Safehold

Hundreds of ships, fully equipped.
Thousands of guns and other weapons.
Tens of thousands of bullets and various amunition.
Hundreds of thousands of tons of food, fodder and other supplies.
Millions of men, women, children.
Uncounted - and uncountable - number of miles saled, pulled, dragged, marched and walked.
Hektolitres of innocent blood spilled.
One man with a vision.
One church in need of reformation.
One realm trampled under the feet of soldiers.
One Empire on the rise.
One world in a terrible war.
One story waiting to be told.
One enemy waiting to be rediscovered.
Were all the sacrifices worth it?

The Glacierheart province was never an easy place to live in. The mountains containted treasures, but to claim them from their grasp was tough. The coalminers and their families survived from day to day, from month to mont. Yet, most of them were happy, strong-hearted and devoted people.
The winter after the 'Sword of Schueler' decimated Siddamark, most of the people of Glacierheart suffered famine far worse than anything they could imagine. Hundreds of them lost their lives. But those who remained were still prepared to stand against the Army of God. To fight for the land of their fathers.

There were many beautiful, sweet smelling flowers on Safehold, no doubt about that. But it was extremely difficult to import alien species from Old Earth and help them live and flourish in the Safeholdian environment. Of course, the task being time sensitive, the main focus of the terraforming teams was on all of those plant and animal species which had a real practical use and could play a huge role in the survival of the humankind on its new planet.
Pei Shan-wei sighed over a list of various seeds in their storage facilities.
"The rose are still not catching well..."

Adoree Bedard carefully saved and backed up the document she has been working on and sent a copy of it to Eric Langhorne. Their common brainchild - the Church of God - needed a solid, reliable base for belief. And Adoree took it upon herself to provide it. She just finished the draft of the Holy Writ. It contained everything important - from hygenic and health directions, over basic agricultural technology, all the way to baseball rules. All wrapped tastefully up in citations plagiarized from Bible.
"This is the Word of God,as we - Archangels - are writing it to you - His Children."

Merlin, like most of the inner circle, saw what went on in the 'concentration camps' the Inquisition got into the habit of building. He witnessed several of his friends being subjected to the Question and to the full rigor or the Punishment of Schueler. Any of that alone would have been a very, very sickening experience. All of it together left such an aftertaste, he could no longer bring himself to feel anything but grim satisfaction at every Inquisitor executed by Charisians. What scared him was that he wished upon them something far worse than a simple beheading or hanging.

Princess Irys Daykyn ran through the palace, looking for her younger brother. The banquet and ball was about to commence in half an hour, but the Prince, in whose honor the whole shindig was to be held and who was supposed to open the ceremonies, was missing. She almost ran headlong into Hektor.
"Have you found him yet?" she asked almost desperately.
"No, but I haven't looked into his chambers. Let's go there."
They headed to Daivyn's bedroom. Daivyn sat under something resembling a tent made of duvets.
"Seijin Merlin told me to do this when I'm nervous," he explained.

When he was hunting, most of the creatures were not fast, agile or smart to escape if he set on getting them. Younger krakens of his school worshipped him, calling him immortal.
He decided to do what no kraken has ever done - hunt a sea wywern. He waited until one came close to the surface and attacked.
It escaped, but parked itself short distance away. He jumped and missed again.
Provoked, he tried once more.
His fourth jump ended on a quay - out of the water.
The wywern flew away cackling.
Desperately gulping for breath, he learned he is mortal...

It all started when the Gbaba found the first human colony. It wasn't particularly big, therefore its destruction was swift. Before the rest of mankind found out what happened, several other colonies fell prey to the aliens.
Terran Federation started to organize defense, mobilize its fleets, build and man more ships. Eventhough humankind began to gain technological and tactical edge quite quickly, the enemy had too pronounced numerical advantage. Gbaba were also very skilled at finding out and destroying evacuation and colonization fleets.
The Safehold plan was a last ditch effort, after the Gbaba completed their invasion of Sol system...

Zion was a real gem in the Archangels' crown. Anybody who was fortunate enough to get into the city could not argue with that statement. The Temple was amazing - a true work of the archangels themselves, with all of its 'magical' properties.
For all that, however, Zion and the Temple were a place of corruption and evil.
Tellesberg was not that majestic - it was a city of merchants and workers, a city of sailors and fishmongers. Built only and solely by the hands of men. Its Cathedral was beautiful, but not magical. Yet it was the truer House of God.

Ahnzhelyk Phonda owned the most luxurious, high profile public houses in the city of Zion. She was definitely not the youngest, but she still had her charm and elegance - both more than abounding, for that matter. When the situation started to be too hot even for her liking, Ahnzhelyk simply disappeared.
And couple weeks later, Aivah Parsahn appeared, as a new and fresh wind to the high society of Siddar City.
Only a few people would link these two together. And almost noone would connect any of them all the way back to Nynyan Rychtair - bastard daughter of a Vicar.