To: Immortal Hope Knight Regent Azravik
To all the Knights who serve the Crown,

I scribe to you all with matters that shake me to my core. In talks with
the Primus, he made it clear that he serves his own ideas. That the True
King, and the Crown, are just stories we cannot lead our lives around. I
joined the Knights because you serve ideas that no man can tamper with.
Now he marches conscripts he cannot feed across the lands to try to take
cities, not in the name of the King, the Crown, or the King Regent, but
to liberate them. He flays the bodies of boys who question going to a war
they do not understand. He offers no explanation, only demands that we
obey his every bloodthirsty command under threat of lashing. He has spent
the coffers to nearly the last crown, and now speaks of taking lands to
starve their people so we might feed this war machine he has forged. I do
not know most of you very well, but I was raised to admire the Knights of
the Crown for their unwavering service, and their dedication to service.
Now though I am asked to starve cities to feed conscripts so that we can
march them to war that is not in service of the Crown, or in an effort to
see the crown on the head of the True King. Is this the Knighthood we have
all flocked to? Conquerers marching armies under the lash?

I say no. We servants of the Crown need to unify our efforts, and abandon
these plots of war. We are not conquerers, we are not warmongers. We need
to regain focus on who we are, and what our purpose is. The Primus seeks
to place the mantle of leadership on himself, and pave the way with bodies
of friend, and foe. We are here to save the lands from tyranny, even when
that tyranny wears our own banner. No man is beyond question when they are
in service of the Crown. No man will wear our banner, and cry out that the
Crown is no longer whom we serve. We are Knights of the Crown. If we do not
serve the Crown, then the banner is not ours to wear. You can serve what
you seek, but when you wear our banner, you serve the Crown. That is beyond
contestation.

Gilthok, Iron Priest of the Crown


FAURNIN

Thu Dec  5 01:57:37 2019
To: Immortal Knight Hope
It has come to my attention that the dwarf known as Gilthok is starting
to spread information that he does not fully understand.  While some of what
he speaks is true it is all misinformed, I did not expect much from the
drunk dwarf but this is even more disheartening than I would have thought.
He wishes to have orders, but yet he refuses the ones he is given.  He
wishes to say his peace, but he does not understand what The Castle is
trying to accomplish.  To this I will say to you know that no order to march
troops anywhere has been given.  I as you leader am considering all options,
but he does speak one thing true, and that is we will starve should we need
seek a more permanent food source.

Gilthok made his intentions known to me, he wished to enslave the Ogre's of
Marak, go against our allies of the Storm Giants and fish their water's
empty, and order the hamlet to give us even more supplies.  I refused to do
such things, as we are not Tyrants, nor will the Castle forget its allies.
I promised this to you before and I will promise it again, the Castle will
not forsake those who have aided us.  Nor will we make slaves of them.  Yet
despite this, he was against the idea of taking a city at all, but was fine
with destroying forests, or changing the very laws of nature to grow fields
inside them.  He also spoke of growing grain inside caves, but was empty of
words when asked how sunlight and rain would nourish the crops inside of
them.
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The Castle faces a choice, one that I will think long on before making, and
just as I encouraged his thoughts, I ask now for each of your own.  The
Castle is ready to march, it is our destination that we need.  We have few
choices as securing a stable food source that will feed the army for decades
is required.  For this there are few choices that we have, We can march to
Maelbrim take the city, liberate its citizens from the tyrants in the
empire, killing all the evils we see.  Doing this would put us in a prime
position to annex not only the gnomes and their fields, but the dwarves and
their forges.  Neither faction has responded to the Castle's call for aid,
and Gilthok himself has said that his kind will not aid us willingly.  Doing
this however comes with the draw back, that we would take a city that we
would likely find impossible to defend in our current state.  With nexus
above us, and the Empire surely will retaliate against us, I do not find
this choice to be wise.

Secondly we can march towards Ralardia, the werebeasts have long been
master's of milk and their stores will feed us for nearly an indefinite
amount of time.  However their King has not bent a knee in recorded history,
he will not do so willingly now.  The beast's have long held themselves
neutral to the wars of the lands, and pride themselves closer to Gaia than
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any other race.  We will surely anger them should we take this route.  Doing
this we also risk angering members of the camp, and The Castle cannot afford
to go to war with yet another faction.  This too I find to be a poor choice.

Finally we have the water's of Mirivhor capable of feeding us, the city
poses its own risks however, as it lies further away from us than any other
target.  I have taken steps to insure that the city will fall with nearly no
fight, but doing this would seperate the Castle from its army.  We would be
forced to set up a new base of operations based outside of the City, and it
is unlikely retreat would be possible from this location, if it would be
required.

There may yet be another option, that neither myself nor my advisors have
yet thought about, but those would be the big three, I welcome all of your
input should you wish to give it.  And I will weigh it all into my decision.
Lastly, the dwarf would have us become the tyrants that The Castle seeks to
overthrow.  I will not allow this, we are not slavers we seek to break the
chains of slavery.  We are not bloodthirsty, we seek to right the wrongs
that have gone for generations.

Until next we speak,
Faurnin The Murderer.


 02:27:58 2019
To: Immortal Knight Hope
While my last letter spoke of the Castle's choices that lie before it,
this one will deal with the personal attacks that Gilthok has waged against
my person.  He has done nothing but doubt and second guess my every move.
Seeking more responsibility than what has been given him.  I will make no
excuse, I do NOT like the dwarf.  In his earliest days with Hope he refused
to aid the clanmaster in his tasks, he would claim me wrong in my actions
while he knew little of the entire story, and only lost his temper when I
informed him that The Castle would not share its plans with someone who was
not a member of it.  Finally when his order was to reach his pinnacle, he
got drunk and proceeded to tell me how to do my own job.

I do not like the drink, I do not push this on any in my command, but if you
are going to get drunk, do not make a fool of yourself in the process.  Or
if you do, like Gilthok did, show the decency to apologize for your words
once you have sobered up.  The dwarf has done nothing but insult me, but yet
calls me names when I do the same to him.  I have never asked any in my
command to like me, but I will do what I must to see the Castle's goals met.
No matter the cost.

He speaks of my flaying the bodies of boys?  I have no idea what he speaks
of.  Have I ordered lashings, but of course.  Insubordination comes with a
cost, that is the way of an army.  I will not apologize for it, but I did so
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to soldiers, not children.  As many of you know I too took a lashing, when
the Gith showed disrespect to the Castle, for her failings were not just her
own, but that of the entire army.  As the leader of that I paid the price,
and I will gladly do so again, should it be required.

Finally he speaks of The Castle's old agenda and thoughts, not of its new
ones.  The Castle is no longer the shield that we once were, but a sword
ready to strike where it is required.  He speaks that he was raised to
admire the Knights of the Castle, yet he does not.  As his superior he has
done nothing since he arrived but attempt to undermine me for his own
personal agenda.  The Castle cannot allow for this, We must be of a single
mind, a single focus else nothing will change, and that cannot be allowed to
continue.

Lastly now I speak of my own beliefs, I have never made them known because
they are personal and should not be what defines a man, but Gilthok wishes
to make mine known for all so I will clarify it for you all now.  The King,
the True King is not real.  He is but a myth, passed down since the dawn of
the Castle.  Perhaps at one point the line existed, but now it would be next
to impossible to prove if any in his line still existed.  And if they did,
they have never known these lands the line has lived across the sea for
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thousands of years.  They would not be the King that we need them to be, nor
expect them to be.  So no I do not follow him.  Nor should we, The Castle
can no longer continue to follow rules set forth thousands of years ago, we
cannot if we want to succeed.

Instead as I have said many times before, The Castle must become something
more, we must become an idea a purpose.  One that is righteous and willing
to destroy, as well as protect.  Does this mean that I wish to take lands
for myself?  Of course not, I never wanted leadership, but when I stood,
ALONE for many years in these Castle walls it was thrust upon me.  I do not
seek personal glory, I seek the betterment of all the noble and good races
in the lands, by the destruction of those who would dare to place themselves
above the others.  The Castle must be more than it used to be, if you all
wish for it to remain the same, then the dwarf is right that the army should
be disbanded and sent back to their homes.

The Castle however does not want to be dictators, when the city of Val Miran
was rebuilt by the Castle what did we do?  Did The Knights of old rule it?
No after it was time The Castle gave back control of the city to the
Tribunal.  I will NOT see the Castle train an army to overthrow tyrants just
to place ourselves as the new Tyrant.  The Castle is not a slaver, despite
the Dwarf's hopes that one day we will be.  We must become more, The Castle
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cannot survive being just a shield any longer.  It is why we decreed the
conscription in the first place, We are KNIGHTS of the Castle and it is time
for us to move beyond the crown.

Faurnin Your Primus, and Leader.