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| The Red Lion Returns | |
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| Topic Started: Nov 26 2013, 02:54 PM (265 Views) | |
| Aelius | Nov 26 2013, 02:54 PM Post #1 |
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Norman Warlord
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In the years that followed the Norman conquest of Ireland, violence was still quite widespread across the Emerald Isle. The Irish Republican Army became quite active once again, claiming responsibility for bombings against several Norman military targets. Naturally, the Normans considered these acts to be terrorist, and responded with full force. Many civilians died on both sides of the conflict. Three years after the fall of Inishowen, Norman special forces finally located one of the IRA's main operating headquarters in Belfast, including high-tech equipment matching that which was found inside Inishowen at the end of the war. Wasting no time, they assaulted the post and killed every male over the age of thirteen inside, putting their heads on pikes along the streets of Belfast, as a grim reminder to those who would dare stand against their new High King. Irishmen and international observers alike were horrified at the display, and even the Norman King himself, who had no "official" knowledge of the operation, issued a condemnation of the men who did that, and the commanding officer of the debacle would spend the remainder of his life imprisoned on the Isle of Wight. Nonetheless, a message was sent, and with some small exceptions, the resistance began to drift back into hiding. Fifteen years have passed in relative peace, although many rank-and-file Irish citizens of the Norman Kingdoms still consider themselves to be under the thumb of the tyrant Robert Plantagenet. However, the tides are beginning to change, and Ireland needs new heroes to follow in the footsteps of its ancestors... OOC: Simply a prologue. Stiofan and I will work together on this, as he is able. More to come. |
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| Aelius | Sep 12 2014, 02:48 AM Post #2 |
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Norman Warlord
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OOC: Just trying to get back in the swing of things after a long absence. I actually felt like writing something for once. County Antrim, Ulster, Ireland The Knight Master sat out looking at the sea, sipping calmly from his flask as his lieutenant paced nervously between the columns. "He's not here yet, I'm sure he's been captured, oh bloody hell, what do we do?" "Arthur, I told you, man, you need to chill." The Knight Master tossed Commander Connell his flask. "Have some whiskey or something. Hell, even some weed, maybe? I've got some on me if you need it." "With all respect and honour, Sir, are you out of your mind? If His Grace or the Grandmaster knew that a man of your esteem was carrying around marijuana..." "For the last time, call me Aelius, you panicky bastard. I may outrank you, but I brought you into the Order in the first place." Aelius smirked and shook his head. "Stiofan and I go way back. He knows that I have a different way of looking at things, but we are brothers, and we talk constantly. Believe me, he knows. Also, His Grace is a sixteen-year boy raised by Venetian merchants. Hell, considering all the kids that age I've met, I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to score some weed off me." As the two Knights debated the merits and detractions of recreational drug use, a teenage boy and four Knights walked out to the base of the causeway. "Knight Master Aelius, Sir! Knight Commander Connell! We present to you, the rightful King of Ulster and interim High King of Ireland, Hugh II O'Neill!" As Connell bowed, Aelius nearly bowed over in laughter. "What, may I ask, is so funny, Knight Master?" The young O'Neill growled, as forcefully as he could from his poorly-fitting armor. "Well, Your Grace," as Aelius could best say with a straight face, "with all respect, you aren't King of even this stone yet, let alone Ulster or Ireland." The Knight Master kicked the basalt under his feet. "You realize the Grandmaster only let you have that title because your dad was the previous king of Ulster, and he wouldn't let his own son get the crown back after that clusterfuck of a war he tried to fight." The young Irishman stammered, "Well, well, you're still quite a vulgar man for your standing in the Order of the Red Lion." "Kid--or sorry, Your Grace--" Aelius patted him on the shoulder, "as you get older, you're going to realize most adults are quite vulgar no matter what their standing is. Come on, you and your escort, let's talk about how we're going to get that crown you want so much off of Robert's head. You too, Arthur." He motioned over to Connell as he bowed while he let the King by. "Bushmills is only a few kilometers away, and it's a less obvious place to talk about revolution. Besides, I just ran out of whiskey." Aelius poured out the last drip of whiskey in his flask and closed it off before walking alongside the young King, as Connell marched quickly after them. |
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| Aelius | Oct 3 2014, 01:49 AM Post #3 |
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Norman Warlord
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Buckingham Palace, London, England Robert looked at the map of Northern Europe. Peace had reigned for years in his corner of the Continent, after the Genesian crusaders basically disarmed the Colognian Papacy and the Norman Kingdoms moved into a position of power in the region, by virtue of the new Baltic Treaty. But the time was prime for expansion. The question was, to where? He had promised Scottish independence in exchange for their assistance in deposing the old British Crown of that invalid Edward. Perhaps into the remnants of Old France? From Paris, the Normans could establish an empire unchecked from Hadrian's Wall all the way to Rome. Perhaps, soon, the time would come to depose the Genesian fools and declare that the Normans were the descendants of the true Western Roman Empire, or at least the successors to Napoleon's First French Empire, which had brought Europe to its knees over 200 years ago. Controlling both sides of the English Channel, though? Well, at any rate, better to cross that bridge when it became relevant. In his briefings, he was told of minor protests in Ireland of Norman rule, but he concerned himself little of it. He ordered increased policing of the Emerald Isle but was not wanting to increase tensions unless truly necessary. They may not have been loyal subjects, but the Irish were not willing to submit themselves to further wrath of their Norman overlords. It was a situation which merited further observation, to be certain, but at present, Robert had his eyes set on raising the Norman banner from La tour Eiffel. |
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| Sedulius | Oct 14 2014, 01:42 PM Post #4 |
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Field Marshal
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"Murtagh Earl O'Siadhail - deceased, killed in action, Syria. William Earl O'Siadhail, deceased, killed in action, Ireland. Otto Friedrich O'Siadhail, deceased, killed in action, Ireland..." The Knight Brother sifted through records of the O'Siadhail clan, listing the fates of every one he could find. "Stiofan Pol O'Siadhail... missing in action? Macedonia? What?" He was perplexed by the location. The Grandmaster was possibly still alive, but he apparently went missing in a battle going on in the current front of the Greek War for Independence. "I have to find him. I can't just abandon him." The young knight quickly organized the records into a briefcase and got up to go home, getting ready to depart for Constantinople, where he would start his search to see what had happened to Stiofan. |
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| Aelius | Oct 15 2014, 04:22 PM Post #5 |
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Norman Warlord
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It started small. A Norman flag in Connacht taken down and folded neatly to the side, and an Irish flag put up in its place. Protesters guarding the flag, but arrested without resistance. Nonviolent to the core, as Aelius and the young King O'Neill agreed. The point was to show the Irish people that they could protest Norman rule without harming innocents. There was another motive, though: as these annoyances persisted, the sit-ins, the Internet memes and campaigns, more and more t-shirts and other memorabilia advancing the idea of an independent Ireland, eventually some Norman soldier, some police officer, someone would get tired of it and respond with violence. And then, amidst the outrage of civilians and the rest of the civilized world, the true battle would begin... Galway "You are involved in an illegal protest! Disperse immediately!" Norman military police stood at High Street, blocking the largest protest march to date in the movement, several thousand demanding concessions by their occupiers. "One free Ireland!" "Normans go home!" "Fuck Robert in his fat arse!" Nearly one thousand protesters stared off against the small contingent of one hundred-and-twenty soldiers. "This is your final warning!" The exasperated commander shouted through a loudspeaker. "If you do not disperse immediately, we will deploy tear gas!" "Piss off, sasanach!" As the Normans launched tear gas canisters at the Irish crowd, the protesters that could covered their faces and started throwing the canisters back at the soldiers. "Oh, fuck this," one Norman soldier said as he turned his rifle on the crowd. "The hell are you doing, soldier? You lower your fucking weapon now!" The commander tried to stop his man, but he still got a few rounds off, at which point other soldiers started firing as well. "HOLD YOUR FIRE, GODDAMN YOU!" Amidst the smoke, twenty silver-and-red masked figures rushed the military blockade, swords and pistols ablaze, stopping the onslaught on the civilians and creating chaos. An enraged (and now encouraged) crowd followed them, overrunning the military force and chasing them entirely out of the city. In total, seven civilians were killed, but nearly half of the Norman force was killed or captured. *** Phase one of Aelius's plan had succeeded. Not only were the atrocities committed by Norman soldiers seen on international media, the Order successfully captured the city in the process. In the hours following the Knights' assault, the Knight Master had positioned the full force that Stiofan gave him to command within the city. Of course, this would be nowhere near enough to hold a city, much less all of Ireland. This is where the young O'Neill came in, and why they, along with Connell and the rest of the command staff, occupied a broadcast station shortly after. "To the Irish people, to the Norman oppressors, to all those who hold freedom and self-determination in high regard, I greet you today! My name is Hugh O'Neill, the last surviving member of the great clan who fought the Normans to the final battle at the Grinan. I have come to tell you that today marks the rebirth of the Irish nation!" "Did I make this speech too wordy, you think?" Aelius looked over at Connell. "No, I think it's proper for the occasion. I do wonder why you clad him in Order armor, though." "Symbolism, mostly. And it's not purely Order armor, either. Yeah, our red lion's there, but along with his own family colors, the Red Hand of Ulster and that old harp the Irish always used to use. But that armor's going all over the country with the arms we're feeding. We're trying to build a real army in an extremely short amount of time. We need a rallying figure. This is how you get it." "I am but a young man, but I have seen with my own eyes that the Normans can be defeated and pushed out of our country! Galway is but the first stone to fall, and the rest of Ireland shall soon be freed! We're fortifying our revolution here, but across the country, Irishmen and Irishwomen are arming themselves and preparing to take their own freedom. "Know this, Normans, you started this war. You fired on us when we were peaceful. Now you shall see how much harder it is to fight against a prepared soldier, an army of us. We'll fight you to the last man, and you will know no peace until Ireland is freed! "To Robert The Oppressor, I say this to you: if you think you can try to get this city back, come and fucking take it." "I didn't put that word in there, believe me. I know exactly what you're thinking, Arthur." The second-in-command looked disapprovingly at Aelius. "Gotta hand it to the kid, though, he's got the right kind of fire." The cameraman stopped and the red light went off. "You did good, Hugh." "It's Your Grace, Knight Master," O'Neill bristled. "You need to be a man of the people if you want them to support you. I wouldn't go around calling yourself a king right away. It's not like some watery tart gave you a sword or anything. Besides, you want to make them want you to rule them. Let the Irish people name you King. First we have to get you an army." Aelius looked to his lieutenants. "How's it looking so far?" "Our operatives have made contact with old IRA members in Dublin, Belfast, Cork and Limerick and are arming them. Apparently people are coming to join in droves." "The internet's ablaze with this, sir. "Hugh O'Neill" and "Galway" are both trending heavily on social media, and all the major news sites have this as a front page story." "Good." Aelius took a sip from his flask. "Let's see where this goes from here." Edited by Aelius, Oct 16 2014, 12:14 AM.
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| Aelius | Oct 18 2015, 12:01 PM Post #6 |
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Norman Warlord
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OOC: This has been idle over a year. I think it's time to resume. IC: Norman Command, Douglas, Isle of Man General Rosset looked over the map of Ireland and tried to make sense of the stalemate. Within a month, Irish rebels had effectively seized nearly half of the country before Norman forces could respond. Galway, Donegal and Derry were completely fortified strongholds, and by the time Norman forces could stage an effective counterattack, the Irish began laying siege to Belfast and Limerick, although those cities were currently hotly contested. The Normans still had a strong grip on Dublin, Cork and Waterford in the south and east, and their air power made it easy to pick off any advancing armies, but the real war was taking place in the cities: rebels would simply capture what supplies and armaments they needed on the ground, and eventually anti-air guns went up to protect rebel-controlled cities. In spite of the Norman blockade, rebels were still getting supplies. For every supply ship the Normans seized, two more seemed to land in Ireland. It was like a bloody game of whack-a-mole. Rosset knew King Robert was becoming impatient. It was clear to both men that Hugh O'Neill, the rebel leader (to the extent that there was one leader) was the child that Robert ordered killed after the final battle at the Grinan. Rosset did not have the heart to kill an innocent baby, but his honour clearly came back to haunt him. Eventually, if O'Neill was not captured, Robert indicated he would use overwhelming force to crush the Irish revolt once and for all. After all, the Irish under the O'Siadhail chose to bomb English cities full of innocents when the Normans invaded England, why should they not suffer the same fate? Rosset managed to hold his King's sentiments at bay for now. He managed to convince His Grace that such brutal actions would only turn the international community against the Norman Kingdoms and in favor of Irish independence. However, he held no illusions that eventually Robert would insist upon victory at any cost, to prove to the Irish that he was their better. It seemed to Rosset that this war would never end... "General Rosset, sir!" The General perked up as he heard one of his lieutenants enter the room. "What do you have for me?" "Some smugglers we captured, sir. They're Scotsmen. They say the people backing the Irish rebels are set up just outside of Inverness." "Now the Scottish are involved? Wonderful." Rosset sighed. "This might be a chance to cripple Irish supply lines, though. Get a strike team ready, lieutenant. We depart at dusk." |
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11:36 AM Jul 13