Summer tree
Strong Reeds, we've been down, up and now down again. The Jotun think that they are safe, the Jotun think they are secure, we will make them regret that. Return to the shadows, lay low and deny them respite! Our allies in house Greywater will bolster us and we will give them no rest. Be their worst fucking nightmare!
Amberlain P. Black, General of the Strong ReedsCracked Mud
The marshes parch under the relentless heat of the great drought, the trees wither beneath its unrelenting gaze, and the Jotun wash across Bregasland like the tide roaring in. The Rushes and Graven March fall in short order to a force of more than thirty thousand orcs and their human allies. Mathilda Fisher plants a battle standard bearing the likeness of a leaping fish in the town square at Graven, and that seems to be that. The marshes are now completely under control of the Fishers, aided by the great armies of the western orcs.
Or rather, not entirely under her control. The Bregas are Marchers, and they have heeded the words of their friars and monks. Those who have not fled to Mitwold or the Mourn - and there are many who have not fled - remain in their homes but offer the absolute minimum of cooperation to the conquerors. If their fellow Marchers, their neighbours to the east, thought the Bregas were surly and uncommunicative with them, it is nothing to the way they treat the invaders. For the most part they are careful never to step over the line into active resistance. They keep their farms only by dint of having sworn to be thralls, with all that entails after all. Yet wherever they can they make life difficult for the Fishers and their Jotun masters.
The household of Greywater - for all their bad reputation - are an exception. Thanks to the actions of Imperial heroes during the Summer Solstice, they now live as renegades in the East Marshes. Those Bregas who are able to do so offer them what aid they can - and in turn they offer aid and support to the Strong Reeds. The army has not quit the territory - it continues to lie low among the dank pools and the bulrushes. Indeed, in conjunction with the Greywaters and the other rebels, they are able to do a lot more than merely lie low. Jotun supply lines are threatened, and their stores of food regularly raided. There is no peace for the invaders. At the same time, the Fishers and the orcs cannot find the Strong Reeds - they fade back into the marshes before their enemy even knows they are there. They remain a constant thorn in the side of the new masters of Bregasland.
Mathilda Fisher has firmly established her "court" at Fisher's Rock, in the North Fens. According to scouts from the Strong Reeds, they are building a town around the rock itself, primarily out of wood. The structures are not traditional Marcher dwellings - they are more like Kallavesi stilt-houses built on posts raised from the marshes themselves. This seems to be the only significant construction taking place in the marshes. When the Jotun conquer land, they almost always begin building fortifications there. Bregasland appears to be the exception - most likely because the only place to easily fortify is Gravenmarch. The western orcs will struggle to transport the white granite needed through the marshes in the face of a rebel force itching to sink their flat-bottomed boats or attack their stone caravans.
For now, though, the violence in the marshes has broadly subsided. There are raids by the Greywaters and the Strong Reeds, but they rarely impact the Marchers of Bregasland directly. The Jotun appear loathe to take too strong a hand against the thralls of Bregasland, and the new steward seems unable to stop the attacks herself. Perhaps things would have been different if her fanatical cousin Dillion were still alive but the Imperial orcs and their allies took care of that problem. Things in the territory are still unsettled, but for many life continues almost the same as it did under the Empire. Indeed, Mathilda Fisher seems very keen indeed to propagate that illusion.
As far as the conquerors of Bregasland are concerned, it seems they believe that the Imperial Military Council has withdrawn their forces from Bregasland. As she promised prior to the Summer Solstice, Mathilda Fisher intends to send a diplomatic delegation to Anvil during the Autumn Equinox to negotiate a treaty with the Imperial Consul. They will arrive at some point during the Autumn Equinox - details are not yet forthcoming - and the main topic for discussion will be the continued neutrality of Bregasland, as a free state between the Jotun and the Marches. Given previous negotiations were heated to put it mildly, the magistrates are at great pains to remind everyone that law of delegation protection guarantees the safety of representatives of barbarian nations coming to Anvil. The law protects them until they have returned to their own lands.
Game Information
With House Greywater having established hidden camps deep in the western marshes, there is a network of support for the Strong Reeds in Bregasland. Whenever they take the Lay Low order in the territory while the Greywaters remain free to help them, they will prevent any enemy army from being able to resupply, but will be able to benefit from both natural and emergency resupply themselves even if there are hostile forces present. Furthermore as long as the Greywaters continue to harass the Jotun, Grey Fens has the allied insurgents quality - similar to the under threat quality but benefitting the Empire - which means the Grey Fens will count as being a beach head even though the entire territory is in Jotun hands. There is an additional unexpected benefit that arises because the Strong Reeds were in the territory when it fell. Even though the territory is now entirely in Jotun hands, the army is not forced out. The general of the Strong Reeds can continue to give the lay low order - they are not forced out of the territory. This benefit will remain until they move out of the territory, give a different order, or lose the support of House Greywater.
With Gravenmarch in Jotun hands, the Keeper of the Dour Fens has lost access to their sinecure; by all accounts, a cousin of Mathilda Fisher named Bron now styles themselves as Keeper and claims the bounty of crystal mana that comes from beneath Graven Rock. They still keep the title, however. Should the sinecure be recovered, they will once again gain access to the mana as long as they have not stepped down in the meantime.
The Imperial Breadbasket is being used to supply the Jotun armies - they have claimed its bounty for themselves and their trusted thralls. As such, the great work now provides no benefits to player character farms in Bregasland, and will not do so until the territory is once again Imperial.
See My Face Here (Conjunction)
- There is a conjunction to Jayne's Top Copse in the Grey Fens, a chance to slay the Jotun and aid the resistance in Bregasland
- There is an opportunity to inflict 250 casualties on the Mandowlas Roar in the coming season, if the Empire ensure no-one escapes to tell the tale
- The General of the Strong Reeds has been asked to arrange a group of heroes to attack the Jotun
The Strong Reeds have gone to ground in Bregasland as the Jotun and the forces of Mathilda Fisher have ground eastwards. They have made the reedbeds, haylofts, and remote birchlands across the fens their hiding places, and the scattered settlements and raised drove tracks their killing grounds. Working hand-in-glove with the Grey Waters they are stubbornly they are prepared to make the Jotun regret their invasion and to keep resentment to the Fishers on the minds of those oppressed Marchers who remain.
The Grey Waters have identified an ideal target for a strike. Jotun soldiers from the Mandowla's Roar have constructed a small stockade in the Grey Fens, likely to help secure the area and to provide a base of operations for their patrols. Whilst it is little more than a hastily erected fence, it has emboldened the Jotun warriors in the area and hampered efforts of the Strong Reeds to undermine their operations. Fortunately a conjunction of the Sentinel Gate offers an opportunity to launch a surprise attack against the orcs at Jayne's Top Copse, eliminating the outpost in the area. Aware of the superstitions the Jotun have regarding the brackish waters of Bregasland, a cunning plan is put forward to the General of the Strong Reeds...
The Grey Water's plan relies on Imperial heroes mounting a clandestine attack on the Jotun, by moving in small groups, operating in the shadows, and stealthily killing any orcs they encounter on the way to the outpost. Once there they will be able to lay in wait for a patrol that is returning for the night and kill them too. If the Empire manages to kill all the orcs and leave no survivors, then there will be no-one to report how the attack happened. In that case, the already overconfident general of Mandowlas Roar will send a larger force into the marshes in search of revenge on whoever carried out the attack. The Strong Reeds and the Grey Waters will be perfectly positioned to pick these Jotun off one by one, allowing them to inflict 250 casualties on the army in the coming season.