- Pronouns
- He/Him
I hope you don't mind if I ask about the status of the next update @Warkeymon . My omake would fit better if done beforehand but can work without.
The Dawi in Arda (Hiatus)
- Thread starter Warkeymon
- Start date
- Crossover
- Pronouns
- Warkeymon
I'm half way through it but lost a lot of time to the release of TW:W3. When I sit down to work on it there's probably a coin flip as to whether I open word or steam.
- Location
- USA
I was wondering what was distracting you. Super glad to see it's something good and not like, yanno, bad.
Nice! The first one was a ton of fun despite some odd quirks. Is it poor form to ask how you're finding this one?
- Pronouns
- Warkeymon
I like warhammer and I like total war so it's pretty good. There's some performance issues especially when loading out of a battle but it's mostly fine on that front. I like the mechanics and the unit variety.
So yeah I'm looking forward to a few more years of this.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
@Warkeymon
For future reference, is it possible to put more than one "graduating" dice of Beardlings into a clan at the same time, like if we wanted to put two of the four into the Leadbeards or Greatmantles in the most recent update?
If not, may I ask why not IC?
For future reference, is it possible to put more than one "graduating" dice of Beardlings into a clan at the same time, like if we wanted to put two of the four into the Leadbeards or Greatmantles in the most recent update?
If not, may I ask why not IC?
My same thoughts.
- Pronouns
- Warkeymon
Beardlings are technically already assigned to a Clan, they're born into those Clans. You get to choose which Clans get Beardlings at the end of the generation because some of the Beardlings have founded new Clans and so can't grow up to be part of their original Clan. So you couldn't have multiple Beardlings joining a particular Clan unless you had more Beardlings than Clans.
- Location
- USA
Speaking of Beardlings we need more. Moar, I say!
Gatrim and his Queen should spend some more time together. Get down and make a little love. The more gazari we have the more the Hold will have IIRC seeing that we think its safe to have lots of little ones.
@Warkeymon Are we basically guaranteed at least 1 beardling die per clan barring disaster?
Turn 40 is so far away, but I'd like to see double digit beardling die then. We're going down to... 6? beardling die pretty soon, right? For a goldsmith clan. Since we have the matrons of Valaya, I see no reason to make for a healer clan before turn 40. And unless we strike a gem mine, there's no reason to get a jewelsmith (barring potentially increasing the number of beardling die) clan. (Rivendell has Noldor gems doesn't it? That might be a thing in a few turns since we're getting gold via trade too, right? Boy there's another thing I'd like to have a mine of)
Nat 1 on the prospecting is bad juju, Nat 100 must be like a Grand Mithril vein with a minor Oathgold tier gold vein. NGL prospecting is where I'd like to see our nat 100 if only to see what we get.
I think getting a dedicated Merchant die would be nice, if only to open more options up(We do get expanded options the more kinds of die we have afterall). Not sure it needs to be a new clan though.
Speaking of the Bronzeplaits, can we put a Tavern at Kazad Urbaz?
Speaking of Kazad Urbaz, I would like to propose a basic upgrading of the High Pass paths. Simply making them nicer might help attract more trade to the Urbaz.
Gatrim and his Queen should spend some more time together. Get down and make a little love. The more gazari we have the more the Hold will have IIRC seeing that we think its safe to have lots of little ones.
@Warkeymon Are we basically guaranteed at least 1 beardling die per clan barring disaster?
Turn 40 is so far away, but I'd like to see double digit beardling die then. We're going down to... 6? beardling die pretty soon, right? For a goldsmith clan. Since we have the matrons of Valaya, I see no reason to make for a healer clan before turn 40. And unless we strike a gem mine, there's no reason to get a jewelsmith (barring potentially increasing the number of beardling die) clan. (Rivendell has Noldor gems doesn't it? That might be a thing in a few turns since we're getting gold via trade too, right? Boy there's another thing I'd like to have a mine of)
Nat 1 on the prospecting is bad juju, Nat 100 must be like a Grand Mithril vein with a minor Oathgold tier gold vein. NGL prospecting is where I'd like to see our nat 100 if only to see what we get.
I think getting a dedicated Merchant die would be nice, if only to open more options up(We do get expanded options the more kinds of die we have afterall). Not sure it needs to be a new clan though.
Speaking of the Bronzeplaits, can we put a Tavern at Kazad Urbaz?
Speaking of Kazad Urbaz, I would like to propose a basic upgrading of the High Pass paths. Simply making them nicer might help attract more trade to the Urbaz.
- Location
- Denial
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'd rather fill out the Greatmantle and Bronzeplait clans first before starting another new clan. I don't think goldsmiths will bring much in the way of useful new abilities beyond just making more wealth so I want to see what having specialised merchants and metalsmiths does for us first.
- Location
- USA
I'd love love love to speed up filling out all the trades of the established clans. We could actually do 6 of the beardling die into Clan Trades in the next 20 years too, since it only takes 3 years.
Edit: Lmao I just read that btw. On the trade lore page. I've been wondering where everyone got the idea to train clan trades tbh.
Something, in no particular order, like: Prospector (I assume this'll give better prospecting rolls and remove a -5 from the miners) - Herder (I can only assume that this is the Animal Husbandry farmer trade spreads -5 around) - Merchant (Spread that Dawi goods) - Metalsmith/Smelter (Dedicated Smelter would remove penalty from Warsmith die) - Chemist (I think we might need to unlock this to be able to manually create Saltpeter) - Gunsmith? Artisan might be a good call in there, for the Merchants to piggy back off of.
And then put the 7th die into Clan Leadbeard for more warriors.
Or did you have something else in mind for the Loremasters going forward?
- Location
- Denial
- Pronouns
- She/Her
My current thoughts are our next two beardlings should go into evening up our clans, since in theory at least the engineers and carpenters were drawn from all of the clans so the six clans should realistically have the same number of dice it's just we don't represent partial dice. For the Bronzeplaits there's only either brewers or merchants and I think the merchants are the obvious pick there. For the Greatmantles there's weaponsmiths, smelters or metalsmiths. I want the metalsmiths out of those, I'm hoping having an entire die focused on tools over weapons will increase the bonuses our other die get.
I don't have a set plan beyond that, it might good be a good point to start the goldsmiths or we could start on getting more specialist die for the other clans. Something to work out once we get there since 6 turns is over a quarter of the quest away and a ton of stuff could happen before then.
I don't have a set plan beyond that, it might good be a good point to start the goldsmiths or we could start on getting more specialist die for the other clans. Something to work out once we get there since 6 turns is over a quarter of the quest away and a ton of stuff could happen before then.
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- Location
- USA
Makes perfect sense. I'm totally with it.
I would accelerate the engeniers and the chemist, we have lots of places to put artillery on, and when we will have to deal with a dragon our victory will probably hinge on that.
We already are rich enough, merchant would be nice but far from a necessity, also focusing on military now will probably be more useful for our trade in the long run, since with a strong military we could rebuild Arnorn and the north, and it doesn't really matter how big our trade outpost is, with two large kindoms on both the sides of our mountain trade will boom anyway.
Whilst on the opposite side very sparsly populated areas produce less trade regardles of the fact that we have a tavern or not.
Also prospectors, they would be gret to have a dedicated dice, when we make one I would suggest to make a second prospectors hall, it would help to find stuff and wouldn't be a big malus.
We already are rich enough, merchant would be nice but far from a necessity, also focusing on military now will probably be more useful for our trade in the long run, since with a strong military we could rebuild Arnorn and the north, and it doesn't really matter how big our trade outpost is, with two large kindoms on both the sides of our mountain trade will boom anyway.
Whilst on the opposite side very sparsly populated areas produce less trade regardles of the fact that we have a tavern or not.
Also prospectors, they would be gret to have a dedicated dice, when we make one I would suggest to make a second prospectors hall, it would help to find stuff and wouldn't be a big malus.
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The Blood Awakens
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The Blood Awakens
It had not come to him because of the honored dead.
It was an easy mistake to make. For in the wake of the first great loss of life in this, unbeknownst to them at the time, strange new world, why else would the blood of Gazul awaken, stirred into action at those seeking entrance to the Underearth?
Ever since their arrival he had been uneasy, uncomfortable. The stones and air and earth smelled off, the tools they made from lumber harvested rested uneasily on his palms. The taste of the water in the back of his throat had him twitching. Only after the fourth time he'd vomited out the stonebread supplementing their early meals was he not required to partake, and while none wished ill of him, there was an undercurrent of resentment among his peers of age that they suffered through the rations while his lack of proper Dawi endurance and stubbornness was tolerated.
He should have sought the wisdom of his elders, but he was always prone more to self-reflection, and after the healers of the Cult of Valaya declared there was nothing wrong with his body and his mind seemed sound, he could only assume it was something they would have no experience with.
A part of him would regret that bit of youthful brashness, but he was given to being by himself already and the reasoning that his oddities would only discomfort the others gave a moral imperative to his increasing isolation. Besides, there were surely more important things in a newly founded Karak than one beardling's discomfort.
Though there was one avenue of exploration outside of his own knowledge. Lorekeeper Sedlim had often indulged his bouts of knowledge seeking absent companionship, and as he grew into a beardling and his education as a productive member of Ankor society intensified, so too did his fascination of the records of lore and past as a pastime fit for lone activities.
A quiet request for materials relating to an environment inducing uncomfortable sensations into a Dawi was met with a raised eyebrow and quick direction after several moments contemplation. As he left, the elder laid a hand on his shoulder for a brief moment, and in that time he felt reassurance. The moment passed and he continued on aware that his unstated plight was not unheard, nor was his means of dealing with it to be disrupted. It spoke much of the trust he had in the beardling's judgement. Buoyed by the weight of newfound moral responsibility he perused the knowledge collected and found ample evidence relating to the polar hells and unusually strong or concentrated magical phenomena; the tales from Karak Hirn and that terribly unnatural forest occupied him for many an hour.
But lone individuals among many bearing such symptoms and issues were rare, or swept into disturbing accounts of targeted malignant sorcery. It had taken him hours to work up the courage to approach Lord Gutfroy about the matter. The keen eyes of his elder had seen his hesitance to take this matter up with others, and after much sniffing and poking and prodding and fiddling with tools and runed objects the purpose of which he could only guess at, he stated with certainty there was no such foulness upon his being. The indignant grunt and glare he received at asking for surety wrought much color to his cheeks and forced his head low in shame.
He left the Rhunrikki with a promise that he would either seek proper care and wisdom for this situation soon if he could not resolve it.
So he suffered in silence, deep contemplations of his condition spiraling into out of control forays of depression. Only in the deepest and darkest pits of the mountains that were nominally secure (and some a bit less so) and oddly enough up among the peaks when the moon glowed or the sun shone did he feel something akin to ease of mind.
Long were the hours spent puzzling over what was wrong with the world or him. And as hints increasingly appeared telling a tale of oddities and strangeness inherent in the land, his mind was further convinced of the land being the cause of his disturbance, even as his heart stubbornly persisted in worry of the sanctity of his soul.
Then came the battle, as the Hargrobi assaulted their defenses in their thousands. He had volunteered, serving as part of the reserve and assisting in the movement of ammunition, wounded, and dead.
It was the smell that got him. The smell of the goblinoids dead, their tainted blood. The hundreds, thousands of assaulted his senses even as their twisted caricatures of features burned themselves into his mind. The world became hazy, his thoughts overwhelmed by visions of darkness, death, twisted mutilation, mountains rising and shadows falling over the world, essence mangled and wrought unspeakable change upon.
A song all-encompassing tinged with discord, a land tainted, a world rendered impure.
He didn't know when it ended, stumbling about from duty to duty, torn between madness and stoic duty. He could remember little detail save a certainty that these grobi were wrong, and that somehow their miserable existences were tied with what had made him so discomforted all these years. All he could do was stumble forward, and let himself fall into darkness.
One step then another, hurried, without pause. All he could do was run forward, uncaring that he could not see though he could perceive the murky tendrils piercing the darkness, stretching and twisting and making a mockery of blackness about him.
He was going downwards, hurtling forward at times falling off his feet and rolling always before he picked himself up off the stone floor and carried on.
Then came a knock of recrimination, hurling him off his feet once more: his face stung with shame why shame? He could see? No, rather the darkness molded itself into rock of night's darkest pitch and there was a beard, a stout form bestowed with smoky facial hair. He could not make out a face but the weight of paternal disapproval was palpable.
A gloved palm was on his cheek, the pain faded and his gaze was gently moved to the side, and there lay a pool of water that reflected the blackness off itself and thereby was sighted.
The hand upon his face was gone, he looked forward again and the darkness was but darkness, yet in it there was peace.
Drawn by the curious sight, nay the only sight, he moved to peer into its depths. Mesmerizing in its absolute defiance of the ebony surroundings, so intent and wandering was his gaze he perceived the slightest fluctuation. Old scripts and records came to mind mixed with lessons passed to all children of the Ankor, and he stepped forward, palms outstretched for the stony wall he somehow knew was there. And he laid hands upon it, then eat, and listened and felt. Back and forth between guiding water and echoing stone he went, the song of moving earth and shifting stone heard and respected since before the Ancestors themselves calling him on.
At last he found where the points aligned and took a deep, fortifying breath, the hint of familiarly unfamiliar air sparking a fire in his veins.
Up was risen a pick the origin of he knew not, and he began to chip and cut away. No miner by trade; the art of delving earth and stone was in the blood of every Dawi.
Time escaped him as he hacked away. The rhythmic motion becoming everything. Miners' songs of old rang in his ears, and perhaps uttered aloud with his scant used voice.
He only knew he had broken through when his pick swung forward once more and was stopped not by cracked rock but an unyielding grip upon the haft.
It was not his grip.
"Careful now beardling. Haste has a place in all things but it needs be tempered by discipline."
The voice was smoky, signs of lack of use that should have been awkward somehow instead reassuring and even endearing. The low, hemming grumble left him feeling as though he stood on sturdy carved marble lined with gromril, his back straightening unconsciously.
But he couldn't see.
Did he speak aloud? He didn't think so. And yet, from the pitch-black comes a response.
"You will get used to it. Dawi are masters of the mountain, be it it's heart, peak, or bowels. Remember that. For now though, I'll make it easy for you."
Fire blossomed.
He had seen and envisioned weapons wreathed in fire. The flames ghosting off the edge, casting flickering shadows, the heat a constant warning of the danger it represented, mixing obscuration with illumination of the blade from which the bound inferno emanated.
This was not one of those.
Rather than a wispy blaze fluttering about a sharp edge of steep, it was as if fire had been wrangled into immobility and wrapped about a sword until it was as solid as fiery diamonds, the flat shimmer so enmeshed with the blade's shape he could not tell where the weapon ended and the flame began.
No. That was a lie. Rather than a flickering fire it was a flickering blade of pure ebony, a metal spine in a blazing body that only showed itself when you stared deeply. He couldn't conceive of what it was made of, but something deep in him said it was in no way inferior to the Gromril making up the armaments of the greatest and eldest of his hold. And upon it, burning a white that shone through the inferno about it, were runes of primordial provenance that breathed with power.
The air did not heat up around it, rather, it grew colder, and no shadows were cast. Instead the room tunnel was brought into being, as if a faint shine emanated from the surroundings themselves rather than a singular glow in response to, while around the blade itself the darkness grew, light drawn in and devoured.
It was an impossibly eerie spectacle that lent a sense of otherworldliness to the cave.
The bearer of the sword was cloaked, only faint of glimpses of dark armor visible. His beard was black as soot with streaks of grey, like the burnt remain of the finest Wutroth tended to from birth to life and ended in a fire tended to eternally and shaped into fine facial hair.
And he was not alone. Dawi in their owns and twos strode about at the edges of his vision, garbed in the finest accoutrements with neatly trimmed beards, and then they were blooded, weary and wounded, and then they were something in-between, a passing illusion spawned by torchlight.
"Quite the drawpoint you youngsters have stumbled upon." the dark figure spoke again, leaning to the side. The darkness flooded in where he once was until it seemed as if he had moved out of a painting.
"Purest Gromril on one end," he tapped a stony wall and the sweetest, most well-conducted chorus rang out, filling his mind with joy and hope and wonder, "and the basest foulness on the other." He tapped the other wall and had it always been so close or merely been there only when he tapped it?
Again music rang out, but such a term is insulting to the discordant, raucous mess that elicited fear and anger and the most terrible sorrow and discomfort.
"And it might well be that grouting would do more harm than good for once." Undertones of more than one meaning lay heavy in that statement.
"Haven't felt like this since my earlier days, when I first went awandering and found all sorts of new odds and ends. A walk can do you good, if you keep your feet firmly planted." And if his tone was wistful, the beardling dared not guess at why.
"There always needs to be someone looking within instead of without. You've gone in one direction, now wander the other. If you should wish to take unto yourself greater responsibilities, you will find me again."
He turned, and as his sword was obscured by his body the strange lightness vanished, the deepest darkness there as if it had never left, his eyes adjusting 'ere the light had never been.
Other Dawi stepped forward, their shadowed forms a bit clearer, more defined. He was led up and out until there darkness was not so absolute and the lights situated at exact measurements guided him further.
Up and up he went until he was outside, and there was a path up the peak that had not been there before. He strode forward with increasing surety, the words spoken earlier echoing in his mind, his very being: Dawi are masters of the mountain, be it it's heart, peak, or bowels.
The climb became ever more strenuous, but his will became firmer with each step. And when he stood at the summit and looked out, a blazing figure caught his eye, branded into the clouds, like the barest indications of a portal down under in rigidly defined lines and angles.
At last, the world was not so unpleasant, but it could be made better.
It had not come to him because of the honored dead.
It was an easy mistake to make. For in the wake of the first great loss of life in this, unbeknownst to them at the time, strange new world, why else would the blood of Gazul awaken, stirred into action at those seeking entrance to the Underearth?
Ever since their arrival he had been uneasy, uncomfortable. The stones and air and earth smelled off, the tools they made from lumber harvested rested uneasily on his palms. The taste of the water in the back of his throat had him twitching. Only after the fourth time he'd vomited out the stonebread supplementing their early meals was he not required to partake, and while none wished ill of him, there was an undercurrent of resentment among his peers of age that they suffered through the rations while his lack of proper Dawi endurance and stubbornness was tolerated.
He should have sought the wisdom of his elders, but he was always prone more to self-reflection, and after the healers of the Cult of Valaya declared there was nothing wrong with his body and his mind seemed sound, he could only assume it was something they would have no experience with.
A part of him would regret that bit of youthful brashness, but he was given to being by himself already and the reasoning that his oddities would only discomfort the others gave a moral imperative to his increasing isolation. Besides, there were surely more important things in a newly founded Karak than one beardling's discomfort.
Though there was one avenue of exploration outside of his own knowledge. Lorekeeper Sedlim had often indulged his bouts of knowledge seeking absent companionship, and as he grew into a beardling and his education as a productive member of Ankor society intensified, so too did his fascination of the records of lore and past as a pastime fit for lone activities.
A quiet request for materials relating to an environment inducing uncomfortable sensations into a Dawi was met with a raised eyebrow and quick direction after several moments contemplation. As he left, the elder laid a hand on his shoulder for a brief moment, and in that time he felt reassurance. The moment passed and he continued on aware that his unstated plight was not unheard, nor was his means of dealing with it to be disrupted. It spoke much of the trust he had in the beardling's judgement. Buoyed by the weight of newfound moral responsibility he perused the knowledge collected and found ample evidence relating to the polar hells and unusually strong or concentrated magical phenomena; the tales from Karak Hirn and that terribly unnatural forest occupied him for many an hour.
But lone individuals among many bearing such symptoms and issues were rare, or swept into disturbing accounts of targeted malignant sorcery. It had taken him hours to work up the courage to approach Lord Gutfroy about the matter. The keen eyes of his elder had seen his hesitance to take this matter up with others, and after much sniffing and poking and prodding and fiddling with tools and runed objects the purpose of which he could only guess at, he stated with certainty there was no such foulness upon his being. The indignant grunt and glare he received at asking for surety wrought much color to his cheeks and forced his head low in shame.
He left the Rhunrikki with a promise that he would either seek proper care and wisdom for this situation soon if he could not resolve it.
So he suffered in silence, deep contemplations of his condition spiraling into out of control forays of depression. Only in the deepest and darkest pits of the mountains that were nominally secure (and some a bit less so) and oddly enough up among the peaks when the moon glowed or the sun shone did he feel something akin to ease of mind.
Long were the hours spent puzzling over what was wrong with the world or him. And as hints increasingly appeared telling a tale of oddities and strangeness inherent in the land, his mind was further convinced of the land being the cause of his disturbance, even as his heart stubbornly persisted in worry of the sanctity of his soul.
Then came the battle, as the Hargrobi assaulted their defenses in their thousands. He had volunteered, serving as part of the reserve and assisting in the movement of ammunition, wounded, and dead.
It was the smell that got him. The smell of the goblinoids dead, their tainted blood. The hundreds, thousands of assaulted his senses even as their twisted caricatures of features burned themselves into his mind. The world became hazy, his thoughts overwhelmed by visions of darkness, death, twisted mutilation, mountains rising and shadows falling over the world, essence mangled and wrought unspeakable change upon.
A song all-encompassing tinged with discord, a land tainted, a world rendered impure.
He didn't know when it ended, stumbling about from duty to duty, torn between madness and stoic duty. He could remember little detail save a certainty that these grobi were wrong, and that somehow their miserable existences were tied with what had made him so discomforted all these years. All he could do was stumble forward, and let himself fall into darkness.
One step then another, hurried, without pause. All he could do was run forward, uncaring that he could not see though he could perceive the murky tendrils piercing the darkness, stretching and twisting and making a mockery of blackness about him.
He was going downwards, hurtling forward at times falling off his feet and rolling always before he picked himself up off the stone floor and carried on.
Then came a knock of recrimination, hurling him off his feet once more: his face stung with shame why shame? He could see? No, rather the darkness molded itself into rock of night's darkest pitch and there was a beard, a stout form bestowed with smoky facial hair. He could not make out a face but the weight of paternal disapproval was palpable.
A gloved palm was on his cheek, the pain faded and his gaze was gently moved to the side, and there lay a pool of water that reflected the blackness off itself and thereby was sighted.
The hand upon his face was gone, he looked forward again and the darkness was but darkness, yet in it there was peace.
Drawn by the curious sight, nay the only sight, he moved to peer into its depths. Mesmerizing in its absolute defiance of the ebony surroundings, so intent and wandering was his gaze he perceived the slightest fluctuation. Old scripts and records came to mind mixed with lessons passed to all children of the Ankor, and he stepped forward, palms outstretched for the stony wall he somehow knew was there. And he laid hands upon it, then eat, and listened and felt. Back and forth between guiding water and echoing stone he went, the song of moving earth and shifting stone heard and respected since before the Ancestors themselves calling him on.
At last he found where the points aligned and took a deep, fortifying breath, the hint of familiarly unfamiliar air sparking a fire in his veins.
Up was risen a pick the origin of he knew not, and he began to chip and cut away. No miner by trade; the art of delving earth and stone was in the blood of every Dawi.
Time escaped him as he hacked away. The rhythmic motion becoming everything. Miners' songs of old rang in his ears, and perhaps uttered aloud with his scant used voice.
He only knew he had broken through when his pick swung forward once more and was stopped not by cracked rock but an unyielding grip upon the haft.
It was not his grip.
"Careful now beardling. Haste has a place in all things but it needs be tempered by discipline."
The voice was smoky, signs of lack of use that should have been awkward somehow instead reassuring and even endearing. The low, hemming grumble left him feeling as though he stood on sturdy carved marble lined with gromril, his back straightening unconsciously.
But he couldn't see.
Did he speak aloud? He didn't think so. And yet, from the pitch-black comes a response.
"You will get used to it. Dawi are masters of the mountain, be it it's heart, peak, or bowels. Remember that. For now though, I'll make it easy for you."
Fire blossomed.
He had seen and envisioned weapons wreathed in fire. The flames ghosting off the edge, casting flickering shadows, the heat a constant warning of the danger it represented, mixing obscuration with illumination of the blade from which the bound inferno emanated.
This was not one of those.
Rather than a wispy blaze fluttering about a sharp edge of steep, it was as if fire had been wrangled into immobility and wrapped about a sword until it was as solid as fiery diamonds, the flat shimmer so enmeshed with the blade's shape he could not tell where the weapon ended and the flame began.
No. That was a lie. Rather than a flickering fire it was a flickering blade of pure ebony, a metal spine in a blazing body that only showed itself when you stared deeply. He couldn't conceive of what it was made of, but something deep in him said it was in no way inferior to the Gromril making up the armaments of the greatest and eldest of his hold. And upon it, burning a white that shone through the inferno about it, were runes of primordial provenance that breathed with power.
The air did not heat up around it, rather, it grew colder, and no shadows were cast. Instead the room tunnel was brought into being, as if a faint shine emanated from the surroundings themselves rather than a singular glow in response to, while around the blade itself the darkness grew, light drawn in and devoured.
It was an impossibly eerie spectacle that lent a sense of otherworldliness to the cave.
The bearer of the sword was cloaked, only faint of glimpses of dark armor visible. His beard was black as soot with streaks of grey, like the burnt remain of the finest Wutroth tended to from birth to life and ended in a fire tended to eternally and shaped into fine facial hair.
And he was not alone. Dawi in their owns and twos strode about at the edges of his vision, garbed in the finest accoutrements with neatly trimmed beards, and then they were blooded, weary and wounded, and then they were something in-between, a passing illusion spawned by torchlight.
"Quite the drawpoint you youngsters have stumbled upon." the dark figure spoke again, leaning to the side. The darkness flooded in where he once was until it seemed as if he had moved out of a painting.
"Purest Gromril on one end," he tapped a stony wall and the sweetest, most well-conducted chorus rang out, filling his mind with joy and hope and wonder, "and the basest foulness on the other." He tapped the other wall and had it always been so close or merely been there only when he tapped it?
Again music rang out, but such a term is insulting to the discordant, raucous mess that elicited fear and anger and the most terrible sorrow and discomfort.
"And it might well be that grouting would do more harm than good for once." Undertones of more than one meaning lay heavy in that statement.
"Haven't felt like this since my earlier days, when I first went awandering and found all sorts of new odds and ends. A walk can do you good, if you keep your feet firmly planted." And if his tone was wistful, the beardling dared not guess at why.
"There always needs to be someone looking within instead of without. You've gone in one direction, now wander the other. If you should wish to take unto yourself greater responsibilities, you will find me again."
He turned, and as his sword was obscured by his body the strange lightness vanished, the deepest darkness there as if it had never left, his eyes adjusting 'ere the light had never been.
Other Dawi stepped forward, their shadowed forms a bit clearer, more defined. He was led up and out until there darkness was not so absolute and the lights situated at exact measurements guided him further.
Up and up he went until he was outside, and there was a path up the peak that had not been there before. He strode forward with increasing surety, the words spoken earlier echoing in his mind, his very being: Dawi are masters of the mountain, be it it's heart, peak, or bowels.
The climb became ever more strenuous, but his will became firmer with each step. And when he stood at the summit and looked out, a blazing figure caught his eye, branded into the clouds, like the barest indications of a portal down under in rigidly defined lines and angles.
At last, the world was not so unpleasant, but it could be made better.
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- Location
- USA
Gazul is a good Ancestor. Lots of wisdom to share. Much of it needed in these trying times.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Comments and criticism are much appreciated and excellent motivation for the next parts.
I find it quite fitting that we ended up with him as the first new divine "patron" here given how much of Arda's history is shaped by spiritual and soul manipulation of a sort.
Not much I can say, it was a pleasure to read, It's a very well put together piece of writing.
Gave me some motivation for my own work, though real life responsibilities have slowed my pace somewhat.
I just read this story a few days ago, and was waiting for the next turn to start getting involved. I've really enjoyed this one, and the building of the hold has been immensely satisfying.
A question though, what is the difference between beardling dice and specialist dice? as far as I can tell beardling dice is just better as they can be put anywhere and don't get the maintenance maluses.
A question though, what is the difference between beardling dice and specialist dice? as far as I can tell beardling dice is just better as they can be put anywhere and don't get the maintenance maluses.
- Location
- Utrecht
They also don't get the bonuses from equipment (even if we are only just starting to see that)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
In addition to what Ironfist said?
They do have a wider variety of options they can take than most specialist dice, but not anywhere.
- Location
- USA
I'm sure as we get more trade die the number of things that beardlings can do will go down too.
- Location
- Denial
- Pronouns
- She/Her
So the difference between beardling a specialists is interesting. Narratively beardlings are younger dawi still in their apprenticeships and learning. Specialists are full members of their clan with their full set of responsibilities. Mechanically specialists unlock the ability to build facilities related to them and take upkeep costs to maintain them. Beardlings don't unlock anything but are free to work on most projects and don't have the same duties to distract them that full clan members have.
But the narrative and mechanics are intertwined, something I think Warkeymon has done a great job of! The dice we assign to actions affect the story and that in turn has repercussions on the mechanics, most obviously on clan satisfaction. So yes in theory beardlings dice are better because they can do anything but narratively that's because they are being instructed by their elders, this means if we only put beardlings on an action we are leaving them unsupervised to try and bumble their way through a task and if we put too many on an action versus the number of specialists they won't necessarily be fully supervised. The best example of both of these are the first turn where we put a beardling die unsupervised on the training field and put 3 beardlings die but only 2 miner die on the entrance hall.
So in conclusion yes in theory beardling die are better because they can do almost anything without taking penalties, but in practice they need supervising by specialists while working. This is why in my plans I generally try to stick to 1 specialist die per beardling on each action.
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- Location
- Utrecht
So, now that we've chosen the Elder who sings to his trees, do we actually think it will work?
Because if dwarfs can learn how to sing to trees to make them grow faster (which is wizardry), they could theoretically learn the trick to the stonework of Orthanc.
Because if dwarfs can learn how to sing to trees to make them grow faster (which is wizardry), they could theoretically learn the trick to the stonework of Orthanc.
- Location
- USA
If it works I would expect some serious upheaval. Dawi really don't like magic. It's a new world and all, but this is the kind of thing where at best it's going to be scrutinized the fuck out of.
It'd be pretty cool though.
It'd be pretty cool though.
My excuse, for the bit I am writing is as follows.
1) Dawi are known to sing while forging, its something Runesmith's do, who claim to hear runes as much as they see them. Its actually part of the forging process so Dawi singing = Plausible magic effect.
2) This is Middle Earth, singing actually works here, the whole world is a song, so perhaps encouraging plants with a song of our own is not impossible.
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