r/dankcrusade

Sources:

https://youtu.be/v\_gIZ8llK2Y?si=zA4aYiKdb8pWyBPn

The embassies of all the nations aligned against Hell can be found among these twisted byways in rome: the Iron Sultanate, Abyssinia, England, Prussia, France, and a dozen others. Their diverse accents and customs only add to the sense of chaos and dislocation.

Brazen angels bearing silver trumpets adorn pillars at every junction. From these, official announcements and, on holy days, the words of the Supreme Pontiff himself can be heard, carried on wires by the miracle of telegraphy. It is a sign of the times that such measures are necessary. For the past twenty years, the Vatican itself and even Saint Peter's Square may no longer be approached by the merely devout.

Since the tragedy of the Broken Trinity on Saint Peter's Day in 1894, only attested clergy and their retinues are permitted to set foot within the Holy See. The Faithful mutter that this is a grave injustice. After all, was it not the renegade Cardinal Grente who knowingly brought Death Commandos into the Square? Striking with furious purpose, even the Swiss Guard was unable to prevent them from slaying Pope Boniface XVI on the very steps of the episcopal throne. Since that terrible day, holy steel and dedicated flesh have encircled Vatican City, night and day.

Sources: the phisical rulebook

Alchemical ammunition can really come in clutch.

Original art by u/KingSlayerZ121

Context:

In the battle of Bir al-Abed, the Mamluks stopped the Heretic forces at the edge of Sinai, preventing the entry of Shaitan’s forces into Egypt proper. Hope elated the populace, who saw the victory as a sign that the Ever-Providing One had decreed that the Mamluk sultanate would be just as safe as the Iron Wall for Those Who Believe. In the following years, Cairo’s Dar al-’Ilm, the famous rival to Baghdad’s own fabled House of Wisdom, developed the first of the legendary automaton horses, which combined metals from the Iron Wall and orichalcum alloys bought from the Franks at great expense.

Eventually the Heretic lords turned their gaze elsewhere and went on to conquer lands in eastern Asia beyond the Iron Wall, and the Mamluks were given a respite to reorganise the realm and marshal its defences. The relationship between Cairo and New Damascus remained cordial yet cool, and as the Sultan of the Iron Wall never claimed the title of Caliph, the Mamluks maintained a policy of ambiguous sovereignty, never recognising the suzerainty of the Iron Sultanate.

Along with foreign trade, the power and influence of the merchant princes in the mamluk sultanate also grew, and many of the people of the Sultanate fell into deep debt, forced into uneven contracts often signed away from the prying eyes of the gadi. Eventually the merchant alliances grew a power base of their own within the Mamluk realm. A strangling web of debt and poverty ensnared many, with desperate men and women signing contracts that they did not understand or could even read. Occupied with military matters and reliant on the funds and supplies provided by trade and the merchants, the Mamluks did not uncover the rot within their own realm in time. And as the night fell, the merchants who chafed under the rule of the warriors found a new master: the great King of Greed.

AND EGYPT WAS DOOMED

Many within the Sultanate became desperate and sought new funds from a shadowy financial organisation known as the Ten Golden Horns, who clandestinely used the symbol of the ancient king Iskander crowned with horns as their mark. They offered large loans in exchange for future physical labour. They claimed no riba would be charged, as these loans were Qard al-Hasan according to the agents of the organisation. Since these transactions happened away from the eyes of the courts (which the Golden Horns claimed were corrupt), instead of paperwork the terms were inked into the skins of the debtors, so they would always be present in the case of any disputes. With no alternative ways to escape grinding poverty, a great many accepted this offer, despite stern warnings of ulema against modification of the body in any way, and became affluent overnight. These debtors began to flaunt their newly-gained wealth in public, acting as unwitting recruiters for the Golden Horns. Eventually their numbers became so great that the Mamluk sultan prepared to investigate the source of this newfound opulence, but just as warrants were being signed, alarms bells rang and foefires were lit at the beacons of Alexandria. In a surprise attack they had long prepared for, the armies of Jahannam fell upon Egypt.

The Mamluks rushed to defend their ports and borders, emptying their garrisons and deploying their famed automaton cavalry to stop the invasion. But as the defenders of Egypt were drawn to their borders, the final step in the conspiracy of the Ten Golden Horns was finally put into play. The lords of the Golden Horns, gathered their debtors to the great plazas and souks of Alexandria and Cairo, spreading a rumour that they were about to annul the loans due to the war.

Instead of relief from their debts, the debtors were greeted by insidious poison gas unleashed upon the gathered masses of people. As the noxious fumes spread, people fell to the ground in agony, but there was no passing on to al-Ākhirah. The debtors found themselves trapped in their convulsing bodies. The hidden clause in the contract ensured that the physical labour that they had agreed to would last for eternity.

Sources: mamluk faris lore drop

Remember guys, pyramid schemes are bad!

I wouldnt be surprise if a good chunk of the budget of england is just to feed brittania fuel

(I included the golden khanate since they seem to be roughly in the south of russia, the areas with the most oil west of the urals)

Context: those who decide to kill themselves by drowning become Drowned Choristers

As the sea fills their bodies, the echo of want in their stomachs is obscured by a new sound, a call so loud that the faultiness of their soul is dwarfed by its harrowing cacophony. This is no trick of the dying mind, but the Song of Leviathan

Dubbed “Drowned Choristers”, they sway eerily atop the earth as if caught in ghostly currents, held down only by the weights and chains they used to take their own lives. Their song, though but a fraction of the unholy horror which “saved” them, creeps over the trenches like a thick fog, driving those Faithful that hear it into the ravenous, maddening maw of comparison

To their dismay, in recent years the war-scholars of the Faithful have noticed an increase in reports of those who have survived near-death experiences by drowning becoming obsessed with a terrifying and beautiful song. Despite clerical and military intervention, many are driven to madness and eventual suicide as they attempt to feel its revelatory immensity once more. These reports coincide with a rapid generation of new Drowned Choristers leading Heretic Naval Raiding Parties across the area of the Levant known as the Carcass Front.

Sources: Drowned Choristers lore drop

Saw a guy post rwby crossover memes here and I figured why not. I've had this in my head for weeks now, maybe months. Needed to get it out somehow. Send help

Anyway some context! Premise is Ed & Al open a new kind of portal in their journey to restore their bodies. Al gets sucked in, Ed opens this portal again and goes after him, and they end up discovering the world of Trench Crusade. The forces of Hell eventually catch wind of this and lend their support to Father's scheme of becoming a god (albeit slowly taking it over). Enjoy!

It came to me in a dream, just like the visions that came to the War Prophet