Studying the leylines here could be a very useful thing then.
Not to mention we might be able to reinforce it further which could weaken Chaos.
The Elves no longer have Dwarven help.
Teclis could probably turn them into a better place for a College of Magic than Altdorf (Altdorf is also a Waystone network nexus, although a less important one). We aren't Teclis though.
As the later iterations of Waystone were a joint project between the elves and dwarves, Kragg might know how to use them, although whether he would or not is very much in question. I think it's unlikely that he would, as the function of Waystones seems pretty similar to how the Rune of Sorcery works, gathering and channeling the Winds of Magic, and we know that rune was lost when Thunder Mountain was destroyed.
Teclis could probably turn them into a better place for a College of Magic than Altdorf (Altdorf is also a Waystone network nexus, although a less important one). We aren't Teclis though.
As the later iterations of Waystone were a joint project between the elves and dwarves, Kragg might know how to use them, although whether he would or not is very much in question. I think it's unlikely that he would, as the function of Waystones seems pretty similar to how the Rune of Sorcery works, gathering and channeling the Winds of Magic, and we know that rune was lost when Thunder Mountain was destroyed.
Was Thunder mountain destroyed? because Im pretty sure we were there, it's where the Dragon ogres were.
Also I'm pretty sure that Ruin is on all the Anvils of Doom.
[*] Plan to secure the East Valley by scouting Karag Nar with Ulthar's Rangers.
The Grand Avenue and its unknowns concern you, but in the end it's Karag Nar that seizes your attention. You can too easily picture King Belegar and Clan Angrund ending up cut off from the world and restricted to a tiny dead-end of the Karak and spending decades locked in a glorious but ultimately pointless battle of attrition against all comers. Karag Nar would join up the Expedition's holdings and secure domination over Death Pass, or at least the portion of it required to link up to the tunnels back to Barak Varr. Ulthar's Rangers are split three ways, and you wait patiently as he gives his final orders to the scouts heading to Karagril and the Citadel. While you wait, you go over what little you know of Karag Nar.
While the majority of the Karak's most important locations are located in Karag Lhune or Karag Zilfin, none of the mountains were left untouched during the Dwarven Golden Age. Karag Nar was the nexus point for some of the Karak's most important neighbours - the long-isolated Karak Azul and the now-fallen Karak Izril via the Underways, and a popular detour on the Old Silk Road back when it was just the Silk Road. It once contained embassies, taverns, hostels, bunkhouses, markets, all the accommodations required to make visitors welcome - not just Dwarves, but Elves too, and even men - not the ancestors of the Empire, but the Nehekharans who had not yet been transformed by the terrible power of Necromancy.
Of course, the Dwarven Golden Age came to an end with the War of Vengeance and the Time of Woes, and Karag Nar fell into disuse, and long before the Karak came under siege it was already sealing up more and more parts of Karag Nar to wait for better days. These weren't the great and terrible defences that Kragg defused in Karag Lhune - these were meant merely to preserve, and had no defences against greenskin shamans or Skaven sorcerers. So when war came, Karag Nar was undefended, but at the same time there was nothing there to defend. It quickly filled with cowardly Goblins and escaped Skavenslaves who squabbled back and forth for scraps before being occasionally purged whenever the Dwarves noticed them, only for it to fill up anew.
But that was three thousand years ago. Who knows what had been made of it since then?
Finally, Ulthar joins you and you put your heads together to contemplate your approaches. Out of pride more than any real need, you shape Ulgu into the form of its newest spell, and a model of the mountain appears between you for known entryways to be pointed out. There's not enough known factors for any plans to be even slightly effective, so all there is to do is entertain yourselves with a few wild guesses and then throw a handful of scouts at the place and hope for the best. It's decided that the three entrances closest to the East Gates will be scouted by Rangers, where there's more likely to be resistance and then they can fall back to friendly forces and turn it into a reconnaissance in force. You have the entrance on the north-west face of Karag Nar, far away from suspicion but even further from assistance.
---
You're not sure how the Rangers discovered this entrance. Far from the wide-open hallways of Dwarven construction, this one is a fissure that either opened naturally or was dug out by someone a great deal smaller than you, and requires squeezing through a gap so narrow that you have to take your sheath off and push it through first. It opens up eventually, and several natural chambers lead into one another before it suddenly drops into a section of now-familiar Dwarf-carved corridor, albeit one that has suffered the ravages of time worse than any you'd seen previously.
You're fortunate to be able to 'see' at all, the minute traces of dormant Ulgu visible only because there's nothing else to sense. You could always summon your own illumination but that would make it significantly more difficult to sneak around, so you make do as best you can with slow, careful footsteps and straining your eyes and ears for any trace of light or noise.
It's rarely good when you begin to hear eldritch chanting in the distance, and that goes double for your present circumstances, but at least it gives you a direction to go in. Your corridor eventually feeds into ones lit by crude torches, and you take some time to let your eyes re-adapt before you press onwards, darting between patches of darkness. Your ears eventually lead you to a cavern, and you take a glimpse inside before ducking back into the corridor, careful not to silhouette yourself for those inside. Greenskin temple, you register. Nothing you haven't seen before. A single idol rather than the usual two, which is strange. Perhaps there's another temple nearby for the other one? Or perhaps this is some form of greenskin heresy? Black Orc attendants, strangely. Black Orcs are always worrying, but you don't think you've ever heard of a Black Orc Shaman, and greenskins tend to consider magical aptitude and religious authority to be one and the same. Maybe it's just that Black Orcs are rare and Shaman are also rare, so the combination is practically unheard of?
Another glimpse to do a headcount and note which seem festooned with religious paraphernalia and which might just be visitors, and you carefully reverse your steps and begin building up your mental map of the Karag.
---
[Scouting: Intrigue, 95+17=112.]
It all comes together after you discover the central staircase that links most of the Karag in a sort of diagonal hallway. At what must be ground level it branches off to an exit that surrendered to gravity centuries ago, but a cluster of Black Orcs standing guard draws your attention. There seem to be a lookout out of sight reporting what he can see, and a constant murmured argument keeps devolving into violence as they measure their desire to raid the Expedition's supply lines against their orders not to reveal the entrance. You slip away from there to follow the stairs even further to confirm your hunch that it connects up to the Underway, and you spend some time staring into the darkness that could conceal a handful of Ulrican Knights and their steeds, or a squad of probing Dwarven miners, or any amount of Skaven assassins. You eventually decide against trying to contact them and turn back into the Karag to continue your scouting.
An unwise Orc of the regular green variety gives away his position with a constant litany of muttered complaints, and you resist the urge to dispatch him and instead get close enough to confirm his tattoos - definitely Broken Toof, the same Tribe that controls the Citadel. You let him continue on his way ignorant of how close he came to death, and move further up the Karag. Many rooms are empty but the collected belongings in them indicate that this place would normally be much closer to filled with greenskins - ones that fell at the East Gate? Or ones that are currently at the Citadel, cut off from Karag Nar by the Demigryphs? No way to tell. At least not without interrogating a greenskin, and you're not sure you could do so quietly enough, and though the Karag is underpopulated there's still at least hundreds, possibly thousands of them scattered throughout the Karag. Another nexus of activity is around a blacksmith, where a Black Orc bellows orders at a swarm of terrified Goblins, and you take a moment to consider an enormous stack of freshly-cut wood. You're pretty sure the nearest trees would be in the Caldera or outside the Karak completely, so this seems to be a concerning amount of logistics for greenskins. Such is the danger of Black Orcs, you suppose.
[Scouting the top: Intrigue, 79+17=96.]
The final discovery you make is at the very top of the staircase, where the broad stairway narrows to a single double-doorway. Two heavily armoured Black Orcs stand guard, but one is currently snoring and a careful prod from Sleep has the other follow suit. The influence of Sleep fades in less than a minute, but you trust that the Orc would consider his nap to be natural rather than induced, and no alarm is raised as you slip past their watch and into the only room lit by sunlight in the entire Karag. Windows line all four walls, shutters long since rotted away or torn down, and sunlight streams freely in. The floor was once decorated with an enormous mural, tiny chips of faded paint hinting at a design now lost to time, but here and there is a socket that you're sure once held a precious jewel of some sort. You can picture long-dead greenskins ignoring the art in favour of prying at shiny stones with crude blades, and then some leader deciding this place was as good as any to keep their ill-gotten loot. In the center of the room jewels were piled, and then gold coins and silver ingots, and a thousand other pieces of ill-gotten loot stolen from a thousand victims. Have the local greenskins been fighting back and forth for these riches for the past three thousand years, or have they been adding to them, preying on merchants who have decided to try their luck with Death Pass for the obscene profits that a successful caravan from Ind promised?
Beside the Hoard, a pile of fabrics had once been piled for a Boss to sleep upon, and after they had rotted away to nothing other materials were substituted, uncured furs and half-rotted leaves only bearable because of the constant breeze blowing through. A bosspole, a pile of skulls that must be Skaven, and the ribcage of what you guess to be a wyvern are the only other decorations in the room. If the Boss had fallen in battle, you reason, then this would all have been claimed by a number of successors, and the treasures would have been divided up by the claimants and scattered throughout the hold until someone arose vicious enough to destroy their rivals and concentrate the wealth again. Changing hands by violence hundreds or thousands of times over the years, never spent as the greenskins had no concept of currency that wasn't pried from someone's jaw, fought over simply because it was shiny and thus they wanted it.
And, you consider as you stare at it, the cycle of violence isn't certain to stop. The silver in the King's Armoury had been simple enough - it was locked back up and put under guard and that was the end of it. This sprawling pile that thousands of men and possibly even some Dwarves out there were dreaming of at this very moment? The second they realized it existed, it would be a mad scramble and in all likelihood a free-for-all of murder. This discovery could very well be more trouble than it was worth.
You have no trouble slipping out, as both guards were now snoring - apparently the one you had previously ensorcelled woke up from his enforced nap and decided that he liked the idea. The Karag remains as quiet as when you entered, and you consider the half-collapsed main exit as you pass it...
[Considering the Front Door: Intrigue, 11+17=28.]
But you can't see a way to slip past the pack of greenskins guarding it, not without risking giving away your presence here. So you reverse your steps and make your way out of the mountain once more, and ride your Shadowhorse back to report your findings.
---
[Clan Huzkul and the Path to Und-Uzgar: 46+10=56.]
"First thing's first," says King Belegar. "The path to Und-Uzgar. We've found where it was, but it's completely caved in. Clan Huzkul Miners will be re-establishing it. They estimate two weeks."
He gives the nod to you; Karag Nar was the first choice for the next conquest, and that you'd insisted on complete security for this meeting had sparked his curiosity. You'd been preparing the model on your MAP for the past half hour, and the rest of the Council leans in to consider it - except Kragg, who stares at the magical construct like an unexpected cockroach he had just found floating in his ale. "Karag Nar seems to be the home base for the Broken Toof Tribe, and it's currently mostly empty - either because of casualties from the East Gate or because we cut off the greenskins at the Citadel from it. There's three major features - the Temple to a greenskin God, singular, though I couldn't tell which, a seemingly well-stocked blacksmith-" you pause as every Dwarf present makes their thoughts on Grobi craftsmanship known "-or, yes, as close as they can get to it. And at the peak, the Warboss' lair - and his Hoard of shiny stuff."
"When you say Hoard," King Belegar prompts.
"Four, maybe five wagonloads." There's a low whistle, and pleased grins from Skaroki and Durin, but the concern you feel is mirrored on Codrin's face and King Belegar doesn't look too pleased either. One by one, realization hits everyone at the table, and ten troubled stares intersect at the room atop Karag Nar. "The entire Karag seems built to draw attention to this room, which is probably why the Warboss chose it. Its doorway is visible from most of the central staircase."
Finally King Belegar breaks the silence. "Ulthar, your report?"
"The Rangers in Karag Nar managed to scout most of it, and their reports match Mathilde's. One of the side entrances appears unknown to the Grobi, and is entirely undefended. A force that slips through there could ambush the defenders of the other entrances, and from there we could sweep through the entire Karag." He looks down at his notes, frowning. "Unfortunately, the Citadel was trickier. I'd assumed that there was simply a ridiculous amount of sentries, but from what Mathilde's said I'm now thinking that it's hugely overpopulated so there's just more eyes to see anyone trying to approach. They're well-stocked with bows and arrows - and with thrown rocks, which are no joke with that sort of height advantage. Finally, Karagril - there's Boss Poles on display and plenty of Grobi movement, but we couldn't get close enough to confirm their tribe. Orcs on guard, so they're not Crooked Moon."
"That's something," King Belegar says, "but I'd like to know whether they're more bloody Broken Toof. Skaroki?"
[Scouting the Underway: 80+10=90.]
[How bad is it: 68.]
"Found it," he reports. "It comes up further back than we expected, outside the East Gates. Three weeks to excavate, half that if we throw every Dwarf with a pick at it."
"Any branches?"
"One that looks like it goes into Karag Nar-"
"It does," you confirm.
"-and another that goes towards Kvinn-Wyr, looping southwards of the Sentinels. And one that heads southeast, I assume to Karak Azul."
"Viable," King Belegar mutters. "Speaking of Kvinn-Wyr. Marshal Muggins?"
[Scouting Kvinn-Wyr: 76+15=91.]
With some effort, Titus hauls a sack onto the table. The opening slips open, and the unmistakable sight - and smell - of a Troll's head greets you. "Trolls," he says helpfully.
"The entire mountain?"
"Yep. One big ecosystem. Huge underground cistern full of river trolls, rock trolls in the middle, huge chunk of wyrdstone near the top that the trolls all fight over who gets to be closest to and slobber over. The winners end up weird."
King Belegar wrinkles his nose, closes his eyes, and sighs. Then he reopens them and turns. "Grand Master Wulfhart?"
[Scouting the Underway: 67+15=82.]
"Rats," he reports. "My men sketched their banner for Alriksson and he called them Clan Mors. Their banners mark the area under the Caldera, but the Underway itself is uncontrolled under Karagril and filled with plenty of mauled ratmen corpses, and only a very few dead greenskins."
"Might be they're fighting amongst themselves," King Belegar muses. "There's good ore in that scree, but I don't like the unknowns. First, the Citadel. If it's that overflowing with greenskins I'll not pour Dwarf or manling flesh into that meatgrinder. If we're going to dominate the East Valley, we level it. Otherwise, it's either Karag Nar or the Grand Avenue. Opinions?"
Which will you argue for?
[ ] Claim the Underway from the East Gate to Karag Lhune.
[ ] Level the Citadel and dominate the East Valley.
[ ] Take and hold Karag Nar.
Leylines (and Waystones built on them) are used to drain (excess) magical energy from the world to the Great Vortex. First waystones were built even before elves became prominent (presumably, by the Old Ones). Elves studied them and expanded and strengthened the network, with the assistance of dwarves and their runecraft (that's probably biggest elf-dwarf collaboration ever). Realms of sorcery also has this on the subject on leyline density:
Many places of great arcane disturbance can be found where two or more of these lines intersect. These intersections form important hub points, or Henges, in the Ogham network, where several different Leylines will meet and the flows of magic will join and be focussed through an even larger line. Although they can be found across the mortal realms, the greatest concentration of Henges in the Old World can be found in the foothills of Karak Eight Peaks, within Athal Loren and the Laurelorn Forest, and all across the misty isle of Albion—where the word "Ogham" is said to originate.
This is kind of huge. Karak Eight Peaks was already a good place to set up some type of outpost or chapterhouse but now that we know that the place is also a potent magical locus we really need to have a presence here.
"Rats," he reports. "My men sketched their banner for Alriksson and he called them Clan Mors. Their banners mark the area under the Caldera, but the Underway itself is uncontrolled under Karagril and filled with plenty of mauled ratmen corpses, and only a very few dead greenskins."
That's a massive relief. I spent half the update hoping we wouldn't end up receiving a report saying that everyone died and no one knows what happened.
[X] Take and hold Karag Nar. Issues if a roll gets fucked up and the horde discovered, but this both gives us more money for mercenaries, it also gives us ready access to supplies, while presumably having less resistance than the underway. Clan Mors may not be one of the big 4, but IIRC its still very much one of the major clans and not something I want to poke quite yet.
We can just fortify and point lots of artillery that way allowing us to obliterate any attacking force while we then send forces to liberate Karag Nar. We also know Karag Nar is currently underorced so it should be considerably easier to take it.
I am not so sure that the orcs in the citadel would be even able to contest our taking of Karag Nar. Would they even know an attack is happening? Our artillery and knightly forces would devastate any any attempt to halt the attack.
And, you consider as you stare at it, the cycle of violence isn't certain to stop. The silver in the King's Armoury had been simple enough - it was locked back up and put under guard and that was the end of it. This sprawling pile that thousands of men and possibly even some Dwarves out there were dreaming of at this very moment? The second they realized it existed, it would be a mad scramble and in all likelihood a free-for-all of murder. This discovery could very well be more trouble than it was worth.
...Who'd be stupid enough to try and fight their way out of an angry Dwarven army after stealing their gold? There's dumb, and then there's "how do you remember to breathe", and you'd think the latter would have died by now in the WH universe. Like, by the time they're in a position to even consider doing so, the dwarves can literally just load up some wagons and escort them to the armoury with the rest of the loot.
Pity we can't use the earlier tactic of sending the trolls in to rail into the orcs, considering we've got warpgut trolls involved and gods know how that badly that would blow up in our faces.
It is sort of good news though. Kvinn-Wyr is essentially a dead mans zone. No one can really attack us from that mountain and so that flank is much safer than I thought it would be.
I would argue that leaving the citadel for the moment is actually something that we want. It provides a gathering point for all of the orcs in the area, but is also a static location that the Expedition's artillery is capable of zeroing in on. Any sally from the Orcs in the citadel can be met with properly sighted artillery for devastating effect.
Knowing where your opponent is and is likely to gather, will be of great benefit to us. It makes them predictable and being predictable is exploitable.
Furthermore, the more orcs that gather in one spot, the more likely that they will have to sally forth or fights will break out in the citadel. They can't sustain an overpopulation in the citadel without fighting something, and if they aren't willing to sally forth into our guns, then they will start fighting themselves. Either way, its dead orcs which is good for us.
[ ] Claim the Underway from the East Gate to Karag Lhune.
+ Underway Paths
+ Prevent enemies using Underway Paths
-Multiple enemy forces can engage
[ ] Level the Citadel and dominate the East Valley.
+++ cannons solve everything
[ ] Take and hold Karag Nar.
+ well scouted
+ undermanned
+ treasure
+ known boss location
I'm leaning towards Karag Nar followed by annihilating the Citadel. This way we'll own basically everything in the East except for Kvinn-Wyr. But that's controlled by trolls who are all focused inwards on a lump of warpstone.
Unfortunately this will leave the Underway rather unsecured which could allow enemy forces to pop up in unexpected locations. This will actually mean our supply lines aren't actually as secure as they might at first appear.
Oof, this is a really strong position we're in here. Karag Nar is extremely vulnerable, as well as what seems to be a logistical nerve center for the Broken Toof Tribe, probably for the same reason it was a big deal for us--we disrupt that and the Citadel's going to start pouring greenskins out on us--but it still gets them out of the Citadel, and by the time they get wind of our moves there we've got a decent chance to fort up and get arty in place to punish them. More importantly, it's more gold and silver to fuel phase two of the reclamation.
On the other hand, we lock down this section of the Underway and we've mitigated Karag Lhune's weakness and set up a logistics chain to Karak Azul, which are natural allies of our campaign. To do so though, we're going to have to fight Clan Mors, and they're no slouches--even if Qweek isn't alive yet to take our heads.
And of course, we could always just bomb the Citadel to rubble--it'd be a shame to lose that fortification though--even if Karag Nar's not getting any stronger if we take that place down, it'd be of incredible value to us to stop attackers from the rest of the Eight Peaks region from attacking the East Valley.
Practically speaking though, from what I'm seeing, the optimal move might be to take the underway, and attack Karag Nar from below and behind at the same time. Vertically envelop that place and squeeze it until it dies, completely bypassing that less scouted gate section.
...Who'd be stupid enough to try and fight their way out of an angry Dwarven army after stealing their gold? There's dumb, and then there's "how do you remember to breathe", and you'd think the latter would have died by now in the WH universe. Like, by the time they're in a position to even consider doing so, the dwarves can literally just load up some wagons and escort them to the armoury with the rest of the loot.
Lizardmen and Tomb Kings would have a lot more free time if people would leave the shinies alone just because taking it would lead to their horrible deaths.
Hmm actually here's a thought. We could go ahead and have most the army go forth and annihilate the Citadel while Mathilde heads off and assassinates the boss in Karag Nar to prevent retaliation or reinforcements and generally just extend our time before Orcs attack.
It's understrength, and we've got a secret passage to exploit, and it's strategically beneficial position, and if done right it'll expand our coffers. For Citadel - I'd prefer trying to taunt the orks out or make them fight the trolls or something. Tricking trolls is something grey wizards do, after all.
Well, I think we'll have to do all of these if we want to properly secure our position. The question is, in which order? I think we can disregard Karag Nar for now, since they are so underorced that they cannot threaten us while we execute the other two options. The Skaven are supposedly fighting amongst themselves, so they should leave us alone for a while longer. Therefore, we should start by leveling the Citadel, then secure the Underway, then finally attack the now completely cut of Karag Nar simultaneously from above and below.
[X] Level the Citadel and dominate the East Valley.
...Who'd be stupid enough to try and fight their way out of an angry Dwarven army after stealing their gold? There's dumb, and then there's "how do you remember to breathe", and you'd think the latter would have died by now in the WH universe. Like, by the time they're in a position to even consider doing so, the dwarves can literally just load up some wagons and escort them to the armoury with the rest of the loot.
Greed makes men do dumb things, and it's more them killing each other for the gold then taking on the Dwarfs though that would propably escalate towards it anyway. The Hoard also not being entirely Dwarf riches, but possibly accumulated Orc loot from humans and other dwarfs that would complicate things.
And as mentioned people keep trying to rob the Lizardmen and Tomb Kings despite the severe retaliations, so it's a natural setting thing.
Lizardmen and Tomb Kings would have a lot more free time if people would leave the shinies alone just because taking it would lead to their horrible deaths.
While this is true the average adventurer would be more likely to have heard of dwarf grudges than Tomb King curses, so there's probably a lower incidence of idiocy in this case.
