Xontormia Express 1357

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Wir schreiben die erste Woche des Monats Eiswind im Jahre 44 des zweiten
                Zeitalters. Es ist Winter. (25.05.2024)

27th World

The War for Massacre Island

From Nordland to Aqualand and from Sain Gardh to Spearhead, everyone has heard of the War for Massacre Island. The glorious forces of Singeraie Alliance won a decisive victory there against the Garstige Goblins and their equally nasty allies. Here is a full and unbiased account of those events, as relayed by the elven commander Punishing Hand, who led the forces of the Singeraie Alliance.

Part 2: Escalation of the War

In those early stages of war, there were very few armed forces on the island. First warriors of Dun Dwarves started arriving in the second week of spring of the year 42 (1310) by longship. The Garstige Goblins had a small contingent of troops in the northeast, which had arrived from Snake Island. The forces of Singeraie alliance consisted of a handful of well-trained troops brought by the dragonship Bee, and the fresh troops hired locally with the silver brought from Spearhead.

Both sides rushed to reinforce the island. The shape of the island is such that its eastern-most plains (then called München) can't be reached in one week by caravel from any other plains except the neighboring Leipzig. Additionally, it only takes two weeks for a caravel or a dragonship to get from München to the capital of either Garstige Goblins or Dun Dwarves (even when crewed by non-aquarians). This meant that the fight for the eastern part of the island favored Garstige Goblins a lot geographically - and with the map they had received for free from the Singeraie Alliance they knew this very well.

Very soon, it also became clear why the Garstige Goblins had maintained silence for such a long time. It turns out that they had secretly been allied with the orc tribe of Gash'tun, with which the Singeraie Alliance was in a prolonged conflict at the moment of meeting Garstige Goblins. Although a peace treaty had been signed with Gash'tun until the end of Harvestmoon of the year 43 (1320), they started moving their forces on Middlearth as soon as the war broke out on Massacre. If one considers also that the campaign for liberation of Aqualand from Elivagar hadn't finished at that moment, the situation would seem very dire for the Singeraie Alliance: a war on three fronts.

To compensate for the disadvantages of geography on Massacre, Children of Cain turned to magic. Using elementals conjured from water and storm, they made the dragonship Bee make a lightning-fast supply run back to Spearhead, and brought a mixed contingent of elven and human heroes. These efforts were rewarded in the battle of Lasombra (formerly Leipzig, currently Carcassonne) in late spring 43 (1313). The forces were rather small on both sides: a dozen heroes with good equipment supported by some fodder. However, the Singeraie Alliance also had a mage; he summoned three dozen of wolves, which proved decisive in a battle of this scale. The forces of goblins and dwarves were completely annihilated, with minimal losses for the Alliance. What's more, the reinforcements that rushed into the region next week found it empty, since the Alliance contingent had already moved on.

The Alliance forces next moved towards the mountain of Erzgebirge, to cut off the access of their enemies to locally-sourced iron (the Alliance already controlled the other two mountains on the island). As soon as the dwarves there saw the troops, they sent the Alliance a letter asking to renew the negotiations. Curious to see what they would offer, the Alliance didn't attack - the only result being the dwarves and goblins all running away to München, while a single goblin attacked all Alliance troops. Needless to say, there was never any offer of actual terms form the Dwarves of Dun.

From then on, the borders between the warring sides started to stabilize on Massacre. By the middle of summer, the Garstige Goblins and their allies only controlled three regions: the plains of München and Lasombra and the mountains of Carpathian (formerly Erzgebirge). The bordering regions were lightly held by the Alliance, with the xception of Tremere - the central region of the whole island, where there was a significant Alliance force.

After the initial defeat in Lasmobra, the Garstige Goblins started accumulating more and more troops in München. Soon even some elves of Patryna's Coven and orcs of Kalten Kinder appeared there. Some troops were being brought by caravel almost every week. By summer, they had accumulated over almost 500 melee and almost 200 ranged fighters.

At the same time, the Gash'tun aggression had resulted in a crushing defeat in Bingelberg mountains, ending any ambitions those wretches could have on Middle Earth. The Elivagar had also been defeated, in the battle of Denghoog (see XE 1313). This meant that the Alliance could now dedicate more attention to the Massacre Island.

With both sides of the Massacre War now having more forces to use, the conflict was entering its mature stage. Some much bigger battles were about to happen...

As written by Punishing Hand,
the field marshall of the Children of Cain,
of the Singeraie Alliance

to be continued...

Ziemlich fast ganz neue Welt

Der Inselname

Die letzten Gaeste haben unsere Insel verlassen und unsere komische Insel hat noch gar keinen Namen. Wir brauchen einen Namen...sagte der Elf.

Ein Blick der 'Orks des Silberdrachen' zu uns sprach Baende. Sie muss Suppentopf heissen...sieht aus wie Suppentopf...ist Suppentopf. Wie jeder weiss sind Suppentoepfe wichtig. Suppentoepfe spielen eine zentrale Rolle in jeder zivilisierten Orkkultur.

Aber der Elf der 'BladeDancers of Skullport' wollte einen eindrucksvollen, geheimnisvollen, sagenumwobenen Namen und sagte 'area fifty one'.

Der Ork kratze sich am Kopf. Area fivety one two..five...mehr five...viel five...AUA. Bevor die Kopfschmerzen zu stark wurden nahm er den Pickel und ritzte in das Inselschild den Namen ein:

Area lotza V

PS. wie werden wohl die anderen Inseln genannt?

Die reizenden Werorks

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XE zuvor

XE danach