Hey everyone, this is my first post and I'm not the Forum buff, so forgive me if my post will be somewhat... err... chaotic 
I played Benton during the 3rd and 4th invasion so at least I can give you a recollection of how I thought about the invasions and what Sint tried to achieve. Survival was our key perogative.
The Third Invasion sort of ended with a whimper rather than a bang you see. One minute it was invasion, the next it wasn't. A few realms worked together then to destroy the last vestiges of Arcane's realm, Vlaanderen. There was discussion here and there about what to do about a few surviving daimonic enclaves. I think Heen, Sint, Mesh and perhaps Old Grehk briefly teamed together to try to tackle the lands north of Sint but they were never recovered. Then Mesh made it her duty to quest all over to destroy surviving daimonic enclaves although she'd made it round most rather than all of them by the time the Fourth Invasion finally rolled round...
Except it pissed off Sint, and Sint threatened them never to attack Jobo's again as there were still some semi-active daimons there.
Mesh went after a few nests, but barely any. It was more of an excuse to tresspass and assist Riombara than anything. There were still plenty of daimon nests around when they decided to gang-bang Enweil with all the other western realms.
Then, after a ceasefire was signed with Enweil, she went after Bara'Khur. Mesh' crusade was nothing but fluff, they spoke a lot more about it than they did anything, and they spent most of their time between the two invasions attacking other realms than attacking nests.
That is simply not true, Sint tried to get rid of the daimons, we tried four times rallied support from Heen, Mesh and Old Grehk if I remember correctly and we got battered down every time even though we managed to gather around 40k each time. Heck, the GM's even had the bluntness to send everyone in the region an ooc message declaring that no matter how much we would try they'd find a way to survive, that they were instituted as a RP tool by the GM's. You cannot believe the fallout and the anger we all felt when after finally destroying around 20k CS they just spawned another 20k. Benton took the throne during the third invasion (it had already burnt out our previous pontifexes due to the unbearable pressure and volume of posts) we had continuously fought the daimons from that point on. In the three months directly after we constantly attacked their smaller groups of up to 10k CS killing up to 100k in the process I posted nearly all of those attacks on the rulers channel, but I guess propaganda stopped it from spreading. I admit it was well within the second half of the 3rd invasion that I took this step and Sint had gained Gethsemene and Keffa through our alliance with them, but with all honesty, I tried. Of course it didn't help no one believed me, except maybe Heen, and even in Sint there were many that favoured an alliance with the daimons over war. But I managed to silence them and found a way to gain support. Mesh may have despised us, but they knew very well that their attempts would be futile without us. You cannot blame them for that. And after the GM's declared daimon indestructibility we all fell back to old habits. I believe the great Beluaterra conflict started when Fronen attacked Old Grehk, and we joined on Old Grehks side after Vlaanderen was destroyed and all nests except Jobo had been cleansed.
You must know of all realms that suffered during both invasions Sint was I think the only one in position to actually have a good guess at the true strength of the Netherworld. While most nations were ravaged by parties of up to 100k, and yes that is awful, they always passed through Sint first. We knew that if there was to be another invasion, we would be the first to be eradicated, and we could have done nothing against it.
You chose your "evils". You continuously fought alongside Sint, and betrayed the realm that founded you over a fringe religion having but a handful of followers in it (and even having greater numbers of followers and temples in other realms). Sint worshipped the invaders as gods, tried to summon their "destroyer" god, and unleashed their armies against the other realms of the continent. The Blood Cult did...
Heh, yes we did, but only during the Pontifexes prior to me. And while it was only RPed that Benton believed the daimons betrayed Hemaglobe, I successfully managed to implement that thought in Sint. Hemaglobe created the daimons, they betrayed him by worshiping themselves and we then fought them alongside our god.
Well Sint and Hemaism aren't exactly known for sticking to their guns. They probably thought the Light was a better shot at winning than the daimons, much like the Meridian Republic thought the monsters would lead them to victory or something. Who knows, who cares. MR is gone and so is the Light. Now we're just left with rogue blighted regions and for some odd reason Netherworld is still around.
In my 900+ days as ruler I never wanted to work with the daimons, and it all came down to a vote within my council 'do we face off the daimons and probably loose most of our northern regions or get destroyed' or 'do we align with them and save our realm' of course back then we really tried allying with the daimons and I even had Benton RP an oath to uphold that alliance. However they treated us with no respect at all, we asked them for help numerous times against the undead and were told OG is not their ally, so no. It all boiled down with us getting seriously frustrated with them when the light popped up. I saw that chance and took it. Did you know I worked tirelessly to get Heen and Mesh a deal where they were to be left alone if they signed a defensive pact only to defend the netherworld against the other invading forces? If they had taken that chance we could have survived to fight another day. Actually that was the thought I kept in the back of my head when we allied with the daimons in the 4th invasion.
Sint is Sint, we all know that by now. I mean Marta's words lost all credibility on a bunch of us when she declared that Hemaism, Daishi, and Qyrvaggism were pure. Hemaism particularly made us think "well if this is what they deem pure, they certainly aren't up to any good", while joining nobody but Enweil's enemies also cost them brownie points. From our point of view, the Light neither joined the most needy, the most deserving, or the most pious. Marta was also arrogant and snobby as hell.
OOC, I always suspected they were there to help. But everything IC hinted otherwise.
Well, in this case I have to give credit to Caitlin Stormcrow, a good friend of mine. We managed to persuade Virgil that we were only in this alliance to save us from destruction and that Hemaglobe is not only the destroyer but makes space for something new to create (much like shiva in hinduism).
To sum things up, I don't want to persuade you to like Sint, but I wanted to get a few facts straight. This is of course all purely ooc from one player to another, so this isn't some game at propaganda or anything, just what I tried to achieve with Benton during the 3rd and 4th invasion. And yes we twisted and turned to get out of it alive. Much like any of you did, except maybe Heen and Mesh and while they have my greatest respect for sticking to their beliefs, it got them killed. I guess that is what I gained from this invasion, you do an awful lot to survive.
