Hollywood the Conqueror - A History

The hero who rolled the dice, and remade the world,

From a pathetic scattering of nomads tottering about in their ancestral homes -- barren lands considered backwards by the "civilized world" (lands such as Mongolia, Siberia, Afghanistan and Eastern United States), Hollywood the Magnificent called them.

Organizing these forces under his black banner, it was in the first age that he made his assault. The eternally feared Ghengis Khan took tens of thousands of men to finally subdue the kingdoms of China...Lord Hollywood needed but four (losing nary a soldier in the process). The Bartliean wanted naught of the fine silks and parlor games of this empire, however. The Scoundrel Army of Boots the Despicable was amassing in Siam, threatening to envelop all of Asia in its reign of torture, and incest. Sensing the threat, wise Hollywood shrewdly retreated to the wilderness of Irktusk, prepared to wait out the brewing storm.

for the next ages, border skirmishes continued in the North, the Bartleian Hordes training and hardening themselves into what would come to be known as the most fearsome fighting force the globe map has ever known.

A world away, however, King Nums the Furious was forging an empire of hate and greed, all controlled deviously from his fortress sanctuary of Greenland. Explorers under his flag advanced far into Europe during this era, and for a time, it seemed as if all the world would fall under this banner of red. Raising bountiful and numerous armies from his lands in North America, and lesser (yet still significant) armies from South America, Nums the Furious turned his greedy eyes to the Dark Continent, Africa.

Across the sea, in West Africa, the regents of Boots the Despicable prepared their defenses. Their Lord had carved a swath of the Earth from Australia through the global south bottom of the map all the way to the African coasts. As Boots and Nums eyed each other warily from their ivory citadels, it seemed as though the world held but the faintest memory of those forgotten mauraders of the North.

Little did they know that during this time Hollywood the Glorious had been training a secret army. A symphony of warfare composed of man, horse and cannon alike. When this secret army emerged from the Scandanavian fjords, the world entire held its breath.

The world entire, that is, except Hollywood the Conqueror, who with his Secret Army smashed through Europe, exhaling the sweet breath of victory throughout the Old World. The Scandanavians obliterated Nums's feeble garrisons, strategially leaving rearguard battalions as they went. Northern Europe, then Southern Europe and finally Western Europe, Great Britain and Iceland were bathed in the sweet dishwater of freedom, untilthe Secret Army sttod at the gates of Nums the Furious' Greenland fortress itself. Surely the red king lived up to his moniker that night I tell you.

Then, in a stroke of genius, Hollywood the Magnificent led his hordes off the steppes of Irktusk himself. Sweeping through Asia and finally seating itself in the Ukraine, countless horses (3) standing vigil over the gateway to the new Golden Empire of Europe.

All was not yet well with the world, though. King Nums was calling for a new crusade, but to the surprise of all, he staged his newly conscripted forces not in the bolstering of his Greenland Citadel, but in the lush jungles of Brazil. He was preparing to tear through the soft underbelly of the Southern Empire of Boots the Despicable! A soft interreggenum of inactiviy had made the once fearsome Scoundrel Army decrepid and foofy. It seemed old Nums had finally found the chance to put the sword to his old foe.

The Army of the Furious swept ashore in Western Africa, taking the territory in what historians would later describe as more of a ceremony than a battle. Then, inexplicably, Nums the Furious Fortified his gains and halted the attack. Boots the Despicable lived to fight another day --- a day King Nums would soon regret.

Infinite in his cunning and handsomeness, Hollywood the Powerful had raised yet another secret army, this time in the lush valleys of Iceland. In a pitched and terrible battle, the forces of glory crushed the red Citadel into dust, completing the most incredible amphibious assault the world had ever seen.

As the earth looked on in awe, however, Hollywood the Sun-Prince had further plans still. Through Greenland, the Northwest Territory and Alaska, the men, horses and cannons of Hollywood embarked on a furious march across the top of the world, finally routing the Kamchatkan Army of Nums the Furious in a stunning maneuver that left God himself enthralled.

It was to be the high water mark in the history of the planet board. The Pax Hollywood was as short-lived as it was marvelous, for Boots the Mischevious had been conjuring a secret army of his own deep in the recesses of Siam. This unruly mob of subhuman orc-things and horny bear men would soon be unleashed upon the Earth, leaving nothing but chaos and heartache in its wake. With little fanfare, the reamining citizens of the once-proud kingdom of Nums were swept off the map. Finally, this horrid army exhausted itself in the frozen wastelands of Quebec.

Now, the world is a grim place. World population has fallen by breathtaking margins. Libraries and centers of learning are decimated many times over, shadows and shells of their former selves.

It is at this dark moment that a broken Earth looks to the final legendary garrisons of Hollywood for its salvation: the Iron Artillery of Yukon (1 cannon) and the Ghost Calvary of the Ukraine (two horses, a couple of men).

Will the world have a chance at new life? As always, that depends on little more than chance: the roll of the dice, the turn of the card. The larger question, though, lurks in the mind of the Conqueror himself:

Is this a world worth dominating?