Blackwood Gazette #97-Imperial Super Prison Nearing Completion

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by Chester Seaton, News

9/4-The controversy surrounding the Triumvirate’s joint project, an ocean-borne maximum security prison, continues this week as details leaked concerning the prison’s progress.

According to the leak, the project had been in development for years before its official announcement last year, with construction having begun nearly two years ago. As a result, the prison is nearly complete, and is scheduled to set sail within the next few months.

Other details in the leak point to prisoners already being held in completed portions of the ship, which is currently in dry dock in an undisclosed location. This has led to citizens across the triumvirate to make inquiries about family members currently incarcerated in maximum security prisons.

A spokesman for the project, currently codenamed ‘Delphinidae’, spoke with press this morning about the allegations.

“The information concerning the construction of the prison is largely accurate,” the spokesman said. “The ship is nearly completed, and will set sail shortly. As for allegations that prisoners have already been transferred aboard, without notifying their families, they are completely false.”

Blackwood Gazette #97-Imperial Super Prison Nearing Completion

Blackwood Gazette #96- Mathis Galland’s Racing League Set to Begin

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By Huxley Pruitt, Sports

8/4- First announced during seventh month of last year, Pandion Aerodynamics CEO Mathis Galland announced today that his Imperial Air Racing League has come together nicely and is preparing to begin its first season next month.

“We’ve currently signed twenty four racers and their teams,” Galland said in a press release. “They range from professional fighter pilots to up-by-their bootstraps farm boys who’ve been participating in underground racing leagues for a couple of years now. Watching these two groups come together and race each other will be exciting to watch. We’re already starting to see tensions between them; they’re ready to tear each others throats out!”

The league will consist of several event types, including head to head racing, stunt competitions, and group races. Surprisingly enough, it is this last category that has many wondering about the safety of this endeavor.

“The group races sound a bit dangerous,” said a city zoning member in Toring who is helping to negotiate the logistics of the races. “All of these super competitive, ‘Look At Me I’m Invincible’ types, speeding through the air and trying to get the upper hand, sounds like a recipe for a sky full of twisted wreckage to me. I can’t wait to see it!”

Blackwood Gazette #96- Mathis Galland’s Racing League Set to Begin

Blackwood Gazette #95- Imperial High Society Gathers for Heisenberg Test Flight

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by Chester Seaton, News

7/4- Walsh is abuzz with gossip today as the first high profile passengers for the Heisenberg Test Flight began to arrive this morning. The first to arrive was Delando, who refused to leave his carriage when he discovered that no one else had come.

“This is a disaster,” the reclusive playwright could be heard saying within. “I cannot be seen to be the first! People will think I’m desperate for press! Take the carriage around the city one more time.”

Restrictions on the base where the test flight is taking place prohibited Delando from leaving, however. According to our last reports, he was still in his carriage.

Also arriving was former pin-up Pippi Tralala, who had no such reservations about being the first to be seen, as the emaciated model tumbled from her carriage and raised her arms.

“Oh, the Sun!” she is said to have screamed. Many attribute this sentiment to Tralala’s controversial diet of sunlight and air, which she has reportedly subsisted on for nearly a year, though no one knows how.

Others have continued to trickle in since, bringing with them a menagerie of bodyguards, servants, and personal entertainers, and all of them eager to talk about anything other than the test flight.

The test flight itself, originally scheduled for tonight, has been delayed until the twelfth, due to scheduling conflicts with the test flights most prestigious passenger, the Empress Marcellete Bastian, who refuses to travel on dates with odd numbers.

****

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Blackwood Gazette #95- Imperial High Society Gathers for Heisenberg Test Flight

Blackwood Gazette #94- Von Grimm Gang Storms Frontier Fortress

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Chester Seaton, News
6/4- Bandit leader Doctor Argyle Von Grimm is back in the news this week as New Crowndon reports that the Mad Mechanist of Moseille has attacked and occupied Fort Winstone.

“We’d hoped to keep a lid on it,” said Colonel Frederick Tanner, of the Second Northern Frontier Regiment. “It is a small Fort, with little value other than the arms stored there. We’d hoped that Von Grimm would break when re-enforcements arrived, and that would be the end of it.”

That is not what has happened, however, according to Field Marshal Ameron Lassiter.

“We sent in Second Cavalry to retake the fort,” Marshal Ameron said. “They have a reputation in the region, and we hoped that would be enough. Unfortunately, Von Grimm has hunkered down and entrenched his forces in the hills around the fort. The terrain makes it very difficult to reach, and there are more of them than we anticipated. Von Grimm is also, how should I put this? ‘Inventive’ in his use of the terrain and the arms he has stolen.”

The initial push to retake the fort resulted in almost a third of the 2nd Cav to be slaughtered. As a result, Marshal Ameron and Colonel Tanner find themselves in a difficult position.

“The fort is of little value anymore,” said the Colonel. “But the deaths of the men who held it and the deaths of the men who have taken it demand satisfaction.”

“We’ve ordered a squadron of Dragonflies from Nor Easter,” Ameron said. “If we can’t take them on the ground, by The Man, we’ll take them from the air, and hopefully put an end to the Von Grimm menace once and for all.”

Blackwood Gazette #94- Von Grimm Gang Storms Frontier Fortress

Blackwood Gazette #93-Investigations Ensue After Fire Rages Through Academy of Alchemy and Alliteration

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By Chester Seaton, News

20/3- New dispersions have been cast upon Nor Easter’s Academic Alliance of Alchemists and Alliterators after a fire broke out and gutted the Academy’s top two floors earlier this week. No one was killed, but three were injured with reported third degree burns.

“We were holding a party for Francois to celebrate the occasion of his third cousin’s adopted niece’s 32nd birthday,” said Anatole Coulomb, a third degree Alchemist on the fourth rung of Primality, according to his background sheet. “Either as a mistake, or as a joke, someone miscalculated the amount of powdered charwood in the mixture of the candles that adorned his Rise de veau pie. When he went to blow them out, instead of simply re-igniting, they exploded.”

“It’s a simple mistake really,” Coulomb added. “Happens more often than you’d think. Usually, it just ends with a crispy eyebrow. But someone had been mixing a dissolving agent earlier in the day, and residue had blown onto the nearby drapes. That was the end of that, really. There was no avoiding it.”

The incident has left Nor Eastern officials with no choice but to launch a full scale investigation into the safety practices and zoning regulations pertaining to the academy. The organization is no stranger to such scrutiny.

“Something like this happens every ten years or so,” said Maximillian Voutiste, the regional fire marshal for Oeil de Fleur. “Some young alchemist decides to try and figure out Blackwood, or play a prank, or make a love potion, and before you know it, a city block is leveled. The Academy used to be inside the Capitol building, but we’ve had to move it three times since its founding. Another incident like this, and they’ll have to move outside the city limits. I won’t miss them.”

Blackwood Gazette #93-Investigations Ensue After Fire Rages Through Academy of Alchemy and Alliteration

Blackwood Gazette #92- Protests Flare Up in Southern Monteddor Over New Taxation Policies

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By Chester Seaton, News

9/3-The recent shift of power in Monteddor has led to civil unrest in the southern Empire this week, as several agricultural collectives gathered at farmers markets along Monteddor’s Llopesquo River to protest the new trade taxes being implemented on their goods.

“They call them a ‘security tax’, to pay for increased protection along the river,” said Saldivar Nnavante, a fruit farmer from a small village near the river. “But they are nothing more than extortion monies. Which is nothing new around here, but at least before we knew who we were paying, and those people never took more than we could afford. Now it’s some boss in a ministry somewhere, putting a flat rate on everything. I don’t even have to go very far, just five miles, but I’m expected to pay the same as a man who must go all the way to the coast? Don’t even get me started on the crop tributes.”

It is these crop tributes that most of the protestors seem to take an issue with. Alejandro Julianos, now the ruling military authority within Monteddor’s borders, has demanded that food growers and ranchers ‘donate’ 30% of their goods to feed soldiers in the area. Similar requests have been made of hotels, brothels, and other services in the region.

“Change is always difficult,” a Julianos spokesperson wrote in an official press release. “Often, it is quite painful, and there is no doubt that many enterprises will fall or be absorbed by the state when all is said and done. But the new High King, together with Admiral Julianos, believe that this change will make for a stronger Monteddor, one that will rival even Crowndon in its military and industrial might. I think everyone will agree that it’s high time those pasty, haggis eating bullies in the north get taken down a notch.

“I mean, they call themselves ‘The Crown’, and yet they don’t even have a monarch. Who the hell do they think they are?”

Crowndon official have yet to address the spokesperson’s comments.

Blackwood Gazette #92- Protests Flare Up in Southern Monteddor Over New Taxation Policies

Blackwood Gazette #91- Auction for Test Flight Tickets Raises Millions

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By Chester Seaton, News

2/3- An auction for tickets to participate in the upcoming Heisenberg test flight was held this weekend. Bidding for each ticket started at 2000 imperial scrip, but reports say that each ticket, around 100 in all, went for no less than 50,000 each. This, on top of the fact that a 1000 scrip entry fee was charged for each of the auctions reported 500 seats, resulted in a killing for The Ministry of Crowndonian Planar Wing Transport.

The high entry fee priced out most of the average citizen, and most of those in attendance were movers and shakers in Triumvirate society. Socialites from all three empires, and even a few from Sarnwain, were in attendance. Tickets went to the wealthiest, surprising absolutely no one.
Among the winners was Nor Eastern Empress Marcellette Bastian, who took home the first twenty tickets.

“It is important that Nor Easter has a heavy presence on that plane,” said Her Imperial Majesty. “Not only for posterity, but as a show of support for our industrious neighbors to the west.”

Other winners include: Yolanda Desantana, who sent an envoy on her behalf, stating ‘business reasons’ for her inability to attend in person; Archibald Starkfeld, owner of the largest tobacco grower in the Colonies; the playwright Delando, currently working on the film version of his newest play; and Minister P.P. Walther, a weapons manufacturer from Toring.

Almost as interesting has who was there are those who were not. Notable absentees were Rigel Rinkenbach, the industrialist whose challenge kept the enterprise going, and Ivan Klankenvroot, whose company conceptualized and began construction. Neither man could be reached for comment.

The Heisenberg test flight is currently scheduled to take place on the seventh of next month. Citizens of Crowndon and the Triumvirate all are encouraged to attend.

Blackwood Gazette #91- Auction for Test Flight Tickets Raises Millions

Blackwood Gazette #90- Heisenberg Project Nears Completion; Test Flight Imminent, Crowndon Says

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By Chester Seaton, News

23/2- The Ministry for Crowndonian Planar Wing Transport, formerly known as Klankenvroot Industries before it was taken over by the government, has announced that the highly contentious Heisenberg Project is nearing completion.

The project, intended to serve as the world’s first commercial fixed wing air craft, has had a rocky road. Updates on the project recently went dark, in light of Crowndon’s economic woes.
Work on the project has continued, however, and a test flight is scheduled for early next month. Tickets for the inaugural flight are being auctioned off later this week, with several members of high society expressing an interest in taking part.

The announcement has been met with some consternation, however. The revelation that the extremely expensive project continued in light of the Blackwood shortage and the market crashing Great Tuna Heist has many of Crowndon’s academics up in arms. It is estimated that over ten thousand people in Crowndon’s Northern reaches died or disappeared during the harsh winter, and the idea that money was being poured into a prototype technology that would serve a purpose already being performed by air ships is morally offensive.

In light of the announcement, we reached out to Klankenvroot rival Sir Rigel Rinkenbach, for an update on his own project.

“To be perfectly honest, I had completely forgotten about our little wager,” Rinkenbach said. “Since Ivan [Klankenvroot] has defected and come to work for me, I lost complete interest in the matter. We’ve moved on to other projects, exciting ones that will change to world. Which probably goes without saying, as I’m involved, after all. I cannot speak of them at this time, however.”

Blackwood Gazette #90- Heisenberg Project Nears Completion; Test Flight Imminent, Crowndon Says

Blackwood Gazette #89- Crowndonian Brig Forced to Land on Libertine’s Roost for Repairs

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By Chester Seaton, News

9/2-While the majority of Crowndon’s air fleet returned to the Crown’s airspace this weekend, one ship was forced to break away from the main body and land on Libertine’s Roost. Fleet Admiral Winston Johannes cites technical difficulties as the reason for the forced landing.

Halfway through the journey home, a Crowndonian brig named the Strident Whisper broke away from the fleet, reporting a problem with her main boiler. It is unknown at this time what caused the problem, though the Whisper’s captain stated that it was likely due to atrophy caused by regular use, as the Whisper had been actively engaged in sorties before being called to join the fleet. The Whisper was unable to receive routine maintenance upon arrival, as the fleet mobilized almost immediately.

The breakdown occurred over the waters of the Demon’s Eye Cove, the large body of water that separates Crowndon from Monteddor and the area in which the Roost is located. Upon hearing of the brig’s trouble, several representatives from the Roost who had joined the fleet extended an invitation for the Whisper to dock for repairs.

As most citizens of the Empire know, Libertine’s Roost is a sovereign entity, and access to its airspace by Imperial Authorities and the individual military forces of Crowndon, NorEaster, and Monteddor is heavily restricted. While the Roost purports itself to be a place of unfettered industrial importance and thriving economic value as a port for merchants traveling between Crowndon and Monteddor, many believe the Roost is nothing more than a haven for criminals.

Blackwood Gazette #89- Crowndonian Brig Forced to Land on Libertine’s Roost for Repairs

Blackwood Gazette #88-Raphael Valiente Dethroned as Marco Desantana Surrenders

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By Chester Seaton, New

2/2- The siege of Monteddor’s capitol continues to wind down this week. With the Julianos/Crowndon alliance officially recognized by the Crown, High King Raphael Valiente came to terms with the forces at his doorstep.

Valiente met with both Julianos and Fleet Admiral Winston Johannes this weekend, where he surrendered Blackwood magnate Marco Desantana. As of the most recent reports, Desantana was taken, alive, into the custody of Julianos’ forces, and his daughter Yolanda was officially appointed head of the family company.

Valiente was forced to surrender the crown as well. Many expected Julianos to assume the throne, but instead the position was given to Lord Mario Adallantes. Adallantes is rumored to be a paramour of the High Queen Romana Valiente who, despite the removal of her husband, has been allowed to remain on her seat. Julianos has been granted several governorships and several industrial and military contracts that all but make him the most powerful man in Monteddor.

As for the alliance, Crowndon has been granted first favors on several contracts within the Blackwood industry, including patrolling shipping routes and preference in allotment queues. This has caused an uproar in Nor Easter, who has not yet seen a lift in blockades. Yolanda Desantana claims the blockades have been lifted, but it will take ‘some time’ for some shipping schedules to return to normal.

Blackwood Gazette #88-Raphael Valiente Dethroned as Marco Desantana Surrenders