With the fall of the Baratheons (in fact, they are extinct), the second largest and the oldest house in the Stormlands took power under House Swann. The Stormlands would once more have their Storm King, and would successfully conquer the Martells - ending centuries of uninterrupted rule starting from the landing of Nymeria. And with Spyrax having flown off, and the terrifying King Blaz dead from age, and the heir everyone wanted dead - for the first time ever,
rebellion unfolded. Led by the Lady of Dragonstone, Nikodim had a few issues with their demands. Namely that all they were going to do was make it easier for Riverlanders and White Walkers to pick apart the Iron Throne, and that the Lady of Dragonstone probably wanted my dragons all to herself (as dragons tend to fly away to Dragonstone). Having defeated the rebellion, Nikodim demanded that all of the rebels surrender themselves and be imprisoned, because they hated Nikodim and letting them continue to serve would just result in a rebellion again - better one now than later, during a white walker invasion. All was well this time, as King Ardrian Miroslav of the Summer Islands and Lord Paramount Mislav Miroslav backed the Iron Throne.
Having defeated the rebels, King Nikodim would notice something was wrong with the North.
It was full of dead people. Lady Meliana Karstark to my amazement was still leading the defence of the North, though she herself was trapped in the Skaagosi Island and her only loyal supporters still alive were far south in the marshes.
The White Walker advance continued unopposed until they broke past the neck, unbottling the horrible hordes of undead into the Riverlands, Vale and Westerlands. When the White Walkers attacked the Vale, King Nikodim marched an army of 18,000 to the Neck to
stop their advance and save the realms of men.
He then saw a white walker. He killed it at the age of 17. His victory was not celebrated, as it was still fucking cold and already thousands had died to the elements and other unnatural things. The undead host crashed into the Serbian forces, unable to dislodge them from the narrow impasse of Greywater Watch where their numbers counted for nothing. The battle was going well, the forces of the dead proving to be no equal of well-fed heavily armoured Serbs. Then something went horribly wrong, as usually happens.
Another undead host appeared from the south. They had already crossed the Neck. King Nikodim had his own surprise to reveal. Dragons.
Plural. A west-Valryan baroness called Lady Arianne tamed none other than Drogon, the largest of the three dragons hatched by Danaerys Stormborn Targaeryan. King Nikodim had tamed the Serbian-born Spyrax, who at this point was half the size of Drogon - and still gargantuan. Surrounded on two fronts, Lady Arianne held the rear while King Blaz held the front. Spyrax set fire to all of the White Walkers, not before being severely maimed by one of them. Likewise all of the Serbian ground commanders were killed in action by white walkers.
King Nikodim mustered up a new army, composed of some levies, Rh'ollor fanatics (those guys are honestly so useful it pleases me deeply) and 5,000 Gusars (notably, it took a whole generation to recover half of what was lost in the seven years war). While the White Walkers marched unopposed through the Riverlands, slaughtering the fisherfolk, making incursions into the Westerland frontier - a horde of 12,000 undead led by their white walker generals lay siege to northern mountain pass into the Vale. Over 15,000 Serbs and Myrmen shattered the undead host
in the battle of Stonekyme, with only Lady Arianne and Drogon for support. As usual, strike one horde down and another reappears - 10,000 marched upon the Serbs and they were killed too
in the battle of Potterby. But of course, strike one horde down and another reappears.
Death had arrived.
It was a total slaughter,
40,000 dead soldiers crashed upon the Serbian host, routing it. The Serbs pulled back, planning to use the ships to bid a hasty retreat to recover -
they were cut off, and had to commit mass suicide by immolation. This is when King Nikodim grew desperate, he had troops and gold in reserve, but it was all being wasted against the limitless dead. He needed a dragon.
He tried to tame Anogaron, son of Spyrax. This attempt
didn't end well. The situation was getting dire,
with half of the Vale occupied. King Nikodim had one last chance. He took 2,700 men with him to Claw Isle, where the other two dragons descended from Danaerys resided. Viserion and Rhaegal. They were in their eighties, and were fucking massive. If Nikodim failed here, he would die, the Vale would be lost and the plan was to fuck off to Dragonstone and the Summer Islands with all the surviving Miroslavs.
Fortunately, second time's the charm. Nikodim tamed Viserion.
Who had become insane over the years. Sanity or no, Viserion was still an engine of war.
With Lady Arianne riding the greatest dragon alive, Nikodim riding the second greatest and slightly insane dragon alive, a new host was raised from King's Landing and the High Lords of Rosby and Dragonstone for war. They arrived with
haste, almost in time to save Mislav Miroslav - they were too late, the White Walkers killed him before the battle began.
The battle of Wickby would commence, with the two great dragons scorching the undead and rather notably, the White Walkers appeared to be having an ever increasing shortage of good commanders due to the large rate in which they were being killed by dragons.
The horde was halved, but this was still not entirely enough. The army split into two, one holding the mountain pass while the other liberated the occupied lands and tried to find survivors. One can never let the white walkers take your territories, the moment they do you begin losing levies and they certainly never will lose theirs.
Also, in keeping with old traditions, when the white walker host was destroyed
yet another even bigger one reappeared. This prompted a tactical withdrawal from the Serbians, who waited for the white walkers to split into two hordes - one going down into the Riverlands, the other fighting for the Vale.
This host was destroyed, and the Miroslavs captured another white walker. This one was experimented on, with King Nikodim doing everything he could to ruin the White Walker's health to actually try and test the limits of White Walker durability. Turns out torture, throwing them in oubliette, depriving them of food and water does very little in the way of killing them. This could be added to all the research done by King Blaz Miroslav into sodomizing the white walkers. As for the latter, I'm not sure if they even eat or drink. If I could, I would definitely make the white walker one of my own commanders and send it off to old Valyria to infect it with horrible diseases just to see what that does too. I think they're functionally immortal, so my hopes that killing their leaders could cause internal strife were somewhat dashed. In true white walker fashion,
as one horde was killed another reappeared. This battle was lost and
the white walkers soon returned with force. King Nikodim was now especially angry since they'd just killed Uncle Mislav, and mobilized just about everything. The undead hordes were somewhat surprised to find
15,000 Summer Islanders land above the Neck, cutting off reinforcements from reaching the south. The southern contingents then went about clearing the land of the undead, and actually helped people who weren't Serbians by liberating the Riverlands so they could better defend themselves from the dead legions.
The White Walkers were at last repulsed from the Vale, but the war still raged on in the Riverlands and the Westerlands - in the North Meliana Karstark was on her last legs, and would not survive for much longer. King Nikodim prepared his forces for a new war for the dawn, he had to save the realms of men or this was it.
Everything changed when the Aztecs attacked.It is notable at this point that King Nikodim had no less than four dragons under his thumb. Drogon, Viserion and Rhaegal were united under his command, and Goldfyre had also found a dragon rider under his command. In the south, the Storm King Alaric Swann fought the Reach King Alyn Tarly the Proud, all for the profit of King Nikodim.
King Alyn Tarly was a gay Lord who deposed the Tyrells and brought the Tarlys from being in a position of power in the Reach to being in a position of power in the Seven Kingdoms. At some point he lost his balls, I don't really know how that happened. At any rate, he was the one who challenged the Lannisters for the throne, and he for a brief time ruled the Seven Kingdoms, setting King Blaz Miroslav's attempt to take King's Landing with 20 men back a bit. Amazingly he was still alive, still ruling the Reach, and still saw himself as rightful King. Stormking Alaric on the other hand didn't give a fuck about the Iron Throne, which was all nice and well, and the Stormking and Iron King both looked the other way when it came to their borders. So his efforts to take over the Reach were welcomed by all. Also of note is that the Dornish Lord paramouncy was relinquished by Alaric, and he gave it not to a Martell - but to a Lannister. The Lannisters remained loyal to House Swann in their battles against the hated Tarlys, as the Tarlys were also screwing over the Westerlands in their attempt to grab power. Lady Meliana Karstark, firmly believing that the Serbs gave no shits about her whatsoever,
declared herself Queen of the North. She was right, no one gave a shit. Winter was coming, the time for squabbling over crowns was not now. King Nikodim prepared for war, be it against the Aztecs or the White Walkers - he was going to amass the largest Empire the world has ever seen.
He started with baby steps, uniting the Summer Islands and completing what his grandfather had started. Then he set his eyes on the portions of the world where Rh'ollor worshippers were in the majority, positing that such peoples would look much more favourably on rule by a foreigner if said foreigner was also chosen by Rh'ollor. The Myrese were the first to be approached, on account of its nobility and people all being majority Rh'ollor worshipers and Nikodim's wife being a Myreneese woman from the ruling family, figured that would help the Serbian case for unification. It worked, the Myrese joined the Serbs without a fight. Next in Nikodim's sights was the small-looking nation of Lys. All I knew about Lys was that they had pirates, at one point had a hostile takeover from within by a sex slave enslaved from House Swann (the very same house as the Stormking) and were a merchant republic full of Rhllor worshipping Lysene folk. They were also immediately on the southern border of Myr, meaning they would face Iron Throne troops immediately.
To my surprise, the Lysene defied the Iron Throne. More to the point they then had support from Braavos, Qohor and Norvos. Immediately 20,000 Summer Islanders landed on their coast and in their island capital. Myrese soldiers marched upon their northern border. All the while their soldiers were not idle, landing on Storm's End, while the coalition of northern free cities landed on the northern coast of King's Landing and Driftmark, trying to take over King Nikodim's holdings. And so it was that the coalition of free cities had their worst fears realized.
RELEASE THE DRAGONSIt took a year of burning Essos soldiers alive before the forces of King Ardrian broke through the capital city of Lys, capturing the Lysene magister's family to ensure his permanent compliance. Next to join the fold was Pentos, who joined willingly. The only other city full of Rh'ollor worshippers was Volantis... But they were notable for having the majority of their peasants worshiping Rh'ollor while their ruling class did not. When the Iron Throne invaded Volantis, another coalition formed. Led by the deformed hunchback of Mantarys and the Braavosi, the free cities once more marched against the Iron Throne. The Myrese, Lysene and Pentoshi troops were invaluable in keeping the coalition's troops tied up. Summer Island levies were once again tasked with destroying the enemy's capital and taking his family, in this capacity he was successful. Thousands died, but King Nikodim made sure to make it so that worshipers of Rh'ollor were in the minority of casualties. Amusingly during the burning of the walls of Volantis one of King Nikodim's dragonriders had his wife approach King Nikodim, demanding that Lord Maelor of Dragonstone, rider of Rhaegal, be imprisoned for being unfaithful. As a matter of fact, she dragged him before King Nikodim.
It was an amusing afternoon, but Lord Maelor got off scotch free due to his immense value to the throne.
Having secured all of the Rh'ollor worshiping peoples of the world, King Nikodim had an immensely powerful foothold in Essos from which to expand.
And expand he did. King Nikodim would embark on a long march through the world, increasing his army as he went. Ibben in the far east submitted to the Iron Throne, providing a foothold in the Dothraki plains in the East while the Volantines provided a foothold in the West. The dothraki tribes were small and had never united into a large tribe, as they were too often fond of breaking up into smaller nomadic tribes. Seeing as how King Nikodim was revolutionizing administration across the world, creating new nations where there was once only a patchwork of warring ants, the same was done to the Dothraki Khalasars. One Khal, of the Drogo nomads was given a King-level title - he would be Khal of the Dothraki plains. Subsequently command of all of the other Khals was turned over to this one Khal; overnight the Dothraki plains went from being derelict to full of Dothraki screamers and the largest steppe horde Essos had ever seen. The Dothraki also had the valuable geopolitical position of bordering nearly every city state in Essos, and most of Essos from Qohor to Asshai was to quickly fall under the Iron Throne's thumbs, lest they face the wrath of Gusars, Dothrakis and Dragons. During all of this nearly half a dozen Miroslavs were made Kings, and several Kingdoms were given over to one native warlord (who would be grateful to Nikodim) whilst the unruly nobles who wanted independence could only weep as they had to deal with their liege warlord, and could do nothing to harm Nikodim. YiTi was a bit of a problem state to conquer, as it was the only other Empire in existence beyond the Aztec Empire. Its Celestial Emperor defied the world Empire of the Iron Throne, daring the far away King Nikodim to take YiTi from him by force. An army from Asshai attacked from the south while the newly formed Trader Kingdom attacked from the North, and the Qartheen attacked from the West. The Celestial Army was vast, and had the home advantage. They won every battle they fought and lay siege to rebel dissidents who wished to join the Iron Throne. When at last King Nikodim arrived, he brought his dragon - but told his dragon riders to remain on watch in Westeros. With only 4,600 men he lay siege to the capital of YiTi whose defending garrison numbered over 20,000 men. All the same, Viserion did not attack. The defenders of YiTi were awed by the great Viserion, and the Celestial Army was either too far away or too reluctant to face a dragon this powerful in battle. They continued executing my new loyal subjects in YiTi whilst the defending garrison watched in puzzlement as the besieging forces of the Iron Throne prepared their foreign siege engines for war. King Nikodim had been tasking a certain group of mad scientists with brewing some good ol' Greek fire to provide an alternative should the throne ever reach a point where there were no more dragons. The catapults fired, flinging caskets of the good stuff at the walls of YiTi all throughout the day, giving the green jungles a green glow. Tens of thousands burned alive, and that's when Viserion was given the command to attack. In the chaos of the burnt city, dragonfire burned the rest alive. Once the flames subsided the troops were given the order to march and take any surviving nobles, where they were sent to Westeros to be imprisoned or reeducated. The undefeated Celestial Army was enraged, but soon began to lose hope when Viserion burned down two more cities just as large as their capital and then burned down around 8 more smaller cities just to make sure that they got the message. All of their family kidnapped or burned to cinders, their food stores running low amidst the long winter and the rebels of YiTi sprouting out of the woodwork like grubworms after a rainy spell - the Celestial Emperor had to surrender. He passed his crown off to King Nikodim, upon which King Nikodim destroyed it, instantaneously sparking a rebellion within the former empire of YiTi. By this point the Greek Fire stockpiles had been tested as true, and were deployed with regularity and devastating effect. It is notable especially that despite legalizing slavery in Westeros, Nikodim's grand conquest had ended mass slavery. Out of a population of the entire world, there were about 50,000 slaves at most. Slavery was not possible when everyone was under the rule of the Iron Throne, as it was illegal to raid other members of the Throne. This meant that in essence, only King Nikodim could make slaves - the market had since dried up. Which didn't matter, as King Nikodim also introduced a
common market allowing the Republics of the world to build trade posts all across the world Empire in places that would otherwise have never seen spices and silver, like Asshai and Ibben. Indeed the only reason why I legalized the damn thing was no longer to sell Arryns into slavery, rather it was to eliminate rivals, humiliate enemies and seek retribution against powerful foes.
Revenge on Braavos was had this way. The world descended upon the Iron Bank to make slaves of those who once fancied themselves masters of everyone else's wallets. Whilst King Nikodim amassed his world army, burned the people of YiTi and began relocating Serbians throughout the Empire/reeducating future heirs in the ways of Rh'ollor and Miroslavdom, the Aztecs were busy. They took Stony Shore from the Westerlands. From there, they led a war for dawn. The Serbians had fucked up Westeros so hard that it was honestly up to the Aztecs to save humanity. And save it they did, leading 100,000 Aztec warriors to massacre the White Walkers and drive them all the way into the lands beyond the wall. They won so hard that for the first time ever, even extinct wildlings were once more seen in the world. Seriously,
they ended winter. Other than the whole sacrificing people on their altars, flaying them and wearing their skin, the Aztecs are the good guys in this Universe. They returned all of the North's lands to Queen Meliana Karstark, reinstated the Night's Watch and lived peacefully with the Westerosi for a short while. Their elimination of the White Walkers was incomplete however.
One wildling population had actually lived under the White Walkers and had converted to their Cold gods. They harboured many white walkers. Also rather notable, is that the original white walker general was not completely killed. It maintained a Lordship north of the wall and with its remaining armies of the dead, conquered some
Riverland counties - and one county in the Westerlands. Castamere. Smug bastard. They stopped being much of a threat after they somehow managed to usurp the Night's Watch title, becoming the shield that guards the realm of men from themselves. Amusingly, all the rebels I send to the Night's Watch end up in their court, upon which point they do horrible things to them. This is a bug I may fix, as amusing as it is. The Aztec Empire was not content with saving the world however, and upon Queen Meliana Karstark rejecting a marriage with the Emperor, he just
started a dragon conquest of the North. One thing of note is that the Aztecs brought so
many dragons with them that the dragons have been reproducing naturally and there are now fucking herds of wild dragons flying about Westeros eating people. It seems the dragons were being drawn to Dragonstone, and that is what brought the Aztecs here. The Aztecs promptly annexed the Riverlands who joined their Empire willingly (the Miroslav definition of willingly, under duress), and led a second invasion of the Westerlands after the first was somehow repulsed by the Lannisters. The surviving Lannisters fled to Dorne, where they ruled for some reason (albeit under the Stormking Aleric Swann). The Miroslavs responded by absorbing the Iron Islanders (who had until this point fractured into a decades long civil war of vikings enslaving vikings).
Braavos was entertainingly invaded by the entire world as retribution for their crimes. They were absorbed into the Empire, making the Iron Throne even larger.
Still, the Aztec position is prominent. The Aztecs command over 300,000 men while the Iron Throne commands anywhere between 500,000 to 600,000, probably closer to 500,000 after the Khalasars broke away into smaller nomadic tribes again (what is up with those Dothraki anyways?). However, all of their 300,000 are on Westeros, and they still have the most dragons and the best dragons. Largely irrelevant, since the Aztecs do not have Serbs, and he who has Serbs wins wars. The end times are a-coming, the only major nations left in the world are the Iron Throne, the Aztec Empire, the Kingdom of the Reach and the Kingdom of the Stormlands and Dorne. The Iron Throne should have enough dragons to contend with the Aztecs. The true dance of dragons should begin, a song of fire and even more fire.
Author
Topic: Crusader Kings 2 is released. (Read 2121417 times)