You take a hearty bite out of the piece of troll jerky. Chewing it thoughtfully as you digest the news you heard from a longbeard at the bar who heard it from a longbeard from a caravan of dwarfs from down south.
Apparently a great horde of daemons sought to assail Karaz A Karak early in the year. Luckily for your people, Valiant Grimnir was able to catch their horde passing through the mountains between Everpeak and Karak Brynduraz and met them in a righteous battle. There, the longbeards say in reverence, Grimnir slew his way through the great horde until at last he came upon their fel lord.
A Greater Daemon of the Changer, who called itself Ornytrix,
the Fate Twister.
Bah.
Grimnir came upon the creature, but just as he struck the deathblow the foul beast replaced itself with one of its infernal minions. It did this enough times that Grimnir, in his fury, yelled so mightily as to cause the mountains themselves to quake in fear, and cause a rockslide of epic proportions.
When the mountains stood quiet, the throng looked up to see the whole of the horde buried under a great mountain of rubble and earth. But what's more, they saw on the western side of the pass a great glittering seam of multicolored jewels. The sight of their splendor being struck by the dawn's coming light was said to bring tears to the eyes of the Longbeards present.
After clearing the battlefield the newly christened
Crystal Pass was found to have cut overland travel between Karak Brynduraz and Karaz a Karak by such a degree that it nearly matched the speed of travelling the Ungdrin Ankor. Several enterprising, read young and therefore foolish, dwarf merchants have even made the near mad decision to take the overland route, under heavy guard of course, to see the splendor of the jewelled cliff and drink a toast at the site of a great victory.
It gives you a grim sort of satisfaction.
No good comes from Daemons. Only ruin.
Only heartbreak.
But dark thoughts are for darker days than this.
With a shake of your head you look at your two charges. Both in heavy leather suits, padded to be uncomfortably hot, only worsened by the roaring flame you had going at the nearby forge.
"Dolgi, third line of the Rune of Stone!" you yell, startling the beardling out of his carving.
"From the earth do we come, from stone are we born and in stone we return!" he chants back at you, eyes still focused on the clay tablet before him, arm struggling to chisel the rune, what with the weight attached to his elbow.
"You're not intonating properly apprentice! 'From the earth do WE come,' not that sorry excuse of a 'we' I heard you mutter. Louder Dolgi! I want this room to
shake apprentice!"
"YES MASTER!" he shouts.
You ignore him for a moment, letting him bellow his lungs out while turning to face the back of your other apprentice. Her hair drenched in sweat from the heat of an open forge empowered with a Rune of...the Forge.
Well it's an accurate name.
"Fjolla! I see you're slipping on your form again! 40 pounds of weight too much for you beardling? I can drop it back down to thirty if you'd like!" You yell to overcome the roar of the flame.
"No master! I'll do better master!" she shouts back, arm stiffening despite the weight chained at her elbow.
"Easy to do better when you're terrible beardling, easy to say you'll do better too! I want to
see you do better. Hurry now! Another two minutes and then I start using the
screecher! I'll not be so generous and warn you both next time as well!"
"Yes Master! Thank you Master!" they both yell.
From behind their hunched forms you grin, a quiet pride suffusing you. Only ten years into the apprenticeship and already on to the screecher. Your previous apprentices averaged at about twenty years before you felt comfortable releasing that particular bit of horror. If these two kept it up, you'd finally feel comfortable letting them inscribe a
true Rune soon enough.
Speaking of.
You walk back near the entrance of the workshop and pull an orb from out of one of the shelves, its surface scribed with Master Yorri's Rune of Sound, the Rune of Amplification and lastly the Rune of Pitch.
How Master Yorri ever came up with these three runes you'll never know, but they're useful at this at least.
Just as the second minute ends, you activate the orb, immediately putting on a pair of earplugs.
Slowly, terribly the orb begins to hum, then the pitch begins to rise higher and higher, the volume increasing in lockstep with it.
Not enough to cause lasting damage, but enough to be an annoyance, enough to throw a dwarf off, but if your apprentices wanted to be runesmiths, they'd have to work just as well as if they were in complete silence.
You would accept no less.
Their
ancestors would accept no less.
You can't say you're feeling particularly nostalgic about this part of your apprenticeship.
You have (5 - 1) = 4 actions this turn:
General:
[ ] Expanding the Workshop, Protection: You've got a workshop and a home fit for a Runelord, but in your mind's eye you see yet more things to do. Any research regarding the Master Runes will require a level of protection that your current facility simply doesn't have. The cost is irrelevant, it is the materials you need that are the true bottleneck. You've got the Gromril on hand now, but for the Rune you need, the blood of a dragon is required. For the dwarfs know of no
natural creature so attuned to magic as the Drakk.
[Cost: 2 actions, 1 vial of Dragon's Blood]
[ ] Expanding the Workshop, Defense: The natural formation of the stone is good for funnelling in any would-be invaders, but you've a few ideas that can make a bad time into a truly
horrible time for your enemies.
[Cost: 2 actions.]
[ ] Odd Places 1/10: Look on Master Yorri's map and try and discover one of his marked locations. The locations will certainly be odd, but whether they'll be useful will remain to be seen.
[Cost: 1 action] Roll for usefulness.
[X] Teach your apprentices.
[Cost: 1 Action] Locked in for 11 turns.
Requests: Fulfill Request from a client or the hold:
[ ] [Simple] Rune. Those. Halls!: A goodly amount of the future main hall has been excavated and are in desperate need of a good runic...eh be-rune-ing? It needs runes alright? A good enough start, but now there's arterial ways, clan homes and foundries to think about.
[Cost: (4-1)=3 actions] Productivity Like No Other will proc.
Research: Your career and your honour demand you hone your craft, and it's usually done through poking at runes and seeing what works.
[ ] The Secrets of Light?: That moment with the shield and sunray, the light of your torch glinting off the crystal, both sparked something in your mind. An ember that refused to be burned out. You've done permutations to the standard Rune of Light and a few on Master Yorri's Rune of Reflection, but maybe there could be more?
[Cost: (8-2)=6 Actions] Student of the Odd will proc
[ ] The Movement of things: The Rune of Waking or Animation as some would call it is a rare rune. How Master Yorri knows both the regular and Master Rune could be explained by either a harrowing adventure full of terror, beasties and treasure or by something as mundane as asking a friend, you could never be sure with the man. Still, this was a rune that, to your frustration, you haven't had much chance to tinker with. Maybe just a peak?
[Cost: 8 actions] Student of the Odd will proc.
[ ] The Rune Metal: The miners say all the Gromril's as pure as anything they've ever seen, purer even, but no word of brilliant silver or pure white streaks. Coming back to the cave days later to see for yourself and you can't say they're lying either. But yet… but yet you can't, almost refuse to get the image out of your head. Maybe it's nothing, but maybe it may not be.
[Cost: ???-1 Actions] Student of the Odd will proc.
[-] Understand a Master Rune: The same idea as studying any rune in theory, in practice it takes a lot longer and there's often a large chance of explosions.
[Cost: 16 actions] Locked due to lack of a proper workshop.
Orders: (No Action Cost)
[ ] Dragon's Blood: Seeing as you don't know the location of any dragons right now, the best you can do is get the word out that you need dragon's blood. It will take a bit of time to get here, but you'll have it eventually. Thankfully you just need any old dragon's blood and not an Elder Wyrm.
[Cost: 2 Turns]
ORDERS!
I am now introducing the last mechanic you guys should see in a while. Ordering supplies! Orders thankfully are pretty straightforward. If it's a material specific to a strong rune you need for a request or rune you're experimenting with I will note it in the cost, and it will consequently appear in the orders section of the turn/whenever you realize you'll need it.
Now you may ask, can we get it ourselves? Yes! You can totally go get it yourself, should you know a source for the stuff nearby. As the elder ice wyrm Kraka Drakk was named after is long dead and its materials long since used to make other shiny cool things, you can't find any natively in such a remote hold. Or well,
YOU don't know of any drakki lurking about.
Order length is determined by two main things. Your circumstances, and the rarity of the item. In my master chart I've got a few things listed down as guidelines, but for your sake know there are only 4 tiers of rarity when ordering.
Tier 1: Mundane: bog-standard materials, stuff you don't have to worry about specifically getting at your age and level of wealth. Really you won't ever see these materials barring truly exceptional circumstances, but it's good to have a baseline.
Tier 2: Uncommon: This is specialist stuff, and the majority of orders will be this tier most likely, dragon's blood counts here and so does Gromril, but as you'll note. You rolled well and got a natural seam of the stuff so you don't worry about it. Will otherwise take 1-2 turns to arrive depending on the circumstances of your hold. Before you ask, yes I would've waived the dragon blood fee if you had chosen that other deed at the beginning.
Tier 3: Rare stuff: Often refined uncommon materials or hard to come by stuff. Pure Gromril, for instance, requires a master black/runesmith with a very specific set of gear. This will take 2- 4 turns to arrive. Less time if you're near a place like Karak Azul or immediately(within the turn, even though it would take years in-game time) if you have the native production here. Brightstone, Silverite or Ithilmar and stuff at that level of scarcity would count in this territory.
Tier 4: Truly Rare: This is rare material taken up 10 notches. Things like the blood of an Elder Wyrm(Star or Moon Dragon), The Claw of a Dragon Ogre Shaggoth, Carnosaur's Bilesac, stuff like that. It's gonna be 3 turns minimum for this stuff. Getting
some examples this material immediately would require burning favours.
Technically the truly unique one-of-a-kind stuff would be on a level
even further beyond, but you'll likely never be able to order it.
AN: Grimnir memes.
EDIT: Gunbad is called Karak Brynduraz in this time, and has been changed to reflect that.
Please Remember to Plan vote, and note how many actions you're applying to a task. Oh and C& C Thanks :^)
