Antiqualia: Probably best not to join us at the moment unless you are okay with boredom while waiting for sufficient allies and resources to be built up. I'd advocate Medina/Fissoa/D`Hara to help them become strong active realms in opposition to Luria again. I'd caution against joining Arnor or Luria - despite knowing Luria has a good atmosphere - just to avoid stacking the deck for dual empires again. If enough people were to join AQ with an influx of gold, maybe things would be different, but one or two won't make a difference.
Couple other things may not be common knowledge, which I'm sharing OOCly, obviously. Ruler letters have passed back and forth that pretty much guarantee peace as between T(Antiqualia) and Helm(Arnor) is unattainable without a major shift in either of their viewpoints. History/Gist is Antiqualia wants/wanted to have their whole realm solidified without being tied by treaty/contract to assist/help/defend/ally with/non-aggression pact with Arnor. On a practical basis, Everybody knows those realms as neighbours need to war at some point, but it's just more important to Taran (as it was to Fulco) to keep Antiqualia out of agreements it might have to break in the future (in order to DO something in the North). Helm/Arnor always wanted a peace accord of indeterminate, but LONG, duration to protect Arnor's flank while they attack elsewhere. The only way that was going to mesh with Antiqualia from Fulco and Taran's perspective was if Helm/Arnor just GIFTED Cold Spring to Antiqualia as a gesture of friendship and AQ then offered support/etc. as a gesture of friendship in return - not by contractual/treaty obligation. The rift is that AQ/Fulco/Taran never viewed it as reasonable or proper for Helm/Arnor to hold Cold Spring over them - the apparent view by Helm that AQ would just have Cold Spring and then immediately attack Arnor was insulting to us. Since Helm wouldn't just give Cold Spring without a guarantee that we neighbours couldn't war without us breaking a treaty, Fulco ordered war and off we went on that path.
Militia issues made it so there was only one truly interesting battle in the whole war - in Cold Spring just after we attacked and Arnor's army came in to disrupt the takeover. After that, there were too many militia to break in Cold Spring (believe me, we tried), and the sailing made it impossible to quickly respond to TO attempts with sufficient CS.
After Fulco went inactive and then eventually decided to abdicate fully, we had nobody with the time to lead. Hell I don't really have the time to lead, but I did/do what I can. I find it difficult to justify a change to the IC stance of Taran/AQ, as basically any long-term peace accord is totally counter to T's beliefs about war, and AQ-at-large's interest in fighting. Might be justifiable to through a communion with the Bloodstars through Prophet Seoras when he arrives. I have to talk OOCly with the others in the realm to make sure they're not just playing along and having a bad time of it. As much as I like RP-consistency and the conflict it brought in creating the war, I don't want to have Helm/etc.'s refusal to actively try to conquer Springdale keep us bored. Starving out, or dying of boredom is an unattractive prospect, and there's lots of players in Dwilight and on their way to Dwilight who could help with that.
I'm OOCly open to stuff, so if you have ideas, want to do something, etc. feel free to PM me.
