc-like ogrekin are not the only defenders - vicious fighting between human and orc, and squat ivory-tusked goblin-warriors slicks the frigid halls with blood.

I ask the Summer Storm, once again, to earn their legend
and cut down the Enemy!
Strive for your nation!
March for your Empire!

General Irontide Skar of the Summer Storm

These creatures of the Summer Realm do not seem to fear death; for them it is only a defeat that sends them back to their mistress' domain. Those who fall beneath their spears and their warpicks and their icy axes... they do not rise again. In the end, around a hundred Imperials die taking the magical citadel... with little to show for it. As the Winter Solstice approaches the castle begins to crumble and sag. By the end of the summit it will have gone, tumbled back into the realm of the Queen of Ice and Darkness.

The Jotun have long gone by the time the Imperials liberate the people of Damata - along with a bounty of white granite from the Damation Cliffs. The beautiful walls of the town still stand, the intricate calligraphy that covers them undamaged by the Jotun occupation. Wordlessly, the dhomiro of Damata take the commanders of the Imperial armies to view a part of the walls where new writing can be found. A Jotun stonesmith has carved her own passage onto the walls of Damata, in a stark and angular letters a foot high. "We came. We shall come again."

Game Information: Western Front

The situation in the Mournwold has not significantly changed - the Empire controls Greensward and the Jotun appear to control everything else. The Singing Caves were briefly in the hands of the Jotun before they were liberated - so the Imperial Senate may choose to allocate them again. Indeed, during the Autumn Equinox the Senate voted to allocate the Singing Caves as a Marcher national seat but the motion was subject to veto by the Throne. As a result, the mithril mine remains unallocated. If the Senate reaches a decision swiftly, it may be possible for the seat to be appointed during the coming summit.

Imperial forces have completed the liberation of Serra Damata from the barbarians. All of Kahraman is now under Imperial control once again. The white granite quarries of the Damation_Cliffs have been recovered and are now available to the Senate to allocate. Regardless of their decision, the seat will not be appointed until the Spring Equinox at the earliest.

On Crimson Field

The time is at hand. Now is the day, the season,
the Glorious Golden Sun will shine over the Barrens!

General Zoran Orzel of the Golden Sun

The Golden Sun and the Gryphon's Pride press the advance in the Barrens. They consolidate the territory they have taken in Carmine Fields, and push south and east into Murderdale. Imperial forces encounter some resistance, but it is disorganised and falls easily before Dawnish steel and the spells of the war witches. It seems that many of the orcs native to the northern Barrens have already fled before the encroaching armies; those that remain are hard-bitten savages who fight viciously to defend their homes but are soon swept aside. The scattered survivors retreat into the woods to take up lives of petty banditry.

Imperial Forces are supported by a field hospital. Perhaps inspired by the words of Empress Lisabetta at her coronation, a number of chirurgeons and physicks fight their own battles against death and disease in support of the Dawnish. Their aid is invaluable in keeping the number of casualties suffered by the Empire to a bare minimum.

Scouts and knights errant report that the Dawnish armies are not the only forces moving in the Barrens, however. There is little concrete information; perhaps the soldiers working with the spy network know more. It certainly appears that the Druj are continuing their campaign of conquest, but they do not come into conflict with the Dawnish. There are confused stories of vicious fighting in the south - most likely with the briar heretics at Dourfell Keep - but the truth of the matter and the outcome are both unclear.

How much longer can the two forces in the Barrens continue to avoid conflict? Rumours of secret compacts are rife.

Game Information : The Barrens

Imperial forces now control Murderdale and Carmine Fields as well as the Dawnish holdings in Dawnguard. To capture the entire territory, the Empire would need to control at least six regions.

Shores of Naris

Two weeks after the Autumn Equinox, a force of barbarian orcs makes landfall along southern Naris in Redoubt. Supported by a shore offensive by Grendel mariners, the orcs quickly establish themselves on the peninsula of Rebekah's Leap, and push north toward Elos.

it seems likely that they intend to try and take the defenders of Redoubt by surprise, but they have reckoned without the Heliopticon. Within hours of the first attack, warnings fly through the air to nearby spires and from there spread out across the entire territory. By dawn the next day, the Urizen nation knows there are orcs in southern Redoubt. The garrison of the Court of the White Fountain is mobilized to support the sentinels and citadels along the coast. It takes some time to traverse the mountain roads, and by the time the defensive forces arrive the invaders have already captured several settlements.

The Heliopticon bears more than just news of the attack. It brings with it the news that these are not Grendel forces - or at least the majority of them are not what the magi of Urizen would describe as Grendel. They are hard, vicious orc barbarians well-versed in fighting in the foothills, and with a significant number of savage battle magicians in their ranks. Many of them bear banners of orange cloth, and beat frenzied unfamiliar rhythms on their drums. A Freeborn merchant visiting the spire of Hanging Rock offers confirmation - against all the odds these are Lasambrian orcs. Oh there are Grendel among them, that much is clear to the spyglasses of Urizen. But the main force is without a doubt made up not of orcs of the Broken Shore but of the western hills, far away on the other side of Segura.

Lasambrian they may be, but they seem to share the Grendel thirst for treasure. The spires that fall to their advance are looted - valuables and citizens alike stolen and sent south toward the coast. The soldiers of the Court of the Fountain slow their advance, providing an opportunity for some of the spires to evacuate - but they cannot halt the orcs.

The most recent reports suggest that the orc force has sent out two very large raiding parties. One is heading north towards the fishing town of Elos. The other is heading north-east towards the largely unprotected spire of Evenstar - a rich hospital specialising in the use of Spring magic and Day magic to treat long-term illness.

Game Information : Redoubt

The invading orcs control roughly a third of the region of Naris, and are well on their way to establishing a beachhead in Redoubt.