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Sartier Quest: A Tale of Song, Gods, and Trouble (CK2-Let's Go Hunt Gods, SV!)

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Okay, Voting is Closed!

Thanks to everyone that voted!

@Spectrum wins with:
[X] [LANDING] ... a green field, gently sloping up to the tall earthen walls of Tidespray Castle, where you can see many small figures moving between the arrow shelters already.
[X] [CAPO] ... the rest of the Capo landing force, joining your assault wave, and the Dale Spellknights.
[X] [MAGIC] ... keeping those damned arrows off ... (Support focus)

[X] Melee infantry will disembark immediately and begin moving for Ram's Gate.
-[X] Dale Spellknights and Brigade TM will seek to conquer the Castle Keep as primary objective.
-[X] Brigade CM will bypass the Keep and seek to take Reef Gate from the inside and hold it, unless it is obvious that all remaining enemies are inside the Keep and none would be coming from the north.
[X] Longbows will delay one turn to allow melee infantry to disembark ahead of them and shoot at Ram's Gate while still embarked.
-[X] Afterwards, they will disembark and follow the infantry in while shooting at targets of opportunity.
-[X] If Ram's Gate would offer protection or an advantageous position against known enemy forces, they can occupy it after the others have moved in and through. Otherwise, if Brigade CM can occupy Reef Gate, they will join them there.
[X] Ground Songweavers are free to switch to offensive spells if they believe there is already sufficient coverage against enemy arrows.
[X] Royals with Elite Songweavers will approach one turn behind the first infantry disembarking into Tornado range of the Ram's Gate on the southern side of the island and seek to cause a breach for friendly forces to use.
-[X] Once Songweavers can no longer hit enemy targets due to being out of range or at risk of hitting friendly forces, Royals should attempt to circle the island to get just outside range of the Harbour fortifications. If enemy defenders then use those fortifications to engage allied forces on land, Royals should get into range themselves to let Songweavers cast against them.

As a side matter, while the vote was taking place, we were resolving one of the other fights happening around Sartier this turn. This one will probably have the full results and a little narrative posted about it at some point before the Turn 3 results post, but long story short, House Carlisle intercepted a Tranquility raiding force of High Quality, larger than their own fleet, and managed to snatch a surprising victory from the jaws of getting mulched. (They flubbed their disengagement roll and I honestly expected they were about to lose half the House fleet).

House Carlisle casualties: 265
(20+4d6 = 35, 2d6 = 8)
93 KIA, 172 WIA (21 crippled)
House Carlisle Exchequer Jing Innspool wounded by arrows

Tranquility casualties: 348
(20+4d6 = 32, 2d6 = 4)
111 KIA, 237 WIA (14 crippled)
Pirate Lord Kurn killed in battle by Valerie Tellar

Net Effect:
Kurn's Pirate Raid on Bonita District of Gambier heavily disrupted, city will no longer be assaulted, looting gains are halved
Full stat and trait changes to be determined later

Natalie Tellar hears word of Valerie's exploits before turn's end...

 
OneirosTheWriter said:
As a side matter, while the vote was taking place, we were resolving one of the other fights happening around Sartier this turn. This one will probably have the full results and a little narrative posted about it at some point before the Turn 3 results post, but long story short, House Carlisle intercepted a Tranquility raiding force of High Quality, larger than their own fleet, and managed to snatch a surprising victory from the jaws of getting mulched. (They flubbed their disengagement roll and I honestly expected they were about to lose half the House fleet).
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Good job, Carlisle! A credit to Harper!

Pirate Lord Kurn killed in battle by Valerie Tellar
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:rofl: I don't understand - isn't she just a teenager? How is she like smashing everything in her way, including people that I'd assume are much more experienced?

How is Natalie Tellar not actually finding Vicky when all Vicky's doing is hanging around Carlisle? Is Carlisle playing the foster equivalent of musical chairs and just hustling Vicky out of sight whenever Natalie drops by?

(I hope her Martial is good. Maybe she can be the successor to the Vice-Marshall spot...)
 
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Katreus said:
:rofl: I don't understand - isn't she just a teenager? How is she like smashing everything in her way, including people that I'd assume are much more experienced?
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She is just a teenager! She's just seemingly a natural born killer; like mother like daughter, it seems, as Natalie Tellar is probably just behind Theo in the give you an acute case of Stabitis stakes. Worth noting, though, killing with a sword is more about balance, timing and technique than brute strength. Despite the sword guy bow girl archetypes, archery is the one that actually requires raw upper body strength. So I've basically just pegged her down as someone who does the 'float like a butterfly' style.

That said, it was a hilariously ill-advised fight that owed much to the fact her and the fleet commander had high chivalry and weren't about to let the second flotilla get eaten without trying to intervene, so they needed to go straight for the Pirate Lord. Rammed his ship, killed him, Carlisle escaped in the confusion.

Katreus said:
How is Natalie Tellar not actually finding Vicky when all Vicky's doing is hanging around Carlisle? Is Carlisle playing the foster equivalent of musical chairs and just hustling Vicky out of sight whenever Natalie drops by?
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She knows where Vicky is. What she didn't know is that the girl is alternatively bullying and sneaking her way into adventure at every turn and Carlisle was kind of going *shrug*.
 
OneirosTheWriter said:
This one will probably have the full results and a little narrative posted about it at some point before the Turn 3 results post, but long story short, House Carlisle intercepted a Tranquility raiding force of High Quality, larger than their own fleet, and managed to snatch a surprising victory from the jaws of getting mulched.
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Huh. Well then. Was there a chance the Grand Allied Fleet could have stumbled straight into them on the way to the big show?
OneirosTheWriter said:
(They flubbed their disengagement roll and I honestly expected they were about to lose half the House fleet).
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(Incoming naval mechanics refinements :3)
OneirosTheWriter said:
Net Effect:
Kurn's Pirate Raid on Bonita District of Gambier heavily disrupted, city will no longer be assaulted, looting gains are halved
Full stat and trait changes to be determined later
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That's honestly hilarious.

D'you think Carlisle will be pleased at themselves/annoyed at Tellar for having to defend against pirates or pleased at Tellar at managing to strike pirates right as its apparent they're a going concern?
OneirosTheWriter said:
Pirate Lord Kurn killed in battle by Valerie Tellar
...
Natalie Tellar hears word of Valerie's exploits before turn's end...
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Mixed emotions, presumably. Pride and exasperation/fear?
 
Doing some reading back on older stuff while we're waiting...
Macchiato said:
However, shortly before the war with Teuv ~50 years ago, a new application was discovered which allowed users to have more oomph when they wielded those weapons in battle. It's not unusual to hear spellswords humming or singing aloud while fighting. Because it's more recently discovered, the full capabilities of spellswords are not known as of yet. They were the key to repelling Teuvian forces, though, so they must be doing something right.
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Has Sartier lost capability in their Spellswords? While Spellswords seem pretty strong in a small-scale tactical setting, everything we've seen so far has seemed to still point towards Songweavers being the real battlefield winning wonders. Is that being skewed by Tellar's heavier possession of Elites?
 
The key point with Spellswords is the proliferation of magical power, because it provides a form of that flexibility to people with magic ratings in the low 10s to low 20s range. For most houses, this allowed a doubling of the number of magic users, and did a great job of converting mediocre fighters into strong fighters, and adding the flexibility to respond to situations that magic provides to many more points on the battlefield.

And, yes, Tellar is skewing your perceptions pretty badly. No other House can organise a fight that puts five Veteran Songweavers on a five regiment front, and back them with two Elite Songweavers. This is actually the exactly sort of scenario where Tellar is horrifically dangerous, the planned mid-scale offensive where they can tap into their hilariously deep stocks of potent Songweavers.

You guys wanted the magic House, you guys got the magic House.
 
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OneirosTheWriter said:
The key point with Spellswords is the proliferation of magical power, because it provides a form of that flexibility to people with magic ratings in the low 10s to low 20s range. For most houses, this allowed a doubling of the number of magic users, and did a great job of converting mediocre fighters into strong fighters, and adding the flexibility to respond to situations that magic provides to many more points on the battlefield.
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Ah. Well, hopefully you're about to show off exactly why we're paying OUT THE NOSE for the Tellar special Longbows who are Spellswords?
 
Well, I'm not going to wade into arguments about what you should and shouldn't recruit. I will say that where they'll come into their own is in response-force situations, where bandits have risen up, or pirate raids have landed, or they're being loaned out to a Vassal. You don't typically get many of your courtiers in on the act in those occasions. That's where a self-casting regiment really makes a difference. And that's what a spellsword regiment is, it's a regiment that has access to the full range of spellsword skills, which are largely self-target versions of the full-bore Songweaver spells. A regiment that can self-buff (enhancing any of wound roll, magic resist, armour mod, armour penetration, morale, or even straight up shockwaving an adjacent enemy) is very handy in those sorts of scenarios.
 
OneirosTheWriter said:
Well, I'm not going to wade into arguments about what you should and shouldn't recruit. I will say that where they'll come into their own is in response-force situations, where bandits have risen up, or pirate raids have landed, or they're being loaned out to a Vassal. You don't typically get many of your courtiers in on the act in those occasions. That's where a self-casting regiment really makes a difference. And that's what a spellsword regiment is, it's a regiment that has access to the full range of spellsword skills, which are largely self-target versions of the full-bore Songweaver spells. A regiment that can self-buff (enhancing any of wound roll, magic resist, armour mod, armour penetration, morale, or even straight up shockwaving an adjacent enemy) is very handy in those sorts of scenarios.
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I wasn't expecting you to. ;P It's just that without getting to command ground battles until now or see any real concentrations of troops from the battles we did see, it's hard to get a grasp on how units actually perform. Doubly so when most of the time we only have our own units traits and don't know how those stack up against others. It felt apparent to me that our Longbows were more expensive than others so the hope is to see whether being a Spellsword justifies their extra cost over someone who has a more 'base' version. (Insofar as those exist.) Maybe we'll think they're not worth it and when next recruitment time rolls around, we'll take Longbows out of Militia where they're far cheaper and instead take Cavalry or Men-at-Arms.
 
Sorry if I haven't been active lately, I need to catch up with the Quest but I keep on winding up busy, but is there a place where the Traits are defined/laid out as to what they do and the like? The density of the traits is actually pretty interesting, honestly.
 
The Laurent said:
Sorry if I haven't been active lately, I need to catch up with the Quest but I keep on winding up busy, but is there a place where the Traits are defined/laid out as to what they do and the like? The density of the traits is actually pretty interesting, honestly.
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Not publicly at the moment. A lot of them are less about the mechanical stat shifting effects and are more behavioural markers, and they mostly do what they say on the tin. Part of the trait density is to help accommodate the fact that there are a loooooot of characters rolled up, so the dense trait list helps keep track of who should be reacting in what way.

Someone who has the Brave trait is likely to stick around in a fight, someone with Valorous is likely to seek out enemy characters and throw down if given the opportunity. If you have the Merchant trait you typically have a few extra moneymaking concerns beyond just your land. If you have one of the Wild streak chain, your interests probably lie in partying/your preferred gender. A Drinker drinks, a Sober person doesn't. Someone with the Attractive trait is nice to look at, and with the Beautiful trait is a hot tamale.

When this battle sequence is over I might try to gather up some of the less obvious, more mechanically relevant ones. Things like Schooled (+2 S, +1 D, +1 I), Tutored (+1 M, +2 S, +1 D, +1 I, +1 Mg), the intrigue chains (Eavesdropper/Consummate Spy/One with Shadows for self, Employs Spies/Familiar with Spies/Maestro of Shadows for acting as a spymaster, for instance, have dice roll boosts for some intrigue actions as well as Intrigue stat bonuses). 'Weapon'-Master is +1 C base, and an additional +3 C when using that weapon in battle. Child of Tellar is +4 Magic, +2 Martial, -4 Stewardship, a Major Bonus, Minor Bonus, Flaw patter that is repeated for each House.

As a sort of example of what I mean by being more behavioural, as you go through battles, you progress through Blooded/Veteran/Old Campaigner, netting +1/2/3 Martial and Combat. But the battles individually will probably give you more stat boosts than the end trait itself, so the trait is less important for its pure stats value and more important for marking how often a person has been in battle, how freaked out they'll be, how will they react to a battle, being among casualties, etc.
 
As far as I was able to put together, this is the list of the ones we have definitions on publicly (including the ones Oneiros just released above), some of which may not exist on known characters. Probably missed a couple more that Oneiros and Macchiato gave definitions on in small posts here or there but this is the best I could do.

Trait List:
A Kindly Word: +2 D, +1 Influence, +10 to Rolls and Sub-Rolls Involving Relationship Gain, No penalty for hostile relations in diplomacy tests [Carmen]
And That Is Knightly Too: Gains bonuses on the charge and as a commander will look for chances to launch them [Dominic]
Auditor: +1 S, 50% chance per turn of catching anyone acting with income-reducing traits in a Council role
Battle Valour: +1 Chivalry
Beloved by her Soldiers: House troops attached auto-pass all morale tests. A vassal unit gains +40 morale.
Child of Capo: +4 I, +2 C, +4 P
Child of Carlisle: +4 S, +2 M, -4 D
Child of Sonissimmo: +4 S, +2 D, -4 I
Child of Sarba: +4 D, +2 I, -4 S
Child of Tellar: +4 Mg, +2 M, -4 S
Conductor of Tides: +1 Influence, +1 M, +1 Mg, +1 Casting Dice on water, can force re-roll for naval jockeying for position [Evelyn]
Destroyer: Against targets with Hp/T, reduce T by 25%
Drive to Succeed: When undertaking an action, may add +10 to a failed dice roll, either to her own or someone else's action occurring at the same location. Once per turn only.
Dubious History: +2 M, +1 C, When fighting in Sartier, may re-roll Battlefield Initiative
Fairytale Made Flesh: +1 Chivalry, +1 D, +1 T
Fascination with the Teuv: -2 P, +3 C & M against Teuv opponents, +10 to rolls targeting the Teuv
Fortress Buster: +3 M attacking fortifications, +1 Combat Dice to attached units while attacking fortifications
Friend of the Harp: Willing to act as a conduit to Memphrabi nobility [Levar Alan]
Greenthumb Administrator: +2 S, +5 to Farm Related Rolls
Guns and Butter: +1 Influence, +1 S, +2 Military Upkeep Bonus, +5 to Military Logistics related dice rolls [Luna]
Horse Trader: +1 S, +2 D
Law & Order: Peasant uprising percentages reduced by 5, increased chance of identifying and intercepting dissident characters [Andres]
Maestro of the Hunt: +3 I, +1 C, +10 dice bonus on Martial or Intrigue Actions that would result in Teuvian Influence reduction [Antonia]
Masterful Rider: +3 C on horseback
Naval Songweaver: +1 Mg, +1 Casting Dice on water, access to Naval Songweaving songs
Old Tricks: +2 I, +5 to rolls involving the Teuv or identifying Teuv influence. [Carmen]
Prima Donna of the Blade: +2 C, +1 T, +1 M, +1 Max Parry, Halberd-master
Recruiter: -10% recruiting costs for standing troops
Redeemed Knight: +3 Chivalry, +2 M, +2 C, +2 D, +1 Influence [Lana Antilles]
Ride to the Rescue: +2 C, always able to deploy House (Tellar) troops to fight pirate raids, able to raise the (Harper)knights without Influence cost in response to major pirate incursions
Ruby Among Diamonds: (Candice) seeks to prove herself as belonging in this world, prone to take risks, +5 to any failed Action roll. [Candice Kettleback]
Sailed with the Khironex: +2 C, +1 to Relations with Khironex, +6 M when commanding ships [Evelyn]
Schooled: +2 S, +1 D, +1 I
Sea Lord: +2 M at Sea
Shield of Many Colours - +2 D, +15 to rolls for gathering allied contingents, +4 M when commanding multiple factions [Evelyn]
Silver Fox: +1 D, +10 to Diplomacy rolls with female characters, additional +10 with younger female characters [Theo]
Sister-in-Arms: +20 to dice rolls for Clan Ruger responding to Tellar calls for aid, +20 when requesting aid from Tellar (will impart Influence costs to cancel aid) [Alice Ruger]
Spin Doctor: +2 D, +10 to all Sub-Rolls after a successful Diplomatic Test in Foreign Courts [Evelyn]
Steel Without Peer: +1 C, +1 D, +3 Attacks added after Initiative Roll in Personal Combat [Claire Yin]
Steel Without Pity: +2 Attacks added to attacks after Initiative Roll in Personal Combat, Gain Blooded [Lily Reynolds]
Squeamish: -1 M
The Penitent Knight: +2 Chivalry, +1 M, +1 C, +1 D, (Lana) is hell-bent on redeeming the honour of (her) House [Lana Antilles]
Tutored: +1 M, +2 S, +1 D, +1 I, +1 Mg
Wall Taker: +1 M, +1 Combat Dice to an attached unit when attacking fortresses
'Weapon'-Master: +1 C, additional +1 Combat Bonus when using that weapon in battle
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Blooded/Veteran/Old Campaigner: +1/2/3 M and C
Eavesdropper/Consummate Spy/One with Shadows: self Intrigue bonuses
Employs Spies/Familiar with Spies/Maestro of Shadows: spymaster Intrigue bonuses
Nascent Statesmen/Statesmen/Venerated Statesmen: +0/1/2 Influence
Neophyte Songweaver/Songweaver/Veteran Songweaver/Elite Songweaver: +casting dice and access to higher tier spells, +Mg
 
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Quick update - raw battle rolls are complete, will now be writing the narrative parts. Between the results and the fact @Spectrum included a few stages in her plan, the battle has finished already. After this will be a clean-up and prize dispersal round.

I'm going to come out and admit I badly underestimated how lopsided this was going to end up. Really should have upped the troop quality or something! Oh well, tutorial battles, what can you do...
 
OneirosTheWriter said:
Quick update - raw battle rolls are complete, will now be writing the narrative parts. Between the results and the fact Spectrum included a few stages in her plan, the battle has finished already. After this will be a clean-up and prize dispersal round.
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Thank you for not leaving me in suspense. <3

OneirosTheWriter said:
I'm going to come out and admit I badly underestimated how lopsided this was going to end up. Really should have upped the troop quality or something! Oh well, tutorial battles, what can you do...
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Well, they could've had a lot more numbers wise if we didn't prevent more ships from making it back and beaching or the other half of the Warriors decided to land also?
 
Reading through, there's definitely an interesting tension as a reader between approval and disapproval. Like, some of Evelyn's offhand, "Oh, and to make things worse they were commoners" sort of comments I both approve of as a writer/reader (because it makes total sense), and yet that SV part of me that's all, you know, modern is sorta frowning every time I see a reference like that.

Like I said, interesting tension.
 
The Laurent said:
Reading through, there's definitely an interesting tension as a reader between approval and disapproval. Like, some of Evelyn's offhand, "Oh, and to make things worse they were commoners" sort of comments I both approve of as a writer/reader (because it makes total sense), and yet that SV part of me that's all, you know, modern is sorta frowning every time I see a reference like that.

Like I said, interesting tension.
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We (@Macchiato and myself) take a certain A Knight's Tale style approach to a lot of this, wherein we don't eschew anachronisms, but we also try not to make them carelessly. So a lot of the culture at play is informed by modern progressive elements, but, at the same time, it is still a set of feudal kingdoms, with the pressures that that represents. As a result the balancing act that you mention occurs, whereby we try to stay true to the culture(s, given there's a few other nations as well) of what we're trying to do, while still making it accessible and not hugely off-putting.

Evelyn in particular has that as one of her character flaws (Elitist trait) that survives from years ago when we were first playing with this setting as a fiction concept.
 
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