Goblin Squad Member
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
The circumstance that has become known as Baron's Folly, and the subsequent events that transpired upon the discussion threads here and elsewhere, have made it clear that a problem exists within the design of the NAP and the perceptions it has created, in the way that they interact with the needs and demands of the game itself.
To be precise - it is impossible for a party to maintain neutrality while at the same time fighting battles of necessity to conquer territory. Make no mistake and do not be confused by the various propaganda involved, Emerald Lodge's assault on Baron's Folly represented an attempt to conquer more territory, in this case the attempt ran up against Brighthaven's own efforts to secure the territories we had planned to establish as our borderlands. It was an excellent bit of PvP, they won out for the first day, and our intent certainly was to contest the territory again. To make sure no one misunderstands anything, this particular territory is neither protected by a treaty, and it very much a territory we intended to occupy and hold for defensive purposes, being the exact middle distance between us and our nearest evil neighbor.
The Emerald Lodge fought well, and more decisively had a jump on us. They won out the day, fair and fun for all.
Where things began to take a turn, is when it then became 'wait, you're bigger and it's not fair for you to attack us' because make no mistake, that is the nature and intent of the arguments that have been made. Because Brighthaven is larger, and because we do not have an aggressively expansionist or evil bent, we were somehow in violation of fairness, betraying the ideals we had said we stood for, or otherwise in the wrong to maintain our borders and establish our territory.
What followed was nothing less than an attempt to extort Brighthaven and attempt to force us to cede the territory or risk further smears upon our name in public. It was stated quite clearly by Thod in conference that yes, in fact, the intent was to extort us in order to gain territory that he knew he could not hold by force of arms.
While we are certainly disappointed that such attempts were made, we sleep soundly in the knowledge that at no time have we betrayed either the spirit or letter of any treaty to which we are signatory, nor our own moral codes.
This brings us all to the same point in this narrative now, that clearly the 'neutral party' in the NAP agreement is not; presumably due to the necessities of settlement mechanics, behaving in a neutral fashion. Attempting to conquer territory, and attempting to politically extort territories from neighbors, is not the behavior of a neutral party.
While Brighthaven is in no way intimidated nor swayed by the attempts to extort us, we have chosen to attempt to resolve the core issue of the problem, rather than responding to the attempted extortion directly with the appropriate and deserved responses to such tactics.
To that end, Brighthaven has resolved to cede to Emerald Lodge, for the good of the citizens of the citizenship of Emerald Lodge, the hex known as Baron's Folly or another hex as negotiated between leaderships, for so long as Emerald Lodge maintains their neutrality and viability as neutral arbiter. In addition, in order to establish and safeguard the neutrality of Emerald Lodge as arbiter of the NAP, Brighthaven calls upon the other signatory nations to cede towers such that Emerald Lodge will actually be neutral in the War of Towers.
On Behalf of the Council of Brighthaven,
- Kaeros Darkfire, High Marshall of the Argent Crusade, Councillor of Brighthaven, Sentinel of Covenant of the Phoenix
