A Brief History of Ermor, The Broken Empire, Through The Eyes of a Centurion.
By: Varrath
Year 1 of the Ascension Wars - Spring
As a Centurion in Ermor, it has always been hard for me to accept what our great nation has become. At one point we ruled most of the known world but now... now we barely keep a single province under control. Little did we know that our priests were secretly practicing dark magic, and a terrible event unleashed death upon our lands. We were eventually able to learn how to tame the undead and keep them under our control, but massive damage had already been done and the long period of anarchy cost us nearly all of our land. We rely greatly on our thaumaturgs in the Death Cult to keep the dead at bay, and they do a good job. Still, things could be much better.
This is the world as we know it:
(Since we are playing with a wraparound map, I tried my best to draw a red rectangle around the actual map area.)
Just as I was thinking about how bad things were, something strange happened. A travelling musician by the name of Justin Bieber appeared in the city and stirred up a religious fervor not seen in Ermor since before the downfall of the Ermorian faith and the creation of the Death Cult.
The people hailed him as a God, and indeed he demonstrated powers beyond our wildest dreams. His mere presence was enough to make most people flee, and mortal men seemed unable to strike him. For some reason he saw something in me... and chose me as his prophet, and lead commander. We were to start by taking back the lands that rightfully belonged to our people.
Lord Justin Bieber seemed eager to gain control of 5 specific provinces he claims are holy lands, and one was nearby to the east. He told me he would head eastward alone, confident in his abilities to conquer provinces singlehandedly and with minimal bloodshed. I was to head north while we sent a scout to the south.
Lord Justin began recruiting the Death Cult Grand Thaumaturgs to his cause. The Grand Thaumaturgs are very knowledgable and powerful, however they are also very old. It has always been a goal of the Death Cult (And the old Ermorian mages of the past) to find a way to cheat death, and with Lord Justin's guidance, I believe that may very well be possible.
I may not be comfortable with the methods, and in fact I'm not even completely convinced that this ritual will work, or even if it does work, that the resulting "mage" will have any part of the Thaumaturg's soul or mind within it. I fear this may be the beginning of a return to Death and destruction overrunning our land, but it's best to keep that to myself for the time being.
Three months have passed since last I wrote, since I have been too busy fighting to do much of anything else. In three months my army has managed to capture three provinces, including one of the holy sites, but we are down to only 12 men and I must return to the city for more troops. My scouts inform me that Lord Justin Bieber has captured just as many provinces, and does not show signs of needing a break anytime soon. I am certainly impressed with his ability to convert the local provinces to join us, by himself.
When I returned to the castle I was shocked to find I was easily able to recruit nearly 50 more soldiers to add to my force. I was even more shocked to hear that Lord Justin Bieber has conquered 6 provinces in as many months. Maybe he truely is as powerful as he appears to be. I will be fighting alongside him for the first time soon, as our next target is a well defended province, and it would be safer for us to attack together. Oh yeah, did I mention Lord Justin Bieber can fly?
We managed to hire a group of 50 mercenaries to take care of our northern expansion. They were cheap, and look kinda small and weak, so I'm not sure about them, but of course there is always strength in numbers! Lord Justin decided we should work together for another month to take the next province, since heavy cavalry is never fun to go up against. In non-expansion related news, our scout to the south has made first contact with another major power, Abyssia. They are still quite far away, so we decide not to contact them just yet. Our Thamaturgs are making excellent progress in their magic research. I hear they can raise some skeletons and stuff, now, and I'm still not sure I like the direction they are heading.
The mercenaries failed miserably. They didn't even capture one weakly defended province. Totally useless. Winter is almost over and I have been fighting for a year straight with only a small break to recruit reinforcements. I'm really starting to feel the strain, but I know things will only be getting tougher later. Our southern scout found another kingdom, Tien Chi, who are adjacent to Abyssia. Hopefully they will fall into conflict with each other and leave us alone. Lord Justin and I have split up again and will continue to try to capture one province per month each, for the forseeable future.
And now the graphs after year 1:
And here is what I believe the political map to have looked like after year one. Note this is not completely accurate, it's just my predictions based on the information I have now. Black X's are locations I believe to have been in conflict at the time.
I would also like to take this opportunity to point out that having a great starting position with no other players within 6-8 provinces of me had absolutely nothing to do with me being in the lead.
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