Aar5

[Velociryx]

The House of Mourngrym

[Velociryx]

Autumn 204

Because ours is an obscenely wealthy house, we have a great many more options than our poorer cousins, and it is clear that a war is coming. It is just a matter of when.

We may as well be the ones to strike the first blow, but before we do that, we must prepare, and so, a Shrine is ordered to be constructed in Westkeep to give honor and glory to the HighFather, so that he my bless us in our bid to reshape the kingdom.

Not happy with just this, however, a scant two weeks later, another such Shrine is begun in the proud city of EastGate, most populous in the whole of the Basin. If money has anything to do with it, fortune should smile on us indeed!

Here's a snapshot of one of our provinces, WestKeep, displaying generalized information about the territory:

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The same province, this time showing economic details...very important, I'm sure you'll agree:

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And finally, the demographic breakdown of our people in WestKeep, and which groups are dominant over which.

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The people of the Sister cities, unsettled first by the looming prospect of war, and then by our insistence on building a pair of Shrines which they regarded as unneeded sorely pressed the tempers of our citizens, and we spent the better part of the next two months holding parties and hosting a variety of games, such that by the time winter rolled around, they were in a significantly better frame of mind.

This was a god thing, because not long after the first snows, we forcibly pressed two hundred souls into the infantry to bolster our house guards in both provinces, and quietly began the training of 600 more infantry.

When the people got wind of this, they were outraged of course, but their outrage was easily quelled with yet more parties and strong brandy...when y ou have money, the populace is all too easy to bend to your will...

So it was that by late winter, our new recruits were ready, marched to EastGate to consolidate, and we found ourselves in command of 1400 eager souls. The question was...where to strike?

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The answer to the question was revealed in short order when our forces marched on the (unprepared, as we later discovered) province of Griggor's Steading.

The militia there put up a fierce resistance, though we caught them by surprise, and slew some four hundred of our host. Nonetheless, we had a thousand men to begin our siege with, and we set about that grim business.

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Fortune smiled upon us (perhaps J'honsa really DID appreciate our Shrines!), because we did tremendous damage to the Steading's hastily constructed fortifications (6 --> 2 in a single round!).

The siege took only a month and a half, and the bedraggled defenders surrendered to us, still 900 strong (having lost a hundred men ourselves to their determined ministrations from behind their walls).

Nonetheless, whilst we had been besieging their keep, our leadership back home had seen to it to raise another 300 infantry, such that when the siege was concluded, they arrived to bolster our numbers, giving us a host of 1200 men to guard The Steading with, and guard it we would have to. The populace was none too happy with us, their conquerers, even though we had promised to be fair and just to them, and even with the help of the Holy Church, it was still a difficult sell and a difficult time. So our troops stayed where they were.

[Velociryx]

By late summer, we are ready to invade the Province of Langborne, and hit them with 1200 men from the Steading. We lose a hundred of our attack force, but are reinforced by 300 new recruits from EastGate, giving us 1400 men for the siege. A comfortable number, by any reckoning.

The siege itself lasts for a month and a half, which is fairly normal for minimally fortified provinces, and the only hitch we encountered was when the d@mnable Mystics decided to break foul on us and strike our army with a Lightning Storm. Fortunately, it was aimed at our new recruits in WestKeep and not at our army afield. Still, the loss of two hundred brave souls was painful.

Nonetheless, we conquered Langborne with a fair amount of speed and consolidated our forces there, when the Furies hit us with a Lightning storm of their own. Three hundred more dead, and we vowed vengeance upon both of them....after we brought the Barbarians of Kell to heel of course!

The Barbarians fared no better against our practiced siege crews than anyone else did, lasting a month and a half as well, and near the end of the siege, a most valuable man made his appearance in the Court of Mourngrym....

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Thus, with Kell in hand, this was our situation in the Winter of 206, some two years after the wars of succession had begun...

With the mighty Barbarians under firm control and a ruthless and powerful general at our command, we knew that come the spring and the new year, we were positioned to unleash Hell upon any who dared stand against us....

-=Vel=-