pTory at War With BSH and TCol

On the 8th of August, TCol declared war on pTory after after Arthur, who was in pTory at the time, sieged one of Bkka's cities.

Bkka is reportedly away from the game at the moment as a result of real life issues and as a result of this, they dropped out of TCol in order to remain neutral. This then apparently gave Arthur the impression that the account was unattached and available for sieging. When asked for comment, Arthur said the following:

'I was looking for a new town and stumbled across her account with flat lined growth, no alliance and decent pop. I captured a town and Tcol took offence since she was a former member. I had incoming attacks before an igm, and they declared war before I made my 2nd reply. Several ptory members had incoming/quit the alliance soon after the wardec so I left the alliance and told Tcol to focus on me instead, that it didn't involve ptory.'

The issue comes from the fact that as a result of a surrender agreement from an earlier war with TCol, pTory were not allowed into the CDS. Arthur sieging the town violated this agreement though as Arthur was a recent entrant to pTory meaning there is a chance he was not aware of this.

A peace deal was offered to pTory by TCol which goes as follows:

'I have talked to my counsil and to Bkka, as well as with Arthur. Since Arthur exo´d our city away, and has since left pTory we have deicded to take one of his cities in return for ours. Since it seems pTory had little knowledge of the fact beforehand, we will once again strive to be lenient. These are our terms for a (renewed) surrender agreement; 

1) 500 million gold, by way of fine for breaking your original surrender terms, 

2) A paragraph will be added and maintained on the pTory alliance profile explaining that its members are not allowed to enter CDS territory for any reason, as part of a surrender to Tcol (this is to avoid repetition of this incident, and I expect it to be written in respectful language. I don´t want to see the word bully or similar appear in this text).

3) pTory will apologize to Bkka for the transgression against her while she was ill. 

If you agree to these terms, please reply directly to this message stating that you accept. A peace offer will then be issued in good faith that you will fulfill your obligations, and Tcol will be ordered to stop all actions against pTory. Attacks on route will continue, but no new operations, diplo or military, will be launched.'

When I asked Grombrindal about the 500 million payment he said the following:
'Because I felt it would be an easy sum to pay, and expected it to be accepted in a heartbeat. It´s not our fault pTory doesn´t educate its new members on its political realities. Althought the other part of this surrender deal is that they do from now on.'

It should be noted that during this conversation with Grombrindal, he mentioned that the payment had already been made though by someone external to pTory saying that 'double' the amount requested had been paid.

During this, Grombrindal had a spy monitoring pTory AC and after the offer of a peace agreement was sent to Hellie, she sent out the following mass mail:

'I am doing my best to keep you all updated on every communication with Grombindl.  Please share your communications with tCol in our alliance wide.  It is aparent that tcol members are now bullying our members with private igms.  POST them alliance wide, so we can all see what the tactics are.

I do not want this to escalate.  We will not retaliate.  We are not at war, and have no aggresive intentions in this matter.  Arthur, the gent who seiged a town in mal moshta is paying the price for his actions.

We are negotiating a fair treaty, with resonable terms.  We have not been an agressor here, there has been no actions taken by our members to defend, they are only executing attacks that hide the bullying from global chat and abusing our integrety by breaching our alliance chat.

Taunting, and goading are a war tacticis  that I abhore, I will not willingly partiipate in.  Please refrain from being dragged into the muck in global chat.

Any personal igms you receive, that are a threat or veiled attempt at subverting our council should be posted alliance wide, to ensure that you all are kept in the loop and that we can provide you with appropriate council.  Please mark these notes in the subject line with ''alliance wide''.

To our Traitor, 1.  good show, several have left this alliance, two have abandoned, and i lost an hour of my life trying to save another, she will abandon shortly: congratulations. Best of luck poaching our elgean members, nothing like a hostage on your team.   2.  you are still with us, you must really have a thing for ptory?  isn't your own alliance fun and filled with positive encouragement? and 3. most importantly #3, when you are copy and pasting from our a/c , ensure it is accurate.  as the first note you sent to Grmbrindle was inaccurate and out of context.  I said ''hold on, Bianca..... I'm thinking...... and it hurts.'' it was a joke.  

For the rest of you Purgatorians...... move your towns, use the resources that I have set up in Chulbran.  I'll make it fun and a game, to see who can get their towns there the fastest!

Hellie.'

Grombrindal then reportedly sent the following IGM to several pTory members:

'Hail pTory ,

This mail is going out to several, or all, of your roster because once more Yuki (that´s Hellie for you poor new pTory members) has chosen to complicate a simple matter with unnecessary drama and an approach of mock transparency. This mail will address why Tcol declared war on pTroy, and why we think our surrender terms are more than reasonable. It will also serve as an introduction for a request I will make of you at the end.

Last year pTory was led into war with Tcol and TA2IN (then 2 separate alliances) by Yuki. She ragequit shortly after, leaving it to Ubi to negotiate a surrender. The surrender terms were mild, with Tcol only demanding that pTory permanently leave the CDS landclaim, and laying claim to Yuki´s (now abandoned) cities in that area. After this occurred, TomR returned and claimed leadership of pTory (I will not go into the injustice suffered by Ubi after this occurrence, you can ask your leadership if you are interested). Upon being asked, TomR reaffirmed his compliance with the surrender terms agreed by Ubi.

Since this event, no further conflict (or even contact) was had between Tcol and pTory. Until last week, when a pTory member entered the CDS claim to capture the city of a hospitalized Tcol member. Not only was this a cowardly act of aggression, but it clearly constituted a breach of the surrender terms agreed last year. 

Trough dialogue with all involved parties, Tcol reached the tentative conclusion that pTory leadership did not have advanced knowledge of the act committed by Arthur. In this light we offered a set of 3 very mild surrender terms; a round sum of 500M gold, paid not for the city, but as a fine for breaking the earlier treaty; a clause on the pTory profile to avoid future incidents, and an apology.

Now, it has come to my attention that your leadership considers 500M too steep a price. New players in your AC are quick to agree, not understanding the merely symbolic value of such a sum. To put things in perspective for those, yet poor, players; most Tcol members keep at least 100M in each city to offset goldburns of several tons. To further put things in perspective, pTory has a trade rank of over 20 Billion, and former pTory council members that have been in Tcol since the previous war assure me pTory could easily get together 5 Billion. 

I notice, to my dismay, the usual Yuki rhetoric involving bullying is emerging once more. Tcol does not recognize itself in such descriptions, and we will not be pulled into one of her drama queen episodes again. Therefore I hereby request that you remove Yuki (Hellie/Thumper) from these proceedings. If you wish to continue peace talks, have Dendro, or anyone else trustworthy you have left, contact me.

We are not bullying; we were wronged, a surrender treaty was broken, and a price must be paid. 

Kind Regards,

Grom'

He also sent the following IGM to Bianca BoeHammer (Willd):

'Please stop spreading nonsense. pTory isn´t  being asked to pay 500M for one city, they are being fined because they broke their peace terms. The alliance has a trade rank of over 20B, so it will certainly not cost anyone real money. Think very carefully about how you proceed because my mood is not improving with this charade you are putting up in AC. '

Some in pTory are saying that this shows that Grombrindal is policing their AC saying that what is said there is none of Grombrindal's business.

In a brief interview with Grombrindal, he had the following to say about it:

'Meh, Willd was an old friend. I tried to get her to reverse course...I wouldn't call that policing them'

Bianca BoeHammer and her partner Heavy Hand have both abandoned their accounts and could not be reached for comment.


The following mass mail was then sent out to TCol:
'Hail Tcol, 
Peace has been agreed on with pTory, and seperately with Arthur. Please halt all actions against pTory members, and Arthur, recall what you can, and resume operations against Saints and Aesir. 
Victory to Tcol! 
Grom'

It seems that these orders were followed as some blockades that had been placed on Walela's town of Silent Corner have been removed.

However, the peace offer with pTory has since been withdrawn, when asked why Grombrindal said the following:
'Because they did not accept it, and didn't communicate with me directly once. I only talked to <redacted> and received no official surrender....This, to me, is unacceptable. As such, pTory is now at war with Tcol indefinetely'

BSH, a supporting alliances of the CDS, declared war on pTory at 10:37 server time today.

Skorg refused to give comment and when asked for comment, Hellie sent the following IGM from Grombrindal:
'Deal is off. We will not talk again.'

I've received several IGMs about this which are not included here. This is due to the fact that while they are relevant, their inclusion would lengthen an already quotation heavy story and they do not directly add events that were already discussed in other IGMs.
I've also redacted the name of the person who paid pTory's surrender. This is because they originally asked for privacy in this when they told me about it before I had received any news of it from other players. If they wish their name to be made public, I will do this at their request.

EDIT 1:
As I published this article, the following IGM was sent to me by Hellie:

Just a quick update:

Peace was offered between Tcol and pTory, all terms were met. 

The offer has now been recinded.  There was a hidden time clause for the offer, I am sorry, Purgatory, that was never communicated to me.

BSH have now declared on pTory.

Do not retalliate, nothing has changed, we did nothing wrong.  To retaliate gives them fuel.  Bullying will stop in Illyriad if we talk about it.  We have lost many players from our alliance because of this. 

Bianca/Willd/Heavy's Other Hand has been bullied personally, and abandoned - a huge loss to the game, as she was one of the most active g/c players, and supplier of newbies - shame.

Your council are still working as a team, Bahar, Guilliem, Dendro, Gromp, Tomr, Mon Mothma and I are working on resolving this untenable situation.

H.

EDIT 2:
After the publishing of this article, Grombrindal got in touch saying that a key aspect was missed out and this was the complete reason for his decision to withdraw the peace offer. He said that it was because pTory, rather than accepting peace, were seeking out dev intervention to have the war undone rather than ended via a peace agreement.
He said the following:
'Its the combination of things. They did not negotiate, <redacted> handled it all. I accepted because I really wanted to be done with it. And then they say, meh we´ll wait to see if the devs come to our aid instead.'

A source also sent me a pTory AC log showing pTory leadership discussing this after publication.

Author: Eowan