A narrative-introduction for a Hundred Kingdoms army in the 2023 Slow-Growth Narrative League.
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Artur paces about his office, the oil lamp burning brightly. Four times already, he replaced the fuel for the light, each time glancing passively out the window. The sun is already beginning to rise, a new day bringing with it new problems. And another sleepless night for a tired, worried prince.
He knew that royal duties would be difficult. But, oh, how the pressures of boring Academic studies pale in comparison to the suffocating collar he wears now. The Nord raiding season, the grudge of three neighboring kingdoms, and the endless internal issues what with his predecessor and father, Uthor the Usurper, having centralized the kingdom’s powers so tightly… if the “energy-boosting” medicines his dubious physician keeps giving him would cease their miracles, Artur was certain he might just die the moment he finally sets his head down to rest.
Money. That’s his biggest concern right now. Tyrant though the previous king might have been, the projects he had moved forward and personally financed were surprisingly reasonable and logically sound. But they were expensive to initiate, and even more expensive to sustain. The White Walls of Albion, for one, would be near impossible to cease funding now. No, he wouldn’t be able to justify removing them – not to the pompous nobles of his court, not to the commoners who stood by him during the royal civil war, and most definitely not to his own stubborn pride.
The easy way to solve this is to tax the land. But what ruler would do something so unpopular not long after reclaiming the throne? Artur recalls a kingdom or two which were no longer run by “kings” per se because of an unpopular tax increase. He would not add Albion to that list. There had to be another way…
A campaign. A military campaign. Of course. If the treasury lacks funding… Albion must survive, engorging herself in blood and loot. Artur’s eyes meets the mirror, the Prince staring at a future King.
