The Ghost Ship Message Board: The Declaration of Vennish Sovereignty

Broadcast on all Nationalist-controlled radio frequency, including common military lines, published in the next day's newspapers, and even publicized with a patriotic war film in many Vennish theatres, Prime Minister Van Dresden's newest and perhaps most important political statements are assured to be known in every corner of the Venway isles very soon.

Sons and Daughters of the Venway Confederation,

Before this war began, our ancestral homeland was underneath the control and government of its ancestral people. Now, even as our bravest and finest regiments of patriotic youth are in the battlefields of the world, fighting the most villainous Imperial regime ever to extend its hungry shadow into our country, even as the armies of the Mutiny Alliance and her Great Allies push back the forces of tyranny to whence they came - liberating fallen countries and bringing the luminescent torch of freedom's grand crusade to the corners of our world, we face a new looming shadow of foreign greed in the very heart of our confederacy.

The Godslayer Imperial forces have been respectfully adherent to our laws and customs during their brief movement through Venway, in their aid against the Warlock Order's now-extinct invasion forces.

The Zhentarim has become one of our greatest partners in commerce and trade, they have helped us to feed the soldiers which defend us by taking the fight to the Warlock Order's own territories and liberating scores of Vennish nationals in the Middlelands and Galen Thal. Their contributions to the confederation's economy allow us to fill the pockets of the men and women on the streets and to feed the children of the mothers who's husbands and sons are battling with the Order on foreign soil.

Only the Alante - the fourth chief member of our great entente has shown ambition against us, shown disrespect to the people of Venway by defying their elected officials on Vennish soil, and shown the haughty and bourgeois attitude of a kingdom that believes that only their own rules apply to them. Their salvation of Mutiny Alliance sailors off the coast of Odindrust was an act which they should be offered our sincerest thanks for. However, make no mistake, Venway, no ally let's its sister's men drown wholesale in a sea of frozen death. They know we would have done the same for them. That is how war works. You keep your brethren alive, because we are all in this together.

Now, the Alante royal government has began a propaganda campaign against the Vennish people themselves. A blatant and audacious admittance to the use of espionage against the Mutiny Alliance Coast Guard has been their latest attempt to drag the Vennish people into a war with their country's fellow allies.

I will not lie to you, citizens of Venway, I am angry. Angry that a foreign power would dare to attempt to use you as pawns in the bloody chessboard to combat a nation which has never extended any hostilities against any of you. I know Ordell must have been laughing - until now. For now he knows that we are not the fools that he has taken us for.

The home guard will, by the end of the week, occupy all Alante positions on the Venway isles. I call upon the said Alante commanders to save any semblence of their country's reputation and legitimacy within the Great Allies by removing their forces peacefully and without protest from their Vennish encampments. The Alante is not yet considered an army of foreign occupation in our lands. Of course, by the coming week, we shall see if this will change.

As for the Zhentarim's declaration of war upon the Alante kingdom, I have this to say - our choice of neutrality does not anger the Zhent people or government. If it offends those of the Alante - well, we shall see who truly cares for us, shall we not?

The Alante propaganda machine will surely respond with a host of demonizations and mudslinging against me. However, Venway, as Prime Minister it is my duty and my honour to be the target of foreigners - instead of each and every one of you. I will not allow the Dragonfire house to drag our great country into a degrading war with our own allies - a war that would shred the Great Allies into two camps of battling nations and leave the Warlock Order free to threaten us from our front. When put into that perspective, it seems that the Alante wish to pay us in blood and treachory - and in our country's possible extinction. I refuse to let this occure. There for, if the price of this is the blackening of my name, I will gladly pay it.

Thank you and may the Saints bless you.

Prime Minister Van Dresden