The Story Thus Far - Season 2 | Second Word War

The following article is a recap of the fictional history of "The GoTverse" in November of 2021 (the Second Word War, Season 2). For recaps of the game events IRL, see the following article:

Game of Tomes

Prelude

Between July and November of 2021, considerable political upheaval rocked the literomantic world. Both House Apis and House Avis, and their leaders DaniAdventures and Cryssalia disappeared. Into the power vacuum rose two "new" Great Houses -- House Sauropoda and House Tiki. Both House Leaders -- The King Lizard RPGDinosaurBob and The Big Kahuna Kahuna the Elder respectively -- were regarded as somewhat shady figures. RPGDinosaurBob claimed ancient origins for his newly-appeared House, and was primarily remembered for having called up Let's Talk!, AuthorGoddess' talk show, live on air while undead to convince the living that they shouldn't be afraid. Kahuna the Elder, once the lead anchor for the ASC News Network, was fired during the buyout by the GOT News Network for "unprofessionalism". Many wondered whether or not these new House Leaders, both of whom seemed ambitious, had been partially responsible for the disappearances. A number of totemic devices appeared near the traditional seats of power of each of the Great Houses. These Zombie Summoning Totems bore sinister magic that called to the Undead, and each one seemed to implicate a different House:

House Lapin found a plushy bat, implicating House Chiroptera

House Tiki found a plushy Summertime Fun Cthulhu, implicating House Mollusca

House Sauropoda found a wooden tiki, implicating House Tiki

House Meles found a plushy dragon, implicating House Sauropoda

House Mollusca found a plushy rabbit, implicating House Lapin

House Chiroptera found a plushy badger, implicating House Meles

The Second Word War

October 27-November 5, 2021

Sable Aradia was the first to find such a totem, and without knowledge of the rest of the totems, she was quick to believe that Siobhan the Writer and House Chiroptera were working against her. This led to House Lapin making a declaration of war against House Chiroptera, launching the Second Word War. Suspicions and accusations continued to fly as more zombie summoning totems were discovered, but the responsible party or parties remained a mystery. Other Houses began to find themselves dragged into the conflict. Minor House Incendium abandoned House Lapin for the more nearby, warmer tropical shores of Tiki Island. House Felis, traditionally known for their loyalty to House Lapin, switched allegiances to House Chiroptera just as open war between the two Houses began. Unnoticed and unremarked during the chaos, the earliest cases of The Filking Plague began to appear, a pandemic that has since become endemic in the Tome Knight population. Patient Zero was the Great Flame Eli Kwake, whose catchy filk, Do You Hear the Writers Sing?, went viral -- literally. While rumours of a new Night Monarch began to circulate, none of the Major House leaders seemed to pay them much mind. Surely they had defeated that threat last November? Privately, however, it was a different story. Sable Aradia, the Mother of Bunnies, and Siobhan the Writer, the Queen of Bats, were both aware that Erin Righ had once again disappeared, and they feared what that might mean.

November 6-10, 2021

The first House to fall was House Sauropoda. The King Dino RPGDinosaurBob became the second House Leader in recent history to survive the fall of his House to the Undead Horde, and he and his bannermen of House Kitsune fled to House Tiki to seek their aid. Kahuna the Elder made a choice to not require his old friend Bob to bend the knee. Instead, the two formed an alliance of Houses, setting the stage for much of the politics in the rest of the Second Word War. In the meantime, the conflict between House Lapin and House Chiroptera heated up. The two House Leaders faced off against each other in a duel. However, both left the field alive. Neither will speak about the matter, so exactly what happened remains a mystery. House Felis returned to the fold of the Fluffle of House Lapin soon after that. According to Aydan Nightshade, the Kitty General, they'd had a debt of honour to discharge, and after a week of their loyalties to Chiroptera, that debt had been fulfilled. Both Houses reaffirmed their commitment to the Fluffy Pet Alliance. House Incendium continued to flicker from House to House with seemingly little rhyme or reason.

November 11-15, 2021

House Tiki was the next to fall. With Kahuna the Elder being such a public person, this time there was no way it could possibly escape anyone's notice that the zombies had returned. The body count was catastrophic, with both of Kahuna's elite guards, the Hammerheads , falling to the Undead Horde, along with several members of House Tiki and House Sauropoda, one of whom was ECC Books. Further, numerous Minor Houses had also joined the Tiki banner at the time, so their fall was a horrible surprise to everyone. With so many witnesses to the attack, it soon became apparent to all that while Erin Righ may have vanished, there was a new Nite Monarq on the scene -- AuthorGoddess, host of the most popular talk show on TV, Let's Talk!. Using her considerable literomantic skills and her natural charisma, she was developing quite a following, and not just among the Undead, either. Also, evidence emerged that suggested that perhaps it was Owsla Commander DMStretch , one of the Chief Rabbit's own elite guard, who may have been responsible for the circulation of the Zombie Summoning Totems.

November 16-20, 2021

By this time, about halfway through November in 2021, the Filking Plague had spread far and wide among the Tome Knights, driving many of them to distraction as they were compelled to create music over other forms of literomancy. Sable Aradia, Siobhan the Writer, Kahuna the Elder, Coffee Quills, Lord Galakrond, Heir Apparent to House Meles, Realm of Music the Royal Consort to the King Badger, ShyRedFox, and many more high-profile Tome Knights fell victim to the Plague. Their only saving grace was that the Filking Plague seemed to be virulent to the Undead as well, with many Tome Zombies also falling under its influence. Notably, ECC Books now known by the moniker ICC Dead People, figured out how to weaponize the condition against the living; and even the Nite Monarq herself acquired a significant infection. At this time, ShyRedFox, leader of House Kitsune, sprung her plot to take over the criminal underworld as the leader of the Self Care Mafia. This shady organization began to enforce self-care limits on the Tome Knights -- or else. An intended summit of the Minor Houses was postponed, in part due to confirmation of the zombies' return, and in part because the Self-Care Mafia told Eli Kwake to take a nap -- or they were coming after the Great Flame with a bat. In light of the new information about Commander Stretch, Sable Aradia reached out to Siobhan the Writer to negotiate a truce. The two met at the Great Library for peace negotiations, and reached out to the public in a press conference after successfully negotiating an armistice. While the meeting between Chiroptera and Lapin was in progress, House Meles became the next to fall to the Undead Horde. While the King Badger Darth Nikolas and the Bardger Realm of Music escaped, two of the Meles elite guard, the Brocktrees, were taken by the Horde. Stormy Geek threw themself in front of an attack meant for the Great Badger, and Lord Galakrond, also Heir Apparent to the House, was taken. The survivors fled to House Mollusca Sable Aradia seemed to react very badly to this development. Disproportionately emotional when compared to the fall of other Houses and the conversion of other House Scions into Tome Zombies, she called up the Lords of Meles, furious about having to learn about Lord Galakrond's fall on the news. The Wordlords of Meles reacted defensively, accusing Sable of neglect in protecting Galakrond because she was busy with the "peace negotiations." In the end, however, she begged them to join her at The Warren rather than remaining at The Zafforza Trench, saying, "Never mind House politics right now. We have more important concerns, and we should be dealing with them together." The Meles Lords agreed and came to join her at the Warren.

November 21-25, 2021

This act infuriated The Cosmic Kraken, especially since House Chiroptera fell soon after that, and their survivors and bannermen fled to the Warren as well, leaving Mollusca with only the support of House Ceapaire. As quoted by Melody Relody of the GOT News Network, "Sable Aradia has the greatest alliance the Realm has ever seen. Coffee Quills has a soggy sandwich." And indeed, an alliance it was. Taking a page from Kahuna the Elder and RPG Dinosaur Bob, and building on the Fluffy Pet Alliance and the newly-formed Babbit Alliance, Sable Aradia did not require the other Houses to bend the knee to her. Instead, she formed a joint war council, and called it the Grand Alliance. Unfortunately for Kahuna himself, he had fallen to the Undead Horde in the fall of Chiroptera, and was now ravaging the world as Kahuna the Eldritch. While this was going on, leaked security footage from House Lapin shed some light on the suspicious activities of DM Stretch . Once part of the security force for a mysterious entity called The Company , he became aware that they were using Dark Literomancy and other forbidden Literomantic arts to conduct bio-experiments. Looking to build supersoldiers, they instead had possibly been the responsible parties for unleashing the Undead Horde on the world, starting with Patient Zero, Erin Righ, the first Night Monarch. Asked to spy on House Lapin at the time, he left the Company's employ to serve the Rabbits as a member of the Owsla -- but continued to work as a double agent. When one of his transmissions, feeding false information to the Company, was leaked to the public, Stretch's cover was blown. He was required to enlist the aid of Owsla Captain James Woodwright in extracting him. A high-risk operation was launched. At about this time, almost unnoticed in the chaos, Princess Melody of House Felis invited MTV Cribs to tour the newly-modified Warren as it made accommodations for the various Tome Knights and Werebeasts that had joined them there in the Grand Alliance, which included the public broadcast of a handmade map. The Minor Houses finally met for their Summit. They discussed the goings-on and tried to determine who it was who had actually planted the Zombie Summoning Totems, launching the War. Eventually they reasoned it must have been AuthorGoddess herself. As a mercenary, and one well-trusted by the Major Houses, she had access to every single Major House. Drawing up a timetable of her travels with the Owsla seemed to confirm this theory through circumstantial evidence. Sable-rah reached out to the Cosmic Kraken to invite them and Ceapaire to join the Grand Alliance as well, but Coffee was having none of it. She accused the Chief Rabbit of forming the Alliance in a move to take power and work against House Mollusca. Sable denied this, but when asked why she had redirected Mollusca's Meles allies to the Warren, Sable refused to answer, saying, "I can't tell you, Coffee. I swore an oath." Regarding this response as being "convenient," Coffee Quills refused all further contact with the Chief Rabbit -- that is, until House Mollusca also fell to the Undead Horde. Believing themselves safely fortified in their trench, as they had been during the previous Word War, it was a nasty surprise to them to be confronted with the devastation caused by the Undead Hammerhead sharks that had once been the elite guard of House Tiki. Though forced to flee to the Warren because there was nowhere else to go, Coffee Quills was not happy about it, and participated only in the Grand Alliance war council when it was necessary to do so.

November 26-November 30, 2021

Knowing that this division would lead to the eventual defeat of the Grand Alliance unless it was resolved, the Bardger Realm of Music went to speak to the Cosmic Kraken to tell them what Sable could not -- the reason that she had asked the Lords of Meles to join her at the Warren. Sable Aradia is secretly the biological mother of Lord Galakrond and the Forgelings as well. The Mother of Bunnies is also The Mother of Badgers. Having been asked to aid House Meles in providing the House with heirs, she had sworn a magically-bound oath to never tell anyone about their origins, in order to protect the succession of both House Meles and House Lapin. The Forgelings had been raised not knowing who their mother was; although by mutual agreement, Lord Galakrond was told on his 16th birthday. In the subsequent months, Galakrond and Sable Aradia had developed a close relationship, united by their literomancy, their interest in conjuration, and their love of roleplaying games. Relieved, and understanding Sable's desire to protect the position of her adopted son Prince Jean , Heir Apparent to House Lapin, the Cosmic Kraken joined the Grand Alliance with their wholehearted support. But a more disturbing plot also came to light. In his final escape from the Company, and subsequent destruction of their advanced bio-lab, raiding their mainframe revealed to DM Stretch that the Company had intervened in the lives of the Meles/Lapin family a second time. Between the first and second Tourneys of 2021, Lord Galakrond was kidnapped and held prisoner by the Company. What he was asked to do for them remains a mystery, although security footage of the Badger Prince's refusal to assist them, and his eventual breakdown, was recovered in the data packet. He seems to have no memory of the incident, and never spoke to any of his parents about it.

December 1-2, 2021: The Battle of the Warren

The final stand against the Undead Horde took place on December 2, 2021 at Battle of the Warren, an epic conflict that changed the Realm forever. The Nite Qing Erin Righ led the attack, as directed by the Night Monarch AuthorGoddess, who concentrated her efforts on the more powerful literomancers in the Alliance, such as Mr. Big T. Anderson and Siobhan the Writer , The Bat Monarch. Lord Galakrond, now known by the moniker Lord GalaWight, led a second force containing his summoned demons to the secret escape tunnels of the Warren, to pin the living Tome Knights down on both sides. Numerous acts of heroism were the hallmark of the battle, with two of the Owsla giving their lives in the conflict and a filk-off between Eli Kwake and ICC Dead People being just two of the most significant confrontations. The Nite Qing and Lord GalaWight finally pinned Sable Aradia down between them. The Nite Qing had the Mother of Bunnies prone and failing when Lord GalaWight appeared. Summoning the last of her strength, Sable threw all the power of her love at her son... and he was resurrected. He turned immediately to confront his stepfather the Nite Qing, and successfully defeated him, but refused to strike him down. Sable got to her feet and cried, "ENOUGH! I do not give you permission to include my family in this narrative!" And The Iron Tome flew into her hands. The Grand Alliance was victorious. In the aftermath of the battle, Sable Aradia, now christened "the Holy Queen of Buns," wrote in the Iron Tome to resurrect all the dead and Undead she knew through the power of love. Then she swore that she would never let the Tome out of her sight. She began to carry it everywhere with her in a rose-flowered backpack.