Ah, this is what happens when I vanish for a day. Will work on getting at least one post up in the next few hours.
Also, as the next post should explain, Jack/Shaq isn't involved in this war because of the Chosen. I mean, he does prefer individual murder to wanton bloodshed, but that wouldn't involve the direct intervention he's about to get heavily into. He would rather act with a light hand and push things into place to let mortals take care of their own affairs (he's very big on the whole 'free will' diea).
Jack involved himself in the battle more or less purely to spite Carmanthyre. He has a bitter rivalry with his youngest brother and outright opposes him on idealogical grounds (I'll have to turn that sphere of Heroism to Villainy in a later turn. =D). I established at least two ground rules for Jack right off the bat, I think;
Jack can only wear the faces of murderers or the murdered.
Jack knows everything that a murderer and the murdered knew at the time of the murder.
Caveat to the above: Unless directly experienced by his avatar, Jack only knows these memories. His perception of mortal life is necessarily skewed by this, having literally been born out of the pain and lust of bloodshed.
Jack knew about the battle because Chosen started killing people. Jack got interested because he saw Carmanthyre's blade there, and joined in more or less to try and corrupt Eowen's love interest and possibly interfere with Carm's host. He kept his intervention to a very minor degree (using an enchantment, the Covenant, that had been established some turns previously).
What changed was the intervention of the Wanderer. As I've stated and confirmed with nuker w (the Wanderer's player), the sand folk aren't sapient. That is, though they have mortal cognition they lack any free will of their own (being subservient entirely to the Wanderer's will) and thus cannot qualify for murder as defined by Jack*. Jack under no circumstances wants the sand men running around killing people because it directly undermines his own sphere of power. So yeah, Jack has very good reasons to be intervening in this war.
*The death of a sapient being caused by another sapient being, whilst free-willed (not actively mind-controlled, being pressured into it still counts) and where malice or intent exists. Killing a man through rank incompetence (e.g. you accidentally knock over a wall and unwittingly kill a man) doesn't count. Killing a man when you just meant to punch him and broke his neck does.