More stuff from my Skyrates folder. This was in response to the Crimson Empire claim that they are the heirs of Magnus (although, I suppose it's mostly Thorne who would claim such). Since players are often unanimous in their praise of Magnus and his Kingdom as a force for good, I decided to go the opposite route.
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The choice they offer is a simple one: join them and do what they tell you to do or be killed. There is not -- and never has been -- any in between for those who carry the red banner: they see themselves as perfect and any action they take as justified. Any dissent -- even against the most extreme and unconscionable actions -- is met with exile or execution.
As with Magnus' empire, which collapsed under the weight of its own self-righteousness, the Crimson Armada is building an empire on bloodied sand and any accomplishments they make will simply be washed away by the tide. They offer you the stability of a prison ruled by bunch of thugs: the more you align yourself to their brutish ways and blindly agree to everything they say, the shinier your cage becomes. The more you try to get out of the cage, the greater a threat you become to their precious stability and then they will give you the choice of bowing down and licking their boots or being branded a traitor.
The alternative is the "barbarity" of living free: free to make our own decisions, free to follow our own paths, free to believe what we want to believe, free to rise and fall on our own merits. Most importantly, free to live our lives somewhere other than atop a mountain of corpses.
I choose to live free.Draft lines[]
Magnus was a dictator who ruthlessly butchered anyone who opposed him. After his death, all his self-righteousness counted for nought and his empire imploded, resulting in a devastating war that annihilated the earth itself.
Magnus was a conqueror who ruthlessly butchered anyone who did not submit to his rule. After his death, all his self-righteousness counted for nought as his empire collapsed under its own weight, leaving an endless ocean as their legacy.
The Armada, like Magnus, offers us the freedom of a cage: where dissent means exile and opposition means death.