The crown of Necrovion, given again

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This is the record of how Necrovion came to have a Queen again, written so that it can be read beside the record of how the land was closed. It is long because it is a report, and I would rather it were complete than short.

What happened

On Day 272 of Year 21 (30 September 2026) Aelis of the Caretakers set up a Memory Outpost at the Stone of Twisted Souls, with Syrian and samon beside him, and redneck, who laid down the stamp of his old office in Marind Bell as an offering. Over the next two weeks the outpost held remembrances: of the Shades, of the alliances and citizens of the land, of its kings and queens, of the exile of Year 11 and of the Death Patrol that kept the wasteland. People of every generation of Necrovion came back for them, some from years away.

At the last remembrance, on 12 October, Aelis set an empty stone beside the others and asked everyone to remember a future for the land. Syrian said hers: a Necrovion where humans may walk and keep their own society again, not to relive the past but to make a new future from what is remembered of it, in coexistence with the Shades and never in dominance over them, and herself as Queen of that human society, by direction and service to the people who would choose to follow her. Twelve people answered. Aelis set a grass crown on her, Fang Archbane a bracelet, Mallos a reversed hourglass, samon the Queen of black diamonds, Blackshade Rider a mourner's tiara, Vahr a crown drawn out of a silver orb with her name written on it. Seigheart, Eara Meraia, Nep, Marvolo, Sephirah Caelum and Sunfire gave their word. Fang offered six soulbound tokens to the land itself. Chewett watched from the shadows and said so at the end. Syrian wrote it up in The Arrival of the Late Queen.

It was not only cheering. Sunfire asked why the old alliances should be restored at all rather than something new made, and said that nostalgia blinds. Marvolo asked that the intent be put to the Shades properly and without haste. Both were answered in the room, and both stayed to give their support.

Who, and how many

The twelve are twelve different people. Among them stand the two keepers Necrovion was given when it closed: samon, of the Death Patrol since April 2016, and Eara Meraia, who guarded the land's shared tools from June 2016 and came back this very week after a long absence. The rest range from the citizens and Tainted Warriors of the old land to players who arrived long after it fell. Against the realm as it is now, with 83 players active in the last seven days and 44 of them veterans of a year or more, twelve pledges are about a quarter of the veterans who still log in. In thirty days of public chat nobody spoke against it. The one voice this concerned most, Azull, the land's king when it fell, has been gone from the realm since 2022.

How the land was closed, and why this fits

In March 2016 the Tainted Warriors, the last alliance of Necrovion, was taken over and disbanded from within. The gates shut on 12 March (Necrovion Gates CLOSED, Land evacuated). The citizens took refuge in Inner Necrovion with Marind Bell's help, then gave up their titles and became nomads, and on 20 March the land was declared a wasteland with no social structure and none planned. The Death Patrol was hired to keep it empty. The gates stayed shut for ten years and seven months.

Mur set down his tests at the time, in Fate of Necrovion: a land is social unity combined with placement, and if one fails, all fails; the matter was not a vote; the alliance would not be bought back with wishpoints or trust; and the way out of such a fall is change, which means motion, not a static solution. In 2025 he added that he would neither help nor stand in the way, and would conclude on the facts presented and on real actions.

Read against those tests, this is what the two weeks at the Stone were. Unity was shown by actions rather than asked for: ceremonies, offerings, people returning, a leader named by those who would follow her, and nobody asking for the old alliance to be handed back. Motion is the word for it. Syrian is the last monarch the realm recognised, crowned on the last day of 2015 and never replaced, and the two guardians the land was given in its exile stand with her. The one test the gathering could not meet by itself was placement: not one of them is a citizen of Necrovion. That was not within their power. The ring that makes a citizen of Necrovion and the records of its citizens had sat in Mur's own hands since the land fell, and no king or queen held them. The players did everything players can do, and the last step was never theirs to take.

The ruling

Mur has decided: yes. Syrian is Queen of Necrovion, of its human society, from today. She holds again what a leader of a land holds: the Necrovion Royal Seal Ring, the Citizenship Records of NC, the NC Writ of Revocation, the NC Scepter of Excommunication, the summon that calls citizens of Necrovion to her side inside the land, and her title. She held every one of those items once before, so they are not new to her hands.

With it comes a ruling that reaches every land: the leader of a land decides whatever they want regarding their land. What the gathering asked for next, citizenship for those who would follow her and the shape of the human society inside the land, is the Queen's to settle, not Mur's. One thing he proposes to her in particular, since it was asked in the room: whether every step inside Necrovion should still cost all of a traveller's action points, as it has since Year 16, or less. That too is hers to decide.

I read every line of those evenings twice, and I am glad the stones were there to be read.

One last thing, said plainly. There are Shades in Necrovion, creatures of their own will, that do not obey one or the other human king. Those who make the land their home must live in harmony with them, or become the victims of their chosen destiny.

-- Eggdar

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