The world is a large place, its continents separated by miles upon miles of open ocean. It is no surprise that the Nations of such continents found a way to bring war to the empty nothingness above the waves. Fleets, vessels of war joined together in combined action and intent, wave their flags high and pray that they wave them higher than any other they meet on the seas.
Blood, flame and destruction often follow. It is the way of Nations to make war. To send their people, and those opposed, to meet their deaths beneath the soulless waves. The Concord is no stranger to this, and sends their people to die just the same.
Driftwood Hulls on the Tides of War
The state of war upon the waters of Southern Esterra remains curiously balanced upon pride and memory as much as upon sail and steel. The Concord maintains two grand fleets; The People’s Gift and Liberty’s Fist . Both fleets of legend birthed in Lerona Mere and given safe anchorage at Legend City. At full muster they could bring more than 7,500 sailors to bear each, though such numbers remain a dream; their crews are motley drawn from gallivanting captains, half-paid marines, and recruits whose loyalties are as shifting as the tide.
Still, what exists upon parchment has proven enough in practice. The Liberty’s Fist now lends its might to the bloodied coastlines of Mukarrem, while People’s Gift plays elaborate games of pursuit and evasion against Artebazzani warships in the Great Trade Sea. These deployments stretch the Concord’s reach but also divide its strength, leaving precious little in reserve.
The only other fleet in the South that could meet them on equal terms sails not under any crown or council, but under the black banners of the Stormqueen herself. Ophelia Diabalos commands the Golden Fleet from her fortress-isle, The Guardian, off Mukarrem’s western shore. Sleek corsair frigates, scarred war-cogs, and swift raiding brigs crewed by hardened corsairs make up her host. By treaty signed in 222, the Concord and Golden Fleet remain partners of convenience; the corsairs are content to bleed other nations so long as they may sell their spoils in Concordian markets. Such is the way of thieves when profit weighs more than enmity.
What might have unsettled this balance; the dread war barges of Illsevir, once trident and terror of the southern seas, lie broken by last year’s schism. The Severed Lords turned their fury inland, and the Drowned, though born of water, have yet to bring their mutations back to the surf. The Trade Principality too has quieted. The fleet of Carine Del’Majeed, once fierce with its patched cogs and swift sloops-of-war, fled north after reversals in Mukarrem and has not returned. The Adanji Shahak’s ships, hired as mercenaries, likewise vanish into rumor. The southern coasts lie strangely still.
In this calm, the Concord’s fleets appear unopposed, masters of the southern tides. Yet mastery at sea is of little use when the heaviest wars gnash inland; the Zekartaal Wartribes in the North, the Onyx Aristocracy in the East, the Severed Lords at every border in the mountain places. Ships cannot hold mountains, nor can sails dig trenches.
Thus, a debate grows in the War Chamber. The Free Captains of Lerona Mere and seasoned admirals point to the long record of naval triumphs: the Bay of Promised Gold, the victories upon the Priado Expanse, the countless raids repelled by oaken hull and iron blade. They argue for more coin and more craftsmen, to strengthen what already wins wars. Others; Warleaders of the High Valley, Knights of Bordevar, and weary Ritters of the Greenweald ask a harder question: why keep two whole fleets while the land bleeds? Sell one, they say. Break its ships for timber and coin, march its marines as footmen where the ground truly quakes.
Perhaps this is no more than War Chamber tavern-talk, white-box theory spun by bored warleaders between dispatches and mugs of sour ale. Yet behind their idle speculation lingers the truth: the Concord’s fleets are mighty, yes, but are they overcompensation. They win battles surely, but could they not be of greater use in another form? But perhaps somewhere beyond the horizon waits the day when another Stormqueen, or a risen Drowned, will test whether their mastery of the seas is more than just a story told in Legend City’s halls.
Game Information
Concordian fleets continue to provide value to the War Chamber, albeit value constrained by the realities of a naval force. When looking to the future there are always options for change.
Among those who call for improvements to the Fleets of The Concord, there are many ideas tossed about. But three that rise to the surface like buoys are:
- Requests for an appraisal to allow one of the fleets to further increase its size. Artebazzani Imperial Fleets regularly number 10,000 sailors and such a fleet has docked and been maintained in Legend City in the past, if such a thing was possible once, it could be again. The power to complete this lies within the hands of The Senate.
- Requests for an appraisal into a new, perhaps military focused, port in the Priado Expanse. Sheltered from Western storms by The Guardian, this would allow a useful location for fleets battling the Trade Principality to rearm and could produce even more powerful ships. Although some may see this as accepting the loss of Nazafeza. Much as above, this power lies within the Senate.
- Perhaps most extreme, a Lerona Mere shipyard on the outskirts of the city presents plans for a new vessel that hybridises the sleek hulls of the Iron Valley with a deeper draft resembling both Andashi and Artebazzani sloops. They believe this could be a fleet capable of travelling far beyond the seas of Southern Esterra to strike out at distant foes. A tool of foreign policy more than simple warfare (if such a thing could be simple). These plans have been sent to the Foreign Minister and the Champion of the Revolution in pursuit of support.
But the calls for change in focus towards land warfare have also been heard. This is far more extreme than those who would seek a doubling-down on naval expertise. But perhaps it is appealing.
- The primary offer is to see either The People’s Gift or Liberty’s Fist disembarked, their ships sold and salvaged and the income and resources from this action used to re-equip them as an army. The Senate may choose to ‘Disembark the Fleet’ with the consent of its admiral. If this is done, The Senate may also choose to commission a single new army at the reduced cost of 10 Mithril, 3 Vaults,15 Locks, and would be completed in 1 Season. This army would be of standard size and would have the same nationalised nature as the fleet that was disembarked.
One Starlit Knight
There was no thunder when The People’s Gift met the Artebazzani at sea.
Just canvas and current. Salt-spray and shadow. The People’s Gift, lean and fully manned, seven-thousand souls held taut like a bowstring, watching, waiting. Opposite them, stretched across the curve of the world like a chain of brass links, sailed the Imperial West Fleet of Artebazzan: ten-thousand strong, hulls thick with salt and triumph, returning home from misplaced failure in Hildeblanc.
For three days, the fleets danced, sight and sound and disappearance. The Concordians never closed. The Artebazzani never struck. A thousand moments passed when blades might have been drawn, when the tide itself might have been scalded red. But none came. The sea remained silent. Out here on the high seas it was a dance of feints at taunts at the hands of Admiral Meduse.
It was not a battle. It was a presence. Under strict orders of their Admiral, the fleet was to poke and prod, keeping the Artebazzani guessing. Despite senatorial approval that crimes against those of Artebazzan did not technically count as treason, engaging such a large force (tired or otherwise) would be folly. Admiral Meduse was proving herself to be a firebrand, but not a fool, and she would not see her fleet squandered so far from home.
Eventually the Artebazzani ships were but two days from their home port in Tabbadar. Any further and this provocation would be too much to bear, and the Concordian ships would be too far from home to return for resupply. On one final night the two fleets glared at each other in anger across the moonlit waves. But one ship broke the lines.
Flashing out across the choppy sea, The Starlit Knight broke the standoff. The sloop darted among the slumbering Artebazzani like a dagger in the ribs. Careful arrowshots from its deck silenced would-be sentries as the sloop made its way past the outer picket ships, striking out to the lagging ships in the rear. There had been agreement, there had been plans, there had been other captains who had raised their hand on this imperiled journey. But none had shown. It was the Starlit Knight against the world.
From the decks of the People’s Gift, the sailors watched The Starlit Knight disappear into the darkness among the enemy fleet. They did not follow, but instead a salute was raised. Their orders were not the same as the once-admiral Dupont’s, but his mad bravery was appreciated.
As dawn broke, there was no sign of The Starlit Knight aside from more than a few wisps of smoke rising from the Artebazzani fleet. But this standoff was over.
The Artebazzani turned, broke anchor with careful dignity (such as it remained) and sailed for Tabbadar in good order. Not out of fear. Not out of defeat. But with urgency. Matters ashore called louder than the sea.
The People’s Gift let them go.
There was no triumph. No signal of victory. No logbook entry of glory. They had done what they set out to do; buy time and poke the eye of the oppressor.
But in the salt-slick quiet of the lower decks, the sailors of People’s Gift drank to the Starlit Knight, and to the silence that held the world in place for just a little longer.
Game Information
Over the Winter Season, the People’s Gift under the command of Admiral Rosaria Meduse took to the Great Trade Sea, chasing warm winds and the Western Artebazzani Imperial Fleet. For reasons known only to a few, their goal was to shadow the larger fleet and keep them fearful of Concordian attack.
It is hard to know if the strategy works, but the presence of a Concordian fleet certainly slows the travel and stilts the actions of the Artebazzani. When they eventually arrive in Tabbadar it is nearly two weeks later than they meant, and somewhat worse for wear.
The only attack was that of The Starlit Knight under the command of Captain Brulee Dupont. The moonlight assault was not sanctioned (as far as is known) but lies shrouded in mystery. The Captain, and his ship, have not been seen since. Brulee Dupont will need to report to GOD at 1pm on the first day of Summit two hours before game-in for additional information and decisions. The danger of these decisions is high.
The People’s Gift will begin the next Summit in The Central Great Trade Sea, having suffered no casualties.
That Freedom The Concord Made
Odrigan is not a city. Not yet. It is a hope, hidden in the swamps west of Tabbadar, where the trees drink salt and the rivers run with secrets.
They call it a settlement, but even that is generous. It is huts on stilts, bridges of scavenged wood and rope, a watchtower built from a wrecked mast and an old catapult. But its people are free. And in the Tabbadari West, under the iron hand of the Imperial Occupation, that makes Odrigan a crime worthy of fire.
They trickle in slowly; runaways, escapees, deserters, and dreamers. Scarred from lash and exile. Some make it. Others don’t. The mangroves hide much, but they do not protect. The swamps are wide, but Artebazzani reach is wider. Each new arrival is a miracle, and a warning.
Paykan Sarouz carries all of it. Once a fisherman turned firebrand, now a mayor by default, commander by necessity. He does not smile much anymore. His nights are long, and the walls, such as they are, too thin for his worries. He knows what they all do: the longer Odrigan endures, the more surely its death is coming. Artebazzani don’t forget what slips from their grasp.
Then comes The Esoterique, a vast and powerful Concordian Galleon flying the colours of revolution, the Colours of Lerona Mere. It should not have made it but under the cover of The People’s Gift’s bothersome presence, it made the mad dash. With it comes the first real breath of news from the wider world. Of a Concord divide in its support for matters outside its borders. Odrigan was forged in secret through the mercy and charity of Concordian Captains, but it remains unclear if that will can continue…
So Paykan chooses. The hardest thing he’s ever done.
He entrusts the city to his lieutenants; old boatmen, scarred veterans, a midwife who doubles as a quartermaster, and boards the Esoterique. Not as a diplomat. As a last gamble. He sails east, toward the Concordian Summit, to plead for recognition, for support, for any rope to cling to in the flood of imperial return.
The swamp watches him go.
In the mangroves, children play in the water, and sentries clean rust from scavenged blades. The people do not cheer. They only wait.
Freedom is not forged in sunlight. It is grown in shadow, through pain, and the will to rise again.
Game Information
A delegation from Free Odrigan is arriving at this Summit, led by Paykan Sarouz. The delegation is likely seeking to formalise Concordian aid and support for the fledgling rebel state against the Artebazzani Empire. But time will tell what they have to trade for such aid.
The delegation is being carried by ‘The Esoterique’ and Captain Charles Le Mer will have additional information regarding their journey.
The delegation is expected to present themselves on the second afternoon of the Summit and attend at least until the Senate that night.