[X] Plan Interrogate
-[X] [Food] Take as much as you can carry and burn the rest. Let the Snow Demons starve. (Gain 0.2 months of food.)
-[X] [Prisoner] Tie him to one of the long spears and carry him to the village.
--[X] Once you're back in the village, interrogate him for information.
-[X] [Own Dead] Burn their bodies, lest the Snow Demons defile and eat them.
-[X] [Enemy Dead] Burn their bodies, lest they feed your enemies.
I don't think we should let go of the valuable information that the prisoner can provide so we should bring him back. At the very least he can teach us their language.
[X] Plan Get Everything Out of Them
-[X] [Food] Take as much as you can carry and burn the rest. Let the Snow Demons starve. (Gain 0.2 months of food.)
-[X] [Prisoner] Tie him to one of the long spears and carry him to the village.
--[X] Once you're back in the village, interrogate him for information.
-[X] [Own Dead] Burn their bodies, lest the Snow Demons defile and eat them.
-[X] [Enemy Dead] Strip them of useful items and then Burn their bodies, lest they feed your enemies.
Prisoner is useful for:
-Explaining how the snow shoes work
-Finding out where their camp is
-Figuring out their language
The food cost of one captive is negligible, and we have oh so many questions
The reason for no captive is the same as why noone wanted to lie and go back for more people, the weather might fuck us, and having someone that wants us dead accompanying us.
Just lurking around but I feel like to point something out.
Food] Take as much as you can carry ..... (Gain 0.2 months of food.)
And the prisoner option
[Prisoner] Tie him to one of the long spears and carry him to the village.
Would logically go against each other.
This sort of combination would be cleaner morally maybe? [] [Food] Take as much as you can carry and leave the rest alone. The tribe needs the supplies. (Gain 0.2 months of food.)
[] [Prisoner] Kill the wounded Snow Demon. There is no use in letting him suffer.
[] [Enemy Dead] Gather them in one place and leave them behind. Let them know clearly that you wished them to have their own dead.
Silence fell between the two groups as Snow-Fox weighted his options. To reward these beasts for the slaughter of his tribe was out of question, let alone giving them better weapons for the raids that would undoubtedly follow. Though pretending to agree would have gotten the hunters safe passage home and might yet have saved the prisoners lives. Then they could have gathered more men to strike down the creatures. But would the weather even have allowed that? It had been a small wonder that he had managed to bring his small band this far out against the wrath of winter and to lead even more might just have seen them decimated before even meeting their foes. Was there truly a choice? His task had not yet been completed and his band had quietly agreed with him that they would not shy away from whatever danger lurked here, as long as there was a chance to recover the lost.
He nodded deeply to the Snow Demons, resting the butt of his spear on his right foot and drawing it close to him. Just as he saw how his foes relaxed, he felt the hunters behind him tense, for they knew what the gesture with his spear meant. In a single heartbeat, Snow-Fox had changed his grip on the weapon and charged forward, thrusting his companions to judge how many would follow and how many would throw their smaller spears at them.
Hunters Spear Volley
73 + 20 (Obsidian Weapons) vs 50 + 30 (Cover) + 20 (Padded Armor) = 93 vs 80
One dead, one wounded.
Snow Demon Return Volley
12 + 20 (Prepared Location) vs 88 + 30 (Cover) = 32 vs 118
No effect
Snow-Fox's Charge
71 + 50 (Great Hunter) + 20 (Obsidian Weapons) vs 45 + 40 (Defensive Location) + 20 (Padded Armor) = 141 vs 100
Four dead, one wounded
Snow Demon Counter-Attack
53 vs 26 + 25 (Great Hunter) = 53 vs 51
One wounded
Snow Demons sustained massive losses.
Morale check (DC 80): 60 -> Moral drops to Routing.
His new name might have been that of the fox, though his charge was as the dive of the hawk. Ten steps divided him from his foes, yet his feet had eaten half that distance already when the spears of his hunter flew over his head. He ran around the first Demon, a thrown spear lodged in his chest and the creature already dropping. Idly he noted how the panicked throws of his foes went wide and clattered uselessly against the stone cliffs while eyeing his first quarry. One of the beasts thrusted his spear at him, but his weapon had greater reach and he counted on that. A short thrust towards his foes hands made him drop his spear, a second ran him through like a hare. The creatures outnumbered the hunters when the fight began and by an even wider margin as four more charged out of a small cave hidden by the cliffs, but they had lost this battle already. Three Demons lay dead before they even knew what was happening, the others torn between fighting back and running for a moment, then deciding for the latter.
The hunters charged on, trying to run them all down, but only claiming two more dead and striking another where its legs should be. Just as the stories told, the Demons were nothing if not swift and they left nary a footprint in the snow as they fled. No matter how dearly they wished to end this right here and now, Snow-Fox knew that his band would sink up to their knees into the same snow drifts the Demons took with ease, making pursuit impossible. And inadvisable too, for he lost sight of them quickly and it would be all to easy to set an ambush among the broken cliffs.
But what mattered most was that they had succeeded. The cave the Demons had used as their shelter was not overly large and the two prisoners were found underfed, but mostly fine. Of their captors, they could tell rather little, since the beasts spoke only in hushed whispers to each other whenever they were within earshot and their crude language made it nigh impossible to interpret the fragments they could make out. Two important things they could report though. For one, the promise of butchering the men for food was not an idle threat meant to intimidate, but the actual intent of the beasts. It was this knowledge that had led to one of the caught group to sneak out and try to run just two nights ago, without a doubt the dead man they found on their way here.
The other thing, which was much more worrying, was the food. A huge number of baskets full of dried and frozen meat had been hauled into the small cave and the prisoners reported to see four beasts coming into the cave each day, carrying more of them and leaving immediately after dropping them off. They had already come and gone, so there was little risk of four more creatures attacking the hunters from behind, but the scale of their efforts was staggering. What lay here might have been enough to last the whole tribe quite a while and they still were not done to bring more of it. Thus two questions chased each other through Snow Fox's mind. Where did they get all of it and why bring it to a cave in this hostile part of the valley?
What followed was predictable and infuriating at the same time. The tribe could use the food, for even with the hunts going well thus far, they still barely brought in meat at the same rate as the people ate. A group of ten would not be able to take even half of what was stored here and coming back was quickly deemed too risky with the weather and the threat of the Demons ambushing them when given the time to prepare. But they could try to deny this storage to what was undoubtedly their foes. If it would force the Demons to abandon the valley or instead make them search for the village in an attempt to raid if for supplies, that was the thorny question. Or they could leave everything as they found it, save for taking their tribesmen back. The beasts might consider a settled score if the hunters did not go out of their way to spite them further, making it less likely that the fighting would go on.
For all his skill as a hunter, Snow Fox felt ill suited to make these choices, but the council was a days march through frozen death away, so he would have to make it. And then there was surviving Demon that was still moaning in pain outside. Would it show mercy or weakness in their eyes, if you let him live? And what should he do with the dead? Yet he had not much time to ponder this, for night was approaching fast and camping in the cliffs seemed unwise, even if it meant to brave the storm again instead.
The battle was won. What now?
[] [Food] Leave the food alone. You know the horrors of starvation and will not inflict such on others.
[] [Food] Take as much as you can carry and leave the rest alone. The tribe needs the supplies. (Gain 0.2 months of food.)
[] [Food] Take as much as you can carry and burn the rest. Let the Snow Demons starve. (Gain 0.2 months of food.)
[] [Food] Write-In
[] [Prisoner] Let the wounded Snow Demon be. His ilk will come for him when you leave.
[] [Prisoner] Kill the wounded Snow Demon. There is no use in letting him suffer.
[] [Prisoner] Tie him to one of the long spears and carry him to the village.
[] [Prisoner] Write-In
[] [Own Dead] Leave the dead behind.
[] [Own Dead] Burn their bodies, lest the Snow Demons defile and eat them.
[] [Own Dead] Write-In
[] [Enemy Dead] Gather them in one place and leave them behind. Let them know clearly that you wished them to have their own dead.
[] [Enemy Dead] Burn their bodies, lest they feed your enemies.
[] [Enemy Dead] Butcher them for pelts and trophies. This great victory needs to be commemorated.
[] [Enemy Dead] Write-In
AN: This took forever due to me having trouble to handle a battle between less then 30 people with a system designed to quickly resolve armies consisting of 500 men sized battalions, having to settle for something much rougher in the end. That might need some tweaking for short-term conflicts.
On the matter of Great Personalities, yes they are pretty strong and can massively sway a fight. Though their strength will go down a bit later on when armies grow larger, as a Great Hunter / Warrior can only grant this bonus to the unit he is attached to, making the bonus less extreme overall due to the size of battles.
If you feel this fight was a bit anti-climatic, blame the blizzard, who put the Snow Demons at a massive disadvantage.
Normal hunting haul is a month's worth. We're naturally going to haul a lot less than that even accounting for time spent looking for food rather than hauling.
Normal hunting haul is a month's worth. We're naturally going to haul a lot less than that even accounting for time spent looking for food rather than hauling.
I get that it's a month's turn, I'm just unsure on the logistics of it, you can be hunting for a month remote from camp and then haul it all in at once.
Animals worthy of hunting tend not to congregate around humans and the actions we took month before last resulted in all of that discontent because everyone was too far from each other to know what was going on.
Hence my questions around does a normal hunting party normally return to camp frequently, party sizes etc.
Another reason for the difference in haulage could be equipment, we might normally construct sleds, potentially beyond our ability in this scenario due to resources or being time poor etc.
