Year 3 of the Ascension War
Global Strategic Situation
The global geopolitics shows a world at war, with no nation yet taking a clear lead.
South of Ermor, the Bandari-Abysian war is still going on. Bandar Log, however, already weakened by the Ermorian hold on two provinces of her sphere of influence, now has a second front: Pythium made her move and is invading Bandar Log’s Eastern provinces. Bandar Log is involved in conflicts with all her three neighbors, the price to pay for having attempted and failed an early invasion of Abysia.
West of Ermor, the small Agarthan nation concentrated Ancient One soldiers in a fortress near the Ermorian border. Agartha keeps a defensive stance but could attack Ermor any time. A line of fortifications is being built along the natural border line, with provinces in the Agarthan sphere being buffer zones. (*)
East of Ermor, Pangea consolidates her armies with new recruits to prepare an expectable Ermorian counter-offensive.
(*) Ermorian strategists apply the doctrine of elastic defense: to prepare two lines of defense, with defense assets concentrated in the second line. The first line, either provinces defended only with provincial garrisons or lightly defended forts, are intended to give time to prepare a strong reaction, weaken a bit the attacker and provide useful information on the enemy’s tactics to fine-tune appropriate counters. The first phase of the war with Pangea illustrated this strategy, with the fort of Werk Enum being the first line easy sacrificed while the counter-attack was being prepared. This strategy, of course, implies having enough territories, and possibly spending budget on more forts.
In terms of number of provinces, Pythium, Pangea and Ermor dominate. Pangea and Ermor have the most forts. Pangea has an exceptionally high income: her Pretender God’s dominion is very probably supporting life, fertility and economic activity. The two next graphs show the arcane power of the contending nations: magical gem income and research.
Magical gem income. Ermor is in the lower average, greater only than the two early warring Bandar Log and Abysia.
Research done on discovering new spells. Ermor is last, even lower than Abysia weakened by an early war. Note how Agartha, the only nation at peace, is very quickly progressing: the “dividends of peace”?
Ermorian Grand Thaumaturges, busy re-awakening the dead, devote little time researching. In Ermor magical research is the business of lesser mages only, and Ermor is progressing much slower than her competitors in discovering new spells. This is the result of the sharp strategic decision to devote all the most powerful mages to re-animation tasks only. The bad result in gem income, however, is a concern of Ermorian Thaumaturges. But the lack of magical diversity of the Ermorian mages, skilled only in Astral and Death magics, makes it a challenging issue.
The lack of theoretical magical power is not an immediate concern for Ermor’s wars, however. The key winners on the battlefield are considered to be the maneuvering abilities of the undead cavalry and the animation of skeletons and soulless warriors fallen on the battlefield, and Ermorian strategists consider these weapons competitive enough for the battles to come.