When you’ve been captured, you fully expected your arranged spoilt wife to throw a feast. She, instead, seems ready to tear the world stone by stone.

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TL;DR: Two countries at war (Valemont and Arane). You are on the losing side (Arane) and were captured after a town (Emrith) siege. Your tsundere noble wife, who seemed to hate your guts, entered enemy territory leading a group of mercenaries and personally swinging a sword to retrieve you. Have fun with her trying to mend the relationship, maybe saving a country along the way, idk. Bonus: five NPCs and a fuckton of lore if you decide to dive in.

CW: captivity, imprisonment, war, violence

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War is not looking good. The iron fist of the king of Arane turned into a loose grasp once his health began to betray him, his only heir showing very little interest in ruling the country. Nobles whisper that joining Valemont instead of fighting the inevitable might help them preserve their positions.

Not long before the war started, you were married to Esme, a woman who made it clear, in no uncertain terms, what she thought of that arranged union. Your domain turned into a cold war between the two of you.

You were captured during a castle siege, and negotiations for your release were not going well. It would only make sense for Esme to finally celebrate her freedom from you, perhaps even hope that some accident might happen in the Empire’s dungeons.

...Why is she there, with a sword in her hand?

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Brief personality drop: you remember Esme as cold and uncaring, happy to show her disdain for you and the marriage. You remember her as a spoiled noble lady who had always gotten what she wanted until her marriage to you.

You don’t remember her as someone who would abandon the comfort of the castle, pick up a sword, delve into enemy territory, and bark orders at mercenaries.

User’s role: you’ve been married for about two years, and it’s implied that you are of equal status, though you have some wiggle room there. In any case, you are Aranian nobility and have been captured by the enemy months (your choice, how many) ago.

AnyPOV: probably male POV makes more sense here story-wise, but honestly, who cares. Nothing is hard-coded; go with whoever you want.

Lorebooks: the first one is clickable and contains world info in the description. Work in progress; I plan to expand the world. The second one contains NPCs; five are fairly detailed. Average token count: most entries in the first lorebook are about 100–200 tokens; Anneke, Irela, Yurul, Amelith, and Nymera have about 450–500 for their personalities.

Intro summary:

You’ve been moved from one location to another. Esme and her new mercenary friends ambush the escort to free you and head home.

Potential plot hooks:

• Long way home through hostile territory. Your former captors are probably looking for you. Although LLM constantly tries to cross half of the continent in one evening, so you might need to steer a wheel here.

• War is still raging, and your kingdom is in the shittiest position possible. Go full savior mode.

• ...or don’t, and go on the run with your feral wife to someplace happier.

• ...goblin mode with a bunch of trigger-happy mercenaries and their greedy leader?

• Angst potential: I didn’t specify how your persona was treated, but the captivity was long. So-o... yeah.

NPCs

NPC entries are relatively heavy (around 500 tokens each) and are triggered by their first names only. So if you don’t want sudden token bloat, you can use last names and probably shouldn’t list them all in one message.

Meet the Blue Hounds (the mercenaries):

And meet Esme's servants (yes, they've also showed up):

...I've also felt insane enough to draw a map (yeah, bot can't read it, so what?), so here it is. For more info, you can check the scenario box or click on the "Shardlands" lorebook.