Domination of Barbarians [Diplo Game] [Story Thread 6 - September 2012]

[France (DoB)]

King Louis XVI, the Sea King, has died and has been succeeded by his son, King Louis XVII. The Sea King's rule was highlighted by the expansion of France mainly by expanding sea patrols in the west and south of France but also by successfully sponsoring a slave rebellion in the lands southwest of the nether faction.

Louis XVI improved French security by training archery garrisons to defend the cities but his biggest contribution was in turning the Portuguese Freedom Flotilla galleys into a credible naval force. Louis XVI developed the counter-offensive strategy that dictated that the best defense was a
strong counter attack. The deterrent strategy worked throughout his reign and would likely form the doctrine for the French armed forces for the foreseeable future.

King Louis XVI, like his father, was the most loved ruler of his time and under his guidance French wine exports continued to dominate the trade routes.

King Louis XVII reportedly does not have his father's love of the sea but he has been trained by the best French military tacticians and is likely to continue his father's military doctrine.

[Rome (DoB)]

Titus of Rome is outraged at hearing about the French King claiming the Roman people have been duped into springing a sneak attack on France! The peace treaty that was made between France and Rome was given in good faith and honour, and the Roman people have no intentions of breaking this treaty. The warriors were present to assist the Roman workers, and have returned to Rome while the workers have travelled south.

Tell me King Louis of France, when you took the title of King from your father, did he forget to tell you what your ancestors did for your people? Did the crown so heavily burden your senses that all of history was rendered into ash before your very eyes? Do you so greatly fear your neighbour, that any three men with sticks are seen as a dire threat upon your person? I am a proud Brutii, I am a proud Roman, and I do not intend to break the word of peace that my honourable family bestowed upon your ancient family, merely for the sake of a fluttering bird scared into the sky by the breaking of a twig at dusk!

[Celtia (DoB)]

From Vienne, a runner comes to Bibracte and King Ire's court with this tale:

As the sun rose, workers were standing in a circle, looking towards a stone where two men were standing. One of them was visibly thin as a piece of grass, and walked with a wooden stick. The other was a man from the village, Braen, a fair good worker known to all.

They were listening to the words of the thin man, who had not said who he was. He spoke of fair treatment, of standing together as one, with no man bowing to another or making someone out to be more powerful than they were, simply because of where he was born, or who he was born from. The workers were listening, their attention undivided, as a whole other world was revealed to them, a place where they could do what they wanted to, say what they wanted to - and be heard!

The sun had risen for a long while, when the King's men came to see why no work was done. Five of them with big sticks and stone daggers edged with copper, the man leading them the largest of them all, Artair, standing a fair seven feet tall. He spoke to the workers, telling them off to work, but they did not move. So he struck down the one closest, and with a single blow, opened his skull, spreading the innards across the crowd, making some of them gag, and all of them stepped back, out of reach of his stick. He walked forward and raised his stick, but stopped at the sound of the thin man.

The words were short, their content straight. A challenge.

Artair laughed at that, as did his men. A thin man barely able to stand - to challenge the largest and strongest man in all of Vienne? "Come down" he said, "I'll give you to my mother so she can feed you more than grass like the weed you look!" He laughed with his men, but the thin man simply crawled down from the stone, and walked slowly with his walking stick towards his challenge. All the workers recognized this man, made all the stranger by the firm belief that he could best a man easily five times his own weight.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]172575[/ATTACH]

He came to stand before Artair, and now a flicker of doubt was seen in the big man. He looked down into eyes cold like a winter night, with two blue specks that were hard as ice, that for some unknown reason made him take a step back. At that, all the workers hooted and laughed, calling him a scared little boy, afraid of his own shadow! Indeed, the thin man was standing in Artair's shadow, even after he had taken a step back.

Bending down, he spoke to the thin man; "Look, go away now. I have no time for your challenge, you are nothing to me anyway, any man can see that." To which the only reply, was a loud smack! as the flat hand of the thin man struck his cheek. Enraged, Artair lifted his stick high and brought it down on the thin man! ..or where the thin man had been. With two steps, he suddenly stood behind Artair - and with a double-tap of his walking stick, he forced Artair's feet away from eachother, making the big man loose balance and fall flat on his face with roaring laughter coming from the workers! Now Artair was incoherently raging, using his big arms to push himself in a single move back to his feet, turning as he did so to aim a deadly blow at the thin man!

The next few moments left many different tales - one man swore that the thin man simply stepped aside and let Artair run himself straight into a rock with his head turned to one side, snapping his neck! Another claimed that a flurry of blows from the thin man's stick struck Artair dead before he even hit the rock. A young man told me that sure as the dawn, the thin man rose into the air and kicked Artair in the head, forcing him to collide with the rock. There were as many tales as there were workers, but the strangest tale, was the one from Braen himself. He said that the thin man was Brennus, King of Old, and that the real reason for Artair's death, was that Brennus had picked up a pebble, flicking it at the forehead of his opponent and killing him with it as he was about to strike. The force of the blow from meeting the rock had made the entire front of Artair's head cave in, bending his neck in the process, so the real tale is difficult to certain of.

Brennus himself did not speak of it. He walked away with Braen, and I swear to you this is true, he was crying as he did so!

[France (DoB)]

King Louis XVII sends a response to Titus of Rome

Based upon your message, there appears to have been a miscommunication or misunderstanding amongst your agents in the French Court. Your messenger indicated that your agents have informed you that France was concerned that Rome was going to attack and was specifically worried about the Roman Club Diplomats. None of this is true.

France has had no indication that the centuries of peace with Rome was in jeopardy and had no concerns about the Roman Club Diplomats. The Diplomats are indeed well liked in France, as they remind the French of the ancient French club debates!

My advisors tell me that your agents may have misinterpretted comments about the english spearmen that travelled through Holy Roman and
Roman lands during an enforced DMW peace so that they could arrive on France's southern borders when the DMW expired.

At best the english spearmen are spying on southern France to estimate our strength but given the timing of their arrival, and the english threats to attack again once the DMW expired, my military advisors believe that the english intended to attack southern France in the hopes of enslaving French workers. The english attack was thwarted when they found Portuguese workers instead of French workers and the strong French Royal Navy that was poised in the French Channel to counter-attack the english coastline.

French advisors believed that the english had not informed the Romans about their intention to launch an attack against France from Roman lands when they made the Open Border Agreement. France would never allow foreign forces to attack Rome for our lands and we assume Rome would not jeopardize our peaceful relations by allowing foreign forces to attack France from Roman land.

If our understanding is incorrect and Rome is going to allow foreign forces to attack through Roman land then France will need to militarize our border with Rome in defense. If that is not the case then please end your open border agreement with england who has publicly stated their intention to attack France again so that our border can remain peaceful and demilitarized.

[France (DoB)]

The outsourcing of the French road network to Portuguese workers in exchange for wine has troubled the Torino Road Crew for several generations. To address the workers worries, King Louis XVI retasked the Torino Road Crew to build pastures and domesticate wild animals.

The Torino Road Crew have been assisted in their domestication task by the Disciples of Shankara. The Disciples are descendants of freed Portuguese slaves who have dedicated their lives to making Shankara's vision of a world freed of slavery by peaceful means come to pass. The Disciples believe that by developing France's abundant resources that more foreign slaves can be freed in exchange for those resources.

Together the two work crews have managed to successfully domesticate horses in the La Peche valley. The horses are large and black or gray in color. The breed of horses have been called the Percherons from the valley where they originated. The breed is very alert, intelligent and has a great temperament.



The military advisors of King Louis XVII are currently debating the merits of training charioteers similar to the Holy Romans since the Holy Roman charioteers were so effective in the Holy Roman war with the Germans.

[France (DoB)]

King Louis XVII sends a messenger to Chief Porto,

Word has reached the French court of Portugal's settlement loss in Africa. The people of France pray for the lost souls and the safety of Portugal.

The words of Porto lamenting the role in which slavery played a part in this senseless tragedy has brought a glimmer of hope in this otherwise grim news.

For many generations, the Kings of France have petitioned the Portuguese elders of the church to categorically state that slavery is a sin against Christianity. Do not let these Portuguese's slaves deaths be in vain. Now is the time to proclaim to all true Christians that slavery is a sin!

Word has also reached the French Court that the Church of the Nativity has been completed and that the bones of Shankara have been moved into the Church thus Shankara's final condition that the Portuguese Christian priests must declare slavery a sin must be met! We patiently await your declaration, that will start the new age of Freedom!

[Rome (DoB)]

King Louis XVII of France, these are the words of Titus Brutus of Rome:

I am glad to hear that this was all a misunderstanding, as I wish to avoid our people to falling back into the habits of the old days where there was a lot of bickering and armed conflicts at all costs.

In regards to the English troops present in Roman lands, understand that Rome does not sanction the use of armed force against any nation whom we have peaceful relations to from within our borders. Rome honours it's treaties though, so we will not break the border agreement that we have made with the English. We do not intend to get involved in the conflict between your nations though, I have sent a messenger to the English explaining them Rome's view on this. However, if the prescence of the English troops makes you uncomfortable, Rome will consider a prescence of one unit of French defenders on your side a sensible precaution, as long as your troops leave the border again should the English troops leave our lands.

Know that Rome will not consider a military escort sent with your workers in the area a hostile act if you wish to build improvements in the area, like a stone quarry. Please send my regards to the Portugese workers that we are grateful for their assistance building a road in the area, so that trade can finally be resumed after these thousands of year with messengers having to risk their lives in the wild woods and hills of Torino.

[China (DoB)]

Chinese wisemen rush to tell Qin they have discovered the secret of metal, to produce spears!

Qin was in consult surrounded by his generals. He was not happy to hear their news.

He turns around to his wiseguys, and says "too late".

"Our country is now overrun with 15,000 barbarians".

"General Wellhung, I order the workers from the fields". "All troops are to retreat to the cities".

"Pray to whatever diety or tree you believe in because the next few years determine whether we survive or die as a nation"

There is only one thing that may save China. Something Qin was loath to do. Slavery.

[France (DoB)]

King Louis XVII sends a messenger to address the Holy Roman Republic.

Good Senators of the Holy Roman Republic, France bears grim tidings of another nether faction buildup on the borders of France. Four companies of nether axemen have appeared on the Copper Hill bordering French, nether and German lands. French agents have detected German accents amongst these new axemen and are even now seeking to determine the origin of the axemen.

French agents have historically noted several nether companies of axemen have travelled into German lands, never to return. We also noted that shortly after the Germans declared war on the Holy Roman Republic that the nether military power dropped while at the same time German military power suspiciously increased. French intelligence expects to shortly find a German power drop corresponding to a nether power increase to reflect this recent exchange of mercenary axemen. Should such another power exchange be found then the implications are clear that the nether were secretly providing military aid to the Germans against the Holy Roman Republic, and in return the Germans are providing military aid to the nethers against the French.

As the only two tribes to have abandoned primitive tyranny, while sharing common enemies, the Kingdom of France believes it would be wise to strengthen ties with the Holy Roman Republic. Surrounded by barbarian tyrants, good allies are hard to come by however the Kingdom of France has shown its good faith when we publicly declared our unequivocal support for the Holy Roman Republic in the war against the German slavers whereas all the tyrants remained silent in the face of German aggression.

The Kingdom of France believes that mutually beneficial terms can be arranged with your Republic if you so desire.

[Japan (DoB)]

Ainu thought of her every day now, distracted from the world. His lost focus often, and much of the work that he directed had failed, his attention wavering in daydreams and small sighs mixed with smiles and a distant look in his eyes.

"Ainu!"

He snapped out of the fantasy, and looked at the Spirit Guide before him. The signs once formed in sand with the aid of a stick, were now painted with the soft touch of a bundle of hair tied to a twig, dipped in the black water of an octopus, written with care on stretched animal skin. First, each specific character as it would be spoken, made in a line. Second, a set of words put before other words to make it a specific or general term. Third, a count from one to ten, and how a size would be described when trading, making two sets of counts, one for live stock and one for dead stock, fish and stone as examples for each.

This had been remade several times, shared among Japan and the Chasers of Sunset. A formal Open Borders agreement was on the way by messengers to China and Spain. A remake of the original Porto Open Border agreement, now written in Japanese, had been sent to Porto, along with the very first letter ever made, thanking the Portos for their generous and kind nature, expressing hope that through this knowledge, friendship would grow even stronger than before. The power of the written word was now in the hands of Japan.

[Netherlands (DoB)]

Into the frozen North



Fire Mystics were farther north now that had ever before been. This was a land of eternal winter, so cold that even the trees were begining to die out. Nothing could live in these frozen wastes. The rivers were frozen solid or had large chunks of ice floating in them. Nothing could live out here. It was time to turn back, there was no food even to hunt. This would be a terrible place to face a horde of barbarians. So the Captain gave the words to turn back south back into the cold northern woodlands.



Meanwhile, Nether faction welcomes into the city some returning men from the Germ-Manes. After the destruction of the conflict between Germ-Manes and Holly Roamers the lands of Germ-Manes were desolate. Nether and Ocean faction sends relief workers to Germ-Manes to help heal the lands after ravages of war. However to the suprise of Nether faction, some of the workers choose to stay in Germ-Manes lands to continue to help with the rebuilding even after the original job ends.

While in foreign lands the Workers became called the Germane-Dutch, or Deutsche in the Germ-Manes languange. We also learn that they is call themselves the Germ-Man not Germ-Manes as we thought before. Many cousins and relatives of the Factions are living in their lands and some decided to move their homes to River Village. As a token of their goodwill and appreciation for the help from the Nether and Ocean Factions, all the Deutsche that travel to River Village are armed with fine Axes forged with German metals. In this way German and Faction people form a good friendship.

Nether Faction also issues this statement to France:

Nether Faction, people as well as the Fishermen of Ocean faction have long been alarmed by the huge French flotilla that stits looming right on our border of our territorial waters for no reason but to intimidate and harrass us. Already we have a grievance for this against France, because we cannot fish our own waters near the border because of France threatening fleet stting poised to strike us without provocation.

Despite these threats and menaces by France, we have said nothing, because it your right of course to move freely in your own territory. Also if you would agree to Open Borders then the hostility between France and River Village would be over and your ship could travel freely without having to hostile sit right at the border for no reason.

Now France makes all these accusations and lies from us moving freely in our own lands. France wants to say what weapons our people can carry and how many they can have. Will these threats and menaces from France ever end? We have had peace and harmony with our neighbore the Holly Roamers for generations, and as well the German. Do not invole us in your wild and irresponsible paranoias and suspicions.

[England (DoB)]

The voice returned and Lao Tzu hastened to record its revelation, "the Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” Lao Tzu slowly etched this grain of truth into a discarded scapula bone from the plentiful cattle outside of Hastings. And so the ever growing cannon of the Tao Te Ching expanded as the bone fragment joined several hundred pieces of Taoist revelation Lao Tzu had written into bone, tortoise shell, and even stone.

Lao Tzu had learned much since he was a young boy many years past in Nottingham. There his neighbors had been traders from across the far seas and from them he learned the meditative teachings and practices of Islam. But as he grew into adulthood he came to see that, while meditation could fill a spiritual need, meditation alone would be an abandonment of physical reality. No soul could survive as the body withered.

In search of deeper wisdom Lao Tzu traveled south to York where he studied under the priests of the many Christian gods, goddesses, and lesser spirits. Their teachings showed this pantheon of deities to certainly be present in the physical world, but—with their incessant petty squabbling, constant interventions into the lives of mankind, and frequent need for burnt offerings—Lao Tzu saw little possibility for spiritual growth and enlightenment. Even their conception of an afterlife was little more than a continuation of one’s physical existence serving in the kingdoms of Christianity’s two most powerful good/evil deities.

And so Lao Tzu continued on his journey. It was in Hastings as Lao Tzu sat contemplating the vast emptiness of the great western sea that he first heard the voice of the Tao. The voice of balance…of both spiritual and physical enlightenment. It was so clear yet at the same time so clouded. The Tao was reality. The Tao was spirituality. The Tao was all of existence. There were no gods and goddesses, there was only Tao...for it was everything, and everything was Tao.

Lao Tzu often thought back to the folk religions of his ancestors. They had believed in many natural gods and goddesses. Chief among them was the earth mother Gaia. The Tao was in many ways similar to this earth mother concept, but so much bigger, so much more powerful, and so much more profound. Tao encompassed not just the earth, but all of existence. But like Gaia Tao was also alive and was life itself. Like Gaia, Tao nurtured humankind, but at the same time the actions of humankind also are what made Tao.

When Lao Tzu finished his etching he inhaled the fresh ocean breeze and sat waiting, for he knew Tao had more to say. Lao Tzu laughed for he did not know what the future would bring, and he was certain of only two things: that Tao was the only deity at the center of all spiritual and physical existence….and that this new faith would spread far and wide.

[England (DoB)]

The Christian priests of York were in alarm. The traveling wise man they had taught had not only rejected their beliefs, but was rumored to have gone on to found some new religion or cult in Hastings. It was most recent setback for the Christian mission in England. Centuries past there forefathers had eared the favor of Elizabeth and she had converted her realm to the faith. But since Christianity had never spread outside of York, even as Islam had spread to Nottingham across many thousand miles from some unknown and distant settlement. Now the Portuguese were clearly flirting with if not wholly in thrall to the corrupted teachings of the false French prophet Sankara.

Religious revitalization was needed. English Christendom must organize to both spread the faith and react to new and challenging religious beliefs. And so began a wave of unrest across England.

[Japan (DoB)]

Ainu writes to his Brother-in-Law, Qin:

Eternal Emperor Qin, my friend, my neighbour, my ally.

May the sun shine upon your realm as it shines upon mine. May the arrows of my archers be as good as the veterans of Chinese fame. I hear where your archers have done their work on our great enemy, the barbarians. Is it true what I hear? That your archers have learned to make arrows capable of killing one and, moving through his body, kill both two and three more by having a metal point attached to the point of the arrow? This is great news and another testament to the strength and skill of your people!

My own people are strong as well, even in the face of continued hardship. The barbarians now are wielding great weapons with broad edges of metal, axes they call them. Yes, there is development by my archers now. There is a liquid found in some trees, that by heating it up and leaving it in a mold with an arrow shaft in it, makes the arrow not immidiately lethal. With a single hit to the head, it makes an enemy sleep. There are discussions among the men if we should capture more barbarians like this. Perhaps if we did, we could make them pay for all the difficulty they have given us, by working for us. I have added a drawing of how to attach tree-gum to arrows in a second parchment. You are welcome to use this on our common foe.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]172592[/ATTACH]

Qin, my friend. I am lost in Her. I pray to the spirits that we will be able to fend off the barbarians. Affirmation Hill will once more be a place for happiness and good tidings for our people. This I swear.

Your friend eternal,
Heianshi Ainu.

[China (DoB)]

Qin receives the message from Japan and returns to send a runner to Ainu with the messasge... "we have survived - thus far." 12000 barbarians have attacked with the loss of 3000 of their own and some 6000 archers weakened severely and retired to the rear. Qin has called out his reserves and ordered heavily armed women and children with the new slaves to replace his veterans. A cry from the south wall arises. He turns back to the battlements to fend off another attack, with Aiku by his side. She is welding a long shaft spear against the new assault of 3000 barbarian axes on Beijing. As soon as they reach the wall a barbarian with a huge axe leaps over the side and runs to kill Qin. Aiku steps in his way ...