Nah.
First you get motorcycles.
Then you get sidecars.
Then you add a whole bushel basket of not-Molotovs and grenades.
Eventually, if you can research it, you replace them with rockets.
Warhammer Fantasy: A Dynasty of Dynamic Alcoholism
- Thread starter torroar
- Start date
- Mature
-
- Tags
- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy intrigue happens male protagonist ck2 quest belief stronk count of cannons drunken wisdom foes in the shadows graf of guns (guns) if you have a question check the front page first it begins... mountain vietnam ogres paranoia rising unseen enemies everywhere use the search function before asking waifu wars wake the bull
Nah.
First you get motorcycles.
Then you get sidecars.
Then you add a whole bushel basket of not-Molotovs and grenades.
Eventually, if you can research it, you replace them with rockets.
Massgamer
Advance toward the Future
- Location
- The Future
I wonder what other actions we can take in regards to Albion since we are now arming them up.
Should we think about investing in building a trading post for the region to trade more with locals things they can use and to keep a better eye out on what is happening there? Maybe help sponsor some priests to head over to spread the good word about various gods of Empire?
Should we think about investing in building a trading post for the region to trade more with locals things they can use and to keep a better eye out on what is happening there? Maybe help sponsor some priests to head over to spread the good word about various gods of Empire?
- Location
- barking
I doubt Gunther or his wife will let that happen (both dislike us and hate that Middenland has lost their power)
Ostermark Quest Turn 36 Interlude: The Razing of Festermarsh (With Some Help)
GM Note: Some of you might not like this, some of you might, I just hope it's okay enough. In a weird headspace atm, sorry. Apologies for the delay, etc. See you guys later.
Don't Let It Fester: All right, this has gone on long enough. You've worked with the Grey College, Karak Kadrin veteran rangers, and independent adventurers, and it's been confirmed. Festermarsh is what the skaven call their settlement in the southern Bleak Moors, and it is currently ruled by Clan Skryre, who have been pushing north through the underground after the loss of Karak Ungor to the dwarfs. Rictus is gone, and now all the other clans are rushing to fill the gaps in influence and territory. Unfortunately for the rat-men, you'll not let a Vermintide grow to boiling within your damned province. You've readied your armies, you've contacted your allies in the mountains and in the Northern Trident, and now it is time to put your plan into action. Collapse their tunnels, burn their mongrel hides, and let Verena's justice be done and may Sigmar's wrath guide your own! Cost: 1,000. Time: 1 Year. Reward: Festermarsh, major skaven settlement, is completely destroyed. Chance of Success: 45% DD Applied
Roll Required: 55. Rolled: 39+Army of Ostland(30)+Nordland Auxiliaries(5)+Ostermark Double Down(20)=94.
You are Ortrud Hertwig, and you are going to war.
Ostermark has suffered little, compared to your compatriots in the Northern Trident, at least on its own home territory. Otto von Gruber's corruption nearly sealed the fate of Nordland in total permanency, while the madness of the ancient vampire Zacharias the Everliving might have transformed stubborn Ostland into another Sylvania, or worse. Your friends and allies have suffered much, the ravages of war weathering mind and spirit even if the magic of the Jade Wizards preserved the body. You can see it in them, every year you meet again, the indelible marks that their experiences have left upon them. Frederick and Natasha most of all.
But here, now, a threat is rising in your province. Unlike Gruber, you learned of the threat the moment they arrived. Unlike Ostland, you are going on the offensive before they can strike. The experiences of your fellow Trident members have suffered are ones you do not intend to let Ostermark suffer as well, not if you can help it.
You called upon your contacts in Altdorf, and received the aid of some of their most experienced Grey Wizards, some you met back at the Gates of Kislev. You called upon your contacts amongst the dwarfs, and they sent out their most unorthodox rangers to aid you above and below ground. Then, once the skaven were confirmed, they swore an oath to send their throngs. You pooled together your knights, not just of the Everlasting Light, for whom your heart swells every time you hear of just one more good deed they performed. Truly, a worthy legacy for your brother, who had only ever wanted to bring honor and glory to the family. But others as well, from minor orders barely a few dozen strong. You called upon your contacts in the Cult of Sigmar, and they responded by sending some of their Witch Hunters who have combatted the skaven before, as well as a full contingent of the Sisters of Sigmar in order that they may glorify the Heldenhammer by combatting the darkness beneath the earth.
And you called upon the Trident, faithful allies and friends both. Or at least, you had before the Cult of Manann went crazy, and then Frederick rather typically went crazy on them. You understood the anger behind it, sure. But Witch Hunters were never the most delicate of instruments. On the other hand, Frederick responded to threats as exactly as the animal that was the sigil of his province, so while you regretted the deaths you couldn't really say you didn't see it coming. Ostermark was one of the main nexus points of river ship production in the entire Empire, so of course the crazy zealots had hit it hard, harder than Salkalten had been. The repairs would take years. But it was his province, and his choice, and he'd live with it.
Regardless.
Frederick had come. And not with just a small detachment of his forces, either, like Stephan had.
Stephan had, understandably, not been willing to dedicate a significant amount of his troops. Not when he had his coast and province to defend against potential Norscan or Druchii raids. Even after years of work, significant portions of his people were on the coasts. Far more than Ostland, at least. At the same time, Stephan hadn't been about to not be able to get into a communal fight with the rest of the Trident, again, he was still sore about not joining in at Karak Ungor. You regret not inviting him now. You'd had the chance, but you'd thought you were sparing him and his forces from an intensive conflict, to allow him to keep recovering after the ravaging of his province. But of course he hadn't taken it that way. In retrospect, it was an insult, not allowing someone who had signed on as an equal in the Trident to act as one. Still, he'd mostly forgiven you by now.
So you were more than happy to welcome him into Ostermark with all of his Greatswords.
Frederick, by comparison, had brought his wife, the entire Army of Ostland, and a hell of a lot of mercenaries with him. It was still shocking to see them all in one place, after all these years. Gleaming ranks of hard-bitten veterans, swordsmen and pikes and guns and ogres. Not to mention their eclectic mix of war machines. After Karak Ungor they'd been split up this way and that across Ostland, on patrols and destruction missions for overly aggressive warherds and forest goblins along with the Army of the Forest, based on your conversations with Frederick. Aside from training sessions, they hadn't come together as a single concentrated force in years. Even knowing all that, you wouldn't know it based on the lockstep of their march and the glint in their eyes.
Personally, you're just thankful you went through the effort of announcing combined Trident training exercises, elsewise quite a lot of people would be concerned to see the Army of Ostland marching out again. You had pride in your own troops, but you'd be an idiot to deny try and deny the effectiveness of Frederick's. The Gryphon's Wood and Dead Wood were bad, but there were not nearly as bad as the Forest of Shadows used to be. Even though it had become known as the Hohenzollern Forest more lately, Frederick had confessed more than once that it hadn't been quiet despite the death of Zacharias.
But none of that mattered as much as one very, very special arrival.
Your daughter.
Evangeline has been gone from Ostermark for too long, and she has changed so much, but she is still your daughter. The two of you had mourned together for the death of her betrothed. She'd carved his coffin herself, creating a beautiful piece of remembrance. The drinking binge she had indulged in was befitting an Ostermark wife after her husband of fifty years had passed, not a child who had not even truly sworn her vows. The monologues and poetries that Evangeline had scribed and published were so painful to the soul that you've actually seen playwrights and actors upon the stage of the theatres she'd convinced you to build actually break down out of grief when trying to perform them. When she'd left, her hair had been woven into a braid by your very hand, one of her last requests to you, a sign of bond and love for a man then dead.
But now, years later, you were overjoyed to see her again. She has grown so strong, and though it was without you – a fact which pains your heart as a mother – it is undeniable. You cannot help but be proud of her, to transform and grow so, to become the Sword of Justice, cleaving even closer to Verena like your brother once did. Her tales are grand and wonderful, at times joyful and at other heartbreaking and bitter, and you realize that she has lost none of her old artistic talents, even if she is so much more than she once was. But more than that, more than any of it, your heart swelled the most when she took off her fearsome helmet and shook loose her unbound and freely flowing hair. A greater sign of her soul being unburdened by her loss, there could not be. Yet, of course, she still bears a small bit of embroidery on the scabbard of the leather of her glove she wears beneath her gauntlet as a sign of remembrance, but at the least she is not weighed down by her lost betrothed's memory.
She also brought with her a bewildering retinue. Two wizards, two elves, and a Norscan? And of that group, it was the latter three who were almost feral with excitement about killing skaven. This…Thorkell was a giant of a man, at least in the Empire, with the stereotypical build of his kin, but somehow your daughter managed to make him devout to Verena over his former Dark Gods who he had declared to have abandoned him in Fester Pike. The elves were also apparently from there, and Frederick confided in you that it was possible that the two were the lost heirs to an Asrai kingdom. Or, High Realm, but it's practically a Kingdom. Or perhaps an Imperial Province, with their lines of nobility and bloodlines and such. Not that the two elves seemed like it. If anything, they seemed almost childlike, flighty and prone to distraction, twitching and jumping at unseen and unheard things – at least judging by a human's senses. When you'd asked Evangeline about them, she promptly informed you that they'd been held and tortured by the skaven for some unknown amount of time, and that their experiences had…broken, something inside of them. They apparently somehow remained incredibly effective scouts and hunters, and when informed that they would be fighting skaven they'd sharpened before your very eyes into focused and deadly warriors.
First, came the Trident Meeting, which became an impromptu celebration for your daughter returning home even if only temporarily due to her duties. You were joined in it by none other than King Baragor himself and Princess Kazul Stonehammer. It was a diplomatic marvel that Evangeline was able to keep friction from becoming too much of a problem, aided both by her own copious connections and esteemed reputation amongst the dwarfs and by Frederick himself. You helped, sure, but for all that you'd started off helping the reclamations in the mountains, you hadn't saved the High King's life personally, nor the more ridiculous things towards the end. So when Frederick said they were helping to kill some skaven, the dwarfs outright dropped the issue. It helped that the Asrai sisters simply didn't respond at all like how the dwarfs had expected, innocently blinking at their barbs and humming a tuneless song while staring at butterflies when glared at. If anything, once Evangeline had described the state that they'd been found in, and who was responsible, the dwarfs had been…surprised, definitely. You wouldn't go so far as to say sympathetic, not quite, but still. At least not to their faces.
But then the meeting was over, and you were heading south with all of your assembled forces. The Grey Wizards had their work cut out for them keeping the dwarfs concealed as they went about their work, and for the most part you kept everyone marching until you'd moved right on top of the marsh, and then past it again before settling down to 'camp'. It was a tense night and day, listening to the rangers and wizards cut down the skaven sent scurrying south, east, north, and disturbingly west. Even in their hastily scrawled notes, asking for assistance from the Council of 13, of their fears, of worries, demanding reinforcements, and so on, showed that they had not actually yet determined that you knew where they were. It was pre-emptive, their natural verminous natures making them panic at the sound of so many feet pounding above them.
Perfect.
With a single command, the dwarfs enacted their prepared collapses and detonations of all the skaven tunnels leading out of Festermarsh, put into place over the years leading up to this point. The Grey Wizards tear out the crude skaven plugs and support structures that have been preventing the actual unnamed marsh which gives Festermarsh half of its name from flooding it. In an instant, the marsh drains itself down, drowning hundreds of rats and causing considerable alarm. Then, the Army of Ostland, the Army of the North, the Army of the South, the Throng of Karak Ungor, the Throng of Karak Kadrin, the Owls of Justice, and Stephan von Kessel with all five hundred of his Greatswords storm through the dozen or so entrances that the skaven dug out into your lands. Smug little bastards, thinking that you wouldn't retaliate.
Over a dozen villages and towns hit by 'beastmen' in the night, specifically targeting food stores and guards, leaving them vulnerable in more ways than to just hunger. With far too advanced and varied weaponry than beastmen would use, too smooth and quick in their tactics. The minute that the skaven of Festermarsh killed a single Ostermarker, they had signed their death warrants.
On that day, you fulfilled it.
By blood and fire, you brought the fury of all the Gods of the Empire down upon them. The Army of Ostland was a brutal and fatal wedge that crushed all the skaven that were unfortunate enough to be crushed under their heel as they pushed out. The dwarfs secured all the flanks and sent out heavily armored 'spikes' of their troops that punched through stormvermin lines and then returned in false retreats to draw in the more eager skaven that your own troops then pounced on. Evangeline and her own group worked with Stephan to carve their way through the side passages into the prison sections, her experiences in Fester Pike serving her well there, as she rescued numerous citizens that you'd scarcely dared to think were still alive. Many of them likely still wish they weren't, based on their conditions. The ogres of Ostland were practically their own force, an army within an army. Short-range blasts of grapeshot out of their cannons, smashing and battering with their well-forged great weapons, their sheer natural durability incredibly enhanced by the armor they wore. And all the while, the Army of Ostland brought forth their own auxiliary resources. Far less Jade Wizards than you were expecting, but they made up for it with their Bright Wizards, at least in damage. Natasha was particularly deadly, though you have to admit that you are disquieted by the obvious mutation to her eye and hands. Then there were the mercenaries of a truly varied origin and type. Of them all, it was the Leopard Company that proved the best, the Tileans holding a special hatred for the skaven in their hearts. The two Myrmidian companies were close seconds, however, with varied equipment, numbers, and experience making up the difference. In the background, doomspheres and barrel throwers and all a manner of cannons fired, choking the air with smoke and cinders. But the deeper into Festermarsh you worked, the more fiercely the skaven resisted. They are, after all, rats, and there are few things that fight fiercer than rats backed into a corner with nowhere to go.
Being from Clan Skryre, and with connections with Clan Moulder in the north, they resisted quite a bit, and with quite a varied array of technologies and horrible monsters.
There were artillery duels between the sheer number of cannons that Frederick had brought and the skaven lightning cannons. Rat ogres and brood horrors smashed against ogres. Dwarf shield walls resisted stormvermin charges. Pulverizers blocked off barrages by skaven guns, or outright ignored them. You can remember one particularly memorable event where a Pulverizer was struck by a warpstone bullet from a skaven long-ranged handgun right in the neck, punching through a metal plate and chainmail in a spray of material. Only it hadn't counted on the several layers of neck fat, and a dexterous halfling clambered up their body and dug it out with a gloved hand, letting the Pulverizer throw their 'shield' across the battlefield into the weapon's team that had shot them. And then punched their way across an ocean of skaven slaves to go get it back, followed by ogre Steelbacks.
Honestly, what had Frederick been thinking? Each one of those 'shields' was practically a section of a dwarf ironclad's hull cut out and stuck to an ogre's arm. But you couldn't deny their sheer effectiveness.
Tens of thousands of skavenslaves, skins pulled tight to their bones and furless from malnutrition, were pushed ahead of healthier clan rats and elite stormvermin, dying in droves unbelievably quickly. A single pike could impale fifteen of them at a time, such was the press of their bodies, before the pike's wielder even noticed. Which then allowed the gutter or night runners to run up and try to punch a dagger into their kidneys. Doomwheels came rattling out of hidden caverns crushing dozens of skavenslaves beneath them, spewing lightning or exploding, or both. When the globadiers came to the fore, it was none other than Evangeline's Celestial Wizard ally who brewed a wind underground to send that toxic gas right into the skaven ranks, choking hundreds of skavenslaves at a time as their sheer mass of bodies protected the more 'valuable' skaven. It was typical skaven tactics, but that did not make it any less distasteful to see such a genuinely alien mindset with such merciless disregard for the lives of those they considered 'lesser'.
Down, down, down you went, the skaven somehow seeming to only increase in number. In truth, you knew it was because there were less and less places to go, forcing the remaining skaven into ever tighter spaces.
Until, finally, you saw him, sloshing about at the bottommost levels of the settlement where the waters of the marsh had gone.
Kasquit, the Warlock-Engineer who ruled over Festermarsh.
You'd learned his name from the Grey Wizards. He cackled with insane terrified fierceness at those who had come to destroy him and his resettled home.
At you.
He chittered something about the Great Horned Rat, and his being a Chosen of Skryre, and all a manner of other things. Then he'd shot you with an incredibly powerful warp-lightning pistol, only for it to slam directly into your chest and scorch away a lot of your armor without actually managing to move you. You would savor the look on his face until the day you died as you raised Troll Cleaver high, the circlet on your head that was Wolfgang's masterwork glowing with the magic woven into it. Beneath, your flesh had become as stone just before the lightning had struck you, and remained that way as you stormed up to him with Evangeline, Stephan, and Frederick at your side. But they'd known it was your kill, and so stepped back to cut down the skaven monstrosities trying to defend him. There was some kind of rat ogre with loops of electric sparking tubing stuck into them, half of its body clacking and hissing metal, but Frederick and Stephan had faced it together.
As for Kasquit? The piece of vile filth who dared to bring the skaven beneath your province, after the thirty damn years you've put into killing them and rooting them out? He faltered the moment he realized that you weren't as vulnerable as the children he'd been abducting as food and whoever knew what else. His whirring and buzzing halberd shattered to pieces on your body, his gun melted when he fired it again too quickly, and in the end, Troll Cleaver cut him completely in half.
Only an hour after that, the bloody extermination was done. There had been losses, those too injured to be healed in time. Others who suffered from skaven toxins or warpstone weaponry, and accepted mercy rather than strung out hours or days of pain. The tunnels had been collapsed by dwarfs, and so while the skaven had desperately begun trying to dig out of them, there were literal tons of rubble in the way. There were quite a few bodies that had been killed by a blade to the back as they'd blindly clawed futilely at the stone and dirt. After a while, the breeders had been found. There was no joy in ending them, unlike with the others. They were insensate, chemicals and modifications over their lives and generations transforming them into uniquely horrifying creations and creators of life. It was as much a mercy to end skaven breeders as it was to end a soldier being poisoned by a warpstone bullet, the cause of their sufferings being the rest of the skaven.
Still, emerging back into open daylight was delightful, the fresh air a balm to your smoke-clogged lungs after all that fighting.
The dwarfs departed soon after, and Stephan next, eager to return home. But not before you'd extracted a day's worth of celebration for them all for such successful 'training exercises'. And made Evangeline to promise to write you more properly now than those once-a-year tomes that she'd scrawled out. Frederick and Natasha went next, fondly wishing you farewell as they stomped their army back to their home province. As for you? You had more responsibilities. Seeing to the survivors. Scouring the depths of Festermarsh for any remaining living skaven and whatever things might be useful or recoverable. Much of it was tainted, of course, but King Baragor promises his aid in the form of some runesmiths and engineers to recover all the warpstone and secure it safely where it won't taint the land underneath too badly.
All in all? Not too bad for a few year's work.
Reward: Festermarsh, major skaven settlement, completely destroyed. Major skaven leader Kasquit killed! New Actions Unlocked: Scouring Festermarsh's Depths, Securing The Warpstone.
Don't Let It Fester: All right, this has gone on long enough. You've worked with the Grey College, Karak Kadrin veteran rangers, and independent adventurers, and it's been confirmed. Festermarsh is what the skaven call their settlement in the southern Bleak Moors, and it is currently ruled by Clan Skryre, who have been pushing north through the underground after the loss of Karak Ungor to the dwarfs. Rictus is gone, and now all the other clans are rushing to fill the gaps in influence and territory. Unfortunately for the rat-men, you'll not let a Vermintide grow to boiling within your damned province. You've readied your armies, you've contacted your allies in the mountains and in the Northern Trident, and now it is time to put your plan into action. Collapse their tunnels, burn their mongrel hides, and let Verena's justice be done and may Sigmar's wrath guide your own! Cost: 1,000. Time: 1 Year. Reward: Festermarsh, major skaven settlement, is completely destroyed. Chance of Success: 45% DD Applied
Roll Required: 55. Rolled: 39+Army of Ostland(30)+Nordland Auxiliaries(5)+Ostermark Double Down(20)=94.
Ostermark Quest Turn 36 Interlude: The Razing of Festermarsh (With Some Help)
You are Ortrud Hertwig, and you are going to war.
Ostermark has suffered little, compared to your compatriots in the Northern Trident, at least on its own home territory. Otto von Gruber's corruption nearly sealed the fate of Nordland in total permanency, while the madness of the ancient vampire Zacharias the Everliving might have transformed stubborn Ostland into another Sylvania, or worse. Your friends and allies have suffered much, the ravages of war weathering mind and spirit even if the magic of the Jade Wizards preserved the body. You can see it in them, every year you meet again, the indelible marks that their experiences have left upon them. Frederick and Natasha most of all.
But here, now, a threat is rising in your province. Unlike Gruber, you learned of the threat the moment they arrived. Unlike Ostland, you are going on the offensive before they can strike. The experiences of your fellow Trident members have suffered are ones you do not intend to let Ostermark suffer as well, not if you can help it.
You called upon your contacts in Altdorf, and received the aid of some of their most experienced Grey Wizards, some you met back at the Gates of Kislev. You called upon your contacts amongst the dwarfs, and they sent out their most unorthodox rangers to aid you above and below ground. Then, once the skaven were confirmed, they swore an oath to send their throngs. You pooled together your knights, not just of the Everlasting Light, for whom your heart swells every time you hear of just one more good deed they performed. Truly, a worthy legacy for your brother, who had only ever wanted to bring honor and glory to the family. But others as well, from minor orders barely a few dozen strong. You called upon your contacts in the Cult of Sigmar, and they responded by sending some of their Witch Hunters who have combatted the skaven before, as well as a full contingent of the Sisters of Sigmar in order that they may glorify the Heldenhammer by combatting the darkness beneath the earth.
And you called upon the Trident, faithful allies and friends both. Or at least, you had before the Cult of Manann went crazy, and then Frederick rather typically went crazy on them. You understood the anger behind it, sure. But Witch Hunters were never the most delicate of instruments. On the other hand, Frederick responded to threats as exactly as the animal that was the sigil of his province, so while you regretted the deaths you couldn't really say you didn't see it coming. Ostermark was one of the main nexus points of river ship production in the entire Empire, so of course the crazy zealots had hit it hard, harder than Salkalten had been. The repairs would take years. But it was his province, and his choice, and he'd live with it.
Regardless.
Frederick had come. And not with just a small detachment of his forces, either, like Stephan had.
Stephan had, understandably, not been willing to dedicate a significant amount of his troops. Not when he had his coast and province to defend against potential Norscan or Druchii raids. Even after years of work, significant portions of his people were on the coasts. Far more than Ostland, at least. At the same time, Stephan hadn't been about to not be able to get into a communal fight with the rest of the Trident, again, he was still sore about not joining in at Karak Ungor. You regret not inviting him now. You'd had the chance, but you'd thought you were sparing him and his forces from an intensive conflict, to allow him to keep recovering after the ravaging of his province. But of course he hadn't taken it that way. In retrospect, it was an insult, not allowing someone who had signed on as an equal in the Trident to act as one. Still, he'd mostly forgiven you by now.
So you were more than happy to welcome him into Ostermark with all of his Greatswords.
Frederick, by comparison, had brought his wife, the entire Army of Ostland, and a hell of a lot of mercenaries with him. It was still shocking to see them all in one place, after all these years. Gleaming ranks of hard-bitten veterans, swordsmen and pikes and guns and ogres. Not to mention their eclectic mix of war machines. After Karak Ungor they'd been split up this way and that across Ostland, on patrols and destruction missions for overly aggressive warherds and forest goblins along with the Army of the Forest, based on your conversations with Frederick. Aside from training sessions, they hadn't come together as a single concentrated force in years. Even knowing all that, you wouldn't know it based on the lockstep of their march and the glint in their eyes.
Personally, you're just thankful you went through the effort of announcing combined Trident training exercises, elsewise quite a lot of people would be concerned to see the Army of Ostland marching out again. You had pride in your own troops, but you'd be an idiot to deny try and deny the effectiveness of Frederick's. The Gryphon's Wood and Dead Wood were bad, but there were not nearly as bad as the Forest of Shadows used to be. Even though it had become known as the Hohenzollern Forest more lately, Frederick had confessed more than once that it hadn't been quiet despite the death of Zacharias.
But none of that mattered as much as one very, very special arrival.
Your daughter.
Evangeline has been gone from Ostermark for too long, and she has changed so much, but she is still your daughter. The two of you had mourned together for the death of her betrothed. She'd carved his coffin herself, creating a beautiful piece of remembrance. The drinking binge she had indulged in was befitting an Ostermark wife after her husband of fifty years had passed, not a child who had not even truly sworn her vows. The monologues and poetries that Evangeline had scribed and published were so painful to the soul that you've actually seen playwrights and actors upon the stage of the theatres she'd convinced you to build actually break down out of grief when trying to perform them. When she'd left, her hair had been woven into a braid by your very hand, one of her last requests to you, a sign of bond and love for a man then dead.
But now, years later, you were overjoyed to see her again. She has grown so strong, and though it was without you – a fact which pains your heart as a mother – it is undeniable. You cannot help but be proud of her, to transform and grow so, to become the Sword of Justice, cleaving even closer to Verena like your brother once did. Her tales are grand and wonderful, at times joyful and at other heartbreaking and bitter, and you realize that she has lost none of her old artistic talents, even if she is so much more than she once was. But more than that, more than any of it, your heart swelled the most when she took off her fearsome helmet and shook loose her unbound and freely flowing hair. A greater sign of her soul being unburdened by her loss, there could not be. Yet, of course, she still bears a small bit of embroidery on the scabbard of the leather of her glove she wears beneath her gauntlet as a sign of remembrance, but at the least she is not weighed down by her lost betrothed's memory.
She also brought with her a bewildering retinue. Two wizards, two elves, and a Norscan? And of that group, it was the latter three who were almost feral with excitement about killing skaven. This…Thorkell was a giant of a man, at least in the Empire, with the stereotypical build of his kin, but somehow your daughter managed to make him devout to Verena over his former Dark Gods who he had declared to have abandoned him in Fester Pike. The elves were also apparently from there, and Frederick confided in you that it was possible that the two were the lost heirs to an Asrai kingdom. Or, High Realm, but it's practically a Kingdom. Or perhaps an Imperial Province, with their lines of nobility and bloodlines and such. Not that the two elves seemed like it. If anything, they seemed almost childlike, flighty and prone to distraction, twitching and jumping at unseen and unheard things – at least judging by a human's senses. When you'd asked Evangeline about them, she promptly informed you that they'd been held and tortured by the skaven for some unknown amount of time, and that their experiences had…broken, something inside of them. They apparently somehow remained incredibly effective scouts and hunters, and when informed that they would be fighting skaven they'd sharpened before your very eyes into focused and deadly warriors.
First, came the Trident Meeting, which became an impromptu celebration for your daughter returning home even if only temporarily due to her duties. You were joined in it by none other than King Baragor himself and Princess Kazul Stonehammer. It was a diplomatic marvel that Evangeline was able to keep friction from becoming too much of a problem, aided both by her own copious connections and esteemed reputation amongst the dwarfs and by Frederick himself. You helped, sure, but for all that you'd started off helping the reclamations in the mountains, you hadn't saved the High King's life personally, nor the more ridiculous things towards the end. So when Frederick said they were helping to kill some skaven, the dwarfs outright dropped the issue. It helped that the Asrai sisters simply didn't respond at all like how the dwarfs had expected, innocently blinking at their barbs and humming a tuneless song while staring at butterflies when glared at. If anything, once Evangeline had described the state that they'd been found in, and who was responsible, the dwarfs had been…surprised, definitely. You wouldn't go so far as to say sympathetic, not quite, but still. At least not to their faces.
But then the meeting was over, and you were heading south with all of your assembled forces. The Grey Wizards had their work cut out for them keeping the dwarfs concealed as they went about their work, and for the most part you kept everyone marching until you'd moved right on top of the marsh, and then past it again before settling down to 'camp'. It was a tense night and day, listening to the rangers and wizards cut down the skaven sent scurrying south, east, north, and disturbingly west. Even in their hastily scrawled notes, asking for assistance from the Council of 13, of their fears, of worries, demanding reinforcements, and so on, showed that they had not actually yet determined that you knew where they were. It was pre-emptive, their natural verminous natures making them panic at the sound of so many feet pounding above them.
Perfect.
With a single command, the dwarfs enacted their prepared collapses and detonations of all the skaven tunnels leading out of Festermarsh, put into place over the years leading up to this point. The Grey Wizards tear out the crude skaven plugs and support structures that have been preventing the actual unnamed marsh which gives Festermarsh half of its name from flooding it. In an instant, the marsh drains itself down, drowning hundreds of rats and causing considerable alarm. Then, the Army of Ostland, the Army of the North, the Army of the South, the Throng of Karak Ungor, the Throng of Karak Kadrin, the Owls of Justice, and Stephan von Kessel with all five hundred of his Greatswords storm through the dozen or so entrances that the skaven dug out into your lands. Smug little bastards, thinking that you wouldn't retaliate.
Over a dozen villages and towns hit by 'beastmen' in the night, specifically targeting food stores and guards, leaving them vulnerable in more ways than to just hunger. With far too advanced and varied weaponry than beastmen would use, too smooth and quick in their tactics. The minute that the skaven of Festermarsh killed a single Ostermarker, they had signed their death warrants.
On that day, you fulfilled it.
By blood and fire, you brought the fury of all the Gods of the Empire down upon them. The Army of Ostland was a brutal and fatal wedge that crushed all the skaven that were unfortunate enough to be crushed under their heel as they pushed out. The dwarfs secured all the flanks and sent out heavily armored 'spikes' of their troops that punched through stormvermin lines and then returned in false retreats to draw in the more eager skaven that your own troops then pounced on. Evangeline and her own group worked with Stephan to carve their way through the side passages into the prison sections, her experiences in Fester Pike serving her well there, as she rescued numerous citizens that you'd scarcely dared to think were still alive. Many of them likely still wish they weren't, based on their conditions. The ogres of Ostland were practically their own force, an army within an army. Short-range blasts of grapeshot out of their cannons, smashing and battering with their well-forged great weapons, their sheer natural durability incredibly enhanced by the armor they wore. And all the while, the Army of Ostland brought forth their own auxiliary resources. Far less Jade Wizards than you were expecting, but they made up for it with their Bright Wizards, at least in damage. Natasha was particularly deadly, though you have to admit that you are disquieted by the obvious mutation to her eye and hands. Then there were the mercenaries of a truly varied origin and type. Of them all, it was the Leopard Company that proved the best, the Tileans holding a special hatred for the skaven in their hearts. The two Myrmidian companies were close seconds, however, with varied equipment, numbers, and experience making up the difference. In the background, doomspheres and barrel throwers and all a manner of cannons fired, choking the air with smoke and cinders. But the deeper into Festermarsh you worked, the more fiercely the skaven resisted. They are, after all, rats, and there are few things that fight fiercer than rats backed into a corner with nowhere to go.
Being from Clan Skryre, and with connections with Clan Moulder in the north, they resisted quite a bit, and with quite a varied array of technologies and horrible monsters.
There were artillery duels between the sheer number of cannons that Frederick had brought and the skaven lightning cannons. Rat ogres and brood horrors smashed against ogres. Dwarf shield walls resisted stormvermin charges. Pulverizers blocked off barrages by skaven guns, or outright ignored them. You can remember one particularly memorable event where a Pulverizer was struck by a warpstone bullet from a skaven long-ranged handgun right in the neck, punching through a metal plate and chainmail in a spray of material. Only it hadn't counted on the several layers of neck fat, and a dexterous halfling clambered up their body and dug it out with a gloved hand, letting the Pulverizer throw their 'shield' across the battlefield into the weapon's team that had shot them. And then punched their way across an ocean of skaven slaves to go get it back, followed by ogre Steelbacks.
Honestly, what had Frederick been thinking? Each one of those 'shields' was practically a section of a dwarf ironclad's hull cut out and stuck to an ogre's arm. But you couldn't deny their sheer effectiveness.
Tens of thousands of skavenslaves, skins pulled tight to their bones and furless from malnutrition, were pushed ahead of healthier clan rats and elite stormvermin, dying in droves unbelievably quickly. A single pike could impale fifteen of them at a time, such was the press of their bodies, before the pike's wielder even noticed. Which then allowed the gutter or night runners to run up and try to punch a dagger into their kidneys. Doomwheels came rattling out of hidden caverns crushing dozens of skavenslaves beneath them, spewing lightning or exploding, or both. When the globadiers came to the fore, it was none other than Evangeline's Celestial Wizard ally who brewed a wind underground to send that toxic gas right into the skaven ranks, choking hundreds of skavenslaves at a time as their sheer mass of bodies protected the more 'valuable' skaven. It was typical skaven tactics, but that did not make it any less distasteful to see such a genuinely alien mindset with such merciless disregard for the lives of those they considered 'lesser'.
Down, down, down you went, the skaven somehow seeming to only increase in number. In truth, you knew it was because there were less and less places to go, forcing the remaining skaven into ever tighter spaces.
Until, finally, you saw him, sloshing about at the bottommost levels of the settlement where the waters of the marsh had gone.
Kasquit, the Warlock-Engineer who ruled over Festermarsh.
You'd learned his name from the Grey Wizards. He cackled with insane terrified fierceness at those who had come to destroy him and his resettled home.
At you.
He chittered something about the Great Horned Rat, and his being a Chosen of Skryre, and all a manner of other things. Then he'd shot you with an incredibly powerful warp-lightning pistol, only for it to slam directly into your chest and scorch away a lot of your armor without actually managing to move you. You would savor the look on his face until the day you died as you raised Troll Cleaver high, the circlet on your head that was Wolfgang's masterwork glowing with the magic woven into it. Beneath, your flesh had become as stone just before the lightning had struck you, and remained that way as you stormed up to him with Evangeline, Stephan, and Frederick at your side. But they'd known it was your kill, and so stepped back to cut down the skaven monstrosities trying to defend him. There was some kind of rat ogre with loops of electric sparking tubing stuck into them, half of its body clacking and hissing metal, but Frederick and Stephan had faced it together.
As for Kasquit? The piece of vile filth who dared to bring the skaven beneath your province, after the thirty damn years you've put into killing them and rooting them out? He faltered the moment he realized that you weren't as vulnerable as the children he'd been abducting as food and whoever knew what else. His whirring and buzzing halberd shattered to pieces on your body, his gun melted when he fired it again too quickly, and in the end, Troll Cleaver cut him completely in half.
Only an hour after that, the bloody extermination was done. There had been losses, those too injured to be healed in time. Others who suffered from skaven toxins or warpstone weaponry, and accepted mercy rather than strung out hours or days of pain. The tunnels had been collapsed by dwarfs, and so while the skaven had desperately begun trying to dig out of them, there were literal tons of rubble in the way. There were quite a few bodies that had been killed by a blade to the back as they'd blindly clawed futilely at the stone and dirt. After a while, the breeders had been found. There was no joy in ending them, unlike with the others. They were insensate, chemicals and modifications over their lives and generations transforming them into uniquely horrifying creations and creators of life. It was as much a mercy to end skaven breeders as it was to end a soldier being poisoned by a warpstone bullet, the cause of their sufferings being the rest of the skaven.
Still, emerging back into open daylight was delightful, the fresh air a balm to your smoke-clogged lungs after all that fighting.
The dwarfs departed soon after, and Stephan next, eager to return home. But not before you'd extracted a day's worth of celebration for them all for such successful 'training exercises'. And made Evangeline to promise to write you more properly now than those once-a-year tomes that she'd scrawled out. Frederick and Natasha went next, fondly wishing you farewell as they stomped their army back to their home province. As for you? You had more responsibilities. Seeing to the survivors. Scouring the depths of Festermarsh for any remaining living skaven and whatever things might be useful or recoverable. Much of it was tainted, of course, but King Baragor promises his aid in the form of some runesmiths and engineers to recover all the warpstone and secure it safely where it won't taint the land underneath too badly.
All in all? Not too bad for a few year's work.
Reward: Festermarsh, major skaven settlement, completely destroyed. Major skaven leader Kasquit killed! New Actions Unlocked: Scouring Festermarsh's Depths, Securing The Warpstone.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Short and sweet, nice. You still captured the chaotic, visceral nature of the Warhammer battlefield.
Thanatos757
Captain of the Four Knights
We've never had an Ortrud omake before, so it's nice to see how she thinks for a bit.
ConfusedCanuck
Where did it all go wrong?
- Location
- Neverland
Well that was cool seeing all this from Ortrud viewpoint! And it's also nice seeing the Trident fight together again it's been far to long since we've done that! I also like the fact that Ortrud is creeped out by Natasha's changes! And it's even cooler still that she treats her no differently because of it!
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- He/Him
BWAHAHAHAHA! Our Ogres are too damn effective! Hurray!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think it's more ridiculously weird and absurdly varied.
Took me a sec to get used to Ortrud's perspective, but yeah I liked it! A good romp.
- Location
- Underground
Oof. And that's from a close friend that knows him. Those that are neutral or worse would take a dimmer view of it.
There may well be consequences we haven't seen yet.
Actions that involve donating to the cult may not be enough to undo what we did. It might take an apology at the next Elector's Meet/Conclave. The Steel Bull publicly admitting he went too far and apologizing would be unexpected. Not enough, of course, but not a bad start at all.
- Location
- Where I an right now
A weapon for every type of enemy
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Getting a little tiresome. Not like we didn't just have a grand victory or anything, in a single update...
Warmach1ne32
Machine of War and Quests
- Location
- Indonesia
Yeah I don't see anything to complain about with this update, good job.
- Location
- United States
Update read good to me Torr.
Sure, you probably could have spread it into a 40k words mini arc thingy, but I feel having it be a highlight reel is just as sweet for us.
Plus, finally seeing something from the perspective of Ortrud is really nice.
Sure, you probably could have spread it into a 40k words mini arc thingy, but I feel having it be a highlight reel is just as sweet for us.
Plus, finally seeing something from the perspective of Ortrud is really nice.
- Location
- U.S.
I would argue against apologizing, we need those fleets and harbors to stave off the dark elf and chaos raiders, we cannot allow even a chance of such loss happening again, especially at a inopportune time, imagine if the next time it happened a war fleet approached?
- Location
- Somewhere
It is a valid point, with evidence, for the perspective that Frederick sending the witch hunters on the Cult of Manaan will not be easily swept under the rug, or ignorable. Before this update that perspective could be swept under the rug as "where's your proof?".
We also need to bulk up our navy and trade capacity to compensate for the disaster, and if that means making conspicuous donations to the Cult of Manaan to help them rebuild and whatever mouth-noises (or letter-writings) Natasha says will help assuage any hurt feelings that may get in the way of that then so be it. Pride isn't worth leaving our people poorer and more vulnerable than they could be.
Last edited: