Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

Part of you wants to pack up and leave Stirland behind, but pragmatism, duty and sentimentality combine to stop you. You've a base of power, you've a duty to at least see to a proper handover of power, and you've got friends in Stirland, albeit less than when the campaign started. So as the army packs up, you remain with them, technically still in command though there's no orders to give. You do note with some faint amusement that the carts that had delivered food, ammunition and blackpowder have been returning filled with freshly-cut lumber from the sightlines the dwarves cleared to bombard the former Castle; Wilhelmina never misses a trick.

The first separation happens almost immediately, as the Third Division remain on the far side of the River Drak to garrison the 'annexed' Drakenhof. You travel with them to see the town that claimed Abelhelm one more time, and oversee the mounting of fifty greatcannon on the walls of Drakenhof - and not all of them facing outwards. The town is not going to fall out of Stirlandian hands without a fight.

By the time you return to the bulk of the forces, they're splitting again. The Fourth Division and Schultz are staying behind to garrison and fortify what some are starting to call Abelhelm's Bridge, and some of the dwarves and halflings are staying with them, at least for now. On top of that, a contingent of the dwarves, mostly miners and quarrellers, are striking off south to blaze a trail to Zhufbar through the mountains.

You spend a great deal of the next few weeks in the back of a wagon, holding court with the leaders of the forces that remain. You strike a pro tem agreement with the dwarves to delineate where the Haunted Hills end and the World's Edge Mountains begin, to be ratified by the incoming Elector Count, and generally spent a great deal of time reminiscing over dwarven ale. Narfi is rapt with what he's calling the two greatest artillery campaigns he could have hoped for: bombarding an enemy-occupied town from their own walls, and the utter destruction of a pre-gunpowder castle. Thori has a section copied out of Zhufbar's Book of Grudges for reference purposes and is radiating sublime satisfaction as he makes notes as to how many could be considered Avenged by the campaign, not only against the von Carsteins and their ilk but also a few relatively minor matters they still considered outstanding against the von Draks. All in all, you seem to be getting along fairly well with the dwarves.

[Previous Dwarf Rep: +1]
[Govibarazak: +2]
[Two sublime demonstrations of the power of artillery: +2]
[Grudges Avenged: +8]
[Adbarazi: Your Oath Fulfilled: +2]
[Total: +15]

Also occupying you on the long road from Drakenhof to Leicheberg is a side-project with your maps and a pot of glue.


---

When you finally arrive in Leicheberg, most of the combined forces disappear - the Halflings heading home to the Moot, the Throng of Zhufbar to the Zhufbar Road in Southern Stirland, and the Second Division returning to Fort Redemption. In Zipf, the Black Guard of Morr head north to Siegfriedhof, the other Knightly Orders to Talabecland, and the Throng of Karak Kadrin home via Ostermark. It is only the First Division, some five thousand men, that remain for the rest of the trip to Wurtbad.

With the good company of the dwarves gone, you spend a lot of time alone with your thoughts as you let your wounds slowly heal on the road to Wurtbad. You were exposed to a lot of information and revelations over the course of the campaign. But there's one thing that stands out above all the rest for you that strikes you as the greatest lesson of the Purge:

ONE of the following will become a new trait:
[ ] Artillery is the King of Battle.
[ ] Dwarves are the greatest ally of humanity.
[ ] The Halflings have proven themselves as a worthy neighbour.
[ ] If such rank amateurs could rival the strength of an entire Province, imagine what a skilled hand could do with Dhar.
[ ] The dead of Sylvania's prehistory deserve an undisturbed rest.
[ ] Magic used recklessly has catastrophic effects; great care must be taken in it's handling.
[ ] The best battle is one where the enemy never gets a strike in.
[ ] The best counterspell is, in fact, a blackpowder projectile to the face.
[ ] The Black Guard of Morr were the most dependable human asset across the entire campaign.
[ ] Magic is unreliable, gods are doubly so: always have a mundane solution.
[ ] It's not a great hero who carries the day, but a lot of small men working in concert.
[ ] The fog of war is a bitch, to all involved.
[ ] Expertise matters. And Stirland has precious little of it.
[ ] Mathematics is universal.
[ ] Complex problems, simple solutions.
[ ] Unity brings Strength, Discord brings Failure.
[ ] Other (write in)

But as great an educational experience as the campaign could be considered, it was still a tragedy. There were a great deal of lives lost, and you can't help but brood over everything that went wrong and what could have been done better. As the walls of Wurtbad finally approach, there's one haunting thought that you simply cannot shake.

ONE of the following will become a new trait:
[ ] In the confusion of battle, even the greatest warrior can lose their life pointlessly.
[ ] The Colleges of Magic act in their own interest, rather than that of the Empire.
[ ] Sylvanians will meekly accept any tyrant, to the point of complicity in their actions.
[ ] The Empire is a morass of self-interest, to the point of becoming a millstone around the neck of humanity.
[ ] The Morrite compunction against mutilating corpses is the greatest gift necromancers could ask for.
[ ] I, personally, failed to protect Abelhelm.
[ ] What use are infantry, if all they can do is die in droves?
[ ] Magic is a curse; Magisters and rogue mages alike will eventually die in it's handling.
[ ] Sigmar abandoned his most worthy follower in his hour of need.
[ ] Gods will not help us.
[ ] Mysteries are not worth unraveling - just bury them deeper and call it a day.
[ ] You can't trust people to have your back.
[ ] I will never meet a man as worthy as Abelhelm was.
[ ] Dwarven ale is a valid coping mechanism.
[ ] Other (write in)

- I've been working on and off on trying to join up the maps of Stirland and Sylvania since the start of the quest, and it's appropriate that I've finally learned enough about image editing to accomplish it now.
- I'm allowing Approval Voting - feel free to vote for multiple items, but be aware that only one will win.