RUMOR: SHARK, TVM Edging Closer To War in Newlands

This map of Newlands shows SHARK in blue, SHRKr in green, and TVM in red.

After weeks of relative inactivity in the Illyriad metagame, fresh tips have been sent to the Times suggesting that war on the Newlands peninsula in the Broken Lands between Dark Shade [SHARK] and Trivium [TVM] might be imminent.

The rumors began last week with unnamed sources claiming that a spate of recent SHARK and Darker Shade [SHRKr] settlements in TVM’s land claim had sparked political unrest between the alliances. In one instance, it is alleged that TVM Triumvir Lorcan had challenged SHRKr account and Ron Fay alt Odoacer, who now appears to have more than one of the cities interloping on TVM’s claim, to a duel, with a Lorcan victory requiring that Odoacer would need to move his assets out of the TVM claim.

However, a message to the Times noted that “Lorcan and Odoacer were involved in a consensual PvP which SHARK apparently unilaterally decided to end.” When the Times pressed for additional info, the tipster added that, “Lorcan left TVM for a PvP and it looks like when a siege landed on Odoacer’s city, SHARK decided Odoacer couldn’t defend himself. I heard that the siege was to be limited but I don’t have any proof of that.”

The Times has not been able to confirm the veracity of the tipster’s characterization of those events, however, after surveying Newlands to confirm whether Odoacer was indeed infringing on the TVM claim boundaries, our editorial staff detected several other SHARK cities in the TVM claim belonging to high-level players such as Baynights, King A, and Ron Fay himself.

King A, considered to be one of the more formidable military accounts in SHARK, now has six cities in Newlands, with his city of Mount Ida squarely in the TVM claim. SHARK leader Baynights’ city of Campagnolo also appears to be in the claim, as is Stomp/Claimers war hero Ron Fay’s cities of Blah Blah Blah-Blah Blah, Lerxstwood, Prattsky Kerml, and Whywhyzee. All in all, SHARK appears to have already positioned some of its most talented, well-equipped military accounts in a position to either defend their foothold in Newlands and even counterstrike an aggressive TVM, who for their part appear to have been either oblivious or ambivalent to what must have been weeks if not months of SHARK build-up in their sprawling land claim.

According to TVM’s land claim policy in the forums, the boundaries for its restrictive “zone 1” includes the following: “New Lands: Beginning latitude -2100 in the north, to longitude 63 in the east, to latitude -2220 in the south, to the west coast.”

However, in spite of the new crop of SHARK/SHRKr cities in the TVM land claim, it still remains to be seen if the rumored hostilities are a direct result of this infringement or other political issues between the two alliances. It has been alleged that tensions flared between both alliances during the Stomp/Claimers war, but stopped short of a full escalation. It remains to be seen how far this new conflict will go, but early indications point to the potential for a fresh war in Newlands.