After a year, the Tyranny of the Heartlands comes to an end.

Duiran Council. You said you would defy us. Sworn before the Antlered King, you promised resistance. To HER MANY FACES, you promised to hunt or be hunted. We waited for that defiance to manifest in some action.

It never did.

Instead, you cowered behind your walls while the forests became ours. Month after month, there was no army to oppose us. No resistances. No glorious last stand of a worthy foe. Your fight was finished, and you all but capitulated. We fed our Empire from the bounty of lands you were too weak to defend. Every passing season strengthened us while you diminished.

Still, you remained behind your gates. We were more than satisfied to keep you there. Not once did you emerge to reclaim what you claim was yours.

Instead, you did what all weak nations do.

You begged.

You pleaded for another to fight the war your actions had begun. You mock our slavery, but you forsook your self-determination to cast yourself at another city's feet in hopes that they would preserve what you could not. Not just one city, but two. Like frightened cattle, you crowded behind a hound, mistaking borrowed teeth for your own strength.

The irony? You added our Pantheon to be your Divine advisory. You proclaimed that Their wisdom would guide your future. That Their virtues would shape your people. Yet, this shows you could not embody Their teachings.

The Progenitor would have demanded strength. He would have commanded you to break your enemy, yet you were the ones that broke. The Dark Mother would have whispered to wield fear as a weapon. Yet you instead became consumed by it and cowered away from combat. The Warlord ordered action. Strife. That dependency is an invitation to betrayal. Yet you hid behind another. The Earthen Father teaches that hardship is where strength is founded. That weakness must be removed so that something stronger can be built. Instead, you have embraced weakness. The Jackal, opposite to Accordant Fire. He understands the Lightsworn. Their promises that are never freely given. He would have necessitated a gambit rather than obligations.

You eluded Imperial occupation only because your new masters in Enorian chose to intervene. Do not mistake that for victory. You did not repel the Empire. You did not fight us. It was purchased by your submission. Now you are beholden to them.

From this day forward, every city has seen the truth.

The Heartlands are ripe for the picking.

The singers cannot defend their own borders. It cannot wage their own wars. When hardship arrives, they sacrificed their values to earn this freedom.

So sound your hollow Oakengard warhorns. Know the cost of your pathetic cowardice.

You may call yourselves strong.
The Empire knows better.

Emanator of Tyranny,
Sumie Ke'Lolawid

Penned by my hand on Gosday, the 13th of Omeian, in the year 20 AC.