Ralph and the Pixie

This had been an especially profitable time for the Merchants. With no one to watch over their shoulders, they took full advantage. Influence became intimidation. Cooperation became coercion. Inevitably, most of the Kingdom’s wealth was eventually bled dry. Ordinary citizens were forced to abandon rural life and seek employment in cities as their autonomy became eroded. When that happened, the Merchants began vying with each other, bribing soldiers to become mercenaries in their private armies as such activities escalated. And the cities, most of which were extensions of the Merchant’s wealth, were becoming city-states which grew and consumed, becoming little more than hungry maws which ravaged the countryside, in effect articulating the underlying unmitigated greed which had built them.

Thus would the seeds of civil war have been sewn, even without the King’s betrayal of his people.

Meanwhile, the Merchants little knew their danger.

Their mad King, growing old and seeing no cure for His decrepitude, despite the assurances of his Loremasters that yet another was in the works, now hated all living things, and those who had usurped His power, the Merchants, most of all. It was not difficult to convince the soldiers that the Merchants were fair game. The Merchants were able to avoid their Monarch’s wrath, but only because Fate, whose standards seem on the surface to be at odds with those of mortal men, most often smiles on those who least deserve good fortune. To that end, the King’s captains were unable to effectively organise His soldiers because so many of them were tied up with various mercenary involvements.