Esterlen

The scribe, for one final time, bangs his heavy gavel onto the podium. "Attention! Attention in the stands! Noble attendees, I can reveal that the votes have been counted. Prelate Signus Cross has both eliminated the last candidate and obtained the required majority of seven out of nine votes, therefore becoming High Ecclesiarch-elect, to take a papal name and take power in no less than one elven week. We invite the candidate to the podium to deliver a speech of acceptance." The scribe hands the container of ballots to a valet. White smoke billows from the chimneys of Herendul's Ecclesiastical chamber, signifying that at long last the Church has a High Ecclesiarch. ((im done, seeya nerds))

The scribe bangs his gavel against the podium on which he stands, all nine votes having been counted. "Attention! Attention! The votes have been ascertained. No candidate has achieved the required majority. Furthermore, Archbishop Castus II of Herendul has been struck from the voting round. Begin round three of voting with the remaining two candidates: Prelate Signus, Metropolitan Iosif." The scribe hands the container of ballots to a valet, who ensures that black smoke, signifying the lack of a High Ecclesiarch, will billow from the chamber's chimney. Meanwhile, another valet patrols around the room with another collection box, waiting for the elector-priests to cast their votes again. ((The people who sent votes to me before need to do so again, this time with one of the two new candidates. If you do not get your vote in by the time the two people who voted for Castus in round one/two get theirs in, your vote will be counted the same as it was in round two.))

The scribe bangs his gavel against the podium on which he stands, all nine votes having been counted. "Attention! Attention! The votes have been ascertained." He stands upright, adjusting his blue doublet and the lorraine cross chain which hung over it. "No candidate has achieved the required majority. Furthermore, Archbishop Alexios I of Oren has been struck from the voting round. Begin round two of voting with the remaining three candidates: Prelate Signus, Metropolitan Iosif, Archbishop Castus." The scribe hands the container of ballots to a valet, who ensures that black smoke,signifying the lack of a High Ecclesiarch, will billow from the chamber's chimney. Meanwhile, another valet patrols around the room with another collection box, waiting for the elector-priests to cast their votes again. ((The people who sent votes to me before need to do so again, this time with one of the three new candidates.))

The scribe nods pensively. "The vote continues. Submit your ballots."

((All legitimate clergymen may vote, votes are invalid unless submitted to me in a PM on the forums.))

The scribe checks each vote, noting that even if Iosif votes in favour of proceeding with the anointment it still will not continue. As such, he makes his way to the podium, next to Signus. "Three out of five electors have voted against proceeding with the anointment of the Ecclesiarch's nominated, Archbishop Alexios. As such, we shall now present our candidates and hold a vote on them, looking for another who might hold the Synod's approval. They are as follows: Signus, Prelate. Castus, Archbishop of Herendul. Alexios, Archbishop of Oren. Iosif, Metropolitan of Kralta." The scribe hands the container to a valet, who ensures that black smoke, signifying the lack of a High Ecclesiarch, will billow from the chamber's chimney.

The scribe stands upright, now only awaiting the input of Iosif and John.

The scribe, a teenager of flaxen hair, quietly edges his way around the papal chamber, awaiting each elector to record their vote on a piece of paper so he might collect it. Seeing that Signus, Alexios and Castus have all cast their votes, he moves over to them and collects their papers, placing them in a small receptacle, now only awaiting the votes of the remaining two bishops. ((This is the vote as to whether to proceed with Alexios' anointment as High Ecclesiarch or not.))

A hooded monk amidst the crowd keeps his head bowed as the news of the Divine Imperator's death is announced to the public. Running his fingers along the great cross that hangs from his neck, the pilgrim leans, stooped onto his crosier. Raising his arm in a great salute to those long since passed, as well as the newly deceased, he gives a gruff but brief shout to the men around him. His choked voice was a rasping deluge. "Hail to the Eternal Emperor!"

The layman returns, confirming John of Darfey's opinion on the ordination of the priesthood. He also leans forward, whispering into the bishop's ear. "The formal elective succession and rules of elective succession of the papal throne were abolished by High Pontiff Owyn II, leaving the only potential method of succession appointment with the tacit approval of the bishops. Thus Alexios is the established Archbishop of Oren, however he requires the approval, not the election, of the majority of the Synod to be anointed High Ecclesiarch, or head of the Church. It is in concordance with canon law, in times such as these, to hold an informal vote amongst the Synod as to whether approval shall be given to proceed with his anointment as High Ecclesiarch. If the vote comes back as not being in his favor, then the Synod may at last lawfully present their other candidates. The suggestion is John of Darfey or Castus of Herendul. It is also believed that Signus Cross should never be entrusted with the reins of the papacy."

((There is no canon law in place detailing an elective system of succession for the High Ecclesiarch and Archbishop, since Goddard I abolished it and the Council of Pontiffs/Papal Conclave. For a small time, I had a hereditary succession in place, but I abolished it because it was stupid. This means that the next High Ecclesiarch is to be chosen as a successor by the current one at the time. However to be anointed High Ecclesiarch you need to be anointed by John of Darfey and the other bishops, as is customary, therefore when choosing a successor for that position the approval of the bishops is by proxy required. To make a long-ish story short, Warlord is Archbishop of Oren (Since it was within my power to appoint him to that position straight up, without consulting any peers) and may well be a de facto head of the Faith, however he is technically not High Ecclesiarch, a position which is presently vacant, until the rest of the bishops anoint him.))

The Stormer 8th of Malin’s Welcome, 1447 Edited by the Ecclesiarchal Office As the reader is no doubt aware, the Tarusite Insurgency has been set into full motion. The tripartite alliance of Tarus, Silverblade and Rosaen plots to wrest power through subterfuge and dagger from God-given rulers only to place it in the hands of iniquitous apostates. Some may say that this dire motion is a harbinger of the end times, and that God will return to judge humanity after we have destroyed ourselves from within. It is not such a harbinger. It is simply a diversion, a distraction, a bump on the road to salvation. It is said that the night is darkest before the dawn, and these dark times are merely representative of the golden age to come. These plotters and conspirators (Who are mostly of disallowed blue blood) would, if given their way, ****** from the common people all they have built and toiled for so they might erase it and begin, from a clean slate, their vicious mockery of a society. A vicious mockery which if realized would incur severe consequences on the souls of all humans. Let us for a moment entertain the pathetic claims of the ‘Royal rebellion’ that they are the rightful monarchs of humanity, and let us give them more than they deserve in an attempt to rebuke them. The Tarusite forces claim that they are, on account of their former status as monarchs of the realm of man, the rightful kings of Oren and humanity. There are a multitude of reasons why this is false, chief among them being that they have no legitimate claim to any constituent realm of the Imperium. House Tarus did have a part in the creation of the Kingdom of Renatus, however it is worth pointing out that the Kingdom of Renatus no longer exists as an entity. There is now unity and oneness within the domain of humanity in the form of the Oren Imperium. Renatus is a fictional, imaginary institution invented by these Tarusites so as to grant them some clout in the political arena. For those unaware of human history, when the First Empire shattered into three, Renatus was but one of those three. It was, in fact, the weakest of the assortment, as it would be for its life under the tyranny of Tarus. Tarus rule was unstable, ruinous and undeniably the worst in the history of humanity. Renatus was beset from all sides by foes of every nature, and facing defeat, King Tarus and his family fled. His nephew, then known only as Ser Godfrey of Horen, took the throne from the Coward King and saved the humans in a feat of military genius, unifying all three human nations. He was later known as Emperor Godfrey, the founder of the Second Empire and restorer of Horen. Nonetheless, the realm which these infidels lay claim to remains solely in the memories of those who were present during its existence. Since then, we have been forced to rebuild our great Empire twice without their interference. Tarus had no part in the reunification of the human realm, and now they have the utter audacity to return in force and say that all we have built belongs to them, they who were nothing but absentees during its construction. This I name folly. I speak not as a Ruskan, or a man of the cloth, or even a man of the Empire when I say that I shall not allow all we have worked for and built to be stolen by an invading force who had no part in its creation. What these Tarus seek is not justice but power. They are hungry for power and wealth, and will stop at nothing and bend what little morals they have to achieve these two goals. If given power, they would prostitute the human realm to the dwarves so it might act as little but a client state trapped within a nonhuman nation’s sphere of influence. These Tarus, who I might add are nonhuman elves themselves, avariciously seek the throne of humanity that does not rightfully belong to them. The gall of these foreigners, to presume to establish hegemony over a race which they are not even part of! If given power, they would relinquish our sacred doctrines upheld throughout the First, Second and Third Empires and permit a wide range of faiths, faiths which are known to be false and obscene. For since the beginning of time, since the reign of King Pampo Perea and before him Saint Daniel, we have upheld solely one doctrine, that same doctrine delivered to us by the Wandering Wizard, writ upon slabs of marble. This is the true ‘old faith’, for there is undoubtedly one single god who alone is worthy of our veneration. A vile cult created since then from baseless, primitive beliefs cannot possibly hope to equal or replace this truth. No change of monarchs may change that fact, and anyone who would willingly throw away our hallowed monotheism is no greater than an apostate and a dog. And what of his allies, this ‘Lord’ Tarus? Do we look to de Rosaen to be our saviour, a corpulent sodomite who worships five gods of debased nature and is believed to have a ravenous sexual appetite for young boys smooth of cheek? Do we look to Huron Silverblade to be our saviour, he who believes himself so above the common people that he is not fit to look at them and see the contempt in their eyes? He who was denied his family’s ancestral lands for the crime of hunting down and murdering the burghers of Abresi for some casual sport? No. We shall never find a saviour on the side of heresy. But we must fight. We must fight these heathens with our full strength to protect that which we have already fought so hard to achieve. We as a state have recovered from an exodus of scale never before seen and established a strong, unified realm. We cannot simply lay back and allow these foreign invaders to achieve the power they so crave, in the process destroying our institutions, killing our people and erasing our traditions. I implore you all to take up arms and fight on the side of man, and of God. This is no longer a political conflict between Carrion and Tarus, but a moral one between light and darkness, good and evil. This is not about supporting House Carrion or the Raevir culture. This is about supporting God above, and the Faith below. Don your piecemail and lift your swords, for we must crush this proxy insurgency once and for all. It is written that every man who dies in the service of the Creator is secured a place in heaven regardless of his deeds in life, and this applies here as much as always. Cut off the head of the snake and obliterate this heathenry that so threatens our way of life.

The cool razor stung Radomir’s skin as he slid it along his face, the thick black hair of a Ruskan falling in clumps into the stone basin below. He stared into the mirror, looking at his sallow face. His eyes were sunken deep into their sockets, his prominent sideburns having been spared the knife’s kiss. The left side of his face had improved somewhat, the blotches of dark crimson and the dullness of his left eye the only remaining signs of his old burn wound, delivered to him in a skirmish with an apostate mage. Oren was beset by heathens and traitors. The ‘esteemed’ Tarus dynasty - a line of prostitutes and elves - would have assaulted Oren, killing its peasantry and stealing the throne, but more importantly they would have relinquished the Old Faith of the blessed Creator and adopted their modern tripartite heathenry, all the while dismantling his papacy. He had spent hours and hours reflecting and meditating. Why had he been chosen by God to be head of the Faith? His efforts had so far proven either wholly fruitless or complete failures. He had begun in his position as an idealistic young man who desired to reform the Church, and now he would finish in it as a disappointment. He could feel the regret in eyes of both his people and his father whenever they looked upon him. It had never been like that when his first prelate was around, no. But without the whispered counsel of Bishop Zacarias, Radomir Carrion was nothing. Radomir was a man, just like any other, and he was fallible. He had made many mistakes in his day, and now it was time to atone for them. There was much and more reflection to be done, and God’s work still needed to be performed, albeit not with him in charge. By the morn, he had taken his brother Otto's former steed and disappeared without notice, a hooded pilgrim who had made away in the night without any farewells. His last command, his last order, rested on his bare desk. Attention! The High Ecclesiarch, Radomir I Carrion, hereby relinquishes his papal name and position to go on a great pilgrimage to the ancestral lands of the Raev people. His successor as both Archbishop of Oren and High Ecclesiarch is to be Father Rags Yates, taking the papal name of Alexios I. He is to be swiftly anointed into both of these positions by the esteemed Bishop John of Darfey, as is customary, and is to serve as grand autocrat of the Faith. Deus magnus! His Imperial Highness, Franz Joseph (Frmrly. Radomir) Carrion, Crown Prince of Oren.

maybe because theyre not noble?

A peasant of Schattenburg cries from a crowd, "Titania is an alley w-hore, I swear I hired 'er once!"

The problem was, in my opinion, that they tried to mix and match attributes from Aegis and Asulon to little avail. With Aegis, we had a central road of medium size from which the cities branched out of, and an expanse of wilds on every side. This was excellent in that the world wasn't any fancy world-painted map, but rather a normal, uncharted Minecraft world which seemed to go on forever. There was actually land to explore. In Asulon, we had a world that was very expansive however the aspect of a central road was nonexistent. In Anthos, we have a world that is relatively big but puts a stringent limit on how far out you can go by making the continent one big island, has this ridiculous x-shaped road system with a city at each corner, and in my opinion it's quite ugly. What we should have done is simply made a normal, Minecraft-generated world, built a small to medium central road with cities branching off along it, regioned that and left the rest of the map free-for-all, just like in Aegis. To centralise the world, we don't need to confine everything to one comparatively small island. Instead, we just need to make the main settlements relatively close together and provide a massive amount of free surrounding land to explore and use.

((Can you please change the title from 'Fall of an Empire' to something else? You haven't won one battle yet.))

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0dakNkVXN8 ((video unrelated)) Malachai Rosenburg takes one look at the notice and reviles in a mix of disgust and pleasure, his swarthy, tanned skin glistening in the silvery moonlight of Malinor. Reaching around his pockets for a minas or two to spin between his fingers, he licks his lips fervently. "All is going as planned."