I was roughly fifty hours into "Warband" before I finally figured out how to play it. Half a dozen spectacularly failed characters happened before that. Kingdoms were lost, empires demolished. Hundreds of hapless men crushed under the heel of an unforgiving monarchy. And yet, something kept drawing me back to it. I wanted a kingdom of my own so badly, to rule over this world that had so thoroughly ground me into the dirt. I could almost taste it. It was possible - but how?

-oOo-

I am the daughter of an outlaw, a roughshod woman with a slow-building temper like a volcano. I take care of my men, gain their loyalty by any means and do my best to feed them off the meager plunder we pull in from the deaths of thieves and stragglers. I am as tougher than the nails in my boots and take nonsense from no one. I can see my future stretching out before me - a chain of great victories, a rise through the ranks of nobility. A kingdom of my own, someday.

But no lord would grant me a fief. I ride from kingdom to kingdom, asking, begging to be let in to the service of any king - no matter who. I know, deep down, that I'm capable of so much more than they think. That all the rolled eyes in the world cannot hold me back. If one person would just give me a chance, then…

My warband is growing too large to be supported by loot alone. And I can't bear to downsize. I'd raised these men from peasants into knights. They're my family, my lifeline. I'd promised them greatness if they gave their swords to me. I do not go back on such promises.

In a last-ditch effort to gain a standing in the world, I meet with the King of the Vaegirs, stumbling upon his hunting party, combing the tundra. He hears my plea and eyes me warily through the slits in his helmet. I can't parse what he's thinking at all. His chainmail veil rattles against his collar as he cocks his head, cruel amusement growing in his gray eyes.

"No." he says, a chuckle in his steely voice, "A woman among my lords? What would the other kingdoms think of me?"

I charge across the frozen ground, knifing the bandits whose goods would provide tonight's dinner, but nothing more. Money is growing tight. I'm getting to my wit's end, though I never let on to my men.

With every rejection, the furnace inside me grows just a little bit hotter.

I ride through a pass in the mountains and happen upon a castle. It isn't remarkable, as fortresses go. An old stone keep braced against the wind and weather, standing in solitude with its poor little village. It's lightly guarded, compared to other castles.

I will make it mine.

In a matter of hours, I assail its walls and slaughter the defenders. Blood runs down the tortured stone. I laugh as I trod on the bodies of the dead and the will of those who had said I was nothing.

The village welcomes me with open arms, hailing me as queen when I pass, bowing their heads in reverence. I weep as I think of all I can accomplish here. A school! A mill! Opportunities that I'd never had. Dreams I was barred from making reality.

But the victory did not come cheap. Mingled throughout the twisted forms of the slain are the corpses of most of my army. Good men who had followed me into death, into what? Some misplaced gambit for revenge? The reality of the situation begins to sink in.

I need to raise another army. Now.

They're coming. I can hear the hoof beats in the back of my mind, the sound of a hammer whistling through the air. A slit in a visor through which angry gray eyes condemn me.

I leave behind most of my remaining forces to guard my precious holdings and race to the nearest village, willing to take any layabout who can swing an axe.

I barely make it a mile away before I see them on the horizon. The Vaegir King and his lords, their forces numbering in the thousands, their wrath poised over the heads of my hapless men. I see the hammer about to fall and know that there is nothing I can do to stop it.

I think of running, of clawing my way up from the ashes once again. Forgetting this debacle - all the lives it cost - and starting anew.

That is behavior unbecoming of a queen.

I make my way back to my tiny kingdom and take my place in the shield wall, my jaw set, my sword hand quivering.

No one survives the first assault.

I am stripped of my armor and thrown into chains. Paraded about town like the laughingstock that I am. And then the dungeon door slams shut behind me. Darkness and silence reigns. I am broken beyond repair, a caricature of the proud warrior who once was.

I waste away in the belly of my own castle until the days have no meaning anymore.

-oOo-

I am an impoverished nobleman from a distant land. The second-born. Noble, but doomed to inherit nothing. All I want is a little slice of land I can call my own, a wife, a family.

I am welcomed with open arms into the Nord court. I am poor and can contribute little to the cause, but I tag along on every military venture I can. I lick the Marshall 's boots on a daily basis, buddy-ing up to the second most powerful man in the realm in every demeaning way known to mankind.

I woo his daughter and with a grand gesture, he gives us permission to marry. We move into my crumbling fief together, with its cold walls and severe decorations. It feels warmer inside when there's someone there waiting for me. It was all I ever wanted. Despite the meagerness of my life, I am at peace.

But war rages on outside. The Vaegirs encroach upon our territory, taking our strongholds one by one, killing our people mercilessly. My father-in-law loses his home and makes his living on the run, breathlessly traveling from camp to camp, struggling uphill to regain what he'd lost. His title is taken from him not long after. My intrepid butt-kissing came to nothing in the end.

I have never been a warrior of any sort of fame. I keep my head down and do what I'm told. I march with the lowest of the rank and file, trying only to pull my weight, to keep my head above water. I never want to risk my men. They have separate lives, families - how can I take that from them on a gamble that might not pay off? They don't deserve that. Nobody does.

And so, I shape myself into Nobody. A lord without value who cannot protect his king's holdings. Who sees castles lost time and time again and has no means of winning them back. Who watches his enemy march to his own gates at last and welcomes them in with open arms.

In our last moments together, I hold my wife tight, whispering my wretched goodbyes in her ear.

-oOo-

I am a proud woman of the Khans, adept with sword and shield, with a horse as fast as the wind. I have decided to play with mods and am heartily amused by the "no sexism" button I've found. Of all the things I wish existed in reality…

I build a warband of horsemen and rage across the desert like a tsunami, taking down sand bandits like no one else. Soon, I catch the eye of the Great Khan and become an enlisted soldier in his war against the Sarranids.

Together, I and his men commit unfathomable acts of genocide on the desert people, painting their monuments red, poisoning their wells, wrenching families apart. I enjoy it immensely. The Sarranids are disorganized, weak. We're consuming their empire piece by piece. I dream of the day when there's nothing left of them, when Khans are the only ones who rule the desert. Or the continent, for that matter.

But the war drags on for a long time. Men are being run ragged with conquest. Coffers start to run dry. I see my allies retreat into the protection of their ancestral homes - to rest, recoup, add to their tired forces.

In the meantime, the Sarranids are fighting back. They know their end is in sight and with their last gasp of breath, they launch assault after assault. Some of them are successful. Others are halted by me, the one remaining army left to watch over the conquered territories. I can't stop them all. My men are wearing down too. But if I don't take action soon, an enemy we thought vanquished would gain a foothold in territory that was meant to be ours.

Their last stronghold is Shariz. There, the sultan waits, surrounded by the loyal few who haven 't been taken prisoner yet. If they could be broken, the backbone of the Sarranid Sultanate would lie in pieces at my feet.

They outnumber me four to one. My allies are far away, caught up in a stupid second war on the other end of continent. If this is going to happen, it will have to be me and me alone.

I grip my reins and grit my teeth. With a wild shriek, we bear down on the gates of the city and storm inside. The streets run red with blood as we work our way to the keep, cutting a path through the thicket of defenders. Nearly dead with exhaustion, I see the Sultan, resplendent in his ankle-length chainmail, his scimitar poised for my demise.

I cut him down and crush his windpipe beneath my heel. He dies, helpless and gasping for air. The city is mine. I sink to my knees in the carnage, coated in blood and gore, amazed and horrified by what I'd done.

I do not emerge from the city as the person that I was. From then on, I am the "Castle-Cracker," the "Maw of Shariz." On that day, I shot up the social ladder ten rungs.

I gambled everything and won, running headlong in to danger, risking the lives of the men beneath me, my wealth, my status. Without that risk, that mad drive - the battle would not have been worth half so much to my liege lord or myself.

On that day, the lesson that half a dozen doomed warlords had failed to grasp was at last made clear. Reward without risk is nothing. Gamble everything on the roll of the dice, on the strength of your back, on the sharpness of your mind or this world will never accept you as worthy.

I have ceased being afraid since then. I crack castles with regularity, lay my head on the chopping block as a daily occurrence. One day the sword will fall on me, as it does to everyone who stumbles in my path.

But for now, Shariz is at peace. Its fruit trees bloom by the ocean side. The people are fat and content. Traders bring goods from kingdoms far away, filling our markets to bursting. I build on the magnificent base that was there and remember what happened to those who put it in place. Shariz is my home now, my personal estate. The one I love best above all others, though my holdings are vast.

There are days when I lay back, sipping wine and thinking of how good I've got it, how kind and benevolent a ruler the Great Khan is, to grant the best of his warlords such grand tracts of land. And then I squeeze my cup, remembering why it was that I came to this land in the first place.

I did not come here to be a king's pawn.

I did not topple an empire for someone else's gain.

I do not throw myself under swords and spears because a high-born man told me to.

Someday, though it hurts to admit it, the shadow of my sword will fall on the throat of my liege lord. Our armies will meet on the field of battle, the ruler-ship of a continent decided by the clashing of our blades. I will ride to doom or victory, everything I am carried on the blade of my sword.

There is no reward without risk, no victory without the shadow of blackest defeat.