Making Araby great again, a Sultan quest(Warhammer Fantasy)
- Thread starter guyfromtheplace1
- Start date
- Location
- Toronto, Ontario(occasionally)
Never mind, got distracted from the count, give me few minutes.
Last edited:
- Location
- Toronto, Ontario(occasionally)
Okay, NOW the vote is locked. A manual count shows that Plan Universal Communication under Veekie wins by either 6 or 7 to the next highest plan at 4 depending on whether I count that last guy.
- Location
- Toronto, Ontario(occasionally)
I'm going to the airport to get on a plane soon, the rough draft of the update is mostly finished, expect it either while I'm waiting there or at some point after I land, once I find internet access. Editing will occur after the rough draft is posted, but I'm generally pretty good about typos.
Turn 1
- Location
- Toronto, Ontario(occasionally)
Note: you rolled a 4 on a d100 on the 'What sort of strategic problems should I give you' roll. You have many, many problems. I may have gotten a little carried away.
Editing later.
[X][Priorities] Plan Critical and Vulnerable
-[X] 1 the palace
You stagger to your feet, moving quickly to reach those very same Temple Guard you had been looking across the river at from your balcony.
Though they try to lead you to the healers you insist that they work on the move.
There is too much to be done, too much at stake, for you to be injured right now!
+200 Temple Guard, +4 healers
Once they've been gathered you move to the nearest bridge to seize the palace. You want to know what happened while you were semi-conscious, having your vision. You know you should move to protect any members of your family still alive within the palace. You realize you should retrieve the records. If any of them are still intact, you think with trepidation, looking up at the growing plume of smoke.
And … you need to know if what you knew in that dream is actually true, to know if your father is truly dead.
You rush past the dead guards at the gate, travelling further into the outer courtyard.
[where you go first: 1d3 =1]
You need to see your family.
[Random encounters: 76]
You rush for the royal quarters immediately. As you charge through the increasingly smoky halls, past the rich tapestries, detailed frescos, and glimmering mosaics of the palace you meet up with three squads of the Arabyan Guard, heading to secure the royal family, and you alert them of the compromising of the servants. Their leader, a man of few words, simply affirms that he has heard and understood.
+30 Arabyan Guard.
Then you are through, into the apartments.
[what you find at the entrance: 35]
There is a group of brown-coated men at the entrance, quite successfully fighting their way through the guards that have arrived before you towards the living quarters. But you come upon only a couple dozen men from the rear with a force over two hundred strong.
[entering combat: 40+21]
Despite their best attempts to run, via one of the servant's passages, you are on them too fast for more than one or two of them to escape. Lunging ahead of your force, you get in front of their escape route, cutting down the one that had been about to leave,
[you versus a group of browncoats, with some men attached to them: 39+21]
And locking blades with the next in line, despite one of the men pinking you at the wrist with a rapier, they are unable to break through your quick and flexible defence before your small army of support can arrive.
[survival rates: 7]
Unfortunately, as it seems certain that they will be captured, they all stumble, then simultaneously explode, knocking you on your back and releasing a small horde of chittering many-toothed creatures.
-17 men
You blink dumbly in surprise for just a moment, somehow all 23 of the men you were just fighting have burst open thunderously, scattering leavings on every possible surface and releasing twice their number of toothed fuzzballs, the creatures are nauseatingly, fundamentally wrong in a way that gives you the heebie jeebies. But even that doesn't stop you as you rapidly get your bearings and roll to your feet, yelling to your men to follow you, as you try to get to the royal apartments ahead of the creatures.
[managing it: 47 +21 = 68]
[What else is going on Here? 13 + 21, fail, are distracted by the fighting]
You actually manage to get nearly four squads of the men though the doors before the blue fuzzballs, they may zigzag back and forth quickly, but they aren't very fast in a straight line, your men will block them, at least for a few minutes.
[What do you find: 37 they're mostly dead]
But inside the situation is much worse, the air is difficult to breath, causing coughing if you dare to take a deep breath, and bodies lay scattered on the ground.
The shortness of breath in your lungs combines with the stuttering ache in your chest to nearly drive you to your knees.
[Don't give out on me now: =70, still going, actually given the source of all of this and the high level of general vitality implied by your traits I'll make it 70+20 =90, you shake it off for an hour or two and act unaffected]
The men at the doors have set to stamping on the creatures, slashing low at the ground, and in one case body slamming five of them against the ground, crushing the creatures with a shield bash.
-3 men
You turn to join them in a helpless rage, you can't head deeper in with this sorcery fouling the air.
[combat continues: 92 +21 =113 Critical success]
But the enemy is already fading and popping away into nothingness, leaving you nothing to vent your frustrations.
You order the men to force their way through, warning them of the foul air and telling them to take any precautions they can.
-4 men
The commander, two of his sergeant's, the healers and you group up, trying to figure out how to stop the men from dropping and having to be dragged back out to the healers like the first few that tried to get through.
[Poison gas bypass: 42 +11 +15(healers) =68, success]
You settle on wrapping damp cloths around their mouths, holding their breaths and having the healers bless their ability to not breath in whatever is in there.
You're not sure it's very effective, given that by the time they've searched the entire wing for survivors you're down nearly another 30 men to whatever this is. And one squad has disappeared without a trace, gone from their planned patrol route.
-39 men
But at least some people have survived, servants near the upper floor windows, and
[1d10 =2 1d2 =2 1d2=2]
two of your younger sisters, trapped in a wardrobe with a clearly hysterical maid raving about rats.
By this time the castle hallways are becoming choked with smoke, you might not be able to retrieve anything.
[Do you still have time? Required 70: 73 you (barely) still have time]
But there's just one more thing you have to get before you can go.
You order fifty of your remaining men to escort the servants, wounded, and your siblings out of the palace, keeping them safe.
-50 men
Leaving you with only 117 men to help you, with luck you wouldn't need any more.
The treasury could keep on it's own, while many precious items would be lost to fire the melted gold and silver could be sifted from the wreckage. You would instead be headed to the Records room, assuming it wasn't yet aflame. So you started heading across from the east wing, towards the centre of the castle.
You end up fishing your way past the rising smoke in one hallway, one man realized part way through that staying closer to the ground reduced the strain on your lungs, and passed it on to the others.
At least if the building came down on you now you would have achieved something here.
[random encounters 35, the difficulty level is increasing)
(What 81 +12)
Nearly reaching your destination you round a corner and run smack dab into a rapidly finishing engagement between some rat mutants and six squads of what look like Arabyan guard, you are at first relieved, but something twigs you that things aren't quite right. You look again, most damningly your eyes catch one of them armed with a weapon that pains the head to look upon, just now returning to its holster as the owner notices your group, but also almost every man among them has at least one pistol, an esoteric weapon you know is so rare amongst the troops assigned to the palace that it would be suspicious enough on its own to run into a full group armed suchly.
(You really don't have time for this, Charging 20 +10 (some are distracted) +21)
Unfortunately these men are made of sterner stuff than the last group, and just as you notice the one with a corrupted weapon you know he notices you, your eyes lock and he moves to meet you.
Though you'd never heard of someone with a Daemonic pistol before it proves just as, if not more deadly as it's barely-conventional forebears.
Your group only avoids being savaged by virtue of the enemy being distracted and mostly unloaded, and is holding the advantage in physical combat more by virtue of superior numbers than superior skill, being relatively evenly matched in ability, and far closer in numbers than any other fight you've had today.
Those advantages unfortunately to not apply to your fight with their leader, you only survive the approach by having reflexes good enough to grab one of his men and interpose them between you when he draws his weapon.
He fires anyway, as you duck behind the improvised obstacle, lifting the dying body with one hand, ignoring the way his backplate deforms and heats under the weight of nine technicolor shots unloaded so fast you have trouble believing you aren't listening to a string of firecrackers, and hurling the corpse the enemy leader. This surprises him long enough to bat his weapon away from it's bead on you on the upswing, transitioning into a downswing seeking to cleave him shoulder to waist.
That bounces off of a shimmer in the air that you can barely see surrounding his body, feeling like you had tried to cut solid steel.
[Round 1 FIGHT 37 +21 =58]
Again you have trouble with the fight, the enemy uses his ranged weapon to limit your options, proving that, yes it can continue firing, even now, and forcing you to keep track of a weapon with an unfamiliar angle of attack, alongside some form of magic, while he tries -unsuccessfully to gut you with his shortsword.
[The rest of the fight 9 + 21 +5(some are still distracted with stragglers)]
At the same time your men are doing even worse, the smaller force causing nearly fourty casualties in thirty seconds, as they fight with a clearly choreographed style of bladesmanship, remaining consistent only long enough to allow their opponents to get used to the rhythm of battle, before luring their opponents into over extending, then all simultaneously changing to an entirely different style at once and either striking decisively or putting their foes on the back foot.
[ROUND2 FIGHT 22 +21]
Your enemy, a large man in an ornate full face, concealing helm, responds to you nearly stabbing him in the visor by first nearly managing to shoot you in the foot with a wild spray, then actually laying open your off hand while it was out of position in a dodge.
[Your men are still fighting 90 + 21]
Now however, you can see that the fight around you is going much better, that trick with the changing combat styles was the only one the enemy had, and superior numbers, endurance, and focused skill is beginning to show, and in the space of a minute the several of the enemy seem to slip up, leaving them with fewer than twenty combatants, trying to pull away from a force now over three times their numbers.
[ROUND 3 FIGHT 54 + 21 + 10(interferance) -5 (trying to escape) =80]
This time you break through his defence, after a series of back and forth moments and aborted preparatory moves you see an opportunity while he's distracted firing a spray from his pistol and a blast if flame from his hand to keep your men back and use it to make a much harder slash towards his neck. You've landed a couple of blows on his, presumably magical, defence over then course of the fight, just as he's landed a few you've chosen to take to one of your plates, and you think it has some flex to it.
Luckily you are correct, in a strike you just know is ruining the edge on your sword you slam the blade into his neck as hard as you can, feeling the magical protection give a little, and hearing a sharp crack to accompany the impact.
His bloodshot eyes barely visible through the visor glare at you hatefully, but only for less than a split second, as with a swirl in your vision he, and all of his men, are gone, leaving you to stumble forward, unbalenced by all the weight you put into that strike suddenly having nothing to rest against.
You don't stop to worry about the disappearing act, the hallways are getting worse by the minute, and based on the heat you would swear that the left wall has a massive conflagration burning on the other side.
You Need to get to the records.
[What you find, 2]
You had hoped to bag up everything you could find on taxes, recent employment histories, and both taxes and deals across the greater peninsula, to give you a leg up in figuring out what caused this, and on your mission, but you are obviously too late, that entire section of the palace is ablaze, and you stagger out, eyes burning and coughing up ash-stained phelgm uncontrollably.
You manage to help organize the bucket brigades, but you can do little else and normal water seems to have no effect on this blaze, requiring sand to put it out. If the palace grounds didn't provide such an excellent firebreak you would be worried about losing chunks of the city.
-[X] 2 the inner walls
You end up leading men to the gatehouse, from there you can send runners across the walls to alert the other guardposts, in the hope of stopping an infiltrator on the way out. You're not sure how effective it will be, while there are men posted along the length of the walls, and blockages and barricades in the breaches the enemy have obviously gotten into the city so how and can probably get out.
(Random encounters 26, nothing you want to encounter)
You get word that a tree monster and some elves have broken through one of the other barricades, killing over two squads of troops, but nothing comes for you at the gate.
-[X] 3 the docks in particular
At the same time as heading to the walls you'd commanded men to go ahead and secure the docks, to prevent any ships from leaving with the attackers.
[Preventing escape 17]
Unfortunately they are too late, they arrive to find three ships pulling out of the rivermouth and the dock master nowhere to be seen.
The ships of the Navy that can be made ready to give chase scramble to call as much of their crews as possible before setting out.
[Detection and deactivation 79 +12, success]
Just as you're arriving the pursuit is delayed when a hue and cry is sent up from one of the ships, they've found some sort of clearly corrupted warpstone and gunpowder artifact aboard, almost entirely by chance, luckily they're able to strip it out relatively easily. You soon deactivate them by helping to figure out how to pull them apart without actually letting the Phial of acids inside mix with anything.
This prompt the other captains to do the same, after a brief delay they find that whoever has planted these things aboard has done the stupid thing and planted them all in roughly the same area on each ship, all are found in short order.
[Pursuit 82]
You wish the captains luck as you see them rapidly closing on their quarry, you have your own problems to deal with.
[6][17][82]
You later learned that while two ships escaped, even sinking one of your galleys in the process, another was captured, filled to the gunwales with the same rat mutants you saw in the palace. And the important looking ones were kept alive for interrogation.
[X] 4 the district walls
[Riot? 38 riot]
[Talking them down 79 + 18]
You actually had to help contain a Riot in the trade district, but they were surprisingly easy to talk down and get organized to help keep the fires under control once they found someone in charge to speak to.
-[X] 5 the barracks
The barracks were secure before you could get there, but connecting up with the command post there could be really useful in your efforts to get the rest of the city under control.
At this point however your injuries were starting to wear heavily on you, leaving you stuck in a carriage being fussed over by the healers as you were carted around to oversee everything.
[Too injured? 71 barely no]
Nontheless you were confident that you could contribute if anything went wrong.
-[X] 6 the temple district
[Attempted theft 83 HA]
Your stop by the temple district informed you that they were thankful for your visit, but the attempted thieves had been either captured by the guards, Knights Templar or in one memorable case torn apart by an enraged congregation.
-[X] 7 the outer walls
Unfortunately these defences where to porus and low on the priority list, when you swing by they report nothing out of the ordinary.
-[X] 8 the tradesman district
Having quelled the riots and seeing no plumes of smoke, you would expect it to be quiet here.
[Tempted fate 3 + 20(visited the barracks)]
But no, apparently not, the wheels on your carriage are burnt off in an encounter with a small group of Zabraq released from some cage somewhere, you end up hiding behind your carriage and a stone building, as you feel in no state to rush them with your injuries and small guard force, and they feel no need to leap after you after you gutted the first two that tried it. These things were originally imported from Ind, some point in the last few centuries, primarily because the alchemists were interested in thier acidic leavings, but have since gotten loose and made a home for themselves in the mountains.
[The cavalry 75]
Luckily a charge from the Knights of Araby to the rescue gives you the opportunity to turn things around.
[Combat 26]
Unfortunately the Zabraq show why they are so feared, spade tails flinging their horrifically acidic feces fells more than thirty knights, burning through plate and unhorsing men moments after splashing on their targets.
You, of course, charge the biggest one.
[Reaction 40 + 21]
It tries to fling some at you, but you're closing faster than the beast predicted and it misses by a narrow margin as you turn aside.
[Combat 22 + 21 -5 (injuries)]
The beast manages to get its fangs into your left greave, but in doing so you put one of it's eyes out and it scuttles back.
[Everything else 76 +21]
The Knights, however are cleaning things up nicely, if the beasts could realize that they are very difficult to hit from horseback so long as they stay close to the ground this fight might have gone a different way, but these are just simple beasts and they scatter from a superior force.
[combat 89 + 21 -10 (injuries)]
Ignoring the growing no burning in your leg, you lunge forward in a perfect leap, taking the beast in the side right below the heart as it coils up to leap away, luckily this time you didn't cut into the digestive system so you blame wasn't ruined by acid, unluckily this appears to be your limit.
You need to lie down and see the, now deeply aggrieved with you, healers.
Final injury total: shallow cuts and bruises, the (mitigated) aftereffects of a poison meant to cause a heart attack, a nasty cut on your hand, acid burns to much of your right shin, the aftereffects of smoke inhalation.
-[X] 9 the other noble estates
-[X] 10 the trade district in general
It took eighteen hours to beat back the unnatural blazes that had ravaged your city and get the riots and roaming assassins targeting the nobility under control.
You collapsed into a relatively secure bed, only to wake up again six hours later as a flaming vampire burst through your window and you needed to decapitate it and put the room out.
Hours of further coordination, calling anyone you know that would help on short notice, a nap, and trying to set up a temporary centre of government in the winter palace of a second cousin of yours that wouldn't mind the intrusion occupy the whole of the second day, and by the time you're finally meeting with some people to a get a handle on the situation you are beginning to suspect that there isn't a 'bottom' of this business, the rabbit hole just keeps on going down.
You eventually learn that the Knights hunting down the surviving seven of those creatures lost nearly another twenty men, mostly to their ability to leap far out of range and fling more acid at them, only winning with so few casualties because some of their number had brought bows, and spending the next four hours on a challenging chase to make sure they'd gotten them all, before taking extensive trophies from the creatures corpses. You also learn that the nobles are pissed at you for being a low priority while an unnatural fire that got out of control burnt down half of their palaces, and that there was a riot, starting a fire in one of the slums, but both problems rapidly got under control when the rioters organized themselves to put it out.
The immediate problems dealt with, you how have to figure out who caused this mess. No easy task as it would be easier to count the forces the city garrison didn't report fighting than it is to figure out who is responsible for this.
Military: Your marshal is Hossam Mahmud, a noted swordsmaster and inspired general, he appears quietly angry at the state of your people and publically angry at the madness that lead to your father's death, while only having held his position fir a matter of months he has adapted quickly, doing his best to meet the challenge of filling his predecessors shoes. he has a great many ideas for courses of action you could take, but only time to pursue some of them. -choose 2
Picking up the crown and getting some religion: The Knights of Araby and the local mission of the Knights Templar are spread out throughout the Caliphate of Khufra fighting a surprisingly wide array of gribbles. In the wake of the spate of defeats your father suffered immediately before his assassination they were deployed to assuage the nobles and break up small concentrations of enemies, mostly undead and beastmen, but also Ghouls, desert raiders, cultists, an explosion in the population of dangerous animals, and that rarest of local threats, the greenskin. By rallying them together you will gain a considerable force you can wheel to smash each of these problems in isolation.
Cost 100. Time 1 year. Chance of success: 100% and 80% on the Knights of Araby and the Knights Templar respectively. Reward: Knights of Araby and Knights Templar able to be commanded as a massed body.
Where are the Guards!?: The most loyal and elite force in Araby, the Guard is supposed to project the royal family and serve as their mailed fist in striking down threats all across the country. Your father had them helping both the local nobles and the other Caliphs and Emirs with threats to ensure their support, but many of those problems are now dealt with and you have enemies to fight Here.
Cost: 200. Time: 2 years. Chance of success 50%(90% if taken with or after The King is dead, long live the King). Reward: Sultanate Guard able to be commanded as a single force(note, they trickle in over time, the ones along the coast in the north will arrive relatively quickly).
Call the army: Your regular military force had been temporarily stood down to replace losses and in acknowledgement that your father could not lead them while recuperating from injuries and had not yet replaced the last Marshal so no one else could lead them. Call them back to full readiness and send them out to fight. Cost 100. Time 1 year. Chance of success 98%. Reward: Nobles not pissed off at you for massing together the Knights or Guards and leaving them with less defences. Dead gribbles. Access to a much larger number of regular troops for any fight you get into.
Start beating back this mess: No one knows who you are, as far as the nobles are concerned you're just another unimportant nth son, who likely would never have amounted to anything. The peasants don't even know that much. Your legitimacy as a ruler will be in question until you prove that you can protect your people, so go out and get started.
Cost: 0. Time: 1 Year. Reward: Battle Interlude. Good chance of Boost to Peasant Opinion. Good chance of small Boost to Noble Opinion. Choose one option to focus on, there's a chance of getting to do a second on the same action if the battle goes really well in your favor:
-[] Beastmen. There have been beastmen in the mountains and deserts for longer than any record you can find goes back. Now they're coming out of the mountains and attacking the farms and plantations along the river Tarouz, lets see if you can discourage that.
No further reduction in food supply.
-[] Necromancers. Araby has been plagued by the undead since the effectively prehistoric time when your current capital, the city of Lashiek, was a small town founded by nomads, and something struck down the decrepit people of dread Nehekhara. Sources vary on what exactly that was, most say it was god, others say it was Nagash, a small number of debased heretics say there's no difference. However the problem got significantly worse when Abdul Ben Rashchid got ahold of something from the land of the dead that drove him insane and wrote his damned 'Book of the Dead'. There's a coven of necromancers wreaking havoc up north, raising the dead and cutting off overland trade with the actually important chunks of Araby. Let's go see if you can make their creations re-dead, and them just dead.
+trade income
-[] Ghouls. They've haunted graveyards, catacombs, and battlefields, preying on good Arabayans, since their creation by the daemon Gallu. What's that, you say the northern infidels claim that's not where they come from, shaddup about it, they have no idea what they're talking about. Somehow their population has gotten out of control, now there are groups of them massing wherever corpses can be found, and actually coordinating with each other. Possibly the least of the threats you would need to muster a small army to face, they're still a serious problem. Worse, if they manage to take a major religious site in their quest to get into the graveyards and feed on the dead the church will be gravely disappointed with you. Let's go out and perform some pest control.
We're going to need some boats. Piracy is endemic to Araby, in fact it is a valuable part of your culture in certain areas, but this goes too far. There is a group of pirates down the coast somewhere around the Emirate of Sud or Songhai interrupting trade with the entire southern half of the country and everything further south. When your father went to face them he was evaded for an extended period then caught by surprise ashore with a strong wind and bad tide preventing him from getting back out to sea, many of his ships were burned or taken and now swell the ranks of the pirates into a credible threat. You will need to dislodge them eventually, preferably lethally. Call up the navy and any merchants or pirates willing to fight on short notice and take the fight to them.
Cost 2,000. Time: 1 Year. Reward: Sea battle Interlude. Good chance of boost to Noble Opinion.
-The cheap version Cost 1,000. Time: 1 Year. Reward: Sea battle Interlude, Reduced chance of pirates and merchants showing up to help, Small chance of boost to Noble Opinion.
I would like that laminated: Your father was forced to interrupt his effort to equip the troops with standardized lamellar armour, and shields of iron plates backed with wood, to deal with the current spate of crises, but much of the groundwork is still there and the many of the plates themselves are still sitting in government warehouses. Getting the soldiers into some kind of standardized protection would greatly improve their survivability.
Cost 400. Time 1 Year. Reward: The common soldiery(Spearmen, Swordsmen, Bowmen), and the mounted troops(Desert riders, Camel riders) take fewer casualties in battle.
Hammer time, the cheap and fast edition: You can kind of deal with the normal undead, but fighting them with blades is inefficient. While skeletons are fragile, blades tend to skate off of all the hard surfaces and lack of fleshy bits. And don't even get started on war statuary! I mean seriously, they're solid stone armored in bronze, with enough flexibility and responsiveness to their environment to give way a little bit under a blow. In ancient times your ancestors considered it a mildly heroic feat to defeat one Ushabti. The traditional way of dealing with them was, and still is, sledgehammers, pickaxes and specialized maces, with slingers intermixed with the bowmen flinging rocks and lead weights at the skeletons. Admittedly your Guard and Knights are already equipped for this, similarly some of your swordsmen carry a mace as a secondary weapon, and your militia includes nearly as many slingers as bowmen, but you don't really have much of this equipment among the average troops of your standing army. If you have ambitions beyond your own province, and it's common threats of beastmen and other Arabyans, you should load for homicidal skeletons and statues. It might also be useful against those undead in your own province?
Cost: 100. Time: 1 year. Reward: 2,000 Swordsmen become Macemen(better against skeletons and war statuary, marginally less effective against unarmored enemies that suffer from blood loss), 4,000 archers become slingers(better against skeletons, worse against anyone who takes shields and armor seriously)
Bombardment: Your father lost all of the bombards in your land army to the Tomb Kings and a Roc. However, despite some priests proclaiming the loss of the new(less than a century old!) weapons as a sign of their inferiority and god's displeasure, the general consensus is that you need to get some more. Despite their lack of reliability, recent losses against the Tomb Kings, and their use against fellow Arabyans in the civil war they have proved effective weapons, allowing you to strike down enemies you would have remained otherwise unable to handle, enabling you to damage the larger war statuary or winnow down regiments of Ushabti before closing, and actually deliberately sink ships in naval combat without setting them on fire and leaving them to burn for an extended period, or boarding them and drilling holes under the waterline. They can't be that difficult to replace right? They're just a latticework of banded iron wrapped into a tube.
Cost: 600. Time: 1 year. Reward: 1d12 Bombards, with attached minimally skilled siege engineers, pass quality control inspections and join the army of Araby(large cannon using stone cannonballs, they use a relatively small powder charge and still tend to burst more than you'd like, you don't know why, it might have something to do with the fact that you don't cast them as a solid mass of metal, they also lack wheels so the engineering crew has to disassemble, move, and reassemble them whenever you want them moved)
I chucked a rock at it, then I realized that it wasn't small, just far away: Your father entered an ill-fated feud with Al Ruhk, known to the northerners as a Roc, when it started stealing goats from herders(and an elephant from the army). This is why there are no elephants, bombards or flying carpets in the army of Khufra, why Lashiek's walls have several holes in them, why Lashiek has several immovably huge boulders scattered throughout its neighborhoods, and some neighborhoods look recently repaired from being flattened or clawed, why you are down several ships that you didn't lose to pirates, and why every important looking building in the city still smells like bird poo. Take revenge, and stop paying this ridiculous tribute that's straining your herders and skimming off the top of your coffers to pay those herders with noble patrons sufficient that you can't just claim extra animals as a temporary tax, and to prevent herders from just up and leaving.
Cost: Varies depending on the plan you end up going with. Reward: Roc assassination interlude, If you win: Definite boost to both noble and peasant opinion, no longer paying tribute, food situation improved by one step(it eats a lot of animals), a measure of satisfaction.
Diplomacy: On the diplomatic front you are served by Amani Anis, a normally gregarious young man you've seen in the chambers on occasion. He's been hit hard by your father's death, perhaps harder than you, as he had a much closer relationship with the man than you did. He now walks as if he has a metaphorical cloud over him at all times.
Choose 2:
The king is dead, long live the king: You should hold a coronation, inviting all of the other Emirs and Caliphs or their representatives to confirm and witness your ascension as Sultan and witness your ascension as Caliph. You need these people if you want to do anything outside of your own territory, either aiding you, or out of the picture. Hold a meet and greet after the coronation and hear out their concerns.
Cost: 200, Time: 2 years, Reward: information on the other sections of 'your' realm and it's politics, you are confirmed as Sultan with greater theoretical authority, ???
Ask your neighbors for help: Sometimes the resources of one Caliphate just aren't enough, you could ask a your neighboring Caliphates and Emirates to deal with your military problems for you. You do, after all, have a great many enemies right now. But they haven't accepted you as Sultan just yet and this would be undermining your credibility in a period when many of them have their own problems.
Cost: the respect of your neighbors(of course you'd lose it if you lose the fight on your own as well), possibly some reputation with your nobles, likely a 'reward' to the people helping you, If they show up you don't really have any guarantees that their men will behave themselves, or only be here to help. Time 2 years. Reward, possibility of some of your local threats getting removed without you having to do it.
Who is responsible for this?: some of your efforts to hunt down the mastermind of the ten-plot pileup at the palace will require going overseas to track down information in places where you currently lack an information network. Doing so through diplomatic channels is essentially your only option at this point. Cost 200, Time ???(at least 2 years), Chance of success:you're almost certain to get something, whether it is enough is another matter entirely, Reward: information?
Scratch My Back: It is an accepted trick in Estalia and TIlea to gain a title of nobility by sending a letter to a receptive noble with an amount of gold to persuade them to respond to you with the wished for title, e.g. Signor or Sir. This is perhaps even more useful in Araby, with your current restriction on merchants needing to also be nobles, you could easily legitimize some of the less aggressive 'raiders' or 'pirates'. While you Aren't the Sultan yet you still are the highest authority in your lands and as such your word when responding would mean something. Amani knows of a few people who would make use of this service and would pay handsomely.
Cost: 0, Time: 1 year Reward: 1d250 Gold
Stewardship Your father's steward, Mansur Nurul, still serves you loyaly, though he seems distracted, and is prone to frowning off into space when not occupied with a specific task. choose 2
The centre needs to hold: There are still several noble mansions standing in the city, and you need a centre of government to run your administration out of. You could buy or confiscate one of the unoccupied ones, hopefully from someone who won't be around to be angry at you for doing so. Then move all of your organization's into the new 'palace'. Your advisors strongly recommend doing this as soon as possible.
Cost 500, Time, 1 year, Reward: no longer rolling for each category to see if your number of actions will degrade to 1 per turn, currently 90% chance of preserving the system Hossam Mahmud's predecessor set up to give you 3 military actions, 1 more piety action once you have an advisor for that, options to get 1 more Learning action.
Fishing fleet: You're concerned over the food situation, but a solution presents itself, much of Araby's food has traditionally come from the sea. You could sponsor a major expansion to the fishing fleet as a crown owned business, pocketing the profit and using the influx of seafood to feed your population.
Cost, 1000, Time 1 year, Reward: chance of increasing food availability by one step, certainty of delaying any reduction in food availability, +fishing income.
Overseas trade: You trade with the infidels to the north, but right now only when it would most benefit you, generally selling silks and spices for ruinous prices, and now that your southern sources are cutoff, buying good timber from them. You could expand that trade to a wider array of things, and while you're at it you could bypass the necromancers blocking overland trade to the north-east, and just ship everything back and forth.
Cost: 150, Time: 1 year. Reward: increased trade income.
Outsourcing Overseas: You are really really concerned about the food situation, you could try to remedy the problem by importing massed shipments of grain across the sea of Infidels, though it would get expensive.
Cost: 800 per turn, Time: until you stop, Reward: food supply increased by one step until you stop, note that given the number of pirates in this area any seaborne venture carries a measure of risk, and that risk will increase the longer you maintain predictable shipments.
Southern Hospitality: While trade to the north might be cut off, and the mountains are full of beastmen, you do have southern neighbors. Notably you share a land border with the Caliphate of Ghafsa, and the pass of Cobras on your Southern border through the mountains leading to the Emirate of Tambukta, while historically much of your trade has been with the richer northern territories, excepting some sales of manufactured goods in Tambukta, there isn't any reason you couldn't open closer trade ties with the neighbors you aren't cut off from. Maybe they could fill your needs for material, in the absence of northern alternatives.
Cost: 150, Time: 1 year. Reward: increased trade income
Diggin a hole: The mines in the mountains run deep, copper, lead and silver, some iron, gold once upon a time, a couple of odder metals you mostly have little use for. You doubt the peaks and valleys of your lands have run dry you could conduct a survey to exploit additional resources.
Cost: 100, Time 1 year. Chance Of Success: 70% Reward: Veins found and exploited
Quarrels and Quarries: Most of the mountain stone you find is too coarse in grain, or passe in nature to be worth much in trade. But often functionality is more important than aesthetics, and stone is a popular building material, for those who can afford it. Beastmen took out some of your best Quarries last year, but there are less profitable quarries in the south that could be reopened, with a few guards.
Cost: 75 Gold,Time: 3 Years Reward: Quarries, Quarry income
Smithing expansion: In the past, long before the Estalians were able to claim anything similar, the Damsik clan of your people's blacksmith's claimed to produce the best steel in the world. They weren't around to continue claiming that after that feud with the Dwarves. But it is true that you have a long and storied tradition of metalworking. So why, precisely, is your steel production so low that the Army is armed with nearly as much iron as they are good steel? It's unacceptable. You could hold a conference of blacksmiths, encouraging, or ordering them to share their techniques and subsidize training new apprentices, to increase your level of steel production and make better equipment practical.
Cost: 400, Time: 4 years, Chance of success: 75% Reward: more steel, army gradually switches over to steel in places they previously used iron, actions to speed that switch made available.
Wall me in, the fast and cheap version: Currently the walls of Lashiek have had several holes blown in them by a Roc chucking Rocks. Luckily this problem provides its own solution, you could claim all of the bricks, rubble, loose stones, and the substance of the giant boulders hurled into your city as property of the crown and set to rebuilding the walls from them.
Cost: 400, Time: 1 year, Chance of success: 90%, Reward: The breaches in your walls sealed, if with sub-par materiels, giant rocks removed from your city, on crit the city stops smelling like bird poop.
Taxes: Oh boy, corruption! Or typos. Either way, people often do not put the whole of their owed taxes together. Send Mansur Nurul to double check, and make sure that all is as it should be, instead of all screwed up.
Cost: Free, Time: 1 year, Reward: 1d250 Gold
Research
Your advisor in this area is Tabassum Qismat, a gently smiling extremely elderly man who worked with your father, offers his condolences and tells you that you don't really have the facilities to conduct proper research right now, running your government out of someone else's dining room as you are, but he can help you read up on a subject.
Choose 1
Read up on the Aguidi mountains and beastmen
Time 1 year: cost 0 Reward: bonus to fighting the current group due to a better understanding of them in particular, possible advantage against that Roc, possible other discoveries.
Read up on Nehekhara and the undead
Time 1 year: cost 0 Reward: bonus to fighting the current group of undead due to a better understanding of them in particular, information on current and recent events in Nehekhara.
Read up on ghouls
Time 1 year: cost 0 Reward: clarification of contradictory myths on ghous in Araby, bonus to fighting the current group due to a better understanding of them in particular, ???.
Read up on specific territories of Araby
Time 1 year: cost 0 Reward: choose two Emirates or Caliphates, get a better understanding of them
Read up on the abandoned isle
Time 1 year, Cost 0, Chance of success: ???, Reward: there's in island in the river Tarouz, downriver from Lashiek, it's forbidden to all for some reason, you know an army disappeared there once but you don't know why, try to find out.
Piety: you could use someone to organize this mess of priests, holy warriors, and pilgrims, half the things they say seem to contradict each other, and it's incredibly difficult to figure out who you should be talking to to get something specific done -choose 1
Recruitment: you need to fill your council if you want anything to get done, recruit a Piety advisor Cost 0. Time: 1 year. Reward: You gain a Piety advisor, probabilities of success and effects of success improve, additional piety options, once you have a space in a proper centre of government set aside for them to work this will give you one more piety action.
Whirling Dervishers: Thesemadmen overly faithful individuals are really good at human wave attacks against enemies that cause immense casualties and facing the things that drive men mad to look upon, generally without even blinking, possibly because many of them are mad already. Okay, perhaps that is being a bit harsh, you know faith can drive men to make great sacrifices and face terrible foes, but perhaps these people take it a bit too far? You could conduct a survey to find out how many will show up and call some.
Time 1 year, Cost: 100, Chance of success 70%, Dervishers show up to the battles ahead more reliably
War priests: Araby has plenty of priests whose faith can have more, let us say temporal, effects. Call some to join the army for the duration of the current crisis. Cost: 100, Reward: 1d3 war priests join army for your operations
Seek Support: While as a caliph you hypothetically hold final religious authority in your caliphate, and as Sultan you theoretically hold final say over everything except doctrine in all of Araby, in reality you have a bunch of people to need to convince and keep happy if you want to do anything. You could talk to them, seeking support for your rule, though it might be better to get an advisor first.
Time 1 year, Cost 50, Chance of success ???, Reward: Support among the politically significant of the religiously significant, may come with terms and conditions, possible increased priest opinion.
Intrigue, Your spies and assassins are run by Faraj Wafi, a Eunoch who served your father effectively,. At least up until the palace fiasco, he is eager to get to the bottom of things, having just returned to the country from a four year trip to determine the current state of the Empire's long-running civil war, and their developments(for some reason) far to the north. He reports that your information network has been systematically targeted in his absence and effectively no longer exists. Choose 2
What just happened?!: The ten plot pileup at the former palace was one of the most ridiculous mid-air scheme collisions he's ever heard of, as best he can tell there were several factions in the city, each planning something different, but all forced to act at once, to both confusing and dramatic effect. There were at least two groups of human assassins, Ratmen, Elves, Undead, and some plant thing present.The situation was so confused that he's not sure that all of them were even there as assassins, he really wants to clarify this mess, try to form a narrative that can explain any of this, interrogate the rat mutants and thieves, and get some leads on the various groups that succeeded in escaping and who sent everyone involved. There's also the issue of what exactly happened to his information network while he was away, he doesn't really know how anyone without access to your father's records could have done this much damage, and would like to determine how related this is to the mess in the palace.
Cost: 200, Time: 2 years, Reward: More(but not complete, level of completeness depends on rolls) knowledge of what happened in the castle, leads for further investigation.
Do something about those necromancers: In the north they may rely on the Witch hunters of the Order of the Silver Hammer, or the varoous orders of the inquisition to deal with cultists and witches, You don't do that here. Araby uses more subtle, and to your mind, perhaps more effective methods, namely assassin's and kill-teams. The Black Hand are an order of assassins that have served the Sultanate for hundreds of years, since replacing the last order when they went rogue. They are efficient, dutiful, nearly undetectable before they strike, and don't care much for honorable battle, pride, or even their own lives, just killing their targets as quickly as practical. And if they're a bunch of weirdos who never miss an opportunity to head off into the mountains between missions to practise their skills against the local beastmen, that just shows their dedication to honing their craft, and to the common good of the civilisation you both protect. You could send some of them after the coven of necromancers, if they can get close enough they might be able to whittle down the number you will have to face. This is made practical because unlike most of your other enemies the necromancers interact socially with the people they raid and lord over. Given the way that they act as the linchpin of the much larger force of undead, any casualties they take will noticeably reduce the difficulty of the fight you're about to get into.
Cost 100, Time 1 year, Chance of success 50%, Reward: dead necromancers
Set up a local information network, currently you are operating at a reduced level of information gathering capacity, and have lots of things you're likely to need to investigate soon. Your advisor set one up the first time around and thinks he can do it faster and cheaper a second time.
Cost 200, Time 1 year, Chance of success 80%, Reward: removal of your -10 mallus to information gathering attempts within the Caliphate of Khufra(your own province).
Investigate: (write in: who, where, or what event): if there's something you think is suspicious, or worthy of deeper investigation, you can order your spies to look into it.
Personal, you have a great deal of work to do, choose two
Rest well in the arms of the Father of our people, father: You need to hold a state funeral for your father, he was good to you as a child and deserves to be honored in his passing. Build him a small monument, and hold a gathering to give a speech, touching upon the good points of his life and what you plan to do to improve on what he left you. You could put this off for a while, given the plethora of problems you face, and the lack of a body but that wouldn't be ideal.
Cost: 200. Time: 1 year. Reward: funeral segment, unlikely chance to boost to noble opinion, peace of mind
Call the healers: You're being tended to by the best healers in the city plying their herbs, tinctures and blessings to speed your recovery, but they aren't the best healers in Araby. Normal healers simply speed natural recovery, if you want to be recovered quickly enough to be present for the current campaigns you will need some assistance with a bit more ompf, call a healer of the Esoteric Order of the Potent Hand, or … a sorcerer. At this point you don't really care who responds, you need to be back on your feet and fighting to deal with the threats coming out of the woodwork.
Cost: 150. Time: less than 1 year. Chance of success 75%. Reward: fully healed and back at it in time for any fights you pick this year.
The king is dead, long live the king: You should hold a coronation, inviting all of the other Emirs and Caliphs to confirm your ascension as Sultan and witness your ascension as Caliph. You need these people if you want to do anything outside of your own territory, either aiding you, or out of the picture. Hold a meet and greet and hear out their concerns. You might be able to do this on your own, maybe?
Cost: 200, Time: 2 years,Chance of success ???. auto success due to emissary background, Reward: information on the other sections of 'your' realm and it's politics, you are confirmed as Sultan with greater theoretical authority
I chucked a rock at it, then I realized that it wasn't small, just far away: Your father entered an ill-fated feud with Al Ruhk, known to the northerners as a Roc, when it started stealing goats from herders(and an elephant from the army). This is why there are no elephants, bombards or flying carpets in the army of Khufra, why Lashiek's walls have several holes in them, why Lashiek has several immovably huge boulders scattered throughout its neighborhoods, and some neighborhoods look recently repaired from being flattened or clawed, why you are down several ships that you didn't lose to pirates, and why every important looking building in the city still smells like bird poo. Take revenge, and stop paying this ridiculous tribute that's straining your herders and skimming off the top of your coffers, both to pay those herders with noble patrons sufficient that you can't just claim extra animals as a temporary tax, and to prevent herders from just up and leaving. You don't think you necessarily need to do this through your military infrastructure, you've been fantasizing about an attempt for quite some time, most of the people in the city have been, and you are thus somewhat prepared.
Cost: Varies depending on the plan you come up with. Reward: Roc assassination interlude, with some added difficulties, If you win: Definite boost to both noble and peasant opinion, no longer paying tribute, food situation improved by one step(it eats a lot of animals), a measure of satisfaction.
Find love: Or at least a politically convenient marriage, you could wait several years, but it is expected that you eventually go about building a group of wives to provide heirs. The first one is a difficult choice to make, as they will have authority to manage all of the others, and their children will have primacy over the others regardless of their own family's prominence.
Cost: Free, Time: 1 year, Reward: Marriage options
Editing later.
[X][Priorities] Plan Critical and Vulnerable
-[X] 1 the palace
You stagger to your feet, moving quickly to reach those very same Temple Guard you had been looking across the river at from your balcony.
Though they try to lead you to the healers you insist that they work on the move.
There is too much to be done, too much at stake, for you to be injured right now!
+200 Temple Guard, +4 healers
Once they've been gathered you move to the nearest bridge to seize the palace. You want to know what happened while you were semi-conscious, having your vision. You know you should move to protect any members of your family still alive within the palace. You realize you should retrieve the records. If any of them are still intact, you think with trepidation, looking up at the growing plume of smoke.
And … you need to know if what you knew in that dream is actually true, to know if your father is truly dead.
You rush past the dead guards at the gate, travelling further into the outer courtyard.
[where you go first: 1d3 =1]
You need to see your family.
[Random encounters: 76]
You rush for the royal quarters immediately. As you charge through the increasingly smoky halls, past the rich tapestries, detailed frescos, and glimmering mosaics of the palace you meet up with three squads of the Arabyan Guard, heading to secure the royal family, and you alert them of the compromising of the servants. Their leader, a man of few words, simply affirms that he has heard and understood.
+30 Arabyan Guard.
Then you are through, into the apartments.
[what you find at the entrance: 35]
There is a group of brown-coated men at the entrance, quite successfully fighting their way through the guards that have arrived before you towards the living quarters. But you come upon only a couple dozen men from the rear with a force over two hundred strong.
[entering combat: 40+21]
Despite their best attempts to run, via one of the servant's passages, you are on them too fast for more than one or two of them to escape. Lunging ahead of your force, you get in front of their escape route, cutting down the one that had been about to leave,
[you versus a group of browncoats, with some men attached to them: 39+21]
And locking blades with the next in line, despite one of the men pinking you at the wrist with a rapier, they are unable to break through your quick and flexible defence before your small army of support can arrive.
[survival rates: 7]
Unfortunately, as it seems certain that they will be captured, they all stumble, then simultaneously explode, knocking you on your back and releasing a small horde of chittering many-toothed creatures.
-17 men
You blink dumbly in surprise for just a moment, somehow all 23 of the men you were just fighting have burst open thunderously, scattering leavings on every possible surface and releasing twice their number of toothed fuzzballs, the creatures are nauseatingly, fundamentally wrong in a way that gives you the heebie jeebies. But even that doesn't stop you as you rapidly get your bearings and roll to your feet, yelling to your men to follow you, as you try to get to the royal apartments ahead of the creatures.
[managing it: 47 +21 = 68]
[What else is going on Here? 13 + 21, fail, are distracted by the fighting]
You actually manage to get nearly four squads of the men though the doors before the blue fuzzballs, they may zigzag back and forth quickly, but they aren't very fast in a straight line, your men will block them, at least for a few minutes.
[What do you find: 37 they're mostly dead]
But inside the situation is much worse, the air is difficult to breath, causing coughing if you dare to take a deep breath, and bodies lay scattered on the ground.
The shortness of breath in your lungs combines with the stuttering ache in your chest to nearly drive you to your knees.
[Don't give out on me now: =70, still going, actually given the source of all of this and the high level of general vitality implied by your traits I'll make it 70+20 =90, you shake it off for an hour or two and act unaffected]
The men at the doors have set to stamping on the creatures, slashing low at the ground, and in one case body slamming five of them against the ground, crushing the creatures with a shield bash.
-3 men
You turn to join them in a helpless rage, you can't head deeper in with this sorcery fouling the air.
[combat continues: 92 +21 =113 Critical success]
But the enemy is already fading and popping away into nothingness, leaving you nothing to vent your frustrations.
You order the men to force their way through, warning them of the foul air and telling them to take any precautions they can.
-4 men
The commander, two of his sergeant's, the healers and you group up, trying to figure out how to stop the men from dropping and having to be dragged back out to the healers like the first few that tried to get through.
[Poison gas bypass: 42 +11 +15(healers) =68, success]
You settle on wrapping damp cloths around their mouths, holding their breaths and having the healers bless their ability to not breath in whatever is in there.
You're not sure it's very effective, given that by the time they've searched the entire wing for survivors you're down nearly another 30 men to whatever this is. And one squad has disappeared without a trace, gone from their planned patrol route.
-39 men
But at least some people have survived, servants near the upper floor windows, and
[1d10 =2 1d2 =2 1d2=2]
two of your younger sisters, trapped in a wardrobe with a clearly hysterical maid raving about rats.
By this time the castle hallways are becoming choked with smoke, you might not be able to retrieve anything.
[Do you still have time? Required 70: 73 you (barely) still have time]
But there's just one more thing you have to get before you can go.
You order fifty of your remaining men to escort the servants, wounded, and your siblings out of the palace, keeping them safe.
-50 men
Leaving you with only 117 men to help you, with luck you wouldn't need any more.
The treasury could keep on it's own, while many precious items would be lost to fire the melted gold and silver could be sifted from the wreckage. You would instead be headed to the Records room, assuming it wasn't yet aflame. So you started heading across from the east wing, towards the centre of the castle.
You end up fishing your way past the rising smoke in one hallway, one man realized part way through that staying closer to the ground reduced the strain on your lungs, and passed it on to the others.
At least if the building came down on you now you would have achieved something here.
[random encounters 35, the difficulty level is increasing)
(What 81 +12)
Nearly reaching your destination you round a corner and run smack dab into a rapidly finishing engagement between some rat mutants and six squads of what look like Arabyan guard, you are at first relieved, but something twigs you that things aren't quite right. You look again, most damningly your eyes catch one of them armed with a weapon that pains the head to look upon, just now returning to its holster as the owner notices your group, but also almost every man among them has at least one pistol, an esoteric weapon you know is so rare amongst the troops assigned to the palace that it would be suspicious enough on its own to run into a full group armed suchly.
(You really don't have time for this, Charging 20 +10 (some are distracted) +21)
Unfortunately these men are made of sterner stuff than the last group, and just as you notice the one with a corrupted weapon you know he notices you, your eyes lock and he moves to meet you.
Though you'd never heard of someone with a Daemonic pistol before it proves just as, if not more deadly as it's barely-conventional forebears.
Your group only avoids being savaged by virtue of the enemy being distracted and mostly unloaded, and is holding the advantage in physical combat more by virtue of superior numbers than superior skill, being relatively evenly matched in ability, and far closer in numbers than any other fight you've had today.
Those advantages unfortunately to not apply to your fight with their leader, you only survive the approach by having reflexes good enough to grab one of his men and interpose them between you when he draws his weapon.
He fires anyway, as you duck behind the improvised obstacle, lifting the dying body with one hand, ignoring the way his backplate deforms and heats under the weight of nine technicolor shots unloaded so fast you have trouble believing you aren't listening to a string of firecrackers, and hurling the corpse the enemy leader. This surprises him long enough to bat his weapon away from it's bead on you on the upswing, transitioning into a downswing seeking to cleave him shoulder to waist.
That bounces off of a shimmer in the air that you can barely see surrounding his body, feeling like you had tried to cut solid steel.
[Round 1 FIGHT 37 +21 =58]
Again you have trouble with the fight, the enemy uses his ranged weapon to limit your options, proving that, yes it can continue firing, even now, and forcing you to keep track of a weapon with an unfamiliar angle of attack, alongside some form of magic, while he tries -unsuccessfully to gut you with his shortsword.
[The rest of the fight 9 + 21 +5(some are still distracted with stragglers)]
At the same time your men are doing even worse, the smaller force causing nearly fourty casualties in thirty seconds, as they fight with a clearly choreographed style of bladesmanship, remaining consistent only long enough to allow their opponents to get used to the rhythm of battle, before luring their opponents into over extending, then all simultaneously changing to an entirely different style at once and either striking decisively or putting their foes on the back foot.
[ROUND2 FIGHT 22 +21]
Your enemy, a large man in an ornate full face, concealing helm, responds to you nearly stabbing him in the visor by first nearly managing to shoot you in the foot with a wild spray, then actually laying open your off hand while it was out of position in a dodge.
[Your men are still fighting 90 + 21]
Now however, you can see that the fight around you is going much better, that trick with the changing combat styles was the only one the enemy had, and superior numbers, endurance, and focused skill is beginning to show, and in the space of a minute the several of the enemy seem to slip up, leaving them with fewer than twenty combatants, trying to pull away from a force now over three times their numbers.
[ROUND 3 FIGHT 54 + 21 + 10(interferance) -5 (trying to escape) =80]
This time you break through his defence, after a series of back and forth moments and aborted preparatory moves you see an opportunity while he's distracted firing a spray from his pistol and a blast if flame from his hand to keep your men back and use it to make a much harder slash towards his neck. You've landed a couple of blows on his, presumably magical, defence over then course of the fight, just as he's landed a few you've chosen to take to one of your plates, and you think it has some flex to it.
Luckily you are correct, in a strike you just know is ruining the edge on your sword you slam the blade into his neck as hard as you can, feeling the magical protection give a little, and hearing a sharp crack to accompany the impact.
His bloodshot eyes barely visible through the visor glare at you hatefully, but only for less than a split second, as with a swirl in your vision he, and all of his men, are gone, leaving you to stumble forward, unbalenced by all the weight you put into that strike suddenly having nothing to rest against.
You don't stop to worry about the disappearing act, the hallways are getting worse by the minute, and based on the heat you would swear that the left wall has a massive conflagration burning on the other side.
You Need to get to the records.
[What you find, 2]
You had hoped to bag up everything you could find on taxes, recent employment histories, and both taxes and deals across the greater peninsula, to give you a leg up in figuring out what caused this, and on your mission, but you are obviously too late, that entire section of the palace is ablaze, and you stagger out, eyes burning and coughing up ash-stained phelgm uncontrollably.
You manage to help organize the bucket brigades, but you can do little else and normal water seems to have no effect on this blaze, requiring sand to put it out. If the palace grounds didn't provide such an excellent firebreak you would be worried about losing chunks of the city.
-[X] 2 the inner walls
You end up leading men to the gatehouse, from there you can send runners across the walls to alert the other guardposts, in the hope of stopping an infiltrator on the way out. You're not sure how effective it will be, while there are men posted along the length of the walls, and blockages and barricades in the breaches the enemy have obviously gotten into the city so how and can probably get out.
(Random encounters 26, nothing you want to encounter)
You get word that a tree monster and some elves have broken through one of the other barricades, killing over two squads of troops, but nothing comes for you at the gate.
-[X] 3 the docks in particular
At the same time as heading to the walls you'd commanded men to go ahead and secure the docks, to prevent any ships from leaving with the attackers.
[Preventing escape 17]
Unfortunately they are too late, they arrive to find three ships pulling out of the rivermouth and the dock master nowhere to be seen.
The ships of the Navy that can be made ready to give chase scramble to call as much of their crews as possible before setting out.
[Detection and deactivation 79 +12, success]
Just as you're arriving the pursuit is delayed when a hue and cry is sent up from one of the ships, they've found some sort of clearly corrupted warpstone and gunpowder artifact aboard, almost entirely by chance, luckily they're able to strip it out relatively easily. You soon deactivate them by helping to figure out how to pull them apart without actually letting the Phial of acids inside mix with anything.
This prompt the other captains to do the same, after a brief delay they find that whoever has planted these things aboard has done the stupid thing and planted them all in roughly the same area on each ship, all are found in short order.
[Pursuit 82]
You wish the captains luck as you see them rapidly closing on their quarry, you have your own problems to deal with.
[6][17][82]
You later learned that while two ships escaped, even sinking one of your galleys in the process, another was captured, filled to the gunwales with the same rat mutants you saw in the palace. And the important looking ones were kept alive for interrogation.
[X] 4 the district walls
[Riot? 38 riot]
[Talking them down 79 + 18]
You actually had to help contain a Riot in the trade district, but they were surprisingly easy to talk down and get organized to help keep the fires under control once they found someone in charge to speak to.
-[X] 5 the barracks
The barracks were secure before you could get there, but connecting up with the command post there could be really useful in your efforts to get the rest of the city under control.
At this point however your injuries were starting to wear heavily on you, leaving you stuck in a carriage being fussed over by the healers as you were carted around to oversee everything.
[Too injured? 71 barely no]
Nontheless you were confident that you could contribute if anything went wrong.
-[X] 6 the temple district
[Attempted theft 83 HA]
Your stop by the temple district informed you that they were thankful for your visit, but the attempted thieves had been either captured by the guards, Knights Templar or in one memorable case torn apart by an enraged congregation.
-[X] 7 the outer walls
Unfortunately these defences where to porus and low on the priority list, when you swing by they report nothing out of the ordinary.
-[X] 8 the tradesman district
Having quelled the riots and seeing no plumes of smoke, you would expect it to be quiet here.
[Tempted fate 3 + 20(visited the barracks)]
But no, apparently not, the wheels on your carriage are burnt off in an encounter with a small group of Zabraq released from some cage somewhere, you end up hiding behind your carriage and a stone building, as you feel in no state to rush them with your injuries and small guard force, and they feel no need to leap after you after you gutted the first two that tried it. These things were originally imported from Ind, some point in the last few centuries, primarily because the alchemists were interested in thier acidic leavings, but have since gotten loose and made a home for themselves in the mountains.
[The cavalry 75]
Luckily a charge from the Knights of Araby to the rescue gives you the opportunity to turn things around.
[Combat 26]
Unfortunately the Zabraq show why they are so feared, spade tails flinging their horrifically acidic feces fells more than thirty knights, burning through plate and unhorsing men moments after splashing on their targets.
You, of course, charge the biggest one.
[Reaction 40 + 21]
It tries to fling some at you, but you're closing faster than the beast predicted and it misses by a narrow margin as you turn aside.
[Combat 22 + 21 -5 (injuries)]
The beast manages to get its fangs into your left greave, but in doing so you put one of it's eyes out and it scuttles back.
[Everything else 76 +21]
The Knights, however are cleaning things up nicely, if the beasts could realize that they are very difficult to hit from horseback so long as they stay close to the ground this fight might have gone a different way, but these are just simple beasts and they scatter from a superior force.
[combat 89 + 21 -10 (injuries)]
Ignoring the growing no burning in your leg, you lunge forward in a perfect leap, taking the beast in the side right below the heart as it coils up to leap away, luckily this time you didn't cut into the digestive system so you blame wasn't ruined by acid, unluckily this appears to be your limit.
You need to lie down and see the, now deeply aggrieved with you, healers.
Final injury total: shallow cuts and bruises, the (mitigated) aftereffects of a poison meant to cause a heart attack, a nasty cut on your hand, acid burns to much of your right shin, the aftereffects of smoke inhalation.
-[X] 9 the other noble estates
-[X] 10 the trade district in general
It took eighteen hours to beat back the unnatural blazes that had ravaged your city and get the riots and roaming assassins targeting the nobility under control.
You collapsed into a relatively secure bed, only to wake up again six hours later as a flaming vampire burst through your window and you needed to decapitate it and put the room out.
Hours of further coordination, calling anyone you know that would help on short notice, a nap, and trying to set up a temporary centre of government in the winter palace of a second cousin of yours that wouldn't mind the intrusion occupy the whole of the second day, and by the time you're finally meeting with some people to a get a handle on the situation you are beginning to suspect that there isn't a 'bottom' of this business, the rabbit hole just keeps on going down.
You eventually learn that the Knights hunting down the surviving seven of those creatures lost nearly another twenty men, mostly to their ability to leap far out of range and fling more acid at them, only winning with so few casualties because some of their number had brought bows, and spending the next four hours on a challenging chase to make sure they'd gotten them all, before taking extensive trophies from the creatures corpses. You also learn that the nobles are pissed at you for being a low priority while an unnatural fire that got out of control burnt down half of their palaces, and that there was a riot, starting a fire in one of the slums, but both problems rapidly got under control when the rioters organized themselves to put it out.
The immediate problems dealt with, you how have to figure out who caused this mess. No easy task as it would be easier to count the forces the city garrison didn't report fighting than it is to figure out who is responsible for this.
Military: Your marshal is Hossam Mahmud, a noted swordsmaster and inspired general, he appears quietly angry at the state of your people and publically angry at the madness that lead to your father's death, while only having held his position fir a matter of months he has adapted quickly, doing his best to meet the challenge of filling his predecessors shoes. he has a great many ideas for courses of action you could take, but only time to pursue some of them. -choose 2
Picking up the crown and getting some religion: The Knights of Araby and the local mission of the Knights Templar are spread out throughout the Caliphate of Khufra fighting a surprisingly wide array of gribbles. In the wake of the spate of defeats your father suffered immediately before his assassination they were deployed to assuage the nobles and break up small concentrations of enemies, mostly undead and beastmen, but also Ghouls, desert raiders, cultists, an explosion in the population of dangerous animals, and that rarest of local threats, the greenskin. By rallying them together you will gain a considerable force you can wheel to smash each of these problems in isolation.
Cost 100. Time 1 year. Chance of success: 100% and 80% on the Knights of Araby and the Knights Templar respectively. Reward: Knights of Araby and Knights Templar able to be commanded as a massed body.
Where are the Guards!?: The most loyal and elite force in Araby, the Guard is supposed to project the royal family and serve as their mailed fist in striking down threats all across the country. Your father had them helping both the local nobles and the other Caliphs and Emirs with threats to ensure their support, but many of those problems are now dealt with and you have enemies to fight Here.
Cost: 200. Time: 2 years. Chance of success 50%(90% if taken with or after The King is dead, long live the King). Reward: Sultanate Guard able to be commanded as a single force(note, they trickle in over time, the ones along the coast in the north will arrive relatively quickly).
Call the army: Your regular military force had been temporarily stood down to replace losses and in acknowledgement that your father could not lead them while recuperating from injuries and had not yet replaced the last Marshal so no one else could lead them. Call them back to full readiness and send them out to fight. Cost 100. Time 1 year. Chance of success 98%. Reward: Nobles not pissed off at you for massing together the Knights or Guards and leaving them with less defences. Dead gribbles. Access to a much larger number of regular troops for any fight you get into.
Start beating back this mess: No one knows who you are, as far as the nobles are concerned you're just another unimportant nth son, who likely would never have amounted to anything. The peasants don't even know that much. Your legitimacy as a ruler will be in question until you prove that you can protect your people, so go out and get started.
Cost: 0. Time: 1 Year. Reward: Battle Interlude. Good chance of Boost to Peasant Opinion. Good chance of small Boost to Noble Opinion. Choose one option to focus on, there's a chance of getting to do a second on the same action if the battle goes really well in your favor:
-[] Beastmen. There have been beastmen in the mountains and deserts for longer than any record you can find goes back. Now they're coming out of the mountains and attacking the farms and plantations along the river Tarouz, lets see if you can discourage that.
No further reduction in food supply.
-[] Necromancers. Araby has been plagued by the undead since the effectively prehistoric time when your current capital, the city of Lashiek, was a small town founded by nomads, and something struck down the decrepit people of dread Nehekhara. Sources vary on what exactly that was, most say it was god, others say it was Nagash, a small number of debased heretics say there's no difference. However the problem got significantly worse when Abdul Ben Rashchid got ahold of something from the land of the dead that drove him insane and wrote his damned 'Book of the Dead'. There's a coven of necromancers wreaking havoc up north, raising the dead and cutting off overland trade with the actually important chunks of Araby. Let's go see if you can make their creations re-dead, and them just dead.
+trade income
-[] Ghouls. They've haunted graveyards, catacombs, and battlefields, preying on good Arabayans, since their creation by the daemon Gallu. What's that, you say the northern infidels claim that's not where they come from, shaddup about it, they have no idea what they're talking about. Somehow their population has gotten out of control, now there are groups of them massing wherever corpses can be found, and actually coordinating with each other. Possibly the least of the threats you would need to muster a small army to face, they're still a serious problem. Worse, if they manage to take a major religious site in their quest to get into the graveyards and feed on the dead the church will be gravely disappointed with you. Let's go out and perform some pest control.
We're going to need some boats. Piracy is endemic to Araby, in fact it is a valuable part of your culture in certain areas, but this goes too far. There is a group of pirates down the coast somewhere around the Emirate of Sud or Songhai interrupting trade with the entire southern half of the country and everything further south. When your father went to face them he was evaded for an extended period then caught by surprise ashore with a strong wind and bad tide preventing him from getting back out to sea, many of his ships were burned or taken and now swell the ranks of the pirates into a credible threat. You will need to dislodge them eventually, preferably lethally. Call up the navy and any merchants or pirates willing to fight on short notice and take the fight to them.
Cost 2,000. Time: 1 Year. Reward: Sea battle Interlude. Good chance of boost to Noble Opinion.
-The cheap version Cost 1,000. Time: 1 Year. Reward: Sea battle Interlude, Reduced chance of pirates and merchants showing up to help, Small chance of boost to Noble Opinion.
I would like that laminated: Your father was forced to interrupt his effort to equip the troops with standardized lamellar armour, and shields of iron plates backed with wood, to deal with the current spate of crises, but much of the groundwork is still there and the many of the plates themselves are still sitting in government warehouses. Getting the soldiers into some kind of standardized protection would greatly improve their survivability.
Cost 400. Time 1 Year. Reward: The common soldiery(Spearmen, Swordsmen, Bowmen), and the mounted troops(Desert riders, Camel riders) take fewer casualties in battle.
Hammer time, the cheap and fast edition: You can kind of deal with the normal undead, but fighting them with blades is inefficient. While skeletons are fragile, blades tend to skate off of all the hard surfaces and lack of fleshy bits. And don't even get started on war statuary! I mean seriously, they're solid stone armored in bronze, with enough flexibility and responsiveness to their environment to give way a little bit under a blow. In ancient times your ancestors considered it a mildly heroic feat to defeat one Ushabti. The traditional way of dealing with them was, and still is, sledgehammers, pickaxes and specialized maces, with slingers intermixed with the bowmen flinging rocks and lead weights at the skeletons. Admittedly your Guard and Knights are already equipped for this, similarly some of your swordsmen carry a mace as a secondary weapon, and your militia includes nearly as many slingers as bowmen, but you don't really have much of this equipment among the average troops of your standing army. If you have ambitions beyond your own province, and it's common threats of beastmen and other Arabyans, you should load for homicidal skeletons and statues. It might also be useful against those undead in your own province?
Cost: 100. Time: 1 year. Reward: 2,000 Swordsmen become Macemen(better against skeletons and war statuary, marginally less effective against unarmored enemies that suffer from blood loss), 4,000 archers become slingers(better against skeletons, worse against anyone who takes shields and armor seriously)
Bombardment: Your father lost all of the bombards in your land army to the Tomb Kings and a Roc. However, despite some priests proclaiming the loss of the new(less than a century old!) weapons as a sign of their inferiority and god's displeasure, the general consensus is that you need to get some more. Despite their lack of reliability, recent losses against the Tomb Kings, and their use against fellow Arabyans in the civil war they have proved effective weapons, allowing you to strike down enemies you would have remained otherwise unable to handle, enabling you to damage the larger war statuary or winnow down regiments of Ushabti before closing, and actually deliberately sink ships in naval combat without setting them on fire and leaving them to burn for an extended period, or boarding them and drilling holes under the waterline. They can't be that difficult to replace right? They're just a latticework of banded iron wrapped into a tube.
Cost: 600. Time: 1 year. Reward: 1d12 Bombards, with attached minimally skilled siege engineers, pass quality control inspections and join the army of Araby(large cannon using stone cannonballs, they use a relatively small powder charge and still tend to burst more than you'd like, you don't know why, it might have something to do with the fact that you don't cast them as a solid mass of metal, they also lack wheels so the engineering crew has to disassemble, move, and reassemble them whenever you want them moved)
I chucked a rock at it, then I realized that it wasn't small, just far away: Your father entered an ill-fated feud with Al Ruhk, known to the northerners as a Roc, when it started stealing goats from herders(and an elephant from the army). This is why there are no elephants, bombards or flying carpets in the army of Khufra, why Lashiek's walls have several holes in them, why Lashiek has several immovably huge boulders scattered throughout its neighborhoods, and some neighborhoods look recently repaired from being flattened or clawed, why you are down several ships that you didn't lose to pirates, and why every important looking building in the city still smells like bird poo. Take revenge, and stop paying this ridiculous tribute that's straining your herders and skimming off the top of your coffers to pay those herders with noble patrons sufficient that you can't just claim extra animals as a temporary tax, and to prevent herders from just up and leaving.
Cost: Varies depending on the plan you end up going with. Reward: Roc assassination interlude, If you win: Definite boost to both noble and peasant opinion, no longer paying tribute, food situation improved by one step(it eats a lot of animals), a measure of satisfaction.
Diplomacy: On the diplomatic front you are served by Amani Anis, a normally gregarious young man you've seen in the chambers on occasion. He's been hit hard by your father's death, perhaps harder than you, as he had a much closer relationship with the man than you did. He now walks as if he has a metaphorical cloud over him at all times.
Choose 2:
The king is dead, long live the king: You should hold a coronation, inviting all of the other Emirs and Caliphs or their representatives to confirm and witness your ascension as Sultan and witness your ascension as Caliph. You need these people if you want to do anything outside of your own territory, either aiding you, or out of the picture. Hold a meet and greet after the coronation and hear out their concerns.
Cost: 200, Time: 2 years, Reward: information on the other sections of 'your' realm and it's politics, you are confirmed as Sultan with greater theoretical authority, ???
Ask your neighbors for help: Sometimes the resources of one Caliphate just aren't enough, you could ask a your neighboring Caliphates and Emirates to deal with your military problems for you. You do, after all, have a great many enemies right now. But they haven't accepted you as Sultan just yet and this would be undermining your credibility in a period when many of them have their own problems.
Cost: the respect of your neighbors(of course you'd lose it if you lose the fight on your own as well), possibly some reputation with your nobles, likely a 'reward' to the people helping you, If they show up you don't really have any guarantees that their men will behave themselves, or only be here to help. Time 2 years. Reward, possibility of some of your local threats getting removed without you having to do it.
Who is responsible for this?: some of your efforts to hunt down the mastermind of the ten-plot pileup at the palace will require going overseas to track down information in places where you currently lack an information network. Doing so through diplomatic channels is essentially your only option at this point. Cost 200, Time ???(at least 2 years), Chance of success:you're almost certain to get something, whether it is enough is another matter entirely, Reward: information?
Scratch My Back: It is an accepted trick in Estalia and TIlea to gain a title of nobility by sending a letter to a receptive noble with an amount of gold to persuade them to respond to you with the wished for title, e.g. Signor or Sir. This is perhaps even more useful in Araby, with your current restriction on merchants needing to also be nobles, you could easily legitimize some of the less aggressive 'raiders' or 'pirates'. While you Aren't the Sultan yet you still are the highest authority in your lands and as such your word when responding would mean something. Amani knows of a few people who would make use of this service and would pay handsomely.
Cost: 0, Time: 1 year Reward: 1d250 Gold
Stewardship Your father's steward, Mansur Nurul, still serves you loyaly, though he seems distracted, and is prone to frowning off into space when not occupied with a specific task. choose 2
The centre needs to hold: There are still several noble mansions standing in the city, and you need a centre of government to run your administration out of. You could buy or confiscate one of the unoccupied ones, hopefully from someone who won't be around to be angry at you for doing so. Then move all of your organization's into the new 'palace'. Your advisors strongly recommend doing this as soon as possible.
Cost 500, Time, 1 year, Reward: no longer rolling for each category to see if your number of actions will degrade to 1 per turn, currently 90% chance of preserving the system Hossam Mahmud's predecessor set up to give you 3 military actions, 1 more piety action once you have an advisor for that, options to get 1 more Learning action.
Fishing fleet: You're concerned over the food situation, but a solution presents itself, much of Araby's food has traditionally come from the sea. You could sponsor a major expansion to the fishing fleet as a crown owned business, pocketing the profit and using the influx of seafood to feed your population.
Cost, 1000, Time 1 year, Reward: chance of increasing food availability by one step, certainty of delaying any reduction in food availability, +fishing income.
Overseas trade: You trade with the infidels to the north, but right now only when it would most benefit you, generally selling silks and spices for ruinous prices, and now that your southern sources are cutoff, buying good timber from them. You could expand that trade to a wider array of things, and while you're at it you could bypass the necromancers blocking overland trade to the north-east, and just ship everything back and forth.
Cost: 150, Time: 1 year. Reward: increased trade income.
Outsourcing Overseas: You are really really concerned about the food situation, you could try to remedy the problem by importing massed shipments of grain across the sea of Infidels, though it would get expensive.
Cost: 800 per turn, Time: until you stop, Reward: food supply increased by one step until you stop, note that given the number of pirates in this area any seaborne venture carries a measure of risk, and that risk will increase the longer you maintain predictable shipments.
Southern Hospitality: While trade to the north might be cut off, and the mountains are full of beastmen, you do have southern neighbors. Notably you share a land border with the Caliphate of Ghafsa, and the pass of Cobras on your Southern border through the mountains leading to the Emirate of Tambukta, while historically much of your trade has been with the richer northern territories, excepting some sales of manufactured goods in Tambukta, there isn't any reason you couldn't open closer trade ties with the neighbors you aren't cut off from. Maybe they could fill your needs for material, in the absence of northern alternatives.
Cost: 150, Time: 1 year. Reward: increased trade income
Diggin a hole: The mines in the mountains run deep, copper, lead and silver, some iron, gold once upon a time, a couple of odder metals you mostly have little use for. You doubt the peaks and valleys of your lands have run dry you could conduct a survey to exploit additional resources.
Cost: 100, Time 1 year. Chance Of Success: 70% Reward: Veins found and exploited
Quarrels and Quarries: Most of the mountain stone you find is too coarse in grain, or passe in nature to be worth much in trade. But often functionality is more important than aesthetics, and stone is a popular building material, for those who can afford it. Beastmen took out some of your best Quarries last year, but there are less profitable quarries in the south that could be reopened, with a few guards.
Cost: 75 Gold,Time: 3 Years Reward: Quarries, Quarry income
Smithing expansion: In the past, long before the Estalians were able to claim anything similar, the Damsik clan of your people's blacksmith's claimed to produce the best steel in the world. They weren't around to continue claiming that after that feud with the Dwarves. But it is true that you have a long and storied tradition of metalworking. So why, precisely, is your steel production so low that the Army is armed with nearly as much iron as they are good steel? It's unacceptable. You could hold a conference of blacksmiths, encouraging, or ordering them to share their techniques and subsidize training new apprentices, to increase your level of steel production and make better equipment practical.
Cost: 400, Time: 4 years, Chance of success: 75% Reward: more steel, army gradually switches over to steel in places they previously used iron, actions to speed that switch made available.
Wall me in, the fast and cheap version: Currently the walls of Lashiek have had several holes blown in them by a Roc chucking Rocks. Luckily this problem provides its own solution, you could claim all of the bricks, rubble, loose stones, and the substance of the giant boulders hurled into your city as property of the crown and set to rebuilding the walls from them.
Cost: 400, Time: 1 year, Chance of success: 90%, Reward: The breaches in your walls sealed, if with sub-par materiels, giant rocks removed from your city, on crit the city stops smelling like bird poop.
Taxes: Oh boy, corruption! Or typos. Either way, people often do not put the whole of their owed taxes together. Send Mansur Nurul to double check, and make sure that all is as it should be, instead of all screwed up.
Cost: Free, Time: 1 year, Reward: 1d250 Gold
Research
Your advisor in this area is Tabassum Qismat, a gently smiling extremely elderly man who worked with your father, offers his condolences and tells you that you don't really have the facilities to conduct proper research right now, running your government out of someone else's dining room as you are, but he can help you read up on a subject.
Choose 1
Read up on the Aguidi mountains and beastmen
Time 1 year: cost 0 Reward: bonus to fighting the current group due to a better understanding of them in particular, possible advantage against that Roc, possible other discoveries.
Read up on Nehekhara and the undead
Time 1 year: cost 0 Reward: bonus to fighting the current group of undead due to a better understanding of them in particular, information on current and recent events in Nehekhara.
Read up on ghouls
Time 1 year: cost 0 Reward: clarification of contradictory myths on ghous in Araby, bonus to fighting the current group due to a better understanding of them in particular, ???.
Read up on specific territories of Araby
Time 1 year: cost 0 Reward: choose two Emirates or Caliphates, get a better understanding of them
Read up on the abandoned isle
Time 1 year, Cost 0, Chance of success: ???, Reward: there's in island in the river Tarouz, downriver from Lashiek, it's forbidden to all for some reason, you know an army disappeared there once but you don't know why, try to find out.
Piety: you could use someone to organize this mess of priests, holy warriors, and pilgrims, half the things they say seem to contradict each other, and it's incredibly difficult to figure out who you should be talking to to get something specific done -choose 1
Recruitment: you need to fill your council if you want anything to get done, recruit a Piety advisor Cost 0. Time: 1 year. Reward: You gain a Piety advisor, probabilities of success and effects of success improve, additional piety options, once you have a space in a proper centre of government set aside for them to work this will give you one more piety action.
Whirling Dervishers: These
Time 1 year, Cost: 100, Chance of success 70%, Dervishers show up to the battles ahead more reliably
War priests: Araby has plenty of priests whose faith can have more, let us say temporal, effects. Call some to join the army for the duration of the current crisis. Cost: 100, Reward: 1d3 war priests join army for your operations
Seek Support: While as a caliph you hypothetically hold final religious authority in your caliphate, and as Sultan you theoretically hold final say over everything except doctrine in all of Araby, in reality you have a bunch of people to need to convince and keep happy if you want to do anything. You could talk to them, seeking support for your rule, though it might be better to get an advisor first.
Time 1 year, Cost 50, Chance of success ???, Reward: Support among the politically significant of the religiously significant, may come with terms and conditions, possible increased priest opinion.
Intrigue, Your spies and assassins are run by Faraj Wafi, a Eunoch who served your father effectively,. At least up until the palace fiasco, he is eager to get to the bottom of things, having just returned to the country from a four year trip to determine the current state of the Empire's long-running civil war, and their developments(for some reason) far to the north. He reports that your information network has been systematically targeted in his absence and effectively no longer exists. Choose 2
What just happened?!: The ten plot pileup at the former palace was one of the most ridiculous mid-air scheme collisions he's ever heard of, as best he can tell there were several factions in the city, each planning something different, but all forced to act at once, to both confusing and dramatic effect. There were at least two groups of human assassins, Ratmen, Elves, Undead, and some plant thing present.The situation was so confused that he's not sure that all of them were even there as assassins, he really wants to clarify this mess, try to form a narrative that can explain any of this, interrogate the rat mutants and thieves, and get some leads on the various groups that succeeded in escaping and who sent everyone involved. There's also the issue of what exactly happened to his information network while he was away, he doesn't really know how anyone without access to your father's records could have done this much damage, and would like to determine how related this is to the mess in the palace.
Cost: 200, Time: 2 years, Reward: More(but not complete, level of completeness depends on rolls) knowledge of what happened in the castle, leads for further investigation.
Do something about those necromancers: In the north they may rely on the Witch hunters of the Order of the Silver Hammer, or the varoous orders of the inquisition to deal with cultists and witches, You don't do that here. Araby uses more subtle, and to your mind, perhaps more effective methods, namely assassin's and kill-teams. The Black Hand are an order of assassins that have served the Sultanate for hundreds of years, since replacing the last order when they went rogue. They are efficient, dutiful, nearly undetectable before they strike, and don't care much for honorable battle, pride, or even their own lives, just killing their targets as quickly as practical. And if they're a bunch of weirdos who never miss an opportunity to head off into the mountains between missions to practise their skills against the local beastmen, that just shows their dedication to honing their craft, and to the common good of the civilisation you both protect. You could send some of them after the coven of necromancers, if they can get close enough they might be able to whittle down the number you will have to face. This is made practical because unlike most of your other enemies the necromancers interact socially with the people they raid and lord over. Given the way that they act as the linchpin of the much larger force of undead, any casualties they take will noticeably reduce the difficulty of the fight you're about to get into.
Cost 100, Time 1 year, Chance of success 50%, Reward: dead necromancers
Set up a local information network, currently you are operating at a reduced level of information gathering capacity, and have lots of things you're likely to need to investigate soon. Your advisor set one up the first time around and thinks he can do it faster and cheaper a second time.
Cost 200, Time 1 year, Chance of success 80%, Reward: removal of your -10 mallus to information gathering attempts within the Caliphate of Khufra(your own province).
Investigate: (write in: who, where, or what event): if there's something you think is suspicious, or worthy of deeper investigation, you can order your spies to look into it.
Personal, you have a great deal of work to do, choose two
Rest well in the arms of the Father of our people, father: You need to hold a state funeral for your father, he was good to you as a child and deserves to be honored in his passing. Build him a small monument, and hold a gathering to give a speech, touching upon the good points of his life and what you plan to do to improve on what he left you. You could put this off for a while, given the plethora of problems you face, and the lack of a body but that wouldn't be ideal.
Cost: 200. Time: 1 year. Reward: funeral segment, unlikely chance to boost to noble opinion, peace of mind
Call the healers: You're being tended to by the best healers in the city plying their herbs, tinctures and blessings to speed your recovery, but they aren't the best healers in Araby. Normal healers simply speed natural recovery, if you want to be recovered quickly enough to be present for the current campaigns you will need some assistance with a bit more ompf, call a healer of the Esoteric Order of the Potent Hand, or … a sorcerer. At this point you don't really care who responds, you need to be back on your feet and fighting to deal with the threats coming out of the woodwork.
Cost: 150. Time: less than 1 year. Chance of success 75%. Reward: fully healed and back at it in time for any fights you pick this year.
The king is dead, long live the king: You should hold a coronation, inviting all of the other Emirs and Caliphs to confirm your ascension as Sultan and witness your ascension as Caliph. You need these people if you want to do anything outside of your own territory, either aiding you, or out of the picture. Hold a meet and greet and hear out their concerns. You might be able to do this on your own, maybe?
Cost: 200, Time: 2 years,
I chucked a rock at it, then I realized that it wasn't small, just far away: Your father entered an ill-fated feud with Al Ruhk, known to the northerners as a Roc, when it started stealing goats from herders(and an elephant from the army). This is why there are no elephants, bombards or flying carpets in the army of Khufra, why Lashiek's walls have several holes in them, why Lashiek has several immovably huge boulders scattered throughout its neighborhoods, and some neighborhoods look recently repaired from being flattened or clawed, why you are down several ships that you didn't lose to pirates, and why every important looking building in the city still smells like bird poo. Take revenge, and stop paying this ridiculous tribute that's straining your herders and skimming off the top of your coffers, both to pay those herders with noble patrons sufficient that you can't just claim extra animals as a temporary tax, and to prevent herders from just up and leaving. You don't think you necessarily need to do this through your military infrastructure, you've been fantasizing about an attempt for quite some time, most of the people in the city have been, and you are thus somewhat prepared.
Cost: Varies depending on the plan you come up with. Reward: Roc assassination interlude, with some added difficulties, If you win: Definite boost to both noble and peasant opinion, no longer paying tribute, food situation improved by one step(it eats a lot of animals), a measure of satisfaction.
Find love: Or at least a politically convenient marriage, you could wait several years, but it is expected that you eventually go about building a group of wives to provide heirs. The first one is a difficult choice to make, as they will have authority to manage all of the others, and their children will have primacy over the others regardless of their own family's prominence.
Cost: Free, Time: 1 year, Reward: Marriage options
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[X] Plan Securing The Foundations
-[X][Military] Call the army
-[X][Military] Start beating back this mess
--[X] Beastmen.
-[X][Diplomacy] The king is dead, long live the king
-[X][Diplomacy] Who is responsible for this?
-[X][Stewardship] The centre needs to hold
-[X][Stewardship] Wall me in, the fast and cheap version
-[X][Research] Read up on the Aguidi mountains and beastmen
-[X][Piety] Recruitment
-[X][Intrigue] What just happened?!
-[X][Intrigue] Set up a local information network
-[X][Personal] Rest well in the arms of the Father of our people, father
-[X][Personal] Call the healers
First step is to protect our food supply.
Second legitimacy of rule and keeping the apparatus of state going.
Third is to get the investigation going before the trail fades
Fourth, try not to die.
-[X][Military] Call the army
-[X][Military] Start beating back this mess
--[X] Beastmen.
-[X][Diplomacy] The king is dead, long live the king
-[X][Diplomacy] Who is responsible for this?
-[X][Stewardship] The centre needs to hold
-[X][Stewardship] Wall me in, the fast and cheap version
-[X][Research] Read up on the Aguidi mountains and beastmen
-[X][Piety] Recruitment
-[X][Intrigue] What just happened?!
-[X][Intrigue] Set up a local information network
-[X][Personal] Rest well in the arms of the Father of our people, father
-[X][Personal] Call the healers
First step is to protect our food supply.
Second legitimacy of rule and keeping the apparatus of state going.
Third is to get the investigation going before the trail fades
Fourth, try not to die.
- Location
- France
[X] Plan Securing The Foundations
-[X][Military] Call the army
-[X][Military] Start beating back this mess
--[X] Beastmen.
-[X][Diplomacy] The king is dead, long live the king
-[X][Diplomacy] Who is responsible for this?
-[X][Stewardship] The centre needs to hold
-[X][Stewardship] Wall me in, the fast and cheap version
-[X][Research] Read up on the Aguidi mountains and beastmen
-[X][Piety] Recruitment
-[X][Intrigue] What just happened?!
-[X][Intrigue] Set up a local information network
-[X][Personal] Rest well in the arms of the Father of our people, father
-[X][Personal] Call the healers
-[X][Military] Call the army
-[X][Military] Start beating back this mess
--[X] Beastmen.
-[X][Diplomacy] The king is dead, long live the king
-[X][Diplomacy] Who is responsible for this?
-[X][Stewardship] The centre needs to hold
-[X][Stewardship] Wall me in, the fast and cheap version
-[X][Research] Read up on the Aguidi mountains and beastmen
-[X][Piety] Recruitment
-[X][Intrigue] What just happened?!
-[X][Intrigue] Set up a local information network
-[X][Personal] Rest well in the arms of the Father of our people, father
-[X][Personal] Call the healers
- Location
- California, USA
[X] Plan Securing The Foundations
- Location
- Denmark
[X] Plan Securing The Foundations
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I genuinely have no issue.
[X] Plan Securing The Foundations
I like the bits of worldbuilding built into the options' fluff.
[X] Plan Securing The Foundations
I like the bits of worldbuilding built into the options' fluff.
- Location
- nz
[X] Plan Securing The Foundations
- Location
- Toronto, Ontario(occasionally)
Thanks, I was going for somthing like that.
To everyone: despite the seeming unanimity of choice next post will be delayed on account of travel and only having a tablet to write/edit on. (Autocorrupt!!!)
always_confused
Perpetually unwanted
- Location
- SEA
A WHF quest that isn't about the Empire or Bretonnia? Jesus H. Christ. I love you, GM!
PanzerComrade56
Guy who likes red, kemonomimi, and warfare a lot
- Location
- Philippines
[X] Plan Securing The Foundations
- Location
- Toronto, Ontario(occasionally)
And I love you, random citizen!(points nonchalantly in a nonspecific direction that's meant to be towards you), I would put in the picture with caption for this, the setup was just so perfect, alas, my tablet won't do it. If you want to see what I'd have put in, just search what comes before the bracket under google images.
Also, thanks, I was trying to create that reaction and, yeah it's a huge setting with lots of potential that isn't fully explored often enough, there's all kinds of stuff going on outside of the northern human nations. I mean I considered a quest about the rise to power of some Habsburg expies, or about unifying Estalia and trying(and often failing) to follow through on colonialism, or a couple of kinds of crossover civ quests, but I ultimately went with this on impulse after reading a bunch about middle eastern mythology.
To everyone, it's a good thing I said the coming update will be delayed, because it's really kicking my ass, there are multiple long segments that I can't cut out because they really help develop the plot, and I still need to read summaries of Sinbad's voyages, and the 1001 stories, to make sure I'm familiar with the seminal works of this mythology.
On the plus side I got to see a museum exhibit on the Knights of Malta(actually the Knights Hospitaller of St. John), and their fight against the Ottoman Turks to get my creative juices flowing.
Most of this post is to remind myself that this thread is here to be posted on and reaffirm my commitment to writing this story.
Also I welcome active discussion. Though I acknowledge that there is very little to discuss so far.
PS and if anyone knows the tales of the voyages of Sinbad the pirate, or the full 1001 stories/Arabian Nights(I've seen it marketed under both names, but for this I'm more interested in the content of the stories themselves) and thinks anything from them could be used here, send me a PM.
- Location
- Pennsylvania
You should also look into the book tales of the marvelous and news of the strange. It's a collection of ancient Arab legends from the medieval age. I think it might actually predate the Arabian nights.
- Location
- Virginia
[X] Plan Securing The Foundations
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh boy, looking at the date...we're basically building up to the Great War against Chaos.
Still, we've got a few decades, that's enough to make Araby a decent power if things go well enough.
How does the Sultanate have the territory where it is, if Zandria is right in it?
Still, we've got a few decades, that's enough to make Araby a decent power if things go well enough.
How does the Sultanate have the territory where it is, if Zandria is right in it?
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GhostKing 666
Bringing Nightmares to life evey minute
For the benefit of those who might not be well versed in Araby, here's a link that contains all the information GW ever gave about Araby, including their interesting, if sadly not fleshed out, army list(including the Arabyan Magician, the native magical tradition of Araby).
always_confused
Perpetually unwanted
- Location
- SEA
They have 0 presence in Total War : Warhammer II as well. Good grief. At least give them spit-shined versions of the Arabian faction units from Medieval II.
GhostKing 666
Bringing Nightmares to life evey minute
They're currently top of the list for the next possible DLC race(possibly beaten out by a rival of vampiric Mourkain). Problem is, not only do they not have the most developed army, their current unit list comes from Warmaster, which CA might not be able to use. Even if CA can use the Warmaster stuff, they'd still have to make some original units themselves just to flesh out the Arabyan army, which GW might not let them do.
Right now, the question of an Araby DLC is kinda a tripwire for the future of the Total War: Warhammer setting. If CW does make an Araby, if gives hope that CW will also make armies for the other neglected factions of Warhammer(Albion, Kislev, Cathay, possibly Ind, Nippon or even Khuresh). If CW doesn't then it means they are probably going to stick with groups that actually have armies to them, which there aren't that many left at this point.