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Long live the king! How close are you to reforming the faith?
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Jun 20, 2015 07:02
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Nehem should take care to firmly establish his grasp on New England, before the neighbors come knocking.
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Jun 20, 2015 09:27
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The warriors of the cross have attempted to claim New England twice and failed as many times, entirely thanks to the assistance the Dukes of Boston gave to the King of New England. Now the Duke of Boston is the King of New England. What hope have they of claiming our home now?
JT Jag fucked around with this message at 09:42 on Jun 20, 2015 |
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Jun 20, 2015 09:40
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NewMars posted:Long live the king! As you will see in the next update, the kingdom of Hudsonia ends up seizing Manhattan from the merchant republic of New York. This is makes New Brunswick the only trade power on the entire east coast, but also means that all three remaining holy sites, Manhattan, Poughkeepsie and Albany, are under the control of Hudsonia. We currently control the other two, Boston and Bangor.
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Jun 20, 2015 14:19
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Clayren posted:As you will see in the next update, the kingdom of Hudsonia ends up seizing Manhattan from the merchant republic of New York. This is makes New Brunswick the only trade power on the entire east coast, but also means that all three remaining holy sites, Manhattan, Poughkeepsie and Albany, are under the control of Hudsonia. We currently control the other two, Boston and Bangor. Oof. Well, at least we know who the Designated Enemy is now.
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Jun 20, 2015 16:31
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JT Jag posted:The warriors of the cross have attempted to claim New England twice and failed as many times, entirely thanks to the assistance the Dukes of Boston gave to the King of New England. Now the Duke of Boston is the King of New England. What hope have they of claiming our home now? That was when the Eldest saw fit to make others bear the burden of taking the first strike, allowing Boston to strike against a wounded foe. Now we are the ones being attacked.
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Jun 20, 2015 18:00
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 A great tournament is held in July to celebrate Nehem's great victory. But while the Yankee's feast and fight a war wraps up to the south. The Kingdom of Hudsonia finishes seizing the great city of Manhattan from the Republic of New York. The Republic, without its capital and trade fleets, collapses and its remaining land is seized by the self-proclaimed Duke Silvis of New York. On the positive side this means that New Brunswick now holds a total monopoly over trade along the Atlantic coast. On the downside it means that yet another of the Yankee holy sites is in the hands of Hudsonia, one of the most powerful and rich kingdoms in the known world with an army of over 13,000 men.  The world is, as always, a dangerous place and it pays to prepare. King Nehem the Great begins investing in his holdings, building new war camps and upgrading hill forts.  At the same time he engages in a number of raids to further bolster his war-chest. With the growth of New Brunswick as a trade power has come a massive increase in the size of the fleets Nehem can recruit for his coastal raids. When not raiding he is at home with his wife and three children, enjoying a break from the long war for New England.  But Nehem is not one to rest on his laurels. In 2729 he learns of a very successful invasion of the Ursuline Duchy of Estrie by an adventuring Rust Cultist.  A weak neighbor is too good of an opportunity to pass up for Nehem and he declares a holy war for Saint Laurent in January.  Although not a military genius when he first took the throne, constant experience in leading troops has shaped Nehem into one. There are grumbles of concern about his ever-growing realm amongst the courts of the great kingdoms and empires.  War, as ever, brings with it disease. Pneumonia makes its way through New England, taking Nehem's daughter and second son with it. His eldest son and heir, however, survives a brief fight wit the disease.  The war itself goes far better for Nehem. His forces quickly crush those of the Duke of Estrie and begin sieging his holdings.  But the Ursuline are not about to surrender control of the Saint Lawrence without a fight and many rulers rally to the Duke's defense, including the holy knights of Saint Ursula.   Nehem is forced to send out a call for volunteers to equal the number of troops flooding into New England.  His forces bolstered by eager volunteer warriors, Nehem catches the Duke and his forces along the river in mid-June. Outnumbered 2 to 1, the Ursuline army is crushed and pursued.   With his forces and those of his allies completely wiped out the Duke is forced to concede Saint Laurent to Nehem.  After his numerous victories Nehem finds himself enormously popular amongst both the common man and the tribal lords. With the war over he decides to put away his sword for a time to focus on internal development. Nehem demands greater centralization from his vassals and few dare refuse the great king.  But Nehem is only given a short rest, for in December of 2732 Lucas, King of the Maritimes, declares a holy war for New Brunswick. The Maritiman King has grown tired of watching coin drain from his lands and into the coffers of the merchants of Saint John and with New England's forces still depleted from war with Estrie he sees a chance to take the merchant republic out of the picture for good.  Once more Nehem calls upon the youth of Yankeedom to bolster his forces. Two armies of about 4,000 men each are raised and sent north. In June they reach the border of Saint John, where 5,300 Maritiman soldiers lay siege to the city.  The campaign provides Nehem with more opportunity to grow as a commander. Coordinating two armies at the same time forces him to improve in his organizational skills.  After two weeks of fighting the Maritiman army is broken and run down. King Lucas made a fatal calculation when he planned this war. He had looked at how many men Nehem could call upon and how many he could and decided he had more. While it was true that Lucas had more levies, he failed to understand that Yankee warriors are always ready to fight for gold and glory. So long is this was true, great leaders like Nehem would never have a shortage of recruits.  As always, long sieges seem to keep Nehem away from home when the most important milestones come around. In September of 2733 his eldest son and heir becomes a man. While Nehem had to experience many battles first hand to become a great commander, his son Elijah seems to have been born a tactical genius. A kind, gregarious, brave and temperate man, Elijah has a deceitful and lustful streak that might get a less artful schemer in trouble.  After repeated defeats at the hands of the Yankees, the Ursuline Church decides to look westward for a crusade target. The abbot calls for an invasion of the Rust Cultist Kingdom of Chicagoland.  The Catholics, on the other hand, declare a second crusade to push the Kingdom of Rio Bravo back south of the RIo Grande.  The war continues, bodies rot out in the open, disease runs rampant, nothing is new under the sun.  In 2736 King Lucas offers to pay Nehem in exchange for peace. Nehem agrees, taking the large donation to his war-chest and leaving the looted ruins of the western Maritimes behind him. He sends his levies home to recuperate, but retains the volunteers he has collected. He has plans for them. 
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Jun 20, 2015 22:20
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I knew the neighbors would try something!
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Jun 20, 2015 23:28
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Shame about Nehem's children. I also note his son hasn't been reading those books much, looks like.
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Jun 20, 2015 23:30
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 With the Maritimans defeated, Nehem sends his levies home to rest and recuperate. But a great number of eager young warriors remain. These are second or third sons, bastards, outlaws, the unwanted and un-landed in search of plunder and glory. Many hope to use what they gain from their service to the king as bride token, money paid to the family of a bride prior to marriage. Without such prizes most would be forced to work as laborers on the lands of their elder brothers or take to banditry.  Nehem, himself a third son, is an inspiring figure to these men and he knows it well. While the rest of his forces march back to their homes he rallies the volunteers for a campaign against the minor independent counts of the Gaspesia Peninsula. Weak Ursuline rulers with little hope for reinforcement from their more powerful brothers of the faith who are occupied in the west in their crusade for Chicagoland, they prove the perfect target for the small army of volunteer warriors.    Once more, however, Nehem's commitment to conquest means that he misses a major event back in Boston. In 2736 his wife Prudence dies of slow fever. Until this time Nehem had taken no concubines, devoted solely to the woman who had stood by his side through plague and war, a rock of stability who could be counted on to keep the realm together while he was away. It is a crushing blow to the king, who does not take another wife for two years in mourning. But eventually he feels pressured into taking another wife and a few concubines, if only to insure against the possibility of his son and heir Elijah taking sick like the rest of his family.  After two years of brief fighting the minor counts of Gaspesia fall.  Nehem forms a duchy from the lands and grants them to his son Elijah.  Elijah continues to be a general at heart, preferring to be out in the field than cooped up inside of a castle. But Nehem hopes that years of peaceful rule will teach his young heir how to be a good ruler as well as a good warlord.  At last the young warriors are sent home, their services no longer needed. Three years of rest and recruitment has seen the levies of New England recover fully. In January of 2739 the younger brother of the high chief of Massachusetts arrives in Boston, where Nehem is recuperating after the Gaspesian campaign. Massachusetts was originally created as an independent realm when the former Akeley king of New England lost his throne to Nehem. The defeated lord was allowed to retain his other titles, but after the war he was a broken man and one of his sons, a man named Saltborn, soon usurped his dukedom. Resurecting an old title, he declared himself "High Chief of the Migonids".  The younger brother of Saltborn, however, wanted the title of duke for himself and came to Nehem offering to become his vassal if he captured the duchy for him. Nehem accepted and declared war on Saltborn.  The war at first goes as one would imagine. The Migonid forces are overwhelmed by the much larger New England army.  The Migonid main force escapes, however, into Hudsonia. The Hudsonian king, alarmed at the rapid growth of New England, shelters and resupplies the forces of Saltborn. In September Saltborn returns to Massachusetts and despite being outnumbered by nearly a thousand men he scores a surprise victory against Nehem.  But it is a drop in the bucket. Nehem has more men, more money and more prestige than Saltborn could ever hope to muster. A company of Americanist mercenaries is hired to bolster the New Englander army.  The decisive blow is struck outside Greenwich. Saltborn is unable to overcome a more that 2 to 1 disadvantage with tactics alone.  The war ends shortly thereafter.  A matter more personal to Nehem occurs while the war is ongoing. In February he is informed that his son and heir has been imprisoned by the lord of the New Brunswick republic for inappropriate conduct towards his attractive young daughter during a feast in St. John.  By law the patrician has every right to keep the young Shuguin in jail for his actions. When an offer to ransom Elijah is refused his father seeks out alternative means to free the duke.  A plot to free the young man succeeds and he is smuggled back to his own lands, where he is berated by his father and king for his conduct.  Where one imprisonment causes concern another causes plotting. The lord of Brooklyn in 2740 languishes in the dungeons of the King of Hudsonia as he seeks to conquer the Palisades from the Duke of New York. In this Nehem sees a perfect opportunity to finish conquering Long Island.  At Hempstead the New Yorker army is crushed. They flee for the crossing from Brooklyn to Manhattan, but are run down before they can cross.  As he settles in for yet another siege, Nehem receives news from the west.  Once more the Catholic lords have failed to push back the forces of the King of Rio Bravo.  More news comes, in the form of a letter from the High Chief of Connecticut and the Chief of Worchester. In it the Chief claims his liege is a homosexual, sighting his long period of abstaining from women after his first wife's death as evidence. He furthermore accuses his lord of subverting the law of New England by freeing his son without a trial and not showing proper deference to the Elder Gods. The two demand that Nehem surrender his throne to Nathaniel Akeley, yet another son of the late King Nathaniel Akeley who lost his throne to Nehem. Naturally, Nehem sends the letter back, nailed to the hand of the messenger.  The rebellious vassals have succeeded in recruiting a sizable following and might pose a decent threat were not the war for Brooklyn almost over.   But the war is soon concluded and Nehem is able to direct the full force of his army against the rebels.At Hartford the supporters of Nathaniel are crushed.  The army attempts to flee south, likely the King of Hudsonia has promised them shelter and resupply as he did for Saltborn. But before the rebel army can escape Nehem runs it down at Suffield.  Meanwhile, more news arrives from the west. Once more the servants of christ fail.  The rebellion ends and the realm is once more at peace.  But the rebellion has revealed an important truth to Nehem. The Kingdom of New England is, in many ways, a kingdom in name only. A vast patchwork of duchies and chiefdoms held together by the force of Nehem's personality alone, it might easily collapse without him. It will be necessary to reform the Yankee people, both culturally and religiously to ensure the future of the kingdom he has built. But this will be impossible so long as Hudsonia meddles in the tribal politics of New England. A war shall be necessary, to grand campaign to break the back of the Hudsonian King and keep his intrigues on the other side of the river. But this will be no simple thing for although Hudsonia is smaller than New England in terms of land, what land it does have is incredibly rich and fertile. While Nehem can call upon some 8,000 levies, mostly light infantry and skirmishers, his would-be foe can call upon 13,000 men, many of whom are armored pikemen and infantry.    King Nehem the Great retires to his keep in Boston to plan and to allow his levies to rest and recruit. The summer is a muggy one, however, and he often takes long walks around the city to escape the poorly-ventilated keep. The week following the fourth day in July is a festival day throughout New England, though the roots of the festival have been long lost. On the seventh of July as the festivities continued, Nehem, still lonely after the loss of his beloved first wife, ran into  VOTE TIME So After the End is a big game with a lot to experience and staying cooped up in the corner of the map the whole game wouldn't allow us to experience everything the mod has to offer. I am planning on reforming the Occultist religion soon and once I do that I'm going to switch over to another part of the map. The question is, which part? That is up to YOU, the viewer, to decide. We will be playing the bastard child of Nehem the Great, raised in the court and culture of a distant land. Post the letter of the woman you want to be the mother of Nehem's child to vote for that region. A. Defataga Boudinot, a beautiful and childless Cherokee widow from Sequoyah. In the last hundred years the Catholics of the Southwest have seen their lands shrink rapidly. To the south, the King of Rio Bravo has resisted two crusades and continues to push north. The Kingdom of Cammancheria, once the bulwark against the hordes of the heathens south of the Rio Grande, has collapsed. To the west, the Atomicists, pushed east by the forces of the Utahan Kingdom of Deseret, conquer and raid the minor Catholic dukes and counts. To the east the Voodoo Kingdom of Lousiane continues to push west along the Gulf coast. It will take a great crusader with a righteous zeal to do God's work and reclaim the land of the Lone Star for Christ.  B. The unmarried Tuskegan Layla Meridian, sister to the countess of Choctaw. The legendary founder of the Holy Confederate Empire was, in many ways, a revolutionary figure. He united Southron, Dixie and Tuskegan lords into a single empire which treated all nobles as equals regardless of culture or religion. But with stability has come a slow breakdown in these laws. The conquest of Florida came with a widespread repression of the Americanist religion which had been the religion of the people of The Mouse prior to their conquest. This repression spilled over and the Tuskegan religion was outlawed. Those who resisted were killed or expelled, their lands seized by the Dixie. The Tuskegan minority of the Empire is increasingly being marginalized by the Dixie majority and their religion is all but wiped out. It would take a great leader to stand against the greatest empire in America.  C. Angelica Steinbach, the brilliant young Rostman with a talent for stewardship. After the fall of Cammancheria the great Grangelander Kingdom of Iowa remains as the last true Catholic power. But Iowa is plagued by endless Norse raids from the north and cannot do much to protect the minor Rostman dukes and counts along the Mississippi from the encroaching Rust Cultist hoards. Who could resist these hoards? Who could unite the Catholics of the plains and expel the Norse from the Great Lakes?  D. Janet Bowser, the young Delawarean devoted to Father Washington. Ten years ago the armies of the Confederate Empire marched up the Chesapeake coastline and conquered the bay. Now the Emperor rules the holy city of Washington and it seems likely that the Americanists shall disappear from this earth before long. To the north the forces of the Anabaptist and Occultist kingdoms plot and bicker over the fate of New York. To the west the King of Appalachia eyes the mighty empire from his mountain fortress. To the south, the empire finishes it's destruction of the Americanist population of Florida. It would take an avatar of Washington himself to push back the Empire and unify the Americanist's under a single, star-spangled, banner.  Voting shall stay open for 3 days, so take your time deciding, folks!
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Jun 21, 2015 21:29
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B. Is the Confederacy no longer Evangelical?
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Jun 21, 2015 21:40
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D The Forefathers call for war!
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Jun 21, 2015 21:46
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Lord Cyrahzax posted:B. It is, but the charismatic church most of the Tuskegians belong to is pretty much gone. Here's a religions map: 
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Jun 21, 2015 21:50
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C I want to see Norse Michigander hordes sweeping over the land for us to drive back. Possibly even CANUCKS from across the Great Lakes!
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Jun 21, 2015 21:52
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B Let's bring down Dixie  God I love After the End. My only complaint is that Hampton Roads is lumped in with the Evangelicals by default instead of the Americanists.
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Jun 21, 2015 21:57
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D because want to hear more about the americanist religion, which will take some work to rehabilitate it looks like, and you'll have a big bad emperor to fight with a powdered wig on. and i want to watch stuff happen in the area i'm from
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Jun 21, 2015 22:00
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D, the President Wills It!
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Jun 21, 2015 22:01
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Charismatic and Tuskegean overlap that much at game start? Huh, always meant it to be more just Appalachian tent revival stuff, never really thought about other implications. The Catholic option would give you a good central location to muck about the Great Plains, and the Crusades would toss you around a fair bit of the map, but Catholicism's largely based off the vanilla religion and isn't the most mechanically unique. The Americanists offer a lot of new material (much of it made by great fellow goon Sam.), but you've already seen one end of that and they're also right on the East Coast. Ursulines are a favorite of mine, since they use a lot of familiar CK2 Catholic mechanics but still invert some stuff within the faith, but that's not an option there and you're already quite nearby. I'll vote for A.
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Jun 21, 2015 22:01
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D. And may washington be with us.
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Jun 21, 2015 22:20
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D. And may the Patriots be with you.
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Jun 21, 2015 22:56
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While I WANT to vote D, it (and a few of the other options, really) are too close to us on the map. So I'll go with A.
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Jun 21, 2015 23:03
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D, holy poo poo those wigs.
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Jun 21, 2015 23:11
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I've just formed my americanist kingdom of florida, so I'm eager to see another part of the map. B should be interesting. Edit: Also, this seems like a good place to ask. Why can't old world cultist use the seduction focus. They can select it but then they can't actually choose to seduce anyone. UrbicaMortis fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Jun 21, 2015 |
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Jun 21, 2015 23:15
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A. Let's spread the love around a little.
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Jun 22, 2015 00:41
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B Dixie is a bastard in most of my games, so it'll be nice to see them get some comeuppance.
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Jun 22, 2015 01:26
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Ofaloaf posted:Charismatic and Tuskegean overlap that much at game start? Huh, always meant it to be more just Appalachian tent revival stuff, never really thought about other implications. Hey thanks for the work, the mod is a blast. I've found myself with way too much time while I look for a teaching job and this gives me a chance to do a CK2 LP without looking like a chump compared to far more competent players/writers who have already shown of vanilla CK2. As for the Charismatic stuff, I don't know if there is an info dump about the canon of this scenario somewhere I missed or not, but I'm just filling in the gaps where I see them and making it up as I go along for the most part.
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Jun 22, 2015 01:48
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America, America, thy country tis of D!
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Jun 22, 2015 03:06
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Clayren posted:Hey thanks for the work, the mod is a blast. I've found myself with way too much time while I look for a teaching job and this gives me a chance to do a CK2 LP without looking like a chump compared to far more competent players/writers who have already shown of vanilla CK2. As for the Charismatic stuff, I don't know if there is an info dump about the canon of this scenario somewhere I missed or not, but I'm just filling in the gaps where I see them and making it up as I go along for the most part.  poo poo from people saying stuff like "Well actually if X, Y & Z happened, then there's no way that A, B & C would happen as depicted in the mod, so if the canon is true then arglebargle yadda yadda, also if the apocalypse was this then why hasn't the sea risen/fallen, what about irradiated zones, blah blah blah". That didn't seem like fun, so I decided it was better to just not bother explaining what had happened.
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Jun 22, 2015 04:27
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Gotta go for the Quick wife. A
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Jun 22, 2015 06:21
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D. Sword, Key, and Book!
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Jun 22, 2015 06:55
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C, the Great Lakes shall be ours!
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Jun 22, 2015 09:13
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D, I'd like to see Americanism rescued from the abyss here.
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Jun 22, 2015 09:16
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Oh say can you D.
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Jun 22, 2015 17:39
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Either B or D, because gently caress the Confederacy. 
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Jun 22, 2015 17:51
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Can I also just say how funny I find it that Poughkeepsie of all places is a holy site for anything? We have what, a big bridge and the last stop on the commuter rail to NYC? The opera house is pretty nice I guess, but I can't think of anything spooky. Speaking of which, are there any events for folklore sorts of things? I think the Headless Horseman, etc. would be a neat thing to run into occasionally.
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Jun 22, 2015 19:00
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Grizzwold posted:Can I also just say how funny I find it that Poughkeepsie of all places is a holy site for anything? We have what, a big bridge and the last stop on the commuter rail to NYC? The opera house is pretty nice I guess, but I can't think of anything spooky. Sleepy Hollow is one of the religious sites. As well, I believe, though I've yet to see it, that the dragon event has been changed so that it mentions big foot, champ, the Jersey devil or the mothman.
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Jun 22, 2015 19:17
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Alright I'm going to call the vote to a close since nobody's replied in a couple days with new votes. Results: A - 4 B - 5 C - 2 D - 11 Looks like the Americanists win by a wide margin. I'll finish up the Occultist run once I conquer Manhattan and reform the faith (should be one to two updates, barring any unforeseen events).
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Jun 24, 2015 21:58
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 If you haven't been listening to Prog Rock while you read this you've been doing it wrong. Amidst the pageantry and celebration, Nehem meets an young Americanist named Janet on pilgrimage to the Boston harbor. She is unlike his second wife, a shrewd woman with an eye for counting coins and accruing influence in the court. Janet, on the other hand, is an intelligent and learned young courtier with a calm and content manner about her. Surrounded as he is by greedy and ambitious relatives, vassals and courtiers who endlessly snipe and backbite each other, he finds the young woman a welcome change of pace. Janet's pilgrimage is extended to a month, then two as she and the great king of New England form a passionate, but quiet, relationship. But it is not to last, Janet is the second sister of the Duke of Delmarva and when he notices her long absence he sends a trusted aid to fetch the wayward Bowser. Not willing to abandon her homeland and family, she leaves.  Nehem is heartbroken, but work must go on. Increasingly it seems that there is no time for the king to breathe, war seems to be his every hour. In preparation for the coming war, King Nehem further centralizes the realm, ensuring that he has a tight grip on his vassals, lest they decide to rise in rebellion while he is away fighting the Anabaptists.  Even his planned brief rest between major wars is cut short in 2744 when he must muster his levies to crush a rebellion of Quebecois peasants in the north.  When Nehem returns to a letter that has been opened by his wife Bridget. It is from Janet, conveyed by trusted courier who was not, apparently, above bribery. His wife's demands are clear: refuse to acknowledge the offspring of his dalliances with Janet or she will use her influence in the court to delay his invasion of Manhattan. Nehem has her locked in her room and placed under armed guard until the war is begun and acknowledges the child as his own, but stops short of legitimizing Philip.  Meanwhile, rumors of war abound. It is common knowledge among the Yankee that Nehem the Great will soon go to war once more.  In 2745 the time is right. His army swollen with eager young recruits, Nehem feels confident that he can take and hold the Duchy of Manhattan and score a decisive blow for the faith of the Eldest.  As always, the declaration of war attracts more young men to his cause.  Nehem's vassals respond to his calls, but the troops move slowly in the harsh winter weather and every day that goes by is another day for the Hudsonian forces to gather and organize.  Hoping to strike an early blow and prevent the Hudsonian king to gather his forces, Nehem leads his own levies and volunteers across the Hudson and into Albany. But it is trap, the bulk of King Artur III's troops are already in John's Town and at his signal they arrive by swift boats down the Mohawk River, reinforcing the smaller force that had been traveling from Albany to Saratoga when Nehem ambushed it. Outnumbered by 2 to 1, the Yankee king is forced to retreat south into Woodstock. Before he can cross the Hudson, however, the forces of Artur III catch up with the New ENgland army and score another blow. Nehem is forced to flee across the river with the majority of his army still trapped in Hudsonia. Those that fail to escape are slaughtered.  With more than half of his available forces destroyed, Nehem turns to mercenaries to make up for his lost forces. A considerable sum of money is spent hiring the elite Mounties of Ottawa, a force of mounted and foot archers and heavy infantry. Renowned throughout North America, the distinctive red banners and armor of these warriors is enough to strike fear into the hearts of men.  It is enough to turn the tide of the war. In July Nehem's army meets Artur's on the eastern shores of the Hudson and delivers a fateful blow. Now Artur faces the same issue as Nehem did: finding a way across the Hudson River with the enemy in pursuit.  Artur is no better at finding a solution to this predicament than Nehem was. The Hudsonian force is hunted down and slaughtered.  With the bulk of Artur's troops taken care of, Nehem begins sieging Manhattan. The land is a maze of jagged stone and metal covered by only a thin layer of soil and hardy weeds and grasses. Tiring of long sieges, Nehem launches a successful assault on the city proper in November, but many sections of the sprawling trade hub still remain in Hudsonian hands.  By 2748, however, it becomes clear that the Anabaptist god is not going to intercede on Artur's behalf. Reluctantly, the king surrenders to Nehem and gives him control of Manhattan, the city of the world's desire.  His treasury greatly diminished, Nehem thanks the mounties for their service and sends them back to Ottawa. No sooner does he give the order for his levies to return home then the king of the Maritimes declare a holy war on New England. There will no be short rest after a hard-won war for Nehem, it seems.  An army is scraped together somehow and the Maritimans are given a thrashing at Newcastle. Not having much stomach for a long war and with illness appearing in the lands, the king of the Maritimes offers his surrender the next year.   Once more, however, Quebecois peasants rise up against Nehem. They claim that the endless warmongering of the Yankee lord is the cause of a number of plagues afflicting their lands.  A plague may take the life of a peasant, or it may not, but Nehem is not so mercurial. 2750 and 2751 are years of rage for Nehem. Denied a rest for so long, he turns to endless wars. In May he finishes conquering the Gaspar Peninsula.  January of the next year he finishes the conquest of Estrie.  2752 offers Nehem a chance to kick his rival while he is down. A High Churcher duke name Gideo has declared a revolt against King Artur III, claiming that the Hudsonian king's ineptitude is what is allowing for the rapid growth of Nehem's realm.  Nehem takes this as an opportunity to claim the holy site at Poughkeepsie for the faithful.  The divided Hudsonians do not stand a chance and in 2755 the Anabaptists are once more pushed across the river for which their kingdom is named.  Few dare speak against Nehem's moral authority amongst the faithful. He is seen as an avatar of the wrath of the Elder Gods, sent to Earth to rally the faithful and drive back the unbelievers. Nehem uses this authority to introduce serious reforms into the faith, doing away with the worship of minor spirits and creating a clearly defined pantheon of gods (Nor'Eester: Lord of Storms, Hydra: Goddess of the Sea, Mothman: God of the Woods, Pissah: God of Drink, etc...). Most important of all, he establishes a clear hierarchy within the religion, establishing the office of the High Hierophant to rule over all the lesser priests.  Hydra, it seems, is pleased and strikes the lands of the Confederacy.  The next few years pass by quietly. Nehem can rest, the integrity of the kingdom he has built ensured by the power of the new church of the Elders. In January of 2577 his mother passes away. During the reign of his lustful father, it was her steady hand that kept the realm together. At 84 years she returns to the ancestors.  His war years over, Nehem spends more time with his family. His wife continues to ignore him, having never forgiven him for placing her under house arrest for a time. His eldest sons are likewise too busy ruling their lands and plotting over the throne.  But Nehem delights in his bastard son Philip, whose letters show him to be a bright and energetic child.  But peace cannot last forever. With the distraction of endless war removed the Yankee people become restless. Many begin to challenge the new church, saying that it conflicts with the teachings of the gods. Nehem once more rallies his forces.   The correspondences Nehem receives from his son are increasingly the only thing that warms the old mans heart. But he is a man who has spent more years at war than not and finds it difficult to communicate his feelings to the young man. In his letters Philip often speaks of the difficulties of living in exile in the Jersey Shore and how he longs to return to Delmarva, where his uncle once ruled before the self-proclaimed "King of Columbia" conquered the peninsula with the help of his lord.  For Nehem, actions have always spoken louder than words. In 2759 he declares war for Delmarva. His stated goal is to create a buffer state between New England and the Confederacy, which has been creeping northward slowly. Engaged in war with Applachia, Nehem hopes he can take on the largest realm in North America and win.  The Emperor is over-confident and sends his army in two waves.  The first is crushed and chased down to the end of the peninsula. Fearing slaughter, many men attempt to swim, but their heavy armor drags them down.  The second force at last arrives on the peninsula, but they find themselves without reinforcement. The battle goes well for the New Englander army, but in the midst of combat King Nehem takes a blow to the head. He falls into a deep coma and cannot be awoken.  His sons continue the war in his stead, finishing it in 2760 after capturing the Emperor Vitalian himself in battle.  In June Nehem the Great develops Pneumonia. It does not look like he is long for this world.  Nonetheless, his last wishes are carried out and Delmarva is granted to Philip.  On the 29th of July, 2060, the conqueror of New England, the reformer of the church, the greatest Yankee to ever live, died in his sickbed. It is said that a great hoard of lobsters and crabs swarmed the Boston harbor the night of his death, devouring several dozen Americanist pilgrims. It is also said that many cows were born with two heads, that women gave birth to children with horns and that the holy relics in Manhattan church burned with fire for 3 days.  Nehem was a man whose exploits will live on in song for all ages, but in the end his warrior lifestyle left him feeling empty. He sought to reconnect with his family through conquest and in the end it cost him his life. Now his son Elijah shall take the throne and time shall show whether or not the Kingdom born of Nehem's ambitions can survivor past his death. But that will not be our story to tell, for now our eyes turn south, where the bastard son of a great king dreams of a different father in a wig and a flaming sword. The Reign of King Nehem I Shuguin has Ended! Long Live The Kingdom Of New England!
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Jun 26, 2015 06:07
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This game is so loving cool. I'm really looking forward to Phillip, much as I liked Nehem and wish we could see what was going on in Michigan.
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Jun 26, 2015 06:40
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May Phillip follow in his father's footsteps.
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Jun 27, 2015 21:24
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