A Dungeon Tycoon’s Guide to Undead Capitalism

Hearthglen, the supposed jewel of the former Alliance, still retained its outward appearance of luxurious beauty. Wealthy Beastkin flocked to its markets, and the remnants of the Alliance Knights continued to patrol, dedicating themselves to protecting the city despite the Alliance building itself standing abandoned. The political landscape was shattered: Tallowshade and the main defensive wall had declared independence, leaving the capital an isolated, defenseless symbol.

This political void was quickly being filled. Many noble families, tired of the petty grudges and power grabs, had withdrawn their support from the defunct Alliance and pledged their loyalty to the newly formed Vanguard of Spinebride—a military faction dedicated to the forgotten ideal of Beastkin unity, accepting talent regardless of one's history as a bandit, thief, or murderer.

In the present, outside the city's main eastern gate, a silent, disciplined column of Lupen Knights marched. Their armor was dark, bearing the emblem of a crimson rose, and their retinue was large.

At the main gate, an Ursarok Knight, massive and clad in heavy plate armor, stopped them. He glanced nervously at his fellow guards.

"Halt!" the Ursarok commanded, planting his spear on the cobbled road. "This is the capital of the Alliance. State your business!"

A Lupen Knight Captain—lean, scarred, and radiating cold confidence—just gave a simple gesture behind him. Instantly, Lupen soldiers raised strange, pale weapons. They were carved from gleaming pearlwood and held no matchlocks or powder pans, only a dull, internal glow. They aimed the muzzles directly at the guards.

The Ursarok knight stared, aghast. "What is this?! This is madness! You would attack the capital?"

The Captain, named Jorah, smiled without warmth. "No, this is a takeover."

He snapped his fingers. "Fire."

A barrage of incandescent firebolts and sharp, whistling wind blades erupted from the pearlwood weapons. The impact was instantaneous. The oak-and-iron gate was utterly shredded, splintering into burning ruin, and the guards—Ursarok and smaller Beastkin alike—were incinerated or cut to pieces.

The same sudden, devastating assault occurred at every gate. The few Alliance Knights still garrisoned attempted to resist, raising their shields and spears, but they were met with the same hellfire. Any citizen who happened to be an Ursarok, no matter their noble status, was killed on sight. Other Beastkin races who tried to resist or question the invasion were quickly captured and bound. The Lupen Knights, armed with their unknown, terrifying technology, were merciless.

Within 3 hours of one-sided battle, the takeover was complete. Lupen Knights now stood on the walls and lined the battlements.

Captain Jorah stood atop the steps of the abandoned Alliance building and surveyed the stunned, fearful onlookers gathered below in the plaza.

"Attention!" Jorah's voice was amplified by a small charm on his helmet, ringing clearly through the blood-spattered square. "I am Captain Jorah of the Order of the Red Rose! This town, Hearthglen, now belongs to the Lupens!"

He paused for dramatic effect, letting the silence scream.

"As it stated on the old Alliance Rule Number 56: 'Should the Alliance Coalition disband, any property which belonged to the Alliance and fell within their territorial jurisdiction is theirs to claim.' We all know the Alliance is anything but an Alliance. As is our right, we are taking over!"

An Ursarok noble, thick with rage and barely restrained by his guards, pushed forward, his natural aura flaring in a desperate display of defiance. "Do you know what you've done, wolf?! The Alliance is not disbanded!"

Jorah smirked, condescending. "What's the matter? We did nothing wrong."

"Nothing?!" the noble roared. "You slaughtered my kin and killed all the garrisoned Knights! This is anything but a civilized claim! And there is no official statement that the Alliance is disbanded!"

Jorah's smile widened, revealing a predatory edge. "Politics doesn't work on us. Bureaucracy is nothing but a joke to those who have been enslaved by it. Besides, I think it's time we settle our grudges and debts once and for all, Your Grace."

The Ursarok noble flared up, enraged, lunging forward despite his guards. "You'll regret saying that!"

Before he could take a step, a sudden, blinding pain shot up his leg. He stumbled, looking down in horror to see his left knee—and the leg below it—was cleanly severed. He hit the ground, screaming.

One of the Lupen soldiers standing behind Jorah smirked, calmly re-aiming the pearlwood weapon.

Captain Jorah stepped closer, looking down at the crippled nobleman. "For so long, we have been living under your kind's shadow. For so long, we enslaved ourselves to serve you, as was your right, of course." He emphasized the last phrase with bitter sarcasm. "But now, I think it's time that the wheels of history have turned in our favor."

The noble sneered through the pain, his eyes fixed on the bizarre white stick in the soldier's hand. What kind of weapon is that? Even the Knights were no match for them, he thought, his last moment defined by confusion over the new weapon.

The Lupen soldier approached the noble, looking down at the fallen Ursarok with disdain. "What a disappointment. For an Ursarok to fall from grace so easily." He aimed the pearlwood weapon at the noble's head and fired another quick, silent wind blade, which instantly sliced off the top of the Ursarok's skull.

Every civilian watching below recoiled in fear. An Ursarok—a creature capable of taking down ten Lupens in a normal fight—was now no match for a single common soldier with an unknown gun. The old laws of power were dead.

A Lieutenant of the Red Rose quickly reported to Jorah. "Captain Jorah, we have successfully taken over the town. All resistance has been neutralized."

Jorah smiled, savoring the victory. "Station one hundred archers at the battlements—not for defense, but to report. We will move further south toward the Alliance Knight fortresses now. The Ursaroks will try to counterattack soon enough, and they will chase us. Let's stick to the plan: draw them into our ambush."

The Lieutenant nodded, his eyes glowing with shared anticipation. "Yes, Captain."

The Lupen coup of Hearthglen is complete, utilizing advanced, non-standard weaponry to devastating effect and immediately escalating the conflict by hunting the remaining Ursarok forces.

The news of Hearthglen's fall traveled at the speed of terror. Before the smoke had cleared from the shattered eastern gate, the Ursarok High Council, composed of the heads of the most ancient and powerful noble families, was hastily convened in their stronghold, a fortress miles north of the capital.

The council hall, usually a chamber of solemn, measured diplomacy, was choked with volatile rage.

Lord Borin Svalosks, a massive, grizzled Ursarok whose family had held lands in the capital for generations, slammed a fist the size of a paving stone onto the mahogany table. The heavy, ornate brass inkwell beside him rattled violently, splattering ink across the polished surface.

"Insolence! How dare they commit such barbaric acts!" Borin bellowed, his voice vibrating with grief and fury.

Baroness Kalla, an Ursarok noble known for her cold wit and profound arrogance, merely offered a mocking half-smile. "Lupens are anything but civilized, Borin. I bet they've been festering under our shadow all these years. They are wolves, after all; they cannot endure being controlled for long." She sipped from a delicate, silver cup.

Another council member, Lord Verik, his face pale beneath his thick fur, spoke with forced calm. "Yes, but the question is, how? Hearthglen was heavily guarded by Alliance Knights. They were handpicked warriors! Lupen skirmishes have failed against them time and time again. This cannot have been possible."

"But they did," Borin snarled, leaning forward, his rage a palpable heat in the room. "They slaughtered our kin! They burnt the bloodlines to ash! That is enough to justify their annihilation! I say we gather every legion and finish them once and for all!"

"Hold on, Lord Borin," cautioned High Chancellor Evar, the most level-headed of the group. "We are sorry for your immense loss, truly. But if we act with haste now, we may be running directly into their trap." He straightened the gilded chain around his neck. "We don't know if the Foxkins have done something under our noses again, or worse, if it's the Cult's doing. We need to investigate the capabilities of this new threat."

Lord Verik nodded quickly in support. "Evar is right. We cannot afford emotion. We do not know what kind of weapon they wielded that managed to defeat the Alliance Knights so easily. Their loss suggests a monumental change in power. We must know what we are facing."

Borin's eyes narrowed, seething with contempt. "I don't need your permission to avenge my family and our kind. While you cowards hide behind investigation reports and fear of a mythical weapon, I will be fighting for the lives lost in the hands of those wolves!"

He turned abruptly, his heavy armor scraping loudly on the stone floor.

Lord Mrall, a sturdy Ursarok noble who had been silent until now, rose from his chair, casting a disapproving glare at Chancellor Evar. "My family will also be supporting your cause, Lord Borin. This council has already proven itself weak."

Two more nobles stood, dropping their heads in silent agreement with Borin's sentiment.

Borin addressed the remaining council members, his voice dripping with scorn. "This kind of 'civil' and 'order' is what makes us weak. We should have finished those wolves a long time ago, and now they have returned to bite our throats. I, Borin Svalosks, the head of the Svalosks family, formally resign my position as Council member!"

He ripped the heavy Ursarok Council cape from his shoulders and flung it onto the table with a loud thwump. His supporters followed suit, dropping their regalia onto the mahogany. Without another word, Borin and his faction stormed out of the hall, leaving the remaining nobles staring at the abandoned seats—and the frightening, fresh gap in their leadership. The official Ursarok counter-attack was now a personal, fragmented crusade.

The Ursarok High Council is now officially split, with the vengeful Lord Borin leading an immediate, and likely ill-advised, military response. This sets the stage for the Lupen ambush and confirms that the Ursaroks are more concerned with their grudges than with the new weapon technology.

A heavy, echoing silence fell over the chamber after Borin Svalosks and his four supporters—a significant portion of the High Council—had left. The only sound was the faint, rhythmic clang of the remaining Alliance Knight patrols outside the fortress walls, oblivious to the political catastrophe that had just unfolded.

High Chancellor Evar was the first to move. He walked slowly to the table, picked up Borin's discarded, crimson-lined council cape, and tossed it into an empty cabinet.

"Fools," Baroness Kalla murmured, breaking the quiet with chilling disdain. She took another, longer sip of her drink. "They will die screaming in some gorge, proving only that Borin was always more rage than strategy. His vengeance will become the Lupens' training exercise."

Lord Verik, rubbing his temples, shifted the focus back to the immediate danger. "That doesn't help us, Kalla. Borin leads a large, if hot-headed, army. If he fails quickly, it will only prove that this Lupen force is immensely dangerous. We must talk about the weapons. Those wolves were using something utterly foreign. It was not fire magic, not elemental staves. It was… clean destruction."

Evar stood at the head of the table, his posture instantly reasserting his authority over the remaining nobles. "The weapon is the issue. If this was a conventional Lupen uprising, we would dispatch them within the week. This speed, this precise devastation in Hearthglen, suggests a third party is arming them. A merchant, a cult, or someone who recognizes the power vaccuum."

Kalla slammed her cup down, finally showing genuine alarm. "It must be the Foxkins. Who else? They've always been cunning and secretive about their magic developments. They would never dare fight us directly, so they use the Lupen scum as their proxies, selling them those sticks."

"A convenient deduction, Baroness, but one based on ancient prejudice," Evar countered sharply. "We cannot assume. What we know is that the Vanguard of Spinebride declared itself for unity, and will not tolerate this blatant Lupen aggression. This is our lever. Lord Verik, dispatch a runner—a Skirmisher, the fastest you have—to the Vanguard's closest outpost at Tallwood."

Verik nodded, already calculating routes. "The message?"

"A proposal for a temporary common cause against this aggression," Evar stated, his voice now cold and strategic. "The Lupen claim on Hearthglen violates the spirit of unity they claim to protect. We offer a pact: they deal with the Lupens in the west, and we focus on organizing the remaining loyalist forces in the south."

Verik hesitated. "And what about our defense? Borin is running toward an ambush. Captain Jorah knows he can't win a siege at Ironwood. He wants a field engagement to show off his new weapons."

Evar's gaze hardened, the mercy in his eyes fully extinguished. "Then we will not give it to him. We pull all remaining loyal noble retinues and their families back to the Citadel of Ironwood. We form a defensive perimeter and wait. Let Borin and his foolish army break themselves against the Lupens' sticks. We save our strength, and we use the chaos of their fight to find out precisely who is selling those weapons, and where we can buy them for ourselves."

The council nodded in grim, cold agreement. The Ursaroks would not fight for honor; they would fight for survival and technology.

The High Council has fractured, with the surviving faction, led by Chancellor Evar, opting for a cautious, intelligence-driven, and highly strategic (if morally questionable) defensive position.