The Fourth Word War

The Undead Horde

AttorraRu, now calling herself the Nite Qween, left Lapin territory and holed up in an ancient cave network she maintained in Aberdeen, Scotland, in the Neutral Territories.   By this time, both sides had advanced their tactics, and they knew their particular strengths. The Nite Qween began to actively turn as many locals as possible to the Undead. But she also focused on converting particular key figures in her employ, including "McButler," her personal servant. Her intention was to build an Undead Horde to overwhelm the living with swarm tactics, in the hopes of converting as many Tome Knights as possible.   Dug in to her mountainous cavern stronghold as she was, the Tome Knights were unable to root her out, even though they were able to track her right away through a tracking device attached to the cover of the Iron Tome.   But the Nite Qween was also tactically clever in a way that many of the previous Night Monarchs had not been. Rather than allowing personal motivations or the requirements of a particular magical ritual to guide her, as previous Night Monarchs had done, she attacked each House with specific strategic goals, mostly intended to either convert or take out specific Tome Knights.   When the Nite Qween had gathered a sufficient force, she used her Rainbow Portal to immediately transverse the distance across the pond.  

The Living

As in previous years, the living Houses were forced to fight a primarily defensive battle. As the leaders of Protectorates, they were bound to guard the people and major military assets under their care.  

Our objectives are simple. As Sun Tzu said, "In death ground, fight."

— Queen Sable

  However, having also learned from previous engagements, this time, the House Leaders and their Tome Knights were more prepared to reinforce and support each other. Each House, save House Avis, had established Transcontinental Portals to allow quick transport by the Tome Knights between each others' strongholds. This war saw far more of this sort of transportation and reinforcement than any previous Word War. As part of this effort, the Minor Houses — Avis and Ailurus — leant their support where they felt it was most needed. Avis came to the aid of House Chiroptera, and House Ailurus divided their support, and their numbers, between Chiroptera and House Lapin.

The 50K Team Up

Having learned of its effectiveness from the previous war, Queen Sable Aradia and Regent EGryph once again conspired to rally the Power Writers among the Tome Knights to build up a reserve of as much Literomantic Power as possible, while the living forces were at their greatest strength, before the Horde had a chance to reduce their numbers.   This time, however, Archon Mykola Lapin-Void theorized that Tome Knights did not have to build the required literomantic energy on their own, but could manage it in squads of up to five Literomancers. Tome Knights who had never before participated in this sort of initiative were therefore able to take part.   However, the Nite Qween, whom, as a living Tome Knight, had participated in similar previous efforts, was expecting some variation of this action. She utilized ancient knowledge, likely from one of the books she had "liberated" from the "forbidden section" of the Lapin Secret Library before her thefts were noticed by the Bunny Queen, to use Glitter, now established as an agent with which to carry enchantments, in an entirely different way. She corrupted the magic of the glitter to interfere with a living Tome Knight's thoughts and emotions, and found they were especially vulnerable through their dreams. She approached then-Seneschal ShyRedFox and, through use of the glitter and dream magic, suborned her to give a portion of the literomantic power she generated in the action to the Undead Horde.   While the Tome Knights engaged in the action were aware of the power drain, they did not successfully discern the source, nor were they aware that ShyRedFox had been magically suborned.  

The Siege of Windy Willows

Surprising everyone, despite the fact that House Sauropoda had been especially hard hit by the disappearance of The Missing in The Third Word War, and were therefore vulnerable, the Nite Qween chose not to engage Sauropoda first. Instead, she set her sights on House Meles, hoping to convert Prince Galakrond to her army, and thus, make use of his necromantic and Void creature summoning powers. Her magical manipulation of ShyRedFox may also have contributed to this decision.   Prince Galakrond made a heroic last stand to distract the Nite Qween so his siblings could escape, but was no match for her when faced with her draconic force breath and her overwhelming necromantic power. He was raised once again as Lord GalaWight. This allowed the Nite Qween to make use of the same necromancy that allowed GalaWight to preserve the abilities of Zombies he turned, as he had in the Third Word War. Fortunately for the living, without the power of the Night Monarch, he was much more limited in his ability to do this, and the zombies he created were mostly useful as elite shock troops in the subsequent battles against the living forces.   The Meles Tome Knights were forced to evacuate Windy Willows, but still under the influence of the Nite Qween's magic, ShyRedFox had shut down both the escape portal and the secure satellite phone links, and had blocked access to the direct escape tunnels that led between the Willows and The Warren. Purpleheart, Brocktrees Captain and acting second-in-command in the absence of Prince Galakrond, was required to call for help from The Bat Network.   Queen TaraFaeBelle, Regent Egryph, and a number of other Chiropteran and Ailurus Tome Knights arrived through the spontaneous use of Archon Myko's new, and unreliable, teleportation ability, accompanied by Prince Jean of House Lapin, who was at The Cavern at the time. They completed the evacuation of the royal family, the Brocktrees, and the Melesian Tome Knights from Windy Willows.  

Battle of Assateague Island

The Dinos were as prepared as they could be for the next major wave of undead. Knowing they would likely be next, and would surely be overwhelmed, they had evacuated as many civilians from Mount Mitchell as possible, and hidden their magical artefacts and other treasures deep in the vaults below the mountain. Despite this, they gave ground before the Horde with every step, fighting a tactical retreat. There was barely time for anyone to react.   The Nite Qween's strategy called for a specific Tome Knight: Satrium, the Wizard of GoT, and this was her primary objective in the assault on Sauropoda.   Once the Horde had reached Mount Mitchell, and word reached the other Houses that the battle was engaged, Queen Sable organized reinforcements from among any Tome Knights she knew who could teleport on short notice. They arrived and engaged the enemy to support the Sauropodan retreat. This was not in time, however, to save Satrium, or Raptor Squad member AuthorBeth .   The Sauropodans were able to fight through to the retreat at Assateague Island, and King Bob escaped, but Mount Mitchell was completely swarmed by the undead. In an effort to preserve Sauropodan sanctity, King Bob invoked a Meteor Swarm to smash the mountain, and levelled Mount Mitchell. The Sauropodans escaped to the sea.  

Battle of the Tunnels

It was House Lapin that the Undead moved against next. The Warren has a justified reputation as a near-impregnable fortress, but this was of little use against the Undead Horde's assets. Between the Nite Qween's personal knowledge of the Warren's mundane defenses, GalaWight's intimate knowledge of the nature and locations of the magical wards, and the suborning of ShyRedFox, the Nite Qween was able to use them to disable the ward on the blast door that is the Warren's front entrance, and literally blew her way in with the use of her force breath. Satrium, now known as Lichtrium the Necrocoder, disabled the Warren's electronic defenses and shut down most of its power grid.   This disabled access to the Transcontinental Portal, and required the Woodlanders who were present at the Warren — House Lapin, House Meles, and half of House Ailurus — to fall back on secondary escape strategies. Ultimately, everyone was routed to the nearest escape tunnel. Only the Forgelings, and Purpleheart and the Brocktrees, were able to utilize the portal before the power grid collapsed.   The Owsla attempted to evacuate Queen Sable, but the Nite Qween had decided that "the party healer" was her next target. She made a direct beeline for the Bunny Queen and simply slapped aside anything else in her way.   Queen Sable was severely wounded by the Nite Qween's force breath before Owsla Commander DM Stretch cut off the Nite Qween's access to the escape tunnel they were using, by heroically sacrificing himself in an explosion. He theorized that without a body, the Nite Qween would not be able to raise him as a zombie. Unfortunately, his head survived the detonation, so this effort was in vain.   The remainder of the Owsla was forced to fight through a swarm of zombies to evacuate the wounded queen, and Owsla Captain James Woodwright and Owsla Commander Kitoypoy were also killed.   Owsla Lieutenant Flubb prepared to die fighting over the queen's unconscious body, but the two were rescued by Prince Jean and Owsla Lieutenant Cheetya Ironfist, also utilizing a new and untried teleportation ability of the Crown Prince.   The Nite Qween, now believing that asset to have been used to the limit of its effectiveness, killed ShyRedFox in the battle and raised her as a Tome Zombie as well.  

Battle of Zafforza City

With all surviving Tome Knights evacuated to House Mollusca in The Zafforza Trench, or House Chiroptera in Australia, the Undead now set their sights on the Molluscans. The acquisition of Commander Stretch and Feral Major Barbarossa the Wayfinder for the Undead Horde allowed them to effectively command the undead soldiers GalaWight had acquired, and to make effective use of military equipment, such as the B-52 bomber that was part of the Ferals' personal equipment.   They dropped a 50 ton, and then a 100 ton, explosive on Zafforza City. The Tome Knights were able to hold out several hours, due to a combination of the defensive ritual magic of the Molluscans, and a quick innovation on behalf of Lt. Cheetya Ironfist to reroute Queen Sable's force field powers through the ancient Molluscan technology of the city. Ultimately, however, the damage was too extensive, the living forces were overwhelmed, and they were also forced to evacuate.  

The Battle of Crystal Song

All hope for the living forces was now with House Chiroptera, supported throughout the war by House Avis. When they arrived at the Cavern, the Woodlander Houses observed that only half a dozen members of each House remained alive.   Queen Tara lacked experience in battlefield command and in coordinating a large scale military defense, so she called upon Regent Egryph to assist her. However, the Regent lacked essential diplomatic skills.   Prior to the battle, the Nite Qween had Lichtrium hack into a number of Sauropodan drones that Regent Dazzlinkat had dispersed among the other Houses to "keep an eye on them," and was able to observe the movements and plans of their enemy commanders. Lichtrium used one of the drones to booby trap the carrots in the Cavern gardens with more corrupted glitter, which completely saturated Queen Sable.   When the House Leaders met to form a battle plan, Queen Sable, under the influence of the corrupted glitter, tore the gathering apart with all her pent up fears and resentments. Fortunately, Anassa JaySeaBoom noticed that the Bunny Queen was covered in glitter, and this glitter was purple.   Having observed that purple glitter made people act strangely, Queen Sable rightfully concluded she had been victimized by a magical curse, and isolated herself until she could be decontaminated. Extensive efforts were also made to completely decontaminate the Cavern. Realizing that the drones may have contributed to the problem, the Sauropodan Regent informed Queen Tara of their existence, and the drones were tracked down and destroyed.   As a result, the Nite Qween's attempt to divide and conquer ultimately failed. The living Tome Knights combined their abilities to defend the Cavern, a natural fortress, with a combination of tactical knowledge from Regent Egryph and Queen Sable, technomantic innovation from Cheetya Ironfist and Polemarch Senna Nightshade, and Queen Tara's "buffing." They also utilized the Bat Queen's Inkspeak magic to create origami charms that held healing magic from the Mother of Bunnies, creating one-use healing talismans.   The living learned from the undead, and made use of a massive stock of glitter as an area-denial weapon to protect the Cavern against the massive zombie horde. Queen Tara lured the Nite Qween into the deep crystal caves of the Cavern, dueled her, and defeated her through the magic of a crystal statue given as a gift.

Queen Tara claimed the Iron Tome and wrote the resurrection of the Tome Knights who had been killed. However, Cmd. Stretch did not have enough of a body to resurrect him, so necromancy was required to bind his spirit until a solution could be found. Prince Galakrond, who had made a deal with an eldritch being as Lord GalaWight, disappeared, and was declared Missing in Action. AttorraRu spent a significant portion of her personal fortune on cleanup and repairs.

As a consequence of the reality-changing effects innate to the use of the Iron Tome, Glitter Storms, a new weather phenomenon, began to appear infrequently around the world. In addition, power writers began to experience diminishing returns in the literomantic power they could generate, once they had generated more then 100k Werds in a given calendar month.   Once again, the Earth experienced a cooling cycle that limited growing seasons over the next year, as a result of the meteor strike. Mount Mitchell was scoured and flattened, and has since been renamed Mesa Mitchell. The Sauropodans spent the next two years attempting to excavate and rebuild.

When they're dead, Stretch and Sparkles are pure evil. And they're smart, too. Can you imagine what would happen if they got a hold of a nuke? And they're not the only ones. We need to disarm, and we need to do it before the next Word War, dammit.

— Queen Sable to the other Woodlander House Leaders

  Alarmed by the successful use of prime military assets against Zafforza City, Queen Sable campaigned aggressively for worldwide nuclear disarmament, even volunteering to make the process easier by depositing nuclear payloads somewhere in the Void. She has made considerable progress in this effort.