Siege of the NorthThe North Keeps (& what’s next in RoS!)
Though the citizens of Dura are forced to retreat into the North’s Keep to survive the ice monster onslaught, the old fortress’ walls hold firm, and they are able to endure the worst of the winter. In the aftermath of the siege, a life is lost and a strange mural is discovered in the depths of the Keep…
The Frozen Gates have long been an enigma and danger to those who make their homes near its shores. In recent years the storms sweeping down from the frigid continent have worsened, bone-chilling blizzards accompanied by droves of monsters made from living ice, animated by some unknown force.
Being one of the closest countries to the Gates, Dutoria has been plagued by these monsters for centuries. High Lady Verda Primrose II, only recently come into her full power as ruler, hoped to find a way to bring the danger posed by the Frozen Gates’ peculiar inhabitants to an end. With the counsel of her aunt, Duchess Lárensína Primrose, Verda summoned Dutoria’s allies to discuss the threat the Gates pose. From within Dutoria itself Count Aron Dahlia, ruler of the Forest Province, his familiar Harmonia, as well as the current Lady-Commander of Dutoria and monster-hunter, Runa Rose, travelled to Dura to attend. To represent Xocrium’s king come Queen-Mother Margery Darius-Phoenine and King-Father Gilberto Phoenine, accompanied by the gifted young strategist Lady Gwenore Basil and Lord-General Haveron Maxmour as security. From Nuova Cadere, a research outpost of the Land of Rivers, arrived the researchers Ignis Stet and Gloria Ex Undis. While the latter especially wasn’t pleased to spend time in the company of those complicit in dragon-slaying, neither wished to be discluded from discussions related to the Frozen Gates, a place they had been researching for decades. News of the coming discussions attracts curious watchers, intrigued by what may be about to take place—and it is just as these representatives arrive that a great storm blows down from the Gates, and with it a mass of ice monsters greater than any seen before. Whatever Verda’s ambitions may have been that winter, they are swept aside by the immediate danger to her city’s survival. Once the people from surrounding farmsteads have fled safely behind Dura’s walls, the gates are closed and the city prepares to weather the storm. Trapped by the harsh winter cold and ice-rimed monstrosities, those stuck behind Dura’s walls will have to work together to survive the siege to come. If they hold out until the worst passes, they may yet survive; if they fail, cities far further south will be in peril.
Many of Dutoria’s citizens and foreign visitors are trapped in Dura for two months during the siege. The seraphim Harbinger and Qin arrived there, following the former’s dreams of a calamity in a frozen city. Dunstan, as part of a group of Xocrian warriors accompanying the kingdom’s delegation, arrived late and received a cold welcome from the ice monsters. The two remaining members of a search party that had been sent north after a group of missing soldiers, Biorn and Hela Hellebore, staggered back into Dura just in time to avoid death by icy jaws. And Shell, in search of a vacation after recent events in the Tyr Kingdom, arrives in Dura just as the ice monsters begin their siege.
While some are unwilling or unable to assist Dura’s defenders, most find some way to contribute. Mockingbird, Lamonte, Albion and Tel help watch the city walls, while several individuals - among them Crevasse, Rey, Eyvindur, Ragna, Branwen, Nikolai, Anchorage, Styr and Tempest - fight ice monsters, helping to chip down their numbers. Not all assistance was given in the form of combat, however. The moon child Opalus spends time assisting Dura’s medical centres, while Erland and Jari Dianthus set up a small healer’s station of their own. The alchemists Hallveig and Chukchi, neither of which had intended to spend the winter in Dura, offer their services to the city’s defenders and brew useful potions for them. And lastly, the shipwreckers Blue and Catamaran travel the city streets, offering hot food and friendly conversation to those they come across. During the course of the siege, it is no surprise that lives are lost, though a few incidents do stick out in the minds of the authorities afterward; the disappearance of two visitors to the city, and the death of a visitor from faraway Ironbrook, Bonnie, after they took a plunge beneath the ice in Pearlwort harbour. They have little time to spare for investigations, and by the time anyone looks into either, they find nothing. Despite the danger, Dura’s leadership decided to go forward with plans to host the annual Winter Ball. Though the festivities were not as bright as in prior years, the North’s Keep was filled to bursting with party-goers eager to forget their hardships for a night. High Lady Verda II herself attended the party and talked with several guests throughout the night. While others celebrated the Winter Ball, the stormherald Scourge decided instead to go out from the city alone to gather samples of the ice monsters. He returns battered but successful, and sets about studying it. The merriment that night was marred only by a terrible incident; a flighted ice monster stole past Dura’s walls and attacked a group in the gardens outside the keep. A woman named Kamilla was killed, and Lord-General Haveron and King-Father Gilberto were injured. The ice monster was captured by the quick actions of Iskra, Nikolai and the familiar Branwen, while the injuries of Haveron and Gilberto were tended to by a Moon Child named Psychopomp, who only realized that the pair were Xocrian after he had already healed them. Rather than allow the ice monster to be destroyed, Iskra had it chained and brought to the Primrose Mead Hall. She planned to use it against the other monsters attacking the city, but when Dura’s leadership heard about it being kept in a public hall they were none too pleased. Lady-Commander Runa Rose confronted her on this, but Duchess Lárensína intervened in her favour and arranged for the monster to be kept in an abandoned building elsewhere in the city. After several long nights spent practicing her plan, Iskra uses a combustion rune to turn the captured ice monster into a walking weapon. She releases it out into a horde of its own kind and triggers it, destroying a number of the monsters in the blast.
Due to overwhelming efforts, the city of Dura is able to hold up through the winter long enough for the combined forces of the Dutorian army and the Xocrian delegation to evacuate all surviving citizens to the fortified walls of the North's Keep. Most of the city is severely damaged but the Royal Castle still stands tall through it all.
Despite the city's success, the Siege is not without loss. Aurora, Dutoria's grand military city only a few miles from Dura itself, did not survive the onslaught of the northern invaders. One lone surviving soldier, Sören Rockrose, and their mount were discovered just outside of the city walls sometime after the retreat into the North’s keep was completed. His account of what happened in Aurora and the horrors they endured shocked the High Lady to her very core; After sending the lone survivor off to the medics, she has ordered the entirety of the North's Keep be fortified immediately and that no one is allowed outside of the Castle walls without orders coming direct from her. Since then, Flowers and Thorns have been patrolling the damaged city daily while more reinforcements from Xocrium have been arriving through the southern docks upon special requests from the Xocrian Delegation. After experiencing firsthand the tragedies their northern allies have faced for so long, Queen-Mother Margery and King-Father Gilberto only saw it fit to send word to their firstborn son. Rumors have even begun to circulate that Xocrium's beloved King will arrive in the coming months to aid the relief efforts. Aside from news of Aurora's fate, even more tragedy struck the hearts of Dura's citizens - the Lady-Commander and Countess Runa Rose, fell victim to wounds she endured while protecting the lives of the High Lady and her royal guard. While the mourning and funeral were brief, some thoughts remain; who will take up the mantle of becoming the Count of the Polar Province? Many find it insensitive to poke at the lost Commander’s succession in such a grave time but some suggest that it's better that decisions like this be handled before they become a bigger problem. For the time being, Duchess Lárensína Primrose has been given temporary leadership over the province and she has taken advantage of it. For the past few weeks, the duchess has been summoning those of medical and scientific background to her laboratory in Dura. Rumors have it that the Duchess and the researchers from the settlement of Nouva Cadere have finally created a powerful potion that would finally allow the northerns to solve the puzzles of the far north and finish the lifeless beasts once and for all. Reinforcements on the North’s Keep had been underway but something strange was unearthed within the castle; A giant mural, made of the most glorious gems and metals that any Dutorian had ever seen, depicting some strange being…. An Ice Phoenix… but with a silver crown? The gems depicting where its eyes are supposed to be appear to have been violently clawed out of the wall itself and the symbols painted onto the wall… The script they are written in is indecipherable, aside from one phrase in old Drake carved slightly below the mural itself…. “All shall hail the Golden Queen”. No one knows what this means, but the High Lady is determined to find a reason in this madness. Only time will tell if Dutoria is ready for the final push into the far north but after all that has happened… the northern petals will not fall without a fight.
The following characters took part officially in the Siege of the North event. Please @ an admin if you believe anyone is missing!
To reflect the aftermath of the Siege of the North event, a number of areas have received an update:
First of all, I’d like to thank everyone who has participated in RoS so far! We’ve got a lot of exciting things planned for next year and I can’t wait to share it with ya’ll. I’ve got some little snippets about our next two upcoming events.
Our next event, in spring 2023, is the Captains’ Carnivale event. Join our major Captain NPCs in the Drifting City for a riotous party celebrating the birthday of the first Pirate Queen, Aleutian! This will be your first opportunity to influence who becomes Pirate Queen, but will be centered around celebration rather than a life-or-death situation. And then we’ll be returning to the Realm’s far north in summer 2023 for the Path of the Moon event. Its story will take you deep into the Frozen Gates, where secrets of the ancient world await beneath the ice...
But new events aren’t the only thing coming next year! We’ve been making some big progress on RoS’ Story Mode systems and if things go well, that just might see a release sometime in (likely mid to late) 2023. At the very latest, Story Mode will release in early 2024!
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