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// Author's Foreword 
// Story: North and South 
// by Tempest Wind 
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Author’s Foreword


Hello Fimfiction!

It’s honestly been a fair bit of time since I’ve posted anything to Fimfiction - almost three years! Three years of not posting anything, be it a blog, a story, a chapter, or what-have-you has been disappointingly easy for myself, considering I’ve simply let a lot of big goings-on in my life take over and stop me from writing.

No more, though. No, I’m committed to putting this story out on a semi daily basis, not only to get myself back into writing, but because this story is something I’ve wanted to write for a while - not just since I picked up Grand Tactician, which I’m currently sitting on roughly 300 hours for, as of starting this story, but also the older game Ultimate General, Civil War (of which I have a disgustingly large amount of hours in) for many the same reasons. Due to the nature of this story, it will likely not be peer edited - though if anyone wants to go back through posted chapters and let me know of anything my own re-read missed as I post these chapters, I would appreciate it.

A bit of forewarning, as we go into this story however! I have assembled an incredibly large cast of characters - over two hundred ponies, both show canon (and from generation four and six!) and from the massive character list of the Hearts of Iron IV mod, Equestria at War- as well as a few characters kindly borrowed from some near and dear friends of mine. This is mostly out of necessity from the companion piece to this story, my newly started USA/Union campaign in Grand Tactician. I go on to say this and give this warning, because Grand Tactician is about as grognardy (re: ridiculously in-depth) as similar games for different time periods, such as the infamous Gary Grigsby’s War in the East/West series. This includes feuding officers who dislike each other and deliberately ignore, disobey, or delay orders, as well as more concerningly for some people, officer casualties.



Any officer in Grand Tactician, from a lowly Captain up to the commanding general of an army, can get wounded, and die. I don’t expect every officer to end up dead - neither the game nor I are as stab happy as George R. R. Martin - but I give forewarning that your favorite horse may end up dead during the course of this story and campaign. I obviously will be doing my level best to avoid that, but such is the reality of war. Every chapter of the story (including this one, which includes the campaign set-up and a link to credits for any and all artwork I modded into the game!) will have a link to an associated blog post, where I will post chapter relevant game updates and give my thoughts on how the campaign’s going.



It’s going to be an uphill battle to win this everyone, so I hope you enjoy the ride. Please keep any comments, discussions, and the like civil, within Fimfiction.net’s terms of service, and most importantly, kind to each other. 



Tempest Wind