My fellow Alikainians... Alikaites, Alikaides? Whatever. Anyway, my fellow brothers in arms! There is a threat to the North-West! A Threat that stands for everything we don't stand for! A threat that says the leaders of our system of government, whatever that may be, look like jerks!
They are called the Zehlin, and aside from hailing from the opposite end of the region (and the dictionary) the are an awful people whose nationalistic ambitions must be pushed back to make way for the manifest destiny of Alikai!
You don't have anything to Revise, and I would strongly recommend designing some form of general infantry in order to start taking control over nearby regions. Nobody starts with anything, and territory capture will be skipped for this round. This means that both sides will start taking territories, chunk by chunk, and potentially meet on the fifth actual round. Use this time to build yourself up and get some kind of ethos going.
As part of this same 'Design Phase' you also need to complete a special vote. In the core thread, there's four schools of magic listed 'Other Magical Arts' pick one as a starting mastery for your empire.
All of your designs are listed below. Your baseline of technology is that of a late Iron Age empire. Think Rome before it became a big hit and officially ended the Iron Age. Plus magic.
Turtles of Taratan
[Common]
[Beasts: 3, Minerals: 1, Auspicious Hours: 4]
The Turtles of Taratan are somewhat troubled as vessels. Roughly circular and approximately 20-30ft in diameter, the turtles are sufficient to carry small groups of infantry and supplied from place to place. However, they’re also rather austere vessels. The only fittings given to the turtles is an outer cage of steel to keep soldiers and supplies in during rough weather, and these leaves those on board with several striking problems. There’s no roof. The vagaries of the elements are free to ravage those on board, as is fire from enemy arches. The frame at the sides of the boat is just that, a frame, with water free to rush in over the sides of the turtle’s shell. With no internal storage space available (as the floor is a shell) it’s extraordinarily difficult to keep anything dry, and soldiers are frequently reduced to lashing their belongings to the sides of the frame while huddling at the highest point of the turtle’s shell, holding cloth over their heads to protect them from the sun while simultaneously praying it doesn’t rain. The other issues with the Taratan turtle is that while sea-turtles are marvelously quick and graceful, they’re typically marvelously quick and graceful under the water. For some strange reason, the crew of the turtles have a deeply vested interest in breathing, and thus the pilots of the vessels are instructed to keep the beasts from diving at all costs. This also makes life frustrating for the Taratan turtles, as they have to spend literally all of their time at the surface, far from their usual environment. On the good side, the ‘ship’ itself is marvelously tough, and even after all its crew is dead, the creature’s hard shell will likely enable it to survive and return to its home port.
[Minor Difficulty, d6: 6]
[Moderate Bug, Feature]
One issue in particular with the way that turtles swim at the surface of the water is that isn’t, particularly, a graceful motion when they need to move quickly. There’s a lot of but wiggling and side clawing that throws up water. This is going to make it very difficult to shoot off a turtle that is either in panic or being coaxed into rapid combat maneuvers, but, silver lining, it’s going to make it difficult for enemy ranged units to aim at the crew as well. The crew will also be miserably soaked, but that isn’t new.
[Minor Bug, None (Cluster)]
The increase in size for the great Turtles has done nothing to alleviate their historic fears, even of creatures that they’re now much larger than. This does, occasionally, result in the vessel immobilizing itself or attempting to speed off at great haste when injured. Pilots are able to talk down the worst of these effects, but there’s still a small chance for these vessels to panic, briefly rendering them useless, during combat.
[Minor Bug, Hidden. (Turtle Fears)]
The Turtles of Taratan are still, at heart, beasts. They’re big beasts, gentle, and noble, but they’re still very, very dumb. Unlike a normal ship which you can put on a heading and just keep steady, the pilots of Taratan have to constantly make minor course correction to keep their beasts from chasing fish, heading towards sunny looking rocks, looking after a funny smell, etc. While this has very limited impact in most circumstances, it means that every Turtle needs at least two pilots to rotate shifts, and losing a pilot is very serious unless the rest of the crew can work out a way to communicate with the turtle.
[Lucky Break!]
Heritage Ritual: Passage of Adulthood
[Ubiquitous]
[Auspicious Hours: 1]
The Second Heritage Ritual, timed for the height of puberty, is a rough experience. It’s an essential transformative period, but it’s bad enough to try and figure out exactly what you want to do with these sudden squishy hot feelings you have for other people when half of you wants to go play nudist camp doctor behind a sand dune and the other half wants to extend your throat pouch fully, croon sonorously, and then spooge in a bowl so your sweetheart can later fertilize their eggs in the shallow waters of the oasis. Dating is rough for Alikai teenagers. Under no circumstances should you attempt to sandstorm-watch and chill with a young redheaded spidergirl. Shit gets real.
After the awkward years are done and the transformations have been mastered, the practical effects are strikingly useful, and lead to a civilization which is supported by what amounts to a hybrid vigor of a people that is disparate in form but united in mind.
[Minor Difficulty, d6: 3]
[Moderate Bug, Cluster]
Increasing the power of the old king’s curse is not without its risks, and the rituals that bring one closer to the power of the beast heritage also herald from moonlight. The stress from the heritage rituals are modest, but not insignificant, and on rare occasions they can compound horrifyingly -- resulting madness, death, and suffering for all involved. (Your mortal costs for Sacred Lunacy transformations may be increased, additionally likely for more complex transformations)
Desert Clansfolk Mk3
[Ubiquitous]
[2 Fruit Of the Land]
The clans of the deep desert, though fractious and all but impossible to unite under a single banner, have long served as willing mercenary faces in exchange for the finer treasures of civilization. Relatively primitive themselves, the equipment of the Clansfolk varies considerably in quality, but typically consists of extremely light cloth armor, a scimitar made of whatever metal can be afforded, and a comparatively fine recurve shortbow of horn laminate along with a quiver of simple arrows of stone or glass tips. While their tactics are unrefined, revolving around fast harassment and ambushes, and they resent traditional command structures, they work well when deployed as largely self-governing units of irregular infantry.
[Trivial Difficulty, d4: 1. No Bugs]
Passage of Childhood
[Ubiquitous]
[1 Auspicious Hours]
The Passage of Childhood, while technically a rite of Sacred Lunacy, is not a transformative event. Rather, it serves as a half step towards transformation, a kindling of the more bestial spirit and a connection to the natural world. While the ability to ‘speak’ to animals is frequently overstated (most animals lack anything resembling a syntactically defined speech, and most lack the intellect to develop one) the ritual unites a child’s developing language skills with the pheromonal activity and body language of their animalistic marks. The result, while not speech (and often entirely silent) does manifest as greatly heightened communication abilities with animals of the child’s own mark.
[Trivial Difficulty, d4: 3.]
[Minor Bug, Feature]
A side effect of the Passage of Childhood is a sort of strange classism. While all members of the People of the Luna can recognize one another, the Passage grants a private method of communication to those they share mutations with. While this enhances communication, empathy, and coordination among like-mutated members, it slightly damages it in mixed units.
[Minor Bug, Complicated]
Enhancing the curse of Mad King also comes with a certain instability. Echoes of an older magic. Wilder by moonlight, the People of the Luna find themselves slipping a little further toward the beast at night, and closer still on full moons. This somewhat hampers group coordination and the use of advanced technology during those hours.
Aqueducts
[Not Deployable]
Building up the Aqueducts to carry water from the springs and oases around which life bloomed and deliver it to far fields has always been the backbone of Alikai civilization. More than blades and muscle, water is true power in the desert, and the Aqueducts are the veins through which true power flows. Covered against the harsh sun and sheltered from the corrupting sand, the Aqueducts are marvels of construction that grow with each passing year to carry water to new and larger fields. Their care and maintenance is common, but dignified profession- involving craftsmen of all professions and a substantial manual labor force. The growing complexity of the system, including the great draws that carry water up from the hidden springs so that it can flow to all who need it, is a burden- but the ability to manufacture an oasis is worth any headaches.
Special Deployment: In the absence of a condition described by a bug, this increases your Mortal supply count by 1.
[Standard Difficulty, 1d8: 7]
[Crippling Bug, Complicated]
While the network of Aqueducts have produced wonders, it would seem that even they have reached their limits. While the network of destinations only grows, the network of springs from which the water flows grows slowly - to speak nothing of the springs that grow dry. Our existing method of pulling water up to the heights needed for it to flow, beast powered pulleys laden with buckets, is no longer sufficient. We simply cannot pump additional water through the aqueduct fast enough for it to reach new destinations at a rate sufficient to make a difference. While we have made much land fertile, we struggle to add more.
(While this bug exists, the Aqueduct does not produce additional supply)
People of the Luna
[Ubiquitous]
While the fabled ‘Mad King’ of Alikai is long gone, and whatever desert empire he made for himself all those years ago has faded, the transformations he spread among his people remain. While once the transformations might have been considered part of Sacred Lunacy, they have, by some unknown mechanic, become genetic. Every individual born to the desert bloodline has some aberrancy, a mark of an animal. While some marks run in families, others crop at random with little regard to lineage. Scales and fur, slit pupils and venomous fangs, tufted years and clawed footpaws- all manifest from time to time in those from Alikai. While individual transformations may grant an individual enhanced or degraded abilities, the effect is amortized across the population so that the average of their physical and sensory abilities comes out to only slightly higher than an unmutated population. While this transformation might have originated with Lunacy, it does not count against the transformation limit of Sacred Lunacy, and in fact allows individuals to be more susceptible to transformations in line with their own mutations.
[Trivial Difficulty d4, 2]
[Minor Bug, Intractable]
As a result of their ancient transformation, certain… chemical sensitivities remain within the people of Alikai. Stories tell of days when silver would burn the flesh, but those days are long gone, replaced now by allergic reactions to certain compounds and catalysts. Under normal circumstances this isn’t an issue, but for those who deal in the advanced chemical arts, this weakness can be infuriating and debilitating. (When rolling bugs for projects involving juxtematics, a 1 now causes you to re-roll instead of getting a lucky break)
Anirite Akibara
[Ubiquitous]
[1 Mortals, 2 Mineral]
The Akibara of the Anirite tribes have long been the blood and sinew of Alikai armies. Tenacious, trained in group tactics, well defended by scale armor backed by quilted armor and a sturdy shield, and devastatingly armed with a heavy axe and war darts for harassment, the Akibara have long been the leading edge in a conquering force. If there is a criticism of them, it is that their combination of quilted armor and scale is quite hot in desert conditions, and requires good supply lines and connection to the aqueduct network in order to advance. Likewise, they’ve historically had mild difficulties against highly mobile desert raiders- but their ability to simply advance through harassing forces and strike at hard targets cannot be denied.
[All bugs fixed!]
Author
Topic: Alikai Team Thread - FR20 [~5 players] (Read 13894 times)