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Following negotiations between the Synod and various Heretical organizations, the Synod gleefully accepted the offer of re-unification and mending the Schism between the Etosian Church and the Unionist Sanchella, rebranding itself to the Unionist Divine. The suddenly influx of tithes and troops suddenly swelling the Synod's capacity for war twice fold at the least. They additionally accept the Vultarin Bargain as it was to be called, bringing an end to practically all heresy movements of Unionism bar from the Diviner Heresy that continued to survive elsewhere underground. The move was greatly appreciated by the Emperor through diplomatic back channels, though on the warfare front, the Synod was performing more of a stalemate. Domenico Alferi's army was given a simple dig-in command to set up supply lines and logistics, while Garth Viduggla itched for an assault. Despite his statements, Alferi did not move, and Viduggla was stuck behind Alferi's frontlines waiting for anything to happen. Hamelin d'Vaud's army was in a similar predicament, lacking orders from central command, and simply remaining in the Elven Coastal Cities.
In a comical form of cyclical sadness, the Kehlen led army invaded the Elven Moors just as Typhonus and Viduggla had done before him, expecting reinforcements from other armies and receiving none, just like the others had done before him. This time, Kehlen was better supplied than his contemporaries however, and most of the Elven forces had already been moved to the Elven Cities to counter Alferi's death-stack, thus allowing Kehlen to gain a foothold. As small as it was, he did secure a single victory and a few stalemate battles against the Elves locally and was able to capture some coastal cities and set up at least one resupply fort.
The Navies however performed surprisingly well considering past events. Black's Fleet was increased by 15 battleships, not only eradicating the dissatisfaction among the Captains, but was also tasked together with Erwald Ravenstad to scout the Elven Western Sea. The Scouting performed showed a stroke of irony, Black's fleet had finally received the necessary boosts in numbers, but all they could find was large drifts of ship wreckage. It had appeared that the Saivale of the Shadow Pact had completely wiped out the Elven fleets, thus ensuring the Elven Empire had no forces left. The Dread Empire Elves suddenly seemed to be making a play on the Elven landmass, as all Black's Fleet could find was local signs of invasion, Saivale landing craft and Shenlar troops roving the Elven cities, some pillaged to the point of destruction. It seemed that the Shadow Pact had made a move on the Elves now fully, bearing their Imperial might down while many of the Elven Empire forces were congested in the east. Black returned with Ravenstad to the safety of the Hadarian Sea, but brought along an interesting tale: It seemed that some of the eastern and central Elven Princes were starting to dwindle in their support for the Elven Empire. While originally the Empire had unified against invasion from the Regalians, they were now presented with a pincer move where Regalians invaded from the east and Dread Empire Elves from the west. With two forces sure to crush them in the middle, some princes were developing the idea that submitting to Regalia for safety was the better option, since conquest by the Cathlar would mean complete destruction of their culture and freedom and devastation of their homes. No overt attempt to surrender to Regalia was being made to be sure, but cracks had started to show in the Elven resolve against the Empire now that an arguably far more evil and vile foe had started its conquest designs on them.
Back in Regalia, the Scholar Ministry attempted two projects: to mount Obscura on arrows and to reverse engineer the Soul Essence Shards. Both projects failed, Obscura resulted in a general judgement that the entire design was never going to work, while reverse engineering the Shards failed because Regalians lacked the knowledge of Elven Arcomancy which was only available to a select few expert mages in the Elven Empire. Diplomatic missions were also made in the direction of Lusits, but ended up failing. While the dress was well received by the Queen of Lusits, an eventual proposal to Lusits to take up the volcanic rock that was Kelmoria was rejected, proclaiming that it would just drain the Lusits economy since Kelmoria had no land left to actually profit from or cultivate any resource production beyond extremely unsafe mineral mining. Additionally, numerous parties were to negotiate with the Old Rebels in Narlas, and this is where Dragenthal would make a turn for the worse.
Two independent interest groups moved on the Old Rebels, the Black Family independently, as well as the Foreign State Minister with the support of all the major Velheimer families. The Black Family proposed a return to status quo which not only angered the revanchism of their own disenfranchised citizens, but was also flatout rejected by the Old Rebels who wanted more individual freedoms, no longer content to just live as equals among Unionists and demanding limited autonomy to be tried by the customs of their own religion and to live by their own standards. This demand was reiterated to the Foreign State Minister, but the Foreign State Minister made some more peculiar statements. Eleana Ravenstad proclaimed to the disenfranchised rebels that Harhold would be prosecuted by the state for his abuse of powers, creating a peculiar position where Harhold was now declared a criminal by a State official. Furthermore, the Velheimer families offered safe passage and safety from prosecution to many of the rebels, a quarter of them accepting the offer and being levied to safety in the Drixagh and Nordlän regions where life was harsher, but they were able to avoid prosecution. All the while, reports started popping up all over Dragenthal from the western coast to the Kehlen lands that Ravenstad dressed levies roamed the countryside briganding and waylaying trade and torching smaller settlements. They specifically seemed to avoid the riots and rebels where present, all the while Percival Ravenstad, the Interior Peace Minister, marched his 100,000 troops under von Treppewitz into Dragenthal. The massive occupation force made swift work to arrest the ringleaders of the rioters in Dragenthal (ignoring the Old Rebels for now) and execute them all summarily for treason.
While originally the troops were given strict orders not to start culling citizens, in many places they found their hand was being forced. The rioters in Dragenthal which had originally rioted against the lack of payments now found that their expression of resentment against not being able to feed their families was being answered with the execution of their ring leaders. While the rioting immediately ceased in fear of the troops, the realization that the government offered little restitution for the time spent in destitution. It harkened back to the days of the Van Sherburne where taxes were so high that the people were starving, and the Van Sherburne's answer to their plight was to start executing people for rioting, an act which they considered their natural right to seize what was necessary for them to survive. While the taxes had been lowered already and the finances were returning, the Ravenstad levies that roamed the countryside sabotaging local economies caused no real improvement. In fact, with the massive morale loss from the executions of their ring leaders, most of the Dragenthal realms faced imminent paralysis of their economies, the Drachenwald no longer being safe to travel without soldier escorts, and the people displeased that their desperation for survival was merely answered with executions. Had it not been for the Finance Minister lowering taxes in fact, some Officers speculated that the army would have faced mass desertions on account of the state no longer guaranteeing the well-fedness of the soldier's families back home.
Dragenthal was thus in a precarious situation. The Economy was crashing, banditry on account of Ravenstad troops was rife in the countryside, the Old Rebels were diminishing in size and still trapped while the Velheimer lords offered sanctuary to traitors and rebels, a Minister proclaimed Harhold a criminal and the people faced effective occupation by the State Minister's Army.
Across the Narrow Crown Strait, trouble was also brewing in Lorhauser. From the north, 15,000 troops under Hengest Harhold invaded Lorhauser, while from the south, 74,000 troops from du Pont ran across the border. The 10,000 troops that Peirgarten still had to defend themselves remained concentrated in the areas where Harhold invaded, defeating him in numerous skirmishes, but as soon as the du Pont armies reached up to the Harhold positions, the Peirgarten forces were utterly wiped out. The entirety of Lorhauser was occupied within a matter of mere days. The du Pont troops behaved cordially avoiding any damage to the countryside, but Harhold's troops were less kind. They roved various agricultural communities, taking any cattle small and large they could find and killing any they could not bring with them. In the process, they trampled vast fields of Lorhauser fruits and wine, and killed any who tried to defend their livelihood from the Harhold levies.
Finally to top it all off, Ardige Viduggla made a long emotional appeal towards Vladimir Vladislav and Ella Uëxkulla, the daughter of the recently deceased Johanna Uëxkulla, while Ania Howlester was excluded from the trio. Viduggla's appeal to convince Vladislav, a friend of the Emperor of Regalia, to incite him against the Logistics Minister and the War Minister was successful. Vladimir Vladislav led a large entourage of Velheimer warrior nobles to the capital to appeal to the Emperor directly to halt the political games among the generals and ministers and to bring centralized order to the structure of the armed forces. Viduggla also tailed along, making a long emotional appeal about how thousands of Regalians died for no other reason than just the political machinations and intrigues of the families trying to out-do one another and seize political positions for themselves regardless of qualifications. While the Emperor made no direct move against the Ministries, it had become abundantly clear in that they had managed to convince the Emperor to have a very pessimistic view of the Ministers and the political moves between the Noble Families. It would take only one further disaster to call down the Emperor's hammer on politics once more.
In a comical form of cyclical sadness, the Kehlen led army invaded the Elven Moors just as Typhonus and Viduggla had done before him, expecting reinforcements from other armies and receiving none, just like the others had done before him. This time, Kehlen was better supplied than his contemporaries however, and most of the Elven forces had already been moved to the Elven Cities to counter Alferi's death-stack, thus allowing Kehlen to gain a foothold. As small as it was, he did secure a single victory and a few stalemate battles against the Elves locally and was able to capture some coastal cities and set up at least one resupply fort.
The Navies however performed surprisingly well considering past events. Black's Fleet was increased by 15 battleships, not only eradicating the dissatisfaction among the Captains, but was also tasked together with Erwald Ravenstad to scout the Elven Western Sea. The Scouting performed showed a stroke of irony, Black's fleet had finally received the necessary boosts in numbers, but all they could find was large drifts of ship wreckage. It had appeared that the Saivale of the Shadow Pact had completely wiped out the Elven fleets, thus ensuring the Elven Empire had no forces left. The Dread Empire Elves suddenly seemed to be making a play on the Elven landmass, as all Black's Fleet could find was local signs of invasion, Saivale landing craft and Shenlar troops roving the Elven cities, some pillaged to the point of destruction. It seemed that the Shadow Pact had made a move on the Elves now fully, bearing their Imperial might down while many of the Elven Empire forces were congested in the east. Black returned with Ravenstad to the safety of the Hadarian Sea, but brought along an interesting tale: It seemed that some of the eastern and central Elven Princes were starting to dwindle in their support for the Elven Empire. While originally the Empire had unified against invasion from the Regalians, they were now presented with a pincer move where Regalians invaded from the east and Dread Empire Elves from the west. With two forces sure to crush them in the middle, some princes were developing the idea that submitting to Regalia for safety was the better option, since conquest by the Cathlar would mean complete destruction of their culture and freedom and devastation of their homes. No overt attempt to surrender to Regalia was being made to be sure, but cracks had started to show in the Elven resolve against the Empire now that an arguably far more evil and vile foe had started its conquest designs on them.
Back in Regalia, the Scholar Ministry attempted two projects: to mount Obscura on arrows and to reverse engineer the Soul Essence Shards. Both projects failed, Obscura resulted in a general judgement that the entire design was never going to work, while reverse engineering the Shards failed because Regalians lacked the knowledge of Elven Arcomancy which was only available to a select few expert mages in the Elven Empire. Diplomatic missions were also made in the direction of Lusits, but ended up failing. While the dress was well received by the Queen of Lusits, an eventual proposal to Lusits to take up the volcanic rock that was Kelmoria was rejected, proclaiming that it would just drain the Lusits economy since Kelmoria had no land left to actually profit from or cultivate any resource production beyond extremely unsafe mineral mining. Additionally, numerous parties were to negotiate with the Old Rebels in Narlas, and this is where Dragenthal would make a turn for the worse.
Two independent interest groups moved on the Old Rebels, the Black Family independently, as well as the Foreign State Minister with the support of all the major Velheimer families. The Black Family proposed a return to status quo which not only angered the revanchism of their own disenfranchised citizens, but was also flatout rejected by the Old Rebels who wanted more individual freedoms, no longer content to just live as equals among Unionists and demanding limited autonomy to be tried by the customs of their own religion and to live by their own standards. This demand was reiterated to the Foreign State Minister, but the Foreign State Minister made some more peculiar statements. Eleana Ravenstad proclaimed to the disenfranchised rebels that Harhold would be prosecuted by the state for his abuse of powers, creating a peculiar position where Harhold was now declared a criminal by a State official. Furthermore, the Velheimer families offered safe passage and safety from prosecution to many of the rebels, a quarter of them accepting the offer and being levied to safety in the Drixagh and Nordlän regions where life was harsher, but they were able to avoid prosecution. All the while, reports started popping up all over Dragenthal from the western coast to the Kehlen lands that Ravenstad dressed levies roamed the countryside briganding and waylaying trade and torching smaller settlements. They specifically seemed to avoid the riots and rebels where present, all the while Percival Ravenstad, the Interior Peace Minister, marched his 100,000 troops under von Treppewitz into Dragenthal. The massive occupation force made swift work to arrest the ringleaders of the rioters in Dragenthal (ignoring the Old Rebels for now) and execute them all summarily for treason.
While originally the troops were given strict orders not to start culling citizens, in many places they found their hand was being forced. The rioters in Dragenthal which had originally rioted against the lack of payments now found that their expression of resentment against not being able to feed their families was being answered with the execution of their ring leaders. While the rioting immediately ceased in fear of the troops, the realization that the government offered little restitution for the time spent in destitution. It harkened back to the days of the Van Sherburne where taxes were so high that the people were starving, and the Van Sherburne's answer to their plight was to start executing people for rioting, an act which they considered their natural right to seize what was necessary for them to survive. While the taxes had been lowered already and the finances were returning, the Ravenstad levies that roamed the countryside sabotaging local economies caused no real improvement. In fact, with the massive morale loss from the executions of their ring leaders, most of the Dragenthal realms faced imminent paralysis of their economies, the Drachenwald no longer being safe to travel without soldier escorts, and the people displeased that their desperation for survival was merely answered with executions. Had it not been for the Finance Minister lowering taxes in fact, some Officers speculated that the army would have faced mass desertions on account of the state no longer guaranteeing the well-fedness of the soldier's families back home.
Dragenthal was thus in a precarious situation. The Economy was crashing, banditry on account of Ravenstad troops was rife in the countryside, the Old Rebels were diminishing in size and still trapped while the Velheimer lords offered sanctuary to traitors and rebels, a Minister proclaimed Harhold a criminal and the people faced effective occupation by the State Minister's Army.
Across the Narrow Crown Strait, trouble was also brewing in Lorhauser. From the north, 15,000 troops under Hengest Harhold invaded Lorhauser, while from the south, 74,000 troops from du Pont ran across the border. The 10,000 troops that Peirgarten still had to defend themselves remained concentrated in the areas where Harhold invaded, defeating him in numerous skirmishes, but as soon as the du Pont armies reached up to the Harhold positions, the Peirgarten forces were utterly wiped out. The entirety of Lorhauser was occupied within a matter of mere days. The du Pont troops behaved cordially avoiding any damage to the countryside, but Harhold's troops were less kind. They roved various agricultural communities, taking any cattle small and large they could find and killing any they could not bring with them. In the process, they trampled vast fields of Lorhauser fruits and wine, and killed any who tried to defend their livelihood from the Harhold levies.
Finally to top it all off, Ardige Viduggla made a long emotional appeal towards Vladimir Vladislav and Ella Uëxkulla, the daughter of the recently deceased Johanna Uëxkulla, while Ania Howlester was excluded from the trio. Viduggla's appeal to convince Vladislav, a friend of the Emperor of Regalia, to incite him against the Logistics Minister and the War Minister was successful. Vladimir Vladislav led a large entourage of Velheimer warrior nobles to the capital to appeal to the Emperor directly to halt the political games among the generals and ministers and to bring centralized order to the structure of the armed forces. Viduggla also tailed along, making a long emotional appeal about how thousands of Regalians died for no other reason than just the political machinations and intrigues of the families trying to out-do one another and seize political positions for themselves regardless of qualifications. While the Emperor made no direct move against the Ministries, it had become abundantly clear in that they had managed to convince the Emperor to have a very pessimistic view of the Ministers and the political moves between the Noble Families. It would take only one further disaster to call down the Emperor's hammer on politics once more.
