Written By Shard
Jan. 9, 2019, 2:50 a.m.(4/28/1010 AR)
Really? Did you really think building something like that through so much claimed territory wasn't going to end in violence? Or are people just upset that some of the violence hasn't been entirely one-sided? If Cardia brought in an army and built a road straight through your lands under threat of the sword or worse, you wouldn't sit back and just let it be either. Not that it seems to matter. I'm sure those children were such a terrifying threat to the Oathlands. Hopefully all the soldiers involved in that 'cleansing' are awarded medals for the extraordinary fucking bravery and outstanding honor it takes to murder babies in their mother's arms.
Written By Shard
Jan. 5, 2019, 1:31 a.m.(4/20/1010 AR)
Enough people have asked by now that I might as well. The answer is that I don't know. I absolutely do not know. I'm willing to talk about it, plan about it, whatever, but I do not have a single fucking idea that makes any kind of sense. So you can keep asking, if you feel like, but it probably won't get you anywhere.
Written By Shard
Dec. 30, 2018, 7:03 a.m.(4/8/1010 AR)
Relationship Note on Fairen
Let me put it this way. They're not actually offering protection. They're offering to make us their subjects. And I guarantee you won't like what comes from that.
Written By Shard
Dec. 29, 2018, 3:28 p.m.(4/7/1010 AR)
If you approach that ship and you are not a messenger delivering a reply straight from the King, you are an impossible idiot. Stay away from it. Stay away from both of them. These people do not play around, and you aren't going to gain some advantage by being the first moron to try to make friends.
Written By Shard
Dec. 23, 2018, 8:12 p.m.(3/22/1010 AR)
Emotion, emotion, emotion, with no obvious source. If this doesn't stop soon I'm going to start breaking things and it's not going to be a question of 'when' but 'how many'.
Written By Shard
Dec. 16, 2018, 9:56 p.m.(3/9/1010 AR)
Relationship Note on Preston
It baffled me at first, but it's not too hard to understand. People need to make their way, and sometimes all they have are strong arms and a sharp blade. Sometimes they have nowhere else to go, or nowhere else will take them. Often they just like fighting, and being paid for fighting. There are dozens of reasons, but they're usually the same reasons anyone does anything.
You often don't live long, unless you're good, or lucky, and usually both. You don't get mourned the way soldiers and knights do. You don't get praised for what you do when the nobles get together to talk about sacrifice and war. There aren't any monuments. Funds for orphans. And you usually get sat on the front line, to take the brunt of anything that comes.
That's the wars. There's nastier work that people approach you and pay you for, because they don't want to get their hands dirty.
You often don't live long, unless you're good, or lucky, and usually both. You don't get mourned the way soldiers and knights do. You don't get praised for what you do when the nobles get together to talk about sacrifice and war. There aren't any monuments. Funds for orphans. And you usually get sat on the front line, to take the brunt of anything that comes.
That's the wars. There's nastier work that people approach you and pay you for, because they don't want to get their hands dirty.
Written By Shard
Dec. 7, 2018, 8:08 p.m.(2/18/1010 AR)
Relationship Note on Delilah
It's good to keep their needs in mind, but Abandoned that were living in the Gray Forest are almost certainly more used to Arxian winters than a number of people who have been living in the city for years. The trouble is whether or not they have access to the necessary materials and housing to take care of themselves.
Written By Shard
Nov. 28, 2018, 3:40 p.m.(1/27/1010 AR)
Relationship Note on Carmen
Which one of us spit in your coffee, and do you think they should get a bonus?
Written By Shard
Nov. 24, 2018, 4:47 p.m.(1/20/1010 AR)
Relationship Note on Vercyn
I had a lot more to say, but I think I may as well just write this: If you don't like being held responsible for what others you have no control over have done, and for what you all benefit from, just imagine what it's like being attacked or killed for the actions of a group of people you've probably never even heard of who might live on the other side of an entire continent and who would probably murder your people just as eagerly. Imagine if your people were, right this minute, being blamed for the deaths caused by a being that has been hunting, killing, and enslaving them since before you and I were even born, who has sacrificed so many entire tribes we will never even know the numbers. Imagine being marched away from your home and your lands forever, at best, because the Compact doesn't want you to be too close to them when he does this to you.
And, of course, because your land was valuable and they consider it theirs anyway.
Does that really compare to one angry Prodigal losing her temper and holding the entire Compact responsible for the actions of its members in her white journal?
And, of course, because your land was valuable and they consider it theirs anyway.
Does that really compare to one angry Prodigal losing her temper and holding the entire Compact responsible for the actions of its members in her white journal?
Written By Shard
Nov. 23, 2018, 7:48 p.m.(1/18/1010 AR)
Relationship Note on Vercyn
Anger, frustration, and bad memories are not the same as hatred. I reserve my hate for one person these days, and anyone that would willingly help him.
Written By Shard
Nov. 23, 2018, 12:44 a.m.(1/16/1010 AR)
Relationship Note on Jeffeth
I'm not allowed to still love those people, Jeffeth. They're my enemy now, the same as for anyone else. So, yes, we're on the same side. But some nights that's not as comforting to me as it is to you.
Written By Shard
Nov. 23, 2018, 12:26 a.m.(1/16/1010 AR)
Relationship Note on Marian
But by your own words, your actions against Valardin would have been grounds for your and your tribe's execution, 'without remorse'.
If you encountered my tribe now, they could move camp and change hunting trails. It would be cold, and hard, but they've done it many, many times before to escape danger or to try to find better routes. My tribe doesn't claim land. What about the tribes that live more like the Compact do? You can't pick up and carry a village. You can't take a planted field with you, or the graves of your ancestors, or the house your grandparents' grandparents first built, or the tribal shaman or priest's sacred places. So it becomes join the Compact or take your people into further exile and potential starvation and likely illness, or simply die while defending your home. And, if you don't join, and don't die? If you find somewhere else to settle that doesn't belong to another tribe? You have a few generations at most before the Compact is again taking the land out from under you. There is nowhere to go to be free of that.
I understand, it's not your responsibility. You have your own people to care about. But it is not a small thing to force a people to do, and it is never safe for them.
If you encountered my tribe now, they could move camp and change hunting trails. It would be cold, and hard, but they've done it many, many times before to escape danger or to try to find better routes. My tribe doesn't claim land. What about the tribes that live more like the Compact do? You can't pick up and carry a village. You can't take a planted field with you, or the graves of your ancestors, or the house your grandparents' grandparents first built, or the tribal shaman or priest's sacred places. So it becomes join the Compact or take your people into further exile and potential starvation and likely illness, or simply die while defending your home. And, if you don't join, and don't die? If you find somewhere else to settle that doesn't belong to another tribe? You have a few generations at most before the Compact is again taking the land out from under you. There is nowhere to go to be free of that.
I understand, it's not your responsibility. You have your own people to care about. But it is not a small thing to force a people to do, and it is never safe for them.
Written By Shard
Nov. 22, 2018, 6:02 a.m.(1/15/1010 AR)
Relationship Note on Amund
Let me make something clear. If it had been my choice, I would never have come here. I would have stayed with my tribe for the rest of my life if I was able. I was happy where I was. The only reason I'm here now is because my tribe /sent/ me. And they didn't send me because of the Compact's stellar reputation. I grew up with stories of the Compact doing everything you've described to the tribes they caught and more.
Do you think I don't know about aggressive tribes? Who do you think the Abandoned raiders prey on when they can't get at you? I learned to hunt to feed my tribe, I learned to fight to protect them. Do you think I don't know about Abandoned cultists, or tribes that bow to the Abyss? I've killed more of them since coming here than I can count, and my score didn't start at zero. But there are more tribes than that. More peoples than that. All we wanted was to live our lives by our own ways and for the soldiers to leave us alone. But they didn't, did they? They took coin to kill all of us, not because we attacked them, or raided, or murdered, or even because we had land their employer wanted, but because we were /inconvenient/.
Don't lecture me on the value of life. I know exactly how much life is worth here. I know how much my life was worth, I know how much my people's lives were worth. I've seen the figures written down, worked out, haggled over. You said it yourself: the only good shav is a dead shav in the Compact. And dead shavs are measured in silver.
Do you think I don't know about aggressive tribes? Who do you think the Abandoned raiders prey on when they can't get at you? I learned to hunt to feed my tribe, I learned to fight to protect them. Do you think I don't know about Abandoned cultists, or tribes that bow to the Abyss? I've killed more of them since coming here than I can count, and my score didn't start at zero. But there are more tribes than that. More peoples than that. All we wanted was to live our lives by our own ways and for the soldiers to leave us alone. But they didn't, did they? They took coin to kill all of us, not because we attacked them, or raided, or murdered, or even because we had land their employer wanted, but because we were /inconvenient/.
Don't lecture me on the value of life. I know exactly how much life is worth here. I know how much my life was worth, I know how much my people's lives were worth. I've seen the figures written down, worked out, haggled over. You said it yourself: the only good shav is a dead shav in the Compact. And dead shavs are measured in silver.
Written By Shard
Nov. 21, 2018, 4:17 p.m.(1/14/1010 AR)
Relationship Note on Amund
My tribe never attacked Compact holdings, villages, or caravans. That didn't stop someone from sending people like you to kill us down to every last man, woman, and child. The first experience I ever personally had with people from the Compact was when /they/ came to kill /me/, and the first lesson I learned from that is that the Compact measures lives in coin. And not a particularly large amount of coin either.
Don't talk to me about rabid animals when you and your kind can't even be bothered to tell the difference between actual threats and literal babies.
Don't talk to me about rabid animals when you and your kind can't even be bothered to tell the difference between actual threats and literal babies.
Written By Shard
Nov. 21, 2018, 4:08 p.m.(1/14/1010 AR)
Relationship Note on Marian
Here's the problem. The Compact claims all of Arvum. Your actual borders are the entire continent. Every time you expand, and you expand often, you'll be pushing them further and further into lands that are harder and harder to live in. Eventually you will push them straight into the sea, because there will be no more land left.
And I would ask people to consider this: if an invading army came to your holdings, demanded you join them or leave lands you have guarded and lived on for generations, possibly so long your people can't remember any time they did not live as they do, where they do...if this happened to you, would you join the invaders? Would you help them drive other peoples off their lands? Would you simply leave your homes, your villages, your holdings, be exiled from everything you've known, and take all of your people into unknown territory where there is no shelter, where there are hostile people or simply people who have their own spot of land they've lived on and who won't be happy with your trespassing, with only as much as you could carry with you?
Or would you stand and fight to defend yourself and your people and the place that you consider to be yours by right?
And I would ask people to consider this: if an invading army came to your holdings, demanded you join them or leave lands you have guarded and lived on for generations, possibly so long your people can't remember any time they did not live as they do, where they do...if this happened to you, would you join the invaders? Would you help them drive other peoples off their lands? Would you simply leave your homes, your villages, your holdings, be exiled from everything you've known, and take all of your people into unknown territory where there is no shelter, where there are hostile people or simply people who have their own spot of land they've lived on and who won't be happy with your trespassing, with only as much as you could carry with you?
Or would you stand and fight to defend yourself and your people and the place that you consider to be yours by right?
Written By Shard
Nov. 21, 2018, 3:57 p.m.(1/14/1010 AR)
Relationship Note on Preston
Oh yes, we have very different perspectives. But when I said 'slavery or death', I didn't mean to imply the choice was the Abandoned's. I've never heard of the Horned One giving people that choice. It would surprise me quite a bit if he did, considering. If you're quick enough, you might be able to cut your own throat. Throw yourself on your sword or off a cliff. Kill your family? But otherwise, if he wants to take your name, he will take your name. He will take you. And then you're lost to almost everything that can be done.
I don't think we'll ever agree on what should be done, but your proposed solution is much better than what I've heard in the past. You making a distinction between different tribes is a lot more than I hear from most people on this subject. And when the Horned One is coming, I much prefer having tribes flee to simply wiping them out to make sure he can't use them against the Compact. This causes its own problems down the line, but it's better than the alternative.
I don't think we'll ever agree on what should be done, but your proposed solution is much better than what I've heard in the past. You making a distinction between different tribes is a lot more than I hear from most people on this subject. And when the Horned One is coming, I much prefer having tribes flee to simply wiping them out to make sure he can't use them against the Compact. This causes its own problems down the line, but it's better than the alternative.
Written By Shard
Nov. 20, 2018, 10:52 p.m.(1/12/1010 AR)
Relationship Note on Amund
Does the Compact deserve to be put down like dogs when its members raid, pillage, and kill? Many, many people make entire careers out of it.
No one has been defending bandits, pirates, cultists, or raiders that I've seen here.
No one has been defending bandits, pirates, cultists, or raiders that I've seen here.
Written By Shard
Nov. 20, 2018, 5:14 p.m.(1/12/1010 AR)
Relationship Note on Preston
You and I will never fully agree on this, but the things you've written recently are less...harsh than I tend to expect from the Templars. Obviously there are dangers that have to be dealt with. Bandits. Cultists. The Compact and many Abandoned tribes have been raiding each other probably since the end of the Reckoning. But I remember the fear. I remember harsh winters with an empty stomach because we didn't want to take the risk of wintering somewhere warmer, for fear of being attacked by Compact soldiers. I remember all our avoidance, our hiding, our wandering, our running amounting to nothing in the end, because we had a contract taken out on our lives anyway, and now my tribe wanders somewhere much, much farther away from the Compact /and/ the Horned One, somewhere with less food, less shelter, less warmth, because both would destroy them. If he hasn't destroyed them already.
I think, though, that what I would say is more or less this; choice is a very inconsequential thing when it comes to him. For probably most of those serving him, they never had a choice, and they have no choice now. He takes what he wants, and what he wants is to remove that ability to choose anything. Some chose to fight...they're enslaved or dead. Some chose to flee...they're enslaved or dead. Some didn't know the danger until it was far, far too late. And some feared you more than they feared him. Certainly, there are Abandoned who made the decision to join him more or less on their own; I know stories of at least one tribe in particular. But those types of people are rare. A slaver doesn't care if his slaves want to be free. And this slaver removes the ability of his slaves to even think against him.
And he will come here, regardless of whether or not there are more people to harvest along the way. We have things he wants.
I think, though, that what I would say is more or less this; choice is a very inconsequential thing when it comes to him. For probably most of those serving him, they never had a choice, and they have no choice now. He takes what he wants, and what he wants is to remove that ability to choose anything. Some chose to fight...they're enslaved or dead. Some chose to flee...they're enslaved or dead. Some didn't know the danger until it was far, far too late. And some feared you more than they feared him. Certainly, there are Abandoned who made the decision to join him more or less on their own; I know stories of at least one tribe in particular. But those types of people are rare. A slaver doesn't care if his slaves want to be free. And this slaver removes the ability of his slaves to even think against him.
And he will come here, regardless of whether or not there are more people to harvest along the way. We have things he wants.
Written By Shard
Nov. 20, 2018, 12:19 a.m.(1/10/1010 AR)
Relationship Note on Preston
Those who died at the Lodge were killed by one person. Two if you count his master. A lot of the people he sent against us were also his victims. The forest is full of villages he emptied. The Northlands are covered in the unmarked graves and the absent camps of the people he took or murdered. You've paid a high price, we've all paid a high price, to stop him where we did. But the Abandoned have been paying that price for far, far, far longer than the Compact. You're not the only people to have stood up to him. You're not the only people who have lost friends, family, fellow warriors to him. You're not the only ones who grieve.
You're right that he uses the Abandoned. He takes or kills anyone that fall within his grasp, and they don't have massive stone walls, or siege weapons, or enormous armies and orders of knights. All they can do is run, or fight and die, or start listening to his lies because he takes the truth of what the Compact has done and twists it back on you, convinces them that the only way they can have safety, the only way to have justice, the only way to keep what is most important to them is to join him. If me and my tribe had not already known some of the truth about him, we might well have done the same.
The way to stop this man is not by doing more things that he will use against you. It's not by attacking the people who are caught in the middle and pushing them further and further into his reach. The way to stop this man is to find him, to kill him, to tear him to pieces and burn the remains, to grind the bones and the ashes until nothing is left.
And do the same damned thing to anyone else that ever tries to take his place. That's how any of us get justice for what he's done. Or revenge.
You're right that he uses the Abandoned. He takes or kills anyone that fall within his grasp, and they don't have massive stone walls, or siege weapons, or enormous armies and orders of knights. All they can do is run, or fight and die, or start listening to his lies because he takes the truth of what the Compact has done and twists it back on you, convinces them that the only way they can have safety, the only way to have justice, the only way to keep what is most important to them is to join him. If me and my tribe had not already known some of the truth about him, we might well have done the same.
The way to stop this man is not by doing more things that he will use against you. It's not by attacking the people who are caught in the middle and pushing them further and further into his reach. The way to stop this man is to find him, to kill him, to tear him to pieces and burn the remains, to grind the bones and the ashes until nothing is left.
And do the same damned thing to anyone else that ever tries to take his place. That's how any of us get justice for what he's done. Or revenge.
Written By Shard
Nov. 18, 2018, 1:44 a.m.(1/6/1010 AR)
Relationship Note on Bliss
It's admittedly impressive you've managed to make the deaths of hundreds of people all about you.
Please note that the scholars may take some time preparing your journal for others to read.