[SS AAR] A Kingdom In Twain
A Kingdom In Twain
By Bucket of Lithium
Faction: Genoa
Mod: Stainless Steel 6.1 (With Lusted's AI)
Difficulty: Very Hard/Very Hard
Rules: No Cheats or Reloads and to stick to the roleplay and character's personalities strictly.
Quick Intro: This is basically an AAR to showcase one of the best SS campaigns I ever had, which I RP'd the entire way through. To share it with the community I have restarted it and began to write it up, and well. Here we are, enjoy!
Prelude - A Crown Divided
An Introduction to the Brothers Rossi
The chamber of Francesco Rossi had always been extravagantly opulent, the floors of the darkest blood crimson mahogany, seeming as if it was permanently stained with the lives of his enemies. The leather bound books, covering almost every wall spoke tomes of military tactics, political manoeuvres and the histories of the great men who ruled this world upon a whim and whimsical advisors. This room spoke power, just as the man who sought comfort in it. On this night, June 25th 1080, the prim man, eyes the darkest of raven black; known throughout the realm for their soul piercing quality, capable of tearing apart a man’s innermost fathoms, could be found residing behind his desk, hurriedly filling in the parchments one of his stature must always complete. Mundane monotony filled the air with its stale grey stench.
This atmosphere was soon to be vanquished with the arrival of a tight-jawed messenger, half nervous, half exhausted with the burden he’d carried through the jet blackness of this oppressive night. Three raps upon the door. Firm, deep knocks that broke the ever-growing silence of Francesco’s frantic work. The sprawl of paper shifted erratically as Francesco rose from the chair he resided in, all plush feathers and frivolity, and the ink he’d so recently set into place began to run terribly. Black stains of the deepest shade seemingly burned away at the delicate handwriting, consuming and devouring every curl or line. The dim light filling the room, at its usual peak only managing to lazily highlight the dancing dust motes that pirouetted in tribal rhythms through his air, today fell upon the desk, casting it’s folds of wooden simplicity into stark relief. The almost irregular curves and angles of the piece seemed monstrous, deformed and constantly ominous. A tortured, corrupted and malformed object that projected it’s malevolence directly into the mind of those that entered the study . Francesco had chosen it specifically…a grim station for grim tidings.
Jesus wept! These must be dispatched to the Taruntelli family on the morrow, which accursed fool disturbs work such as this! With resenting steps, deliberately slow and heavy to display his reluctance at his most unnecessary of interruptions, Francesco reached his study door and laid his groomed hand, perfect without blemish, upon the just as ornate handle. With a twist, a creak and a tired, ominous opening of the wooden barrier, Francesco came face to face with his brother, the abominable Cristopher…pious pansy of the Genoese line.
“Cris…leave me. Thou knows I shall not suffer your presence when work needs be don….” The taller brother, more lithely grown than his younger, yet far more conniving sibling, placed a well-muscled hand upon Francesco’s shoulder, causing a violent tremor to rack his body from head to toe. Staring into those azure blue depths always filled the Heir with such a deep, unquenchable loathing that it gnawed away his inner self with ferocious hunger. Those puckered, twisted lines. Malformed lips and mocking limp. The hand withered as a rose denied it’s most basic of rights. Those were the features Francesco had been gifted…an inheritance that would soon be remedied.
“Do not fear brother, the news I bring bodes most foul indeed. Our noble father, Giorgio, Doge and master of our fair land…he has passed Franky…he has left this world for the next, coveted by the holy beings of the heaven above…I…feel your pain.” With a stern finger to his lips, Francesco silenced his brother, still seething greatly from the name of “Franky”. A cold chill of relief flowed ever so pleasantly through the body of Francesco. So much waiting. So much intricate planning to secure himself the greatest possible position for his inheritance of the Genoese lands. And now it was his. The profits, the armies, the cities and the power. His father would have bequeathed him it all. With a smirk barely containing the wolfish, predator teeth he cared for delicately, Francesco continued to converse with his brother, lips moving in the most foul imitation of speech.
“Won’t you be silent? We must arrange the funeral…and my succession immediately.” Realising the joy that almost radiated from those words, and noticing a slight awkwardness to Cris’s movements, Francesco quickly added. “For dear Father, of course. He would not wish his lands wasted, as punctual a man as he!”
Wonderful Francesco, your charm and eloquence once again astounds me! Fool! Blessing to God that you are only talking with Cris, that dim oaf. And yet, despite the addition to improve the sincerity of his tone, Cris remained shuffling, as if avoiding a truth that must, in some end, be revealed. For the worse. With a chuckle at the apparently dumbstruck imbecile, Francesco smacked him across the back as he collected a literal mountain of paperwork that had been peacefully accumulating dust and decay for a year now. Ever since Giorgio had grown ill.
“Unstop your tongue fool. Thou knows father despised your silence!” The firmness of his voice struck like a whip, Cris’s face almost whipping away as if from the impact. Stepping away from the Heir to Genoa, Cris’s eyes darted to the door with immense fear, the man beyond terror, horror and into the bounds of petrifaction. With a stutter however, the still as stone brother uttered the syllables that had chained his tongue so still in his mostly pointless mouth.
“U-u-um Franky, our Father had a complete epiphany before his p-p-passing…” The door still hung upon, the luminescence glowing inside from the passageway, as barbs of fiery light seemed a godsend, an escape. “I helped him, on his, I mean our way to redemption to God. He f-f-finally found peace Franky. Our father…peace.”
A man must have know the Doge Giorgio to know that peace would be most troublesome for him to acquire, a temperamental a man as the seasons. Biting ice one moment, the most roasting of heats the next.
“Peace? Wonderful for Father I say. However, he still remains dead. I still remain Heir. That quandary need be resolved. Please leave brother dearest.” Leaning his muscles, diminutive as they were, into his greater brother, Francesco began to move him from the creaking floorboards that lay over his study. Not resisting, due to some crushing reason that downcast the entirety of his body, adding a gloom and grim to the room that had previously not presented itself. With the heaviest of sighs he spoke.
“Franky…before he died Father told me he wished to give his lands to the Papacy.” An unbroken silence fell over the room once more, tension forming as quickly as mist unto a windowpane. “He believed, that in his death, we provide to God. I agree with him, this family is not of pious descent. We must atone. You shall keep lands, Franky, but they shall be small and of no consequence. I am sorry brother, but the calling of Genoa is no longer solitary. It is the call of the Heavens themselves.” With undeniable relief that his task had finally been completed, Cris turned on his heels to leave in a military fashion, always in order and collected, the way his father had raised him.
“No.” The voice was but a whisper.
“What dost thou say to me, brother?” Cris turned his head, awestruck by the unhidden denial of his sibling who always hid beneath his shroud of deception and lies.
“No. No. No. NO!” Francesco grasped his knife, the polished beauty of a blade that shimmered with sublime elegance in the sunlight, and thrust it point down into his desk, a blemish upon the usually immaculate surface; anger a foul mistress when provoked. “It shall not be your choice to make! This is my land! My men! My country! BEGONE CRIS ROSSI! You…you and your foolish notions are banished from this land. Leave now…you…you fool before I set the guards upon you!”
“They are our Father’s wishes!”
“Your pathetic excuses bother me not, knave. LEAVE ME! This land is mine. You envious, unworthy ruffian. Leave Genoa. Leave Italy. You are as unwelcome as the summer drought or the winter freeze. Begone!”
The bravado hit him as a wave of arrogance and superiority. A tiny portion of Francesco’s brain still screamed at him with sense, the man standing before him held a blade in hands five fold mightier than his. Yet the honour of Cris tempered his reddening face, causing him to turn stiffly and stride from the room.
“You have wronged me greatly, Francesco Rossi. I shall leave. But I shall take my men with me. Should we meet again, the brotherly kindness I show you shall be gone. Just as you requested of me….”
Comments and criticsm are always welcome. I hope you enjoyed the prelude, expect another update soon.
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I foresee great things.
)
Originally Posted by Carl Von Do-(don't have the magic dots)-beln
The first chapters been planned out already, from the perspective of a spiffing young chap named Anselmo Della Torre.
