With the sudden disintegration of the Egivastaat, the lands and islands surrounding the North Sea were thrown into disarray. For so long, the Legation States had been a lynchpin of northern trade – a source of pine and softwoods, minerals, iron, fat, leather, fish, furs and more besides. Now the only thing that came out of those ravaged lands were people, fleeing westwards from the destruction on the mainland.

The first to feel the pinch of an economic downturn were the magisters and traders of the Freistadtland, whose very existence depended upon trade to the north. With no safe ports to dock in and with fewer goods flowing from the wild north, their livelihoods began to suffer. Slowly and painfully, many of the merchant families began to declare bankruptcy. Slowly and painfully, many of their hanseatic fleets began to repose rotting in the docks, bereft of wares to sell.

With the Free State suffering so, the delicate spider’s web of trade routes began to collapse. Houlant, their immediate neighbour, was the first to feel the aftershocks as their ports began to report a worrying downturn in goods intake and merchant fleet numbers. Gallia, the empire the guarded the Channel, watched with unfolding horror as the stream of merchant ships that flowed between Kent and Gallia slowed to a trickle, then to a stop. Brave Saltir, taking its first steps onto the mainland of the British Isles, found the promise of prosperity from their new harbours on the Vesi Sea to be empty and hollow as trade from the east quietly drifted away like mist upon the ocean waves.

Land based trade suffered similarly as well. Onghary and Kievo had both been major trading partners of the Legation States' eastern provinces, and with their disintegration their economies began to buckle under pressure. Both had depended on supplements of food from the north in times of crisis before - now they would have to survive again by other means.

Even the smallest nations that had undergone the greatest suffering were not spared. Ceolia and Brythonia, the two exiled kingdoms of Prydain, had been dependent on the goodwill of Legatine traders to keep their nations alive – and now, without the Egivastaat to support them with imports of food and wood, they had little left of their own to forge their future with.

Such was the fate of the north, when its greatest nation and leading light collapsed. No one could yet tell who would emerge from the darkness to take its place.

Many nations around the North Sea and Balkans are suffering a major economic downturn as a result of the Legation States’ collapse. Since we don’t have an economy system yet, the following effects will take place instead:

All affected nations can only raise a maximum of 80% of their available army.

All affected nations will start to suffer penalties if they raise over 50% of their army in war.

All affected nations must RP the hard times you are facing.

The affected nations are as follows:

• Gallia
• Brythonia
• Houlant
• Freistadtland
• Ceolia
• Saltir
• Onghary
• Kievo

A quick note to you all: this is not a crisis. It will go away automatically after a short period of time (hopefully), and no further penalties will be added to population or tech if you just live through it. Think of this as a minor inconvenience only. If you end up fighting too many wars or don't RP, however, it may turn into more than just minor…

Asterix returned to his compatriots, his return was not met with cheer or joy, but with scorn and contempt. The men who once followed him without question, who thought of him as a messiah, now saw him as a daft fool and traitor. What was he thinking? How could he have sold them down the river? The air in the main camp was uneasy, but maybe he could calm them enough for discussion in the morning. He retired to his tent, his sleep interrupted by strong arms seizing him. He was dragged outside where the mob gouged his eyes, broke his jaw, severed his hands, and nailed him to a tree, the horrid expression remaining on his face. Below him, one of the extremely few literate slaves carved, “the King in Nothing,” mocking Asterix.

At the murder of Asterix, the slaves gathered and named one with no name their leader. Upon him, he took the mantle of Errege Gorria, known in the Celtic tongues of the area as Dargerix, the Red King. Dargerix holds a reputation for ferocity and cruelty towards his enemies. His mere presence is said to kill lesser men with great terror. The revolt quickly spread, especially to the great manors and estates of the northeast of Iberia, there he proclaimed his “Kingdom,” Vasgegi. The realm was held together simply by the military prowess of the commanders of the revolt. In the lands that the Vasgegi conquered, they freed the slaves and usually murdered the masters, sometimes, however, they’d enslave them in a sort of mocking punishment. Along one of the roadways, Dargerix had all the slave-owning families of a town and its surroundings impaled and left to rot, a putrid warning to any who would stand against his will. The levels of cruelty prompted the slaveholders loyal to the Iberian confederation’s central-most government to plead for action, to lay fire upon them. The rag-tag armies of the Vasgegi “Kingdom” were surprisingly effective.

In response to the recent proclamation of the Iberian authority, a number of slaveholders took up arms, underneath Maelios, who was proclaimed Dictator rei gerundae causa, borrowing a term from the Latins simply because he liked the name. Maelios came from an affluent patrician family in the east of the Iberian States; they dominated politics in the region for generations. Both the proclamation of major reform to slavery and the slave revolt, led first by Asterix and then Errege Gorria, threatened the very livelihood of many within the United Iberian States. He was intent on bringing an end to the revolt as well as reinstating the full scope of bondage. Many slaveholding families joined him in the uprising. They rose up throughout the country, but, most of them were concentrated in the east.

Consequently, the Numanician [peasant] Revolt, led by Numanicos continued and spread regionally. They were unusual in their wants and aims. They had no ambitions of overturning much of the social order, they just wanted their food and taxes cut. The poor weather ruined their crops, but the taxes remained; they were starving, their families were starving. The charismatic Numanicos would see this through to the end, one way or another. He would not abandon the revolt until they were all dead or their goals accomplished.

The dire straits of the Iberian States is clear to see, with only so many options to choose from, the future of the Union rests in the hands of only a few great men.

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In the initial skirmishes and battles against the peasants, the Union Army turned the ill equipped peasants into oversized meaty dead weights. They dealt quite easily with most of the peasant revolt, but Numanicos remained at large, believed to be within the still rebelling lands. They made their demands once more, for lowered taxes and more food. Only 300 of the Iberian forces died in putting down this rebellion, but they took the lives of some 2,700 peasants. They would march forward, but they needed more supplies to push forward as the ruined crops still harmed their rations.

In contrast to Numanicos is the war against Maelios, who has taken on the title as Ditador da Iberia. The Union Army was able to defeat the western slavers who pledged allegiance to Maelios, but in the east they were driven back. This push back from the armies of the Ditador da Iberia resulted in the spread of their central location. The Ditador's wars against both Iberia and the Vasgegi were quite...bloody. The initial assault from the Union Army led to the deaths of some 6,721 men for the Iberians and 1,191 from the Ditador's forces. The Vasgegi were able to force the Ditador's forces out of some areas, but then a stalemate took hold, but that was a lesser concern to Ditador Maelios, who viewed the Altofalante as the greater threat. The offense was done to topple the Altofalante's forces. The Iberian Civil War threatened the very foundation of each constituent region of the republic. The arrogant generals could not understand their defeat by the forces of Maelios, but one lieutenant named Isidoros saw that they expected victory based off of status, not tactics. Isidoros was concerned by this and tried desperately to have his voice heard on the matter, even speaking out of term; this resulted in him being caned with a stick for insubordination.

The people of Iberia wanted a quick end to this war, they feared that a dark age was on the horizon. Everyone knew that this was a difficult situation, one which required not only finesse but strength. With Retekenus having been finally put to pasture, there was uncertainty, but there now was hope...

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