TRIVIUM [TVM]

 

 

 

The recent claiming of land in The Broken Lands continent, beyond the traditional claims by sovereignty and the player imposed "10 square rule" has given rise to much discussion within the chambers of TRIVIUM's capital. As an alliance based almost entirely in The Broken Lands, this claim process has caused us to put considerable focus on our own common territory. To ensure we will be able to continue our recovery unhampered, we have collectively concluded that it would be a mistake to forgo a claim. Such a claim, made by a centrally located alliance with the cities of allied as well as unallied players mingled throughout a territory we are most keen on populating should be well considered as it will likely be deeply scrutinized and could be seen as a touchstone for the regions we occupy. 

 

After much debate and discussion among the members of TRIVIUM, as well as talks with the leadership of alliances other than TRIVIUM who would be most affected by our claim, we have decided to present a land claim contained within two zones. The first zone will encompass the most obvious and logical territory that we, as an alliance now occupy. The borders of this first zone, described below will encompass the cluster of cities TRIVIUM has located in eastern Oarnamly and western New Lands. The second zone covers the entire region of Oarnamly and the greater portion of central and western New Lands, also described below. 

 

Zone One: All cities located within the borders of this claim as of 21:01 Illyriad Time, June 5, 2015 are exempt from any action on our part. 

 

Alliances that maintain a diplomatic relationship with TRIVIUM are asked to negotiate individual exceptions to the limitations of this claim. 

 

Players who wish to locate within the claim area are encouraged to contact TRIVIUM leadership to open diplomatic relations. 

 

The alliance Murder of Crows, now and in the future will be exempt from the enforcement of this claim. 

 

Aside from the above exemptions, TRIVIUM maintains its right to refuse settlement by Teneril Spell, Exodus, siege-capture or settlers. Any city found within the zone one claim borders, which is not expressly exempted as above, will be contacted by IGM. If, after a discussion between the city owner, or (if they prefer) their alliance leadership and TRIVIUM leadership the city is declared in violation of the claim, a time frame for evacuation will be assessed. All necessary resources for such evacuation will be available for the asking. Should the owner of the city in question refuse to evacuate from the zone one claim area within the alotted timeframe, TRIVIUM reserves the right to impose penalties on the city and/or use whatever means necessary to remove it from the claim area. 

 

Zone Two: The territory located within the borders of the zone two claim are to remain expressly claim free. This exclusion includes TRIVIUM as well as all other players, alliances and confederations, allied or not allied to TRIVIUM. The claim free designation places this territory into a protectorate that is administered by TRIVIUM on behalf of all occupant cities, now or in the future within the borders of this exclusionary zone. Any land claim attempted within the borders of this exclusionary zone will be considered null and void. Any land claim enforcement attempted within the borders of this exclusionary zone will be countered by the full force of TRIVIUM.

 

Special Note on Resources: Protecting resources, including basic resources, basic crafting resources, rare resources and dropped arms and armor, as well as any resources that may become available in the future will remain the preogative of the cities located nearest those resources. It is the duty of said cities to remain vigilant and guard local resources from poaching, or otherwise risk losing control of those. The land claims of TRIVIUM, both phase one and phase two have no concern with respect to resources found upon the land.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oarnamly: The entire region.

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ADDENDUM

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Before the Devs released Broken Lands it was pretty hard to play a militaristic style in this game. With the announcement of Broken Lands it was widely speculated that the South would be a bit rougher and more prone to military action. In fact, the devs originally planned on a 'safe' zone down there for settlers that would be safe from attack. There were enough players in the game what wanted more action and the devs were making it possible. Knowing this, any alliance that set up in BL and didn't expect action is just a pain in the rear end of the game. If an alliance wants to start friction by claiming some land, so what? Let them play their game. If you want to fight, pick a side and join in but otherwise, if you live in or move to the BL then you should expect friction and need to suck it up and take it like a woman!

 

This is my personal opinion and not the official stance of any alliance of my past, present, or future. If you don't like it, you can kiss my elf ears!  :-p

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-CONTENTS-

 

 

 

 

 

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Part One - The Long Road

 

 

 

TRIVIUM's roots are buried deep in Illyriad's storied past. It was a time when Elgea was still a new world. Started in February, 2010 the game was on line for less than two years and the current user interface was only six months old. TVM's first breaths, invoked by players now mostly vanished from the realm came as The Long Road in October of 2011, however this is not the beginning of the story. To understand the real depth of TVM's origin, we need to go further back in time.

 

Following just weeks after the one year anniversary of Illyriad's inception, near the end of April, 2011 a player named Count Dooku founded The Nightbringers [~N~]. In barely six months ~N~ blossomed into a thriving and fairly well respected alliance. It was at this time that Count Dooku tasked a player called Iofilip to begin a new wing of The Nightbringers. He accepted the challenge and chose a handful of ~N~ members to take along to kick start the new alliance. The Dark Knights [~DK~] was born. 

 

Of those founding players of ~DK~, one notable member was Eternal Fire (EF). EF was the newest incarnation of a player who previously played Illyriad as, among others Attilla the Hun and Kurfist. These previous accounts garnered a rather infamous reputation, due in no small part to the way he ultimately treated others, including many of those he considered his friends. Both accounts were abruptly abandoned but not in the least were they forgotten. The reputation he generated for himself followed EF throughout the entirety of his life in Illyriad.

 

After Iofilip generated animosity of his own and abandoned his account, EF approached ~N~ leadership, petitioning for the chance to take the leadership of ~DK~. On October 19, 2011, just a few months after creating the EF account, he took charge, renamed the floundering alliance The Long Road [TLR] and set about looking for new members. On TLR's fourth day, a three week old account going by the name of Bonfyr Verboo (BV) was recruited into the ranks. Over the next few weeks BV wrote a constitution for the now burgeoning alliance and was the first TLR member to move to the northern territory in and around the Ursor region. A month after joining TLR, BV was promoted to the level of second in command.

 

TLR was fast approaching 30 members and well on its way to populating the Ursor region. With this great growth came the inevitable tension between members and neighbors. TLR was beginning to make a mark on its environment and other alliances and players were beginning to take notice.

 

 

 

In January of 2012, 6 members of TLR, including halliver the 3, TLR's sitting military leader turned on their fellow members. They quit the alliance without warning and joined forces to form a new alliance called The Liberation [HEAT]. EF took this move as well as the ongoing efforts to recruit remaining TLR members as a personal affront and set about looking for ways to undermine HEAT in any way he could. 

 

While discussing HEAT, EF and BV agreed that planting a spy could have real benefits. A relatively new member of TLR, recruited by EF on February 5, 2012 going by the name of wonka disclosed to EF that he owned a second account, which he kept secret up until that time. With this in mind, EF set in motion a scheme to get wonka's other account, lemur3 to join HEAT as an agent of TLR. On March 31, 2012 he did just that and began reporting alliance activity back to EF. Within about a week, lemur3 was able to learn that HEAT was in the process of building up their military capabilities and that their goal was to eventually engage TLR in war. 

 

Against BV's counsel, EF decided to take preemptive action. War was declared on April 9, 2012. BV put aside his doubts and engaged the enemy, playing a decisive role in taking out most of the armies of one of his neighboring HEAT enemies, Bluesnake. Within three days, with HEAT on the ropes and pressure building from the community, TLR accepted peace. Shortly thereafter several of HEAT's leading accounts (all but one of the former TLR accounts, along with one or two others) were suspended by the Illyriad Developers, presumably for violating the multi-account rule.

 

 

 

Late in the summer of 2012 began a series of events some in TLR sincerely believed were set into motion by a handful of Crow Confederation members. One such member, Le Roux seemed to be trying to draw the Crow Confederation into a war against TLR, which was started by Thordor, leader of The Red Order [TRO]. Thordor and EF engaged in a verbal sparring match, which took place in Global Chat for all to see. The rhetoric eventually degenerated to the point where Thordor felt it was reasonable to declare war on TLR. 

 

In short order, Le Roux left her alliance and along with Ryelle in GC made some noise about joining TRO. This odd turn of events, which could indeed have shifted the war in Thordor's favor never did play out. Whether it was because TLR didn't take the bait to send armies against her or because she thought better of it or some other reason, she never made a move and eventually rejoined her alliance. TRO paid a heavy toll in troops and loot and within a week was scrambling to surrender.

 

In an unprecedented turn, EF decided to attach a demand to the Terms Of Surrender requiring TRO to provide medals to members of TLR. Even though TRO accepted these surrender terms without debate, it caused quite a stir within the community because of the perception of the forced use of Prestige.

It would take another war before EF publicly backed away from this demand but it was not long before he dropped it privately, realizing it would never come to pass.

 

 

 

Within a few days of the end of the war with TRO, Æsir declared on TLR. This new war seemed to come without warning or provocation and remained without explanation for days. 

When they finally did state a reason it was that Æsir did not like the outcome or surrender terms of the TLR vs. TRO war. Given their publicly declared distaste for EF, they may have been planning to jump in on TRO's side during that war but were unable to do so in time, given that TRO was so quickly defeated. 

 

Within a few hours TLR allies were rallying and standing up against Æsir. Myr of the Nightbringers joined TLR to show support as well as provide the benefit of her knowledge and experience to the blindsided but eager members. The Night Confederation (a now defunct organization, which consisted of The Nightbringers, The Night Crusaders and Skorn) as well as Knights Virtue declared against Æsir. The Night Crusaders [~NC~] launched dozens of withering attacks against the foe and it wasn't but a few hours later that Æsir was ready to wave the white flag. Other than one of TLR's cities being lost (BV's Cheese Enchilada, the first TLR city lost in war) due to its isolated location in Arran, the war brought relatively little destruction to the alliance.

&

 

The following Illyriad Forum link is a full, detailed accounting of the events of the preceding two sections:

 

 

By August of 2012 the wars were over and TLR was rebuilding, recruiting and expanding the home territory in Ursor. All seemed well, with the singular exception being that EF was acting more erratic that ever. He began to systematically burn his bridges by treating friends with disrespect and blatantly insulting those who disagreed with him or dared to cross him in any way, perceived or real. He began to exhibit a paranoia that ate away at his closest ties. It also influenced his actions with regard to The Long Road. He questioned the loyalty of his second in command, eventually demoting him to a punitive role with no alliance privileges. Despite this treatment, BV did not quit the alliance, believing this odd behavior would soon end, returning things to normal. In fact, things got worse. While BV had not acted to take over the alliance (a simple matter, given that he maintained sitting rights to the EF account, even for a short period after the demotion) EF began to publicly question BV's loyalty and his motives for wanting TLR to join the Coalition against Consone. It would be BV's initiating and joining a handful of family members along with a former member of TLR, called Fromfrak (then of the Dwarven Lords) in action against two Dwarven Druid [Druid] members, Juxwin and jonazz07, which EF later asserted as the cause of TLR's demise. 

 

 

 

In November of 2012, The Duke (TD) of Elysian Fields [Shade] contacted EF about Juxwin and jonazz07. They had requested asylum in Shade to protect them against siege attacks. 

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EF read but ignored a message from TD asking him to leave Juxwin alone. "In order to spur a letter" from EF, TD launched a few two minute blockades against him. In turn, at 6:37 am, on November 24, 2012 EF declared war on Shade. After a few days of relative quiet on the war front, Shade attacks began coming in larger waves. It was at this point that EF virtually disappeared from the game. He began ignoring messages and staying away from Alliance Chat, leaving the members in a fog of misinformation and guesswork.

 

TLR continued on with the business of war as best they could, setting about sieging the nearest Shade city, Bitelicious located at 759|772 in Qarroslan, owned by Batrilicious. Working against a massive effort to keep the city above raze level by using Prestige to power build, the population eventually did reach the appropriate level. Lorcan, the owner of the siege army refused to go forward with the raze. He later stated that he felt there was something not quite right about the whole situation. Very soon thereafter came an attack on the siege camp from Beecks of ~NC~, who was capitalizing on the opportunity to strike at EF because of a personal vendetta. The city was saved, though it had lost something in the neighborhood of 19,000 population. 

 

It was during this time that BV and TD began corresponding. BV had not previously known that TD was trying to contact EF about the situation and that EF's behavior was the reason TD launched the blocks, which in turn triggered the declaration of war. TD made a promise to BV that members of TLR who left the alliance would have no further action taken against them. It was the beginning of the end.

 

 

 

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Part Two - T R I V I U M

 

 

 

Bonfyr Verboo had long considered his options before leaving The Long Road. Abandoning the only alliance he had ever been a member of, an alliance which felt like a home was not an easy decision. The friends he made there felt like a second family. Leaving was the last thing he wanted to do, but Eternal Fire's increasingly erratic behavior over the previous months had pushed him to the breaking point. With the threat of a war that likely would decimate TLR, a war which could have and could still be avoided, BV had no choice but to act. With The Duke's offer in hand, BV set about the business of moving on. 

 

There were four possible roads before him. One led out of Illyria altogether. An unappealing option, given the people he would be leaving behind. Another path was to quit TLR and remain on his own, without an alliance. The location of his cities, surrounded by members of TLR along with EF's previous pattern of behavior meant it was a good bet that it would not be long before he would be forced out of the Ursor area. Going it alone was not an option. A third choice, to join another alliance just did not seem very feasible. What nearby alliance would take him in without requiring a certain amount of bending to their will? The fourth option, forming a new alliance appeared by default to be a much less harrowing road. 

 

Unless BV could convince a decent number of his family to follow him, leaving could easily turn out to be an overwhelmingly risky proposition. He began with his lifelong friend, Abraxox. Abraxox declared his choice with no persuasion necessary. It was a given that he would follow, though BV was careful to make his case so as to show his friend that he would be taking nothing for granted.

 

Next he needed to persuade wonka. wonka had the loyalty of a large number of the TLR family. If wonka came, it was safe to say that a good chunk of the family would follow him. wonka was paying attention to the events as they unfolded and it took little to convince him of the pros of starting fresh. He pledged his loyalty and agreed to do his best to sway his own followers to the cause. Shortly afterwards, BV set about contacting a few more key members of the TLR family to let them know of his plans and to ask them to join him. Every one of them agreed to join him. It was not long before BV had gained the confidence he needed to draft and send a message out alliance wide explaining his reasons and asking them to come with him. He finally clicked the "Quit Alliance" button at 9:22 pm on December 1, 2012, and thus began a very lonely six hours.

 

 

 

When he finally started TRIVIUM at 3:23 am on December 2, 2012 and then sent out the invitations to all of the TLR family, it took just minutes to begin seeing them come over. Within 12 hours, over 90% of the membership of The Long Road had joined or were planning to join TRIVIUM. It was a great day for the family. The war with Shade, for the most part was left behind. It was also a sad day, as The Long Road had come to an end. Her leader, Eternal Fire had fallen into paranoia and the potential for greatness was squandered. The glory of that potential could never be regained.

 

In the meantime, The Duke refused to order a recall of Shade armies already on the march, instead leaving it up to the individual members to issue recalls if they so desired. Fortunately, Shade did not launch any new sieges against the former members of TLR and TRIVIUM was able, after some effort, to defeat every siege in place and save all of her cities.

 

Four days after the founding of TVM, while struggling to save cities, a curt, one sentence message from EAGLES EYRIE [EE] member Alagos arrived. With no pretense whatsoever, the message demanded BV answer what his intentions for TVM were. Hardly four hours later, another brief message declaring a 12 hour deadline arrived. BV composed an appropriate and stern, though not disrespectful response and sent it out an hour later. According to HATHALDIR, EE's leader, Alagos was his alt. account, which he mistakenly believed "everyone knew". BV did not know and assumed the leadership of one of the largest alliances in the game deemed it acceptable to task a member of the general population to demand answers from alliance leaders. This initial exchange set the tone for the conflicts to come.

 

 

 

Within a month, TRIVIUM was ready to put her sword where her mouth was and join the Coalition in its fight against the Confederation called Consone. The first step was to begin hitting Consone targets in the Ursor area. A city called The Return, located at 491|721 in Qarosslan, owned by Quicks was TVM's first target. By the time armies were ready on January 2, 2013, war was declared on Order of the Valar [VALAR] and the first siege was launched.

 

 

 

TVM again struggled to defend her siege camps and eventually lost the first siege army. Never content to just give up, The Return was finally razed two weeks later, on January 17. About this time, members of TVM answered a call for assistance from Fromfrak to knock out several blockades put in place against her by EE. Previously, when EE sent armies against TVM sieges at The Return (Haller's forces hit on Jan. 17 at 13:20 and again at 19:47), TVM viewed it as fair play. TRIVIUM maintains that this sort of activity does not require a declaration of war. They took their hits and carried on. However, when [EE] received the same treatment against blockades on one of Fromfrak's cities (Abraxox against Safia on Jan. 17 at 17:40, Bourgui against Castelnau on Jan. 18 at 01:33, and finally Abraxox against Caconafyx at 03:49 and against GonzoDaGrey at 08:14), they apparently did not feel the same way. Within about a day, EE's leader, HATHALDIR declared war on TVM and published his reasoning in the Illyriad Forum.

"Tivium have constantly attacked sieges that we are performing and refuse to declare war". This quote (with the so called accidental misspelling included) summarizes the basic complaint of the original post. From TVM's point of view, hypocrisy pervades EE and this thread highlights their disdain, illustrating a foreshadowing of the war to come.

 

At the time, EE had their hands full defending themselves against other Coalition members. Most likely for that very reason TVM saw no EE siege armies launched against their cities. Eventually, the rest of Consone had or were surrendering, leaving EE to fight alone. TVM, now working in conjunction with Beecks of ~NC~ began planning a siege on a nearby EE city. Beginning with a heavy diplomatic and magik onslaught, TVM targeted EE cities in the Ursor region, most notably cities owned by Caconofyx and Triplock. TVM was preparing to launch her siege support armies when, at that point EE accepted terms and surrendered, thus ending the largest Illyrian war up to that date. 

 

 

 

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Part Three - Prelude to Exodus

 

 

 

Shortly after the formation of TRIVIUM, Dano the Mano, a TVM Legacy member (a Legacy member is a former The Long Road member) sought permission to engage Demy in Player vs. Player combat. Demy, a former TLR member himself had formed a new alliance instead of joining TVM and Dano felt that he should leave the area since he had deemed it reasonable to leave the family. Dano was given the go ahead but was told he could not receive aid from the alliance in the form of troops, diplomats or magik. He agreed and set about warning Demy of the coming attack, giving him an out should he care to move away from the area. He promptly refused and Dano began his attacks. Demy decided to fight and the outcome was far from certain until Rill spotted a siege announcement and contacted Le Roux, a fellow Crow Confederation member who had cities located near the area in question. Le Roux contacted BV, insisting that the siege and any further attacks be stopped. The consequences of ignoring such a demand were self evident and BV immediately ordered Dano to cease operations.

 

At this time, Crow's Nest [nCrow] took it upon themselves to police the Ursor area by posting a stern and unapologetic warning in the Illyriad Forum (note the second post of page 4)

It was clear that any sort of conflict in Ursor that was not sanctioned by this wing of the Crow Confederation would be the target of aggression, for some time to come. 

 

 

 

In August of 2013, the Night Crusaders ~NC~ engaged Insane Knights [Bane] in war and accepted applications from a small number of TRIVIUM members, led by wonka to join them to provide whatever help they could. While this would be far from a deciding factor, it did provide those TVM family members with an opportunity to see how a serious, military oriented alliance handled the business of war. TVM had their eyes opened on the subjects of speed of army recruitment and how to run a successful siege. 

 

 

 

In early October, 2013, a few members of TVM, led this time by Nalleen chose to join Roman Empire [RE] to teach defensive strategy. A few days before, ~NC~ had come to RE's aid against Celtic Knights [XckX], an alliance somewhere in the range of 5 times their size. XckX was certainly distracted but still attacking and RE were in desperate need of guidance. When Nalleen joined them she promptly informed leadership that if RE engaged in any sort of offensive action, TVM would recall her members and all material aid would cease. This policy remained in place throughout their stay.

 

BV contacted Prares of XckX to begin discussions to end the war. The talks seemed to be going well but after just a couple of days they came to an abrupt end when Prares declared he no longer spoke for XckX. He announced to BV that Duke Ajeka was in talks with Tamaeon, leader of The Crow's Wings [uCrow]. uCrow had recently stepped in, declaring against ~NC~ in defense of XckX. Eventually a cease fire was declared between XckX and RE and TVM members were recalled home.

 

 

 

BV first heard about EE's October 15 war declaration against TVM when he read a short message Caconafyx sent him stating he was against the action. He said he had nothing to do with it and that he, his alt and a friend had in fact left EE because they wanted no part of it. At first, this seemed like great news. It seemed that EE would have very few forces in the Ursor area to call upon. In the long run though, it made no difference. 

 

EE's declaration was ostensibly to gain revenge against TVM for attacking EE forces in the field during the Consone war while refusing to declare war and later, after EE had declared against TVM, for attacking EE cities in Ursor before their surrender to the Coalition. Soon after EE's newest declaration, TVM was asked by her allies to maintain a strict defensive stance while negotiations on her behalf were carried out. BV issued orders that no offensive military, magik or diplo actions would be allowed to take place. Runes and dodging were the order of the day. As time went on it became more difficult to keep TVM members satisfied with defending against an ever increasing number of attacks. Without any news forthcoming on the diplomatic front, in short order, members were allowed to begin limited offensive engagements.

 

During these first days of the war, BV contacted dittobite, leader of Valiant Crows [vCrow] to ask if there were plans afoot to support EE against TRIVIUM. At first he was elusive in his answers but once the goal of a war with Harmless? [H?] became apparent, dittobite declared that if TVM did not surrender immediately, vCrow would be joining with EE against them because they "need them free to assist in the south".

 

Once several members of vCrow, nCrow (mainly, but not limited to Le Roux and her alt. Mona Lisa) and a single member of Shade (apparently dittobite's alt.) began hitting TVM in conjunction with EE, it became increasingly more difficult to defend while offensive action became nearly impossible. Several members expressed their concern, eventually leaving the alliance and accepting individual terms of surrender.

 

 

 

 

Le Roux contacted HAGER, military leader of TVM and disclosed what she declared to be the reason she was sieging TVM's cities. She took a quote from a months old message, which Bonfyr Verboo sent to Subatoi, Eternal Fire's alternate account. The quote described TVM members' general attitude towards non-family residents of Ursor. BV mentioned the Crows and specifically mentions Le Roux, whom he referred to as "Rill's b****".

 

None of the information in the message was secret by any means. Le Roux and others very well knew the feelings of TVM members. They knew that going all the way back to their TLR origins (notably EF as well, before he felt he could use Crows for his own gain) TVM wanted her and other Crows out of Ursor. It would not be surprising to find that that was the very reason they settled there. Compare that thought to Rill's assertion that settling a city in Mal Motsha was "resistance" to The Colonist Empire [TCol]'s claim on the area. 

(note the 9th post in particular)

 

Sending a message to EF, which he could later use against TVM, was an unwise decision. BV regrets the distress this caused TVM family members but argued that Le Roux's use of it was a specific strategy to drive a wedge between leader and members, whereas the military attacks would have come regardless of BV's message to Subatoi. Attempting to turn membership against leadership is a valid form of psychological warfare and in hind sight, it may well have been prevented, however the virtual destruction of TRIVIUM was written a long time ago and may have been delayed (perhaps by taking the offensive against EE sooner and more decisively) but in the long term would not have been prevented. 

 

 

 

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 Summation

 

 

The other side of this war sees TVM and her friends and allies as the enemy. By now it seems that it was ever so. I maintain it is because we are willing to sacrifice those digital things in our fleeting possession for our comrades. Because of that, we nurture and reward loyalty. They insist on obedience. For us, diversity in a world where all begin on the same level zero is a falsehood and when we say "might makes right" it is understood it goes for everyone and we are resigned to its use. The other side proclaims their disdain and mistrust of those who feel thus but should just one player disagree with the many, the "might makes right" mentality they so despise will be brought to bear. They will use that very philosophy to stop the majority, regardless of how long they have been there or how many of them there are. It will never end.

 

http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/trivium-has-withdrawn-from-the-war_topic5471.html

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Grammatical update 4-26-14

Minor factual update and coding 6-20-14

BV

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January 2015

STOMP and SHARK

In early June of 2015, the accounts LePue and Pico, left their homes in the Dark Shade [SHARK] gang and formed Stomps [Stomp], an alliance with the explicit, stated mission of combating land claims and the alliances that declared them. According to their profile, their mission was to ". . . strike down alliances whom have the audacity to claim parts of a region as their own, which do not represent the ideals of freedom and liberty towards the Illyriad community as a whole.” This mission statement, while blatantly hypocritical, appeared to be an honest and direct declaration of war on all land claim alliances.

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