Olk Samsca

Greedings intrepid Vesperians. This is your Chancellor, Olk Samsca, and once again there is something we need to talk about. I realise that I have spoken long about West Vesper. I fear I must, if you may spare the inconvenience, return to that subject once again.

Before being elected, alone amongst the leaders of all the realms and factions that inhabit our Sosaria, I made a promise about our Western brethren. I said I would end the sundering. Indeed I went further, going on to say that be he friend or foe, dark or light, man or demon, elf or otherwise, neither law, nor love, nor field of swords, fear or danger, or doom itself, shall defend him from Vesperian arms, and all Vesperian friends, whoso keepeth or by force taketh our fair West Vesper. I realise some do not expect leaders to honour the promises they make. In this I stand apart.

You citizens of Vesper have the joy, yet also the challenge, of living in revolutionary times. The crowning of this new queen, this Dawn, has upset the balance of power not merely in the north, but indeed across the entire world. The situation when our brave Escaflowne met and spoke with the Loyalist heads in Trinsic has long changed. Those contracts were made in good faith and we have honoured them. But the terms have since been broken and we shall be bound to them no more.

Why has the emergence of this new queen changed things? I offer it is because she is resolved to change them. The Loyalist Kingdom has suffered crisis and disaster for over a decade now. City after city has been ravaged by foes, and, if eventually retaken, the cost could not be so easily ignored. Indeed the disasters have often taken years to resolve. Was not Yew, a place I remember fondly from my youth no matter the inhabitants, covered in the most miserable swamps? Did not the fetid creatures roam almost unchecked across that land while Britain looked on? What can be said for that pleasant island city? I speak of course of Magincia. They were, by most measures, part of the Kingdom, and yet when their time of need arrived were they not abandoned? Nothing is left there now but a ruin of old ghosts and broken memories. Most recently the Kingdom has been wracked by the embarrassment of their traitor-king Casca, whose failings hardly need close inspection.

This new Queen has shown she desires to change this record. In seeking to aid those under her rule, however immorally she came about it, she is surely to be lauded. She believes that the debacles amongst the Loyalist Realm stem from a want of unity, that is to say a want of centralised control. This lack of centralised control is after all readily apparent. The Yewish guard for example are nominally part of the Kingdom, but may as well be a separate realm for all the deference they show to Britain. Even Trinsic, considered by many to be the most devoted of the Loyalist settlements, may as well be separate state under the long-reigning Duke Irvyn. What does this Queen see as the cause of this disunity? Alas here she is unwise. Rather than looking at Loyalist failings, and the long running incompetence from the centre in Britain, she takes her eye to the north. She spies Vesper, our small yet prosperous land upon the coast, and she believes she has found the cause of her ire.

Her emissary effectively revealed as much a mere number of days ago. “Oh if only Vesper paid taxes to the Crown” he cried. Are we to believe the mud-tracked roads we find across the northlands would be somehow improved if this were so? Is it not the case that we maintain and defend these roads ourselves and have done for over a decade? If Vesper paid taxes to the Crown would Britain perhaps be able to subdue both pirate and serpent which renders sea travel so perilous? I say no. Do we imagine for a moment these taxes would go on anything but more wasteful finery in the Loyalist capital, a third castle perhaps, so this new Queen need not remain in the shadow of Lord British?
But not only did this nonsense emerge from his lips, but he went further, stating that if Vesper would not bend her knee, if we would not consent to this robbery, then he would send armed agents to tax any who strayed across the border. We all know how loyalist cartographers are at best flexible with borders and at worst out deceptive. Who amongst us, we who hold our heads high, would stand for this tyranny? How long would it be before these Loyalists would place a tax to use even the Vesperian moongate, that vital nexus which has long fallen under the protection and management of the Vesperian people?

And what of the loyalist force in West Vesper? The Templar, as many have observed, have been rapidly recruiting all and sundry into their ranks, desperate as they are to fortify their independence. Is this the attitude one should takes towards a region you are seeking to rebuild? I do not believe in forcing the poor and vulnerable to take up oaths of allegiance to a foreign power, nor do I believe any in Vesper find this acceptable. Worse still, if open warfare was to break out between the Republic and what rabble the British fops could mobilize, do we imagine for a moment the Templar would stand idle? Have they not ever stood in the ranks alongside those who would make war upon Vesper? The idea that we might face loyalists sweeping across Vesparicia, Vespenland and even Windemere is too terrible to contemplate.

To resolve this matter I have delivered an ultimatum to the Loyalist forces in West Vesper. They have until Sunday to withdraw. I fear however, despite their supposed connection to the virtues, of which humility is hardly the least, they shall have too much pride to withdraw. I therefore ask that all Vesperian military personnel, and all friends of Vesper capable of bearing arms, meet upon the Sunday to enforce the edict. The time then has come to liberate our brothers to the west. The time has come to end the sundering of our nation. The time has come to take up the sword.