[X] Allow open settlement
-[X] be sure to give the dead all due respect.
-[X] Perhaps Gravekeeper's guys would like to settle here? Surely they do not like being caught between two fanatical factions. You could negotiate for them to join your people officially but settling here, with some of your population joining the settlers and helping to fortify this place, though only if contact with Gravekeeper's guys goes well.
[X] Allow open settlement
-[X] be sure to give the dead all due respect.
-[X] Perhaps Gravekeeper's guys would like to settle here? Surely they do not like being caught between two fanatical factions. You could negotiate for them to join your people officially but settling here, with some of your population joining the settlers and helping to fortify this place, though only if contact with Gravekeeper's guys goes well.
This allows us to keep a legitimate claim to the place, without annoying anyone. Leaving the place alone and sealing it off have issues of their own, and if we don't provide incentives to settle there most settlers will be from the Shattersaw area, which will boost our population slightly, something we kind of need.
Edit: Was Glenshade Manor discovered along the rail line,as part of the forest expedition, or both? If not both, what happened during the other exploration?
[X] Allow open settlement
-[X] Be sure to give the dead all due respect.
-[X] Perhaps Gravekeeper's guys would like to settle here? Surely they do not like being caught between two fanatical factions. You could negotiate for them to join your people officially but settling here, with some of your population joining the settlers and helping to fortify this place, though only if contact with Gravekeeper's guys goes well.
Yup, this looks like a good one.
Also means future conflict in Shattersaw is less likely to inflict civilian casualties.
Nothing about the Forest Expedition yet, or finding a relationship with someone.
I guess they will be voteable updates also?
[X] Allow open settlement
-[X] be sure to give the dead all due respect.
-[X] Perhaps Gravekeeper's guys would like to settle here? Surely they do not like being caught between two fanatical factions. You could negotiate for them to join your people officially but settling here, with some of your population joining the settlers and helping to fortify this place, though only if contact with Gravekeeper's guys goes well.
[X] Allow open settlement
-[X] Be sure to give the dead all due respect.
-[X] Perhaps Gravekeeper's guys would like to settle here? Surely they do not like being caught between two fanatical factions. You could negotiate for them to join your people officially but settling here, with some of your population joining the settlers and helping to fortify this place, though only if contact with Gravekeeper's guys goes well.
Yes, each expedition will generally get at least one of its own sub-updates. The Down the Line expedition probably could have been folded in elsewhere, but its going to influence things.
[X] Allow open settlement
-[X] Be sure to give the dead all due respect.
-[X] Perhaps Gravekeeper's guys would like to settle here? Surely they do not like being caught between two fanatical factions. You could negotiate for them to join your people officially but settling here, with some of your population joining the settlers and helping to fortify this place, though only if contact with Gravekeeper's guys goes well.
This is probably the best possible option. It lets us help the one other faction that has been honestly friendly to us (even if creepy) and helps bring more of the world under the one sane leader that we know of. Perhaps we can even build a school here if all things go well, that would help free up the research center for its primary purpose.
[X] Allow open settlement
-[X] be sure to give the dead all due respect.
-[X] Perhaps Gravekeeper's guys would like to settle here? Surely they do not like being caught between two fanatical factions. You could negotiate for them to join your people officially but settling here, with some of your population joining the settlers and helping to fortify this place, though only if contact with Gravekeeper's guys goes well.
You order your team to sweep the settlement for anything of value and for any bodies they might have missed while your soldiers go about cleaning up those who died more violently.
Rolled 44 + 9 + 11 + 35 + 20 = 119
Something okay
Your sweep turns up some electronics in the early stages of air based corrosion that can still be used for parts or easily recycled, but most interesting is the discovery of a set of surveyor's tools. You already had surveyor's tools at Greengraft, but these were an obvious ego buy since they were set into a miniaturized monocular mount. With a mere glance a variety of sizing, range-finding, and even some surface material composition data could be called up, which would be invaluable for both combat and land management.
Survey Monocle found! Gives +1 to Martial and +1 to Stewardship. Can be researched
Integrating the device into your gear, you find that you are very much liking the virtual overlay it provides. It's really rather useful, although getting the interface just right takes more than a little practice.
Once everything is more or less sorted, you begin to make your way back to Greengraft. You don't want to linger any longer than you have to because while you have rations for a few more days worth of stay, plus the three week long trip back, plus a little extra, one of the biggest logistical challenges of these sorts of expeditions is making sure that you can get the rations ready now and not in three months when the next harvest comes in, or for next year once you have built up enough surplus to be able to do that.
Getting back to Greengraft and finding that everything is still running smoothly, you then send out diplomatic feelers to let the "followers" of Grave Keeper know that you have found an emptied out settlement, completely intact and fine except for the bodies of the former inhabitants, who had unfortunately not been able to set up their own food production or make contact with anyone who was food independent on their own.
Rolled 25 + 42 + 30 = 97
Solid success
Your efforts to reach out to them are met with solid success. While many of them are just scared people looking not to get caught up between the major factions and Grave Keeper is generally considered untouchable by way of being both insane and insanely deadly, his influence has started to rub off on people, and there are several people who express interest in settling the place and setting up a proper mausoleum to be tended to.
New Religion Founded: Grave Tenders
Basic tenants: Respect for the dead and death, beginnings of ancestor worship
Theology: Developing
Of course, they will need a steady supply of food. You have your own surplus, but with some of the possible numbers you need to make sure that the attrition from shipping the food doesn't completely consume your own supplies. With your joint control of the Shattersaw farms, your best bet is to talk with the 504s about how to best manage the situation.
Rolled 48 + 42 + 10 = 100
Solid success
Your providing of settlement to a large number of people, mostly strings free, has earned you quite a bit of goodwill with the 504s, even if there is clearly a bit of wariness on both sides. Privately you are pretty sure they shot you, and you think that they might suspect that you suspect, but publicly your major issues with each other have more to do with internal politics than external ones. The 504s view you as a benevolent dictatorship, which is something they can get along with for now, but they espouse democratic ideals, while your own group finds them a bit radical and fanatical at times. Still, all things considered you have a better relationship than you might otherwise, and they are more than willing to take a cut of the food that was for public distribution in Shattersaw and sending it off to settlers, even if you will be the primary beneficiary of Glenshade Manor being settled.
The thought also occurs to you that now may be a good time to release the information on the sap to the settlers, in case the supply lines are damaged. Your methods are considerably safer than what the original inhabitants were experimenting with, owing to you not being that desperate or ill informed, but they will still cause problems, especially if people do not know about them.
After more political wrangling than you really expected, you managed to get everything prepared for your second expedition, out to the forests around Shattersaw to see if you can find any trace of how the governor's second son got into the place unnoticed. Where setting up the logistics of the Glenshade Manor expedition was mostly about hauling food, the forest expedition is all about plotting out efficient exploration routes. 'Going into the green' is a dangerous activity and thus needs to be minimized as much as possible, so you repeatedly go over maps and consult with the various woodsmen under you. You prepare several 'day trip' loops to cover the majority of the ground immediately around Shattersaw, a few loops around the railway pillars along your controlled section, and even have plans for a few overnight expeditions. The longest confirmed period anyone has ever spent out in the forest is the nigh mythical three months an early exploration mission had when their survey ship crashed, and they were considered lucky due to crashing at the back of a Great Firestorm and thus for the most part they were walking through areas cleared of leaves.
The forest is, as always, an eerie place to be. The trees tower overhead like skyscrapers, the canopy almost entirely swallowing up the light from above in the riotous competition for energy. A few years of leaf debris has built up, the living tissues having mostly decayed away to leave skeletal razors of glass and diamond mixed in with finely ground metal powders and mixed in with an accumulating layer of biomatter. This close to a human settlement, most large creatures simply stayed away, but there were trundling multi-limbed creatures that picked their way along the forest floor, their armoured shells good enough against most of the hazards to get them away from the worst. There were also a few lesser dragonflies that flew about, but the really dangerous ones were deeper into the forest.
Rolled 98 + 38 = 136
Found It!
You had been skeptical over whether or not you would find anything at all, but the first day you went out - the first day - you found the bloody plane! It had, obviously, been out of sight of any point along the walls, but by essentially random chance the first path you picked was also the one that lead you to where the craft was located. It's outer surface has been pretty badly scratched up by years of exposure to the forest unprotected and it will obviously never fly again, but the damn thing was mostly intact.
Rolled 2
Well... mostly. The inside had a bad case of rust fungus once you opened it up. From what you could tell, all the systems would ever be useful for would be for inspiring your scientists as to how it could be done.
New Research Unlocked!
Rolled 70 - 20 = 50
The rust fungus got pretty deep in, but the computer memory banks appear to be mostly intact. You will probably have to get experts to go over things, but you might get some actual clues as to what was going on during the last days before the starbombs fell. You're... you're not exactly sure if you really want to know, or what you might do with such information, but it is likely to be one of those burning questions that could haunt your entire civilization for centuries.
Why?
Grabbing everything easily carried away, you head back to Shattersaw and then begin organizing to take your better armoured labourers and militia to head out with you to retrieve the rest of the plane. You then tuck in for the night, content that you have secured a treasure trove of knowledge for your people.
Rolled 35 + 22 = 57
Sound asleep
You wake up in the morning to two surprises: the first is that you have a finger bone inscribed with numbers for a radio frequency. The second is that apparently the Dragonflies have decided that they have had enough build up and are pouring out of their rail line by the hundreds, their soldiers uncharacteristically fanatical in their attacks. Your joint garrison with the 504s at the farms is holding for now, but that is mostly due to the SAW you have dug in being able to mow down enemies in batch lots.
Orders go out immediately to have the van go transfer over one of the garrison squads from Greengraft, bringing along one of the SAWs with you. They'll arrive within an hour. On hand you have the two squads you brought with you, the light infantry squad garrisoning your FOB, a hundred and fifty militia at the FOB, a light infantry squad garrisoning the farms, and fifty militia garrisoning the farms. The 504 had a garrison of two hundred of their militia at the farm and are apparently sending more to reinforce the farm. Stripping everything from your FOB is probably a bad idea. It will take you, at a forced march, a solid two to three hours to cross the ruins of Shattersaw to get to the farms, so once you head out you're fairly committed to your course of action unless you want to exhaust yourself running across the town, which is also probably a bad idea.
You will...
[] Deploy to the farms
[] Deploy to the Dragonflies FOB
[] Wait for reinforcements and figure out what Grave Keeper is trying to tell you this time
What forces will you bring?
[] 0-2 squads infantry
[] 0-1 squads light infantry
[] 0-1 SAW
[] 0-15 squads militia
Nyet. The Dark Age of Technology was mostly atheistic, and you're on the wrong sort of planet to support large religious communities. Most of what could be considered organized religion on Dandriss was in the more central places that got bombed to oblivion. There is of course privately held religious beliefs, but in general most of the religions encountered are going to be developed post-Apocalypse.
Also, you guys got lucky on a secret roll earlier. Your expeditions were properly timed to deal with this situation, because the Dragonflies were going to attack this turn. If you had not been on an expedition to Shattersaw at the right time, you would be rushing on the van with your reinforcements right now, rather than on the ground already.
Interesting. While ancestor worship could become dangerous, a solid respect for the dead is a reasonable belief-based bulwark against Chaos. Khorne is about blood and skulls, which is not very respectful towards the owner of such, Nurgle is about life (technically speaking), Tzeentch likes change (and the dead tend not to) and Slaneesh is about passion, which this doesn't lend itself to.
Of course, it could be *twisted* to any of those, but as 40k religions go, this has some potential for safety. Also, as long as the ancestors worshipped are upright role-models, that can help to.
We shall see where that goes.
The thought also occurs to you that now may be a good time to release the information on the sap to the settlers, in case the supply lines are damaged. Your methods are considerably safer than what the original inhabitants were experimenting with, owing to you not being that desperate or ill informed, but they will still cause problems, especially if people do not know about them.
Hmmm... I'm still kind of wary. We could perhaps disseminate that we're working on safe and edible sap as a kind of "okay, this could happen, but in the meantime, don't be hasty about it".
A critical success on search, excellent. Then a critical failure on getting stuff from it, damnit. At least we have some research material.
You're... you're not exactly sure if you really want to know, or what you might do with such information, but it is likely to be one of those burning questions that could haunt your entire civilization for centuries.
We probably should find out - and take steps to avoid a recurrence (for obvious reasons).
And damn, we missed another Gravekeeper-inspired opportunity to improve our sneakiness or perceptiveness
=====
[X] Wait for reinforcements and figure out what Grave Keeper is trying to tell you this time
-[X] Finish the GK's message fast and set out ASAP after (assuming the info isn't game-changing)
-[X] Order the troops at the farm to perform a slow stall-and-retreat towards us, so they're at our side of the farms when we arrive.
We'll want to find out what's going on with those radio frequencies. But as soon as we do, assuming it's not something game-changing, we should set out.
The slow stall is to try and preserve our manpower and to pull the enemy into a series of kill lanes for the SAW before pulling back to a new fast-fortified position. Ideally we want them to be easy to join up with (thus being on the side of the farm we're coming in on); I don't think we should try a fancy pincer move.
Leave a total of ten squads and the SAW at our FOB; the latter is better dug-in, and a single squad of infantry should be able to provide a higher-skilled backbone for nine squads of militia.
The light infantry is good at mobility, so they should be brought. A squad of straight infantry to buttress the line of militia. I'm a little torn on the SAW; bringing it will allow some nice crossfiring slaughter, but that leaves our base not able to fend off a similar attack very well.
Yum! I could definitely see being able to make a few more of these would be great for long-range scouts.
Interesting. While ancestor worship could become dangerous, a solid respect for the dead is a reasonable belief-based bulwark against Chaos. Khorne is about blood and skulls, which is not very respectful towards the owner of such, Nurgle is about life (technically speaking), Tzeentch likes change (and the dead tend not to) and Slaneesh is about passion, which this doesn't lend itself to.
Of course, it could be *twisted* to any of those, but as 40k religions go, this has some potential for safety. Also, as long as the ancestors worshipped are upright role-models, that can help to.
We shall see where that goes.
Hmmm... I'm still kind of wary. We could perhaps disseminate that we're working on safe and edible sap as a kind of "okay, this could happen, but in the meantime, don't be hasty about it".
A critical success on search, excellent. Then a critical failure on getting stuff from it, damnit. At least we have some research material.
We probably should find out - and take steps to avoid a recurrence (for obvious reasons).
And damn, we missed another Gravekeeper-inspired opportunity to improve our sneakiness or perceptiveness
=====
[X] Wait for reinforcements and figure out what Grave Keeper is trying to tell you this time
-[X] Finish the GK's message fast and set out ASAP after (assuming the info isn't game-changing)
-[X] Order the troops at the farm to perform a slow stall-and-retreat towards us, so they're at our side of the farms when we arrive.
We'll want to find out what's going on with those radio frequencies. But as soon as we do, assuming it's not something game-changing, we should set out.
The slow stall is to try and preserve our manpower and to pull the enemy into a series of kill lanes for the SAW before pulling back to a new fast-fortified position. Ideally we want them to be easy to join up with (thus being on the side of the farm we're coming in on); I don't think we should try a fancy pincer move.
Leave a total of ten squads and the SAW at our FOB; the latter is better dug-in, and a single squad of infantry should be able to provide a higher-skilled backbone for nine squads of militia.
The light infantry is good at mobility, so they should be brought. A squad of straight infantry to buttress the line of militia. I'm a little torn on the SAW; bringing it will allow some nice crossfiring slaughter, but that leaves our base not able to fend off a similar attack very well.
The light infantry are called that because they lack the standard armour you have, so they don't have the same endurance, but because of the nature of the armour they aren't actually that much more agile on their feet.
Also, the reinforcements are bringing one of the SAWs from Greengraft.
so correct me if i'm wrong here, but we currently have:
- two squads currently with us,
- the light infantry squad garrisoning your FOB,
- a hundred and fifty militia at the FOB,
- a light infantry squad garrisoning the farms,
- and fifty militia garrisoning the farms.
how many troops do we have guarding the Dragonflies FOB?
so correct me if i'm wrong here, but we currently have:
- two squads currently with us,
- the light infantry squad garrisoning your FOB,
- a hundred and fifty militia at the FOB,
- a light infantry squad garrisoning the farms,
- and fifty militia garrisoning the farms.
how many troops do we have guarding the Dragonflies FOB?
Yes, and none guarding the Dragonflies FOB. Blockading them would have provoked a fight much earlier. You and the 504 just kept control of your own paths into the city and the farms and kept an eye on them, but otherwise avoided costly battles, and they did the same more or less, until today.
[X] Wait for reinforcements and figure out what Grave Keeper is trying to tell you this time
-[X] Finish the GK's message fast and set out ASAP after (assuming the info isn't game-changing)
-[X] Order the troops at the farm to, at the discretion of the commander if they come under pressure, perform a slow stall-and-retreat towards us, so they're at our side of the farms when we arrive.
[X] Wait for reinforcements and figure out what Grave Keeper is trying to tell you this time
-[X] Finish the GK's message fast and set out ASAP after (assuming the info isn't game-changing)
-[X] Order the troops at the farm to perform a slow stall-and-retreat towards us, so they're at our side of the farms when we arrive.
[X] Wait for reinforcements and figure out what Grave Keeper is trying to tell you this time
-[X] Finish the GK's message fast and set out ASAP after (assuming the info isn't game-changing)
-[X] Order the troops at the farm to, at the discretion of the commander if they come under pressure, perform a slow stall-and-retreat towards us, so they're at our side of the farms when we arrive.
Slight modification; no need to actually give ground if they can hold out alright.
A few reason to be cautious before committing here:
1. Intelligence is critical to victory, this is most probably a shot at intelligence.
2. Not much point in having developed our relationship with the Gravekeeper if we don't do anything with it.
3. Frankly, it's best if the highly-aggressive 504 move first. They're unreliable, and letting them both soak casualties, and reveal any potential tricks on the enemy's part, benefits us. Kind of harsh, but we're nigh-certain at this point that they've betrayed us once already.
[X] Wait for reinforcements and figure out what Grave Keeper is trying to tell you this time
-[X] Finish the GK's message fast and set out ASAP after (assuming the info isn't game-changing)
-[X] Order the troops at the farm to, at the discretion of the commander if they come under pressure, perform a slow stall-and-retreat towards us, so they're at our side of the farms when we arrive.
[X] Wait for reinforcements and figure out what Grave Keeper is trying to tell you this time
-[X] Finish the GK's message fast and set out ASAP after (assuming the info isn't game-changing)
-[X] Order the troops at the farm to, at the discretion of the commander if they come under pressure, perform a slow stall-and-retreat towards us, so they're at our side of the farms when we arrive.
Yeah, no reason to give up ground if you can hold it and we would have fight twice through the farms. That's twice the potential for collateral damage and those farms are needed.
[X] Wait for reinforcements and figure out what Grave Keeper is trying to tell you this time
-[X] Finish the GK's message fast and set out ASAP after (assuming the info isn't game-changing)
-[X] Order the troops at the farm to, at the discretion of the commander if they come under pressure, perform a slow stall-and-retreat towards us, so they're at our side of the farms when we arrive.
Blockading the Dragonfly FOB base might be best in finishing this fight, since any reinforcements or supplies will turn 180 degrees and go back.
But if we somehow force their stream of fighters into a killing field we could get rid of a lot of their manpower.
What i fear however is that they most likely are using pseudo Jenissaries. Probably fighters conscripted from their slave population who have to perform or have their families executed or tortured or etc. These are nobles after all and they know how to turn a potential loss into a no win for the enemy.
I would prefer we do not kill to many of them if possible.
