Founded by Kingdom of Foxes (later Kingdom Foxes) and Imperial "not for the purpose of war" and governed by an Electorate of guild masters^[1], it persisted as a social and political layer beneath — and once, briefly, above — every war bloc from the early guild era to the eve of the realignment era.

History

Founding and the Electorate (2015)

Valkyrie's founding thread was opened on 10 September 2015 by LoveLusting, "Queen of the Foxes", and set out both the date and the purpose: "unlike many other alliances, Valkyrie was not established for the purpose of war. Rather, the partnership was created with the aim of solidifying and maintaining the already very good social relations between the two guilds." It was put into action on 2 June 2015, the Kingdom of Foxes' first anniversary.^[1]

Its constitution left internal government alone and pooled only foreign policy: "While guild governments may still maintain their powers with regards to their respective internal affairs, all powers regarding the conclusion of foreign affairs or policy will be forfeited to the Valkyrie Electorate. This administration comprises the guild leaders of each member-guild and functions using unanimous agreement in their decision-making process."^[1] A third guild followed that winter: at a joint award ceremony on 12 December 2015, LoveLusting announced that "the Lightly Toasted Heroes, lead by klove and Emily, will be joining the Valkyrie Alliance."^[2][3]

The Ordo Malleus intake (March 2016)

Valkyrie's first expansion beyond its founding circle followed the collapse of Ordo Malleus on 9 March 2016. Holders Of LE [HoL] and HaHaUnited [HHU] joined on 18 March 2016.^[4] Drew1011, who owned Holders of LE and negotiated the entry, described the occasion: "On March 18th, 2016, 9 days after Ordo's collapse, the Holders of LE, Kingdom of Foxes, HaHaUnited, and Imperial all gathered at a ceremony in Llevigar. This is when it was officially announced that we would be joining."^[5] By his account the opening had been arranged months earlier — he had been sent to recruit Kingdom of Foxes and Imperial into Ordo Malleus in November 2015, failed, and kept the friendship with LoveLusting that resulted^[6] — and he describes the alliance in that period as having "no true leader", with LoveLusting its "unofficial leader"^[7].

Holders of LE left on 5 June 2016 to found Halcyon with ToastedPandas^[8], and Drew1011 published a leaving message in which he called the guild "the first (and probably only) guild to ever leave Valkyrie" and undertook not to share alliance business^[9][10]. It rejoined on 3 September 2016^[11].

The message by which Holders of LE left Valkyrie on 5 June 2016 to found Halcyon; from Drew1011's account of the period. It also records that LoveLusting drew the guild's art.

The Parliament and the 2016 relaunches

Valkyrie's thread was rebuilt twice in thirteen months. "ahri left so Kv had to make a new one, then Kv left so now I run this thing," Yuno F Gasai of Imperial wrote on 13 September 2016.^[12] Yuno's relaunch thread, opened 29 August 2016, reused the founding text with one substitution: the Electorate had become the "Valkyrie Parliament", now "the guild masters of each member-guild", still acting by unanimity. Its roster of four — Imperial, Kingdom of Foxes, House of Sentinels and Lightly Toasted Heroes [Lth] — was the alliance's largest recorded concurrent membership.^[13] "pretzule leads a Valkyrie guild tho," Yuno answered a rival's boast in the same thread.^[14]

Three rosters survive from a seven-week window and no two agree. The August thread lists Imperial, Kingdom of Foxes, House of Sentinels and Lightly Toasted Heroes^[13]; Drew1011, describing 3 September, wrote that "the alliance was now composed of Imp, HHU, LTH, and Snt"^[15]; and the October thread lists Kingdom of Foxes, Holders of LE and Ha Ha United^[16]. Drew1011's version explains the August list's Kingdom of Foxes entry as stale, since the guild had disbanded on 2 July 2016^[17], but his own October thread lists Kingdom of Foxes again, while by his narrative it did not exist between 2 July and 24 November 2016^[18]. The likeliest reading is that the published rosters were kept loosely, with guilds carried on paper after they ceased to operate.

The 2016 leadership change

The third relaunch, opened on 15 October 2016 by Drew1011, marks the point where the alliance had outlived its founders.^[16] Imperial had left in the intervening weeks — "Hey, we are pretty alive," its leadership replied to a mourner in the thread, "Just not in the alliance anymore"^[19] — and Lightly Toasted Heroes had also gone "a few weeks ago"^[20], "in order to try and revive the guild".^[21]

The only account of what happened between the two threads is Drew1011's, written in February 2018; he is its principal actor and beneficiary. By his account LoveLusting proposed the change: "she suddenly suggested that the other leaders and me should coup Yuno and make myself the leader of Valkyrie. The thought had barely crossed my mind until Ari suggested it."^[22] He describes canvassing Misty of House of Sentinels and Ha_Ha_Redstone of Ha Ha United, drafting each message himself and having Misty send it^[23]. The first message, signed "A Unanimous Declaration from the Leaders of Valkyrie", asked Yuno F Gasai to "step down from your position and focus your attention on leading Imperial, not Valkyrie", citing his inactivity and his creation of a war alliance and admission of the Wybel Kingdom to it without consultation^[24].

The first ultimatum sent to Yuno F Gasai, drafted by Drew1011 and sent by Misty; from Drew1011's account of the period.

Yuno declined, asked for more time, asked who the others intended to install — which Drew1011 says he refused to answer — and said Imperial would leave if he were removed. "To be truthful, I thought he was bluffing. I think we all did," Drew1011 wrote^[25]. A third message answered that "if the price of this change is the loss of Imperial, then that is a price we are all willing to take"^[26]. "Immediately after I sent this message, Yuno announced that Imperial would be leaving. He left all the chats and deleted his Valkyrie thread."^[27]

The message that preceded Imperial's withdrawal from Valkyrie, autumn 2016; from Drew1011's account of the period.

The October thread reproduced the August thread's constitutional text verbatim: "I obtained Yuno's permission to copy and paste his Valkyrie thread, and posted it myself," Drew1011 wrote.^[28][13][16] The reaction in the new thread was elegiac: "R.I.P OG Valkyrie guilds", wrote DireFire^[29], and another reader observed "tmw the alliance originally made by Imp and Fox has neither Imp nor Fox in it"^[30]. Drew1011 led the alliance from 15 October 2016 to 10 March 2018.^[31]

The alliance did not revive under him. "I began revising the Valkyrie constitution, but only ever got about a fourth of the way through… I could not lead an alliance that did not have the ambition to rise," he wrote of the weeks after the relaunch^[32]; and of February 2017, "a mere five days after the leadership change, the House of Sentinels left the alliance. Considering HoL and HHU, the only other guilds left in Valkyrie, were already dead, there seemed to be no point in trying to revive Valkyrie at that time."^[33] House of Sentinels' departure thus fell around 12 February 2017, leaving the revived Kingdom of Foxes as the alliance's only functioning member.

The Federation years (2018)

Valkyrie persisted through the year of the Federation's total map dominance, several of its members simultaneously inside the war bloc. The Hive joined around March 2018 (welcomed that April as having "joined a month prior"), and Emorians joined on 23 May 2018.^[34] The memberships of Holders Of LE and HaHaUnited appear to have ended with a leadership restructure on 10 March 2018, the day Drew1011's Valkyrie leadership ended.^[31] The alliance still ran an operational channel that spring: describing a warning he passed on in May 2018, Drew1011 names "the Valkyrie command channel" as one of three places he sent it^[35].

The interregnum (winter 2018–19)

After the Federation died in November 2018, the community timeline records that "all guilds keep to themselves with valk owning most of Gavel" — the closest the alliance ever came to territorial power in its own name.^[36] Kingdom Foxes and Imperial were the interregnum's top territory gainers.^[37] Drew1011 held Valkyrie officer titles through January 2019.^[31]

Luna and after (2019)

In 2019 the bloc warred publicly as Luna, with Valkyrie remaining the social layer beneath the war alliance; the apparent Fox-versus-Imperial fighting of that spring was a war fought under Luna's banner.^[34] Emorians' Valkyrie stint ended with its August 2019 Luna exit. Imperial and Paladins United were members by 14 September 2019.^[38]

A memoir written by Arkada of Titans Valor as the September 2019 fighting was still going on states: "The Valkyrie alliance, consisting of Kingdom Foxes, Imperial, Paladins United, and Emorians, have existed for longer than I've played Wynncraft."^[38] Imperial and Paladins United's recorded joins both fall on 14 September 2019^[34], and Imperial had left the alliance in 2016.^[19] The discrepancy is best read as a wartime observer assuming the bloc he was fighting was as old as its name; the years 2017–2019 are thinly documented, and a longer Imperial or Paladins United association cannot be excluded.

Final years (2020–2022)

Valkyrie still described itself as a community alliance "built on friendship" in 2020^[39], and a Paladins United member wrote simply "In Valk" in March 2020.^[40] Through the May 2021 realignment that produced Valhalla and Khaos, a forum megalist contributor noted that "Valkyrie stayed the same" while the two major alliances renamed.^[41] Paladins United's thread listed "Valkyrie and Hestia, both community alliances" from November 2021^[42] until 19 September 2022.^[43] Nothing later mentions the alliance, and no dissolution was ever recorded. The satirical "Greater Valkyrie Alliance" thread of October 2022 involved unrelated guilds trading on the name.

Membership

Valkyrie's full roster was never published in any era. Its largest recorded concurrent membership is the four guilds of the August 2016 relaunch — Imperial, Kingdom of Foxes, House of Sentinels and Lightly Toasted Heroes.^[13] Machine-recorded alliance data begins in January 2018 and shows at most three member guilds at once.^[34]

Legacy

Valkyrie outlived every war alliance of its time — Coalition, Federation, Luna, Terra, Artemis, Valhalla — spanning seven years and every era of guild warfare from 2015 to 2022.^[34] Though it held territory in the interregnum, in each of its own self-descriptions across seven years it was a community alliance first.^[1] Its constitutional formula — internal affairs to the guilds, foreign affairs to a unanimous council of guild masters — was reused almost verbatim by Halcyon in 2016^[8] and was the earliest written model of alliance governance. Drew1011, describing Halcyon's founding, put the borrowing plainly: it was "a small two-guild alliance that totally wasn't a rip off of the original Valkyrie."^[44]