The Chronicle
Tenev 1st Island
One island, two colours. Orc clans and vampire covens hold the green west; Vlad Tenev's legion holds everything east of the Trenches. Five powers, six campaign stages, and a vault under the Sanctum that nobody will talk about.
The house always wins · until it doesn't
The Green Half
For a thousand years the island was one colour. Orc clans held the west and fought each other over river-bends and grazing rights, the covens kept to the wood-line, and the Crypt Sanctum kept whatever it keeps. Nobody drew a map, because nobody needed one.
Vlad Tenev Comes East
He arrived with a siege train and a ledger. The eastern lands were taken in a single winter — not burned, exactly, but audited: every field counted, every well claimed, every clan offered terms they could not read. What the Legion could not hold it salted. The grey on the map is not shadow. It is the accounting.
The Trenches
The line held at the middle of the island, and the middle of the island became the Trenches — a churn of graveyard gates, bloodmoon camps and thorn-choked crossings where the two halves grind against each other. The Sanctum sits on the seam. So does everything worth taking.
Take From The House
Vlad Tenev owns the board, sets the odds and settles the trades. So the clans, the covens and the marsh wardens stopped fighting each other long enough to agree on one thing: whatever the house has, it took first. Six stages stand between the wood-line and the Bone Arena. Take it back, and give it to the trenches.
Who Is Fighting, And Why
Each power came to the Trenches by a different road, and each of them believes the other four will fold first.
Vlad Legion
Siege+15% siege damageVlad Tenev took the eastern lands in a single winter and salted what he could not hold. The Legion does not raid — it advances, and the map turns grey behind it.
The blighted host marching west out of the ash. Siege engines, bone towers, and no retreat.
Bloodmoon Covens
Aggressive+12% troop speedThe Covens keep no fortress. They keep a calendar. When the moon runs red over the Trenches, the camps empty and the coast burns before dawn.
Fast vampire raiders who strike on the turning moon and are gone before the horns sound.
Orc Territories
Defensive+18% structure HPThe clans were fighting each other when the ash reached the treeline. They have not stopped fighting each other. They have simply agreed on which way to face.
The green west. Warbands, palisades, and the last unblighted forest on the island.
Crypt Sanctum
Arcane+10% spell radiusBeneath the Sanctum lies a vault older than the island's name. The keepers insist they are guarding it. Nobody has asked them lately from which side.
Keepers of Soul-Lughka. Wards, hexes, and things buried that were buried for a reason.
Thornhaunt Marches
Ambush+20% ambush damageThree armies have crossed the Marches. Two are still there, under the water, and the Thornhaunt know exactly where. They chart the drowned as landmarks.
Marsh scouts and thorn archers who let the ground do half the killing.