Riombara/Second Age

The Second Age

Exile in Fronen

January 04 Still there was a shred of hope left - Fronen and other realms had offered to take us in. Our struggle against all odds had not gone unnoticed. 7 nobles did head north towards Fronen: Tan o'Kammar, Calvin, Burfgand, Beast Rune, Ryan B, Uanu, Kitgo. There was the dim chance that Fronen would offer help to regain our lands. Once we arrived, hospitality was shown to us...it was a new experience. Surrounded by enemies, our nobles had never seen a friendly troopleader not belonging to Riombara in nearly a year.

Revenge

February 04 With the undead menace slowly diminishing, fighting against the hordes alongside Fronen's nobles was a joy. We drove them back whence they came, did burn and banish them. Region by region, Fronen expanded, as did all other surviving realms. Luz did lay claim to all our ancient lands, but - luckily for us - was slow to expand.

Mesh Attacks

Fronen was growing stronger each week, having expanded nearly as far as before the invasion, so we prepared for our return south. We had made many friends in Fronen during the weeks fighting the undead and Harkin had given his word to help us. He would proove true - a better friend we could not have had. But then Mesh struck and war ensued! We Riombarans chose to help fight them off to the best of our meager abilities, so for weeks we marched and fought. In the end, Mesh was greatly reduced and did sue for terms. Now Harkin offered us more help than he had ever promised, he did more than honour his word - our time had come to return south!

Diplomacy

April 05 Feverish preperations ensued - scouts were sent out, food bought, men recruited, weapons readied, diplomatic messages sent. Most rulers stayed - rightly - sceptical as to our chances of success. It was a time when many similar projects were hatched all over the world - though ours should be the only one to succeed. But we did receive several promising answers, including offers of help or at least friendly neutrality. Many were just plain interested if we could pull it off. The one exception was Luz de Bia - we had counted Danang Isig as friend, but he bluntly told us that if we'd return, he'd attack.

The Great Trek South

May 05 Most of the regions of the world were already settled again - with one exception: The southeast was still largely rogue, including all cities from Fwuvoghor in the north, down through the dark isles with Rines and Athol, to Grekh, Irombro and Eno. Though Luz did claim all these lands(!), they had only expanded a few regions and taken a single city - Eylmon - while other realms had expanded a lot faster. This did give us our chance. Our goal was Athol Margos.

The March

Edric, Iskander, Calvin Zin, Tan o'Kammar, Burfgand, Beast Rune, Ryan B, Uanu, Kitgo, tobias and two other nobles struck out from Vur Hagin. Monsters still roamed the land, so we had to be carefull. We crossed the lands of Voghor, passed their capital Cteduul and headed south along the coast. Soon we passed Fwuvoghor and set foot on the dark isles. On the way several battles against undead ensured, but we all did reach our goal in Athol Margos without any significant losses.

Grekh joins us

As we found while marching south, another group was on their way towards Athol. It did consist of nobles from the former realm of Grekh under the command of Furius - wanting to return to the lands they had left at the beginning of the first age. Negotiations ensured, nearly erupting in a fight due to Furius suddenly vanishing. Between Jarom Stark who took over from Furius and Tan o'Kammar, an agreement was reached to jointly refound Riombara.

Athol is Taken

Thus we took Athol. It is impossible to describe what we felt. To see our banner unfurl again was like the sun breaking through leaden clouds for the first time after a monthlong darkness. Scarred warriors wept...7 Nobles had endured in the ruins of Grekh 'til the end, all of them did stay true during the exile in Fronen. 11 nobles did march south, more joined. This did show that nothing is impossible, as long as there are warriors who stay true to each other. Not one leader followed by drones, but a band of equals. Not to be proud of your rank, but to be aware of the duty it does impart. To realize that the higher the rank, the more you must serve.

First Expansion

Athol was so followed by Cjelegy and Avengmil. Luz did protest, but nobody did take their claim to our lands seriously. While retaking lands, our and allied traders - especially from Ashborn - brought in huge amounts of food. Without their work, we would have had no success, since all regions were devastated and had to be repaired before producing both gold and food. Fronen continued to send money as well, several presents where sent by other realms, notably Old Grekh, Marca de Pantera and Mesh - a fact that will never be forgotten. Then we took Ajitmon and Melegra and did establish a peacefull border with Enweil, which had taken Fwuvoghor - much to the anger of Voghor. Even though we were dependend on imported food, we still went for Rines. If we could keep it fed, we'd be able to field an army capable of defending against Luz, which uttering threats against us again. Luckily they were rather isolated diplomatically.

Across the Bridge

June 04

All lands south of the iles and east of the river were still rogue. While we had restablished our realm in the devastation out of nothing, taking 2 cities and 4 regions, Luz had been able to expand only 2 regions. Still they did claim all rogue lands, including everything that had been ours - those lands would have tripled their population. We now stood before a difficult choice - cross into the lands south of the isles and incure Luz' wrath, or acknowledge their claims and hope that a strong Luz would be a benevolent neighbour.

So we gathered our army and struck out for the rogue city of Irombro. Right then Luz was standing in Grekh, trying to take the city once again. Fights flared up east of Grekh, but Luz did not manage to drive us off. We took Ardmore, Rii and Irombro very fast, while Luz took our old capital, the city of Grekh. The usual diplomatic back-and-forth continued for a while, but the situation did calm down significantly after some time. An uneasy truce was arranged, official borders established. Despite rabit paranoia on both sides, this agreement should hold - we had learned to trust Danang Isig's word.

Duty Roster

In June 04, the following nobles did serve in Riombara: Blackwing, Arch Enemy, Hælon, Ghostly, One Eye, Llaerin, Kayne2, Iskander, Uanu, An da Cleigh, Kathmandu, Vladimir, Thomas, Calvin Zin, Tan o'Kammar, One Eye, Cardamom, Edric, Kitgo, WarDog, LED, tobias, D, Steel, Ariana, Syfo-Jaydon, Delvin, Donald, Burfgand, Ticharius

To the South

During the following weeks we took all regions east of Eno. This city was in Luz' influence as agreed upon, but it should stay rogue during the whole of the second age because Luz never was able to take it due to its immense size and the rampaging hatred of its population against anything civilized. Eno was known as 'The Dark City' throughout Beluaterra.

Peace

Once expansion had finished we did started serious work on our regions because we now knew that the undead would be back some time in the future. Walls were built in the city, sometimes starting from palisades and working up to fortress level. Palisades were erected in most of our regions, recruitment centers, academies and paraphrenalia workshops did follow. We started to stockpile food as we were only barly self sufficient - and 5 bad harvests in a row did show us the importance of our granaries.

Fronen is attacked

Once more the north was becomming instable. After a row of diplomatic problems, Mesh did attack our ally Fronen. Ar Agyr soon joined Mesh and Fronen was driven back. We were one of the realms that did send aid - it was a great pleasure for us to be able to repay a bit of the kindness we had been shown during our exile. Nearly our entire army did march north to fight at Fronens side.

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