After her house's dramatic fall from grace, the High Elf Princess Osydin goes into exile with a mission from the Phoenix King - stabilise the chaotic Border Princes and secure the Southern flank of the Old World. In the North, Chaos begins to stir...
Warhammer Fantasy: A Princess of the Borderlands
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2250, Landing Part I
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Warhammer Fantasy: A Princess of the Borderlands
2250, Landing Part I
2250, Landing Part I
The year is 2250 by human reckoning. To the elves of Ulthuan, it is the 87th year of the reign of Finubar the Seafarer. Sigmar's empire lies in tatters, riven by civil war. Kislev and Grand Cathay form an unbreakable bulwark to the north, but to the south the flanks of Old World lie open - the Border Princes ruled by pirates, exiles, and worse besides.
The young Phoenix King believes that if Chaos were to ever assault the Old World again in force, they would be vulnerable to an unexpected strike through the badlands - and if Malekith, the hated Witch-King of Naggaroth, were to strike at Ulthuan in concert, no aid could be sent.
Thus, he has tasked you - a young scion of a fallen house - to shore up the southern flank of the Old World and to forge the Border Princes into a bulwark against the threats lying in wait in the Badlands. Chaos, in the form of both men and dwarfs. Greenskins and the undead of Khemri, who stir beneath their desert tombs.
You are Osydin of House Ytha'Sethai, an eagle-knight of Eataine. You learnt the lance and the bow from your father; a Prince of Eatine; and from your Loremaster mother you learn swordswomanship and spell. You soar through the skies atop Galerion, a Great Eagle and your lifelong comrade in arms. After the dreadful events that led to the deaths of your parents and your house falling into dishonour, it is only the favour of the Phoenix King that allowed you this more useful exile.
After the fall of your house, you have only your personal retainers, your friends, and whatever mercenaries the Phoenix King's gold can buy you to accomplish your mission. You must rely on shrewd diplomacy, hired swords, and what trade you can safeguard to forge the Border Princes into something more cohesive.
Ulthuan disappears beneath the horizon and a terrible fear grips your heart. There is a part of you that thinks you will never again see your homeland. You had stood out on the deck of the eagleship for as long as you could, watching Lothern recede into the distance until all that could be seen were distant mountain ranges, and then even those dipped beneath the waves.
It is not a rational fear. You have left many times, been to Sigmar's Empire and Araby and Ind and Grand Cathay. You are a daughter of Eataine, born to the sea. The men of the Old World call you 'sea-elf', and they are not wrong. You have seen Ulthuan vanish beneath the horizon a hundred times and yet... and yet, you have always had a home to return to.
Now the palace carved from the side of a mountain is no more, burnt by aetheric fire. Now you have been given a task that amounts to little more than exile.
Marienburg, you think, is perhaps the worst-smelling place in the world. You have been here many times before - you were born aboard a ship in its harbour. Yet, no matter how many fleeting human friends you make, you can never quite pretend that you would be fine settling down in its elf quarter.
Of course, you are walking down one of the less reputable parts of the city - full of cut-throats, mercenaries, and all the other charming killers for hire available in the city. Most are already under contract to one great merchant house or another, but there is still plenty of choice.
The streets here are narrow and shadowed by the tall buildings lining them; thickly packed tenements and noisy pubs. Last night's rain, and other less pleasant liquids, pool in the gaps between the cobblestones. Your bright red hair and silver armour are visible even in the murky puddles.
The crowd of unwashed, tough men and women part for you. Not out of awe - here in Marienburg, an elf is not so strange a sight. They are simply another part of the city, another set of merchants - albeit prickly and unpopular ones. It has more to do with the ithilmar greatsword resting on your shoulder and the patrol of Sea-Elf marines in full armour following you.
They do not know what that sword means - they do not know of distant Saphery, of the White Tower and its guardians. They do know that starting trouble with so heavily armed and armoured a party is a bad idea at the best of times.
You are not truly a warden of the White Tower, though. The blade was a Loremaster's, sure enough, forged by her own hand. Just not by your hand. You have little talent for such crafts, though you were an attentive student for your mother when it came to the blade and the winds.
"Are you sure this is wise, my lady? The great mercenary companies do not offer their services here - only a collection of upstarts and has-beens," the sergeant of your protective marine detail says. To him, this mission begins and ends with transporting your forces to the Border Princes and the initial landing.
"They would never sign on to something like this, Farsoril. We are not buying their services for a season or two - the contract will be for ten years; well over a tenth of their life. Even after that, I expect most of them people here will want to stay on for good if we succeed," you say in quick, crisp Eltharin.
"As you say, my lady," Farsoril says, inclining his helmeted head slightly.
"That's the place, isn't it?" you ask, pointing one ithilmar-gauntled hand towards a less run-down-looking tavern. A sign, two crossed swords painted in green, identified it as the place the Exarch of Sith Rionnasc had recommended. Somehow, you were not surprised that he knew exactly the place to hire cut-rate killers.
The Sea-Elf marines separate with their perfect naval discipline - half forming a cordon around the entrance, and the other half following you in. They'd left their long spears back on the ship, but their short boarding cutlasses were more than deadly enough in a confined space.
You stop for a moment to admire their precision, and then head inside the tavern.
It is two seasons ago, and you stare numbly up at your ancestral home; high in the mountains. The great palace that had stood since the time of the first Phoenix Kings burns brightly; unnatural purple fire burning marble and steel alike. Your mother's sword is slick with the blood of elf and daemon alike.
It is slick with the blood of your father, and you hear the whispers in your mind. Khaine calls to you, his words hiding in the crackling of the fire and the screams of the dying.
You look down at your mother's sword and feel the guilt lash at your soul. Not even for killing your father, for becoming a kinslayer, but for arriving too late to save your mother.
Galerion gives off a mournful call; one of the eagle's wings extended protectively over you. Your lifelong companion can shield you from the cold of the sea winds, but he cannot shield you from the truth of what you have done, and what you failed to do.
By the time the swordmasters arrive, there is nobody left alive but you and Galerion. They keep a sword at each of your throats and feed you enough truth potions to poison a well, but in the end, they do not detain you.
A part of you wishes they had just beheaded you then and there.
You cross the threshold, and the noise of the tavern shakes you from your memories. It is crowded beyond all reason, a fact that is not helped by the size of some of the patrons. You can see no less than three ogres, each of whom seems to be part of a different group. There are humans of every nation from Norsca to Araby, several Imperial Dwarfs, and a lone colonial. Many of the humans in the room are looking at him expectantly as if he has some special insight into you.
The tavern goes quiet as you approach the hastily prepared platform. You hand your sword to Farsoril, the experienced Sea-Elf gently carrying the enchanted greatsword. The ithilmar blade was as light as a willow reed, yet capable of cutting as well as a human zweihander.
"You have all heard that I intend to hire a select group of sell-swords and freelances, and not just for a season. Our destination is far, and the danger real. But the reward I offer is greater than gold - I offer you the chance to own land in or near a new trading port. Not to your captains, but to each of you. Not at the end of ten long years, but in your name as soon as we make landfall," you say, your Reikspeil carrying only a slight accent. It is one of your better human tongues, behind only the Imperial variation of Cathayan.
There is a chorus of shouted questions.
"Where!?" shouts a man with a thick Bretonnian accent.
"Even if we cop an arrow to the skull on the way!?" shouts a woman with substantially fewer fingers than she was born with.
"Why'd you need us when you've got all those Sea-Elves?" shouts another.
"They'll all be swallowed by the sea, mark my words..." one of the Imperial Dwarfs whispers to his companion, though not quiet enough to escape your hearing.
You begin to answer questions, and slowly the various captains and officers of the mercenary companies edge forward, and you begin the real process of negotiation. It is long and difficult, but eventually, you manage to acquire the services of enough mercenaries...
You must now choose which mercenary companies you will hire. Whilst you have only your own ship to your name, a small vessel suited for both trading and war, you have secured the use of two reasonably sized human vessels to transport your mercenaries and their dependents. The Phoenix King has also assigned an Eagleship and its Sea-Guard crew to support your initial landing. It can carry larger items, but no humans will be permitted aboard.
Each mercenary company has a yearly cost in gold and takes up some of your transport capacity. Careful management of both will be required to forge the best force for your aims. Choose as many or as few as you like. Voting will be by plan.
Starting funds: 1000 gold crowns/year from the Phoenix King, personal liquid currency of 800 gold crowns. Transportation capacity: 200.
[x] Bertrand's Exiles. This small band of Bretonnian knights and their peasant retainers have only recently been exiled from their homeland after taking the wrong side in a dispute between two lords. Led by Bertrand, he has nine other knights under his command, and a force of one hundred footsoldiers, split 70/30 between billmen and longbowmen. Cost: 400, Transportation Capacity: 120.
[x] Heinrich Hochstrasse's Handgunners. Captain Heinrich Hochstrasse was formerly a state trooper in the employ of Nuln, but bought his way out of service with plunder and took most of his unit with him. These are skilled musketeers, and moreover, they have two small cannons and the crew to keep them in working order. Consists of 50 handgunners, twenty halberdiers, two cannons, and command. Cost: 300, Transportation Capacity: 110.
[x] Vadac the Eonir. A colonial elf, though one more tempered by interactions with humans than the isolationists of Athel Loren. An incredibly skilled archer, tracker, and scout, and a fellow elf. Cost: 100, Transportation Capacity: 1.
[x] Bertha's Brawlers. Veterans from across the Empire, these mercenaries are more used to street warfare than open battle. Still, they are skilled and inexpensive light infantry, armed with swords, bucklers, and pistols. Additionally, they count three Ogres among their numbers. Consists of 50 light infantry and command, and three ogres. Cost: 150, Transportation capacity: 56.
[x] Vesperic von Mordburg and his pistoliers. Vesperic is the fifth son of a vaguely prominent nobleman and has assembled a small band of other such cast-offs that fight in the fashion of noble Imperial light cavalry, moderately armoured and equipped with braces of pistols. Though somewhat overeager, they are skilled enough riders and scouts. Consists of 20 pistoliers and command. Cost: 200, Transportation Capacity 40
[x] The Lady Isabella Ortiz & Retinue. An Estalian noblewoman of good birth and poor choice in lovers, she is a skilled warrior-priest of their war goddess, Myrmidia, and commands a force of freelances and infantry. Consists of Lady Isabella, 10 freelances (mercenary knights), 40 pikemen, and 20 hand gunners. Costs: 400, Transportation Capacity 85
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Character & Settlement Sheet
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Character Sheet
Name: Osydin, Princess of House Ytha'Sethai.
Description: Tall and slight, Osydin's most distinguishing feature is her red hair; a relative rarity among the elves of Ulthuan. Her skin is tanned from long years at sea. Her ithilmar plate is adorned with scarlet cloth and gemstones, whilst her winged helmet features a mane of phoenix feathers.
Stats:
Prowess: 32. You are a mighty warrior by the standards of the Elves - capable of slaying Vampires, Chaos Champions, and other such supernaturally empowered foes. Unlocks Battlefield-Scale prowess checks.
Martial: 26. You are a skilled leader of Elves into battle, though not an exceptional one.
Diplomacy: 21. You are a skilled speaker, able to negotiate and sway others.
Stewardship: 16. Though you are formally educated on various matters, your skills at bookkeeping and other such administrative tasks are below the level expected of you.
Intrigue: 14. You are able to sneak around with some skill, but the complex webs of plots spun by some of your fellow Elves are beyond you.
Peity: 20. You know how to invoke the favour of the Gods, and have been blessed by them.
Magic: 30. You are a journeyman mage amongst Elves and a master amongst men. [Max until Wizard II]
Traits:
Eagle Knight of Eataine: Osydin has a life-long partnership with the Great Eagle Galerion, who allows her to ride into battle on his back. Once it is joined, the two fight as an effective team. +5 Prowess, +2 Martial.
Wizard I: Osydin has enough magical potential and training to cast battle magic, though she is not an exceptional mage for an Elf. [9/10 progress towards Wizard II]
Kinslayer I: No matter his crime, to kill one's own father is a grave sin in the eyes of the Asur. -5 to diplomacy with High Elves, effectively barred from Ulthuan.
Blessing of Lileath: Like all the mages of the Asur, Osydin draws upon the divine as well as the arcane. Reroll one miscast per battle update.
Sea-Elf: Having spent nearly a century travelling the world aboard a ship, Osydin is extremely familiar with all naval matters, and much better at interacting with humans. No penalty for diplomacy with humans, +5 to Martial and Prowess in naval conflict.
Killing Blow: Skilled in the art of the Swordmasters, Osydin has the speed and skill to fell any man with one blow. A critical success (natural 95-100, or a difference of 100 or more in total score) in combat results in instant death for Osydin's opponent, bypassing armour and regeneration, unless they have some supernatural defence. [1/5 Progress Towards Monster Slayer]
Deflect Shots: Such is the speed of her swordsmanship, Osydin can cut arrows from the air. May oppose non-magical, non-war-machine shooting in individual-scale combat.
Night Fighter: Skilled at night-fighting, you gain a +5 bonus to Prowess and martial checks that take place at night.
Blessing of Isha II: +10 to Magic when casting Life spells, +20 when casting Light spells against Daemons, other servants of Chaos, or undead. [0/10 Towards Next Level]
Signature Look of Superiority: You are skilled at using your status, reputation, and image to impress or convince others. +5 to Diplomacy against your social inferiors.
High Mage: You have taken your first steps on the endless path to mastering Qhaysh. You may now learn High Magic spells, and gain +10 to all dispel attempts.
Inventory:
Ithilmar Plate Armour & Barding. This suit of finely-made plate armour is incredibly light, light enough that Galerion too can be protected by it without slowing down his flight. Reduce Injuries by three steps.
Sword of Hoeth. This sword belonged to Osydin's mother, a Loremaster of Hoeth. It is a long, straight two-handed sword forged from Ithilmar and enchanted with supernatural lightness and sharpness. +5 Prowess, Magical Attacks,
Fireheart Ring. This ancient ring was forged on the Anvil of Vaul to fight the first onslaught of Chaos, binding the power of a volcano into twin strands of ruby and gold. Requires DC50 Magic check to use. +10 to magic checks using Aqshy, either casting or dispelling.
Stormtamer's Helm : This magical helmet was once part of a set of dragon armour, dating back to the earliest days of the Elvish presence in the Old World. Bearing a crown of diamonds and forged of enchanted ithilmar, this enchanted helmet grants the wearer +10 to Heavens Magic whilst airborne, and +30 when in the midst of a storm. It also grants the wearer one degree of Ward Save - reducing any damage suffered by one degree, cumulative with armour. This applies even to Killing Blows or esoteric magical effects. When reunited with the other parts of the armour, it may grant other bonuses.
Settlement Sheet:
Settlement: Tor Sar'Than
Ruler: Princess Osydin
Advisors:
Martial: 26+19 = 45
Favoured Captain: The Lady Ortiz (19 Martial) is a skilled commander, warrior, and priest. As a human noblewoman, she can effectively command the lesser classes despite their cultural differences.
Diplomacy: 21+20 = 41
Diplomat: Sir Helene Carrad (20 Diplomacy) is a Bretonnian Knight of the Realm, here on a quest of penance for reasons of complex human gender politics. Whilst primarily a terror on the battlefield, her courtly charms are well-suited to diplomacy - though she will not aid you with underhanded or otherwise dishonourable actions.
Stewardship: 15+21 = 36
Steward: Captain Heinrich Hochstrasse currently serves as your Steward, as his service in the army of an Elector Count has prepared him well to deal with matters of supplies, numbers, and planning.
Intrigue: 14 + 27 = 41
Spy: Eydis currently serves as your spy (and overall deputy). She is not only very loyal, but she is an extremely capable mage and much better at keeping things quiet than you are.
Further Advisors may be available as your settlement grows.
Settlement Stats:
Population: 3166. Consists of 300 Soldiers, 3 Human Notables, 5 Elves + 25 Elf Sailors, 454 Sailors, 804 Farmers, 672 Labourers [100 Militia], 293 Craftspeople, 5 Herbalists, 10 Apprentices, and 507 Children.
Population growth since last turn: N/A
Food: 6676
Food production: 2650 Farms + 250 Fishing + 400 Bakeries - 800 Vineyards = 2850
Food Consumption: 3166
Gold: 2480gc
Income: 850gc + 500gc/turn from the Phoenix King. +2400GC if any trade action is taken.
Gold Consumption: 450/turn from mercenary wages. 100gc/turn from Soldier Upkeep. 50gc/turn from Powder Mills. Total: 550gc/turn.
Morale: 250 (Very Good)
Favour: 120
Favour Income: 10/turn
Buildings:
Lighthouse: This ancient Elvish structure remains in good repair. Contains 25 Noble Quarters, 1 Aviary, 1 Armoury, 1 Stable, 1 Sturdy Wall, and 1 Lighthouse. Provides shelter for 25 people and their attendants.
765 Decent Dwellings: These well-made wooden homes are not fancy, but most commoners across the Old World would be grateful for such a home. Provides Shelter for 3060 People, 6120 if overcrowded.
1 Inn: Although the innkeeper was trampled beneath the hooves of an Estalian destrier, his inn has been taken over by his former slaves. Negates 25 points of morale loss per turn and generates 50 GC. Employs 5 Labourers.
4 Armouries: These buildings safely house and maintain weapons and armour. Supports up to 100 troops per armoury. Employs 10 craftspeople, 20 Labourers.
1 Stable: This includes not only the physical stable but also the horses and workers necessary to keep your mounted troops in mounts. Can support 10 Mounted Troops. Unsupported soldiers cost double in wages.
Medium Piers: These can act as a home port for 200 boats and 12 ships.
Medium Docks: These buildings allow for the rapid unloading and loading of merchant ships. Allows Moderate trade Actions. Employs 200 Labourers.
Palisade: This wooden palisade provides a moderate defence to the settlement.
25 Small Farms: These farms are worked by one family, and generally produce only limited excess food. Each employs 2 farmers and produces 4 units of food.
105 Medium Farms: These moderately sized farms are worked by multiple families, who cooperate to greatly increase their yields. Each employs 5 farmers and produces 25 food.
Temple of Myrmidia: While many gods are worshipped amongst your subjects, the only true priest you know of - the Lady Ortiz - is a devotee of the Southern goddess of war. Employs 5 Priests, converts farmers or labourers to Priests at a rate of 1/turn if not enough exist within the settlement. Supports a force of 5 Warrior-Priests, a specialised form of troop and negates 10 Morale Loss/turn
2 Markets: This building opens up internal trade, and allows your subjects to sell things to one another much more efficiently. 1 per 1000 People, generates 100GC/turn.
8 Vineyards: These specialised farms transform Food into wine, a valuable commodity. Costs 100 food/turn to operate, but generates 300GC/turn if any trade action is taken, or trade routes are secure enough not to require one. Employs 20 Farmers.
3 Herbalists: Whilst herbalists generally work out of their own homes in human societies, this represents the Elvish practice of constructing specific buildings for public health purposes. Additionally, it also allows enough efficiency that they may spend some time teaching others their art. Employs 5 Herbalists, will convert labourers or farmers to Herbalists at a rate of 1/turn. +20 Bonus to checks to avoid plague or disease if 1 Hebalist is constructed per thousand population.
3 Bathhouses: These public bathouses are common across many cultures, and are good for improving public health and morale. Employs 20 Labourers, adds +10 to checks to avoid plagues or disease if one exists for every 1000 population.
1 Small Boatbuilders Guild: This hub of skilled craftsmen can manufacture 5 fishing boats per turn at a price of 10GC/boat. Excess boats can be sold off to trading partners for 20GC. Employs 20 Craftspeople.
20 Bakeries: These buildings centralise the production and distribution of bread, using better-constructed ovens and more skilled bakers to efficiently transform wheat into bread. Employs 5 Labourers, Produces 20 Food.
1 Lumber Camp: These buildings are constructed at some distance from your settlement and turn local forests into much more saleable lumber. Given the supernatural resilience of this world's forest, you are unlikely to run out of them. Whilst profitable, these buildings are vulnerable to monsters and other threats. Generates 200GC/turn. Employs 40 labourers
1 Fortified Powder Mill: This complex is separated from your settlement by some distance, for safety reasons, and thus needs its own protection. Inside its walls, it contains all the facilities necessary to produce gunpowder on a large scale. Produces 200 Gunpowder/turn, and has an ongoing cost of 50GC/turn. With 1 gunpowder for each troop requiring it, the costs of gunpowder dependant troops are cut in half. Gunpowder may also be sold as a trade good. Employs 50 craftspeople.
2 Horse Herds: This is a specific sort of grazing land, dedicated to rasing horses for both commercial and military use. Employs 20 Farmers, generates 200 GC, and allows the local recruitment of mounted troops.
Ships:
1 x Elvish hawkship: Your personal vessel, it is equipped with a starwood hull and two forward-firing batteries of bolt-throwers. Requires 25 Elf Sailors. +1 Naval Action.
10 x Small Fishing Boats: These are various small fishing boats, each of slightly different construction. Requires 5 Sailors, produces 25 Food per boat per turn.
4 (1 Damaged) x Small Armed Merchant Ships: These were once human merchant vessels, but the pirates seemed to have taken them into battle. Well-armed with cannons, they are reasonably quick. +1 Naval Action. Requires 30 Sailors/ship.
Forces:
5 x Eagle Knights: These elite Elvish knights ride to battle on the back of Great Eagles, sentient birds larger than even the greatest horses. Armed with lances and elfbows, they are masters of the air and suitable as both light and heavy cavalry.
25 x Longbowmen: These exiled Bretonnians are skilled woodsmen and archers and have mastered their enormous longbows.
25 x Woodsmen: These skirmishers are armed with a mixture of hunting weapons, supplemented by hand weapons and minimal armour. Though skilled, they are not suitable as line infantry.
100 x Millita: These humans have been marshalled into a capable enough infantry force, armed with pikes and hand weapons. Issued relatively decent armour, if their morale holds they could form the core of a battle line; or defend a wall.
5 x Warrior Priests of Myrmidia: Blessed with a form of magic by their divine patrons, these elite warriors are clad in full plate and weild sacred war-spears.
40 x Estalian Pikemen: These skilled infantry are well armed and well armoured, with long pikes and munitions plate. Their will is famously iron, and bar true terror will stand their ground. [MERCANRY]
10 x Estalian Freelances: These knights are skilled heavy cavalry, capable of thundering charges and acting as an armoured bulwark on foot. [MERCANARY]
[10/20] x Estalian Handgunners: Armed with matchlock handguns, these lighter troops are trained to support their pike-wielding comrades, though they're not bad in melee; most carry swords and are clad in light armour. [MERCANRY]
[30/40] x Imperial Handgunners: Hailing from the shattered ruins of Sigmar's Empire, these handgunners bear slightly more advanced muskets, though they are less capable in melee. [MERCANRY]
20 x Imperial Halberdiers: These hardened troops are armoured in munitions plate and weild deadly halberds, their heavy polearms better suited towards fighting armoured or monstrous opponents when compared to pikemen. [MERCANRY]
2 x Imperial Cannons & Crew: These war machines are the height of advancement and are capable of punching holes into fortress walls or opposing infantry formations with equal ease. [MERCANRY]
20 x Imperial Light Cavalry: These impetuous young riders are armed with sabers and pistols, and armoured with contempt and bluff coats. Fast and deadly, they are likely to wither under any sort of return fire. [MERCANRY]
30 x Imperial Light infantry: These men are not capable of standing in a wall of pikes, but with their pistols and sabres they are very capable of screening their heavier fellows, or of protecting things like war machines. [MERCANRY]
Name: Osydin, Princess of House Ytha'Sethai.
Description: Tall and slight, Osydin's most distinguishing feature is her red hair; a relative rarity among the elves of Ulthuan. Her skin is tanned from long years at sea. Her ithilmar plate is adorned with scarlet cloth and gemstones, whilst her winged helmet features a mane of phoenix feathers.
Stats:
Prowess: 32. You are a mighty warrior by the standards of the Elves - capable of slaying Vampires, Chaos Champions, and other such supernaturally empowered foes. Unlocks Battlefield-Scale prowess checks.
Martial: 26. You are a skilled leader of Elves into battle, though not an exceptional one.
Diplomacy: 21. You are a skilled speaker, able to negotiate and sway others.
Stewardship: 16. Though you are formally educated on various matters, your skills at bookkeeping and other such administrative tasks are below the level expected of you.
Intrigue: 14. You are able to sneak around with some skill, but the complex webs of plots spun by some of your fellow Elves are beyond you.
Peity: 20. You know how to invoke the favour of the Gods, and have been blessed by them.
Magic: 30. You are a journeyman mage amongst Elves and a master amongst men. [Max until Wizard II]
Traits:
Eagle Knight of Eataine: Osydin has a life-long partnership with the Great Eagle Galerion, who allows her to ride into battle on his back. Once it is joined, the two fight as an effective team. +5 Prowess, +2 Martial.
Wizard I: Osydin has enough magical potential and training to cast battle magic, though she is not an exceptional mage for an Elf. [9/10 progress towards Wizard II]
Kinslayer I: No matter his crime, to kill one's own father is a grave sin in the eyes of the Asur. -5 to diplomacy with High Elves, effectively barred from Ulthuan.
Blessing of Lileath: Like all the mages of the Asur, Osydin draws upon the divine as well as the arcane. Reroll one miscast per battle update.
Sea-Elf: Having spent nearly a century travelling the world aboard a ship, Osydin is extremely familiar with all naval matters, and much better at interacting with humans. No penalty for diplomacy with humans, +5 to Martial and Prowess in naval conflict.
Killing Blow: Skilled in the art of the Swordmasters, Osydin has the speed and skill to fell any man with one blow. A critical success (natural 95-100, or a difference of 100 or more in total score) in combat results in instant death for Osydin's opponent, bypassing armour and regeneration, unless they have some supernatural defence. [1/5 Progress Towards Monster Slayer]
Deflect Shots: Such is the speed of her swordsmanship, Osydin can cut arrows from the air. May oppose non-magical, non-war-machine shooting in individual-scale combat.
Night Fighter: Skilled at night-fighting, you gain a +5 bonus to Prowess and martial checks that take place at night.
Blessing of Isha II: +10 to Magic when casting Life spells, +20 when casting Light spells against Daemons, other servants of Chaos, or undead. [0/10 Towards Next Level]
Signature Look of Superiority: You are skilled at using your status, reputation, and image to impress or convince others. +5 to Diplomacy against your social inferiors.
High Mage: You have taken your first steps on the endless path to mastering Qhaysh. You may now learn High Magic spells, and gain +10 to all dispel attempts.
Inventory:
Ithilmar Plate Armour & Barding. This suit of finely-made plate armour is incredibly light, light enough that Galerion too can be protected by it without slowing down his flight. Reduce Injuries by three steps.
Sword of Hoeth. This sword belonged to Osydin's mother, a Loremaster of Hoeth. It is a long, straight two-handed sword forged from Ithilmar and enchanted with supernatural lightness and sharpness. +5 Prowess, Magical Attacks,
Fireheart Ring. This ancient ring was forged on the Anvil of Vaul to fight the first onslaught of Chaos, binding the power of a volcano into twin strands of ruby and gold. Requires DC50 Magic check to use. +10 to magic checks using Aqshy, either casting or dispelling.
Stormtamer's Helm : This magical helmet was once part of a set of dragon armour, dating back to the earliest days of the Elvish presence in the Old World. Bearing a crown of diamonds and forged of enchanted ithilmar, this enchanted helmet grants the wearer +10 to Heavens Magic whilst airborne, and +30 when in the midst of a storm. It also grants the wearer one degree of Ward Save - reducing any damage suffered by one degree, cumulative with armour. This applies even to Killing Blows or esoteric magical effects. When reunited with the other parts of the armour, it may grant other bonuses.
Settlement Sheet:
Settlement: Tor Sar'Than
Ruler: Princess Osydin
Advisors:
Martial: 26+19 = 45
Favoured Captain: The Lady Ortiz (19 Martial) is a skilled commander, warrior, and priest. As a human noblewoman, she can effectively command the lesser classes despite their cultural differences.
Diplomacy: 21+20 = 41
Diplomat: Sir Helene Carrad (20 Diplomacy) is a Bretonnian Knight of the Realm, here on a quest of penance for reasons of complex human gender politics. Whilst primarily a terror on the battlefield, her courtly charms are well-suited to diplomacy - though she will not aid you with underhanded or otherwise dishonourable actions.
Stewardship: 15+21 = 36
Steward: Captain Heinrich Hochstrasse currently serves as your Steward, as his service in the army of an Elector Count has prepared him well to deal with matters of supplies, numbers, and planning.
Intrigue: 14 + 27 = 41
Spy: Eydis currently serves as your spy (and overall deputy). She is not only very loyal, but she is an extremely capable mage and much better at keeping things quiet than you are.
Further Advisors may be available as your settlement grows.
Settlement Stats:
Population: 3166. Consists of 300 Soldiers, 3 Human Notables, 5 Elves + 25 Elf Sailors, 454 Sailors, 804 Farmers, 672 Labourers [100 Militia], 293 Craftspeople, 5 Herbalists, 10 Apprentices, and 507 Children.
50/300 Soldiers.
2/2 Human Notables
5/5 Elves
25/25 Elvish Sailors
220/434 Sailors
750/804 Farmers
445/672 Labourers
100/207 Craftspeople
5/5 Herbalists
2/2 Human Notables
5/5 Elves
25/25 Elvish Sailors
220/434 Sailors
750/804 Farmers
445/672 Labourers
100/207 Craftspeople
5/5 Herbalists
Population growth since last turn: N/A
Food: 6676
Food production: 2650 Farms + 250 Fishing + 400 Bakeries - 800 Vineyards = 2850
Food Consumption: 3166
Gold: 2480gc
Income: 850gc + 500gc/turn from the Phoenix King. +2400GC if any trade action is taken.
Gold Consumption: 450/turn from mercenary wages. 100gc/turn from Soldier Upkeep. 50gc/turn from Powder Mills. Total: 550gc/turn.
Morale: 250 (Very Good)
Favour: 120
Favour Income: 10/turn
Buildings:
Lighthouse: This ancient Elvish structure remains in good repair. Contains 25 Noble Quarters, 1 Aviary, 1 Armoury, 1 Stable, 1 Sturdy Wall, and 1 Lighthouse. Provides shelter for 25 people and their attendants.
765 Decent Dwellings: These well-made wooden homes are not fancy, but most commoners across the Old World would be grateful for such a home. Provides Shelter for 3060 People, 6120 if overcrowded.
1 Inn: Although the innkeeper was trampled beneath the hooves of an Estalian destrier, his inn has been taken over by his former slaves. Negates 25 points of morale loss per turn and generates 50 GC. Employs 5 Labourers.
4 Armouries: These buildings safely house and maintain weapons and armour. Supports up to 100 troops per armoury. Employs 10 craftspeople, 20 Labourers.
1 Stable: This includes not only the physical stable but also the horses and workers necessary to keep your mounted troops in mounts. Can support 10 Mounted Troops. Unsupported soldiers cost double in wages.
Medium Piers: These can act as a home port for 200 boats and 12 ships.
Medium Docks: These buildings allow for the rapid unloading and loading of merchant ships. Allows Moderate trade Actions. Employs 200 Labourers.
Palisade: This wooden palisade provides a moderate defence to the settlement.
25 Small Farms: These farms are worked by one family, and generally produce only limited excess food. Each employs 2 farmers and produces 4 units of food.
105 Medium Farms: These moderately sized farms are worked by multiple families, who cooperate to greatly increase their yields. Each employs 5 farmers and produces 25 food.
Temple of Myrmidia: While many gods are worshipped amongst your subjects, the only true priest you know of - the Lady Ortiz - is a devotee of the Southern goddess of war. Employs 5 Priests, converts farmers or labourers to Priests at a rate of 1/turn if not enough exist within the settlement. Supports a force of 5 Warrior-Priests, a specialised form of troop and negates 10 Morale Loss/turn
2 Markets: This building opens up internal trade, and allows your subjects to sell things to one another much more efficiently. 1 per 1000 People, generates 100GC/turn.
8 Vineyards: These specialised farms transform Food into wine, a valuable commodity. Costs 100 food/turn to operate, but generates 300GC/turn if any trade action is taken, or trade routes are secure enough not to require one. Employs 20 Farmers.
3 Herbalists: Whilst herbalists generally work out of their own homes in human societies, this represents the Elvish practice of constructing specific buildings for public health purposes. Additionally, it also allows enough efficiency that they may spend some time teaching others their art. Employs 5 Herbalists, will convert labourers or farmers to Herbalists at a rate of 1/turn. +20 Bonus to checks to avoid plague or disease if 1 Hebalist is constructed per thousand population.
3 Bathhouses: These public bathouses are common across many cultures, and are good for improving public health and morale. Employs 20 Labourers, adds +10 to checks to avoid plagues or disease if one exists for every 1000 population.
1 Small Boatbuilders Guild: This hub of skilled craftsmen can manufacture 5 fishing boats per turn at a price of 10GC/boat. Excess boats can be sold off to trading partners for 20GC. Employs 20 Craftspeople.
20 Bakeries: These buildings centralise the production and distribution of bread, using better-constructed ovens and more skilled bakers to efficiently transform wheat into bread. Employs 5 Labourers, Produces 20 Food.
1 Lumber Camp: These buildings are constructed at some distance from your settlement and turn local forests into much more saleable lumber. Given the supernatural resilience of this world's forest, you are unlikely to run out of them. Whilst profitable, these buildings are vulnerable to monsters and other threats. Generates 200GC/turn. Employs 40 labourers
1 Fortified Powder Mill: This complex is separated from your settlement by some distance, for safety reasons, and thus needs its own protection. Inside its walls, it contains all the facilities necessary to produce gunpowder on a large scale. Produces 200 Gunpowder/turn, and has an ongoing cost of 50GC/turn. With 1 gunpowder for each troop requiring it, the costs of gunpowder dependant troops are cut in half. Gunpowder may also be sold as a trade good. Employs 50 craftspeople.
2 Horse Herds: This is a specific sort of grazing land, dedicated to rasing horses for both commercial and military use. Employs 20 Farmers, generates 200 GC, and allows the local recruitment of mounted troops.
Ships:
1 x Elvish hawkship: Your personal vessel, it is equipped with a starwood hull and two forward-firing batteries of bolt-throwers. Requires 25 Elf Sailors. +1 Naval Action.
10 x Small Fishing Boats: These are various small fishing boats, each of slightly different construction. Requires 5 Sailors, produces 25 Food per boat per turn.
4 (1 Damaged) x Small Armed Merchant Ships: These were once human merchant vessels, but the pirates seemed to have taken them into battle. Well-armed with cannons, they are reasonably quick. +1 Naval Action. Requires 30 Sailors/ship.
Forces:
5 x Eagle Knights: These elite Elvish knights ride to battle on the back of Great Eagles, sentient birds larger than even the greatest horses. Armed with lances and elfbows, they are masters of the air and suitable as both light and heavy cavalry.
25 x Longbowmen: These exiled Bretonnians are skilled woodsmen and archers and have mastered their enormous longbows.
25 x Woodsmen: These skirmishers are armed with a mixture of hunting weapons, supplemented by hand weapons and minimal armour. Though skilled, they are not suitable as line infantry.
100 x Millita: These humans have been marshalled into a capable enough infantry force, armed with pikes and hand weapons. Issued relatively decent armour, if their morale holds they could form the core of a battle line; or defend a wall.
5 x Warrior Priests of Myrmidia: Blessed with a form of magic by their divine patrons, these elite warriors are clad in full plate and weild sacred war-spears.
40 x Estalian Pikemen: These skilled infantry are well armed and well armoured, with long pikes and munitions plate. Their will is famously iron, and bar true terror will stand their ground. [MERCANRY]
10 x Estalian Freelances: These knights are skilled heavy cavalry, capable of thundering charges and acting as an armoured bulwark on foot. [MERCANARY]
[10/20] x Estalian Handgunners: Armed with matchlock handguns, these lighter troops are trained to support their pike-wielding comrades, though they're not bad in melee; most carry swords and are clad in light armour. [MERCANRY]
[30/40] x Imperial Handgunners: Hailing from the shattered ruins of Sigmar's Empire, these handgunners bear slightly more advanced muskets, though they are less capable in melee. [MERCANRY]
20 x Imperial Halberdiers: These hardened troops are armoured in munitions plate and weild deadly halberds, their heavy polearms better suited towards fighting armoured or monstrous opponents when compared to pikemen. [MERCANRY]
2 x Imperial Cannons & Crew: These war machines are the height of advancement and are capable of punching holes into fortress walls or opposing infantry formations with equal ease. [MERCANRY]
20 x Imperial Light Cavalry: These impetuous young riders are armed with sabers and pistols, and armoured with contempt and bluff coats. Fast and deadly, they are likely to wither under any sort of return fire. [MERCANRY]
30 x Imperial Light infantry: These men are not capable of standing in a wall of pikes, but with their pistols and sabres they are very capable of screening their heavier fellows, or of protecting things like war machines. [MERCANRY]
Last edited:
2250, Landing Part II
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
2250, Landing Part II
The fleet that sets off from Marienburg is a motley one. A pair of human ships packed full of mercenaries, settlers, and assorted hangers-on accompanied by a majestic eagleship; starwood hull glittering in the early-morning sun. Your own hawkship, a much smaller vessel, seems almost lost among the forest of sails.
Galerion cups his wing around you protectively as the cold wind blows your ships out to sea. Both of you are used to the cold, to the snow-capped mountains of Eatine and the ice-cold seas, but you appreciate the warmth all the same. You can hear his heartbeat as you lean against him, far faster than your own.
"So we are off once more, old friend. To new lands, though I cannot say they will match up to Grand Cathay or Lustria," you say to Galerion, who inclines his head towards you.
"Perhaps you are right. Perhaps. Finubar is a wise king, and there is much he sees that I do not. Perhaps he thinks being sent to the most remote end of the Old World will keep me -" you begin, but you do not want to say it.
The memory of that night is still raw and ragged, even months later. The guilt gnaws at you. Why did you not spot it sooner? Why did you not know what your father was doing?
Were you so busy, you wonder, wandering the seas that you could not spare the time to return home and see what was wrong?
Galerion makes a mournful noise as you stew in your guilt, and you know that he alone can understand. That night, he too became a kinslayer.
You stand and try to shake off the thoughts weighing you down. There is much to do, and if there is much to do you will not be so able to think about your guilt. Your hawkship is at the head of the small convoy, and its crew are well trained. They do not need your guidance to sail out of Marienburg, but there are always knots to be tied or ropes to be pulled.
As you assist in all the tasks a ship requires to sail, you are dressed much like the common sailors. Your shirt and breeches might be slightly finer, but after a month at sea on the way here - not by much. They have all sailed with you from one end of the world to another. Some have come and gone, but not many. These men and women have faced Nipponese pirates and Druchi corsairs alongside you, braved storm and snow and worse.
Everyone aboard the hawkship is hard at work manning the sails, or otherwise maintaining the ship, even your Eagle Knights, save two people. Vadac, the colonial, sits uneasily by the prow. His people were strangers to the sea, so you could begrudgingly permit him that. The other...
Eydis will need to save her strength if her magic is to be called on. She leans against the side of the ship, looking out at the slowly fading image of Marienburg. Her golden hair, braided in the manner of her father's homeland, flutters in the wind. She wears robes of deep blue, almost as dark as her skin, embroidered with runes of warding and power. Thin bits of ithilmar armour - bracers, and a mail shirt beneath the outer layer of robes - are all that protects her. Steel, as fine as any elf could forge, would prevent her from working magic. Only ithilmar would not.
"You did not have to come with me," you say to her as you approach. She smiles up at you, her violet eyes alight with mischief.
"But I've come with you on all your other misadventures," she says.
"I don't think this is the same as sneaking into the kitchen at midnight, Eydis," you say.
"Ah, but it's not that different from sailing to Cathay. But what a fun time we had there, after that business with the pirates," she says.
You try not to smile and mostly succeed.
"Ah, and with you stuck out in the ass end of the world, nobody will want to marry you!" Eydis says.
It shouldn't be funny. It should be an awful reminder of what you've lost... and yet you can't help but laugh.
"And you always said it'd happen to me eventually," you say.
Then there is a call from the crew, and you have more time to reminisce about your childhood.
Vadac speaks to you for the first time after the tavern a few days into the trip. The Eonir has been silent for days, looking out at the sea and alternating between brooding and looking seasick.
"I was surprised you hired me," he says one morning. He does not address you as he should, but then he does not recognise the rightful king of all elves; he whom the Emperor of Heaven has chosen - so it is only to be expected.
"Why?" you ask, matching bluntness with bluntness.
"It suggests that you wish to actually succeed, rather than wait out whatever crime has landed you this task. Gunpowder, Eonir... I did not think a Princess of Ulthuan would approve of such things," he says.
"Approve or disapprove is beside the point. My task has been given to me by my king, and I will carry it out with the best tools I can find," you reply.
It is true that the force you have assembled is not one that sits entirely comfortably with you. Vadac is at least an elf, and the colonials are excellent woodsmen. The humans... they stink of gunpowder and oil, they stink of smoke and change. You can smell the magic on the noblewoman too, even if humans do not understand what it is their priests truly do.
You take a moment to thank Hoeth that you are not so ignorant. It is only by the grace of Isha and the blessing of Lileath that you can perform true magic safely. To divide divine from arcane is to invite doom upon both.
Still, Lady Ortiz is not a hedge witch so it is unlikely that she will explode into gibbering horrors at an inopportune moment. Her Goddess is not well known to you - you are familiar with the gods of Sigmar's realm, especially the ones that parallel your own. You know Shayla, who echoes Isha, and of Manann who echoes Mathlann. You know Sigmar, of course - but Lady Ortiz's goddess is a southern goddess.
"I wonder what there could be in the Border Princes for a man such as him to bother himself with?" Vadac asks.
"Nothing," you say. A part of you is tempted to explain your King's reasoning, but after a moment Vadac moves on.
Galerion touches down on the larger of the two human ships with only the slightest jolt. You unbuckle yourself from the saddle, the riding saddle rather than the barded war saddle today. Galerion does not need reigns, but he knows that the collection of straps and buckles will keep you safely attached to him.
The crew and passengers alike of the human ship look at you with wide eyes. The crew are Marienburgers, but most of the passengers are Wastelanders, or Estalian. They have not seen an eagle twice the size of a horse before. Some looked fearful, others seemed awed. There was not always a distinction between the two.
"My - my lady is waiting for you... Your Highness?" one of the Estalian officers asks. He's a young man if your guess is right. Perhaps twenty years - twenty years old and leading men into battle! The term of address is roughly correct - as far as the crude tongues of humans are concerned.
"Show me the way," you order, and the man nearly falls over himself to rush curious onlookers out of the way. Most of them are not the soldiers you hired - they are their hangers-on - their wives, their husbands, their whores and cooks and squires. More are simply the sort of settlers one needs to build a town.
You have to stoop down to not ram your head into the ceiling as you go below decks on the human ship. You have only been aboard them briefly, usually in the thick of battle. There is no blood to slick the deck of the human ship, nor can you hear the din of battle.
The young officer opens a somewhat finer-looking door, and you enter the large cabin at the rear of the ship. Lady Ortiz sits at a well-made wooden table, with what looks to be most of her officers. Some kind of meal sits half-eaten in bowls, and wine sits well more than half-drunk beside it.
"Ah, she is here!" one drunkard shouts.
"Do not disrespect her Highness like that, or have you forgotten whose gold you paid that delightful - ah, that is, your Highness, I am pleased we will be able to talk. Rest of you, out! Out!" Ortiz shouts.
Her officers quickly depart with all the food, though Ortiz whacks away the hand of one who tries to take the wine.
"Care for a drink?" she asks. You look at the bottle. Elf-wine, but a common vintage, grown mostly for export.
"A little, thank you," you say, as you sit gingerly in one of Ortiz's expensive-looking chairs. Human chairs were rarely tall enough for you.
"I recognise that look, Your Highness. It's the same look my regal Aunt gave us whenever we tried to pass off swill too common for her, but she still wanted a drink," Ortiz says.
"I grew up only a dozen miles or so from this vineyard," you say.
"Which says nothing at all about its quality. I see what they say about the silver tongues of Elves is true," Ortiz says. She lounges backwards, her corset somewhat loosened and her clothes dishevelled. Her armour hangs on a stand behind her, blackened steel and gilt edges. A collection of weapons rings it - handguns, spears, swords. All finely made, as far as human work went.
"I wished to speak to you about our impending arrival. It is only a week or so's sailing now, and after we take our destination, we will need to move quickly," you say, as you take a sip of the elfwine. It is broad and uncomplicated, but that is not the same thing as bad.
"And where are we landing, your highness? I can hardly betray any confidences now we are so far from civilization, can I?" Ortiz asks.
"An old lighthouse, built by my people. Once we cleanse the filth squatting there, we will establish a port in the bay it overlooks and a settlement clustered around it. The lighthouse itself will be off limits to humans, but there should be ample space to begin construction of dwellings for your people," you say.
"And you've made it clear to that Reiklander brute that he's not to blow it up with cannons, yes?"
"The initial landing will not be complicated - we will have two hundred Sea Guard aiding us. It is what comes next that you will be crucial for. You and Captain Hochstrasse must maintain order in the human sections of the settlement," you say.
"I assumed that was why you hired me, no? Hochstrasse is a soldier with pretensions. I am a noblewoman, true of blood and blessed by the divine. These rabble... they will grumble, but I will keep them in line," Ortiz says.
Before you're able to respond, one of her officers rushes after flinging open the door. He's breathing hard, and you can see how tense he is.
"My lady, we've sighted longships on the horizon!" he says. Ortiz looks at you.
You are just grateful that your riding saddle still had a sheathe for your sword, and that its bags contained....
[x] Your cloak, woven from phoenix scales. Enchanted with the power of a Forstheart phoenix, it slows down those who would mean to harm you.
[x] Your necklace, a slim pendant of Ithilmar and sapphires. It was said to have been blessed by Lileath before the poles fractured and daemons poured into the world. It allows you to 'hand off' a spell to be sustained by the enchantments on the necklace.
[x] Your ring, forged on the Anvil of Vaul to give its wielder greater power over fire. Aqushy bends easier to you whilst wearing it, and it has some power of its own.
The fleet that sets off from Marienburg is a motley one. A pair of human ships packed full of mercenaries, settlers, and assorted hangers-on accompanied by a majestic eagleship; starwood hull glittering in the early-morning sun. Your own hawkship, a much smaller vessel, seems almost lost among the forest of sails.
Galerion cups his wing around you protectively as the cold wind blows your ships out to sea. Both of you are used to the cold, to the snow-capped mountains of Eatine and the ice-cold seas, but you appreciate the warmth all the same. You can hear his heartbeat as you lean against him, far faster than your own.
"So we are off once more, old friend. To new lands, though I cannot say they will match up to Grand Cathay or Lustria," you say to Galerion, who inclines his head towards you.
"Perhaps you are right. Perhaps. Finubar is a wise king, and there is much he sees that I do not. Perhaps he thinks being sent to the most remote end of the Old World will keep me -" you begin, but you do not want to say it.
The memory of that night is still raw and ragged, even months later. The guilt gnaws at you. Why did you not spot it sooner? Why did you not know what your father was doing?
Were you so busy, you wonder, wandering the seas that you could not spare the time to return home and see what was wrong?
Galerion makes a mournful noise as you stew in your guilt, and you know that he alone can understand. That night, he too became a kinslayer.
You stand and try to shake off the thoughts weighing you down. There is much to do, and if there is much to do you will not be so able to think about your guilt. Your hawkship is at the head of the small convoy, and its crew are well trained. They do not need your guidance to sail out of Marienburg, but there are always knots to be tied or ropes to be pulled.
As you assist in all the tasks a ship requires to sail, you are dressed much like the common sailors. Your shirt and breeches might be slightly finer, but after a month at sea on the way here - not by much. They have all sailed with you from one end of the world to another. Some have come and gone, but not many. These men and women have faced Nipponese pirates and Druchi corsairs alongside you, braved storm and snow and worse.
Everyone aboard the hawkship is hard at work manning the sails, or otherwise maintaining the ship, even your Eagle Knights, save two people. Vadac, the colonial, sits uneasily by the prow. His people were strangers to the sea, so you could begrudgingly permit him that. The other...
Eydis will need to save her strength if her magic is to be called on. She leans against the side of the ship, looking out at the slowly fading image of Marienburg. Her golden hair, braided in the manner of her father's homeland, flutters in the wind. She wears robes of deep blue, almost as dark as her skin, embroidered with runes of warding and power. Thin bits of ithilmar armour - bracers, and a mail shirt beneath the outer layer of robes - are all that protects her. Steel, as fine as any elf could forge, would prevent her from working magic. Only ithilmar would not.
"You did not have to come with me," you say to her as you approach. She smiles up at you, her violet eyes alight with mischief.
"But I've come with you on all your other misadventures," she says.
"I don't think this is the same as sneaking into the kitchen at midnight, Eydis," you say.
"Ah, but it's not that different from sailing to Cathay. But what a fun time we had there, after that business with the pirates," she says.
You try not to smile and mostly succeed.
"Ah, and with you stuck out in the ass end of the world, nobody will want to marry you!" Eydis says.
It shouldn't be funny. It should be an awful reminder of what you've lost... and yet you can't help but laugh.
"And you always said it'd happen to me eventually," you say.
Then there is a call from the crew, and you have more time to reminisce about your childhood.
Vadac speaks to you for the first time after the tavern a few days into the trip. The Eonir has been silent for days, looking out at the sea and alternating between brooding and looking seasick.
"I was surprised you hired me," he says one morning. He does not address you as he should, but then he does not recognise the rightful king of all elves; he whom the Emperor of Heaven has chosen - so it is only to be expected.
"Why?" you ask, matching bluntness with bluntness.
"It suggests that you wish to actually succeed, rather than wait out whatever crime has landed you this task. Gunpowder, Eonir... I did not think a Princess of Ulthuan would approve of such things," he says.
"Approve or disapprove is beside the point. My task has been given to me by my king, and I will carry it out with the best tools I can find," you reply.
It is true that the force you have assembled is not one that sits entirely comfortably with you. Vadac is at least an elf, and the colonials are excellent woodsmen. The humans... they stink of gunpowder and oil, they stink of smoke and change. You can smell the magic on the noblewoman too, even if humans do not understand what it is their priests truly do.
You take a moment to thank Hoeth that you are not so ignorant. It is only by the grace of Isha and the blessing of Lileath that you can perform true magic safely. To divide divine from arcane is to invite doom upon both.
Still, Lady Ortiz is not a hedge witch so it is unlikely that she will explode into gibbering horrors at an inopportune moment. Her Goddess is not well known to you - you are familiar with the gods of Sigmar's realm, especially the ones that parallel your own. You know Shayla, who echoes Isha, and of Manann who echoes Mathlann. You know Sigmar, of course - but Lady Ortiz's goddess is a southern goddess.
"I wonder what there could be in the Border Princes for a man such as him to bother himself with?" Vadac asks.
"Nothing," you say. A part of you is tempted to explain your King's reasoning, but after a moment Vadac moves on.
Galerion touches down on the larger of the two human ships with only the slightest jolt. You unbuckle yourself from the saddle, the riding saddle rather than the barded war saddle today. Galerion does not need reigns, but he knows that the collection of straps and buckles will keep you safely attached to him.
The crew and passengers alike of the human ship look at you with wide eyes. The crew are Marienburgers, but most of the passengers are Wastelanders, or Estalian. They have not seen an eagle twice the size of a horse before. Some looked fearful, others seemed awed. There was not always a distinction between the two.
"My - my lady is waiting for you... Your Highness?" one of the Estalian officers asks. He's a young man if your guess is right. Perhaps twenty years - twenty years old and leading men into battle! The term of address is roughly correct - as far as the crude tongues of humans are concerned.
"Show me the way," you order, and the man nearly falls over himself to rush curious onlookers out of the way. Most of them are not the soldiers you hired - they are their hangers-on - their wives, their husbands, their whores and cooks and squires. More are simply the sort of settlers one needs to build a town.
You have to stoop down to not ram your head into the ceiling as you go below decks on the human ship. You have only been aboard them briefly, usually in the thick of battle. There is no blood to slick the deck of the human ship, nor can you hear the din of battle.
The young officer opens a somewhat finer-looking door, and you enter the large cabin at the rear of the ship. Lady Ortiz sits at a well-made wooden table, with what looks to be most of her officers. Some kind of meal sits half-eaten in bowls, and wine sits well more than half-drunk beside it.
"Ah, she is here!" one drunkard shouts.
"Do not disrespect her Highness like that, or have you forgotten whose gold you paid that delightful - ah, that is, your Highness, I am pleased we will be able to talk. Rest of you, out! Out!" Ortiz shouts.
Her officers quickly depart with all the food, though Ortiz whacks away the hand of one who tries to take the wine.
"Care for a drink?" she asks. You look at the bottle. Elf-wine, but a common vintage, grown mostly for export.
"A little, thank you," you say, as you sit gingerly in one of Ortiz's expensive-looking chairs. Human chairs were rarely tall enough for you.
"I recognise that look, Your Highness. It's the same look my regal Aunt gave us whenever we tried to pass off swill too common for her, but she still wanted a drink," Ortiz says.
"I grew up only a dozen miles or so from this vineyard," you say.
"Which says nothing at all about its quality. I see what they say about the silver tongues of Elves is true," Ortiz says. She lounges backwards, her corset somewhat loosened and her clothes dishevelled. Her armour hangs on a stand behind her, blackened steel and gilt edges. A collection of weapons rings it - handguns, spears, swords. All finely made, as far as human work went.
"I wished to speak to you about our impending arrival. It is only a week or so's sailing now, and after we take our destination, we will need to move quickly," you say, as you take a sip of the elfwine. It is broad and uncomplicated, but that is not the same thing as bad.
"And where are we landing, your highness? I can hardly betray any confidences now we are so far from civilization, can I?" Ortiz asks.
"An old lighthouse, built by my people. Once we cleanse the filth squatting there, we will establish a port in the bay it overlooks and a settlement clustered around it. The lighthouse itself will be off limits to humans, but there should be ample space to begin construction of dwellings for your people," you say.
"And you've made it clear to that Reiklander brute that he's not to blow it up with cannons, yes?"
"The initial landing will not be complicated - we will have two hundred Sea Guard aiding us. It is what comes next that you will be crucial for. You and Captain Hochstrasse must maintain order in the human sections of the settlement," you say.
"I assumed that was why you hired me, no? Hochstrasse is a soldier with pretensions. I am a noblewoman, true of blood and blessed by the divine. These rabble... they will grumble, but I will keep them in line," Ortiz says.
Before you're able to respond, one of her officers rushes after flinging open the door. He's breathing hard, and you can see how tense he is.
"My lady, we've sighted longships on the horizon!" he says. Ortiz looks at you.
You are just grateful that your riding saddle still had a sheathe for your sword, and that its bags contained....
[x] Your cloak, woven from phoenix scales. Enchanted with the power of a Forstheart phoenix, it slows down those who would mean to harm you.
[x] Your necklace, a slim pendant of Ithilmar and sapphires. It was said to have been blessed by Lileath before the poles fractured and daemons poured into the world. It allows you to 'hand off' a spell to be sustained by the enchantments on the necklace.
[x] Your ring, forged on the Anvil of Vaul to give its wielder greater power over fire. Aqushy bends easier to you whilst wearing it, and it has some power of its own.
2250, Landing Part III
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
2250 IC, Landing Part III
"They're a long way from Norsca. Your orders?" Ortiz asks you.
"Keep this ship back, and signal the other transport to do the same. Hold your fire until you're sure what you're shooting at you," you order.
"It's the middle of the day with a clear sky!" the officer says.
"Ah, my dear Lorenzo, it is about to be much less clear. Well, let us get to work," Ortiz says. You follow the officer out of the maze-like decks of the human ship and emerge into the daylight. Galerion waits for you by the bow of the ship. Men rush to and fro all over the ship. Some run up from armouries with muskets and powder, others take boarding pikes and cutlasses by the half dozen to their fellows.
Cannons, dreadful human weapons, line the side of the ship. It is only a transport, not one of their warships, but it is still armed. Were it just Norscan longships you had to worry about, the humans would've been able to deal with them just fine on their own.
The champions of the ruinous powers were mighty warriors, but the ensorceled iron shrouding their warped bodies was dreadfully heavy. In your experience, warriors of Chaos drowned just as well as mere marauders if you shot their longships out from under them.
You look out to sea and spot the longships. Three of them, each with sails sporting eight-pointed stars. Too few for them to risk a direct assault on your much more heavily armed ships. You draw on Ghur, the wind of Beasts, and grant yourself the eyes of a hawk. You see it then, the extra wake hiding between the tightly packed longships.
Norscans might not be able to watch the warships of even other humans, but they were master sailors.
"Galerion, we must take flight," you say as you reach into the saddle bags and slip a ring onto your finger. Made from two woven threads, one of gold and the other of ruby, the ring was forged in the days of Aenarion the Defender. Many lesser imitations had been made by magewrights and hedge-witches all over Ulthuan and the world, but this was the original.
You feel the heat, almost scalding, as you slip the ring onto your finger. If you could not master Aqshy, the Wind of Fire, the power contained in the ring would be your end in a moment. If you could not - but you are a mage of Ulthuan, blessed by Lileath. Yours is the greatest living tradition of magic, passed down directly from the Old Ones.
The ring submits, the raging volcanic heart at its core bent to your will. It will rebel again, in time, but you are its mistress and you will defeat it each and every time.
You leap atop Galerion's back and begin to strap yourself into the riding saddle. You will both be without armour, but you will make do. There is no time to head back to your hawkship and don it.
Mist rolls out from your ships, ghostly and faint to your eyes - but you know that to the humans aboard the transports and to the Norscans it will be thick enough to blind them. Eydis was as skilled as ever.
Galerion leaps into the air with one beat of his mighty wings. He lets out a dreadful cry, answered by his fellow eagles; already aloft. He moves without direction to join them, and you see your three faithful knights circling above the longships. They wear armour of fine ithilmar, phoenix-feather plumes in their helmets. Recurve bows and quivers of arrows adorn their saddles, lances their hands.
"Keep an eye on the beast for me, and try to lead it into the arcs of the eagleship - but take no unneeded risks," you say, and your knights nod in reply. They wing away from you, darting around the group of Norscan longships.
Galerion turns towards the ships, and you call upon Aqshy. Here, at sea, it would normally b quite difficult to draw upon the wind of fire without some kind of sup[port -large braziers on a ship, or the like. But your ring is enough, and you reach out one finger towards the Norscan longships.
"Burn," you command in Anoqeyån, each tonal marker and slightest shift in expression containing the meaning of entire words in Eltharin - and far more than that, in comparison to the simplistic languages of humans.
Formless bolts of flame appear in mid-air, before sharpening themselves into burning spears. They descend on the Norscans with sudden speed, each slamming into the sail of a longship and exploding into formless fire once more. The sails catch alight in moments, and fire spreads around as sparks catch things alight. The longships are out of the fight, at least for now.
The Eagle Knights shoot a few arrows into Norscan sailors as they approach, but they all manage to remember their task. They fly as if they're about to go over the hidden wake, but at the last moment snap-roll to the side. Three huge heads snap up out of the water, each bristling with jagged fangs and teeth. The sea-beast roars and spits acid at the Eagle Knights, but they're too agile for the behemoth to hit.
Their lances might be able to wound it, and if you had to fell it you'd have a plan, but you are no Caledorian. The bolt-throwers on the ealgeship will slay the beast, and all you and your knights will have to do is bait it over there.
You draw your sword, the two-handed blade singing as it cuts through the air. Such a sword would be impossible to use from horseback, but Galerion is no horse. He turns in the air and dives across the path of the beast, as you ready yourself. One of the heads snaps at you, but you duck under the mouth by mere inches and slash across the scaled neck of the beast with your sword.
The enchanted blade parts the armoured scales of the beast with ease, and brackish blood bursts from the wound. The creature screams in rage, and Galerion has to dodge the other two heads as he continues to bait the creature towards the eagleship - but it is not seriously wounded.
Your knights follow you, peppering the beast with arrows to its eyes, to the open wound - anywhere vulnerable. Most of them shatter on impact, but a few find their way through gaps in the scales. One sinks into an eye, popping in a burst of murky fluid. Their eagles use their talons on the beast, cutting into its flesh and further aggravating it.
You have nearly drawn it into the proper arc, and you feel the winds shift once more. Eydis is not done with her part of the battle. You feel her gather the winds, Chamon and Azyr. She switches from one to the other with an easy fluidity, and you see the armoured scales of the monster begin to rust and flake away.
Three horn blasts sound from the eagleship, and your knights soar up and out of the ship's arc, Galerion doing likewise. Batteries of bolt throwers on the ship's broadside ready themselves, and then you hear the rolling twang-twang-twang of the ship loosing every bolt in her broadside.
Each bolt was tipped with enchanted meteoric iron, and each bolt thrower able to use the magic in its limbs to accelerate the bolt far faster than mere engineering would allow. They lanced through the beast, punching ragged holes in its body. Several well-aimed shots speared through its heads, and one found its heart.
No sea beast could withstand a barrage that would've devastated a Dwarven iron-ship, and the creature's blood stained the sea like spilt wine. Its heads smashed down, sending huge waves of water flying into the air.
The mist began to clear, and then there was a mighty cheer from the human ships as they saw the Norscan longships burning, and the beast slain. Your knights form up behind you, and soon enough Galerion lands on your hawkship. There is less cheering there, but you appreciate the looks of respect and thanks on the faces of the crew far more than human cheers.
The rest of the journey around Estalia and Tilea is relatively uneventful, with most pirates wise enough not to bother a convoy like yours. You make a few stops along the way, to take on more supplies and stock up on things like gunpowder. The substance is rare in the Border Princes, but your budget should withstand supplying the forces you currently have, so long as you can keep your trade lanes open.
Only your hawkship will remain behind after your landing, but it can make the run to Tilea at blistering speed, should it need to.
The force you've assembled is strong, for the region. The Estalian pikemen have decent armour - steel breastplates and their distinctive helmets. Hochstrasse's halberdiers are likewise equipped and will work well as a complement to the pikemen. Both the Estalian and Imperial hangunners are well-disciplined and should provide you with a base of firepower, especially defensively.
Offensively, the artillery Hochstrasse brings to the table will be invaluable in the border princes. His cannons are small, but more than enough for the old ruins most of the would-be kings of that land squat in. More importantly, he has enough experienced artillerymen to maintain them properly. Ortiz's knights are likely to be decisive too, especially in combination with a flank or rear charge from your Eagle Knights. That was how you were trained to work with heavy cavalry.
Magically, Eydis is superior to you - and thus probably superior to anything you might encounter, short of a major Orc invasion or a particularly strong Chaos warband. Certainly, you can't imagine a hedge-witch matching her power. Ortiz's divine gifts, you have learnt, are also likely to be useful - her ability to blind her enemies with overwhelming light was one you could see an obvious use for at the head of a cavalry charge. She herself could also channel that power inwards, enchanting her spear.
All in all, given your limited funds, you think that you have assembled a strong force.
In a rare occasion, Ortiz and Hochstrasse were invited aboard the eagleship to confer about the landing. You were only a day's sailing away now from your target - the former Elvish lighthouse of Tor Sar'than. None of their retainers were allowed aboard, and they were not permitted arms, but the Sea Guard crew managed to look down at them only a little.
The three of you, along with Eydis and the captain of the eagleship, sat around his fine table. He had brought out wine from his own collection, caught in the unenviable social dilemma of having to serve wine to both a Princess of Ulthuan and humans. You enjoyed the wine - a far subtler, more complex thing than the cheap export Ortiz had served you.
The captain's cabin was made from finely sculpted wood, all of it bone white, and draped with many fine tapestries. His fine armour of scale and plate stood on a stand, gleaming silvery metal inlaid with gemstones. An array of trophies were mounted on the walls - a Druchii sea-dragon cloak and repeater crossbow, a Norscan greataxe, the head of an orcish wyvern, and more.
You paused for a moment, gathering your thoughts. When you began to plan your initial landing, you would...
[x] Order an infiltration at night with your eagle knights and Vadac, to allow the Sea Guard and your troops to storm the fortified lighthouse without seriously damaging it.
[x] Order the lighthouse suppressed with ranged firepower, then the gates breached with cannon fire from the human ships.
[x] Order everyone to close with the aid of a mist spell, then assault the walls after the ranged troops suppress them.
[X] Your ring, forged on the Anvil of Vaul to give its wielder greater power over fire. Aqushy bends easier to you whilst wearing it, and it has some power of its own.
"They're a long way from Norsca. Your orders?" Ortiz asks you.
"Keep this ship back, and signal the other transport to do the same. Hold your fire until you're sure what you're shooting at you," you order.
"It's the middle of the day with a clear sky!" the officer says.
"Ah, my dear Lorenzo, it is about to be much less clear. Well, let us get to work," Ortiz says. You follow the officer out of the maze-like decks of the human ship and emerge into the daylight. Galerion waits for you by the bow of the ship. Men rush to and fro all over the ship. Some run up from armouries with muskets and powder, others take boarding pikes and cutlasses by the half dozen to their fellows.
Cannons, dreadful human weapons, line the side of the ship. It is only a transport, not one of their warships, but it is still armed. Were it just Norscan longships you had to worry about, the humans would've been able to deal with them just fine on their own.
The champions of the ruinous powers were mighty warriors, but the ensorceled iron shrouding their warped bodies was dreadfully heavy. In your experience, warriors of Chaos drowned just as well as mere marauders if you shot their longships out from under them.
You look out to sea and spot the longships. Three of them, each with sails sporting eight-pointed stars. Too few for them to risk a direct assault on your much more heavily armed ships. You draw on Ghur, the wind of Beasts, and grant yourself the eyes of a hawk. You see it then, the extra wake hiding between the tightly packed longships.
Norscans might not be able to watch the warships of even other humans, but they were master sailors.
"Galerion, we must take flight," you say as you reach into the saddle bags and slip a ring onto your finger. Made from two woven threads, one of gold and the other of ruby, the ring was forged in the days of Aenarion the Defender. Many lesser imitations had been made by magewrights and hedge-witches all over Ulthuan and the world, but this was the original.
You feel the heat, almost scalding, as you slip the ring onto your finger. If you could not master Aqshy, the Wind of Fire, the power contained in the ring would be your end in a moment. If you could not - but you are a mage of Ulthuan, blessed by Lileath. Yours is the greatest living tradition of magic, passed down directly from the Old Ones.
Magic, DC 50: 1d100+25 (Magic) + 15 (Rightful owner) = 47+25+15 = 87.
Exceeded DC by 25 for an extra degree of success.
Exceeded DC by 25 for an extra degree of success.
The ring submits, the raging volcanic heart at its core bent to your will. It will rebel again, in time, but you are its mistress and you will defeat it each and every time.
You leap atop Galerion's back and begin to strap yourself into the riding saddle. You will both be without armour, but you will make do. There is no time to head back to your hawkship and don it.
Mist rolls out from your ships, ghostly and faint to your eyes - but you know that to the humans aboard the transports and to the Norscans it will be thick enough to blind them. Eydis was as skilled as ever.
Galerion leaps into the air with one beat of his mighty wings. He lets out a dreadful cry, answered by his fellow eagles; already aloft. He moves without direction to join them, and you see your three faithful knights circling above the longships. They wear armour of fine ithilmar, phoenix-feather plumes in their helmets. Recurve bows and quivers of arrows adorn their saddles, lances their hands.
"Keep an eye on the beast for me, and try to lead it into the arcs of the eagleship - but take no unneeded risks," you say, and your knights nod in reply. They wing away from you, darting around the group of Norscan longships.
Commanding the Knights, DC 50: 1d100+22 (Martial) + 10 (Respect) = 64+22+10 = 96
Exceeded DC by 50 for 2 extra degrees of success.
Exceeded DC by 50 for 2 extra degrees of success.
Galerion turns towards the ships, and you call upon Aqshy. Here, at sea, it would normally b quite difficult to draw upon the wind of fire without some kind of sup[port -large braziers on a ship, or the like. But your ring is enough, and you reach out one finger towards the Norscan longships.
Spell: Bolt, DC 20: 1d100+25 (Magic) + 10 (Fireheart Ring) = 68+25+10 = 103
Exceeded DC by 75 for an extra 3 degrees of success. Osydin spends all three on overcasting, once for damage and twice for extra targets.
Exceeded DC by 75 for an extra 3 degrees of success. Osydin spends all three on overcasting, once for damage and twice for extra targets.
"Burn," you command in Anoqeyån, each tonal marker and slightest shift in expression containing the meaning of entire words in Eltharin - and far more than that, in comparison to the simplistic languages of humans.
Formless bolts of flame appear in mid-air, before sharpening themselves into burning spears. They descend on the Norscans with sudden speed, each slamming into the sail of a longship and exploding into formless fire once more. The sails catch alight in moments, and fire spreads around as sparks catch things alight. The longships are out of the fight, at least for now.
The Eagle Knights shoot a few arrows into Norscan sailors as they approach, but they all manage to remember their task. They fly as if they're about to go over the hidden wake, but at the last moment snap-roll to the side. Three huge heads snap up out of the water, each bristling with jagged fangs and teeth. The sea-beast roars and spits acid at the Eagle Knights, but they're too agile for the behemoth to hit.
Their lances might be able to wound it, and if you had to fell it you'd have a plan, but you are no Caledorian. The bolt-throwers on the ealgeship will slay the beast, and all you and your knights will have to do is bait it over there.
You draw your sword, the two-handed blade singing as it cuts through the air. Such a sword would be impossible to use from horseback, but Galerion is no horse. He turns in the air and dives across the path of the beast, as you ready yourself. One of the heads snaps at you, but you duck under the mouth by mere inches and slash across the scaled neck of the beast with your sword.
The enchanted blade parts the armoured scales of the beast with ease, and brackish blood bursts from the wound. The creature screams in rage, and Galerion has to dodge the other two heads as he continues to bait the creature towards the eagleship - but it is not seriously wounded.
Your knights follow you, peppering the beast with arrows to its eyes, to the open wound - anywhere vulnerable. Most of them shatter on impact, but a few find their way through gaps in the scales. One sinks into an eye, popping in a burst of murky fluid. Their eagles use their talons on the beast, cutting into its flesh and further aggravating it.
You have nearly drawn it into the proper arc, and you feel the winds shift once more. Eydis is not done with her part of the battle. You feel her gather the winds, Chamon and Azyr. She switches from one to the other with an easy fluidity, and you see the armoured scales of the monster begin to rust and flake away.
Three horn blasts sound from the eagleship, and your knights soar up and out of the ship's arc, Galerion doing likewise. Batteries of bolt throwers on the ship's broadside ready themselves, and then you hear the rolling twang-twang-twang of the ship loosing every bolt in her broadside.
Each bolt was tipped with enchanted meteoric iron, and each bolt thrower able to use the magic in its limbs to accelerate the bolt far faster than mere engineering would allow. They lanced through the beast, punching ragged holes in its body. Several well-aimed shots speared through its heads, and one found its heart.
No sea beast could withstand a barrage that would've devastated a Dwarven iron-ship, and the creature's blood stained the sea like spilt wine. Its heads smashed down, sending huge waves of water flying into the air.
The mist began to clear, and then there was a mighty cheer from the human ships as they saw the Norscan longships burning, and the beast slain. Your knights form up behind you, and soon enough Galerion lands on your hawkship. There is less cheering there, but you appreciate the looks of respect and thanks on the faces of the crew far more than human cheers.
The rest of the journey around Estalia and Tilea is relatively uneventful, with most pirates wise enough not to bother a convoy like yours. You make a few stops along the way, to take on more supplies and stock up on things like gunpowder. The substance is rare in the Border Princes, but your budget should withstand supplying the forces you currently have, so long as you can keep your trade lanes open.
Only your hawkship will remain behind after your landing, but it can make the run to Tilea at blistering speed, should it need to.
The force you've assembled is strong, for the region. The Estalian pikemen have decent armour - steel breastplates and their distinctive helmets. Hochstrasse's halberdiers are likewise equipped and will work well as a complement to the pikemen. Both the Estalian and Imperial hangunners are well-disciplined and should provide you with a base of firepower, especially defensively.
Offensively, the artillery Hochstrasse brings to the table will be invaluable in the border princes. His cannons are small, but more than enough for the old ruins most of the would-be kings of that land squat in. More importantly, he has enough experienced artillerymen to maintain them properly. Ortiz's knights are likely to be decisive too, especially in combination with a flank or rear charge from your Eagle Knights. That was how you were trained to work with heavy cavalry.
Magically, Eydis is superior to you - and thus probably superior to anything you might encounter, short of a major Orc invasion or a particularly strong Chaos warband. Certainly, you can't imagine a hedge-witch matching her power. Ortiz's divine gifts, you have learnt, are also likely to be useful - her ability to blind her enemies with overwhelming light was one you could see an obvious use for at the head of a cavalry charge. She herself could also channel that power inwards, enchanting her spear.
All in all, given your limited funds, you think that you have assembled a strong force.
In a rare occasion, Ortiz and Hochstrasse were invited aboard the eagleship to confer about the landing. You were only a day's sailing away now from your target - the former Elvish lighthouse of Tor Sar'than. None of their retainers were allowed aboard, and they were not permitted arms, but the Sea Guard crew managed to look down at them only a little.
The three of you, along with Eydis and the captain of the eagleship, sat around his fine table. He had brought out wine from his own collection, caught in the unenviable social dilemma of having to serve wine to both a Princess of Ulthuan and humans. You enjoyed the wine - a far subtler, more complex thing than the cheap export Ortiz had served you.
The captain's cabin was made from finely sculpted wood, all of it bone white, and draped with many fine tapestries. His fine armour of scale and plate stood on a stand, gleaming silvery metal inlaid with gemstones. An array of trophies were mounted on the walls - a Druchii sea-dragon cloak and repeater crossbow, a Norscan greataxe, the head of an orcish wyvern, and more.
You paused for a moment, gathering your thoughts. When you began to plan your initial landing, you would...
[x] Order an infiltration at night with your eagle knights and Vadac, to allow the Sea Guard and your troops to storm the fortified lighthouse without seriously damaging it.
[x] Order the lighthouse suppressed with ranged firepower, then the gates breached with cannon fire from the human ships.
[x] Order everyone to close with the aid of a mist spell, then assault the walls after the ranged troops suppress them.
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2250, Landing Part IV
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
2250 IC, Landing Part IV
You secure your dark cloak over your armour as your Hawkship sits at anchor, not far from Tor Sar'than. The night sky is thick with stars, clear and unclouded. A pity, you think. The attack would've been easier with cloud cover, but Eydis's mist will still provide you enough cover. Your ring sits uneasily on your finger, your sword already attached to Galerion's saddle.
His armour has been covered with dark cloth, as has the barding on all the other eagles. Vadac is dressed much as he always is - in a drab patchwork of leather and cloth, all dark enough to blend into the night. His elfbow and arrows were carefully secured for flight, though he'd had to borrow your spare quiver. His would've sent his arrows tumbling out at the slightest aerial manoeuvre.
You'd flown over the lighthouse in the early hours of the morning before your ships were this close. A telescope and your magic were enough to make some basic observations from a safe height.
A band of pirates infested the lighthouse, using the nearby bay to shelter their ramshackle ships. There were quite a few of them, but you hadn't seen any cannon or other fixed defences that might prove a danger to your ships.
You look out at the small fleet and at your knights. The ships are all still on the water, hidden just out of sight of the lighthouse. Small boats have been lowered into the water, full of troops ready to land at your signal. The Sea Guard look at ease, but the human mercenaries all look extremely uncomfortable.
You don't blame them. For those without mistweavers, without ships capable of turning aside cannonballs with their starwood hulls, a directly opposed landing like this one would be dubious at best - suicidal at worst.
"Start the timer, and give us some cover," you ask Eydis as you clamber onto Galerion's back. She nods and turns over a small sand timer on the table next to her. An hour, and the attack will proceed without a call from you, without the assumption that the gates are open.
Then Eydis grasps the winds, all eight held at once and merged into one. She reaches out and weaves them into mist, appearing only a short distance from the lighthouse. By the time your eagles reach it, the defenders will be blinded.
"With me," you order, and Galerion leaps up into the air. Your knights follow, Vadac riding with one. The air is cold, and you are grateful for the scarf wrapped around much of your face. Combined with your cloak, and the other cloth you wear under your armour, you're reasonably warm.
The lighthouse is soon in sight, though Eydis's insubstantial mist shrouds it. It is a tall, thin spire of stone, flaring out from a circular base. No fire burns at its peak, nor do mirrors rest there. Crude human construction has sprung up around it, like mould on a chef's masterwork, and in the bay. Several boats and small ships are moored there - a vital thing to seize, if you can manage it.
Two sets of walls defend the settlement - the inner, Elvish wall that defends the lighthouse, and the outer palisade that protects the extra ramshackle construction the pirates have thrown up. Vadac will handle the outer gate, whilst you handle the inner one. Your knights will circle the area, hidden in the mist, and taking shots with their elfbows to support both of you.
Without a word from you, Galerion descends. You fly over the human construction for a moment, and then with a slow, careful deceleration he lands atop the inner wall. You silently unbuckle yourself and slip onto the ground, drawing your sword as you do. Though you often fight from eagleback, you and Galerion work just as well as separate partners.
Your connection to him is deeper than that of your other knights to their eagles. Your magic has allowed you to form a mental bond with him; freeing you of the need for reigns to communicate what you need him to do. Eagles will not throw a rider, and are intelligent beings, but they find the reigns the most trustworthy form of direction in combat.
He takes to the skies once more, ready to assist you if you require it - and to serve as a second pair of eyes, through your bond.
You draw on Ulgu, the Wind of Shadows, and drink deeply from the night. You spin it into soft threads around you, preventing any sound from escaping a small radius around you but allowing you to still hear what's going on beyond it. Shadows dance up your form as you do, the gathered shadow-magic shrouding you from view.
The inner gate is some distance away, along the wall, but that's alright - your part in the plan is to open it when Vadac has opened the outer gate. A few guards stand watch on the inner wall, but only a few. They wear quilted armour and helmets - if that. Some wear no armour at all, and most are armed with crossbows rather than expensive pistols.
You move quickly, now your steps are muffled by Ulgu. Your blade slashes out once, twice, three times and with each swing of the quicksilver-sword a pirate dies. Their screams do not echo out into the night, swallowed up by your spell. You proceed to the old gatehouse, a square building above the inner gate, which is manned by a more serious-looking squad of men.
Each carries a sword or axe, in addition to the crossbows that rest on tables. Most wear helmets and steel breastplates - but they are just as outclassed. You wave your hand and open the door to the gatehouse with a minor cantrip. The men turn to look at you, and you stride forward.
"What is that?!" shouts one.
"A daemon!" shouts another.
You do not give them more time. Before the first man has drawn his sword, you are across the room. Your blow splits one man in half at the waist, and then you dart to the side as you slice the head from a man reaching for a crossbow. Two bear down on you, their weapons drawn, just as the smartest of them reaches his crossbow and fires it at you.
Your blade cuts the bolt from the air in a silver blur and then the two men charging at you are in one swing; the ihtilmar greatsword not caring to stop for flesh or steel.
The last one, the smart one, tries to run. He has not reached the door handle before you are there. With one last thrust, the gatehouse is secured.
Your heart sings at the kill, the confirmation of your superiority. You are no Khaineite, no murder cultist, but this is the blood-pride that lurks in the heart of all elves. Its voice is seductive, its presence inescapable. The bloody-handed god is as true an aspect of your people as Isha the Mother.
A horn sounds, high and clear. Three short blasts. Through Galerion's eyes, you see the inner gate swing open, and your knights swoop down to defend it. Boats row in from the sea, having closed to the shore with the aid of the mist.
You let the silencing spell fade, returning the shadow to the world. The time for silence has come to an end, and now all that remains is battle. You draw on the fires lit for warmth inside the gatehouse, on the ring burning on your finger, and you call on Aqshy. You run your hand up your sword's blade, and fire follows it.
It burns white hot, and yet your sword is not harmed. Your gauntleted hands are not burnt by the grip. This fire is yours, and it will serve you.
With one swift kick, you work the ancient mechanism and the inner gates begin to open. Now, now battle calls.
You see the gates flung wide open, Sea-Guard already disembarking and securing the outer gates. Your Eagle Knights fly above the battlefield, supporting Vadac with arrows and swift diving attacks. The Eonir proves his worth in battle too, felling a dozen men with his arrows before the first of your troops arrive.
The first of the pirates to rush from the lighthouse meet you on your way down from the wall. Your flaming sword is a beacon in the night, even through the mist, and they send crossbow bolts flying towards you. Your blade is a whirling orange-white blur in the night, cutting down a half dozen bolts before you reach the pirates.
Then the killing begins. Your burning sword cuts through steel blades and wooden hafts alike, but more and more pirates pour out of the lighthouse. Some are half-dressed, but others seem to have been preparing to relieve other guards and are fully equipped.
One strikes at you with a brutish zweihander, his strikes quick and powerful. This one seems better armoured too, and somewhat skilled for a human. He does not land a hit on you, but neither can you overcome his defence and defend yourself from the other pirates. You cut down a few, but they soon learn to toss in only strikes at your sides or rear when you're distracted.
A few blows slam home against your armour, and you grit your teeth at the brief flash of pain. The dusty ground in front of the inner gates is covered in blood and burning corpses, but slowly you are being pushed backwards.
This pirate may have his band of brigands, but you are not alone. With only a thought, Galerion screams out of the sky. His cry is tremendously loud, and even before his talons cut men to ribbons they turn skyward.
You take advantage of the distraction and strike at the human - who must surely be the leader of these pirates, if his superior skill and equipment is anything to go by. Your first blow pushes him back and chips his greatsword. He attempts to riposte, but now you have the space to slip around his blow and behead him with one whirling cut.
Galerion is merciless in his onslaught, ripping men apart with his beak and slashing them to pieces with his talons. Crossbow bolts pelt him, but all they manage to do is cut through the cloth covering his armour. His shining silver barding now exposed, the Eagle remains undaunted.
You fall upon the pirates from their rear, and this is what breaks them. They turn to flee, and you raise your sword in victory.
They meet only a phalanx of Sea Guard spears. Your troops have moved swiftly through the outer defences, and as the pirates waver the back ranks of Sea Guard fire their elfbows through the gaps in the slightly staggered ranks. The pirates are cut down in moments, just as you see a flash of light bright enough to make night into day for a single moment.
Lady Ortiz, you think, has just engaged some pirates.
As the sun crests the horizon, the battle is well and truly won. Your forces have complete control of the Lighthouse and the bay. Casualties were light - only a few unlucky handgunners, who were hit by crossbow bolts. These were just pirates, after all - lightly armed and armoured men who broke upon taking even light casualties without their leaders around to urge them onwards.
There is, however, a problem. Whilst no prisoners were taken from amongst the pirates, it seems they did have a habit of taking prisoners as slaves or hostages. Captain Hochstrasse's men found a large number in a ramshackle building, and you yourself found several inside the lighthouse. These seemed to be the more valuable prisoners, for one reason or another.
Most of them seem to have been kept as manual labourers, working small farms down by the bay under the guard of the pirates, or performing menial tasks in and around the lighthouse. Some of the ones from the lighthouse itself seem to have some value as hostages, and at least one claims to be a Bretonnian noblewoman whose husband would pay dearly for her return.
This leaves you with a dilemma. Whilst capturing the lighthouse intact did allow you to capture the pirate's supplies - and boats - intact, you already have a number of wives, children, hangers-on, and general labourers with you. Many of the freed prisoners want to stay, most being poor locals or sailors.
Allowing them to stay would provide you with a significant boost in civilian population, but the supplies you brought were calculated to last until you could begin growing, fishing, or otherwise producing enough food for the force you brought with you. It would be a gamble that the additional supplies captured and existing infrastructure would offset the greater initial population.
On the matter of the noblewoman, you decide to...
[x] Direct your hawkship to escort her home. This would be the safest and quickest option, but it would tie up your hawkship for some time. -1 (of currently 2) naval actions for the turn, reward ???
[x] Pay for her passage on one of the transports. This is the compromise position between cost to you and safety for her. Cost: 50gc, Reward: Probably lesser.
[x] Ask some of the sailors who wish to leave to return her home with one of the pirate's boats. This may take some time and is not exactly safe. Cost: Free! Reward: Unlikely.
On the matter of the freed prisoners, you decide to...
[x] Allow them to stay. Although it's a risk, with the significant resources captured from the pirates, you believe that it will reward you. Increase in population of Labourers, Farmers, Sailors, with attendant increase in consumption.
[x] Allow them to take some of the boats to return home. No increase in consumption, but reduced loot from the battle.
[x] Drive them out of the Lighthouse settlement. This will also prevent the increase in consumption but may lead to discipline problems with your human mercenaries.
[x] Order an infiltration at night with your eagle knights and Vadac, to allow the Sea Guard and your troops to storm the fortified lighthouse without seriously damaging it.
You secure your dark cloak over your armour as your Hawkship sits at anchor, not far from Tor Sar'than. The night sky is thick with stars, clear and unclouded. A pity, you think. The attack would've been easier with cloud cover, but Eydis's mist will still provide you enough cover. Your ring sits uneasily on your finger, your sword already attached to Galerion's saddle.
His armour has been covered with dark cloth, as has the barding on all the other eagles. Vadac is dressed much as he always is - in a drab patchwork of leather and cloth, all dark enough to blend into the night. His elfbow and arrows were carefully secured for flight, though he'd had to borrow your spare quiver. His would've sent his arrows tumbling out at the slightest aerial manoeuvre.
You'd flown over the lighthouse in the early hours of the morning before your ships were this close. A telescope and your magic were enough to make some basic observations from a safe height.
A band of pirates infested the lighthouse, using the nearby bay to shelter their ramshackle ships. There were quite a few of them, but you hadn't seen any cannon or other fixed defences that might prove a danger to your ships.
You look out at the small fleet and at your knights. The ships are all still on the water, hidden just out of sight of the lighthouse. Small boats have been lowered into the water, full of troops ready to land at your signal. The Sea Guard look at ease, but the human mercenaries all look extremely uncomfortable.
You don't blame them. For those without mistweavers, without ships capable of turning aside cannonballs with their starwood hulls, a directly opposed landing like this one would be dubious at best - suicidal at worst.
"Start the timer, and give us some cover," you ask Eydis as you clamber onto Galerion's back. She nods and turns over a small sand timer on the table next to her. An hour, and the attack will proceed without a call from you, without the assumption that the gates are open.
Then Eydis grasps the winds, all eight held at once and merged into one. She reaches out and weaves them into mist, appearing only a short distance from the lighthouse. By the time your eagles reach it, the defenders will be blinded.
"With me," you order, and Galerion leaps up into the air. Your knights follow, Vadac riding with one. The air is cold, and you are grateful for the scarf wrapped around much of your face. Combined with your cloak, and the other cloth you wear under your armour, you're reasonably warm.
Commanding the approach, DC 75 = 1d100 + 22 (Martial) + 10 (Respect) = 99! + 91 + 22 +10 = 222
Exceeded DC by 125, 5 extra degrees of success, exceeded DC by 100, critical success. Rolled 95-100, critical success.
Gain Trait: Night Fighter: Skilled at night-fighting, you gain a +5 bonus to Prowess and martial checks that take place at night.
Exceeded DC by 125, 5 extra degrees of success, exceeded DC by 100, critical success. Rolled 95-100, critical success.
Gain Trait: Night Fighter: Skilled at night-fighting, you gain a +5 bonus to Prowess and martial checks that take place at night.
The lighthouse is soon in sight, though Eydis's insubstantial mist shrouds it. It is a tall, thin spire of stone, flaring out from a circular base. No fire burns at its peak, nor do mirrors rest there. Crude human construction has sprung up around it, like mould on a chef's masterwork, and in the bay. Several boats and small ships are moored there - a vital thing to seize, if you can manage it.
Two sets of walls defend the settlement - the inner, Elvish wall that defends the lighthouse, and the outer palisade that protects the extra ramshackle construction the pirates have thrown up. Vadac will handle the outer gate, whilst you handle the inner one. Your knights will circle the area, hidden in the mist, and taking shots with their elfbows to support both of you.
Without a word from you, Galerion descends. You fly over the human construction for a moment, and then with a slow, careful deceleration he lands atop the inner wall. You silently unbuckle yourself and slip onto the ground, drawing your sword as you do. Though you often fight from eagleback, you and Galerion work just as well as separate partners.
Your connection to him is deeper than that of your other knights to their eagles. Your magic has allowed you to form a mental bond with him; freeing you of the need for reigns to communicate what you need him to do. Eagles will not throw a rider, and are intelligent beings, but they find the reigns the most trustworthy form of direction in combat.
He takes to the skies once more, ready to assist you if you require it - and to serve as a second pair of eyes, through your bond.
Casting Hush, DC 30 = 1d100 + 25 (Magic) = 87 + 25 = 112
Exceeded DC by 75, 3 extra degrees of success. Overcast three times, all for duration
Exceeded DC by 75, 3 extra degrees of success. Overcast three times, all for duration
You draw on Ulgu, the Wind of Shadows, and drink deeply from the night. You spin it into soft threads around you, preventing any sound from escaping a small radius around you but allowing you to still hear what's going on beyond it. Shadows dance up your form as you do, the gathered shadow-magic shrouding you from view.
The inner gate is some distance away, along the wall, but that's alright - your part in the plan is to open it when Vadac has opened the outer gate. A few guards stand watch on the inner wall, but only a few. They wear quilted armour and helmets - if that. Some wear no armour at all, and most are armed with crossbows rather than expensive pistols.
Taking out the guards, opposed: 1d100 +30 (Prowess) +5 (Eagle Knight of Eatine) +5 (Sword of Hoeth) +5 (Night Fighter) vs 1d100 + 10 (Prowess).
= 79+30+5+5+5 vs 30 + 10,
= 124 vs 40
Exceeded opponent by 75, 3 extra degrees of success.
= 79+30+5+5+5 vs 30 + 10,
= 124 vs 40
Exceeded opponent by 75, 3 extra degrees of success.
You move quickly, now your steps are muffled by Ulgu. Your blade slashes out once, twice, three times and with each swing of the quicksilver-sword a pirate dies. Their screams do not echo out into the night, swallowed up by your spell. You proceed to the old gatehouse, a square building above the inner gate, which is manned by a more serious-looking squad of men.
Each carries a sword or axe, in addition to the crossbows that rest on tables. Most wear helmets and steel breastplates - but they are just as outclassed. You wave your hand and open the door to the gatehouse with a minor cantrip. The men turn to look at you, and you stride forward.
"What is that?!" shouts one.
"A daemon!" shouts another.
You do not give them more time. Before the first man has drawn his sword, you are across the room. Your blow splits one man in half at the waist, and then you dart to the side as you slice the head from a man reaching for a crossbow. Two bear down on you, their weapons drawn, just as the smartest of them reaches his crossbow and fires it at you.
Your blade cuts the bolt from the air in a silver blur and then the two men charging at you are in one swing; the ihtilmar greatsword not caring to stop for flesh or steel.
The last one, the smart one, tries to run. He has not reached the door handle before you are there. With one last thrust, the gatehouse is secured.
Your heart sings at the kill, the confirmation of your superiority. You are no Khaineite, no murder cultist, but this is the blood-pride that lurks in the heart of all elves. Its voice is seductive, its presence inescapable. The bloody-handed god is as true an aspect of your people as Isha the Mother.
A horn sounds, high and clear. Three short blasts. Through Galerion's eyes, you see the inner gate swing open, and your knights swoop down to defend it. Boats row in from the sea, having closed to the shore with the aid of the mist.
You let the silencing spell fade, returning the shadow to the world. The time for silence has come to an end, and now all that remains is battle. You draw on the fires lit for warmth inside the gatehouse, on the ring burning on your finger, and you call on Aqshy. You run your hand up your sword's blade, and fire follows it.
Casting Flaming Sword of Rhuin, DC 80: 1d100 + 25 (Magic) + 10 (Fireheart Ring) + 5 (Minor Fires) = 96! + 20 + 25 + 10 +5 = 156
Exceeded DC by 75, three extra degrees of success. Osydin overcasts three times for duration.
Flaming Sword of Rhuin Mechanics: Add +Magic to Prowess rolls for the duration of the spell, attacks are magical and flaming.
Exceeded DC by 75, three extra degrees of success. Osydin overcasts three times for duration.
Flaming Sword of Rhuin Mechanics: Add +Magic to Prowess rolls for the duration of the spell, attacks are magical and flaming.
It burns white hot, and yet your sword is not harmed. Your gauntleted hands are not burnt by the grip. This fire is yours, and it will serve you.
With one swift kick, you work the ancient mechanism and the inner gates begin to open. Now, now battle calls.
You see the gates flung wide open, Sea-Guard already disembarking and securing the outer gates. Your Eagle Knights fly above the battlefield, supporting Vadac with arrows and swift diving attacks. The Eonir proves his worth in battle too, felling a dozen men with his arrows before the first of your troops arrive.
Fighting your way up the tower, opposed: 1d100 +30 (Prowess) +5 (Eagle Knight of Eatine) +5 (Sword of Hoeth) +5 (Night Fighter) + 25 (Flaming Sword fo Rhuin) vs 1d100 + 10 (Prowess) +20 (Numbers) +10 (Defensive Position).
= 20+30+5+5+5 vs 54+10+20+10
= 65 vs 94
Lost by 25, one extra degree of failure. Ithilmar armour degrades injury three steps. Gain Minor Injury (-5 to next roll)
= 20+30+5+5+5 vs 54+10+20+10
= 65 vs 94
Lost by 25, one extra degree of failure. Ithilmar armour degrades injury three steps. Gain Minor Injury (-5 to next roll)
The first of the pirates to rush from the lighthouse meet you on your way down from the wall. Your flaming sword is a beacon in the night, even through the mist, and they send crossbow bolts flying towards you. Your blade is a whirling orange-white blur in the night, cutting down a half dozen bolts before you reach the pirates.
Then the killing begins. Your burning sword cuts through steel blades and wooden hafts alike, but more and more pirates pour out of the lighthouse. Some are half-dressed, but others seem to have been preparing to relieve other guards and are fully equipped.
One strikes at you with a brutish zweihander, his strikes quick and powerful. This one seems better armoured too, and somewhat skilled for a human. He does not land a hit on you, but neither can you overcome his defence and defend yourself from the other pirates. You cut down a few, but they soon learn to toss in only strikes at your sides or rear when you're distracted.
A few blows slam home against your armour, and you grit your teeth at the brief flash of pain. The dusty ground in front of the inner gates is covered in blood and burning corpses, but slowly you are being pushed backwards.
Fighting your way up the tower, opposed: 1d100 +30 (Prowess) +5 (Eagle Knight of Eatine) +5 (Sword of Hoeth) +5 (Night Fighter) + 25 (Flaming Sword fo Rhuin) -5 (Minor Injury) vs 1d100 + 10 (Prowess) +20 (Numbers) +10 (Defensive Position).
= 75+30+5+5+5-5 vs 12+10+20+10
= 115 vs 52
Exceeded opponent by 50, two extra degrees of success.
= 75+30+5+5+5-5 vs 12+10+20+10
= 115 vs 52
Exceeded opponent by 50, two extra degrees of success.
This pirate may have his band of brigands, but you are not alone. With only a thought, Galerion screams out of the sky. His cry is tremendously loud, and even before his talons cut men to ribbons they turn skyward.
You take advantage of the distraction and strike at the human - who must surely be the leader of these pirates, if his superior skill and equipment is anything to go by. Your first blow pushes him back and chips his greatsword. He attempts to riposte, but now you have the space to slip around his blow and behead him with one whirling cut.
Galerion is merciless in his onslaught, ripping men apart with his beak and slashing them to pieces with his talons. Crossbow bolts pelt him, but all they manage to do is cut through the cloth covering his armour. His shining silver barding now exposed, the Eagle remains undaunted.
You fall upon the pirates from their rear, and this is what breaks them. They turn to flee, and you raise your sword in victory.
They meet only a phalanx of Sea Guard spears. Your troops have moved swiftly through the outer defences, and as the pirates waver the back ranks of Sea Guard fire their elfbows through the gaps in the slightly staggered ranks. The pirates are cut down in moments, just as you see a flash of light bright enough to make night into day for a single moment.
Lady Ortiz, you think, has just engaged some pirates.
As the sun crests the horizon, the battle is well and truly won. Your forces have complete control of the Lighthouse and the bay. Casualties were light - only a few unlucky handgunners, who were hit by crossbow bolts. These were just pirates, after all - lightly armed and armoured men who broke upon taking even light casualties without their leaders around to urge them onwards.
There is, however, a problem. Whilst no prisoners were taken from amongst the pirates, it seems they did have a habit of taking prisoners as slaves or hostages. Captain Hochstrasse's men found a large number in a ramshackle building, and you yourself found several inside the lighthouse. These seemed to be the more valuable prisoners, for one reason or another.
Most of them seem to have been kept as manual labourers, working small farms down by the bay under the guard of the pirates, or performing menial tasks in and around the lighthouse. Some of the ones from the lighthouse itself seem to have some value as hostages, and at least one claims to be a Bretonnian noblewoman whose husband would pay dearly for her return.
This leaves you with a dilemma. Whilst capturing the lighthouse intact did allow you to capture the pirate's supplies - and boats - intact, you already have a number of wives, children, hangers-on, and general labourers with you. Many of the freed prisoners want to stay, most being poor locals or sailors.
Allowing them to stay would provide you with a significant boost in civilian population, but the supplies you brought were calculated to last until you could begin growing, fishing, or otherwise producing enough food for the force you brought with you. It would be a gamble that the additional supplies captured and existing infrastructure would offset the greater initial population.
On the matter of the noblewoman, you decide to...
[x] Direct your hawkship to escort her home. This would be the safest and quickest option, but it would tie up your hawkship for some time. -1 (of currently 2) naval actions for the turn, reward ???
[x] Pay for her passage on one of the transports. This is the compromise position between cost to you and safety for her. Cost: 50gc, Reward: Probably lesser.
[x] Ask some of the sailors who wish to leave to return her home with one of the pirate's boats. This may take some time and is not exactly safe. Cost: Free! Reward: Unlikely.
On the matter of the freed prisoners, you decide to...
[x] Allow them to stay. Although it's a risk, with the significant resources captured from the pirates, you believe that it will reward you. Increase in population of Labourers, Farmers, Sailors, with attendant increase in consumption.
[x] Allow them to take some of the boats to return home. No increase in consumption, but reduced loot from the battle.
[x] Drive them out of the Lighthouse settlement. This will also prevent the increase in consumption but may lead to discipline problems with your human mercenaries.
2250, First Half
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
2250 IC, First Half
Your hawkship might've been small, but to a human, it still should've been impressive. Tales of your people's sea-faring prowess were legend across the Old World and beyond. The starwood hull glittered in the early-morning light, the alabaster-white wood edged with gold. The single sail was emblazoned like a grand banner, an eagle rising above a mountain.
"This... this is the vessel you have chosen for me to return home on?" asks the Bretonnian noblewoman. Her face, assuming your knowledge of human expressions is accurate, looks like she is trying ot pretend she hasn't just been insulted.
"Yes, this is my personal ship. One of the finest ships, and perhaps more importantly, fastest on any of the world's oceans," you say. Internally, you itch to simply throw the woman off the pier and let her swim home... but that would sour relations with her no-doubt very influential husband, and would not be very honourable besides.
"But what about the other one? That grand ship, with the eagle figurehead?" she asks.
"I'm afraid it has already left and was besides the ship of His Majesty, Finubar the Seafarer. I could no more offer you passage on it than you could offer me passage on one of your king's ships," you say, a very reasonable explanation.
"But he is your father, is he not? Surely they would've taken me aboard at your word?" she asks and you try not to groan. That particular misunderstanding had dogged you from one side of the world to the other.
"Please, do not think that I claim any but distant blood relation to His Majesty. If you were to spread such a falsehood, I would be forced to... clarify matters," you say.
The woman, thankfully, stops speaking.
Despite the temporary absence of your hawkship, it was worth it to avoid spending even a moment more in that awful barbarian's company.
The freed prisoners were assembled just past the outer wall the morning after your victory, as your troops began to clear the settlement. Much of it would be retained, but the lighthouse would have to have the offensive human furniture cleaned out. Still, the existing buildings were not enough to house even your forces and so a sea of tents would spring up outside the settlement for now.
A meal had been served to soldier and prisoner alike, and all in all the two groups of humans seemed to be getting along well. A few had left, including a few fishermen who'd requested their boat back. You had returned it on the condition that they offer a group from a village near to their own a ride home, and given them enough supplies.
Now they looked at you, their eyes wide. Fear and wonder in equal measure danced across the faces of the crowd.
"There is much work to do, so I shall be brief. We have won a great victory here, but it is only the first step on a long road. This place was once a beacon in the night, and I intend to make it so again. Those of you who wish to stay will be welcomed among us, given land and shelter. There is a future for you here, and a future for your children. Give me your fealty, and I shall give you a home," you say. Your voice reaches further than is natural thanks to a minor cantrip.
The crowd's answer is a hearty cheer, as the humans raise their mugs of watered-down beer towards you.
Now we come to the first proper turn of A Princess of the Borderlands. Each turn represents 6 months, where you will take a number of actions per category which cost resources, etc.
The major resources are, as follows: Food, Gold, Morale, Manpower, Favour. Others may be tracked (ships, specific building resources, etc) but these resources will show up in every category. The number of actions you gain in a given category is determined by your stat (Stat/10, to be specific) excerpt for Naval, which is determined by your available fleet.
Personal action count is determined by your highest of the three personal attributes (Magic, Prowess, and Peity).
You will begin the game with a significant food defecit and only so large a stockpile. If you want Tor Sar'than (the Elvish name for the old lighthouse) to be successful, then you'll need to provide enough food to feed your population.
Most of the resources are fairly self-explanatory, but Favour may need an explanation. It represents your good graces with Ulthuan generally and Finubar more specifically. If you want more support, you'll need to spend Favour. To get something like two companies of Sea-Guard and an Eagleship, you'd need quite a bit of favour.
You aren't unsupported in terms of ruling - each category of actions has an Advisor that assists you and often acts as a deputy or go-between for you. Their scores are added to your roll
Your current Settlement Sheet (like a character sheet for your settlement) looks like this:
Settlement: Tor Sar'Than
Ruler: Princess Osydin
Advisors:
Further Advisors may be available as your settlement grows.
Settlement Stats:
Population: 991. Consists of 193 Soldiers, 2 Human Notables, 5 Elves + 25 Elf Sailors, 100 Sailors, 300 Farmers, 200 Labourers, 66 Craftspeople, and 100 Children.
Population growth since last turn: N/A
Food: 1200
Food production: 100
Food Consumption: 991
Gold: 1000gc
Income: 50gc + 500gc/turn from the Phoenix King.
Gold Consumption: 400/turn from mercenary wages.
Morale: 200 (Very Good)
Favour: 100
Favour Income: 10/turn
Buildings:
Lighthouse: This ancient Elvish structure remains in good repair. Contains 25 Noble Quarters, 1 Aviary, 1 Armoury, 1 Stable, 1 Sturdy Wall, and 1 Lighthouse. Provides shelter for 25 people and their attendants.
100 Shabby Dwellings: These ramshackle wooden buildings will keep their occupants out of the rain, but not much else. Provides Shelter for 200 People, 400 if overcrowded.
25 Decent Dwellings: These well-made wooden homes are not fancy, but most commoners across the Old World would be grateful for such a home. Provides Shelter for 100 People, 200 if overcrowded.
1 Inn: Although the innkeeper was trampled beneath the hooves of an Estalian destrier, his inn has been taken over by his former slaves. Negates 25 points of morale loss per turn and generates 50 GC. Employs 5 Labourers.
2 Armouries: These buildings safely house and maintain weapons and armour. Supports up to 100 troops per armoury. Employs 10 craftspeople, 20 Labourers.
Small Peirs: These can act as a home port for 25 boats and 3 ships.
Palisade: This wooden palisade provides a moderate defence to the settlement.
25 Small Farms: These farms are worked by one family, and generally produce only limited excess food. Each employs 2 farmers and produces 4 units of food.
Ships:
1 x Elvish hawkship: Your personal vessel, it is equipped with a starwood hull and two forward-firing batteries of bolt-throwers. Requires 25 Elf Sailors. +1 Naval Action.
10 x Small Fishing Boats: These are various small fishing boats, each of slightly different construction. Requires 5 Sailors, produces 25 Food per boat per turn.
2 x Small Captured Merchant Ships: These were once human merchant vessels, but the pirates seemed to have taken them into battle. Only lightly armed, they are reasonably quick. +1 Naval Action per each pair.
---
Choose the listed number of actions from each category. Unless stated otherwise, you may choose the same option twice to add another 1d100 to the roll.
Choose 2 Martial Actions:
[x] Send scouts to look for any sources of the ingredients in gunpowder: Being able to locally produce some would cut the cost of your gunpowder-heavy mercenaries. Part of an action chain to enable a new building.
[x] Train some Labourers as militia: With some discipline, basic equipment, and time you could expand your force. While they would only be lightly armoured spearmen, your mercenaries could train decent troops out of the civilian population without preventing them from holding gainful employment. Converts 50 Labourers to Militia, who act as both Soldiers and Labourers. Will require 25gc/turn for wages and upkeep.
[x] Join your Eagle Knights and hunt some monsters: As wild and untamed as these lands are, it is sure there are monsters of some kind lurking nearby. Slaying them would be welcomed by your farmers especially. Add your Prowess to this roll, as you have Battle-Scale Prowess.
[x] Send some scouts to look for any local ruins: There may be other ruins, Elvish or otherwise, if this lighthouse was built here so long ago.
Choose 2 Naval Actions, 1 locked in:
[x] Protect your fishing boats: If you want to get those fishing boats bringing in fish, they'll need protection in these pirate-ridden waters. Enables you to begin fishing, employing 50 sailors and bringing in 250 Food, but will require an action a turn until the local waters are somewhat safer.
[x] Take the Bretonnian noblewoman home: Whilst very annoying, this woman is married to someone of real power. Return her, and you may be rewarded. LOCKED IN.
[x] Begin basic anti-piracy patrols: Lurk in the nearby waters and hunt down pirates. Requires 50 Soldiers and enough sailors or Elf Sailors to crew the ships used. Will enable you to fish without an action spent protecting your boats.
Choose 2 Diplomatic Actions
[x] Investigate to the North: You've heard rumours that a Bretonnian Exile rules in this direction.
[x] Investigate to the South: You've heard rumours that a sorcerer of some kind has a tower in that direction.
[x] Investigate to the West: You've heard rumours that there's a settlement of Norscans in this direction.
[x] Investigate to the East: You've heard that the island a day's sailing to the east is inhabited - if you could ally or suborn whoever lives there, your anti-piracy efforts would be greatly bolstered.
Choose 1 Stewardship Action. For this first turn, construction options are guided. Later turns will have a list of available buildings, prices, and other stewardship actions.
[x] Begin construction of 50 Decent Dwellings for 100GC.
[x] Begin construction of 50 Shabby Dwellings for 50 GC.
[x] Begin expanding your farms by establishing 100 Small Farms for 200 GC.
[x] Begin expanding your farms by establishing 25 Medium Farms for 500 GC. Each employs 5 farmers but produces 25 Food.
Choose 1 Intrigue Action:
[x] Search the humans for magical potential: Whilst some humans might burn mages, other humans employ them. Whilst Eydis doesn't think they're useful for much, with extended training they might manage some of the more useful cantrips and simple spells - or you could simply keep an eye on them for signs of mutation.
[x] Search the humans for Chaos Cultists: The Ruinious powers present an ever-present danger, and humans are all the more vulnerable to them.
[x] Keep an eye out for scouts, spies, and others: With your dramatic arrival, other Border Princes might begin to investigate you. Always something to keep an eye on.
Choose 3 Personal Actions
[x] Study Magic: Your mastery of magic is but mastery of the beginning. There is always more to learn. Luckily, Eydis is always happy to help.
[x] Study the Blade: It is always wise to keep one's skills sharp.
[x] Search for a Diplomat: Surely, there must be someone among these humans who could act as an emissary for you?
[x] Use Magic to Aid Your Farmers: Both you and Eydis are capable of using Life magic to greatly enhance the yield of farms, though obviously, it would take you especially from other duties. Doubles Farm Output.
[x] Spend time with a notable NPC: Write-in an NPC to spend time with, and possibly gain a skill or trait bonus if a roll is met.
Your hawkship might've been small, but to a human, it still should've been impressive. Tales of your people's sea-faring prowess were legend across the Old World and beyond. The starwood hull glittered in the early-morning light, the alabaster-white wood edged with gold. The single sail was emblazoned like a grand banner, an eagle rising above a mountain.
"This... this is the vessel you have chosen for me to return home on?" asks the Bretonnian noblewoman. Her face, assuming your knowledge of human expressions is accurate, looks like she is trying ot pretend she hasn't just been insulted.
"Yes, this is my personal ship. One of the finest ships, and perhaps more importantly, fastest on any of the world's oceans," you say. Internally, you itch to simply throw the woman off the pier and let her swim home... but that would sour relations with her no-doubt very influential husband, and would not be very honourable besides.
"But what about the other one? That grand ship, with the eagle figurehead?" she asks.
"I'm afraid it has already left and was besides the ship of His Majesty, Finubar the Seafarer. I could no more offer you passage on it than you could offer me passage on one of your king's ships," you say, a very reasonable explanation.
"But he is your father, is he not? Surely they would've taken me aboard at your word?" she asks and you try not to groan. That particular misunderstanding had dogged you from one side of the world to the other.
"Please, do not think that I claim any but distant blood relation to His Majesty. If you were to spread such a falsehood, I would be forced to... clarify matters," you say.
The woman, thankfully, stops speaking.
Despite the temporary absence of your hawkship, it was worth it to avoid spending even a moment more in that awful barbarian's company.
The freed prisoners were assembled just past the outer wall the morning after your victory, as your troops began to clear the settlement. Much of it would be retained, but the lighthouse would have to have the offensive human furniture cleaned out. Still, the existing buildings were not enough to house even your forces and so a sea of tents would spring up outside the settlement for now.
A meal had been served to soldier and prisoner alike, and all in all the two groups of humans seemed to be getting along well. A few had left, including a few fishermen who'd requested their boat back. You had returned it on the condition that they offer a group from a village near to their own a ride home, and given them enough supplies.
Now they looked at you, their eyes wide. Fear and wonder in equal measure danced across the faces of the crowd.
"There is much work to do, so I shall be brief. We have won a great victory here, but it is only the first step on a long road. This place was once a beacon in the night, and I intend to make it so again. Those of you who wish to stay will be welcomed among us, given land and shelter. There is a future for you here, and a future for your children. Give me your fealty, and I shall give you a home," you say. Your voice reaches further than is natural thanks to a minor cantrip.
Convincing the crowd, DC 50. 1d100+20 (Diplomacy) + 10 (Recent Events) = 89+20+10 = 119.
Exceeded DC by 50, tow extra degrees of success.
Exceeded DC by 50, tow extra degrees of success.
The crowd's answer is a hearty cheer, as the humans raise their mugs of watered-down beer towards you.
Now we come to the first proper turn of A Princess of the Borderlands. Each turn represents 6 months, where you will take a number of actions per category which cost resources, etc.
The major resources are, as follows: Food, Gold, Morale, Manpower, Favour. Others may be tracked (ships, specific building resources, etc) but these resources will show up in every category. The number of actions you gain in a given category is determined by your stat (Stat/10, to be specific) excerpt for Naval, which is determined by your available fleet.
Personal action count is determined by your highest of the three personal attributes (Magic, Prowess, and Peity).
You will begin the game with a significant food defecit and only so large a stockpile. If you want Tor Sar'than (the Elvish name for the old lighthouse) to be successful, then you'll need to provide enough food to feed your population.
Most of the resources are fairly self-explanatory, but Favour may need an explanation. It represents your good graces with Ulthuan generally and Finubar more specifically. If you want more support, you'll need to spend Favour. To get something like two companies of Sea-Guard and an Eagleship, you'd need quite a bit of favour.
You aren't unsupported in terms of ruling - each category of actions has an Advisor that assists you and often acts as a deputy or go-between for you. Their scores are added to your roll
Your current Settlement Sheet (like a character sheet for your settlement) looks like this:
Settlement: Tor Sar'Than
Ruler: Princess Osydin
Advisors:
Martial: 22+19 = 41
Favoured Captain: The Lady Ortiz (19 Martial) is a skilled commander, warrior, and priest. As a human noblewoman, she can effectively command the lesser classes despite their cultural differences.
Diplomacy: 20+0 = 20
Diplomat: You currently don't have a Diplomat!
Stewardship: 15+21 = 36
Steward: Captain Heinrich Hochstrasse currently serves as your Steward, as his service in the army of an Elector Count has prepared him well to deal with matters of supplies, numbers, and planning.
Intrigue: 14 + 27 = 41
Spy: Eydis currently serves as your spy (and overall deputy). She is not only very loyal, but she is an extremely capable mage and much better at keeping things quiet than you are.
Further Advisors may be available as your settlement grows.
Settlement Stats:
Population: 991. Consists of 193 Soldiers, 2 Human Notables, 5 Elves + 25 Elf Sailors, 100 Sailors, 300 Farmers, 200 Labourers, 66 Craftspeople, and 100 Children.
50/193 Soldiers.
2/2 Human Notables
5/5 Elves
25/25 Elvish Sailors
0/100 Sailors
50/300 Farmers
25/200 Labourers
10/66 Craftspeople
2/2 Human Notables
5/5 Elves
25/25 Elvish Sailors
0/100 Sailors
50/300 Farmers
25/200 Labourers
10/66 Craftspeople
Population growth since last turn: N/A
Food: 1200
Food production: 100
Food Consumption: 991
Gold: 1000gc
Income: 50gc + 500gc/turn from the Phoenix King.
Gold Consumption: 400/turn from mercenary wages.
Morale: 200 (Very Good)
Favour: 100
Favour Income: 10/turn
Buildings:
Lighthouse: This ancient Elvish structure remains in good repair. Contains 25 Noble Quarters, 1 Aviary, 1 Armoury, 1 Stable, 1 Sturdy Wall, and 1 Lighthouse. Provides shelter for 25 people and their attendants.
100 Shabby Dwellings: These ramshackle wooden buildings will keep their occupants out of the rain, but not much else. Provides Shelter for 200 People, 400 if overcrowded.
25 Decent Dwellings: These well-made wooden homes are not fancy, but most commoners across the Old World would be grateful for such a home. Provides Shelter for 100 People, 200 if overcrowded.
1 Inn: Although the innkeeper was trampled beneath the hooves of an Estalian destrier, his inn has been taken over by his former slaves. Negates 25 points of morale loss per turn and generates 50 GC. Employs 5 Labourers.
2 Armouries: These buildings safely house and maintain weapons and armour. Supports up to 100 troops per armoury. Employs 10 craftspeople, 20 Labourers.
Small Peirs: These can act as a home port for 25 boats and 3 ships.
Palisade: This wooden palisade provides a moderate defence to the settlement.
25 Small Farms: These farms are worked by one family, and generally produce only limited excess food. Each employs 2 farmers and produces 4 units of food.
Ships:
1 x Elvish hawkship: Your personal vessel, it is equipped with a starwood hull and two forward-firing batteries of bolt-throwers. Requires 25 Elf Sailors. +1 Naval Action.
10 x Small Fishing Boats: These are various small fishing boats, each of slightly different construction. Requires 5 Sailors, produces 25 Food per boat per turn.
2 x Small Captured Merchant Ships: These were once human merchant vessels, but the pirates seemed to have taken them into battle. Only lightly armed, they are reasonably quick. +1 Naval Action per each pair.
---
Choose the listed number of actions from each category. Unless stated otherwise, you may choose the same option twice to add another 1d100 to the roll.
Choose 2 Martial Actions:
[x] Send scouts to look for any sources of the ingredients in gunpowder: Being able to locally produce some would cut the cost of your gunpowder-heavy mercenaries. Part of an action chain to enable a new building.
[x] Train some Labourers as militia: With some discipline, basic equipment, and time you could expand your force. While they would only be lightly armoured spearmen, your mercenaries could train decent troops out of the civilian population without preventing them from holding gainful employment. Converts 50 Labourers to Militia, who act as both Soldiers and Labourers. Will require 25gc/turn for wages and upkeep.
[x] Join your Eagle Knights and hunt some monsters: As wild and untamed as these lands are, it is sure there are monsters of some kind lurking nearby. Slaying them would be welcomed by your farmers especially. Add your Prowess to this roll, as you have Battle-Scale Prowess.
[x] Send some scouts to look for any local ruins: There may be other ruins, Elvish or otherwise, if this lighthouse was built here so long ago.
Choose 2 Naval Actions, 1 locked in:
[x] Protect your fishing boats: If you want to get those fishing boats bringing in fish, they'll need protection in these pirate-ridden waters. Enables you to begin fishing, employing 50 sailors and bringing in 250 Food, but will require an action a turn until the local waters are somewhat safer.
[x] Take the Bretonnian noblewoman home: Whilst very annoying, this woman is married to someone of real power. Return her, and you may be rewarded. LOCKED IN.
[x] Begin basic anti-piracy patrols: Lurk in the nearby waters and hunt down pirates. Requires 50 Soldiers and enough sailors or Elf Sailors to crew the ships used. Will enable you to fish without an action spent protecting your boats.
Choose 2 Diplomatic Actions
[x] Investigate to the North: You've heard rumours that a Bretonnian Exile rules in this direction.
[x] Investigate to the South: You've heard rumours that a sorcerer of some kind has a tower in that direction.
[x] Investigate to the West: You've heard rumours that there's a settlement of Norscans in this direction.
[x] Investigate to the East: You've heard that the island a day's sailing to the east is inhabited - if you could ally or suborn whoever lives there, your anti-piracy efforts would be greatly bolstered.
Choose 1 Stewardship Action. For this first turn, construction options are guided. Later turns will have a list of available buildings, prices, and other stewardship actions.
[x] Begin construction of 50 Decent Dwellings for 100GC.
[x] Begin construction of 50 Shabby Dwellings for 50 GC.
[x] Begin expanding your farms by establishing 100 Small Farms for 200 GC.
[x] Begin expanding your farms by establishing 25 Medium Farms for 500 GC. Each employs 5 farmers but produces 25 Food.
Choose 1 Intrigue Action:
[x] Search the humans for magical potential: Whilst some humans might burn mages, other humans employ them. Whilst Eydis doesn't think they're useful for much, with extended training they might manage some of the more useful cantrips and simple spells - or you could simply keep an eye on them for signs of mutation.
[x] Search the humans for Chaos Cultists: The Ruinious powers present an ever-present danger, and humans are all the more vulnerable to them.
[x] Keep an eye out for scouts, spies, and others: With your dramatic arrival, other Border Princes might begin to investigate you. Always something to keep an eye on.
Choose 3 Personal Actions
[x] Study Magic: Your mastery of magic is but mastery of the beginning. There is always more to learn. Luckily, Eydis is always happy to help.
[x] Study the Blade: It is always wise to keep one's skills sharp.
[x] Search for a Diplomat: Surely, there must be someone among these humans who could act as an emissary for you?
[x] Use Magic to Aid Your Farmers: Both you and Eydis are capable of using Life magic to greatly enhance the yield of farms, though obviously, it would take you especially from other duties. Doubles Farm Output.
[x] Spend time with a notable NPC: Write-in an NPC to spend time with, and possibly gain a skill or trait bonus if a roll is met.
2250, First Half Results
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
2250 IC, First Half Results
[x] Join your Eagle Knights and hunt some monsters.
Galerion's cry echoes across the mountainside, and a moment later he is joined by the other eagles. They have spotted your prey. A band of trolls lumbers down the mountain, their greenish-grey skin decorated with looted armour and the skulls of their previous meals formed into macabre necklaces.
With a word of power, you weave atheric fire into the tips of your knight's arrows. They loose a volley from their elfbows, each arrow capable of punching through the weaker sections of full plate. The trolls snarl as the arrows strike at joints and weak points, but the only truly telling blow is the one that sinks into an eye.
That troll tetters backwards, unsteady on his feet. None of the wounds heal, however, and fire licks up their oily skin. Galerion cries again, a hunting call this time, and your knights dive out of the sky. You join them, your sword ablaze.
They angle their dives so they pass just above the trolls, out of their reach but within lance range. All three lances sink home into the brains of the trolls, the knights not trying to retain them in a situation like this. They follow the slope of the mountain downwards and then pull out of their dives.
Galerion does something else. He rolls in mid-air as you approach the trolls and you, secured into your saddle, stand upside down and cleanly behead the fourth troll with one swipe of your burning blade.
A minute later, you land and ensure the fire takes.
[x] Send scouts to look for any sources of the ingredients in gunpowder
Vadac is not familiar with the ingredients for gunpowder, but it takes him only an afternoon with some of the handgunners who had been woodsmen before becoming soldiers to understand what to look for. He, and those handgunners, spend several weeks searching for any signs of them.
They do not locate a suitable source, and two handgunners are slain by a small band of beastmen, but Vadac does confirm that bats live in the area. The source may yet be out there.
[x] Protect your fishing boats
The two converted merchant ships are crewed by some of the sailors and some of Captain Hochtrasse's troops. His engineers manage to get both cannons aboard, thanks to their relatively light weight, which should give the ships enough firepower to see off any of the common pirates in the area.
Most of the freed prisoners who your census classified as 'sailors' are former fishermen, and indeed some of them are returning to their own boats. They eagerly take the chance to return to their former profession with armed guards this time.
With your ships securing the immediate area near your settlement, the fishing boats are able to deliver the expected load of fish each day. As a bonus, your ships sink several pirate boats.
[x] Take the Bretonnian noblewoman home
Your hawkship returns triumphantly a month after it departed, sailing into a harbour that is already a hive of activity. Fishing boats sail out with the dawn, as do their guardships. Your trimaran's sail flutters in the early-morning wind, the symbol of the eagle rising above the mountain visible from quite some distance.
As it docks, you're surprised to see another group of humans disembark. There were around a dozen humans and three horses. Most of the humans were dressed in simple quilted armour with a little chainmail, or in the well-made but simple dresses of a noble's servants. For a moment you were gripped with the fear that the noblewoman ahd for some reason decided to return.
The last human to disembark was not, thankfully, the noblewoman. You squinted a little from your vantage point - you weren't sure if it was a young male or female. Fully grown in height, probably, but certainly very young. They were dressed in the primitive armour of Bretonnia, with a heraldic surcoat consisting of a white unicorn on a field of blue.
Intrigued by this strange arrival, you made your way down to the bay to meet the disembarking party, and to thank your crew. They would've picked up a number of items on the way back - chief amongst them more gunpowder in Estalia or Tilea.
The humans were busy disembarking their luggage, but they all came to a stop as you approached. Some seemed to whisper amongst themselves, but it was low enough that you couldn't make out what they were saying.
"Your Highness, please allow me to present myself. I am Sir Helene Carrard, and my noble father, Baron Cyricus Carrard has asked me to repay his debt to you by my service at arms, in addition to a gift I have brought you," the... woman says. You are still unsure. 'Sir' is a male title, and you were under the vague impression that Bretonnians were one of the bizarre human societies that insisted on a strict division of labour between the sexes.
"I am glad that Baron Carrard has sent me such a gift, though surely sending me one of his fine children is far too generous a gift" you say, thinking that if you do not gender the human before you have worked the situation out you may escape giving offence.
"I am afraid that I may be no gift at all, Your Highness, for I have been sent here on a quest of penance," she says.
"A quest of penance?" you ask. You are only more confused.
"I have perpetuated a lie most foul and must make my amends to the Lady by the completion of a quest! I deceived many and pretended to be a man, and in doing so attained the rank of Knight of the Realm. I had been preparing to rescue my... beloved mother when she arrived safe and sound aboard your ship. So, my noble and just father ordered me to instead aid you, Your Highness," Helene says.
You are very confused.
"Your punishment for pretending to be a knight... is to go on a quest?" you ask.
"No, Your Highness. My crime is that I pretended to be a man. I was made a knight of the realm entirely legitimately. None may doubt the deed that earned me that title," she says.
"Ah, I understand. Well, I am sure you will be able to find much to prove your valour against here in the Border Princes," you say. You still do not understand, but she seems capable enough to have demonstrated sufficient valour at such a young age.
Much more comfortably, Baron Carrad's gift turns out to be a chest full of gold, silks, and other easily portable wealth. Though some of that Cathayan silk looks like it would make excellent casual robes, a part of you wonders. You're not a bad seamstress, certainly better than any of your knights or any of these humans.
Gain Sir Helene Carrad and +200GC.
[x] Investigate to the West
For an introduction, it would make sense to take a suitable honour guard and perhaps some supplies to trade, but for investigation, you take only Vadac. Galerion is capable of bearing the both of you at a far faster pace - turning a week's march into a day's journey.
You get a good look at the nearby countryside as you fly over it. It is hard, perhaps, but there are fertile places here, forests that grow old and strong and verdant meadows. Certainly, it could support far more people than currently inhabit it.
Smoke on the horizon is your first clue as to the Norscan settlement. Galerion dives low and finds a thick bit of woodland to hide in as Vadac dismounts. You and your faithful eagle settle in to rest for a few hours whilst Vadac conducts reconnaissance on foot.
He returns and reports on a large settlement - certainly several thousand inhabitants, and docks capable of supporting a number of longships. He could not see any open signs of Chaos worship - only the more obfuscated Norscan religion.
You take to the air, and pull of the Wind of Shadows to render yourself and Galerion invisible as you overfly the settlement. You draw upon your witchsight, and you can see no pools of Dhar in the settlement.
It is quite sizeable, and you see a well-made wooden palisade on the outer walls and a stone keep at the centre of the settlement, which does not look like Norscan construction. Imperial, perhaps. More importantly, you see non-Norscan ships entering and leaving their docks under their own power.
Perhaps these northmen so far from home would be open to peaceful trade?
[x] Investigate to the East
You stand at the bow of your Hawkship as it sails out to the east. You fishermen have reported some kind of activity out here, but something about their words sets you on edge - thus, you sail out in your hawkship, bolt-throwers loaded and ready.
It is a good thing you did because your sluggish merchant ships would've been sunk by the 'warning' barrage of cannonballs the inhabitants of the island to the east fired off. Your nimble hawkship was able to dodge the fire until it became clear to those firing at you that you were no orcish raider.
There is a large fortified settlement on the island, with well-made walls and a number of cannon - though curiously no warships, only a few merchant ships at their docks. Judging by the architecture and the overabundance of decorative skulls, these people are Sigmarites. Even worse, there seems to be a substantial Dwarf quarter.
After a tense exchange of words at their docks, you learn that the island is ruled by "Baron" Aglim von Wurtmoot, who - reading between the lines - seems to be a fifth or sixth son off to make his fortune in the Border Princes.
With a few quick words and a silk scarf for the Baron's wife, you are able to arrange for a more hospitable visit in the future. Aglim apologies to you for the misunderstanding, and has the gunnery officer who panicked and ordered the attack flogged. Were your ship a part of Ulthuan's official navy, you would've demanded the man's head - and that of his gunnery crew. As it was just your personal ship, you will accept the flogging.
+1 Diplomacy! Gain the trait Signature Look of Superiority: You are skilled at using your status, reputation, and image to impress or convince others. +5 to Diplomacy against your social inferiors.
[x] Begin expanding your farms by establishing 25 Medium Farms
You have more farmers than farms by quite some margin, and so it is a relief that you are able to arrange for enough seeds, tools, and draught animals to begin to establish some more efficient farms. New World crops like corn and potatoes, though long introduced to cosmopolitan places like the Empire, are uncommon in the Border Princes.
Thus, with the seeds and supplies purchased on your way here, you are able to establish far superior farms to the existing ones established by the pirates.
[x] Search the humans for Chaos Cultists
Eydis is quick and efficient in her work to root out worshipers of the Ruinous Powers. Her witchsight allows her to spot Dhar, of course, and she uses spells of shadow to gather information without being seen.
She finds only one cultist, tracking the Dhar pooling around his small home shrine. He is dumped into the bay, his body unrecognisable, by the next dawn.
[x] Search for a Diplomat
You spend some time searching for an emissary or diplomat, but the social customs of the various human groups in your settlement are so complex that you end up needing months to simply map them out, let alone choose one to represent you.
[x] Use Magic to Aid Your Farmers
You walk down the fields of grain, your hand brushing against the stalks. You wear robes of white silk, without so much as a dagger to arm yourself with. You sing a prayer to Isha, and in that song, you weave threads of life magic.
A human priest would use themselves as a conduit for their god's power, denying their own abilities. You forge that connection with Isha, but you use it to strengthen your own power. It is what gives you the strength to walk from dawn to dusk, casting again and again without failure or danger.
You cast spells of life-giving and nurturing, infusing each plant with energy beyond what mere sunlight could give them. As you walk across your settlement's farms, you infuse Isha's love into the very ground.
This may not be the paradise the Old Ones made for the Elves, but you will give these people the barest glimpse of Ulthuan's bounty.
+1 Magic! Gain the trait Blessing of Isha: +5 to Magic when casting Life spells, +10 when casting Light spells against Daemons or other servants of Chaos.
[x] Spend time with a notable NPC: Eydis
You sit atop a cliff some distance from the lighthouse, resting against a lonely tree. Your fine robes and ithilmar armour have been left behind. You wear simple clothing and only a small dagger. The wind blows through your hair, looking as though a fire burns atop your head.
Eydis rests her head against your shoulder. Her eyes are closed, though you know she is awake. It is a warm day, but not too warm. A basket of food sits next to the two of you, mostly eaten.
"It is not so bad, this place," you say.
You try not to think about your home. Your real home, burning with pink and purple fire as you became a kinslayer.
"You've really taken to being in charge of these humans. Some of them even seem to have taken to you," Eydis says.
"They... they are crude, but only in manner. They are worthy of our aid," you say.
"I did not doubt that, my friend. Just that I did not think you would accept so many accidental slights," Eydis says, her mouth twitching into a grin.
"I did think about telling that awful noblewoman to swim home for quite some time," you say.
Eydis only just manages to contain her laughter.
[x] Join your Eagle Knights and hunt some monsters.
Random Encounter, Small: 1d100 = 8.
DC 120: 1d100 + 22 (Osydin's Martial) + 19 (Lady Ortiz's Martial) + 40 (Osydin's Prowess + Modfiers) = 66 + 22 + 19 +40 = 147
Exceeded DC by 25, one extra degree of success
DC 120: 1d100 + 22 (Osydin's Martial) + 19 (Lady Ortiz's Martial) + 40 (Osydin's Prowess + Modfiers) = 66 + 22 + 19 +40 = 147
Exceeded DC by 25, one extra degree of success
Galerion's cry echoes across the mountainside, and a moment later he is joined by the other eagles. They have spotted your prey. A band of trolls lumbers down the mountain, their greenish-grey skin decorated with looted armour and the skulls of their previous meals formed into macabre necklaces.
With a word of power, you weave atheric fire into the tips of your knight's arrows. They loose a volley from their elfbows, each arrow capable of punching through the weaker sections of full plate. The trolls snarl as the arrows strike at joints and weak points, but the only truly telling blow is the one that sinks into an eye.
That troll tetters backwards, unsteady on his feet. None of the wounds heal, however, and fire licks up their oily skin. Galerion cries again, a hunting call this time, and your knights dive out of the sky. You join them, your sword ablaze.
They angle their dives so they pass just above the trolls, out of their reach but within lance range. All three lances sink home into the brains of the trolls, the knights not trying to retain them in a situation like this. They follow the slope of the mountain downwards and then pull out of their dives.
Galerion does something else. He rolls in mid-air as you approach the trolls and you, secured into your saddle, stand upside down and cleanly behead the fourth troll with one swipe of your burning blade.
A minute later, you land and ensure the fire takes.
[x] Send scouts to look for any sources of the ingredients in gunpowder
Random Encounter, Small: 1d100 = 8.
DC 80: 1d100 + 22 (Osydin's Martial) + 19 (Lady Ortiz's Martial) = 12 + 22 + 19 = 53
Failed by 25, one degree of failure. Not enough degrees or a natural 1-5, so not a crit fail. The option is not locked out.
DC 80: 1d100 + 22 (Osydin's Martial) + 19 (Lady Ortiz's Martial) = 12 + 22 + 19 = 53
Failed by 25, one degree of failure. Not enough degrees or a natural 1-5, so not a crit fail. The option is not locked out.
Vadac is not familiar with the ingredients for gunpowder, but it takes him only an afternoon with some of the handgunners who had been woodsmen before becoming soldiers to understand what to look for. He, and those handgunners, spend several weeks searching for any signs of them.
They do not locate a suitable source, and two handgunners are slain by a small band of beastmen, but Vadac does confirm that bats live in the area. The source may yet be out there.
[x] Protect your fishing boats
DC 75: 1d100 + 22 (Osydin's Martial) + 19 (Lady Ortiz's Martial) = 87 + 22 + 19 = 128
Exceeded DC by 50, two extra digress of success.
Exceeded DC by 50, two extra digress of success.
The two converted merchant ships are crewed by some of the sailors and some of Captain Hochtrasse's troops. His engineers manage to get both cannons aboard, thanks to their relatively light weight, which should give the ships enough firepower to see off any of the common pirates in the area.
Most of the freed prisoners who your census classified as 'sailors' are former fishermen, and indeed some of them are returning to their own boats. They eagerly take the chance to return to their former profession with armed guards this time.
With your ships securing the immediate area near your settlement, the fishing boats are able to deliver the expected load of fish each day. As a bonus, your ships sink several pirate boats.
[x] Take the Bretonnian noblewoman home
DC 100: 1d100 + 22 (Osydin's Martial) + 19 (Lady Ortiz's Martial) + 25 (Hawkship) = 96! + 91 + 22 + 19 + 25 = 253
Critical Sucess! Exceeded DC by 150, six extra degrees of success.
Critical Sucess! Exceeded DC by 150, six extra degrees of success.
Your hawkship returns triumphantly a month after it departed, sailing into a harbour that is already a hive of activity. Fishing boats sail out with the dawn, as do their guardships. Your trimaran's sail flutters in the early-morning wind, the symbol of the eagle rising above the mountain visible from quite some distance.
As it docks, you're surprised to see another group of humans disembark. There were around a dozen humans and three horses. Most of the humans were dressed in simple quilted armour with a little chainmail, or in the well-made but simple dresses of a noble's servants. For a moment you were gripped with the fear that the noblewoman ahd for some reason decided to return.
The last human to disembark was not, thankfully, the noblewoman. You squinted a little from your vantage point - you weren't sure if it was a young male or female. Fully grown in height, probably, but certainly very young. They were dressed in the primitive armour of Bretonnia, with a heraldic surcoat consisting of a white unicorn on a field of blue.
Intrigued by this strange arrival, you made your way down to the bay to meet the disembarking party, and to thank your crew. They would've picked up a number of items on the way back - chief amongst them more gunpowder in Estalia or Tilea.
The humans were busy disembarking their luggage, but they all came to a stop as you approached. Some seemed to whisper amongst themselves, but it was low enough that you couldn't make out what they were saying.
"Your Highness, please allow me to present myself. I am Sir Helene Carrard, and my noble father, Baron Cyricus Carrard has asked me to repay his debt to you by my service at arms, in addition to a gift I have brought you," the... woman says. You are still unsure. 'Sir' is a male title, and you were under the vague impression that Bretonnians were one of the bizarre human societies that insisted on a strict division of labour between the sexes.
"I am glad that Baron Carrard has sent me such a gift, though surely sending me one of his fine children is far too generous a gift" you say, thinking that if you do not gender the human before you have worked the situation out you may escape giving offence.
"I am afraid that I may be no gift at all, Your Highness, for I have been sent here on a quest of penance," she says.
"A quest of penance?" you ask. You are only more confused.
"I have perpetuated a lie most foul and must make my amends to the Lady by the completion of a quest! I deceived many and pretended to be a man, and in doing so attained the rank of Knight of the Realm. I had been preparing to rescue my... beloved mother when she arrived safe and sound aboard your ship. So, my noble and just father ordered me to instead aid you, Your Highness," Helene says.
You are very confused.
"Your punishment for pretending to be a knight... is to go on a quest?" you ask.
"No, Your Highness. My crime is that I pretended to be a man. I was made a knight of the realm entirely legitimately. None may doubt the deed that earned me that title," she says.
"Ah, I understand. Well, I am sure you will be able to find much to prove your valour against here in the Border Princes," you say. You still do not understand, but she seems capable enough to have demonstrated sufficient valour at such a young age.
Much more comfortably, Baron Carrad's gift turns out to be a chest full of gold, silks, and other easily portable wealth. Though some of that Cathayan silk looks like it would make excellent casual robes, a part of you wonders. You're not a bad seamstress, certainly better than any of your knights or any of these humans.
Gain Sir Helene Carrad and +200GC.
[x] Investigate to the West
DC 50: 1d100 + 20 (Diplomacy) = 31 +20 = 51
Bare success.
Bare success.
For an introduction, it would make sense to take a suitable honour guard and perhaps some supplies to trade, but for investigation, you take only Vadac. Galerion is capable of bearing the both of you at a far faster pace - turning a week's march into a day's journey.
You get a good look at the nearby countryside as you fly over it. It is hard, perhaps, but there are fertile places here, forests that grow old and strong and verdant meadows. Certainly, it could support far more people than currently inhabit it.
Smoke on the horizon is your first clue as to the Norscan settlement. Galerion dives low and finds a thick bit of woodland to hide in as Vadac dismounts. You and your faithful eagle settle in to rest for a few hours whilst Vadac conducts reconnaissance on foot.
He returns and reports on a large settlement - certainly several thousand inhabitants, and docks capable of supporting a number of longships. He could not see any open signs of Chaos worship - only the more obfuscated Norscan religion.
You take to the air, and pull of the Wind of Shadows to render yourself and Galerion invisible as you overfly the settlement. You draw upon your witchsight, and you can see no pools of Dhar in the settlement.
It is quite sizeable, and you see a well-made wooden palisade on the outer walls and a stone keep at the centre of the settlement, which does not look like Norscan construction. Imperial, perhaps. More importantly, you see non-Norscan ships entering and leaving their docks under their own power.
Perhaps these northmen so far from home would be open to peaceful trade?
[x] Investigate to the East
DC 50: 1d100 + 20 (Diplomacy) = 100!+61+20 = 181
Critical Success! Exceeded DC by 125, 5 extra degrees of success.
Critical Success! Exceeded DC by 125, 5 extra degrees of success.
You stand at the bow of your Hawkship as it sails out to the east. You fishermen have reported some kind of activity out here, but something about their words sets you on edge - thus, you sail out in your hawkship, bolt-throwers loaded and ready.
It is a good thing you did because your sluggish merchant ships would've been sunk by the 'warning' barrage of cannonballs the inhabitants of the island to the east fired off. Your nimble hawkship was able to dodge the fire until it became clear to those firing at you that you were no orcish raider.
There is a large fortified settlement on the island, with well-made walls and a number of cannon - though curiously no warships, only a few merchant ships at their docks. Judging by the architecture and the overabundance of decorative skulls, these people are Sigmarites. Even worse, there seems to be a substantial Dwarf quarter.
After a tense exchange of words at their docks, you learn that the island is ruled by "Baron" Aglim von Wurtmoot, who - reading between the lines - seems to be a fifth or sixth son off to make his fortune in the Border Princes.
With a few quick words and a silk scarf for the Baron's wife, you are able to arrange for a more hospitable visit in the future. Aglim apologies to you for the misunderstanding, and has the gunnery officer who panicked and ordered the attack flogged. Were your ship a part of Ulthuan's official navy, you would've demanded the man's head - and that of his gunnery crew. As it was just your personal ship, you will accept the flogging.
+1 Diplomacy! Gain the trait Signature Look of Superiority: You are skilled at using your status, reputation, and image to impress or convince others. +5 to Diplomacy against your social inferiors.
[x] Begin expanding your farms by establishing 25 Medium Farms
You have more farmers than farms by quite some margin, and so it is a relief that you are able to arrange for enough seeds, tools, and draught animals to begin to establish some more efficient farms. New World crops like corn and potatoes, though long introduced to cosmopolitan places like the Empire, are uncommon in the Border Princes.
Thus, with the seeds and supplies purchased on your way here, you are able to establish far superior farms to the existing ones established by the pirates.
[x] Search the humans for Chaos Cultists
DC 50: 1d100 + 14 (Intrigue) + 27 (Eydis's Intrigue) = 14+14+27 = 55
Bare success.
Bare success.
Eydis is quick and efficient in her work to root out worshipers of the Ruinous Powers. Her witchsight allows her to spot Dhar, of course, and she uses spells of shadow to gather information without being seen.
She finds only one cultist, tracking the Dhar pooling around his small home shrine. He is dumped into the bay, his body unrecognisable, by the next dawn.
[x] Search for a Diplomat
DC 50: 1d100 + 21 (Diplomacy) = 8+21 = 29
Bare Failure. Action is not locked out.
Bare Failure. Action is not locked out.
You spend some time searching for an emissary or diplomat, but the social customs of the various human groups in your settlement are so complex that you end up needing months to simply map them out, let alone choose one to represent you.
[x] Use Magic to Aid Your Farmers
DC 50: 1d100 + 25 (Magic) = 100!+93+25 = 218
Critical Success! Exceeded DC by 175, seven extra degrees of success.
Critical Success! Exceeded DC by 175, seven extra degrees of success.
You walk down the fields of grain, your hand brushing against the stalks. You wear robes of white silk, without so much as a dagger to arm yourself with. You sing a prayer to Isha, and in that song, you weave threads of life magic.
A human priest would use themselves as a conduit for their god's power, denying their own abilities. You forge that connection with Isha, but you use it to strengthen your own power. It is what gives you the strength to walk from dawn to dusk, casting again and again without failure or danger.
You cast spells of life-giving and nurturing, infusing each plant with energy beyond what mere sunlight could give them. As you walk across your settlement's farms, you infuse Isha's love into the very ground.
This may not be the paradise the Old Ones made for the Elves, but you will give these people the barest glimpse of Ulthuan's bounty.
+1 Magic! Gain the trait Blessing of Isha: +5 to Magic when casting Life spells, +10 when casting Light spells against Daemons or other servants of Chaos.
[x] Spend time with a notable NPC: Eydis
You sit atop a cliff some distance from the lighthouse, resting against a lonely tree. Your fine robes and ithilmar armour have been left behind. You wear simple clothing and only a small dagger. The wind blows through your hair, looking as though a fire burns atop your head.
Eydis rests her head against your shoulder. Her eyes are closed, though you know she is awake. It is a warm day, but not too warm. A basket of food sits next to the two of you, mostly eaten.
"It is not so bad, this place," you say.
You try not to think about your home. Your real home, burning with pink and purple fire as you became a kinslayer.
"You've really taken to being in charge of these humans. Some of them even seem to have taken to you," Eydis says.
"They... they are crude, but only in manner. They are worthy of our aid," you say.
"I did not doubt that, my friend. Just that I did not think you would accept so many accidental slights," Eydis says, her mouth twitching into a grin.
"I did think about telling that awful noblewoman to swim home for quite some time," you say.
Eydis only just manages to contain her laughter.
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List of Available Buildings
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
List of Available Buildings
This post lists the buildings that may be constructed with stewardship actions, or that your subjects might build independently. If you have an idea for something that might reasonably be possible in the fantastical early-modern world of Warhammer Fantasy, feel free to make suggestions. New buildings will also be added to this list if unlocked by actions.
Dwellings:
Farms:
Military:
Naval
Economic:
Other:
This post lists the buildings that may be constructed with stewardship actions, or that your subjects might build independently. If you have an idea for something that might reasonably be possible in the fantastical early-modern world of Warhammer Fantasy, feel free to make suggestions. New buildings will also be added to this list if unlocked by actions.
Dwellings:
- Shabby Dwellings: These ramshackle wooden buildings will keep their occupants out of the rain, but not much else. Provides Shelter for 2 People, 4 if overcrowded. Costs 1GC to build.
- Decent Dwellings: These well-made wooden homes are not fancy, but most commoners across the Old World would be grateful for such a home. Provides shelter for 4 people, 8 if overcrowded. Costs 2 GC to build.
- Quality Dwellings: These houses are made from brick, stone, and other high-quality materials. Often containing either a well-todo family and their staff or multiple families, they are the hallmark of a prosperous city. Provides shelter for 2 Nobles and 12 People. Costs 20 GC to build.
- Noble Dwellings: These mansions and estates are sweeping edifices of greed, power, and pride. Capable of housing entire Noble families and their company-strength force of servants, retainers, and guards. Provides shelter for 8 Nobles and 100 People. Costs 200 GC to build.
- Small Farms: These are worked by a single family. They employ 2 farmers and produce 4 food. Costs 2 GC
- Medium Farms: These are worked by multiple families, all of whom pool their efforts. They employ 5 farmers and produce 25 food. Costs 20 GC
- More efficient farming might be unlocked by actions or events.
- Vineyard: These specialised farms transform Food into wine, a valuable commodity. Costs 100 food/turn to operate, but generates 300GC/turn if any trade action is taken, or trade routes are secure enough not to require one. Employs 20 Farmers. costs 100GC to build.
- Armoury: This collection of craftspeople, storage space, and records-keeping can support up to 100 soldiers. Unsupported soldiers cost double in wages. Cost 10GC
- Stable: This includes not only the physical stable but also the horses and workers necessary to keep your mounted troops in mounts. Can support 10 Mounted Troops. Unsupported soldiers cost double in wages. Cost 20GC
- Aviary: This is a place for Great Eagles to live comfortably, and the facilities to maintain their special barding and saddles. Can support 5 Eagles, unsupported troops cost double in wages. Costs 500GC
- Fortified Powder Mill: This complex is separated from your settlement by some distance, for safety reasons, and thus needs its own protection. Inside its walls, it contains all the facilities necessary to produce gunpowder on a large scale. Costs 1000GC, produces 200 Gunpowder/turn, and has an ongoing cost of 50GC/turn. With 1 gunpowder for each troop requiring it, the costs of gunpowder dependant troops are cut in half. Gunpowder may also be sold as a trade good.
- City Walls: No city can truly be considered defended without a set of thick stone walls, built to withstand baleful daemonfire and cannonfire alike. Costs 500gc/1000 population, may be built in segments (creating defended and undefended portions of the settlement.
- Small Piers: These can act as a home port for 25 boats and 3 ships. Costs 150GC
- Medium Piers: These can act as a home port for 200 boats and 12 ships. Costs 500GC.
- Small Boatbuilders Guild: This hub of skilled craftsmen can manufacture 5 fishing boats per turn at a price of 10GC/boat. Excess boats can be sold off to trading partners for 20GC. Costs 200GC. Employs 20 Craftspeople.
- Small Docks: These buildings allow for the rapid unloading and loading of small merchant ships. Allows Minor Trade Actions. Costs 500GC. Employs 20 Labourers.
- Medium Docks: These buildings allow for the rapid unloading and loading of merchant ships. Allows Moderate trade Actions. Costs 1200GC. Employs 200 Labourers.
- Inn: This building offers accommodation, meals, and drinks. It is often a vibrant centre of economic activity. Generates 50GC/turn, costs 200GC to build. Employs 10 Labourers.
- Brewery: This building brews beer, and also represents various distillation efforts. When there is a food surplus, generates 200GC/turn if a suitable trading partner has been found. Costs 500GC to build. Employs 20 labourers.
- Market: This building opens up internal trade, and allows your subjects to sell things to one another much more efficiently. 1 per 1000 People, generates 100GC/turn. Costs 200GC to build.
- Bakeries: These buildings centralise the production and distribution of bread, using better-constructed ovens and more skilled bakers to efficiently transform wheat into bread. Employs 5 Labourers, Produces 20 Food. Costs 20GC.
- Lumber Camp: These buildings are constructed at some distance from your settlement and turn local forests into much more saleable lumber. Given the supernatural resilience of this world's forest, you are unlikely to run out of them. Whilst profitable, these buildings are vulnerable to monsters and other threats. Generates 200GC/turn, costs 400GC to build. Employs 40 labourers.
- Herbalist: Whilst herbalists generally work out of their own homes in human societies, this represents the Elvish practice of constructing specific buildings for public health purposes. Additionally, it also allows enough efficiency that they may spend some time teaching others their art. Employs 5 Herbalists, will convert labourers or farmers to Herbalists at a rate of 1/turn. +20 Bonus to checks to avoid plague or disease if 1 Hebalist is constructed per thousand population. Costs 100GC.
- Temple of Myrmidia: While many gods are worshipped amongst your subjects, the only true priest you know of - the Lady Ortiz - is a devotee of the Southern goddess of war. Employs 5 Priests, converts farmers or labourers to Priests at a rate of 1/turn if not enough exist within the settlement. Supports a force of 5 Warrior-Priests, a specialised form of troop and negates 10 Morale Loss/turn. Costs 500GC.
- Bathhouses: These public bathouses are common across many cultures, and are good for improving public health and morale. Employs 20 Labourers, adds +10 to checks to avoid plagues or disease if one exists for every 1000 population. Costs 100GC.
- Horse Herd: This is a specific sort of grazing land, dedicated to rasing horses for both commercial and military use. Employs 20 Farmers, generates 200 GC, and allows the local recruitment of mounted troops. Costs 400GC.
- Sewage System: This system of below-ground tunnels and pipes was designed in the elven tradition, though adapted for the area and the unskillful nature of human artisans. Still, it will be far more hygienic than your current arrangements. Costs 1000gc/1000 population, if sewer system capacity exceeds the city's population it will result in population growth receiving a 25% bonus (as less of your population dies of disease). You will also gain bonuses on rolls relating to public health, and Nurgle cults will be substantially hindered.
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2250, Second Half
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
2250 IC, Second Half
As we advance further into the quest, more mechanics will be made available. This turn, they include random events and the free construction of buildings. See a list of available buildings under the 'Informational' threadmarks category. Feel free to suggest buildings!
Stat Changes:
Population: 991 to 1100.
+30 Children
+30 Farmers
+30 Labourers
+10 Craftspeople
+9 Sailors
Food: 1200 to 2884
Food Production: 100 to 975
Food Consumption: 991 to 1100
Gold: 800GC to 450GC.
Random Events:
Good or Bad: 1d100, no previous event. 51+ Good: 32
Bad Event: 1d100 = 13
As the winter begins to set in, your farmers start to report that some kind of disease is spreading amongst their crops. Not every crop or every farm, but even with prudent measures to contain the spread, you are looking at a reduced harvest.
Reduce Food income by half this turn.
Choose the listed number of actions from each category. Unless stated otherwise, you may choose the same option twice to add another 1d100 to the roll.
Choose 2 Martial Actions:
[x] Send scouts to look for any sources of the ingredients in gunpowder. Being able to locally produce some would cut the cost of your gunpowder-heavy mercenaries. Part of an action chain to enable a new building.
[x] Train some Labourers as militia: With some discipline, basic equipment, and time you could expand your force. While they would only be lightly armoured spearmen, your mercenaries could train decent troops out of the civilian population without preventing them from holding gainful employment. Converts 50 Labourers to Militia, who act as both Soldiers and Labourers. Will require 25gc/turn for wages and upkeep.
[x] Send some scouts to look for any local ruins: There may be other ruins, Elvish or otherwise, if this lighthouse was built here so long ago.
[x] Scout for pirate bases along the coast: Piracy in the Border Princes is generally a local affair. You might be able to find and attack some of the pirates infesting these waters with ground forces.
Choose 2 Naval Actions:
[x] Protect your fishing boats: If you want to get those fishing boats bringing in fish, they'll need protection in these pirate-ridden waters. Enables you to begin fishing, employing 50 sailors and bringing in 250 Food, but will require an action a turn until the local waters are somewhat safer.
[x] Begin basic anti-piracy patrols: Lurk in the nearby waters and hunt down pirates. Requires 50 Soldiers and enough sailors or Elf Sailors to crew the ships used. Will enable you to fish without an action spent protecting your boats.
[x] Escort trade: Whilst it is generally too dangerous for merchant ships to visit this region, with your troops and Hawkship, you could arrange a trade convoy to Tilea. Sell 500 Food for 500 GC.
Choose 2 Diplomatic Actions
[x] Investigate to the North: You've heard rumours that a Bretonnian Exile rules in this direction.
[x] Investigate to the South: You've heard rumours that a sorcerer of some kind has a tower in that direction.
[x] Launch a Diplomatic Expedition to the Norscans: Take a respectable number of troops and make a peaceful impression on the Norscans to establish that you are not a good target for radiation. Requires two diplomatic actions.
[x] Launch a Diplomatic Expedition to Baron von Wurtmoot: Take your hawkship and a number of notable personages to meet with the good Baron. His island is well situated, and perhaps you can bring him into your sphere of influence.
Choose 1 Stewardship Action.
[x] Construct a Building: Write-in which building and how many of it you want to be constructed. May be selected multiple times.
[x] Begin Enlarging the Piers: You only have so much space for ships and boats to dock at your settlement. You might benefit from enlarging it. Unlocks a new building.
Choose 1 Intrigue Action:
[x] Search the humans for magical potential: Whilst some humans might burn mages, other humans employ them. Whilst Eydis doesn't think they're useful for much, with extended training they might manage some of the more useful cantrips and simple spells - or you could simply keep an eye on them for signs of mutation.
[x] Investigate Another Border Prince: Write-in the faction you would like Eydis to investigate.
[x] Keep an eye out for scouts, spies, and others: With your dramatic arrival, other Border Princes might begin to investigate you. Always something to keep an eye on.
Choose 3 Personal Actions
[x] Study Magic: Your mastery of magic is but mastery of the beginning. There is always more to learn. Luckily, Eydis is always happy to help.
[x] Study the Blade: It is always wise to keep one's skills sharp.
[x] Search for a Diplomat: Surely, there must be someone among these humans who could act as an emissary for you?
[x] Use Magic to Aid Your Farmers: Both you and Eydis are capable of using Life magic to greatly enhance the yield of farms, though obviously, it would take you especially from other duties. Doubles Farm Output.
[x] Spend time with a notable NPC: Write-in an NPC to spend time with, and possibly gain a skill or trait bonus if a roll is met.
As we advance further into the quest, more mechanics will be made available. This turn, they include random events and the free construction of buildings. See a list of available buildings under the 'Informational' threadmarks category. Feel free to suggest buildings!
Stat Changes:
Population: 991 to 1100.
+30 Children
+30 Farmers
+30 Labourers
+10 Craftspeople
+9 Sailors
Food: 1200 to 2884
Food Production: 100 to 975
Food Consumption: 991 to 1100
Gold: 800GC to 450GC.
Random Events:
Good or Bad: 1d100, no previous event. 51+ Good: 32
Bad Event: 1d100 = 13
As the winter begins to set in, your farmers start to report that some kind of disease is spreading amongst their crops. Not every crop or every farm, but even with prudent measures to contain the spread, you are looking at a reduced harvest.
Reduce Food income by half this turn.
Choose the listed number of actions from each category. Unless stated otherwise, you may choose the same option twice to add another 1d100 to the roll.
Choose 2 Martial Actions:
[x] Send scouts to look for any sources of the ingredients in gunpowder. Being able to locally produce some would cut the cost of your gunpowder-heavy mercenaries. Part of an action chain to enable a new building.
[x] Train some Labourers as militia: With some discipline, basic equipment, and time you could expand your force. While they would only be lightly armoured spearmen, your mercenaries could train decent troops out of the civilian population without preventing them from holding gainful employment. Converts 50 Labourers to Militia, who act as both Soldiers and Labourers. Will require 25gc/turn for wages and upkeep.
[x] Send some scouts to look for any local ruins: There may be other ruins, Elvish or otherwise, if this lighthouse was built here so long ago.
[x] Scout for pirate bases along the coast: Piracy in the Border Princes is generally a local affair. You might be able to find and attack some of the pirates infesting these waters with ground forces.
Choose 2 Naval Actions:
[x] Protect your fishing boats: If you want to get those fishing boats bringing in fish, they'll need protection in these pirate-ridden waters. Enables you to begin fishing, employing 50 sailors and bringing in 250 Food, but will require an action a turn until the local waters are somewhat safer.
[x] Begin basic anti-piracy patrols: Lurk in the nearby waters and hunt down pirates. Requires 50 Soldiers and enough sailors or Elf Sailors to crew the ships used. Will enable you to fish without an action spent protecting your boats.
[x] Escort trade: Whilst it is generally too dangerous for merchant ships to visit this region, with your troops and Hawkship, you could arrange a trade convoy to Tilea. Sell 500 Food for 500 GC.
Choose 2 Diplomatic Actions
[x] Investigate to the North: You've heard rumours that a Bretonnian Exile rules in this direction.
[x] Investigate to the South: You've heard rumours that a sorcerer of some kind has a tower in that direction.
[x] Launch a Diplomatic Expedition to the Norscans: Take a respectable number of troops and make a peaceful impression on the Norscans to establish that you are not a good target for radiation. Requires two diplomatic actions.
[x] Launch a Diplomatic Expedition to Baron von Wurtmoot: Take your hawkship and a number of notable personages to meet with the good Baron. His island is well situated, and perhaps you can bring him into your sphere of influence.
Choose 1 Stewardship Action.
[x] Construct a Building: Write-in which building and how many of it you want to be constructed. May be selected multiple times.
[x] Begin Enlarging the Piers: You only have so much space for ships and boats to dock at your settlement. You might benefit from enlarging it. Unlocks a new building.
Choose 1 Intrigue Action:
[x] Search the humans for magical potential: Whilst some humans might burn mages, other humans employ them. Whilst Eydis doesn't think they're useful for much, with extended training they might manage some of the more useful cantrips and simple spells - or you could simply keep an eye on them for signs of mutation.
[x] Investigate Another Border Prince: Write-in the faction you would like Eydis to investigate.
[x] Keep an eye out for scouts, spies, and others: With your dramatic arrival, other Border Princes might begin to investigate you. Always something to keep an eye on.
Choose 3 Personal Actions
[x] Study Magic: Your mastery of magic is but mastery of the beginning. There is always more to learn. Luckily, Eydis is always happy to help.
[x] Study the Blade: It is always wise to keep one's skills sharp.
[x] Search for a Diplomat: Surely, there must be someone among these humans who could act as an emissary for you?
[x] Use Magic to Aid Your Farmers: Both you and Eydis are capable of using Life magic to greatly enhance the yield of farms, though obviously, it would take you especially from other duties. Doubles Farm Output.
[x] Spend time with a notable NPC: Write-in an NPC to spend time with, and possibly gain a skill or trait bonus if a roll is met.
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2250, Second Half Results
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
2250 IC, Second Half Results
Winter sweeps into the Border Princes with a whimper. Here, closer to the equator, there are no snow storms or frozen seas. Though the trees shed their leaves in Autumn, the stark forests and yellowed grasslands are some of the few physical signs of the season. In fact, the temperature is downright pleasant.
Your subjects from Sigmar's Empire seem unnerved by the mild winter, though the others are from nations Southerly enough to experience something similar. Still, with your rapidly growing settlement, you are gaining more and more subjects from the war-torn remnants of that once-great nation. Most sail down the Skull River from Akendorf after passing through Black Fire Pass, with many more passing you on the way to more distant settlements.
With your growing population, one of the most common petitions you've received was that labourers and supplies should be released to build more housing. The overcrowding and tent situation was concerning, certainly, and you authorised your Steward to begin allocating resources towards housing now that the food situation was under control.
The winter and the diseases ravaging parts of your crops were not ideal, but your life magic had given you a significant buffer - as had your prudent investment in more efficient farms.
New Mechanic: Petitions
Petitions are launched by your subjects, notable NPCs, and internal factions if they feel that they have an unmet need. If they're ignored, morale damage and possibly other negative consequences will be inflicted on your settlement. Some Petitions, especially those launched by notable NPCs or more affluent factions, might have rewards attached to success.
With your choice to construct housing this turn, you've successfully completed the first Petition.
Population Growth:
5d20 Children = 58
4 Children Age into... 2 Sailors, 2 Farmers
3d100 Immigration = 139 = 40 labourers, 40 Farmers, 30 Sailors, 20 Craftspeople
[x] Send scouts to look for any sources of the ingredients in gunpowder.
Vadac roams through the forests of bare trees as winter sets in, and after a few weeks worth of effort the Eonir returns to your settlement with numerous locations - there is sufficient bat guano in the nearby caves to establish a significant gunpowder industry.
New Building Unlocked!
[x] Scout for pirate bases along the coast.
Whilst Vadac is out in the woods scouting for bat droppings (a surprisingly vital component of human industry) your Eagle Knights scour the coast for pirate bases. With the vantage point offered by their mounts and the sheer speed of the eagles, they're able to cover far more ground than even your hawkship - and they're able to hide from detection much more easily.
While the major pirate bases seem to be located further from you, there is one minor base nearby. A nest of orcs, using crude boats to swarm merchant ships. Curiously, they do seem to be taking prisoners and loot rather than mindlessly destroying things.
[x] Protect your fishing boats
Your converted merchant ships once more act as guards for your fishing boats, using Captain Hochtrasse's cannons to dominate the waters near your settlement. Your sailors appreciate the safety, and now that they feel secure they're able to spend more time worrying about catching fish rather than dodging pirates.
50 extra food produced this turn!
[x] Begin basic anti-piracy patrols.
Your hawkship lurks in the waters off your settlement and quickly proves herself a menace to all kinds of pirates. It sinks a pair of small human boats on her very day of pirate hunting, and it is manifestly clear that the pirates here are used to dealing with, at worst, human or dwarfish ships.
A hawkship is no over-laden galleon, so slow to turn its mighty broadsides that small ships and boats can often evade or swarm it. It is no dwarfish gunboat, loud and obviously beyond any pirate.
It looks like a small warship. It is a small warship, but pirates do not know that it has a hull of starwood - as tough as metal. They do not know that its "mere bolt-throwers" fire bolts that can cut through the armour of a dwarfish ironclad. They do not know that she is faster than almost anything else afloat, certainly anything with a sail.
So when your hawkship takes advantage of one particularly misty morning, prime hunting conditions for pirates, they foolishly think that there is an opportunity to take the obviously wealth-laden elvish ship for themselves.
Small boats, crude things bristling with spikes and oars, rush forth from the coast towards your hawkship. There is a larger ship out there, somewhere in the mist. Your captain tells you that his crew heard it - a steamship. It hangs back, and so does one of the boats. A very unusual thing for orcs to do, especially ones mighty enough to have stolen a dwarfish ship.
Your hawkship did not deign to fight the orcs on their terms. It turned, the crew calling upon minor wind magics, and kept the boats well out of range of their crude weapons and well within the range of the hawkship's bolt throwers.
Such a conflict could not be called a battle. The only casualty on your side was a new entry on your requisition form to the Royal Fleet for more eagle-claw bolts.
Still, even when his fleet of small boats was massacred, the leader of the orcs did not send his captured steamship in - or, if he was on the boat that hung back, head in himself.
Something is wrong here.
Can now fish without an action.
[x] Investigate to the North.
To the north, across the large bay that your settlement lies at one extreme of, is a castle in fine condition. Your hawkship has passed it from a distance, and several of the crew are excellent with paper and charcoal. It is a relatively small castle, true, and of an older design more common in Bretonnia.
You enjoy the trip out there, the simple routine of working on the hawkship in calm waters a nice escape from attempting to forge your settlement into something more than a band of mercenaries squatting in a ruin.
The day is cloudly, the sky grey and threatening to become much less pleasant for sailing at any moment. As you approach the castle, you see that there is also a small village outside it, and a number of small piers set up in the natural harbour below it. Pennants and flags bearing heraldry of some kind flutter in the wind.
You are not sure what causes you to suspect. Some uncomfortable, prickling sixth sense. Whatever small thing caused it, you open yourself to the Aethyr and look upon the castle with your witchsight.
What you see almost makes you sick. Shadows cling to every surface, casting the entire castle and the village into an unnatural night. You can smell fresh earth and old rot. Dhar saturates the place.
This is the lair of a necromancer... and perhaps, going by the rumour of a Bretonnian exile, a vampire.
Your ship passes the castle, sails angled so that it appears as if you never intended to dock there.
[x] Launch a Diplomatic Expedition to Baron von Wurtmoot.
Thankfully, your reception on Wurtmoot Island (as it's latest ruler had decided to call it) was warmer than the previous time. Your hawkship was entirely unhindered on its journey there, and as your crew secured the ship to the docks, you saw an impressive party waiting for you.
Baron Von Wurtmoot was there, of course, dressed in fine clothing and a small fortune in gold. Even a few of his teeth were golden. A fine sword hung from his hip, long and thin in the fashion of Imperial duelling swords. The hilt bore the mark of a dwarfish smith, and the blade was etched neatly with runes.
Beside him were a number of dignitaries, including what looked to be his wife and children. You assumed they were children, at any rate. They looked young and underdeveloped, but how old they were was a confusing subject. Behind the Baron and his dignitaries were a number of soldiers; clad in full plate and carrying large two-handed swords.
At least, the humans carried swords. A number of this elite guard seemed to be Imperial Dwarfs, and they carried stout poleaxes. You try not to twitch. A few hold flags, bearing the symbols of the von Wurtmoot's and the baron's personal heraldry.
"Your Highness, welcome to my humble island! This ship of yous - why, I have never seen so fine a vessel!" the Baron says.
"I thank you for the compliment, Baron. She has been mine for many years, and I have grown quite fond of her. But you should take pride in your island - certainly, it is a bastion of civilisation in these lands," you say.
"As I am sure your realm is rapidly becoming, Your Highness. We are all terribly grateful for your assistance in containing the pirate menace - why, there are more merchant ships docked at the island now than anybody can remember," the Baron says.
"Perhaps we may be able to work together to that end, Baron."
"Well, certainly, there may be something we can do together..."
The two of you have a long, polite, and reserved conversation over a banquet. The food is human fare, though the baron's cook is a halfling and managed to prepare a few more delicate dishes for you passably. Though you're grateful for the respite, you've eaten across much of the world and enjoy sampling human food from time to time.
Still, Sigmarite cuisine is not your favourite human cuisine. That would have to be Ind but even amongst the Old World, Sigmarite cuisine did not measure up to Betonnia or Tilea.
You do manage to achieve a tentative agreement to work together on anti-piracy patrols, and to allow your warships to operate out of Wurtmoot Island. Additionally, you also manage to open up trade between your two realms - von Wurtmoot's island town requires more food than it can grow or fish, and your life magic means that you should have ample reserves to sell to him.
Gain the ability to trade up to 500 Food per turn to Baron von Wurtmoot for 1gc/food without an action spent.
[x] Construct a Building.
Your settlement is growing, both in population and size. The original palisade was far too small, and so buildings must be built outside of it. This is a temporary weakness, but the only way to house your expanding population. Instead of the cramped, shoddily built buildings preferred by the pirates who'd once lived here, your labourers construct simple but well made houses in carefully planned, wide streets.
Most of the shabby pirate dwellings have been replaced with this new construction, but they mostly seem to have been put back up again further out.
[x] Search the humans for magical potential.
Eydis spends some time each week healing the sick, seeing to new mothers, and the like. Her life magic is an invaluable resource. It is the sort of thing a high noble might not be able to afford. This also allows her to check the humans for magical potential without alerting them to it.
She finds a few adults who might have enough potential to be taught, but they are unlikely to be dangerous. However, amongst the young, she does find a number of promising candidates. Specifically, a teenager strong enough to bother training, and several younger children.
This distribution isn't unexpected, as strong magical potential without training tends to go poorly in human society.
[x] Search for a Diplomat.
Your search for a diplomat would've remained fruitless but for the arrival of the Bretonnian knight, Helene Carrad. Though she strikes you as perhaps too honourable to be a truly excellent diplomat (something you yourself are, though to a lesser degree) she is able to charm and negotiate with nobles better than nay of your other prospects.
So long as you don't do anything to underhanded or at least ask her to do it - she will serve you as a fine diplomat.
New Advisor: Sir Helene Carrad, Diplomacy 20
[x] Use Magic to Aid Your Farmers.
Newcomers to your settlement seem shocked and afraid once they're told of what you're doing out in the fields, but they always come around when they see the size of the harvests your farms generate. Lady Ortiz helps with this too, her religious authority and obvious trust of you setting many at ease.
You were never the best at these sorts of spells when you were learning magic, but now you find them coming easier and easier to you. Not just helping crops grow, either - you heal the sick and the wounded, the Wind of Life an easy companion.
You have known much of war, of blood and death. It sets a part of your soul at ease to be gifted at creation, at healing. It does not clean your hands, not bring back what you have lost... but your soul is a little lighter.
Gain +1 Magic. Gain Progress towards Advancing a Trait! 1d2 = 2, Progress towards advancing Blessing of Isha.
[x] Spend time with a notable NPC: Sir Helene Carrad.
The practice ground in front of the lighthouse is deathly silent. Dozens of mercenaries are there, but all are silent. The sound of an armoured boot stepping forward echoes like the footsteps of a dragon.
It is Helene who steps forward first, her practice sword and shield held ready. Your own practice sword is specially made, replicating the lightness of your Ithilmar sword. Her stance is good, you realise.
She strikes, and you did not think a human capable of such speed. You step out of the way, seeming to give ground. She does not take your bait, stepping backwards - and not into the surely decisive counterblow that would've cleaved her head from her neck in a real bout.
It might be a worthy match after all.
You follow up, shifting your counterblow into an offensive lunge. Helene bats it away with her shield, but your greater height and longer weapon means she cannot punish such overextension.
She is fast, too fast for a purely natural human, but not fast enough to best you. It takes seven exchanges before your practice blade rests just above a gap in her armour, but that is still an enormous length of time.
Her Lady, whatever the enigmatic goddess was, clearly gave her some real power. As the bout ends, you nod towards her.
"Well fought, Sir Carrad," you say.
She beams with excitement and begins to chatter excitedly about the spar. Despite yourself, you find yourself chattering back.
Gain +1 Prowess!
Winter sweeps into the Border Princes with a whimper. Here, closer to the equator, there are no snow storms or frozen seas. Though the trees shed their leaves in Autumn, the stark forests and yellowed grasslands are some of the few physical signs of the season. In fact, the temperature is downright pleasant.
Your subjects from Sigmar's Empire seem unnerved by the mild winter, though the others are from nations Southerly enough to experience something similar. Still, with your rapidly growing settlement, you are gaining more and more subjects from the war-torn remnants of that once-great nation. Most sail down the Skull River from Akendorf after passing through Black Fire Pass, with many more passing you on the way to more distant settlements.
With your growing population, one of the most common petitions you've received was that labourers and supplies should be released to build more housing. The overcrowding and tent situation was concerning, certainly, and you authorised your Steward to begin allocating resources towards housing now that the food situation was under control.
The winter and the diseases ravaging parts of your crops were not ideal, but your life magic had given you a significant buffer - as had your prudent investment in more efficient farms.
New Mechanic: Petitions
Petitions are launched by your subjects, notable NPCs, and internal factions if they feel that they have an unmet need. If they're ignored, morale damage and possibly other negative consequences will be inflicted on your settlement. Some Petitions, especially those launched by notable NPCs or more affluent factions, might have rewards attached to success.
With your choice to construct housing this turn, you've successfully completed the first Petition.
Population Growth:
5d20 Children = 58
4 Children Age into... 2 Sailors, 2 Farmers
3d100 Immigration = 139 = 40 labourers, 40 Farmers, 30 Sailors, 20 Craftspeople
[x] Send scouts to look for any sources of the ingredients in gunpowder.
DC80: 1d100+22+19 = 58+22+19 = 89
Bare Success
Bare Success
Vadac roams through the forests of bare trees as winter sets in, and after a few weeks worth of effort the Eonir returns to your settlement with numerous locations - there is sufficient bat guano in the nearby caves to establish a significant gunpowder industry.
New Building Unlocked!
[x] Scout for pirate bases along the coast.
DC50: 1d100+22+19 = 33+22+19 = 74
Bare Success
Bare Success
Whilst Vadac is out in the woods scouting for bat droppings (a surprisingly vital component of human industry) your Eagle Knights scour the coast for pirate bases. With the vantage point offered by their mounts and the sheer speed of the eagles, they're able to cover far more ground than even your hawkship - and they're able to hide from detection much more easily.
While the major pirate bases seem to be located further from you, there is one minor base nearby. A nest of orcs, using crude boats to swarm merchant ships. Curiously, they do seem to be taking prisoners and loot rather than mindlessly destroying things.
[x] Protect your fishing boats
DC75: 1d100+22+19 = 81+22+19 = 122
Exceeded DC by 25, 1 extra degree of success.
Exceeded DC by 25, 1 extra degree of success.
Your converted merchant ships once more act as guards for your fishing boats, using Captain Hochtrasse's cannons to dominate the waters near your settlement. Your sailors appreciate the safety, and now that they feel secure they're able to spend more time worrying about catching fish rather than dodging pirates.
50 extra food produced this turn!
[x] Begin basic anti-piracy patrols.
Contested Roll: 1d100 + 22 (Osydin's Martial) + 19 (Lady Ortiz's Martial) + 25 (Hawkship) vs 1d100 + 20 (??? Martial) + 10 (???) = 79+22+19+25 vs 14+20+10 = 145 vs 44
Won by 3 degrees of success!
Won by 3 degrees of success!
Your hawkship lurks in the waters off your settlement and quickly proves herself a menace to all kinds of pirates. It sinks a pair of small human boats on her very day of pirate hunting, and it is manifestly clear that the pirates here are used to dealing with, at worst, human or dwarfish ships.
A hawkship is no over-laden galleon, so slow to turn its mighty broadsides that small ships and boats can often evade or swarm it. It is no dwarfish gunboat, loud and obviously beyond any pirate.
It looks like a small warship. It is a small warship, but pirates do not know that it has a hull of starwood - as tough as metal. They do not know that its "mere bolt-throwers" fire bolts that can cut through the armour of a dwarfish ironclad. They do not know that she is faster than almost anything else afloat, certainly anything with a sail.
So when your hawkship takes advantage of one particularly misty morning, prime hunting conditions for pirates, they foolishly think that there is an opportunity to take the obviously wealth-laden elvish ship for themselves.
Small boats, crude things bristling with spikes and oars, rush forth from the coast towards your hawkship. There is a larger ship out there, somewhere in the mist. Your captain tells you that his crew heard it - a steamship. It hangs back, and so does one of the boats. A very unusual thing for orcs to do, especially ones mighty enough to have stolen a dwarfish ship.
Your hawkship did not deign to fight the orcs on their terms. It turned, the crew calling upon minor wind magics, and kept the boats well out of range of their crude weapons and well within the range of the hawkship's bolt throwers.
Such a conflict could not be called a battle. The only casualty on your side was a new entry on your requisition form to the Royal Fleet for more eagle-claw bolts.
Still, even when his fleet of small boats was massacred, the leader of the orcs did not send his captured steamship in - or, if he was on the boat that hung back, head in himself.
Something is wrong here.
Can now fish without an action.
[x] Investigate to the North.
DC50: 1d100+20 = 41+20 = 61
Bare success.
Emergency Witchsight, DC 90: 1d100+26 = 67+26 = 93
Bare success.
Bare success.
Emergency Witchsight, DC 90: 1d100+26 = 67+26 = 93
Bare success.
To the north, across the large bay that your settlement lies at one extreme of, is a castle in fine condition. Your hawkship has passed it from a distance, and several of the crew are excellent with paper and charcoal. It is a relatively small castle, true, and of an older design more common in Bretonnia.
You enjoy the trip out there, the simple routine of working on the hawkship in calm waters a nice escape from attempting to forge your settlement into something more than a band of mercenaries squatting in a ruin.
The day is cloudly, the sky grey and threatening to become much less pleasant for sailing at any moment. As you approach the castle, you see that there is also a small village outside it, and a number of small piers set up in the natural harbour below it. Pennants and flags bearing heraldry of some kind flutter in the wind.
You are not sure what causes you to suspect. Some uncomfortable, prickling sixth sense. Whatever small thing caused it, you open yourself to the Aethyr and look upon the castle with your witchsight.
What you see almost makes you sick. Shadows cling to every surface, casting the entire castle and the village into an unnatural night. You can smell fresh earth and old rot. Dhar saturates the place.
This is the lair of a necromancer... and perhaps, going by the rumour of a Bretonnian exile, a vampire.
Your ship passes the castle, sails angled so that it appears as if you never intended to dock there.
[x] Launch a Diplomatic Expedition to Baron von Wurtmoot.
DC75: 1d100+20 = 81+20 = 101
Exceeded DC by 25, one degree of success.
Exceeded DC by 25, one degree of success.
Thankfully, your reception on Wurtmoot Island (as it's latest ruler had decided to call it) was warmer than the previous time. Your hawkship was entirely unhindered on its journey there, and as your crew secured the ship to the docks, you saw an impressive party waiting for you.
Baron Von Wurtmoot was there, of course, dressed in fine clothing and a small fortune in gold. Even a few of his teeth were golden. A fine sword hung from his hip, long and thin in the fashion of Imperial duelling swords. The hilt bore the mark of a dwarfish smith, and the blade was etched neatly with runes.
Beside him were a number of dignitaries, including what looked to be his wife and children. You assumed they were children, at any rate. They looked young and underdeveloped, but how old they were was a confusing subject. Behind the Baron and his dignitaries were a number of soldiers; clad in full plate and carrying large two-handed swords.
At least, the humans carried swords. A number of this elite guard seemed to be Imperial Dwarfs, and they carried stout poleaxes. You try not to twitch. A few hold flags, bearing the symbols of the von Wurtmoot's and the baron's personal heraldry.
"Your Highness, welcome to my humble island! This ship of yous - why, I have never seen so fine a vessel!" the Baron says.
"I thank you for the compliment, Baron. She has been mine for many years, and I have grown quite fond of her. But you should take pride in your island - certainly, it is a bastion of civilisation in these lands," you say.
"As I am sure your realm is rapidly becoming, Your Highness. We are all terribly grateful for your assistance in containing the pirate menace - why, there are more merchant ships docked at the island now than anybody can remember," the Baron says.
"Perhaps we may be able to work together to that end, Baron."
"Well, certainly, there may be something we can do together..."
The two of you have a long, polite, and reserved conversation over a banquet. The food is human fare, though the baron's cook is a halfling and managed to prepare a few more delicate dishes for you passably. Though you're grateful for the respite, you've eaten across much of the world and enjoy sampling human food from time to time.
Still, Sigmarite cuisine is not your favourite human cuisine. That would have to be Ind but even amongst the Old World, Sigmarite cuisine did not measure up to Betonnia or Tilea.
You do manage to achieve a tentative agreement to work together on anti-piracy patrols, and to allow your warships to operate out of Wurtmoot Island. Additionally, you also manage to open up trade between your two realms - von Wurtmoot's island town requires more food than it can grow or fish, and your life magic means that you should have ample reserves to sell to him.
Gain the ability to trade up to 500 Food per turn to Baron von Wurtmoot for 1gc/food without an action spent.
[x] Construct a Building.
Your settlement is growing, both in population and size. The original palisade was far too small, and so buildings must be built outside of it. This is a temporary weakness, but the only way to house your expanding population. Instead of the cramped, shoddily built buildings preferred by the pirates who'd once lived here, your labourers construct simple but well made houses in carefully planned, wide streets.
Most of the shabby pirate dwellings have been replaced with this new construction, but they mostly seem to have been put back up again further out.
[x] Search the humans for magical potential.
DC70: 1d100+14+27 = 43+14+27 = 74
Bare success.
Bare success.
Eydis spends some time each week healing the sick, seeing to new mothers, and the like. Her life magic is an invaluable resource. It is the sort of thing a high noble might not be able to afford. This also allows her to check the humans for magical potential without alerting them to it.
She finds a few adults who might have enough potential to be taught, but they are unlikely to be dangerous. However, amongst the young, she does find a number of promising candidates. Specifically, a teenager strong enough to bother training, and several younger children.
This distribution isn't unexpected, as strong magical potential without training tends to go poorly in human society.
[x] Search for a Diplomat.
DC50: 1d100+20 = 50+20 = 70
Bare success.
Bare success.
Your search for a diplomat would've remained fruitless but for the arrival of the Bretonnian knight, Helene Carrad. Though she strikes you as perhaps too honourable to be a truly excellent diplomat (something you yourself are, though to a lesser degree) she is able to charm and negotiate with nobles better than nay of your other prospects.
So long as you don't do anything to underhanded or at least ask her to do it - she will serve you as a fine diplomat.
New Advisor: Sir Helene Carrad, Diplomacy 20
[x] Use Magic to Aid Your Farmers.
DC50: 1d100+ 26 (Magic) + 5 (Blessing of Isha) = 96!+70+26+5 = 197
Critical Success! Exceeded DC by 125, 5 extra degrees of success..
Critical Success! Exceeded DC by 125, 5 extra degrees of success..
Newcomers to your settlement seem shocked and afraid once they're told of what you're doing out in the fields, but they always come around when they see the size of the harvests your farms generate. Lady Ortiz helps with this too, her religious authority and obvious trust of you setting many at ease.
You were never the best at these sorts of spells when you were learning magic, but now you find them coming easier and easier to you. Not just helping crops grow, either - you heal the sick and the wounded, the Wind of Life an easy companion.
You have known much of war, of blood and death. It sets a part of your soul at ease to be gifted at creation, at healing. It does not clean your hands, not bring back what you have lost... but your soul is a little lighter.
Gain +1 Magic. Gain Progress towards Advancing a Trait! 1d2 = 2, Progress towards advancing Blessing of Isha.
[x] Spend time with a notable NPC: Sir Helene Carrad.
Opposed Roll: 1d100+ 30 (Prowess) + 5 (Eagle Knight) + 5 (Sword of Hoeth) vs 1d100 + 25 (Helene's Prowess) + 5 (Blessing of the Lady) + 5 (Knight of the Realm) = 59+30+5+5 vs 51+25+5+5 = 99 vs 86
Bare Success!
Bare Success!
The practice ground in front of the lighthouse is deathly silent. Dozens of mercenaries are there, but all are silent. The sound of an armoured boot stepping forward echoes like the footsteps of a dragon.
It is Helene who steps forward first, her practice sword and shield held ready. Your own practice sword is specially made, replicating the lightness of your Ithilmar sword. Her stance is good, you realise.
She strikes, and you did not think a human capable of such speed. You step out of the way, seeming to give ground. She does not take your bait, stepping backwards - and not into the surely decisive counterblow that would've cleaved her head from her neck in a real bout.
It might be a worthy match after all.
You follow up, shifting your counterblow into an offensive lunge. Helene bats it away with her shield, but your greater height and longer weapon means she cannot punish such overextension.
She is fast, too fast for a purely natural human, but not fast enough to best you. It takes seven exchanges before your practice blade rests just above a gap in her armour, but that is still an enormous length of time.
Her Lady, whatever the enigmatic goddess was, clearly gave her some real power. As the bout ends, you nod towards her.
"Well fought, Sir Carrad," you say.
She beams with excitement and begins to chatter excitedly about the spar. Despite yourself, you find yourself chattering back.
Gain +1 Prowess!
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