I wasn't running a smear campaign, there were third party countries talking about it in the country chats. e.g. in Eldamar's public chat the monarch there was openly stating she needed people to mobilize against Western Confederation. It was after reading *that*, when I got one of my chars onto the line to Vanessa Calinus. I trusted Andrew to at least give me a head's up about what was going on, since the only *available* sources of information I had were indicating some type of invasion was imminent.
If it was a hoax it was a very well orchestrated one that suckered in a lot of people, including realm leaders who were saying it's on. On the M&f forums, some other players have mentioned since then, that they believed it and thought the fighting was already on. Maybe there was a smear campaign going, but none of the information originated with me. All my part was to say "Hey Vanessa, we're hearing people saying quite convincingly that the west is going to be invaded". Basically I was fishing for more information to work out what was going on.
And the gist of the letter was basically for me to GIVE the land to you and Vanessa to take care of, in case it gets attacked. That's why I included you in the letter, since you had talked about including the land in Grand Fate a while ago and attacked me for wanted to "steal" it. Well, I offered to GIVE you guys the land now, and that's supposed to be sneaky as well?? My character there has retired now after giving over all their land to recruited knights, so I don't even benefit from them joininng Grand Fate, but I suggested they look at the idea. It's out of my hands now, I sped up "retirement" plans as a result of the recent annoying shit in the game, but it was done in a sustainable way, there are enough new knights there to keep it going. My real concern (stated in the letter) was that the region would be invaded and the newbies crushed, on some mistaken belief that they were armok or lowlands related players or something. They're not, they're all random recruits. And the main annoyance for me is that I basically just finished repopulating the area with random players via knight's offers, and for it to get invaded at that moment would suck.
Also, as far as WC goes, there are no bay12 related players left there with any high ranks or landholdings. The Symonds and Lu Bu are long gone, i never had more than 1 low-ranked vassal with 3 towns in there either. Players from the pre-Idraei side of the war have been running it again for some time now. Basically third parties were telling me they were about to get stomped, so I talked to one of the people who'd have connections to work out what is going on. Also, armok region will soon be 100% new knights with no bay12 connection, because nobody here is interested, so I've been handing that out via knight's offers. That part will also be complete soon. so you really shouldn't be worried about any sort of clique. There could have been one, but everyone involved retired or is planning to retire.