OK, Thal was accepting of anyone regardless of their previous history, I will give you that point. But, at that time, anyone who asked on DISCORD about advice for joining a realm on BT, Obeah realm(s) and Thalmarkin were the "goto" advice that was given. I have not seen this so much in recent times, but it was the case then.
Just to clarify, other realms were recommended on discord. I know this because I personally recommended Gotland and Caelint as realms to join during that war. Seeing as I have been a pretty active member on discord, I'd say most new comers that looked for recommendations would get a message from me with recommendations.
The reasoning for recommending Gotland and Caelint was quite simple: they were at war and neighbors. Having short travel times helps make war more interesting because you don't have to spend a week or two travelling to get to the front. Though the message counts were lacking I was perfectly happy to recommend a realm that could be interesting for the war focused players.
In addition, SV was there during that conflict, they declared war on Thalmarkin quite early on.
SV against Thalmarkin at the time was a separate conflict. SV declared war in response to Thalmarkin declaring war on OS. Thalmarkin declared war on OS because OS was sending infiltrators up to Thalmarkin and attacking nobles. So, it isn't really like Thalmarkin started that war or anything. The war between Thalmarkin & the southern realms (OS & SV at the time) was going to come regardless of what Thalmarmin did.
Now the reason for war was because of Mordok (surprise, it is still the reason.) As the ruler of OS at the time my thoughts of the war were as follows: we try to kill Mordok even though we almost certainly can't. Though the distance between realms are large the reason for war is interesting. When the forces met there would be the chance for interesting interaction (RP & messages). After a couple trips hopefully the birth of the Jidington realm (Lux Nova as it would be called) would have happened. Then a potential war in the south could be conceived. The war with Thal was never meant to be effective. (Edit: to clarify, at the beginning it was never meant to be effective. Later there was a desire to be effective because it was decided that it was possible to move OS, and maybe even Nova, to the north. That is a different story though.)
As far as I remember, other than infiltrators, OS and SV never acted against Thalmarkin during that time. (My character also went up to Thalmarkin with scrolls but this was just before the OS-Nova war started.) Thalmarkin also never really acted against OS. One Thal noble made a trip down there with a unit and a couple minor skirmishes happened but nothing actually important. Another went down with scrolls but the impact of that is debatable.
I bring up the points in that last paragraph in part because it seems that Thalmarkin getting "involved" in southern affairs was used to prove that Thalmarkin were "bullies". If the references to scrolls in the past parts of this thread are the scroll events I am thinking of then the interpretation is completely wrong. OS and Nova were not at war at the time and just negotiating. More importantly, it will be blaming Thalmarkin for a war that was essentially declared upon them.
