Dyelli Beybi

Smoke and Steel

Name: Orrian Corfina
Species/Race: Elgafolk
Sex: Male
Age: 220
Court Alignment: Eastern Empire
Role: Emperor
Appearance: 6'2'' - sun bleached hair and brown eyes.

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Strengths and Weaknesses

Skills: Commanding from the front, Orrian is a handsome, inspiring and brave figure as well as a competent tactician who has the trust of the men under his command.
Weaknesses: Does not have much of a head for politics and struggles to understand the flow-on effect of actions.

Background:

Backstory: Orrian Corfina, now aged 190, unlike his older brother was raised in the West on the vast open plains, amongst the nomadic elga tribes who were, even then, beginning to become suspicious of the Easterners abandonment of the ancient nomadic lifestyle in favour of ‘decadent’ styles of human Lordship. His father saw no purpose in sending his younger son, who was not expected to inherit the throne, to learn the ways of the humans in the East.

Over time, a strong resentment grew up between the brothers, with Orrian seeing himself as the better choice for Emperor, the more elga of the two of them.

It isn't clear who assassinated Emperor Voron. Voron, his son, was set to inherit the throne, while the Traditionalist faction saw him as a decadent and increasingly inept ruler. Both brother's blamed each other, though Voron commanded the Imperial guard and sent to arrest Orrian. Orrian, however, had received a tip-off ahead of time and fled the capital and raised his banner in the West, rallying many traditionalist elga Lords behind him.

While commanding, at most 40,000 troops, and enjoying almost no support East of the Morktree, Orrian’s victory at Lysfelt, which he personally commanded, has given momentum to his cause. While many of the Western Empire court believe in abandoning the lands East of the Morktree and some even favour abandoning Maceataby and Elvesland (Mittelvolk cities), Orrian is aware that if his brother is able to deal with the other threats to his rule and bring the full force of the Eastern Empire’s armies to bear, he will undoubtedly be defeated.

Smoke and Steel

Name: Arel Elmys
Species/Race: Elgafolk
Sex: Male
Age: 360
Court Alignment: Western Empire
Role: Tribal Chieftain
Appearance: 6'4''. The very picture of an elga horselord with long blonde hair and dark, eyes.

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Strengths and Weaknesses

Skills: A skilled commander with a fearsome reputation who inspires confidence in his troops. Has a pretty solid grasp of politics.
Weaknesses: Generally lacks both ambition and any desire to leave the steppes of the continent interior.

Background:

Backstory: Arel Elmys is an ancient elf. He was leading soldiers before the conquest of Inbur and took part in it, leading a unit of heavy cavalry in the campaign against the Inburian interior though when Emperor Voron offered Arel a title, he respectfully declined it and returned East to the nomadic lifestyle he had always known.

At first the conquest had seemed the pinacle of glory for the Haltian Empire, both for the Elgafolk who ruled it and for the its human tributaries. But quickly, Arel began to see the burden of administration. Taxes went up. Greater tribute was demanded from the human cities in the West. Suppressing revolts, particularly amongst the Inburians became the main purpose of a large and expensive Haltian army. And the army became increasingly reliant on human soldiers.

Many elgafolk began to adopt human customs, abandoning the old ways in favour of the decadent lifestyle of a human palace. To Arel's dismay, Emperor Voron himself erected a huge, human-style palace in Alveby and seemed increasingly disinterested in anything more than the pleasures offered by food, wine and concubines.

Then the assassination happened. Like most nibles, Arel had no idea who had actually killed the Emperor, but Voron II seemed the more likely candidate (in Arel's opinion) and he joined Orrian's army, riding on the left flank at Lysfelt, when it overran routed Voron's cavalry and then two regiments of his 'Owned Men'. It was a glorious day. One for the history books, but now the question had become what to do next? They couldn't let Voron rebuild his forces unmolested, but at the same time, did they really want to rule the East? It had, in Arel's opinion, been nothing but a problem since the conquest.

Smoke and Steel

Name: Konrad Louffen
Species/Race: Mittelvolkish
Sex: Male
Age: 36
Court Alignment: Red Wyvern
Role: General
Appearance: 5'11''. Dark hair with a well maintained moustache. Something of a dapper dresser.

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Strengths and Weaknesses

Skills: A skilled and competent commander.
Weaknesses: Walks with a limp due to a sword injury to his left leg earlier in his career.

Background:

Backstory: Konrad Louffen is the third son of a wealthy family from the city of Maceataby. Not in line to inherit his father's business, Konrad instead enlisted with a mercenary company, eventually gaining enough expertise that his father felt confident giving him a sum of money to form his own company and make his fortune - which Konrad did not. While he was competent enough to receive a string of contracts from border Lords in the Empire and in other Circle Sea regions, he found the constant costs the company brought with it, never really allowed him to save too much money. Perhaps if there was a major war and he was able to pillage some estates, rather than sitting around, guarding them, he might have made his fortune...

Konrad had been under contract to the city of Inbur, when, rather annoyingly, the Modra host was transferred to the area and his contract was not renewed. While consoling himself with a few glasses of strong ale at a tavern, Konrad made the acquaintance of Marius Panayi. Panayi sold Konrad on the idea of a redistribution of land and titles, if they could get the elgafolk out of their land. Obviously though involved in the effort would be the ones to benefit.

While the idea of land and a title was a great selling point for Konrad, he wasn't ready to actually commit to the cause until the news of the Battle of Lysfelt reached him. With the Empire divided and no quick victory in sight, now was the moment to revolt.

Konrad's troops formed the core of the Red Army at Rodelkog and it was Konrad who gave the order for a general charge, relying on the weight of numbers of the Red Army, untrained and underequipped as they were, to carry the day. They did, although it was a close run thing. And while the Red forces captured ordinance and supply, they are carrying over 2,300 wounded soldiers and 1,600 are either dead or unaccounted for, nearly a quarter of their numbers before the battle. Konrad is not overly keen on moving until the troops have had some time to recover.

Smoke and Steel

Name: Ariana Hasikos
Species/Race: Inburian
Sex: Female
Age: 18
Court Alignment: Red Wyvern
Role: Pretender
Appearance: 5'5'', youthful and slender with dark eyes and hair.

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Strengths and Weaknesses

Skills: Has the manners of an aristocrat and the skills you might expect of a well-to-do farmer's daughter.
Weaknesses: She's a nervous, uncertain teenager. Can do terrible things when her anger is woken.

Background:

Backstory: Ariana never had any aspirations of grandeur and was always a little bit of a wallflower growing up, hidden in the shadow cast by her vivacious, coquettish older sister, Andronika. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, there was never any rivalry between the sisters and both have friendly natures and, being very close together in age, were extremely close friends growing up. Ariana was similarly close with her father, though she never knew her mother, who had died giving birth to her.

Unlike Andronika, Ariana was not betrothed, though she was certain her father would find her a suitable match at some point...

That was until that fateful day Andronika was arrested for a crime Ariana, and their father Dakis, were convinced their sister was innocent. Ariana had no need to steal and was (with the exception of her behaviour with the boys around the farm) a pillar of virtue. Dakis protested the arrest vocally and when he received no satisfaction, by all accounts threatened the Sir Respen, their local lord. Ariana wasn't present to hear the threat, but it was enough to have him tried for sedition and executed by hanging.

The double blow shattered Ariana and while she was now in control of the farm she withdrew, allowing the farm hands to run the place while she slunk off to the local tavern to drink, alone with her thoughts.

It was here that a merchant called 'Marius Panayi' found her, in the wake of the shocking assassination of the Emperor and the battle between his sons. Payani wanted to use the civil war as an opportunity to throw off the yoke of Haltian oppression and he wanted Ariana to lead the cause. She took very little persuading.

With a core of veteran soldiers in the pay of Payani and a flock of angry peasants, Ariana burned Sir Respen's hall to the ground and, in retribution for what had happened to her family, had Sir Respen's wife and children impaled, before impaling the elga Lordling himself. She regretted the action as soon as her anger had simmered down but Respen had been hated enough that it seemed to encourage others to join their cause.

Word reached Ariana soon after that her sister was alive and had raised her own standard in the West. In deference to her, Ariana inverted the colour scheme of her standard, changing the white wyvern on a red field to a red wyvern on a white field and she expects to link up with Andronika at some point. As to when, she's not entirely sure. She tends to leave the big decisions to people who know about war and politics.

Ariana was not present on the field at Rodelkog, her advisors had her at a nearby house, though she did tour the field afterwards and was surprised to learn that around 2,000 Imperial prisoners were ready to join her ranks, replacing the 1,600 or so of her people dead or missing after the battle, with soldiers, she is assured by her advisors, are of higher quality than the levies they lost. The idea of fighting for a cause, then joining your enemies seemed odd to Ariana, but she was assured this was the way of things and better for everyone involved. War, she decided, is a strange business.

Wild Beasts of the Earth (Gothic Horror)

The Gravedigger and Nicola Hoffman

"Fine," trhe gravedigger spat, planting his spade in the dirt of his partially dug grave, clambering out then pausing to wipe his hands on the front of his trousers, "But you won't find anything of interest."

They weren't far away it turned out. Less than 200 metres before the gravedigger stopped, pointing at a line of freshly filled graves, "Second one on the right." he grunted, "Some communist boy who the freikorp shot got put down there," he grimaced, patting his pockets, seemingly looking for a cigarette and not finding one, "Anyway, the others got put in later. Some are Nationalists. Some are Communists. They all go in the same boxes," he added, eyeing Rudy to see what his reaction to that comment might be.

"Perhaps," Nicola put in, "There is someone who uses this area because, and forgive me if I'm wrong Sir, but there's nobody here at night."

"No, there isn't," the gravedigger grunted, "Even we get time off. And accidents happen in the dark... though the boy was here after dark... that's odd, come to think of it."

Smoke and Steel

Name: Marius Panayi
Species/Race: Inburian
Sex: Male
Age: 36
Court Alignment: Red Wyvern
Role: Merchant and financial backer
Appearance: 5'10'' - with dark eyes, a short beard and carefully trimmed hair.

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Strengths and Weaknesses

Skills: Cunning and good with money.
Weaknesses: Not a soldier - just a money man.

Background:

Backstory: The Payani family have been a wealthy family in the city of Inbur for several generations but it was under Artem Payani, Marius' grandfather, that the Payani family rose to being amongst the wealthiest families in Inbur through the creation of the Payani Bank.

Marius grew up in luxury, but also with a strong sense of injustice as he watched his family shut out of positions of prestige and power that went to the less capable children of ennobled elgafolk. As a young man, Marius became increasingly disenchanted and rebellious, though he was careful enough to keep his comments to private salons, while remaining an ostensibly good, loyal subject.

By the time he became head of the family six years ago, Marius had built a deep network of disaffected humans in the Eastern Empire although initially there was no attempt to orchestrate a revolt, Marius did manage to track down Dakis Hasikos, the legitimate heir to the Imperial throne. When Dakis was executed for sedition after protesting the arrest of his older daughter too vociferously, Marius approached Ariana, Dakis' younger daughter, proposing that she become the figurehead for a revolt.

Ariana was angry at the arrest of her sister and death of her father and was more than happy to help. Conveniently for Marius, it turned out that Ariana was, outside of the anger, quite malleable...

Empire of the Clouds

Arkadios

"Miss Ferarri," Arkadios appeared on the bridge, hands folded behind his back, "Cease what you are doing and inflate the ballonets. We've taken on ballast. Keep us down till we can safely disconnect the cables and get the crew aboard."

"Then," he continued, "We deflate the ballonets and dump the ballast and we should be able to ascend reasonably quickly."

The horsemen, meanwhile had paused momentarily, then disappeared back beyond the ridgeline.

Smoke and Steel

@Theyra

Looks good to me... Feel free to call the town Ebengrenzstadt... or something else if you prefer.

Smoke and Steel

I'm aiming to have the IC up in the weekend

Smoke and Steel

Name: Voron II Corfina
Species/Race: Elgafolk
Sex: Male
Age: 220
Court Alignment: Eastern Empire
Role: Emperor
Appearance: 5'11'' - short for an elgamann with dark hair and eyes.

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Strengths and Weaknesses

Skills: A patient, thoughtful leader, not prone to rash action.
Weaknesses: Also, not the most decisive leader. Does not have the same magnetic charisma of many of his rivals

Background:

Backstory: Voron was a teenager when Inbur was conquered and he was quickly sent to live with and learn the ways of the newly conquered human subjects in the East. Like many of the younger elgafolk in the East, Voron learned to enjoy a settled, human lifestyle, as an adult taking on the trappings of a human Lord and becoming a leading figure in the party at court calling for reforms within the Empire to improve society for the Inburians, Mittelvolk and other enslaved and downtrodden human groups, seeing this as the only way for the Empire to safeguard against a largescale human revolt in the East.

For the last 50 years, Voron has spent half the year in Inbur and half the year in the Imperial capital of Alveby, a sprawling, indefensible city, half of which is usually tents from one nomadic tribe or another.

Voron, uniquely, among the many leaders, knows just how big the threat from the Blight actually is, having spent time in Grendell and ridden out with scouting parties to observe the devastated land and perversely mutated flora and fauna first hand.

At the time of the assassination of his father, Voron blamed his younger brother Orrian for orchestrating the assassination. Orrian, the leader of the Western ‘Traditionalist’ Faction, blamed Voron. Voron moved to send guards to arrest Orrian, realising that his brother would raise his banner in the West, but by the time they arrived the Prince had already fled.

Orrian and Voron’s hastily assembled armies met at the Battle of Lysfelt where Orrian’s force of 7,400 troops drove Voron’s 9,700 troops from the field (with 756 of Orrian’s troops killed to 1,476 of Voron’s with an additional 2,400 taken prisoner). Orrian personally commanded the battle, while Voron observed, leaving the actual command to his Generals.

With reinforcements too far away to be of any particular use, Voron gave the order to aband the capital to his brother and regroup in the Mittelvolkish city of Elvesland.