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[Talion]

Arms Race: War of the Rune

An arms race game inspired by a number of others, from Wands Race to War of the Cinder Spire.

Every fifty years, the goddess Eristria calls the faithful to do battle. To the victors she grants a place at her side; the defeated she bids her angels scatter to the four winds that they might regrow stronger and more worthy. There have been nine wars of the goddess. The next is due in ten years. The strongest nation; the Glorious Star, desiring a victory without contest have already exiled the Iqua and the Loji nations, using their superior martial strength. Their nations people forced aboard the vast wooden ships and escorted by warships armed with the strange fire magic metal cylinders known as cannons.

The island they find themselves on is simply not large enough to rebuild their armies and hope to displace the Star, at least not while their rivals share the land.

The Defiant Iqua
The Pious Loji
Discord

The Magic System

The magic system makes use of objects known as Runes. Each Rune is composed of a Meaning component that describes vaguely the intent of the Rune and an Element component that impacts the elemental theme of the magic cast using the Rune. This will generally be written in the form Meaning(Element). There is a fixed set of Meanings and Elements from which all the various magical effects available to design around are formed. Charging these Runes with Mana is a long and difficult process and is described using Mana costs in a design. Activating the Runes to do magic is a cheap process that can be done in battlefield time. These costs are not represented in designs but can limit the number of times each mage is considered able to cast a spell during battle.

Rules

The rules are inspired by many other Arms Race games of which Sensei’s Intercontinental Arms Race is a good reference.

This game plays out on a turn by turn basis. Each turn represents a season and is roughly three months in length. Each turn is broken up into four phases as explained below.

Spoiler: Phases (click to show/hide)

• Discovery
• Design
• Revision
• Battle

Discovery
In War of the Rune, the magic system operates on predetermined rules. Initially, both sides have only a partial understanding of these rules. During the Discovery phase, the rules are investigated in order to gradually open up the magic system and unlock new uses for it. This can be done by investigating a Meaning or Element, increasing a side’s skill related to the chosen runic component. Raising skill levels in this way will always succeed.

Alternatively, it is possible to try some combination of known Runes as an experiment with the magic system to see what happens. Sometimes nothing useful will happen, as not every combination results in something magical happening. If the result fizzles, clues as to the reason for the failure will be provided. A successful runic system experiment will unlock a magical effect, this is still only theoretical knowledge until that effect is incorporated into a design.

Investigate Runic Component: Increase skill level with the selected runic component.
Runic System Experiment: Try a combination of runes to unlock an effect usable in a design.

Design
As in a standard arms race, this phase allows players to design new pieces of equipment for the armies they are supplying to utilize. In order to use a magical effect, it must first be unlocked and then a design that uses it must be made. A side may also choose to sacrifice a design to perform other actions instead. For example, they may experiment with a combination of runes. Finally, a design may be action may be spent to create a Hero. Heroes are assigned to a battlefield to provide a bonus to that sides luck roll. As of game start, only Mortal Heroes can be created.

Create a Design: Create a new piece of equipment with which to win the war.
Runic System Experiment: Try a combination of runes to unlock an effect usable in a design.
Create a Hero: Describe a Hero who has arisen to champion your side.

Revision
As in a standard arms race, this phase is used to improve existing equipment. All revisions should list the existing piece of equipment that is being upgraded. Note that it is fine to list a piece of equipment not referenced as being in the side’s possession as long as it could reasonably be available.

Battle
This is the bit where I write a battle report. Each report covers how the two armies compare to each other, taking into consideration the equipment they each have available as well as the terrain they are fighting on and the season they are fighting in. For each battlefield, a D6 luck roll will be made for each side.

Spoiler: Design Details (click to show/hide)

Design Quality
The quality of a design is determined by rolling 2d4-1 for a range between 1 and 7.
1: Major failure, the design does not work although experience with the design will be gained.
2: Minor failure, the design is heavily flawed.
3+4: Functional, the design may have some minor flaws but it works.
5+6: Superior quality, the design works without flaw.
7: Masterwork, the design has unexpected advantages.

Design Difficulty
Design difficulty is divided into Easy, Normal, Hard and Impossible. These design ratings apply a modifier to the design roll (+1, 0, -1, -4). Impossible applies a heavy penalty in the hopes of discouraging outlandish designs in the absence of magical support. Due to the limitations imposed by the magical discovery system, I expect to be providing guidance as to if a design has strayed too far away from the magical effect or effects it is making use of.

Spoiler: Infrastructure (click to show/hide)

It is possible to design large scale projects known as infrastructure. These projects can be used to deploy magical effects more cheaply than might otherwise be possible. They can also be used to more cheaply deploy mundane projects.
Under normal circumstances, any discount will only apply to a single design per infrastructure project deployed.
If the infrastructure is described as 'Selectable' it indicates that it uses up the National Expense option for the turn in return for some benefit.

Spoiler: Heroes (click to show/hide)

Mortal Heroes provide a D2 luck bonus initially. A Mortal Hero cannot exceed a d6 bonus.

For each year (4 turns) that a Hero survives they gain in experience increasing the height of the dice, so after surviving 4 years (16 turns) a Mortal Hero would provide a D6 bonus to luck on a single battlefield. If multiple heroes are assigned to the same battlefield, only the largest bonus after rolling will apply.

If a Hero is on the losing side of a battle, they can be wounded or slain. A die of the same height as their luck bonus is rolled. 1 is slain, 2-3 is wounded, any other result is survival.

Spoiler: Resources (click to show/hide)

Land
This resource describes the amount of space available for farming and crafting a side has. This is the base resource that most things will require. Every location controlled is capable of generating land resources if properly developed.

Ore
Ore refers to various metals mined from the earth. This resource is used by things that need significant amounts of metal. Initially, ore access is limited and the island only holds a few locations that will generate more ore.

Mana
Designs that use Runes, incur a cost of mana. Initially, mana access is limited and the island only holds a few locations that will generate more mana.

Runic strength is abstracted as Weak, Medium and Powerful; costing 1, 2 and 3 mana. Thus a design that relied on three Powerful Runes would cost 9 mana.

Hint Tokens
If both sides agree, both sides can be given a hint token at any time. Hint tokens can be spent during the discovery phase to try out additional rune combinations. They can also be spent at any time for more general hints.

Spoiler: Expense (click to show/hide)

A design's resources cost is compared with a faction’s available resources to determine an expense level. This expense level helps to determine how widely available a technology is. There are additional factors of consideration that may come into play later in the game.

The Cheap level denotes that the design costs equal to or lower than the number of resources produced by the nation and the design is being produced at the maximum possible reasonable level. For standard infantry weapons, this means that every soldier is able to be equipped with them.

The Expensive level denotes that a design costs up to two resources more than the number of resources produced by the nation. This is shorthanded for standard infantry weapons as them being available to only one in ten soldiers.

The Very Expensive level denotes that a design costs between three and five resources more than the nation is producing. This is shorthanded for standard infantry weapons as them being available to only one in one hundred soldiers.

The National Effort level denotes that a design costs between six and ten resources more than the nation is producing. At this level of expense, it means that only one of these national effort type items is produced per year.

The Theoretical level denotes that a design costs over ten more resources per year than the nation is producing. At this level, no examples of the design are created over the course of the year.

The Artifact level denotes that a design has special requirements that mean that only one will be produced. The design is otherwise considered to be National Effort equivalent and this prevents the production of any other National Effort design on the turn it is created.

Spoiler: Map (click to show/hide)

[Maxim_inc]

Iqua

[dgr11897]

Loji priest, the gods are with us, thus cities is inevitable.

[Shadowclaw777]

Dice system is not explained besides the luck factor of heroes and why does it have to be based on a roll, arbitrary variance?, just have heroes provide minor bonuses applied to the design conflict to the fields and shift the side of a theatre when everything, experience increases to heroes when they survive and provide larger incremental bonuses, and the losing of a theatre for a hero means you lose them fine and can be determined by a die roll.

Anyways spamming Investigate Runic Component every time is easily the strongest option since it’s guaranteed to have a bonus why he Experiment can fail wasting that action. Than designs always have immediate effects while runic experiment has variance and can’t be applied until the next design action, seems better to replace a Discovery than a Design, since you can also do tech improvements. Heroes would be created when the need to push a lane is very important, but the fun part is that they should be sent on the events sent on combat reports

Also map is unclear it’s just a picture, the sides are Moskurg Iqua homebase that deviated to mountain range , central hills, and boreal forest? And yes the rolling system would be thankfully needs to be known on how it will work


Edit: The hero system means unless given through events or whatever, utilizing an entire design to have a hero die means you lose a deficit, but this risk is too much the worse an enemy side in Arms races can do is temporary sabotage of a design or the stealing it of the [Complex] level. Evicted Iron Behemoths had only heroes created through ties and the flip of a coin, and they didn’t take a design slot. Heroes should only at worse be able to be wounded so you don’t feel that bad when their out of action, the possibility of them being slain is too great since it effectively loses you a design action, and makes hero creation  through designs just not going to happen. This logic comes from Splatoon Race.

[Rockeater]

PTW

[Failbird105]

Another Arms Race to watch while I wait for the others to update is always good. Won't be joining in yet though, if at all.

[TricMagic]

Loji Priestess, or in other words, joining the Loji. For Piousness

[drilltooth]

think I'll spectate this

[Talion]

Discord link added.

[Madman198237]

Joining Loji.

[dgr11897]

Hey, Iquan people, should we just both agree a turn one hint token would be good?
Edit: posting a shorthand for runes here, It works like this, to represent a rune you use the first letter of the meaning, then first letter of the element in parentheses, if two elements or meanings share the same first letter, add in a few more letters to help denote which one you are using, like with elements on the periodic table. However a meaning and an element sharing first letters doesn't really matter. So a theoretical spell of Sculpt(Aether) Strike(Solar) is Sc(A) St(S) in the shorthand.
If a | Symbol is between two runes, it means the order isn't specified. [] indicates that something is using a specific kind of magic, method of creation, or that other such modifiers are present.

[Shadowclaw777]

Yes we can agree on a Hint Token for the following rounds would be great, vote if you want it or not.

Hint Token:
Iqua
Yes: (1) SC
No

Loji
Yes:
No:

[TricMagic]

Hint Token:
Iqua
Yes: (1) SC
No

Loji
Yes:
No: (1) TricMagic

[Rockeater]

Hint Token:
Iqua
Yes: (2) SC, Rockeater
No

Loji
Yes:
No: (1) TricMagic

[TricMagic]

Having trouble on your side?