Chapter Summaries

The Trolls seized more of the city wall, forcing the Hornhoof People’s Great Chieftain and elites into a fierce close battle while Giant Tusk waited outside for an opening. In the north, witch doctors began enlarging the tunnels beneath the wall, and the earth’s upheaval caused a hundred-meter section to crack.

• Troll warriors climbed onto the wall in increasing numbers, overwhelming defenders until the Great Chieftain and other Hornhoof People elites joined the fight.
• The Great Chieftain struck three Trolls with a shockwave and cylinder, then was surrounded by eight Trolls who disrupted his attacks with shields and corpses.
• The Great Chieftain activated patterns in the ground that strengthened nearby Hornhoof People and weakened the Trolls, as reinforcements turned the stretch of wall into a major battlefield.
• Giant Tusk slowed the southern bombardment but kept his trebuchets loaded and held his remaining forces in reserve while he watched for an opening.
• The witch doctors used seeds to grow roots beneath the northern wall, overturning the soil and exposing Great Trees as a hundred-meter section of wall cracked.

The Troll army broke through Tulun City's southern wall after the shamans diverted their attention to the northern wall, then began advancing into the city. Daba led a hidden force of Trolls and moose cavalry through a cavern beneath the wall, where they emerged to face the Hornhoof People.

• The witch doctors used Keelwood to damage the northern wall, forcing the shamans to split their attention and weaken their protection of the southern wall.
• Giant Tusk ordered the heavy trebuchets to bombard a designated section of the southern wall, and four volleys reduced roughly fifty meters of it to rubble.
• The Troll vanguard survived the collapse with their shields, killed Hornhoof People defenders among the ruins, and advanced into the city under fire from Troll siege weapons.
• The witch doctors abandoned the burning Keelwood and sent Daba with more than five hundred cavalrymen through a cavern beneath the southern wall, where Steelwood had formed a hollow passage.
• Daba and his Troll warriors emerged inside Tulun City as Hornhoof People clan leaders rushed to stop them, and Daba charged head-on into the defenders' buff-and-debuff zone.

Daba and the Trolls broke the Hornhoof defense after Giant Tusk’s assault destroyed a section of the city wall and catapults began smashing buildings. The Hornhoof army routed, and the Trolls killed the remaining defenders and destroyed the Domain Pillars until no Hornhoof warrior could stand.

• Daba led the Troll officers in a charge that broke through the Hornhoof front line, while newly emerged Trolls hurled javelins and picked off warriors from their moose.
• Giant Tusk ordered the general assault, and a section of the city wall collapsed, filling the battlefield with dust and panic.
• Hornhoof warriors began fleeing after spotting the breach, and Daba killed a great noble whose death weakened the Five-in-One Domain.
• Trolls spread the cry that the city had fallen as catapult projectiles demolished civilian houses and drove more Hornhoof militiamen to flee.
• Daba and the Trolls overwhelmed the remaining Hornhoof elites, killed the keepers of the Domain Pillars, and ended the battle with no Hornhoof warrior left standing.

Troll forces breached the Hornhoof city, where uncontrolled killing by conscripts caused heavy casualties before officers and witch doctors restored order. The Tulun Shaman Priesthood surrendered, and Giant Tusk relayed the news to the main tribe, where Nesta received it.

• Daba led his cavalry through the northern city, where conscripts slaughtered surrendering militiamen until seven witch doctors used Intimidation to calm them.
• Southern officers suppressed their infantry's bloodlust more quickly, allowing some Hornhoof prisoners to survive.
• Valerie Tusk and Joelle Tusk reached the Ancestral Altar and reported its threatening presence to Giant Tusk and the witch doctors.
• The Tulun Shaman Priesthood descended from the altar and asked Valerie to convey their surrender and request that the killing stop.
• Giant Tusk halted the battering rams and sent news of the city's surrender through relay stations to the main tribe.
• Nesta emerged from his laboratory, read the message, and acknowledged that the city had been taken.

Nesta reviewed the Expeditionary Army’s failures and drafted proposals to discipline and reorganize the Far Traveler Corps while establishing dedicated battlefield scouts. The casualty report and his assessment of the conscripts’ rampage led him to recognize that the tribe’s leaders, including himself, had rushed into war without adequate planning.

• Nesta considered the Far Traveler Corps’ unauthorized action and proposed measured punishment, a revised role focused on exploration and intelligence, and separate battlefield scouts.
• Nesta identified the conscripts’ rampage as a result of inadequate training, Daba’s decision to lead from the front, and junior officers’ failure to control their troops.
• Nesta acknowledged that the tribe’s upper ranks had rushed the war and failed to plan its objectives, training, or command structure.
• Nesta reviewed the casualties and noted that nearly forty Far Travelers had died, mostly during their independent action outside the city.
• Nesta resolved to establish dedicated scouts after concluding that the Far Traveler Corps’ lightly protective equipment contributed to its consistently high casualty rate.

Nesta assessed the battle’s losses and reconsidered the Trolls’ military system, then the Rune Council decided to preserve the Hornhoof People under Tusk Tribe suzerainty in exchange for their Arcane Arts inheritance and intelligence. The decision reached Giant Tusk in New Tulun City, where he enforced strict curfews while the shamans cautiously assisted the occupying army.

• Nesta reviewed the Trolls’ casualties and drafted a plan for elite rapid-response forces, trained local militias, and conscripts who returned to civilian life after campaigns.
• Nesta weighed the devastation suffered by the Hornhoof People and left their fate and the acquisition of their Arcane Arts inheritance for the Rune Council and Executive Government to discuss.
• The Executive Government proposed massacring, expelling, or relocating the Hornhoof People, while the Rune Council favored letting them rebuild under headquarters supervision in return for acknowledging Tusk Tribe suzerainty and surrendering their knowledge.
• The Rune Council approved a future Headquarters–Tulun railway, but deferred construction until other lines were built and the Trolls gained experience.
• Giant Tusk received the Rune Council’s decision after the Expeditionary Army took control of New Tulun City, and he imposed strict day and night curfews to prevent further violence.
• The High Priest led some shamans from the Ancestral Altar to assist the Troll army, while the remaining shamans stayed there and the Expeditionary Army kept the area sealed off.

The Troll Expeditionary Army met with the Hornhoof People to discuss surrender terms after receiving the main tribe’s decision. Giant Tusk began listing the demands, leaving the negotiations underway as he outlined the required apology and payments.

• Giant Tusk and the Witch Doctors chose to keep most Troll forces outside New Tulun City and used captured Hornhoof People as hostages.
• The High Priest led the Hornhoof People’s representatives to the Trolls’ main tent for surrender negotiations.
• Giant Tusk warned that the Hornhoof People had little choice, and Valerie described the Executive Government’s rejected proposal to exterminate them.
• Giant Tusk presented the main tribe’s terms, requiring an official apology and repayment of improper gains in Food Coin.
• Giant Tusk demanded that the Tulun Tribe pay war reparations in installments using Troll currency.

Giant Tusk demanded that the Tulun Tribe pay extensive compensation, including long-term support for Troll youths allegedly harmed by Vino, and explained that Trolls lived far longer than the Hornhoof People. The High Priest accepted that the negotiations would continue and asked to hear the remaining conditions.

• Giant Tusk demanded that the Tulun Tribe turn over all Vino production information and support more than two thousand affected Troll youths with supplies three times the normal amount.
• Giant Tusk insisted that support continue for three hundred Troll years and that earlier compensation be paid over one hundred and fifty to three hundred years.
• The High Priest objected that the terms exceeded the lifespans of Tulun leaders, and Giant Tusk asked how long the Tulun People lived.
• The High Priest said ordinary people lived about ninety years and shamans about one hundred and thirty-five, while Giant Tusk revealed that most Troll officers present were at least one hundred and fifty.
• The High Priest reconsidered the demands, including the unfamiliar Food Coin, then asked Giant Tusk to state the remaining conditions.

The High Priest agreed to the Trolls’ demands for apology, repayment, reparations, support, and Tulun suzerainty, but revealed that transferring the tribe’s knowledge would be difficult. He claimed that sharing everything could take roughly three hundred years, leaving Giant Tusk and the Troll officers facing a deliberate obstacle to the most valuable clause.

• The Trolls demanded Tulun obedience under Black Forest suzerainty and the complete disclosure of the tribe’s knowledge and information about the north.
• The Trolls learned that Tulun knowledge was held by the shamans in the Ancestral Altar, beyond the Expeditionary Army’s control.
• The High Priest agreed to apologize, repay benefits obtained through Vino, pay war reparations, and support Tulun subjects who had lost the ability to work.
• The clan representatives accused the High Priest of betraying Tulun, while Giant Tusk and the other Troll officers judged his easy concessions with contempt.
• The High Priest explained that Tulun knowledge was stored through the Spirit of the Ancestors and could not be transferred quickly.
• The High Priest estimated that handing over all the knowledge would take roughly three hundred years.

The High Priest argued that the Tulun Tribe would need three hundred years to pay compensation, using its ruined fields and weakened production to press for concessions. Giant Tusk rejected his evasions and threatened executions, while the High Priest held out, betting that Black Forest’s spellcasters would prevent the army from destroying the inheritance.

• The High Priest explained that food-coin disorder, the apology, polluted farmland, and generations of debt would undermine the Tulun Tribe’s production and morale, justifying a three-hundred-year repayment period.
• The seven witch doctors debated whether to attack the altar or negotiate, then told Giant Tusk to demand the High Priest’s true goal and use military pressure.
• Giant Tusk confronted the High Priest and warned that he would destroy the city rather than tolerate more evasions.
• Giant Tusk ordered Daba to assemble the cavalry and kill five hundred Hornhoof People, while Daba left the tent to carry out the order.
• Giant Tusk ordered Joelle to have Far Traveler execute thirty prisoners from various clans, but the High Priest continued waiting rather than concede.

Giant Tusk used executions and a massacre in the city to pressure the Tulun Tribe into negotiations, while the High Priest tried to soften the Trolls’ demands. The chapter ended as the High Priest saw the bloodied corpses being dragged back and faltered mid-negotiation.

• Giant Tusk ordered thirty Hornhoof prisoners beheaded in full view of the clan representatives, prompting them to plead for negotiations.
• Daba led more than four hundred cavalrymen through the city, killing Hornhoof civilians and suppressing resistance.
• The Ancestral Altar’s projection showed one-tenth of the Tulun Tribe’s inheritance burning, leaving the seven witch doctors divided over how to respond.
• The High Priest proposed accepting the Black Forest’s suzerainty in exchange for mercy, reduced compensation, goods-based reparations, and a grace period.
• The High Priest stopped speaking when the moose returned with corpses dragged behind them, and the sight left him overwhelmed.

The High Priest of the Tulun Tribe faltered after seeing the corpses, while Gonzalo and six other witch doctors intervened in the negotiations. Gonzalo issued the Rune Council’s final ultimatum: the tribe had two days to surrender all inherited knowledge in exchange for security guarantees and help with compensation, or face destruction.

• The High Priest vomited blood after the moose herd brought nearly six hundred fresh corpses into view, and the witch doctors realized the Hornhoof People might yield rather than fight to the end.
• Gonzalo and six witch doctors entered the tent and explained that they could not freely overrule Giant Tusk’s military authority.
• Gonzalo warned the High Priest and the clan representatives that the Expeditionary Army could destroy the Tulun Tribe with little consequence if the witch doctors could not reach agreement.
• Gonzalo demanded the immediate surrender of all inherited knowledge, offering a written security guarantee and help negotiating less burdensome compensation.
• Gonzalo gave the Tulun Tribe two days to accept or refuse, then left without allowing a reply.
• Giant Tusk taunted the Hornhoof People about the coming slaughter and departed with Daba, Valerie, and the other officers.

Tutun Earthshaker and representatives of the Adler and Zafarula Clans offered to support the Black Forest Trolls in exchange for help securing their rule over the Tulun Tribe. Giant Tusk brought their proposal to the Witch Doctors, who considered whether to exploit the conflict between the clans and the Ancestral Altar.

• Tutun Earthshaker and two clan representatives secretly visited Giant Tusk and denied seeking revenge for their relatives killed in battle.
• Tutun explained that the Earthshaker, Adler, and Zafarula Clans had long controlled much of the Tulun Tribe’s military, wealth, and political power, but the war had weakened them.
• The three visitors said they wanted to use Tutun’s inherited prestige to oppose the Ancestral Altar’s plans to abolish the High Chieftain’s position, and offered to become spokesmen for the Black Forest Trolls.
• Giant Tusk, confused by the visitors’ complicated proposal, went to the Witch Doctors and recounted what they had said.
• The Witch Doctors considered whether clan rule would benefit the Trolls and decided to hear the visitors’ own plan.

Tutun and two other Hornhoof People proposed that the Black Forest witch doctors help their clans destroy the Ancestral Altar and exploit the conflict between the altar and the clans. The witch doctors learned that six clans were secretly aligned with them and considered whether the scheming clans might be preferable rulers to the shaman priests.

• Tutun told Gonzalo and the other witch doctors that three clans wanted to provoke a conflict between the Ancestral Altar and the clans, then eliminate the remaining clan leaders.
• Tutun explained that shaman priests depended on the Spirits of the Ancestors to strengthen their spellcasting, while his uncle described how that cooperation worked.
• A Zafarula Clan Hornhoof Person said the Spirits of the Ancestors could not be used in internal conflicts, leaving the shaman priests unable to match the combined clans after losing their Spirit of the Ancestors warriors.
• Gonzalo pressed the Hornhoof People to explain why the shaman priests expected to reshape the tribe despite their military disadvantage.
• The Hornhoof People admitted that their three clans had promised to side with the Ancestral Altar, and that the Halima Clan, Alania Clan, and Safiya Clan were secretly aligned with them.
• The witch doctors recognized the clans' political scheming and considered that they might be weaker rulers than the shaman priests, but potentially useful to the Black Forest.

While headquarters clarified its stance on the Hornhoof People’s internal politics, Tutun and his allies used a secret meeting to turn the clans against the Priesthood. The clan representatives left to report the Priesthood’s plans and seek the Expeditionary Army’s position before the ultimatum expired.

• Nesta and the other witch doctors paused the Troll-body experiment while they waited for the first Treebirth Egg to develop and improved supporting facilities.
• The Rune Council sent the Executive Government guidelines allowing the Hornhoof People to settle internal struggles, provided the outcome did not harm Black Forest interests.
• The Expeditionary Army withdrew its city patrols, released selected captives, and publicly conveyed the Council’s safety guarantee to both the priests and the clans.
• Tutun and his allies steered a secret meeting of clan representatives toward opposing the Priesthood, claiming the Black Forest Trolls supported the clans.
• Abuli and other representatives revealed that the High Priest had separately promised several clans royal status, persuading the gathered leaders that the Priesthood planned to dismantle them.
• The representatives agreed to report to their leaders and send envoys to the Expeditionary Army camp to learn whether it would support the Priesthood.

The seventeen clans attacked the Ancestral Altar, while rumors and panic sparked a citywide riot and the clans later turned on one another. The Expeditionary Army suppressed the violence, then divided the Tulun Tribe into three alliances and took temporary control of its original lands.

• Tutun brought back Giant Tusk’s promise of noninterference, prompting the seventeen clans to attack the Ancestral Altar as rumors spread through the city.
• The Clan Alliance defeated the shamans and killed the High Priest, while panic and violence erupted across the city.
• The clan leaders asked Giant Tusk for help suppressing the unrest, and the Three-Clan Alliance attacked rival clans after believing it had the Expeditionary Army’s support.
• Daba entered the city to protect the Ancestral Altar, while the Expeditionary Army’s soldiers quelled the riot and halted the fighting between clan factions.
• The Trolls stripped the Du'arlana Clan of the Earthshaker name, disbanded the Earthshaker Legion, divided the Hornhoof People into the Lower River, Left River, and Right River Alliances, and took temporary control of Tulun’s former lands.

The Rune Council imposed the Great Northern Treaty on the Hornhoof alliances, then the Expeditionary Army helped build their settlements and established Pioneer Fortress around the Ancestral Altar. The war ended with Black Forest controlling the Northern Plateau, while Witch Doctors began exploiting the altar’s knowledge through selected Hornhoof youths.

• The Rune Council forced the Hornhoof alliances to sign the Great Northern Treaty, renaming the Blessed Plateau, placing its inhabitants under Black Forest suzerainty, and restructuring them into clans and new alliances.
• The treaty imposed Black Forest Coin, directed loans, open trade, reparations, and farmland redistribution decided through duels.
• Over three months, the Expeditionary Army built three settlements for the Hornhoof People, charging the alliances for materials and labor.
• After completing the settlements, the Expeditionary Army razed the Tulun Tribe’s old site and built Pioneer Fortress around the Ancestral Altar, adding factories, farmland, and government branches.
• The Expeditionary Army prepared to return to headquarters with its fallen, as the war ended with Black Forest controlling the Northern Plateau and the Tulun Tribe and Shaman Priests destroyed.
• Witch Doctors selected spiritually gifted Hornhoof youths to raise within the Ancestral Altar and use to uncover its knowledge.

The wolf kings visited the Tusk Tribe, where both sides kept their suspicions and intelligence to themselves before parting without conflict. Sharp Tusk returned with seven Black Blade-Tusk Beast cubs and proposed breeding them as battle companions; Nesta and Azshara agreed she would travel to bring more back, while the chapter ended with Nesta describing what the tribe had learned from the Hornhoof People and the origins of the Spirit of the Ancestors.

• Nesta, Azshara, and Rough Tusk showed the wolf king couple the imprisoned Cave Wolf, and both sides avoided discussing their grievances or revealing useful intelligence.
• The wolf kings left across Black River Bridge, while Nesta and Azshara joked about the visit and their plans to deal with the wolves someday.
• Sharp Tusk returned from the mountains with seven Black Blade-Tusk Beast cubs and reported that wolf packs had killed twelve of the beasts.
• Sharp Tusk and Nesta discussed raising Black Blade-Tusk Beasts as battle companions, expanding magic-beast research, and seeking a powerful creature in the Volcanic Range to increase the giant tree's production capacity.
• Azshara volunteered to return to the mountains to bring back more Black Blade-Tusk Beasts, and Nesta agreed she was better suited for the task.
• Nesta told Azshara that the Expeditionary Army would return in three days and that the Spirit of the Ancestors' technology came from the Rhine Chieftain Alliance in the west of the Northern Lands.

After the Great Northern War, the Tusk Tribe mourned its dead, punished commanders for failures, and established a merit and medal system that also tied honors to future reproduction. The chapter ended with the tribe celebrating its awards while Nesta, Sharp Tusk, and Rough Tusk’s choices produced an unforeseen outcome, followed by a later historian’s condemnation of how the war was remembered.

• The Tusk Tribe held memorial ceremonies across its settlements and recorded both a public account of the war and a fuller account in the Great Tree’s archives.
• Valerie, Joelle, Daba, and other officers received lashings for unauthorized action, command failure, and dereliction of duty.
• Nesta proposed a merit system, and the Rune Council created medals for military and scientific achievements, awarding Giant Tusk a Fifth-Class Steelwood Medal and campaign participants other honors and rewards.
• The Rune Council decided to prioritize medal recipients’ reproductive cells for the Treeborn Embryo Project and preserve samples from fallen warriors for possible future reproduction.
• Nesta accepted a First-Class Lieyang Medal, while Sharp Tusk and Rough Tusk accepted Second-Class Black Forest Medals, allowing other witch doctors to accept their awards as well.
• A later historian named Bertlemsta condemned authorities and historians for portraying the Great Northern War as a just judgment rather than a war driven by greed.

The Tusk Tribe absorbed the Hornhoof People’s knowledge and reorganized its military, exploration, banking, and development projects as the Great Northern War’s aftermath settled into a period of expansion. Seven years of research brought the first Sun Elf embryo close to birth, while Azshara returned with nearly all the surviving Black Blade-Tusk Beasts from the mountains.

• The Tusk Tribe seized the Hornhoof People’s techniques, crops, livestock, and brewing methods, then launched research and cultivation projects to use them.
• Nesta and the Military Commission established a rotating standing army with new private, NCO, active-duty, and reserve systems, while the Far Traveler Corps split into an exploration bureau and the Intelligence Suppression Corps.
• The Executive Government began operating a bank in the northern alliances, built two railway lines, and helped six Troll Tribes establish farms on the Black River’s western bank.
• Witch doctors observed the Treeborn Embryo’s seven-year development and concluded that the future Sun Elf would be an advanced organism; Nesta ordered them to delay birth and adjust nutrient supplies.
• Azshara returned with nearly all the surviving Black Blade-Tusk Beasts, settled them in the eastern Black Forest, and secured their agreement not to harm Trolls or their livestock.
• The army worked through veteran retirements and new enlistments as the Mother Tree prepared a thousand egg beds, while Nesta postponed beginning mass elf cultivation.