Recaps

The players seized Tavitsky amid Minisia’s royal crisis, while Chris prepared Bagnia’s autumn invasion and rallied its forces. Retalian troops then appeared at the frontier, leaving Major General Marlow to fortify Tavitsky before their army arrived.

• Oakland recognized danger at the banquet, but the disguised players’ attack killed Albert III instead of him, prompting Ye Ao Henai and Alibaba to recruit more players and pursue Oakland to Tavitsky.
• Ye Ao Henai’s force stormed Tavitsky, joined the fighting against Minisian troops, and held the western gate until Chris’s reinforcements fought their way into the city at heavy cost.
• Chris ordered new weapons and rockets after reviewing the players’ battlefield losses, while Mia brought supplies to Tavitsky and Dirac prepared the Hegrande Legion for an autumn invasion of Minisia.
• Minisia’s Fifth Legion ambushed the retreating Seventh Legion over Albert III’s death, while Chris arranged Harvest Festival plans, military land grants, and a possible intelligence connection through Elena Tia’s family.
• Chris’s First Legion marched toward the front as the military court punished Thousand-Blade Butcher for selling inferior canned pork, and Marlow’s Ninth and Tenth Legions advanced to Tavitsky.
• Marlow’s scouts confirmed that Retalian forces had reached the border, and Chris sent Olaf’s Varangians to the front, where they fought off a cavalry ambush but suffered severe losses.
• Marlow obeyed Chris’s order to hold Tavitsky and approved a plan to strengthen its defenses with cleared approaches, filled moats, and three connected trench lines before the Retalian army arrived.

Chris fortified Tavitsky and used the winter to build his forces while player armies struck Raitelian camps and Minisia’s civil war reshaped the region. After withdrawing Marlow’s army from a trap, Chris launched an invasion of Minisia, where the players broke through the defenders at Golden Ear City.

• Raitelian raids devastated Tavitsky Province, while Chris arranged shelter for refugees at Anvil Fortress and punished Priest Oliver for trying to force their conversion through food control.
• Chris put refugees to work reclaiming farmland and formed plans for a Blue Banner Army as the players prepared to attack Raitelian forces during the winter.
• Charles Stuart’s rivals were killed by cannon fire during peace talks, and Charles was crowned king of Minisia as players resolved to attack the Retalia Empire.
• Two thousand veteran players skied through a blizzard and captured Mikhail’s Raitelian camp, taking thousands of prisoners and mounts before settling into raids and harassment.
• Chris moved troops toward the captured camp while Marlow avoided a cavalry ambush by fortifying his position, and the winter campaign eventually settled into a stalemate.
• Chris agreed to protect the fleeing Tia Family in exchange for Guano Island rights, while Minisia’s fleet destroyed Raitelia’s fleet at Omdur.
• Chris ordered Marlow to abandon First Main Camp before Raitelian cavalry arrived, then sent two Bagnian army groups to attack Charles’s forces at Golden Ear City.
• The players broke through Minisia’s lines at Golden Ear City, and Chris ordered the twelve-pounder guns to bombard the gate area despite the danger to Bagnian troops.

Chris’s forces defeated the Retalian assault, then traded saltpeter-field technology for Retalian withdrawal and warhorses while Minisia was left exposed to raids. As Chris organized the occupied provinces, the Tia Family fled pursuit and Black-and-White Bear offered famine-stricken villagers a way to reach Bagnia.

• Sebas sent Retalian cavalry and Minisian troops against Bagnia, but Chris’s defenses, cannons, and reinforcements broke the assault and left the Hegrande Legion badly depleted.
• Chris negotiated with Lord Cassani for the release of captured Retalian nobles and soldiers, demanding warhorses and learning that Sebas had invaded to seize Minisia’s saltpeter mines and fertile lands.
• Chris offered saltpeter-field technology in exchange for Retalian withdrawal from Minisia, and Sebas accepted after consulting his commanders and receiving the emperor’s approval.
• Retalian forces cut Minisia’s supply routes, raided its towns and countryside, and withdrew after Charles’s army escaped capture, while Chris kept Bagnia out of the conflict.
• Chris received the agreed warhorses and released the prisoners, then organized reconstruction, farming, refugee labor, military control, and regulated trade in Dul, Chivilevka, and Tavitsky.
• Elena refused to leave the valley without her missing relatives, but Retalian cavalry attacked and forced her and the Tia Family to flee as Charles sent elite troops to hunt them.
• Chris ordered nearby Players to help rescue the Tia Family, while Black-and-White Bear accepted a quest to save lives and urged famine-stricken Jacob and the villagers to seek land and food in Bagnia.

Black-and-White Bear and the Expeditionary Army fought to save the Tia Family as Minisia descended into chaos. After players rescued some of the family and seized White Rock City, Polka identified snakefolk infiltrators near Marquis Dirac’s camp, and Chris ordered an immediate withdrawal.

• Black-and-White Bear found the Tia Family’s hidden refuge, arranged supplies and a diversion against White Rock City, and helped Elena Tia and the refugees escape the mountains.
• Olaf’s Varangian Warband stormed White Rock City, but Olaf and his warriors were killed as players and starving refugees flooded into the city.
• Chris sent an Expeditionary Army north with supporting troops, while Mordred searched the mountains for the Tia Family and Bagnian rescuers.
• Mordred’s forces attacked Black-and-White Bear’s column, and Torres and his soldiers died defending the retreat as Mountain Tiger Warband helped save Elena and about twenty survivors.
• The Expeditionary Army reached Minisia, but its commanders hesitated to risk a rescue in White Rock City until Elena arranged for Sir Doron and Baron Harry to open the gate.
• Players entered White Rock City, broke through to the dungeon, and rescued Count Tia and seventeen or eighteen relatives, though many of the family’s men had been killed.
• Chris rejected King Charles’s proposed ceasefire, while shadowy creatures evaded patrols near Marquis Dirac’s camp and Home Alone’s group encountered attacking Snake-Man Warriors in a cave.
• Polka identified the dead snakefolk as Lamia Snakefolk of the Scaleclaw tribe, ordered the camp placed on highest alert, and received Chris’s order to withdraw immediately.