YOUR BLOOD RUNS HOT BETWEEN MY FINGERS

[Vikenz 1162]

The Preamble
 

 

St. Arpad Ivanovich charges King Frederick Victor Horen’s Marnan forces during the Battle of the Bastion.

 

In this Brothers’ War no hands are left unclean. The Empire of Oren, formerly a great nation of power wielded by such afamed emperors like Ex. Godfrey, Ex. Sigismund, Aurelius Horen and Philip III, has been brought to its knees not by the Tripartite Coalition or the Urguanites, but by the sheer folly of Man itself. I watch as swathes of noble stock pledge their swords to a Usurper who defiles what little Carrion blood yet runs in his veins. Peter the Ignoble, the yellow-bellied, foul-mouthed creature who lets the wicked run amok and allows murderers to walk the streets uncharged. 

 

I was the Bastard of Reutov but I am a bastard no longer. My father who would have desecrated the streets of Providence with his pursuit of civil war has been struck dead with the Mace of Krajia that my grandfather, Sir Dima Cato Ivanovich, laid at my feet as he was dishonored not by the machinations of Angelika of Vidaus who killed him; but the ineptitude of the kangaroo court held by Peter the Villainous, Peter the Ignoble, Panicked Petey. I speak not of my misled father and the other vagrants manipulated by this man who could not even hold onto one Empress, no a single one was not enough – he reneged his plea for a Basrid marriage to pursue a more traditional one grounded in his Horenite roots, with the former Archchancellor’s daughter who is too busy eating cake in the palace to show her face for longer than a Saint’s hour once per week. 

 

A life to Petey and the Petrine Doctrine is worth 300 minas. Let it be said that I shall finish what those blasting potions started. Except this time, I shall be standing before King Frederick’s court and handing him a meager 300 doubloons to rid myself of the guilt of squashing Petey’s head open like an orange. 

 

The degeneracy of this establishment shall be cleansed. The trappings of luxury, stripped away. 

 

Long live the Kingdom of Oren!

 

The Declaration 

Litany of Conversion

To the darkness I bring fire.

To the ignorant I bring faith. 

Those who welcome these gifts may live, 

but I will visit naught but death and eternal damnation on those who refuse them.

 

In lieu of the sickness of my aunt, Lady Vladyslava Ivanovich, Baroness of Cherskavy, it falls to myself Andrezj Ivanovich to take up the mantle of Baron until such a time that she is again healthy. As once my ancestor Ivan Barrow was anointed a Knight of Esheveurd after pledging fealty to the Kingdom of Oren led by King Olivier de Savoie, so too shall I pledge my sword to destroying the Holy Orenian Empire and ushering in a new era of peace, freedom and stability. Forthcoming, House Ivanovich pledges fealty to King Frederick I for the duration of this war and we shall crush the Faux-Imperator Petey’s skull under our boot, much like his namesake. We shall defend New Providence from the Petrine Rebels and with renewed vigor, our Kingdom shall again stand against the tide of traitorous sentiment pushed by these pencil-necked Wigs who would have us submerged in the bureaucracy of their putrid barbaric state, without which we could have survived these multitudes of foreign incursions. 

 

Signed, Baron Andrezj Ivanovich, the Bastard of Reutov 

 

[Reckless Banzai Screamer 15456]

"Your father was a ***** mongerer but you are no better as a kinslayer. Seek penance now like after Owyn striked down his Uncle Harren before this negative cycle continues and you pay the ultimate price on behalf of your country," warned a Lector.