Ogre Battle Saga · Episode VII
The story of the war for Valeria
Prologue
Before the first sword was drawn, there was a king, a sin, and a gate that should never have been opened.
In the middle of the Obero Sea lies Valeria: a handful of islands that merchants cross and empires covet. Lodis to the north, Xenobia to the east. Between them, five small kingdoms that bled one another for generations over a few acres of rock.
Then came Dorgalua. He defeated the kings one after another and, instead of humbling their peoples, he reconciled them. They called him the Dynast-King. For his queen, he raised above the desert a tower covered in gardens.
The king loved a handmaiden, Mannaflora. The queen had her driven out, and swore that mother and child were dead. The mother did die, in childbirth. The child lived. Two priests took her in. One, Brantyn, sold his silence and climbed all the way to the regency. The other, Prancet, fled to Golyat with the girl and raised her under the name of his own dead daughter: Catiua.
The prince died as a child, in a fall in the gardens. The queen followed him, of grief. The king prayed; nothing answered. So he went down beneath his gardens, to a gate no one should ever have opened, to look for a way to bring his family back. He was never seen again.
An empty throne, three peoples. In the north, the regent Brantyn and the Bakram nobility. At Coritanae, the Hierophant Balbatos, who promises the Galgastani a Valeria purged of the Walister. Within months the Walister Resistance is crushed, and its duke thrown into the dungeons of his own castle.
A year before this story begins, dark knights land at Golyat in the dead of night. By morning, the port is gone. They have taken the abuna Prancet; his son Denam and his daughter Catiua watched him vanish between two suits of armor. Their friend Vyce had to watch his father die.
Three peoples, five banners
Walister
The defeated of the south. Their duke, Ronwey, knows how to sway a crowd — and counts people the way one counts pawns, his own included.
Almorica Castle
Galgastani
The most numerous, the largest army. Their Hierophant, Balbatos, promises them a Valeria where they would stand alone.
Coritanae Keep
Bakram
The nobility of the north. Regent Brantyn Morne rules through a figurehead, with the quiet backing of Lodis.
Heim, the royal city
Lodis
A handful of dark knights sent by the Pope of Lodis. Allies of the regent, say the treaties. They came for what sleeps beneath the king's gardens.
Phidoch Castle
Xenobia
Five knights who claim to be banished from their kingdom and hire out their swords. Their leader shares his name with the leader of the Dark Knights.
no fixed abode
Whatever Denam chooses, Vyce will choose the opposite.
“There is blood on my hands, how long till it lies on my heart?”
In an abandoned church, three youths wait for the man they mean to kill. They were told the Dark Knight Lanselot would pass through Golyat. Vyce comes running: he is here. They spring out — before five astonished travelers. This Lanselot is named Hamilton, comes from Xenobia, and is looking to hire out his sword. He hears their story. Then he offers it to them.
Almorica falls. Duke Ronwey walks out of his cell, and his people need heroes: these three will do. They are knighted to cheers. Denam is given a whole order to command. Vyce gets second place. It is the first wound.
Sir Leonar, the duke's right hand, chased a necromancer to Krysaro, and the dead closed in around him. Denam goes after him. On the way, the birdman Canopus decides this boy is worth following. He will never leave him.
At Qadriga, Denam comes face to face with the man himself. Nybeth Obdilord believes in neither kings nor peoples: only in what death can still teach him. He loses the battle, and slips away. He will be seen again on every route.
Before striking at Galgastan, the duke wants to be sure the Dark Knights will stay put. Denam escorts Leonar to their fortress. At Rhime, he wrests from the Galgastani a warrior, Cistina, who fights against her own regent. At Phidoch, he stands three paces from Lanselot Tartaros — the man who took his father — and must hold his tongue.
The order comes down: go to Balmamusa and rouse the Walister miners. Something rings false. Denam seeks out Lanselot Hamilton. The knight shows him a music box, all he has left of his wife, and speaks of the difference between risking your life and losing it. Denam will remember it to the end.
Five thousand Walister live there, down in the mine, under Galgastani guard. Denam drives off their guards and calls on them to rise. They refuse. They are worn out; they only want to live. Vyce insults them. That is when Leonar rides into town, with his soldiers and an order from the duke.
Balmamusa
Sir Leonar
Leonar speaks without raising his voice. These people will not fight; the duke foresaw as much. So these are his orders: no one leaves this town alive. Tomorrow Valeria will hear that the Galgastani massacred Balmamusa, and every Walister will take up arms. He protested, himself. Then he faced the facts: they have no other chance.
Whatever Denam answers, the town burns.
Some five thousand dead.
And the duke's calculation was right: the Walister rise.
Law route · “I understand.”
He said yes. He will say yes again, until the duke he serves becomes the man who must be struck down — and he finds himself alone at the top, with everything he did to get there still on his hands.
What sets this route apartVyce becomes a man of honor here. It is the only route where he lives, and the only one where the three children of Golyat stand together again.
Neutral route · “Stop this lunacy!”
He said no. Then the war grew wider, and he went back to serve the man who had slandered him. To end it sooner, he tells himself. This is the route where you learn what a compromise costs.
What sets this route apartThe darkest of the three: while the living bargain, Nybeth's dead overrun Valeria.
Chaos route · “Stop this lunacy!”
He said no, and he will never take it back. Outlawed, blamed for the crime he refused to commit, he walks alone — until the day those who hunted him have no one else left to follow.
What sets this route apartDenam keeps his hands clean here, and pays for it with his sister. Vyce sinks lower than anywhere else.
“I will fear no reproach. For man is a creature of sorrow and fault, and ever will be.”
Three weeks have passed. The lie has taken hold: all of Walister country mourns Balmamusa, and volunteers pour in. Only one man tells what really happened. His name is Vyce.
Denam does as he is told. Vyce can stomach neither the order nor that obedience: he deserts on the spot. Dame Ravness steps between the soldiers and the townsfolk, and it is Denam who must drive her back.
The hero of Golyat takes the Galgastani ports one after another, as planned. Every victory makes Ronwey more impatient. Every order makes Leonar more silent.
On the Reisan Way, an escort is taking Ravness to Coritanae and the gallows. Denam stops them, frees her, and lets her go. No one ordered him to.
The duke's army has just been beaten in the Psonji Weald. Ronwey will not budge: he must have the friendship of the Dark Knights. Leonar dares to say no. The duke casts him aside and sends Denam in his place.
Leonar waits for Denam in the ancient city. He no longer believes in the duke, and he says it without anger: the duke must die. Catiua is outraged. Denam agrees. Soon after, the Bakram and the Dark Knights fall upon Rhime, and Lanselot Hamilton vanishes in the battle.
At Almorica's gates, the Resistance fights itself. Meanwhile Leonar climbs to the keep, and the old Tiger of the Walister dies in his own stronghold. When Denam reaches him, Leonar's sword is already turned his way: the regicide needs a culprit, and it will be him.
Denam wants no part of this fight. It is Vyce, appearing out of nowhere, who shouts at him to get up. In the Almorica passageway, Leonar falls. The Resistance is left with one leader, and he is eighteen.
“Either death, yours or mine, serves to unite the Resistance.”
Leonar
“Am I so naive? Do I know so little of the world?”
Three weeks have passed. The duke has found his culprit: Denam burned Balmamusa, everyone says so. There is a price on his head. Vyce, promoted to lead the Third Spear, has set out after him.
Denam says no. Vyce does the job instead, with a zeal that chills the blood. Ravness tries to stand in the way; he puts a crossbow bolt in her belly. She dies begging Denam to be an example for his people.
They hide in Port Asyton. Catiua begs her brother: let us leave Valeria, there are other shores. He refuses. He will fight for the Walister, even if not a single Walister wants him anymore.
On the Xeod Moors, an archer takes him for the murderer of her brother, who died at Balmamusa. Denam saves her life. At Tynemouth Hill, in a trap laid by Vyce, Arycelle learns who really gave the order — and that the man she loved, Leonar, carried it out.
A knight in a cell, a mage held by pirates, a warrior deep in a fort: Denam frees Folcurt, then Bayin, then Cistina. They are Bakram, fighting against their own regent. For the first time since Balmamusa, he is not alone.
Meanwhile, the duke is winning. His army crushes the Galgastani in the Psonji Weald and marches into Coritanae. Balbatos is executed at daybreak. The massacre at Balmamusa has borne fruit.
At Boed, the leader of the Liberation Front lays out her plan: have Ronwey assassinated, as Balbatos was, then Brantyn. Three heads, and Valeria would be free. Her sister Cistina refuses to see any wisdom in it.
Rhime has fallen; the Bakram have gone to war, and Lanselot Hamilton is their prisoner. Denam forces the gates of Almorica. In the passageway, Vyce is waiting. The two friends finally fight, one on one. Then Leonar steps forward, with an offer.
Almorica · end of Chapter II
Sir Leonar
Leonar apologizes for nothing. The Bakram have gone to war; the Resistance needs Denam, and Denam needs an army. Let him come back, long enough to finish this.
“Though at times, the temptation is all too great.”
Four weeks later, Denam is in command, and Vyce fights at his side. He has forgiven nothing. He has simply decided that his hatred can wait.
There are not enough men for the decisive battle. Vyce offers to be the bait: he will draw the Galgastani army into the Psonji Weald while Denam takes Coritanae from behind. Catiua fights the plan with everything she has. Before they part, the three children of Golyat are together one last time.
Brigantys, under snow that never melts. Sir Hektor defends the castle to the death, for the honor of his house. In its dungeons, Denam finds the people Balbatos had thrown there: Galgastani who thought as he does.
Balbatos is celebrating his victory in the Psonji Weald when word comes that it was only a lure: the enemy is in the courtyard. His guard breaks. The Hierophant leaves no one else the task of killing him.
Vyce has paid the price of the lure: his troops are cut to pieces, and he himself is in the hands of Xaebos. When the high commander learns that Coritanae has fallen, it is on his prisoner that he vents his rage.
Catiua has left the Resistance. She has gone home to Golyat, alone. That is where Lanselot Tartaros comes to find her. He knows who she is: the daughter of King Dorgalua.
Denam marches back south and retakes Almorica. Xaebos dies there. Vyce, set free, joins Denam's order this time. Two Xenobian knights who barely escaped Rhime, Mirdyn and Gildas, join him as well.
Phidoch, fortress of the Dark Knights. Oz dies there; Balxephon escapes. And in the thick of the battle, on the other side of the blades, Denam recognizes his sister. All of southern Valeria now belongs to him. She does not.
In the dungeons of Heim, an emaciated man raises his head. Lanselot Hamilton has been tortured. The man who comes to see him bears the same name.
“Have I done right... or wrong?”
Denam took the hand that was offered. Vyce, beside himself at seeing them reconciled, leaves the Resistance; the duke puts a price on his head. Denam's first order: find him, and kill him.
Word is that Vyce is hiding at Boed. Denam finds only a massacre: Oz and Ozma, the twins of Loslorien, are wiping out the Liberation Front, and Oz holds Cerya prisoner. Denam kills him. Cerya, free, looks him in the eye: she will not fight beside a man who serves the duke.
At Almorica, no one congratulates him. He has killed a Dark Knight in the middle of peace talks: the council lectures him like a squire. And from the direction of Asyton come rumors no one wants to believe.
Port Asyton has gone silent. In its streets, the dead walk. Denam pulls two living souls out of it: a young oracle, Oelias, and her brother. She knows who did this. It is Nybeth, the necromancer. It is her father.
The trail must be followed back, and the trail is a family. Cassandra, the wife, on Mount Hedon. Cressida, the eldest daughter, at Hagia Banhamuba. And at last Nybeth himself, at Ndamsa. Beaten, he regrets only one thing: this “unworthy end” to his research. Then he escapes, again.
At Coritanae, the last general of Galgastan does not ask for mercy. He asks Denam why he serves the man who smeared his name, and answers for him: cowardice. Xaebos dies. On the walls, a figure flees its pursuers. Denam calls out to Vyce. The answer fits in a single sentence.
“Did you think to buy my loyalty by saving my life?”
Vyce
The duke has a Dark Knight seized in the middle of negotiations, and thinks he has won. Rhime is retaken. But the prisoner escapes, and in the confusion a man walks into headquarters: Vyce. He takes the duke hostage; cornered, he kills him. The soldiers cut him down. His last word is a name: Catiua.
Leonar rallies the Resistance with a single speech and hurls it at Phidoch. The castle falls. So does he: in the melee a blade strikes him, and the hand that holds it is Catiua's. Only Denam is left.
“It was two days before I learned of the execution...”
Denam has refused a second time. He has no army, no side, and two enemies: the last loyalists of Balbatos, and the duke's Resistance.
He starts with Coritanae, where the Galgastani loyalists are still holding out. He shouts that he is not the duke's man; they will hear none of it. Xaebos throws in his face that he only wants Ronwey's seat, then, defeated, abandons the fortress.
She cannot bear this war that keeps taking her brother away. She lets slip what she once overheard: the abuna Prancet is not their father. So they have only each other — and he leaves her behind. She sets off for Golyat.
“You have chosen your war over your sister!”
Catiua
In the Bahanna Highlands, a knight bars the road. Hektor Didarro was betrothed to a daughter of Nybeth, killed by Denam's hand. He begs her sister, Cressida, to flee, so that someone will be left to remember them. Then he refuses to yield, and dies.
Brigantys. Xaebos orders the necromancer and his daughter to leave, and stays. Before he falls, he tells Denam that the people will come to him, the man with clean hands — for as long as they stay clean. The freed prisoners ask the same question another way: what if you became the tyrant you replace?
“Should it come to that, I am prepared to forfeit my life.”
Denam
The Resistance has retaken Coritanae, and Leonar is waiting there for Denam. He offers him one last time to come back. Then he draws his sword. Dying, he admits Denam was right, and tells him what the duke is plotting at Rhime: to kneel before Lodis, in exchange for Valeria.
“Go... to Rhime. You must... stop the duke. In you I still see... hope...”
Leonar
At Golyat, Tartaros is waiting for Catiua. He tells her a story of a king, a handmaiden and a hidden child. The proof is engraved on the pendant she has always worn. Her name is Versalia Oberyth. She follows him.
Denam crosses the mountains and slips into Rhime. Too late. In the cathedral, Vyce drives his blade into Duke Ronwey, then turns on Tartaros. Oz and Ozma burst in. All that is left of the conspirator is a terrified boy begging for mercy. Tartaros grants it, out of disgust.
“Who holds the power now, Your Grace?”
Vyce
Almorica opens its gates without a fight. The soldiers tell the story: before he left, Leonar told them the truth about Balmamusa, took with him those still loyal to the duke, and ordered the rest to follow Denam. He had gone to Coritanae to lose.
At Boed, the traces are already being burned: of the Liberation Front, only Cerya remains. At Phidoch, Denam glimpses his sister for an instant, before Tartaros takes her away. Oz and Ozma stay behind to cover their escape. They die side by side.
Brantyn needs someone to blame for the plot at Rhime. At Heim, Vyce is dragged to the gallows. He screams that he only did as he was told. Denam will not hear of it until two days later.
The routes converge.
Whatever road brought him here, Denam ends up in the same place: at the head of the Resistance, master of the whole south. What remains is the regent, and the Dark Knights, who hold his sister.
At Brigantys, Denam is led to a dying man's bedside. It is his father. The Dark Knights released him, poisoned, once they had no more use for him. Prancet tells everything: who Catiua is, why he could never give her back. Then Olivya, his childhood friend, gives Denam back his true name: Morne. A Bakram. The regent's nephew.
The old archiereus agrees to stand with the Resistance. But first he asks one question, only one, of the man who means to take his sister back from the Dark Knights.
“Have you the will to wage war upon her?”
Mreuva
Warren the seer finally opens his eyes. He confesses why the five from Xenobia came: they were never banished. Their king sent them to recover Brynhildr, the holy sword the Dark Knights stole from him.
Barnicia. Tartaros has understood that what sleeps beneath Valeria is beyond any man; he orders a retreat. The Dark Knights leave. They leave the princess behind.
Barnicia Castle
Catiua
Denam finds her in an empty room of the castle, a blade in her hand. She was used, then left behind. She will let no one do it again. He has two lines to hold her back.
In the game, the right answers depend on whether Catiua fought alongside the Dark Knights. The pair above is the one for when she was not in the battle.
Without the Dark Knights, Brantyn is just a man who refuses to give up a throne. Heim falls quickly. In the dungeons, they find Lanselot Hamilton. Alive. Broken.
Eighteen tiers of gardens above the desert and, beneath them, the gate. Three Dark Knights have betrayed Tartaros to seize it. They open it with the stolen sword. It kills them.
What comes out of the gate was once a king. Dorgalua, shut away there for years, has nothing human left. When he falls, the gate collapses. Warren saves Denam and seals it — from the other side.
Epilogue
Turn over a card.
The war that engulfed Valeria would be known as the Heim Conflict.