Seeing as arguments have gone circular and repetitive, everyone's dug in already.
Okay, now for the analysis
Diplomacy
12 [+1] (+1)->
14 (max, overflowing) [+1 Art]
So it turns out Diplomacy overflows into Art as well.
What happens if both Art and Economy are maxed out?
Economy 3(+1) -> 7
Lost 1 to Iron, gained 4 from Provinces.
Martial 10->8
We lost
2 Martial on a Secondary War Mission. Elite troops make war missions extremely costly when failed, but we knew that.
Main War missions will hurt like a bitch. Though thats true on both sides. Nomads have unlimited manpower.
Stability 1->0 (neutral)
Legitimacy 1->2 (dented)
So far so good. We're going to need to raise Stability before starting on mines I guess. Or wait for the war to finish first.
Art 4->2
We got the overflow from Diplomacy, and then we spent it on Proclaim Glory. Normal enough.
Mysticism 4->2
Spent it all on Iron. Definitely worth it, but we need more Mysticism.
The north burns, the surviving People huddled into the settlements with walls, barely scraping by with fish and grain imported via boat, their warriors dead and chariots smashed or captured. Everything not safely protected by stone walls has been burned or carried off, depending on how valuable and transportable they are. The warriors sent north from the south have fared somewhat better, but even with their backup they have been unable to push back the tide of chariot warriors.
Noting that based on the stats, this only refers to the Stallion Tribes. It hadn't reached Northshore or Stonepen yet or we'd be seeing Economy damage.
Based on what little we know about the Stallion Tribes, they just lost most of their Economy and Martial, probably down to 1-2, since fortunately, they have fishing based economy source too.
On the bright side, due to our Elitism trait, the Stallion Tribes can convert 2 Economy into 4 Martial in one Main action, bringing them immediately on par with our core polity again.
The War Chief had expected that even if the ravages of the nomad raids continued the tribes would have grown sated and used their wealth and prestige to go conquer other tribes further out. Unfortunately, it seemed that a single chieftain had managed to unify a vast number of tribes and had decided that the existence of the Stallion Tribes was a threat to him... which they honestly probably were, although that was probably because they stood between him and the even greater wealth of the northern coast and the People there. There was also some consideration that he might consider the sea trade between the People and the Metal Workers to be an obstacle to controlling the metal trade between them and thus by destroying the coastal settlements it would make such trade all the harder for the People, putting wealth into the hands of his people.
Asshole.
And here, the Nomad wargoals:
-Destroy the Stallion Tribes.
-Destroy the sea trade routes.
It seems he doesn't even give much of a damn about the loot he can get.
Asshole.
Meanwhile, in the south, the artisans devoted considerable effort to getting the process of extracting star metal from ore into a form that they could actually use. The first kilns they made worked but only produced very small quantities of the metal and were prone to cracking from the heat. It took effort to refine the process enough to get kilns that were large, durable and could get hot enough, but they fortunately still had the artisans who had worked on the original problem with Dormthun around and major backing from the king to get the process up and running.
And onto happier things. We've discovered the first problem with refractory materials, they insulated well and endure great heat, but due to this very same thing they would crack because heat doesn't propagate through them easily, causing the front to expand more quickly than the back.
The modern solution was to elevate them with supports rather than use a single piece construction. Other methods include using spaced tiles, which will expand to fill the gap piecemeal instead of shattering(though this leads to loss of heat as a result as the seal is imperfect.
Unfortunately, the very open sponsorship of the study at a time of crisis did not sit well with many, who took the devastation of the north to be further proof that the gods disapproved of the People attempting to wield their weapons, although the new king ran a major campaign to spread the official story on the project and star metal and thus was able to at least restore the confidence of the People that the nobility wasn't possessed by demons, even if there was perhaps a sense that they were just fundamentally stupid in more than a few places.
Well...not entirely wrong
But metal work REALLY seems to have a meta jinx on it. Send a trade mission to acquire the secrets and only a Hero averted a botch. Scribe the Star Axe and bring war to a wartorn land. The Axe shows up again and the Spirit Talkers die. Open a mine and a plague we can't stop strikes. Study iron and the Nomads form a Nomad Voltron and begin to kick us.
Fortunately the Thunder Speakers chose not to attack while the People were weak, probably because they were called by their overlords to assist in subduing the Swamp Folk to the south alongside the Xohyssiri. From what traders said the Thunder Speakers were the ones to gain the most from it, carrying off slaves, wives, and loot in large numbers while the Xohyssiri mostly muddled about trying to reclaim some of their lost territory and the Thunder Horse king caught some sort of nasty disease in the swamps, died and left a succession crisis among his sons. So while the Thunder Horse were probably going to ready to go for another round soon, and they might also get dragged into a nasty civil war.
Thunder Horse King gets the Star Axe, finally unites his people and then dies of disease.
Cursed I say!
So situation:
-Thunder Horse - Succession crisis. Hopefully civil war.
-Thunder Speakers - Prosperity, now that they ditched the axe.
-Xohyssiri - Got some land back.
As for the Highlanders, whatever spat they had internally seemed to have been sorted out quickly enough and they were back to attempting to draw more of the lowlands into their circle, with rumours of skirmishes with the Hathatyn cities to their west. Despite the lineage of Magwyna no longer holding the kingship, they might still come to the aid of the People against the Thunder Speakers or Thunder Horse out of political convenience, but were definitely of no potential help against the tribes rampaging through the People's northern territories.
Oh good, the Highlanders stopped murdering each other(again) and went looking for someone else to murder(again).