ImmacuNES III: Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy

[Ekolite]

Orders being sent now.

 

[Immaculate]

some quick questions:
Do generals/governors have some sort of initial cost or do you just pay the salary

no initial cost- just a salary

Do individualized leaders cost more then Mr. Default?

You cannot 'buy' leaders- they are only generated as part of the story. Story-writing can greatly help with this (and with growing leader traits)

Is there some sort of system we have to use while designing Mr. Default's individualized replacements or do we just randomly add points to his skills and ask how much he would cost?

Mr. Default doesn't need replacements- he is always available and occurs in multiple clones, all exactly like the rest.

Do scouts require a general with them to scout places?

yes

Can units do anything the turn they're hired (again with scouts, can they scout the general vicinity for incoming horror attacks)?

yes

Why is my mine associated with my city but my farm unassociated? Did I miss something in the rules again?
edit: apparently I did miss the fact that the max # of associated ruralities being Total Governance of city + total population of the city, but when I add them I still get more then 1 maximum associated ruralities. <is even more confused>

i screwed up-i am e-mailing you the corrected stats right NOW. so sorry.

 

[Immaculate]

another question i got thats worth answering in a public forum:

How can we tell what resources are present in the hex before building there? Are they revealed inside our culture ring?

yes, inside your cultural reach you will identify all resources (except mana which will remain hidden unless you have 'arcana' of two or greater).
potentially you could go looking for resources outside your cultural reach. get creative about how you would do that.

 

[Immaculate]

tyrs- if you want to submit orders, you will need to do so by tomorrow morning first thing. otherwise i'll just NPC you for a turn

Diamondeye: you need to read the e-mail i sent you and reconsider your orders based on what i wrote.


TO EVERYONE:
1) you can't build part of a building. You have to commit enough hammers/gold to build it in one turn.
2) your armies move as one unit. if you want to build more then one army, you need to hire another leader and buy him/her some troops. (its the ekolite rule)

 

[Seon]

Except the default guy for me cost 3 gold upkeep and I can't really afford that :S.

Oh well. Let's hope that the horrors are kind to me.

 

[vruchten]

so another question :

this time it`s about naval stuff. is there, or will there be a key for how many troops one ship can carry?
i guess that ships can`t move on land hexes. so if i want to have an army moved from on continent to another i would need a general for that army and a admiral with a fleet working together on that transport, right?

thx

 

[Immaculate]

cool avatar.

the transport mechanism hasn't really been thought out too well. hmmm... i'm tempted to just say that 1 ship can carry 1 unit regardress of unit/ship type.

and yes, you would need 1 general for your army and 1 admiral for your fleet.

 

[vruchten]

cool avatar.

thanks, i thought that this ying and yang symbol would be a good representation for my religion. but to be honest i just took it somewhere from the net and recolored the green dragon.

 

[Kyzarc Fotjage]

well, it seems like mages and priests wouldn't need as much room on a ship due to there being less in a unit, but then again you could say they like their privacy and require much greater space.
If you do make that rule then you'd have people spamming many, many cheap ships to use as transports while the large ships would be mostly ignored (this may or may not be a bad thing). Maybe you could make special transport ships that can carry troops while other ships are purely combat? Or make it so ships need to be fluted to carry a significant number of troops, making them worthless at combat while they're carrying. Or just lower the combat ability of ships that're carrying troops because the troops will get in the way of the sailors and marines in a fight and the ship will be much slower if its carrying a thousand extra men, thus less maneuverable. Then make it so small ships can't carry entire martial units, but they can carry special units like heroes, scouts, commandoes, and such small units.
Can we have muti-purpose general-admirals who lead small commando raids on islands by landing, abandoning the ships, killing everyone in a fifty mile radius in a series of perfectly executed sneak attacks on enemy military bases and supply lines before trapping all the remaining soldiers in a massive field and mowing them down with machine-guns fireballs, then returning to the ships? That'd be so much fun...

and agreed, awesome avatar

 

[Immaculate]

or i could just say that you can move land armies a number of hexes over water equal to your exploration and trade attribute? (provided the enemy doesn't have a navy nearby to intercept)

Can we have muti-purpose general-admirals who lead small commando raids on islands by landing, abandoning the ships, killing everyone in a fifty mile radius in a series of perfectly executed sneak attacks on enemy military bases and supply lines before trapping all the remaining soldiers in a massive field and mowing them down with machine-guns fireballs, then returning to the ships? That'd be so much fun...

yes

 

[Immaculate]

Update 1: Years 1045- 1075: The Horrors do Not go Quietly into the Night

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.​

Dylan Thomas- Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night​

The time for Ceridwen&#8217;s children was coming to a close; each felt in them the calling of their home as it drifted away through the aether dragging their consciousness and concentration with it. Only those nearest sources of magic runes or magic ruins were able to feed upon these and remain just one more day. Only those with the strongest of wills, the greatest of minds, the hardiest of concentrations could divide themselves and remain amongst the dawning of the age of the name-givers.

Despite their weakened state and their dwindling numbers, they would rage against the coming dawn and strike and flail about violently, desperate to end just one more life, to fill just one more mind with pain and darkness before being called away. And the most powerful adapted, learnt to survive, even to prosper by turning the name-givers against one another, corrupting their minds and their forms so that they might breed a new generation of horrors with which they might ravage the lands.

Throal however sees only a world rich with grain and minerals, flush with verdant forests and fertile rivers, a world only too willing to give of its bounty. The dwarves of the great central kaer spill from its vault, their progeny multiplying with ample foodstuffs and space. In these years the minor villages that feed and provide materials to great Throal grow and grow. And so too does the great city, as the bountiful harvests of the countryside flow into its great stone gates. King Varulus III is thankful for the good life that has been bestowed upon his people and orders the construction of a temple to the Runes of Killmorph so that religion and righteous life might guide the dwarves of the great city and all the men and women across of Barsaive.

Additionally, he greatly increases the military, having read report after report from across the continent of continued Horror horrors horrifying all. A second army is formed under minor and unproven leadership and the great general Coralis&#8217;s men are greatly increased with new infantry and crossbowmen and newly trained acolytes of Killmorph.

Even as the King Varulus III prepares, so to do his enemies. During a regular patrol of the outlying southern areas, general Coralis&#8217;s scouts stumble upon a strange race of creatures. They are not men and they are not orc and they are not dwarves and they are not trolls. Large like trolls, stocky like dwarves and muscled like orcs, these creatures are the suffering servants of a Horror powerful enough not only to resist its heaven&#8217;s pull but to corrupt, fragment, deform and command an entire kaer&#8217;s population.

The corruptions show a great heterogeneity of appearance though all are horrific. They commonly seem to be in great pain and many have lost much of their higher intellect (though some more intelligent members remain). Their speech is a mangled form of Throal, identifiable as such, but unintelligible. Despite this heterogeneity, they all share one common feature; they all posses thin dark threads that pass over, into, out of, and through their bodies. It is from this feature that they gain their name, &#8216;Dark Threads&#8217;. The poor corrupted people, the remnants of some long-ago breeched kaer operate in a coordinated fashion and seem to be headquartered in the mountains south-east of Throal. The make raids upon the outlying ruralities of Throal and manage to carry off many men and women before they are driven away by the coordinated and concentrated efforts of the two arms of Throal&#8217;s army. Though all whisper of the horrific Horror that might have made such corruptions, none can be sure of its identity or even appearance.

Throal is not the only ones to be raided by the &#8216;Black Threads&#8217;. The orcs of Uld&#8217;ar are so busy taking advantage of their return to the surface, colonizing two new farms in the north-west, that they are ill-prepared for the arrival of the corrupted humanoids from the south. One year, in late fall, just as the leaves are changing and the crops are being stored away for winter, the wheat farms of southern Uld&#8217;ar are raided by the creatures and before a suitable defense can be mounted, many hundreds of men, women and children are carried away into the night. In the weeks that follow the Uld&#8217;ar military begins a series of defensive operations against the raiders, and, at first, these are successful and future raiders are repulsed with relative ease. Then the enemy adapts and arrives, marching as an army, with their own swords and spears, relics of their kaer&#8217;s armories.

The orcs respond with hit and run attacks from their javelin skirmishers and these prove somewhat successful against the enemy and thin their ranks somewhat but when the &#8216;Black Thread&#8217; arrive at the farms of southern Uld&#8217;ar, the spears and javelins of the orcs prove unable to prevent the enemy from rampaging the farms and carrying any foolish enough to remain away into the wild-lands.

Wounded and undermanned, the orc divisions none-the-less make the enemy pay for every foot of ground, showering them with javelins from ambush and picking off any stragglers with light infantry. Finally attrition proves too great and the much reduced raider army finally retreats. There is no doubt that they will return in years to come.

Throal loses 1 population each from their two eastern farms. Throal loses 1 population from each of its mines. Axmen are damaged. Scouts are damaged and gain 1 experience. Crossbowmen gain 1 experience. Throal loses 12 food and 2 hammers from disrupted production. Uld&#8217;ar skirmishers and infantry are damaged, gain 1 experience. Southern wheat farms population reduced to zero (and need a 4 hammer and 2 food investment to return to population 1). Uld&#8217;ar lose 6 food in disrupted production.

To the west of Throal, a previously sealed kaer opens its doors to the world. They are the Kraz-ke-Meka, descendents of humans working for the great gnomish nation of the Luchuirp. Like the Luchuirp, they share a fascination for mechanical creations and clockwork machinery in particular. Also like the Luchuirp, they have depended upon their golem creations for many centuries. When their golems began to fail along with most greater magics, many advocated a return to the surface and it is only now that the senate of these people has finally agreed to do so.

Both the Kraz-ke-Meka and the Palitanate soon become targets for the shuffling dead as their skeletal corpses spill, each night, from the kaers become mass graves, of the Hippus confederacy.

The walking dead are not prone to conversation, wanting only to raid the Kraz-ke-Meka and Palitanate, steal their people away into the dark and return again the next night. The outlying farms and mines soon come to dread the coming of the darkness and it is not long before the leaders of both nations send their fledgling soldiers to protect their people and do battle with the monstrosities.

The farms of eastern Palitanate soon become a battlefield as the soldiers of Isodor defend their lands and people. Ultimately, in the year 1068, a large raid by the undead forces overrun the Palitanate spearmen and manage to carry away much of the farmers of this land. The next evening, with the Palitanate army in shambles, the undead forces continue to press onto the small township directly but Isodor commands his &#8216;Chosen&#8217; to take to the battlefield. Far from prying eyes, in the dead of the night, the &#8216;Chosen&#8217; do battle from dusk to dawn and finally, wounded and harried, return to their home. For the coming years the raids are smaller as the undead gather their strength and the &#8216;Chosen&#8217; are able to defend the farms.

At first the outlying villages of the Kraz-ke-Meka are less prone to raids as the undead focus their efforts on the Palitanate but when the &#8216;Chosen&#8217;s elite defense form, the undead leadership, whatever it may be, turns its attention to the Kraz-ke-Meka. They visit night after night but the senate soon commands the activation and re-outfitting of one of its most venerable golem units, artifacts of a time before the scourge. These golems, once cleaned, repaired and activated, prove an excellent defense against the undead and though the raids disrupt food and ore production, they do not result in massive loss of life like they do amongst the Palitanate. Their capacity to fight without tiring and not to drop their guard means much against an enemy who also does not fatigue and who (un)-lives (?) only to steal away the living.

Palitanate lose spearmen light infantry unit. Chosen special unit is wounded, gains 1 experience. Palitanate farm loses 1 population. Kraz-ke-Meka lose 4 food and 2 hammers. Skirmisher unit is damaged.

In the distant west, the story is similar.

The raiders again come in the night, and like the &#8216;Black Threads&#8217; and the undead Hippus, they seek not to plunder and burn but to steal away men and women, children and the elderly for reasons unknown. These creatures are recognizable as once having been gnomes; their stature is only approximately 3-4&#8217; high but that is where the resemblance ends. They, like the &#8216;Black Threads&#8217; speak a language that might have once been Throal but most definitely has now devolved into a combination thereof and chattering, squeaking and gibbering wildly. The corrupted creatures are much more homogenous then the &#8216;Black Threads&#8217; and most have dark grey or purple-grey hairless skin, an extended frame of thin sinew and taunt skin, and a gait that shifts rapidly from bipedal to a loping four-legged run. Their long fingers end in impossibly sharp claws, and below two horribly sunken eyes, their mouths are crowded with needle-like fangs.

The creatures, whom the Kharkush soon take to calling the &#8216;grey gibbering shadows&#8217; begin their raids in 1052, striking from the thin isthmus between the Kharkush and the Nozkam Legon. They strike with stealth, stealing through the night on all fours, their belly to the ground, their long tongues tasting the air with trembling flickering movements. Once in range, they begin gibbering and chattering wildly. Their voices have an almost magical quality, driving men and women, pets and mounts into wild confusion. Many a man, hearing this horrible sound, has burst from his home, his hands upon his ears, his eyes wide and staring like a horse in a burning barn, only to be fallen upon and dragged into the wilds.

The Kharkush are quick to respond. The &#8216;Strongest Son&#8217; does not wait for his men and army to march out to do battle with the raiders. Soon after the gibbering shadows strike, he stalks off into the wilds after them, enraged and crazed, his soldiers helpless but to follow after their general. What they witness is a great murderous carnage. The Kharkush return to their village, jubilant, telling stories of their great general and his ax. Perhaps the stories are embellished, perhaps they are entirely true, but for years they retell how the &#8216;Strongest Son&#8217; stalked the wilds, smelling the air for the &#8216;grey gibbering shadows&#8217;, stalking and falling upon them like an eagle upon a dove, his great ax, with but the slightest of scratches, cleaving the creatures in two in an explosive, tearing rendering that sunders bone from joints and leaves jagged bloody wounds unlike any other ax. Not only is their general a single-handed killing machine, when he returns to the villages, speaking only in grunts and howls, he commences to rut and phuck with as many of the women of the village as the can without concern for marriage vows or his partners&#8217; permission or cooperation. This continues without rest for almost six days before he finally succumbs to a sleep so deep that he does not awaken from it for nearly a weak. The Kharkush build a great monument to these heroic and carnal acts they claim are a gift from their god.

After that the gibbering grey shadows turn their attention more upon the Nozkam Legon. These prove to be a much less well-defended foe. Like the Kharkush, the initial raids, due to their stealthy nature, prove very effective in carrying away the unsuspecting sleeping farmers northwest of Nozkam. The line of Etom is quick to command a defensive position however and they soon send their spearmen to intercept and combat these horrors. For several nights they are successful in turning back the night-time raiders. But suddenly, in 1056, the number of enemy swells considerably as the gibberer&#8217;s leadership turns its full forces from Kharkush to the Nozkam Legon. One cold dry winter night while the moon shines faintly from behind the clouds, the perimeter spearmen patrols again hear the sudden gibbering sounds of the raiders. Many of the spearmen assume their defensive positions (while others roll about in magical confusion) and suddenly the night is alive in flailing claws, flickering tongues, and razor-sharp teeth. During the battle many of the gnome-like creatures are slain but ultimately their ferocity, numbers, and magical confusion win the day and the spearmen are routed. The route lay open for the creatures to raid the farms and even the village of Nozkam and this they do, retreating with the dawn with many men, women, children from the very heart of the village and many wounded soldiers felled during battle. They do not return for almost a year and none know what happens to the stolen population. When they do return the Nozkam realize that it is victory or complete annihilation. During the battles, one particularly fierce and able commander arises from the ranks of spearmen. He is a dwarf known as Juyrias and under his guidance, and in a desperate need to &#8216;live!&#8217;, the Nozkam Legon are able to turn back the raiders time and again. But for how long?

Kharkush gain a monument. Nozkam Legon corn farm population reduced to zero (and need a 4 hammer and 2 food investment to return to population 1). Nozkam Legon loses 1 population. Both infantry units are &#8216;damaged&#8217; and gain 1 experience. Nozkam Legon loses 6 food from disrupted production. Nozkam Legon gain the leader &#8216;Juryias&#8217;.

To the north of the Nozkam Legon, the survivors of kaer Utilica are just beginning to surface. They are humans led by the &#8216;perfect one&#8217;, their emperor Flavorus who only appears to the public at a distance from a high balcony. Flavorus and his cadre of elite officials and sycophants make little effort to actually govern their people, preferring instead to hide away in their newly build sprawling estates, leaving their subjects to mostly govern themselves (as long as it suits them). For now the land is peaceful and the Utilica quickly seeks the rich harvest of the seas and the ore of the hills. Can it be possible that the horrors have not survived in this far-away land?

In the north-east, the trolls of the Tabba Ghut clan are again visited by the horror-corrupted wyrm of ice and cold. The creature takes delightful glee in swooping low over the village as its inhabitants sleep, freezing water and chilling hearts with its mere presence. Despite this menacing behavior, it does not attack outright. It continues the swooping attacks for several nights, casually laughing in the face of thrown javelins and shouted curses. Finally, on the eleventh night, it sets down in the village square and in a majestic and ancient voice makes its demand. The first born child of any pairing is to be delivered onto it. If its demands are met, it will maintain its distance. If its demands are not met, it will terrorize and slay the Tabba Ghut until they are all dead. Perhaps in preparation for a negative answer, the Tabba Ghut build a pallisade.

The Achatin, like most other peoples, are visited by the corrupted creations of greater horrors. The Achatin are unfortunate enough to attract the attention of corrupted Aifons. Though recognizable as the once-great denizens of distant seas, these creatures are horribly mutated, having grown additional limbs, monstrous, shark-like mouths and armor-like scales.

The creatures seek not confrontation and battle with the Achatin; like the other horror constructs, they seek only to steal away the living, swimming out to sea with the Achatin clutched in their deadly claws as their tails lazily propel the kidnappers and their victims further and further into night-time waters.

The Achatin slingers prove an excellent defense against these creatures however, their nimbleness and capacity to strike form distance ensure that they can bring down many of theof raiders without fear of reprisal. Once the enemy closes, however, it is the fabled &#8216;Defenders of Achat&#8217; who really shine, their heavy armor proving to be excellent protection against the claws, spears and tridents of the raiders (unlike the spearmen who&#8217;s spears often bounce from armored hides and who&#8217;s own lack of armor makes them easy targets for the fish-like-creatures). Though the Achatin are able to prevent any major successes by the raiders, they cannot defend all their lands all the time, especially their new outlying mines and farms. As a result the occasional raids of the creatures do much to disrupt farming and mining.

Achatin slingers gain 1 experience. Defenders of Achat gain 1 experience. Light infantry are &#8216;damaged&#8217;. Achatin lose 3 food and 3 hammers of production.

There is no doubt that the great southern forests are a land of magic and exotic creatures. It is also a land of countless minor horrors, creatures who, in other lands, would have been pulled back to Ceridwen&#8217;s heavens but in these lands are free to hunt and kill, to maim and play cruelly with the creatures and people of the forests. And so it is that the Pilseta and Sjykalfar face not coordinated attacks by corrupted creatures driven by some greater horror, but myriad minor horrors, thousands and thousands of smaller viscous little creatures with no drive beyond hurting the living, to inflict petty physical pain, hurt upon their victims. Though the creatures are relatively simple relative to the greater horrors of other lands, individually they are still greater then some corrupted gnome or dead Hippus horseman.

The Sjykalfar are ill-prepared for defense and when the first waves come, their scouts are quick to spot the incoming enemy and their generals are swift to send their infantry to intercept the attacks. But one attack from one direction is only the beginning. Day after day, night after night, the creatures, a thousand myriad forms of minor horrors, fall upon the elven village seeking only to maim and lay gloating over a slowly dying lithe elven form. And with only 1 unit of real infantry to defend the village, this soon comes to pass. While the spearmen are adept at facing one or two attacks, constant attacks year after year, constantly having to be redeployed to a new theatre, sleep deprivation, shock and horror at horrible and gruesome scenes of friends and families killed in the most horrific ways add up. And soon, so too, does the attrition. As the spearmen wear out and succumb to constant ambushes, they are less able to defend their people and one night in 1072, the entire eastern mining community is overrun, its people slain. It is a time of great grief. It is also a time for the elves to rethink their military development.

The Pilseta find themselves fighting a similar enemy but are much better prepared, having recently trained a new unit of spearmen to join their existing regular unit and their highly trained formation spear-women infantry. And so, while the enemy attack again and again, constantly striking from a new direction, the Pilseta have the (wo)manpower to match the enemy. Ultimately, while they have to recall their farmers and miners from the countryside on a few occasions, they are not overrun. Additionally, while their scouts and one unit of spearwomen are badly damaged in unfortunate ambushes, their army on a whole is victorious during this time. Despite these successes, it is clear that the burgeoning tribe is not in the clear yet; any weakness will mostly certainly be taken advantage of by the Horrors and in the absence of continuous defense, the village would be quickly overrun and its population massacred.

Sjyakalfar lose 7 food to repopulate their mines (see edit below). Light infantry is damaged and gains 1 experience. Scouts are damaged and gain 1 experience. Sjyakalfar lose 3 hammers and 5 food due to production disruption. Pilseta light infantry are damaged. Light infantry spearmen are damaged and gain 1 experience. Formation spearmen gain 1 experience. Pilseta lose 1 food and 1 hammer to production disruption.

Maps​

Spoiler :

Rule Change​

As originally envisioned, rural population will no longer contribute to research, only urban populations will do so. To make up for some of the difference, each city produces a base of 3 beakers per turn. Those of you with large rural populations will see your research go down. Those of you with small rural populations will see a small increase.

EDIT: i've decided not to reduce the population of Sjykalfar mine to zero. Doing so would have been a death-sentance. lets just remove 7 food instead.

 

[Kyzarc Fotjage]

...
...
wow...
...
this is vicious
I got really lucky there

 

[Diamondeye]

Wow... I had no idea that we would be in for such a rough ride from the beginning. My moves need rethinking, that's for sure...

 

[vruchten]

Wuahaha, them grey gibbering shadows are no match for me!
("strongest son" wipes the filthy blood off his axe)

(are there restrictions on diplomacie? or: with whom am i alowed to talk?)

 

[Immaculate]

you can 'talk' to anyone.
you can't send gold, food or other stuff until you open up some trade paths (ie- fight your way through the horrors)

 

[Immaculate]

...
...
wow...
...
this is vicious
I got really lucky there

Wow... I had no idea that we would be in for such a rough ride from the beginning. My moves need rethinking, that's for sure...

update zero was meant as a bit of a warning as to what was out there; i hope, in retrospect, that the Horror activity is not completely unprecedented.

 

[Ekolite]

Ouch. These are going to be seriously inconvienient.

 

[vruchten]

To: Ibruk Tilat-Etom, “Son of Sacrifice”, leader of Nozkam Legon
From: The "strongest son", commander-in-chief of the kharkusian forces, slayer of the "grey gibbering shadows"

Greetings friend! The Throal tolds me about you struggles. First underneath the earth and now on the open. This is sad.
We think you are son of good tribe. And maybe need help from strong friends. Okey?
I am very strong, okey! Strength of war in my arms, muscles of god!
Me erradice them shadows, you show gratitude? Okey?!

Answer soon!
May your wives give birth to many strong sons!

 

[Ekolite]

You want him to show you some gratitude hey?

 

[vruchten]

You want him to show you some gratitude hey?

something wrong with that? (of course i was talking about monetary gratitude )