NationStates Jolt Archive

When they came, it was like a sea of righteous fury.

Henri watched the sails cross the horizon from the tower of his father's castle. They had come here before, and ever since, the coast had been watched day and night by the men of the town. Now they were returning.
Henri's brow furrowed. There were more sails this time. Before, there had been three, a raiding party, come to pillage afew small towns and then vanish into the sea to the south. Already there were ten, and more were still coming over the horizon. The last of the hurriedly assembled guard were spilling out into the courtyard as he shouted down to his father, "There are more of them coming!"
Louis cursed. When the count of Toulouse had appointed him to be castellan of this town, he thought he had been greatly honoured. One of the richest along the coast, he had expected an esay life. But in the past year, the plague of Moslem raiders had begun, and suddenly he found that his rich lands were turning to waste. They had burned the land, and the peasants were too scared to work what they had not burned. Instead, they clustered into the town, and began to starve. With no-one working the land, there was no food, and no money with which to purchase any. Scores had already died, and although Louis had sent to his liege for aid, none had been forthcoming.
He glanced around, taking in his guard. They were brave men, but few, and while Louis knew that they could take on a raiding party, this was more than that. He ran to the tower, where his fourteen-year-old son stood guard.
Sails filled the horizon, too many to count at a glance. Louis turned to Henri.
"I lost count at eighty, father, but there are many more. It is not a raid, it is an invasion."
Louis stood in silence for a moment, then turned to the courtyard. "Roland!" he called down. "Take three of your fastest riders and find the count. They have come to invade."

Margrave Fulk Vovan surveyed the battlefield. It was littered with corpses. The men had come down on them from the west, hoping to force them back before they had disembarked. It was futile. The soldiers of the town were brave, but pitifully few. They had failed to even reach the galleons before they were slaughtered.
Vovan liked this place. It was similar to their home, unlike the hotter, more barren lands to the south. They had disembarked there only to take on food and water, before heading north to find a more temperate clime. He arched his back. His wool dripped with sweat, his hands ached from hacking at the attackers. His snout stung. A boy had managed to land a lucky glancing blow. Now he stood over him, sword in hand.
"Wh-what are you?" Henri trembled, his broken body quivering as his blood drained slowly into the earth and he whimpered in agony.
Vovan smiled grimly. "Your death," he said, driving his hoof into the boy's head. "And may She Who Smites have mercy on your soul."

"In the year of our Lord 965 the demons came first to France. And in time they came to rule over the whole of that country, save for that which was of the Norsemen, and they spread their false gods and evil ways, and it was as it was written in the revelation of John, and the four horseman rode in the night, and the Antichrist came mewling into the world."
De Gesta Francorum Adversa Diabolus, 1292

OOC: Nice back story, that has...style, to say the least. As you're close to my ally Ostia, I'll be making contact sooner or later.

OOC: Thanks. Probably comes from the mediaeval history I've been doing over the past few months, combined with my... different writing style (I write crazy folk best...)
If you want to make contact in the past, so to speak, fire ahead. They've been there for a while.

Semi-IC:
A lot of this information would be known to people in the RP world, but not all of it, and not very precisely or well - by Christian standards, the Ovinians are probably devils, definitely infidels/pagans and would be universally condemned.

Ovinians are hyper-evolved sheep, standing about seven feet tall. Their legs and arms are somewhat more developed and muscular than those of a sheep, but still proportionately more slender than those of humans. They are slightly less strong than humans, but not significantly so. Their bodies are covered with wool to the neck, although it is much more sparse on the legs and arms. They have hooved feet, but hands with opposable thumbs. Facially, they look similar to sheep, although their eyes are more forward-facing and their snouts less prominent.

The Ovinians operate a strongly feudal society, similar to early mediaeval Norman states. Unlike most feudal states, they did not go through the process of professionalisation and monetarisation of military service. As such, nearly every male Ovinian fights and is trained as a knight.

In Ovinian France, the men-at-arms and knights are Ovinian, and the archers and common soldiers are human. The aristocracy, however, is entirely Ovinian, having been replaced in the previous centuries of conquest. Due to the Christian hatred of the Ovinians, crusades against them were common and it is only in the past century that Ovinians have taken control of the whole of France.

The Ovinians fight mainly in a mediaeval style - sieges are common, battle less so. When fighting open battles, Ovinians prefer large-scale cavalry charges. The Ovinian cavalry is trained to charge almost perfectly in line, and its barding is designed to turn away pikes and spears. Knights fight with couched lances, and then hand weapons. They wear plate armour, as do their horses.
Men-at-arms are similar in armament, but wear somewhat lighter armour and fight on foot. Archers and common soldiers are lightly armoured.
The Ovinians mainly use ballistae, trebuchets, and the like for siege warfare. Cannon are rudimentary but improving rapidly. Handguns are non-existent. Their naval technology is relatively advanced, but they mainly use small galleases and galleys, lacking proper naval armament.

The Ovinians arrived on Earth by travelling through a dimensional portal unwittingly. The original fleet was an invasion fleet intended to attack Ovinian enemies, but it never reached its target. Instead, it arrived in the Mediterranean at the same time as the Saracen raiders were becoming more prevalent. They stopped off in North Africa to resupply, but France was more similar to the land they came from.

OOC: Any questions anyone would like answered? I think I've given a basic overview.