NBA Dramatique: Wages of War

The war was fully engaged. Every army in the land had taken up arms at this point, and none would now accept peace for months to come. In the early days of war, very little is revealed about the fate of these 30 factions as they will unfold. False starts, late surges, defections, injury, and the timing of encounters can vastly alter the landscape of the war as time goes on. The Overlord reflected upon this from his secret lair five days past the initial attack by King James upon the Bastion.

The Overlord was primarily a man of business. He was motivated by money, but not in the same way as the mercenary. His interest was almost academic rather than practical. He wanted to collect as much of it as possible, not because he needed it, but because it intrigued him to discover ways of drawing it to himself. The Overlord's interests in economic matters was closely tied to the interaction of the warring armies. He more than any other single person had an interest in perpetuating the conflict indefinitely. Though he was not associated with any one force, he had a role in the bureaucracy of them all. So by having a hand in the coffers of those that found success, he could divert funds to those that did not, keeping them afloat until such a time that their treasury would overflow and he could siphon that cash to another struggling participant. It was this financial sleight-of-hand that made the war forever possible, and most of those who fought were not aware of the manipulation.

The Overlord was an experienced diplomat, working from the negotiating table for many years before ascending to his present position. He seemed to be a friendly and genial old gentleman, but when crossed revealed himself to be a stern and unforgiving disciplinarian. He headed the organization of secret police that monitored the activities of all the armies of the land. If a combatant's activities violated the agreed-upon conventions of war, the secret police were generally on hand to take corrective action. But if a combatant's activities threatened the sanctity of the war itself, if the act was so egregious as to threaten the flow of perpetual war, the Overlord would see that the combatant was punished. This was a fate to be feared, for while a punishment handed down from the Overlord had a prescribed and public component, his reach into every force could lead to a much more damning sentence in effect. Cross the line too far, and banishment was not unheard of.

The Overlord sat within his secret lair and reviewed data and reports of collected information from the most recent outbreak in the War With No End. He was pleased to see the initial stumblings of the Machine (a poor cash-producer), the aggressive blitz of HORNETS and the Sky Fortress, and the vital savagery of the Reptile tribe. He was not pleased to know that the beast-man Oden was once again locked behind a thick steel door in the tunnels of the Underground, or that King James had not made a declaration of dominance across the Eastern sea-front. He was aware of all that had happened, and one thing above all else was keeping his heart warm and his mind happily engaged. He thought of the funds that must already be spilling from the purses of the Western Banner, and how those funds would grow exponentially if the monk and the assassin continued to leave a trail of destruction behind them. That money could help so many others to fight. To fight just enough to almost win.