- Location
- Argentina
Trolls can eat stone I think? They can thrive anywhere.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Trolls can eat stone I think? They can thrive anywhere.
Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
I suppose it could also be as simple as "Karag Mhonar is spooky, and unlike the other Greenskins or Skaven, the Trolls don't have a boss to make them go in anyway."
Although in that case, you'd probably expect at least one or two idiots.
An excerpt from the journals of Soizic d'Karak, a Questing Knight 8
- Location
- Chicago
- Pronouns
- She/They
An excerpt from the journal of Soizic d'Karak, a Questing Knight-
Bittersweet is the taste of endings, oh journal of mine, and if there is a feeling I love less in the world than anxious dread it is the moment victory turns to ash in your hands. Better now do I understand war, and I weep for it. Even the most glorious of campaigns leaves corpses behind, cared for by many or just a few...
The knight crying 'or the corpse of their lover on a battlefield where victory undreampt of was won.
A damsel-tale ending to A Damsel-Tale War.
For what else could it be called, dear diary? There was a call to action by the heroic young King, a journey 'cross wastelands and times of shelter with exotic allies. There was a king besting the Warboss in single combat at the front gates. There were powerful wizards and Noble knights and salt of the earth archers, feats of cunning and bravery, tremendous victories for shining goodness won by deft skill against impossible odds. There was tragic death.
And now, perhaps, an epilogue of my own for this war? This quest has ended with two sapphires in the king's crown, but my next steps are unsure. ...and I realize that I have spent long enough on my feet that the thought of a horse seems distant. Where, dear diary, should Sir Soizic look to quest next? Farther east, perhaps, or south? I miss it, a little, traveling alone or with small caravans under the light of the moon.
But I sleep now under a mountain, far from the moon's sight. And something of me has come to trust in solid rock.
Bah! I ramble. Though I have time- I sit again on the parapet of Und-Uzgar watching the sunset, as I did... Two weeks ago now? Let me write of the last battle of the war, and it's aftermath.
We had assembled in companies late in the morning, and there was a low thrill in the air as I arrived. The dwarves had arranged wagons and were issuing pikes en mass, shining silversteel as old as anything they themselves were carrying. (A pike is not so different in the hand than a lance, though the use is much adapted.) Thousands of pikes, dear diary, enough to equip every human not carrying a bow, so that lack of uniformity that marked us the day before was corrected.
We, as we were told, were the shield. The wolf knights arraying themselves around us were to be the sword. I weep now to recollect it, but my heart was so high at that moment! I was standing proud in the first rank, my company behind me, six thousand shining pikes held rampant.
Sir Oskar rode by in full plate on Rolf, smiling wide and winking at me, helmet tucked under his arm. I say now in all truth there were no wings in this world that could match the flight of my heart in that moment.
The cannon had been discharging even as we had spilled onto the field, and it was only moments after our movement had ceased that the orcs started began theirs. The gates of the fortress groaned open and a flood of muscled bodies discharged, forming into a host before us. These were not as before, no immediate rushed frenzies, but rather they filled the width of our line and prowled forward to test the limits of our bows. There was little fear of our archers in them, and it was then my circumstances sank in for me.
I was in the front rank of an infantry formation. I was facing down a full orcish army, prepared to recieve a charge. Again.
Lady protect and preserve us, by your face light our way in the darkness. Thine be the hand that guides me and guards me, and may I live to taste of your cup.
The orcs found a range they liked and charged. I stepped and crouched, thousands of points falling to form a barrier in front of me.
And then of course the world went mad again!
What more are we to expect of this campaign, where the day before I saw thousands of orcs die to rips in the earth full of fire? Such things are better found in stories from the wars on Chaos than our age. The fortress blew up, a gatehouse bastion blasting off its roof in a roiling cloud of green flame.
And the first volley of arrows fell, with eerie perfection. Dear diary I am more suited to judge archery than I am to understand cannon or magic, and this was a rare pleasure to watch. Each arrow landed in flesh, each orc fell to two or three arrows, and each rank that followed kicked forward bodies and fell in turn. It was like watching a wave run up the beach, the forward edge foaming and falling under as it goes.
And then they hit. Dear diary, when you are in the first rank of a pike formation, they tell you to get low and keep your pike forward as straight as you can- let the ones behind you handle the orcs that get closer. Maintain the hedge of spearpoints, fight at your range, and above all, trust your fellows.
So I struck in the first half-moment, skewering through one completely and forcing the following into files between my pike and those of the men by my hands. The ones behind me struck in the second, some orcs stabbed and others shrugging off glancing hits. Quickly I lost sight of what lay before the point of my pike, and it was all I could do to keep lifting it and levering it back up as the orcs tried to trample over it.
Fifteen heartbeats, perhaps, between the first blood my company drew and the orcs getting close enough that we began to die. It's a very good formation, a pike block- each rank kills as many with their pikes as they can before the points are ground into dirt and the shafts stepped on, and then the rank behind them lowers their pikes a little more. From a distance, the ranks bending forward slowly and getting ground under must resemble rolling a crease through fur.
From no distance at all, it was hell. Six, eight times perhaps? I felt the solid shock down to my rear foot that told me an orc had run full on into my pike. Thirty times perhaps some foot levered it down and I could not prevent it. Twenty-nine times I hauled it back up to threaten again.
But on the thirtyith time it fell, I missed an enemy's approach because I had dropped my head to look. The last stomp had ripped my pike from my hands entirely, and I scrambled in the mud for it. I was low, rear leg straight and my breastplate pressed against my front knee. There was a thicket of pike shafts stretching forward over my back. So when the orc brushed aside the last spearpoints between he and I, and kicked me full in the chest, I did not fly clean over the rank behind me. Instead I was forced up into all those pikes above me, peeling a momentary gap in our protection. Those two men who were on either side of me died to choppas before I finished bouncing off the hafts above me, and the two behind them as orcs exploited the gap even as I landed facedown in the dirt. Rolling desperately on my right side, I drew my dagger- my attacker tried for a stomp to follow up his kick- and then quickly rolled back to my left as he chopped down into the dirt.
I stabbed him in the inner thigh and then he was speared by a friendly pike, but struggle as I might I could not rise above prone. Pike hafts trod opon by the oncoming horde levered cross my back and forced me down, corpses of both sides slumped around me hemmed me in, and rough boots crunched towards my eyes like the blunt molars of some monsterous beast. Doom was at hand, for strain as I might I saw only howling tusks in every face!
Oh but diary, how could I write this now if fate had given no reprieve?
It was as if that massive beast, with crunching teeth of orcboots- it choked, and gagged, and the boots splintered like the teeth of a man hit by a mace.
It was the work of heartbeats for the press on my back to be lifted and friendly hands to haul me up- I rose with my hands on my pike and a song of praise to the Lady on my lips. We thrust forward.
The orcs looked as I have never seen them before, confused and almost bereft, skinnier enough to be noticed. We scythed through them. Straight up the valley we rushed, my pike light in my hands as skills honed on lances proved useful to a runner on foot. Back towards the citadel we drove them down, the ulricans now flowing around around us on their lupine steeds, and not an orc seemed minded to raise their choppas against us.
Straight through the gates! I would have peeled off with my company to take and hold the left tower (for such was our place in the formation drills) but an ill-looking green steam still rose through its broken roof. So we joined with the vanguard in a straight push between the two tall towers. Resistance again grew heavier on the far side, if only for the press of bodies, as others swept the walls and we forced a ring of points round the last pocket. They were pinned 'gainst the gates and squeezed out till we stood or'looking the caldera. It was grim, satisfying, exhuberant work, a step-stab-press of an enemy's funeral waltz.
The bowl of the mountains stretched before us, afternoon sun hanging above Karak Ziflin, and the whole of it was filled with fire. I lingered, for satisfaction rose in me like the smoke twisting below...
I wish I had not. Returning to the battlefield to help carry wounded and finish off wounded enemies, I came across the small group of wolfriders doing the same service for their own, with three bodies draped over the hindquarters of their mounts.
Oh diary, those laughing eyes were full and glazed, his curly black hair lanky with blood. Sir Oskar was dead.
Ten. Only ten lost, of their entire company of wolfriders, and perhaps some hundred and fifty dead in total out of their full thousands of knights. I knew he was brilliant in a fight, had I not watched just the night before as he showed his prowess? Was he not worth six of his brothers in a melee? I refused to believe he would be struck down!
I still find it hard to believe, dear diary. His was the hardest death to take, and it was hard to watch his body go to sacred flame that night. I had known him for not even a day, but so eagerly had I given my heart that I could feel a piece of it burning with him upon his pyre.
His was not the only death. Of my company of three hundred, perhaps two in three survived. We were less hard-hit than most, for I heard the right flank near-crumpled, and entire companies were lost. I have lost both my sergeants and many whose faces I knew better than names.
But victory was ours. That night, we drank, though I lingered at the embers rather than face Oskar's compatriots as they toasted to sucess and light casualties. The next day, the king called us forth to listen one last time, and the pikes we had used the day before stood behind him.
I write now the words that would close this tale if it were told to a little girl falling asleep in her bed, trying desperately to stay awake to hear the finish of the damsel-tale she had demanded:
And the Dwarf King thanked them, and praised them for their steadfastness. They had impressed the dwarves so much that should any of them wish it, they had only to pick up their pikes and the dwarves would welcome them in.
The End.
But it wasn't, was it? Dear diary, I'm still not entirely sure why I joined those who stepped forward that day. Perhaps it was just a stunned need to hold on to something, but it feels as though my fate is yet tied to these mountain peaks.
Codrin and his archers mostly took their money and left, and the Ulricans are setting up a river port on the far side of yon great tunnel. As for us? Well, it's been a mess. The dwarves are all turned fully towards their own efforts at rebuilding even as the silver begins to flow to us in wages. Dame Mathilde appeared long enough to lay out the broad strokes of a plan for our new city before disappearing again, but nobody else had a real rank any more. So it's the few of us with enough scraps of reputation to be known widely who are had to shout down one dim idea after another.
Dear diary, how can such a once-united company such as this fall to petty bickering so quickly? Despite the uncertainty as to who is in charge, we have jobs to do! Or perhaps my Bretonnian background is speaking- this reminds me much of the delicate dance and all-consuming attention to status that ensued with groups of knights unsworn to common cause. But they, at least, could get things done!
I have taken it upon myself to lead patrols and drills, for I know these skills and trust best myself to be out where trouble may be found. That every caravan has an escort, that every escort had a backup and a new scout report as they set out, that no ambushes were set on our supply lines- these are the tasks on which I work, and it has begun to be recognized that between gate and river is my charge.
I was known widely enough for my circumstances and my courage- the Lady Questor they call me when they wish to flatter- that when I called for volunteers that first night I was answered. And then when I returned and called for a second round to follow me out into Death Pass, a pattern was set.
Oswald has taken over the fortification and the quartermasters office, drawing up work rota and patrol assignments, watching over the East gate and serving as the most accessible of this little triumverate we seem to have formed. Everyone, it seems, knows him or knows of him, so it was not hard for him to find a place the person to look for if you had questions.
And Francesco is the one making it all work while Oswald and I cover the duties. There are a million and four petty little things that demand attention and consideration when settling an army. Settle them into a former Dwarfhold heavily reworked by orcs, and the need for plans and projects and judging priority is almost constant. The former caravan master seemed to know how to address them all. One moment he was huddled with the champlains of the army discussing shrines and budgets, the next he was taking delivery of foodstuffs and supervising its storage, next he was out walking the ramparts greeting soldiers, and last I saw him the day before yesterday he was very seriously discussing gong removal and the infrastructure that supports it!
Lady above, I am grateful for those two men. We have taken a fragile authority built on our old ranks and run with it, each taking our own area and reinforcing the others. Francesco became the man to speak to in Karag Nar because Oswald and I said he was to those who asked, Oswald took charge of the east gate because Francesco and I got our answers from him and used his personelle rota, and I was in charge out in the field because Francesco and Oswald told every man they sent with me that I was.
And so I am now Undumgi, and a Knight Captain in my own right, lingering here as I hide under mountains from the gaze of the moon. I know in my heart that my quest will someday lead onwards from these mountains, but I do not wish to rush it. There is so much good to be done here yet, and glory will come, perched out here near the sky at the edge of the world. There are songs with my name in them, which have only begun to be sung outside these peaks. I am in no rush to race my fame back to Bretonnia, or strive to fan it further- que sera sera.
So until wanderlust and a desire to seek for the Lady overcome me again, I shall act as a questing knight should, and hold forth myself honest and honorable, my duty to watch over the lifeblood of a newborn kingdom.
Dear diary, wish me luck.
AN: I didn't realize until I had already written this how much of a distorted echo of Mathidle'd story this last bit with Sir Oskar would turn into, but it is kinda cool to come at it from a different angle. Still, this is not *quite* the end- there's a meet-cute with Hubert coming up!
Bittersweet is the taste of endings, oh journal of mine, and if there is a feeling I love less in the world than anxious dread it is the moment victory turns to ash in your hands. Better now do I understand war, and I weep for it. Even the most glorious of campaigns leaves corpses behind, cared for by many or just a few...
The knight crying 'or the corpse of their lover on a battlefield where victory undreampt of was won.
A damsel-tale ending to A Damsel-Tale War.
For what else could it be called, dear diary? There was a call to action by the heroic young King, a journey 'cross wastelands and times of shelter with exotic allies. There was a king besting the Warboss in single combat at the front gates. There were powerful wizards and Noble knights and salt of the earth archers, feats of cunning and bravery, tremendous victories for shining goodness won by deft skill against impossible odds. There was tragic death.
And now, perhaps, an epilogue of my own for this war? This quest has ended with two sapphires in the king's crown, but my next steps are unsure. ...and I realize that I have spent long enough on my feet that the thought of a horse seems distant. Where, dear diary, should Sir Soizic look to quest next? Farther east, perhaps, or south? I miss it, a little, traveling alone or with small caravans under the light of the moon.
But I sleep now under a mountain, far from the moon's sight. And something of me has come to trust in solid rock.
Bah! I ramble. Though I have time- I sit again on the parapet of Und-Uzgar watching the sunset, as I did... Two weeks ago now? Let me write of the last battle of the war, and it's aftermath.
We had assembled in companies late in the morning, and there was a low thrill in the air as I arrived. The dwarves had arranged wagons and were issuing pikes en mass, shining silversteel as old as anything they themselves were carrying. (A pike is not so different in the hand than a lance, though the use is much adapted.) Thousands of pikes, dear diary, enough to equip every human not carrying a bow, so that lack of uniformity that marked us the day before was corrected.
We, as we were told, were the shield. The wolf knights arraying themselves around us were to be the sword. I weep now to recollect it, but my heart was so high at that moment! I was standing proud in the first rank, my company behind me, six thousand shining pikes held rampant.
Sir Oskar rode by in full plate on Rolf, smiling wide and winking at me, helmet tucked under his arm. I say now in all truth there were no wings in this world that could match the flight of my heart in that moment.
The cannon had been discharging even as we had spilled onto the field, and it was only moments after our movement had ceased that the orcs started began theirs. The gates of the fortress groaned open and a flood of muscled bodies discharged, forming into a host before us. These were not as before, no immediate rushed frenzies, but rather they filled the width of our line and prowled forward to test the limits of our bows. There was little fear of our archers in them, and it was then my circumstances sank in for me.
I was in the front rank of an infantry formation. I was facing down a full orcish army, prepared to recieve a charge. Again.
Lady protect and preserve us, by your face light our way in the darkness. Thine be the hand that guides me and guards me, and may I live to taste of your cup.
The orcs found a range they liked and charged. I stepped and crouched, thousands of points falling to form a barrier in front of me.
And then of course the world went mad again!
What more are we to expect of this campaign, where the day before I saw thousands of orcs die to rips in the earth full of fire? Such things are better found in stories from the wars on Chaos than our age. The fortress blew up, a gatehouse bastion blasting off its roof in a roiling cloud of green flame.
And the first volley of arrows fell, with eerie perfection. Dear diary I am more suited to judge archery than I am to understand cannon or magic, and this was a rare pleasure to watch. Each arrow landed in flesh, each orc fell to two or three arrows, and each rank that followed kicked forward bodies and fell in turn. It was like watching a wave run up the beach, the forward edge foaming and falling under as it goes.
And then they hit. Dear diary, when you are in the first rank of a pike formation, they tell you to get low and keep your pike forward as straight as you can- let the ones behind you handle the orcs that get closer. Maintain the hedge of spearpoints, fight at your range, and above all, trust your fellows.
So I struck in the first half-moment, skewering through one completely and forcing the following into files between my pike and those of the men by my hands. The ones behind me struck in the second, some orcs stabbed and others shrugging off glancing hits. Quickly I lost sight of what lay before the point of my pike, and it was all I could do to keep lifting it and levering it back up as the orcs tried to trample over it.
Fifteen heartbeats, perhaps, between the first blood my company drew and the orcs getting close enough that we began to die. It's a very good formation, a pike block- each rank kills as many with their pikes as they can before the points are ground into dirt and the shafts stepped on, and then the rank behind them lowers their pikes a little more. From a distance, the ranks bending forward slowly and getting ground under must resemble rolling a crease through fur.
From no distance at all, it was hell. Six, eight times perhaps? I felt the solid shock down to my rear foot that told me an orc had run full on into my pike. Thirty times perhaps some foot levered it down and I could not prevent it. Twenty-nine times I hauled it back up to threaten again.
But on the thirtyith time it fell, I missed an enemy's approach because I had dropped my head to look. The last stomp had ripped my pike from my hands entirely, and I scrambled in the mud for it. I was low, rear leg straight and my breastplate pressed against my front knee. There was a thicket of pike shafts stretching forward over my back. So when the orc brushed aside the last spearpoints between he and I, and kicked me full in the chest, I did not fly clean over the rank behind me. Instead I was forced up into all those pikes above me, peeling a momentary gap in our protection. Those two men who were on either side of me died to choppas before I finished bouncing off the hafts above me, and the two behind them as orcs exploited the gap even as I landed facedown in the dirt. Rolling desperately on my right side, I drew my dagger- my attacker tried for a stomp to follow up his kick- and then quickly rolled back to my left as he chopped down into the dirt.
I stabbed him in the inner thigh and then he was speared by a friendly pike, but struggle as I might I could not rise above prone. Pike hafts trod opon by the oncoming horde levered cross my back and forced me down, corpses of both sides slumped around me hemmed me in, and rough boots crunched towards my eyes like the blunt molars of some monsterous beast. Doom was at hand, for strain as I might I saw only howling tusks in every face!
Oh but diary, how could I write this now if fate had given no reprieve?
It was as if that massive beast, with crunching teeth of orcboots- it choked, and gagged, and the boots splintered like the teeth of a man hit by a mace.
It was the work of heartbeats for the press on my back to be lifted and friendly hands to haul me up- I rose with my hands on my pike and a song of praise to the Lady on my lips. We thrust forward.
The orcs looked as I have never seen them before, confused and almost bereft, skinnier enough to be noticed. We scythed through them. Straight up the valley we rushed, my pike light in my hands as skills honed on lances proved useful to a runner on foot. Back towards the citadel we drove them down, the ulricans now flowing around around us on their lupine steeds, and not an orc seemed minded to raise their choppas against us.
Straight through the gates! I would have peeled off with my company to take and hold the left tower (for such was our place in the formation drills) but an ill-looking green steam still rose through its broken roof. So we joined with the vanguard in a straight push between the two tall towers. Resistance again grew heavier on the far side, if only for the press of bodies, as others swept the walls and we forced a ring of points round the last pocket. They were pinned 'gainst the gates and squeezed out till we stood or'looking the caldera. It was grim, satisfying, exhuberant work, a step-stab-press of an enemy's funeral waltz.
The bowl of the mountains stretched before us, afternoon sun hanging above Karak Ziflin, and the whole of it was filled with fire. I lingered, for satisfaction rose in me like the smoke twisting below...
I wish I had not. Returning to the battlefield to help carry wounded and finish off wounded enemies, I came across the small group of wolfriders doing the same service for their own, with three bodies draped over the hindquarters of their mounts.
Oh diary, those laughing eyes were full and glazed, his curly black hair lanky with blood. Sir Oskar was dead.
Ten. Only ten lost, of their entire company of wolfriders, and perhaps some hundred and fifty dead in total out of their full thousands of knights. I knew he was brilliant in a fight, had I not watched just the night before as he showed his prowess? Was he not worth six of his brothers in a melee? I refused to believe he would be struck down!
I still find it hard to believe, dear diary. His was the hardest death to take, and it was hard to watch his body go to sacred flame that night. I had known him for not even a day, but so eagerly had I given my heart that I could feel a piece of it burning with him upon his pyre.
His was not the only death. Of my company of three hundred, perhaps two in three survived. We were less hard-hit than most, for I heard the right flank near-crumpled, and entire companies were lost. I have lost both my sergeants and many whose faces I knew better than names.
But victory was ours. That night, we drank, though I lingered at the embers rather than face Oskar's compatriots as they toasted to sucess and light casualties. The next day, the king called us forth to listen one last time, and the pikes we had used the day before stood behind him.
I write now the words that would close this tale if it were told to a little girl falling asleep in her bed, trying desperately to stay awake to hear the finish of the damsel-tale she had demanded:
And the Dwarf King thanked them, and praised them for their steadfastness. They had impressed the dwarves so much that should any of them wish it, they had only to pick up their pikes and the dwarves would welcome them in.
The End.
But it wasn't, was it? Dear diary, I'm still not entirely sure why I joined those who stepped forward that day. Perhaps it was just a stunned need to hold on to something, but it feels as though my fate is yet tied to these mountain peaks.
Codrin and his archers mostly took their money and left, and the Ulricans are setting up a river port on the far side of yon great tunnel. As for us? Well, it's been a mess. The dwarves are all turned fully towards their own efforts at rebuilding even as the silver begins to flow to us in wages. Dame Mathilde appeared long enough to lay out the broad strokes of a plan for our new city before disappearing again, but nobody else had a real rank any more. So it's the few of us with enough scraps of reputation to be known widely who are had to shout down one dim idea after another.
Dear diary, how can such a once-united company such as this fall to petty bickering so quickly? Despite the uncertainty as to who is in charge, we have jobs to do! Or perhaps my Bretonnian background is speaking- this reminds me much of the delicate dance and all-consuming attention to status that ensued with groups of knights unsworn to common cause. But they, at least, could get things done!
I have taken it upon myself to lead patrols and drills, for I know these skills and trust best myself to be out where trouble may be found. That every caravan has an escort, that every escort had a backup and a new scout report as they set out, that no ambushes were set on our supply lines- these are the tasks on which I work, and it has begun to be recognized that between gate and river is my charge.
I was known widely enough for my circumstances and my courage- the Lady Questor they call me when they wish to flatter- that when I called for volunteers that first night I was answered. And then when I returned and called for a second round to follow me out into Death Pass, a pattern was set.
Oswald has taken over the fortification and the quartermasters office, drawing up work rota and patrol assignments, watching over the East gate and serving as the most accessible of this little triumverate we seem to have formed. Everyone, it seems, knows him or knows of him, so it was not hard for him to find a place the person to look for if you had questions.
And Francesco is the one making it all work while Oswald and I cover the duties. There are a million and four petty little things that demand attention and consideration when settling an army. Settle them into a former Dwarfhold heavily reworked by orcs, and the need for plans and projects and judging priority is almost constant. The former caravan master seemed to know how to address them all. One moment he was huddled with the champlains of the army discussing shrines and budgets, the next he was taking delivery of foodstuffs and supervising its storage, next he was out walking the ramparts greeting soldiers, and last I saw him the day before yesterday he was very seriously discussing gong removal and the infrastructure that supports it!
Lady above, I am grateful for those two men. We have taken a fragile authority built on our old ranks and run with it, each taking our own area and reinforcing the others. Francesco became the man to speak to in Karag Nar because Oswald and I said he was to those who asked, Oswald took charge of the east gate because Francesco and I got our answers from him and used his personelle rota, and I was in charge out in the field because Francesco and Oswald told every man they sent with me that I was.
And so I am now Undumgi, and a Knight Captain in my own right, lingering here as I hide under mountains from the gaze of the moon. I know in my heart that my quest will someday lead onwards from these mountains, but I do not wish to rush it. There is so much good to be done here yet, and glory will come, perched out here near the sky at the edge of the world. There are songs with my name in them, which have only begun to be sung outside these peaks. I am in no rush to race my fame back to Bretonnia, or strive to fan it further- que sera sera.
So until wanderlust and a desire to seek for the Lady overcome me again, I shall act as a questing knight should, and hold forth myself honest and honorable, my duty to watch over the lifeblood of a newborn kingdom.
Dear diary, wish me luck.
AN: I didn't realize until I had already written this how much of a distorted echo of Mathidle'd story this last bit with Sir Oskar would turn into, but it is kinda cool to come at it from a different angle. Still, this is not *quite* the end- there's a meet-cute with Hubert coming up!
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Do trolls livestream?
- Location
- Mexico
NonS
But more seriously:
Potential answers:
A) Something territorial that only eats trolls.
B) Something that doesn't eat, but Trolls can perceive and stay away from, or just fear outright.
C) Biological or chemical agent that causes tortured death, but Trolls are immune to.
D) Any of the others, but there is a secondary "Keep trolls away" defense.
E) Something using the corpses as a "keep away" sign, which would not work on trolls so no sense in adding them.
Bonus: something that does not eat and crushes things, but not so much that trolls can't get up later and stumble away.
Nonsense, we would have found a pile of crushed trolls before the rest got the message.Moderators.
But more seriously:
Potential answers:
A) Something territorial that only eats trolls.
B) Something that doesn't eat, but Trolls can perceive and stay away from, or just fear outright.
C) Biological or chemical agent that causes tortured death, but Trolls are immune to.
D) Any of the others, but there is a secondary "Keep trolls away" defense.
E) Something using the corpses as a "keep away" sign, which would not work on trolls so no sense in adding them.
Bonus: something that does not eat and crushes things, but not so much that trolls can't get up later and stumble away.
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BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ah thank you for reminding me. Yes they can, particularly rock trolls.
- Location
- Argentina
Posting this again. Whatever is in there, it had two different incentives to go fight when we took Karagril.
I can totally see Hungry undead and vengeful dwarven ghosts fit into the fight, but not dwarven golems
Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
Worth remembering that the Dwarf Rangers got very deep into the Karag, and didn't encounter anything, or take any losses, since that presumably would have been talked about.
While it might be a factor of greater stealth than the Greenskins and Skaven probably tossed in, they were still able to enter deep within while most of the other guys died near the entrance. Which implies that whatever's occupying the place might be more positively inclined to the Dwarves, or at least was unsure of them, considering they'd have been new compared to more Goblins or more Skaven.
This also implies that it's not some chemical or biological agent, since the Dwarves would have been affected.
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- Location
- Argentina
Unless it is magical, as dwarves have natural resistance.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Actually, thinking on it, it's got to be something on the Ethereal side of things. The Orcs seem to be outright afraid of whatever it is. If it was just something like a Mournghoul, they could still fight that. Orcs love fighting things, as far as I'm aware, they only don't when they're convinced that they'll definitely die doing it.
So it's something that they have no real capacity to harm. I doubt it's a nerve agent or something; there's no Troll corpses, and the Rangers were fine. So I'm thinking ghosts or something. Something you'd need magic to harm.
So it's something that they have no real capacity to harm. I doubt it's a nerve agent or something; there's no Troll corpses, and the Rangers were fine. So I'm thinking ghosts or something. Something you'd need magic to harm.
- Location
- Canada
Can all trolls do that?
I know rock trolls can, but I don't know about the other types
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
As far as I'm aware, no.
Nagashizzar is only a few valleys away, though.
- Location
- USA
So, has anyone come up with a cool name for our superweapon? I'm not a huge lore buff, so I'll leave it to those who have a better grasp on the setting. However, I'm thinking it should probably have two names, one in Dwarven and one regular, because its foundation is a marriage of Dwarven Runecraft and Wizard magic.
Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
Maybe, but with the greater number of corpses on the outskirts, it'd have to be a pretty powerful plague to kill them fast. And even Dwarves would feel the effects of that much power. They're resistant, not immune. Not to mention a "magical plague that kills everyone who goes in" would probably discourage further expeditions, since they get you nothing. But we still have Greenskins & Skaven parties trying to enter, and some of their bodies actually do get further in.
Not to mention, whatever is in Karag Mhonar had a pretty high chance of coming out during the fight at Karagril and activity in the Caldera. If it was a plague that could do that, the Caldera wouldn't have been covered in Greenskins when the Expedition arrived. In fact, most of Karak Eight Peaks would probably be cleared of life in that case.
@BoneyM As you go further into Karag Mhonar, does the average age of the corpses start to change? Like, are we seeing a lot of recently dead inside the Karag as while as near the edge, or is it all old bodies that deep in?
On the other hand, if it is a magical plague, Mathilde would probably be able to check it out pretty easily with Magesight.
As I understand it, it's now a metaphysical representation of Gazul's blade in the mortal realm. So, probably something related to him.
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Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
mmm why an Aqushy tower?
Surely a Hysh tower would be best?
Or does the Hysh and Uglu interact weirdly?
Surely a Hysh tower would be best?
Or does the Hysh and Uglu interact weirdly?
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Zharrvengryn is the obvious choice. That's the name of the sword of Gazul, the god whose rune blesses it. It literally means "Fiery Vengeance."
Burning Shadows doesn't play well with magical lights. It's better to use Aqshy to create an extremely bright mundane fire very quickly than to try to use a purely magical spotlight.
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Possibly it didn't avoid Dreng's rangers, they just didn't recognize a war golem that didn't activate because dwarves are supposed to be there as anything but a statue?
Kinda threadbare as an excuse, though, I'd expect a golem to be really noticible and worth mentioning even as a rune-covered statue.
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
That may be a little too close a reference though. It's not a dwarf tower after all. It seems a little presumptuous. We can definitely do something based on that but I think copying it may not go over well.
- Location
- United States of America
My personal thought is "Zharrvengryn's Shadow" as that seems to be the name for the flames associated with Gazul.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Unless I'm wrong, an Aqshy Tower makes magical fire that produces non-magical light. A Hysh Tower produces magical light.
Another wind directly interacting with the shadow would be Bad, so you need non-magical light.
- Location
- Australia
Hysh light is magical while the light produced by aqshy fire is non-magical.
NuclearConsensus
Herald of the Thorned One
- Location
- the Philippines
For naming the tower, taking after Zharrvengryn is cool, but what about using one of the other towers in K8P with cool names as reference? I speak, of course, of Und Uzgar, the Tower of Endless Death, namesake of the Undumgi. Given Matty's tower is also built into, or on top of, a mountain, having Und in the name would be fitting.