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Evil Overlord (Civ Quest)

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You've had to flee the Seven Shining Swords of Albion, run from assassins of the Dark Academe...
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Prologue - An Evil Genius Arises
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    • FixerUpper

    FixerUpper

    You've had to flee the Seven Shining Swords of Albion, run from assassins of the Dark Academe, and forced to retreat by the combined might of at least five very irate librarians. Nonetheless, against all odds, you have persevered. In the darkest depths of the night you have toiled to bring forth a hideous army that shall allow you to conquer the world!

    Or, y'know, part of it. Even a very small part of it. Whatever. After your multitudinous failures, you're not going to be too picky.

    First, what are you?

    [ ] Dragon

    Dragon
    You are a dragon. Fire-breathing, scaly, hundred ton monster that can fly. You can wreck armies, end kingdoms, and eat everything in that cute little castle over there.

    Benefits:
    1. Dragon: As a dragon, you are naturally among the most powerful of all creatures. You are no puny adventurer: you can engage an army on your own. Begin with +10 martial, or minimum 20, whichever is higher. Living armies have a morale penalty when fighting you directly.
    2. Hoard: You are filthy rich. Start with 1,000,000 gp.
    3. Mythological: Unlike other monsters, people instinctively know what dragons are all about. So long as you keep to the stories – demands for a princess, gold, that sort of thing, people are probably going to send one hero at a time after you. Moderate bonus to diplomacy rolls if you appear to 'follow the story.'
    4. Half-breeds: Oddly enough, once you're down to a more appropriate size, you can breed with anything. You have a cousin who fell in love with a donkey. Nobody talks about her very much anymore - but hey, you're glad she's happy?
    Detriments:
    1. Kobolds: In theory, they serve you. In practice, they tend to be pathetic. You stopped egging them on when you realized that they'd never be able to conquer the nearby hamlet, let alone the Kingdom next door. (large penalties to army actions, kobold morale is set at low) Then again, why bother with the damn kobolds? You're rich! You can hire an army.
    2. Thieves: Everyone knows about draconic hordes – thieves of all stripes and inclinations will attempt to take your filthy lucre for themselves.
    3. Laziness Hibernation: You need sleep. Lots of sleep. During half the year, you are asleep, and need to trust that your empire can run itself. Or, at the very least, that the guards you've stationed at your lair can keep the damn thieves out.
    4. Time: Your power increases as a function of your age – it is difficult for you to quickly increase your own abilities. Also, it's going to take a while for your descendants to grow old.
    5. Fertility: Dragons aren't, as a rule. There aren't many of you out there. Large minus to dragon-dragon fertility.

    [ ] Lich

    Lich
    A feared raiser of the dead. Well, you raised yourself from the dead anyway, other people are going to have to pay you for the privilege.

    Benefits:
    1. Undead constitution: The undead do not need to breathe, most do not need to eat (ghouls and ghasts excepted), - and best of all, the grunts don't even need to be paid! Minimal army upkeep costs.
    2. Maga Nosferatu: Through study and dedication you have managed a feat few others can claim to equal, and your knowledge reflects this. +10 learning, minimum 20 whichever is higher, arcane research takes half as much time.
    3. Phylactery: So long as your soul remains bonded to the relic you chose to house it in, you will come back again… and again… and again - better keep it somewhere safe!
    4. Undead Loyalty: The undead serve you faithfully and without question. Even the sentient undead acknowledge you as their rightful ruler – only a vampire lord of equal standing, or another lich could challenge your dominance, and the odds of that happening are slim. Undead morale is permanently set at fanatic.
    Detriments:
    1. Corpse-dependent: While you are willing to accept the living, you find that for the most part they are unwilling to do so. Your empire is thus largely dependent on importing corpses from elsewhere. Worse, until you've found some halfway competent help, you need to raise all those corpses on your own. Good luck!
    2. Dumb as dirt: You lost your first undead army after Torlack the Guillotine tricked your zombies into running off a cliff. You lost your second undead army after some hick named Toby tricked your vampire lieutenant into frying himself and then calmly killed a hundred zombies one by one before getting bored and marching off to find help. Large penalties to army actions without elite units, and you will have to personally carry out all research unless you find help.
    3. No descendants: You're dead. Your empire rises and falls on the basis of you and you alone. Good thing you have that phylactery to fall back on!
    4. Undead bias: Just about everyone instinctively hates you. (large minus on diplomacy rolls involving the living), crusades are a distinct possibility.

    [ ] Devil
    Devil
    A vile tempter and tormentor of people, capable of bringing low a country not through force of arms, but through whispered words. Theoretically, anyway.

    Benefits:
    1. Devil's Tongue: Your words could truly be considered a weapon. You've charmed yourself out of a gaol, a baptism, and at least three different wars that were not your fault; more to the point you've charmed yourself into the homes, pantries and souls of both the wealthy and pious. You've had to fleece a few suckers in your time. +10 diplomacy, or start at 20, whichever is higher.
    2. Wealth and Taste: You might not be an overgrown lizard, but that does not mean you do not know the importance of presentation. Begin with a title and household in a major kingdom. +Foreign Relations, +Income
    3. In Sheep's Clothing: Unlike just about any other evil, you can pass for a creature of good. There'd be little point to being a devil if every holier-than-thou shepherd could tell you apart from the sheep after all.
    4. Basic Psychology: You understand what makes people tick, and this counts as much for encouraging your minions as it does for screwing people out of their immortal souls. (easier to raise morale, morale cannot drop more than two steps during a single turn)
    Detriments:
    1. Sin-Eater: Look, you're a devil, you understand sin really well, and their big selling point is that they're really fun. So you happen to indulge in the Big Seven, so what? Do you know what food is like in Hell? Increased chance of failing personal actions.
    2. The Lesser Evil: You are not the devil - there's a hierarchy of devils that stand above you, and they're always willing to remind you of your place. If you decide to stop following your marching orders, you'd better be ready to go against the combined might of Hell. (at least one action should be directed towards a mission, if refused it'll provoke retaliation)
    3. Contract Minions: You begin without an empire. Any subjects you gain must be either hired, or subverted. Fortunately, you are very good at tricking people out of their souls, and once they've figured out what they've lost, they tend to agree to some very strict contractual arrangements in order to get them back.
    4. Letter of the Law: You cannot break your word. For you it is literally impossible.
    [X] Mad Scientist

    Mad Scientist
    The great minds of the Arcanum mocked your theories, but you'll show them! You'll show them all! Muhahahahaha!

    Benefits:
    1. Genius: You have made breakthroughs that would stun those feeble-minded fools that laughed at your theories. +10 learning, minimum 20 whichever is higher, research and construction takes half as much time.
    2. Artificial Life: You have created life! Sure, it's nothing much to look at now, but give it ten years and ten million gold pieces and you will show them a creature that will rival armies and topple kingdoms. What gods created with flesh and sinew you shall make with brass and steel. (access to golem tech tree)
    3. Mercury Miracles: Through the baleful principles of alchemy you have discovered how to transform of one substance to another. Who needs mines, when you can transform a ton of granite into a ton of basalt? Hm, okay, maybe it needs a little more work. In the future though, you will be able to gloat forever - bwahahahaha! (access to alchemy tech tree)
    4. Harmless kook: Although you do not perceive this as an advantage, no one takes you seriously. Literally no one, not even your hired help. (minor diplomacy penalty, people still regard you as one of their own - what fools!)
    Detriments:
    1. Lesser Minds: None can comprehend the greatness of your creations and the vastness of your intellect! Concerned citizens keep on trying to clap you in irons and send you to the madhouse.
    2. Minion Madness: The only person willing to help you is a five year old named Igorina, and she has to be paid in clockwork toys. Also, she's not very good at her job and keeps on criticizing what you do.
    3. Start from scratch: You own a lab. That's... pretty much it.
    4. Morals: What are these strange feelings you keep on experiencing? How is that you are unwilling to perform human experimentation and vivisection for the purpose of advancing SCIENCE? You are a failure as a scientist, a FAILURE!!!
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Index and Character Sheet
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    • Index

    Overlord Type
    Char Generation
    Turn 1, Turn 1 Results
    Turn 2,
    Jack'a'Napes Adventurers [1][2]
    Turn 2 Results

    Character
    Marcus Tinker

    Stats
    Diplomacy:     9 - 2 + 1 = 8 You simply do not understand why people do not bow down at the mere sight of your genius. (Slight penalty to diplomacy actions)
    Martial: 20 - 2 = 18 Actually, you do lift. (Bonus to army actions, bonus to personal combat rolls)
    Stewardship: 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 1 = 9 You have fought long and hard to overcome your crippling lack of focus (No effect on stewardship actions)
    Intrigue: 13 - 2 + 1 = 12 You jump at shadows. Sadly, they tend to be the wrong shadows. (Minor effect on intrigue action)
    Learning: 20 + 4 + 2 = 26 There are some who might claim they are smarter than you. They would be wrong. (Major bonus to research and technology)
    Piety: 2 - 2 = 0 If there is to be a god, let us make It with our own hands! (Major divine penalties)

    Traits
    Blueprint Brilliance:     You are good at planning projects, both small and large scale. (+2 stewardship, -10% cost, faster construction)
    Crazy Awesome: You never give up, and sometimes that's enough to snatch a victory. (On a natural 1, you fail so hard you actually succeed.)
    Learned: You are of a scholarly inclination. (+4 learning, +2 stewardship, -2 martial, -2 intrigue)
    Nutty: You do it all in the name of SCIENCE! For some reason, people find this off-putting. (+2 Learning, + 2 Stewardship, -2 Diplomacy, -2 Piety)

    Technology
    Golems
    Clockwork:     Golems made of complicated clacking gears, and powered by steam, they are loud, bold, and standard elite soldiers in the armies of, say, Ludansk or faraway Sabheir. For the most part, most armies find living soldiers to be much more cost-effective, even if Clockwork Soldiers are significantly more powerful and so trivial to repair other clockwork golems can manage it on the battlefield. The creation of new types requires prolonged research and study, or reverse-engineering other samples. (Atk ++, Def ++, Speed: ++, Cost: ++, Special: Easily Maintained, Research: Study)

    Alchemy
    Philosopher's Alchemy:     You focused on the classic path of alchemy. As a result, most of your focus on alchemy tends towards Material Conversion.
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Mad Scientist
    Because one of the requirements of the Evil Overlord List is checked, aka a five-year old child is with us. The others have none.
     
    [x] Devil

    we be eviiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilllllllllllll bitches yeah

    wait do we get a devil form

    because I would like to go with some thing like this
     
    Can we pick all of them? Playing as a Mad Scientist Devil Dracolich would be rather awesome.

    However, since we probably can't...
    [X] Dragon

    Because it is a dragon, whereas the other options aren't. Simple math.
     
    [X] Lich
    if lich doesnt win then i change my vote to [X] devil
     
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    I actually have no idea what to choose. All of them sound awesome.

    Though I am leaning towards Dragon or Devil.
    Because Awesum Martial or Diplomacy.

    Edit: Fuck it.
    [x] Dragon

    Because I miss Mizuki's dragon quest.
     
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    [X] Mad Scientist

    I would vote Devil, but SV will never never never go for an option where others have power over us.
     
    Guys, one can achieve both Lichdom and Mad Science through ones actions! The dragon has tons of gold! More than enough to buy a copy of "Necromancy for dummies" or "Testing and you: How to use science to enrich the lives of you and others"

    You want a five-year old advisor? We can capture a 5-year old princess!
     
    Dragon just isn't worth it with the "sleep half the year" and our explicitly incompetent minions. We wouldn't be able to trust anyone we hire with gold to guard not to steal the rest of our gold while we're sleeping and kill us in our sleep for good measure.

    Mad Scientist has morals. Not much of an evil overlord is he? Devil isn't an evil overlord, he's an evil underling. Clearly the only acceptable choice is...

    [x] Lich
     
    Demonic Spoon said:
    Dragon just isn't worth it with the "sleep half the year" and our explicitly incompetent minions. We wouldn't be able to trust anyone we hire with gold to guard not to steal the rest of our gold while we're sleeping and kill us in our sleep for good measure.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Devils are incapable of breaking their word. If we hired some as agents and secretaries we could gain some semblance of capability even during the winter months. If we used them for diplomats as well, we'd only need the kobolds as cheap labour or as soldiers. The former I doubt even they can screw up too badly, the latter is offset by the fact that we also have a dragon.

    And what happens if people steal from us? It is also a part of the dragon mythology that if even a single goblet disapppears from a dragons hoard, then the dragon goes about lighting the entire countryside on fire until it has been repaid. (Or a plucky hero kills the dragon, of course)

    That makes a pretty good incentive for the forces of good to discourage stealing.
     
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