Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Voting is open
Honestly this sounds like the sort of thing that is a recursive question in universe. Do more spirits live in forests with more magic or does more spirits living in a forest make it more magical?
Pretty sure the magical forests were the result of seed pods planted by the Old Ones when they arrived. For all we know they're aliens.
 
I think disrupting the dryads attempting to awaken the forest is going to earn us even more of the diving being attention.
If that is something desirable I can't not say.
 
Athel Loren is the most magical forest, and the polity within it it an alliance between Elves who split off from Ulthuan ages ago called the Asrai, and the Elders who lead the forest spirits of Athel Loren. Those Elders began as three, but Adanhu died and Coeddil went crazy and was sent to Tree Jail, so there's just Durthu left. Drycha is a follower of Coeddil and wants to wipe out the Asrai, and so is not really aligned with Athel Loren as a polity.

There are also the Eonir, the Elves of Laurelorn, which is a forest less magical than Athel Loren but still pretty magical. The Grey Lords have bound the forest spirits of Laurelorn to the service of the Eonir.
Lots of armies can deploy manticores, they just magically bind them into service.
Okay, thanks. These I very much did not know.

I honestly figured that wood spirits to elves were like wolves with the Longshanks. I thought Drycha was an elf that got transformed in some way because of her corruption, since I think mucking with evil turns you monstrous in this universe if you're not a vampire or worshipping the sex god.

Chaos didn't exist before the Elves. I'm pretty sure Drycha believes that killing the Elves will wipe out Chaos, because to her, they're the root of all problems in the world. I think she would also expand that to Dwarfs and humans if she's done with Elves.
But even with this characterization of her she's not crazy right? She actually has a reasonable point in her storyline why she came to this conclusion?

When I say they don't worship the Chaos Gods, I'm talking about Drycha and Coeddil. For all I know there are Chaos worshipping spirits, but for the most part they don't worship the Chaos Gods.
So worship as in reverence or committing rituals, but she is neutrally aligned in that she doesn't care as long as it's for her own ends. Or she does care and hates Chaos but she really really hates elves more?
 
Btw, while dryads are not any more vulnerable to fire than regular ol' humies, they are also not any less vulnerable to it. If the three spellcasters are close enough to each other it may be best to AoE them rather than going melee from the start.
 
[X] Leader

I'm a bit scared by it, but what I really don't want is to let the Big name, battle magic wielding, character enter the fight on their terms and when it's best for them to throw out their best shot.

Keeping her on the back foot is the best move in the long run, if not the safest in the short term.
 
[X] Wall of Ulgu - The biggest concern at the moment is Boris getting backstabbed while he's focused on the Manticore, Ljiljana on the Treeman and Nadezhda on the river. Secure one of their flanks while also draining Ulgu from the neighbouring areas to deprive the enemy Leader of resources with a large casting of Cloud of Confusion and Pall of Darkness.

[X] Nothing Personnel - Ulgu can detect breaks in uniformity and the conflict between the Leader and the local spirits is likely the biggest disruption in the field. Teleport blind into the forest and hope for the best.

[X] Turret mode - Seek a good vantage point and provide situational assistance with the marksdwarf pistol.

From the regular options, I've finally settled on the Treeman. Athel Loren creepy crawlies are such bad news because they often keep coming back. However, Ice Magic is possibly the best type to permanently take an enemy off the field. Ljiljana might end up only driving the Treeman away if she's facing it alone, but with Mathilde's help, it's as good as donezo.

[X] Treeman
 
So worship as in reverence or committing rituals, but she is neutrally aligned in that she doesn't care as long as it's for her own ends. Or she does care and hates Chaos but she really really hates elves more?
Choas corrupted her master, so I think she would hate Choas more than the elves. Choas also wants to destroy the world, in which her forest is.
 
But even with this characterization of her she's not crazy right? She actually has a reasonable point in her storyline why she came to this conclusion?

She's dedicated to a being believed to be insane and/or corrupted by Chaos, she is extremely fantasy-racist against Elves, and she obsessively chants a mantra of the name of every forest spirit that she believes died due to Elves. The root of the tension between Dryads and Elves is that the Dryads used to be the dominant force in Athel Loren and the favourites of the Elders, but now the more flexible and reliable Elves have that status.
 
But even with this characterization of her she's not crazy right? She actually has a reasonable point in her storyline why she came to this conclusion?
If she had a point, then it was twisted in later incarnations of her story to the point where she's literally just evil now. She used to be an angel in 4th Edition, then turned evil in 6th Edition, then 8th Edition comes up with them literally saying that "she was always evil". I have hope that Boney may have a better interpretation of her, but canon doesn't really do much to make her assertions seem reasonable.

The reason she reached that conclusion is that things started getting worse once the Elves came to the forest, so she kept observing them. Then Coeddil, the Treeman she was a Handmaiden to, became corrupted and was sealed in the Wildwood, so she went berserk and has been trying to free him ever since. There's not much more than that.
So worship as in reverence or committing rituals, but she is neutrally aligned in that she doesn't care as long as it's for her own ends. Or she does care and hates Chaos but she really really hates elves more?
Her feelings on Chaos aren't elaborated on that much. Most of her screentime is her messing with humans and elves. In End Times she even gives Mannfred the Fey Enchantress for some reason.

I'm pretty sure she hates Chaos, but she spends more time working against the Forces of Order than with.
 
Overall Drycha's opinion on Chaos matters to us less than her opinion on people - best used as fertilizer.

She's unlikely to want to stop until decisively defeated in any case.
 
And yes, the spellcasters there are Branchwraiths, who are spellcasting Dryads. They're not normal Dryads. Regular Dryads are about as strong as a regular human soldier.
Empire Soldier: Weapon skill 3, Strength 3, Thoughness 3, Wounds 1, Attacks 1.
Branchwraith: Weapon Skill 6 , Strength 4, Thoughness 4 , Wounds 2, Attacks 3.
Branchwraiths are a bit more impressive than normal Soldiers, even in melee.
(8th Edition stat block)
 
Last edited:
[X] Leader

This seems like an incredibly obvious choice to me. Do we allow the incredibly powerful ulgu wielder free range to stab whomever she wants (including Mathilde) in the back at the worst possible moment for us? The fact that Drycha is so old and powerful just makes it more important that we try and seize an advantage over her rather than freely handing her one over us.
 
[X] Spellcasters
[X] Leader

As a polity? Probably not. I do think they have some decent individuals though. Naieth the Prophetess seems quite reasonable. She argued with Orion so that he would save Karl Franz' life, which was an incredibly gutsy move because he seemed to briefly contemplate killing her for her temerity, but she succeeded and Franz was saved. People like that might be helpful, but I don't know if we can really seek them out.

I would not want to put too many of our eggs in the basket of 'the seer was reasonable that one time'. After all these are people who both see and act on visions of the future, it could have been that she saw the good old Franz would do in the world, and we should not bet on her seeing Mathilde or her Project.

That said I do think the Wood Elves are people and for that matter so are the fey of Athel Loren. We are not dealing with some of the worst of them, but if anything defeating Drycha here, especially if we manage to kill her, might earn us the favor of the more sane among the Asrai.
 
Empire Soldier: Weapon skill 3, Strength 3, Thoughness 3, Wounds 1.
Branchwraith: Weapon Skill 6 , Strength 4, Thoughness 4 , Wounds 2.
They are a bit more impressive in melee than normal Soldiers, even in melee.
(8th Edition stat block)
I said Regular Dryads are about as strong as regular humans. Branchwraiths are Heroes.
 
Voting is open
Back
Top