How to Dominate Tyria

A Totalitarian Guide

The key to holding power over all of Tyria lies in 2 key components: controlling travel and holding the major cities through military force. By holding waypoint travel, you control the peoples ability to organise and revolt. Without these, individuals who are spread out extraordinary distances would have to find other means of travelling. Certainly one of these options would be using the sky, and so dominating this too would be essential.

The second, and more difficult challenge, would be to hold the 6 major cities. Hoelbrak, The Black Citadel, Rata Sum, Divinities Reach, The Grove and finally Lions Arch. If you control the centres of commerce, populace and politics, you control the people.

Now lets take a look at the Aetherblades. They have certain qualities that are extremely useful in relation to the previous 2 goals.

The Aetherblades are a combination of pirates and inquest. This means that they automatically have strong influences over Lions Arch and Rata Sum. The inquest have the technical capacity to cripple Rata Sums defences, and have tried in the past, and would be the best candidates for this task. Considering Lions Arch, who better to defeat a wave of pirates, than a larger wave of rogue pirates. An initial attempt to intercept the council, and gain influence by holding a member within, would allow for this task to be much easier.

If done correctly, the Aetherblades could take control of both Lions Arch and Rata Sum.

How would they attempt to control Hoelbrak and the Black Citadel? Cripple supplies, cause civil unrest, and embolden a common enemy against these two mighty forces. Imagine the combined might of the Flame Legion and Dredge, working together to weaken and debilitate the populations surrounding these cities. Force people out of their homes, fill the cities with refugees, waiting for someone to come along and give them change. The Aetherblades could conspire with a Molten Alliance, forcing the people to look for new leadership to solve their problems, or use the alliance’s military power to overwhelm these cities.

Divinities Reach presents a much harder challenge. The queen and her allies are inscrutable, and would never allow for weakness embedded into their ranks. The Seraph are stoic and loyal to their Queen at all costs. The city itself is a giant fortress, with extremely high walls surrounded by water. Almost impregnable from land, no army could march in. What one would need to take this city would be air superiority. High walls mean nothing when you can fly right over them. The Aetherblades have this potential, with the opportunity to amass a giant army, and storm the walls of the Reach in a full scale assault, perhaps known as the Battle for Divinities Reach.

The Grove is a giant tree. Anyone could take this with the most basic of armies, although the Pale Tree would not let this go unanswered it would seem.

And so we have it. Imagine a band of pirates and scientists, banded under a single name, with technology and power to rival that of the pact. They attempt to intercept the lions arch council, and set their technologies to control asuran devices globally. They manipulate a molten alliance into weakening the cities in the east, and finally take their airships to Divinities Reach, which would be the final step into resolving Tyria completely into one regime.