Meanwhile, back in Epicurea

         The return of The Plague caused no end of problems for the armies and their generals. This was in addition to an unusually severe series of storms that battered the continent. Military operations slowed to a crawl as maneuver became increasingly difficult and troops dropped like flies at the slightest exertion. 

          Only the iron will of of Peter the Famished forced his troops forward across the execrable roads of Boozonia, battling guerilla bands of Highlanders and dragging an enormous artillery train for the eventual siege of Glenfiddich. In the east his armies withered while keeping the Freedonian and Boozonian troops sequestered in Gruyere. The one gleaming spot on the map was the impending fall of Upper Vienee as it strangled slowly under his relentless blockade.

           In the once-confident capital of Bourguigonne the citizens rioted against the Council and called for Her Royal Majesty to come and take over the province. Much to everyone's surprise she slipped out of Upper Vienee and presented herself to the acclaim of the populous. Even more to everyone's surprise she promptly set about energetically reorganizing the entire province with an eye to using as a power-base to regain the whole of Gluttonia. Her precise and exacting mind dusted the cobwebs off of the moribund tax and patronage systems and reinvigorated the military.

          In the greater area of Gluttonia simple survival dictated that the armies spent most of their time scrounging supplies and forage leading to a laissez-faire attitude toward combat. The only real front was in the north where increasingly exhausted attempts to relieve the blockade of North Vienee by the Freedonian armies while the active forces of Proper-Mealers continued to batter the western defences of Old Vienee forcing the Small-Platers into the city proper and facing a perilously hungry winter.

          In the Middle Sea the wild storms had battered the fleets so severely that they were unable to get to proper grips with one another; losing more ships to Poseidon's wrath than to combat. The Pirates were particularly bad off as they had lost their supplies to the Freedonian fleets late in the season and could barely keep their ships afloat.

       Away in the west Freedonia found herself beset with problems, none of which on their own would have been crippling but in concert they were most vexing to His Most Catholic Majesty Louis the Ravenous. In the North the Huet le Mont was on the brink of open rebellion from the action of Nordlander agitators; the freshly-annexed citizens of the Soubise and Guigal valleys seemed to be little enamored of their new status as citizens (and taxpayers) of Freedonia and needed severe garrisoning, the Western Fleet had not been able to return due to the horrid weather and troubling rumors were spreading of a concerted effort by the natives of the New World to eject the colonists.

      Without access to their Pirate allies the Mindorans decided to build their own fleet and set forth on their own. This met with predictably poor results in the storm-lashed seas; the fleet being driven ashore on the coast of Nylia where they were poorly received as conquerors and a great many were rounded up and sold into slavery in the south of the Nylian Empire.