Mostly Garbage

The Sygyzy Contention (also known as Veldanura’s Folly, or Veldanurist Rebellion) was a civil war between two scions of House Nosferath, Ketrill and Veldanura, for the throne of the Dusk Imperium.

The conflict began soon after Dusk Sovereign Bemalon the Dragonslayer acceeded to the Evernight Realms during the Centauric Sygyzy of 2410. Though Bemalon had ruled with unquestioned authority, the heir-apparent he had appointed, his son Bloodroyal Ketrill, was deeply unpopular amongst the Vampyr nobility for what many perceived to be his egalitarian sympathies. In particular, Ketrill was widely suspected of harboring a distasteful affinity towards the lowly Humans, the erstwhile rulers of old Terra before the Culling, who still teemed under Vampyric domination.

Upon receiving the news of Bemalon’s death, his sister Bloodroyal Veldanura roused herself from her seat on Dragul's Demesne and announced her intention to succeed her late brother. Gathering around her a cabal of great noble houses, she proclaimed her nephew a race traitor and and apostate, sentencing him to death in absentia.

Though the new Sovereign-elect had control of the Dusken state apparatus, early defections among the Dusk Household Armada seriously compromised the strength of Ketrill's position. The defections included almost all of House Nosferath's cruisers and battleships. Only the extraordinarily bloody intervention of Bloodroyal Jesslura, Ketrill's sister, abroad the titanic Nosferath flagship Nightbringer prevented it from falling into Veldanurist hands as well.

Deprived of the large capital ships that dominated Dusken space doctrine, Bloodroyal Jesslura, now Warmistress of House Nosferath, had to resort to more novel tactics. Instead of using corvettes to screen and support capital ships, she massed them in a swarm to fall upon capital ships with lightning strikes, employing the corvettes' maneuverability to evade the large weapons of the capital ships.

Over the next couple of years, Jesslura's corvette focus met with astonishing success, overwhelming the navies of Houses Vailon, Argenau and Tzimisces in separate battles. At the news of this string of defeats, the aristocratic coalition under Veldanura resolved to deal the Ketrilists a death blow while the coalition still held the advantage of superior firepower. The plan was to gather together the military strength of the noble houses to stage a bold offensive into the heart of Nosferath space and take old Terra itself. Without Terra, it was hoped, Ketrill's legitimacy would crumble and the houses still allied to Ketrill would desert his cause.

The grand offensive was not to be. The ever-aggressive Jesslura went for the jugular first. Abandoning all pretense of a defense, Ketrill and Jesslura threw the entire loyalist fleet at Draugul while the coalition were still massing their strength.

The battle itself was hard-fought. Lacking a defensive screen of corvettes, the loyalist capital ships took the brunt of the damage. Veldanura's flagship, the Impaler more than lived up to its dread reputation, single-handedly destroying the only two loyalist battleships and disabling the Nightbringer before Bloodroyal Vladimir, Ketrill's son, rammed his cruiser into the Impaler's unprotected flank, sacrificing his own life to save his father's.

Here again, Jesslura's corvettes proved decisive, inflicting heavy casualties among the Veldanurist capital ships, who had no answer for this revolutionary new style of interstellar combat. By the third day, it became clear that the battle was lost, and the Veldanurist fleet broke, scattering in every direction.

Bloodroyal Veldanura and her consort Lady Vetala managed to escape the destruction of her flagship, fleeing onto the surface of Dragul's Demesne to organize a defense. The oldest and wealthiest of the Vampyr colonies, Dragul's Demesne bristled with impressive fortifications designed to withstand ground assault. From there she prepared for a last stand, for she would not surrender the crown jewel of the empire to her nephew without a stiff resistance.

With the rebel fleet scattered, Ketrill was finally offically crowned Dusk Sovereign in a spartan ceremony abroad the Nightbringer. For all his earlier reputation as a soft prince, Ketrill proved himself a true Vampyr of the blackest iron, for the beginning of his reign was consecrated in fire and ash. Over the following year, Dragul's Demesne was blockaded and mercilessly bombarded. Four billion souls (and some twelve billion chattel) were systematically eradicated in atomic fire - Salted - as an object lesson to the rest of the Imperium.

The Salting of Dragul’s Demesne was only the beginning for the new Sovereign. Next Ketrill turned his wrath on the noble houses that had opposed him or remained neutral in the Contention, in what has been euphemistically referred to as the Harrowing of the Houses. Every surviving member of the Great Houses Hattusa, Vetala, Haakon, Argenau, Malkav, Tzimisces, Vailon, Tremere and Polidori, along with their vassal houses and retainers, were rounded up, flayed alive and impaled en masse on the Carpathian plain on old Terra. It is recorded in the Book of Vespers that the flayed skin of the victims were draped in so many layers around the Red Citadel that the capital festered with corruption for a decade.

With the aristocracy largely eradicated and their vast estates and wealth confiscated, Ketrill issued an edict abolishing the Dusk Compact, that had guranteed the privileges of the great pre-Culling Vampyr houses in return for their support in subjugating the Human nations on Terra. Conveniently, the Great Houses that had supported him, principally Houses Strigoym and Ruthven, had suffered disproportionate casualties at Dragul's Rest and were in no position to object. They voluntarily renounced their rights and privileges, pledging themselves as servants of the Sovereign.

The story behind the first verse of one of my favourite songs:

Jacqueline was seventeen, working on a desk when Ivor peered above a spectacle forgot that he had wrecked a girl Sometimes these eyes forget the face they're peering from when the face they peer upon- well, you know that face as I do And how in the return of the gaze she can return you the face that you are staring from

I’ve always wondered what makes the person in the moving paintings of Harry Potter act like a particular person.

“When you play the game of thrones, you win or you lose.” - Sersee Lamisters

“Everyone who isn’t us is someone else.” - Sersee Lamisters

“Chaos isn’t a pig, Chaos is a Labrador.” - Middlefimbers

“The night is dark and really scary sometimes.” - Melly Sanders

“There’s a beast in every man, and it stirs when you put a spoon in his hands.” - Joey Marmite

“What do we say to the god of death? Tomorrow maybe.” - Cereal Forall

The Frontier Song, or Home on the Steppe

by Xi Murong

Sing for me a frontier paean using that old forgotten tongue Sing with a soft graceful lilt of the land of my heart's longing 'Tis an idyll found only beyond the wall- who says the steppe melody is too desolate? If the song with you strikes not a chord 'tis only because it lacks the object of your yearning

Even so, we must sing it again! again! remembering the endless glittering steppe the wind whistling across the desert expanse the Yin Mountains by the Yellow River shore O brave mounted warrior return home in glory! 《出塞曲》  席慕容 作

请为我唱一首出塞曲 用那遗忘了的古老言语 请用美丽的颤音轻轻呼唤 我心中的大好河山 那只有长城外才有的清香 谁说出塞歌的调子太悲凉 如果你不爱听 那是因为 歌中没有你的渴望 而我们总是要一唱再唱 像那草原千里闪着金光 像那风沙呼啸过大漠 像那黄河岸 阴山旁 英雄骑马壮 骑马荣归故乡 Xi Murong (born 1943) is a Chinese artist, poet, and essayist. Descended from Mongol royalty, Xi Murong was born in Sichuan, but moved in 1949 to Taiwan with her family. She is best known for the poetry collection "Seven-Mile Fragrance" (1981).

Adventures in post-apocalyptia.

The First Iberian War was a military conflict between Italy and an alliance of Aragon and Portugal in the 1630s.

The war began with the Italian invasion of Catalonia, but a crushing Italian defeat at Miravet drove them out, and the second phase of the war consisted of skirmishing and maneuvering in Occitania, culminating in another defeat at Narbonne, while at sea, the allied Iberian navies sunk the entire Italian fleet off Elba in two days of savage naval combat.

The shattered and demoralized Italian armies fled across the Alps to Lombardia, where King Ludovico III had already begun to organize a massive new army. Sending letters to the many condotierri armies throughout Europe emphasizing his by-now largely defunct and ceremonial title of Captain-General of the Ambrosian Republic, Ludovico III managed to attract almost sixty thousand mercenaries to his banners.

The third phase of the war began with the Italians' push across the Alps, now bolstered by large amounts of condotierri. After some maneuvering in the Languedoc, the Italians and their Bavarian allies were able to force a battle and smash the Iberian invasion force near Montpellier. 

With the rout of the Iberians from Occitania, the Italians were once again free to push into Catalonia, capturing and sacking the Aragonese capital of Barcelona in June 1635. A string of three decisive Italian victories at Solsona, Montalban and El Toro followed by the trapping and destruction of the main Aragonese army in Armagnac brought the Iberian alliance to the negotiating table.

At the Treaty of Barcelona, Aragon was forced to cede Narbonne, so recently conquered from Guyenne in the previous war, pay an indemnity, release the Duchy of Galicia, as well as sever all relations with Portugal. Portugal had performed relatively well in the war, having sunk the Italian fleet and blockaded the Ligurian coast for most of the war, so got off scot-free.

Though the war had resulted in only limited territorial exchange, the war, and particularly the mustering of the condotierri, looms large in Italian popular culture and nationalist eimagination, both at the time and subsequently, spawning such enduring works as the "Hymm of Gratitude", the baroque "Condotierri's March" and the epistolary "Ludovico the Ambrosian". It also established a tradition of a general condotierri muster for wars in Iberia that was to last into the 19th century. The defeat at Narbonne that necessitated the muster, meanwhile, was likened at the time to the Battle of Cannae and its commander Esme, Conte di Ferrara decried as a contemporary Varro.

In the aftermath of the war, Aragonese weakness would lead Alfons VII of Aragon to make significant concessions to his Castillian subjects, proclaiming the Kingdom of Spain. He also officially moved his court to his wartime capital of Madrid, abandoning Barcelona. Barcelona entered into a period of decline until its annexation and elevation to a regional capital by Vittorio Amadeo of Italy in 1668 after the Second Iberian War.

The War of the Catholic League (1707-1715) was a military conflict pitting Great Britain, Italy and its Ambrosian allies against a Catholic coalition of France, Spain, Portugal and Guyenne.

Historians disagree on the exact date of the beginning of the war, as the war in some ways had its origin in multiple conflicts that coalesced into the greater war we today call the War of the Catholic League.

The war in the Caribbean began in March 1707 with the English invasion of Moron, but the decisive battle was fought in the English Channel, where a Franco-Portuguese fleet sunk half the British fleet bound for the Caribbean in pitched battle and forced the rest back to harbour, where its remnant were subsequently burnt in a Portuguese raid up the Thames.

Sensing the major Catholic powers distracted, King Vittorio Amadeo of Italy launched an invasion of Guyenne in June. The Guyenese army was swept aside with little fanfare and by December the entire country was in Italian hands. However, the Duke of Guyenne had fled with his family to Paris, where he successfully convinced the French to expel the Italians from Guyenne.

In May 1707 the war in Iberia began in earnest with the Spanish invasion of Leon, smashing the expeditionary force King Carlos of Leon had been assembling and laying siege to the capital. Frantic letters smuggled out of the beleaguered city reached his cousin Vittorio Amadeo. After an intense debate in the Latin Senate, approval was given for the Italian legion under the command of Alessandro di Paleologi-Monferrato to cross the Pyrennes into Aragon.

The campaign initially went very well, the Italo-Leonese army routing the Spanish invasion force at Astorga. However, the entry of the French into the war and the landing of a large French expeditionary force in Cantabria tipped the balance of forces in Iberia, and complicated what was supposed to be only a punitive expedition.

By late 1708 the Portuguese had wrapped up their successful amphibious invasion of the British Isles by deposing Lord Protector Richard Cromwell and installing a pliable, lusophile Lord Protector in his place, and was finally able to enter the war in Iberia on the side of their Spanish allies.

The Italian army in Iberia, by this time desperately outnumbered and fearing a second Miravet, retreated across the Pyrennes to join up with the condotierri army marching west from Italy.

From 1709 to 1713 an intense war of maneuver was fought, with the massive opposing armies inflicting terrible depredation on the lands they marched through, the two sides meeting in the field no less than thirteen times with appalling casualties but largely indecisive result. The beginning of the end of the stalemate only began with the fall of Ceuta in November 1711 and the ferrying of the Armata di Tlemcen across the Strait of Gibraltar.

[...]

Once again, the Portuguese fleet saved Portugal from utter disaster. At the Treaty of Algarve Portugal was forced to cede most of its North African holdings, though King Manuel insisted on holding Ceuta as his sole remaining Mediterranean base. In return for keeping de facto control of Ceuta Manuel instead agreed to pay a yearly lease.

Spain had no such fortune. The Italian minister was determined to end the Spanish threat once and for all. The Duke of Granada was granted independence while the Italians annexed the remaining Spanish Mediterranean coast, extending Italian naval hegemony across the whole of the Mediterranean, and finally achieving the age-old Roman dream of a 'home sea'.

The Mughal Empire in 1820, under the enlightened despotism of Babur II.

If you live in the Persian core of the empire, by 1820 your region has been peaceful and prosperous for over three centuries. The writ of the Padishah of Mughalistan extends hundreds of miles in every direction, and no armies, foreign or domestic, sets foot in Persia except those en route to distant battlefields in frigid Russiya or the jungles of tangled Assam. On paper, all subjects of the Padishah are eligible for the draft, but even the oldest men struggle to remember the last time a recruiter came along to conscript their young men.

Caravans flowing in from the Yumen and Khyber Passes bring vast riches from all over Cathay, Hindustan, and the Indian Sea. A prosperous merchant class is flourishing with official encouragement, and the bustling caravanserai is the centerpiece of every town. Ethnic and religious minorities live and travel unmolested everywhere. Though they speak their own tongue freely, everyone is bound to Mughalistan by loyalty to the person of the quasi-divine Padishah and a shared Persian high culture. Religious zealots occasionally make trouble for the non-Sunni, but the moderating hand of the enlightened despot keeps such bigotry from going far. Religious zeal is instead directed outward against external enemies.

The tale of the Givens dynasty, easily the most important and influential family in the High Meridian Age, begins with Raylan Givens in 2666. An adventurer from the wild Bluegrass savannah claiming descent from a mythical premeridian warrior, his early years are shrouded in legend. He first enters the historical record with the deposition of the Grand Duke of Bluegrass in a coup, whose high-handed Charismatism offended his Revelationist subjects.

The first decade of his reign was spent consolidating his reins on power, systematically deposing local Charismatic rulers and replacing them with his Revelationist deputies. A number of Mississipine great families, like Battleton and Siltland, trace their origins to the period.

His power base secured, Raylan began expanding the borders of his domain, first in eastern Bluegrass, then in Pennyrile. His rival in this period for control of Uppland was the Grand Division of Kentuckiana on the northwestern bank of the Ohio. 

After years of backroom maneuvering, open warfare broke out in 2683. The war began poorly for Grand Duke Raylan, and his entire army was driven into Colossal Cavern in Mammoth County. This was to be the absolute nadir of Raylan's fortunes. In the subsequent Battle of Colossal Cavern Raylan's trapped army launched a midnight assault on the Kentuckian army and routed it. In the subsequent chase the Kentuckian host melted away.

This stunning victory allowed Raylan to annex Western Tennessee and proclaim himself the King Raylan I of Mississippi. At the same time he moved his seat from Frankfort in Old Bourbon to Louisville by the river.

In his later life Raylan concentrated on consolidating his hold on Mississippi, demanding the fealty of various holdouts within Mississippi, particularly in the backwoods of eastern Bluegrass.

His son William, the Magnanimous continued entrenching Missisipine rule while expanding southwards along the eastern bank of the Mississippi River and subjugating the fertile plains of Indiana in the north. Though the Yazoo accepted Mississipine rule readily, the Rostmanns of Indiana would prove intransigent and was a constant source of rebellion and unrest. The region would take generations to subdue.

William was a great connoisseur of board games of all types, and was a reputedly brilliant player of classical chess (different from the modern variant in that bishops can move only diagonally). Though classical chess is not widely played today, the common Givens Gambit is named after (and supposedly pioneered by) William I.

King William's reign was cut short when he died of an infection in an old wound he sustained while driving off a Norse host from Covington. He was succeeded by his young son Caleb, still a toddler.

Caleb's long regency was a peaceful one, largely because the nobility was pacified by concessions and special rights his regent granted. For most of Caleb the Lawgiver's long reign, his vassals were essentially autonomous, and the king was in theory but the first amongst equals. Nobles of a later age, disgruntled by Givens absolutism, would look back nostalgically on this period as the golden age of noble privilege.

Yet the reign of Caleb the Lawgiver was when the Givens dynasty truly entrenched on the Mississipine throne.