My fellow Zehlins... Zehlites, Zehillians? Whatever. Anyway, my fellow brothers in arms! There is a threat to the South-East! 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 Alikai, and aside from hailing from the opposite end of the region (and the dictionary) they are an awful people whose nationalistic ambitions must be pushed back to make way for the manifest destiny of Zehlin!
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.
Megafauna Zombification
[Uncommon Deployment]
[5 Beasts, 4 Mortal Dregs]
Much like their smaller zombie ken, Megafauna zombies are corpses that have deep entities coaxed into them. Two important differences, however, lie in the size of the carcasses being reanimated and the overall quality and treatment of the entities being conjured. Raising the corpses of large animals is a coup, as many such animals die either as the course of nature or accidents (or in the case of hippos, pest control), but this means that the rotting and increased entropy present more consternating issues. Few hippos die anywhere near the front line, and the only animals we currently use actively in battle are the frillnecks (who are soldiers are much happier with when attached to boats) and the boars which are fielded, at best, sparingly. This means that the bodies have to be transported to the field, or raised in the homeland and walked over while entropy rots them. While we can still field a substantial number of the beasts in the field, there is little chance of them being able to ambush the enemy when their corpses are putrescently bloated and most of their skin has sloughed or rotted away. While the quality and intelligence of the entity possessing has been increased, and such creatures are capable of rough tactics, the stench and unusual appearance of their host makes nuanced stealth and camouflage difficult. Frillnecks in particular are almost untenable as an auxiliary unit. Their naturally gelatinous flesh rots quickly even without a deep entity, and the accelerated decay combined with the depredations of water scavengers means that Frillnecks are reduced to animated skeletons in shockingly short order. This is an issue as skeletons have an excessively difficult time swimming.
[Minor Design, d6: 3]
[Moderate Bug, Simple]
A modest concern when fielding these creatures is that they can tend to rapidly lose their natural weapons. With the exception of cattle whose horns bind to their skull admirably, most other animals will begin quickly losing hooves, teeth, and claws as the putrefaction sets in- particularly with the deep entity accelerating the pace of natural decay and weakening bone. While they’re still frighteningly dangerous by weight alone, the most dangerous bits of animals tend to fall off over time.
Spears of the Sun
[Uncommon Deployment]
[6 Minerals, Auspicious Hours 4]
The Spears of the Sun are a curious recreation of an ancient relic. Requiring both the proper time and precious gold, they are (initially) issued to roughly one soldier in sixty. Capable of charging off raw sunlight, the Spears of the Sun have two primary functions. The first is a ranged blast of concentrated sunlight, the effects of which baffle our sciences. While we had envisioned a burning beam of light, it would seem the more powerful a light is, the less it desire to stay in a beam. Likewise, it has been discovered that, when air is brought to the burning point, it’s capable of bending light. These effects together mean that the blasting function of the Spear is sharply limited in range, to approximately 30 feet in which the spear discharges in a narrow cone. Targets hit by this discharge are rarely incinerated, but instead a thin layer of their surface is ablated and the targets are thrown back with great force. Again, curious, as light has no weight or momentum with which to throw someone. Once this discharge has been used, it can take a day of steady charging in order for it to be used again. The second function of the spear is to create a burning nimbus of energy around its blade. This as the effect of creating a super-heated edge, melting through all known forms of armor- but again with a few exceptions. If a burning Miad crystal forms, that crystal will interrupt the flow of energy and prevent the spear from penetrating or heating the target. Second, the spear is still made of gold. While capable of melting through targets, the molten residue from the target is often considerably hotter than the melting point of gold, which means that soldiers using this ability to strike through thick plating or hardened defenses must do so with speed and deliberation.
[Standard Difficulty, 1d8: 3]
[Lucky Break!]
--[Minor Bug, Simple]
One minor issue with the spears of the Sun is that there simply isn’t a good amount of materials set aside to maintain gold weapons. While a simple issue, the lack of tools only exacerbates gold’s lackluster combat abilities on occasions where the user is forced to use it as a direct weapon.
Hog Knights
[Mortals 3, Beasts 5, Minerals 3]
[Uncommon Deployment]
The Hog Knights of Zehlin are terrifying adversaries. The Hogs themselves were born in the mire of Zehlin, and have short, water resistant coats, unusually long and strong legs for swine, long and durable tusks for rooting through muck, and the disposition of a creature whose first and last option for dealing with a problem involves getting really, really, really pissed off. While these creatures are difficult in the extreme to capture, they’re the perfect pair for the Hog Knights themselves. Unusual men and women, their mentality part training and part natural insanity, Hog Knights are heavily armored in a heavy iron plate of coats and share a certain bellicosity with their mounts. They’re used to charging down sheer faced cliffs, shattering enemy lines, and breaking enemy morale by crafting grisly trophies from the slain and adding them to their mounts. The weight of their armor and armaments, usually a heavy spear and solid metal shield, makes Hog Knights exceptionally ungainly when deprived of their mounts, and their mounts are but trained beasts, but united the two are a heavy cavalry force to be feared.
[Standard Difficulty, 1d8: 8]
--[Serious Bug, Intractable]
While they have been the mounts of a few legendary individuals, all attempts to integrate them as a standard cavalry unit have failed. The hogs are, quite simply, nearly untrainable. Massive, shockingly intelligent, very used to having their own way, and downright mean, the boar of the Zehlin Bog resist all efforts at general domestication. To date, only the heroically insane have ever been able to ‘tame’ such animals, and even then their relationship should be considered more of a partnership than a master/animal bond. However, a wonderful event known as the melon ceremony has been put in place, allowing for partnership bonds to be formed in a more 'controlled' environment. [This, effectively, adds 7 to your resource deficit for this tech, making it deployed at about a hundred-and-twenty-fifth of its apparent resource capacity]
[Hidden Fault!]
--[Minor Bug, Simple]
A second, considerably smaller, issue with the boars is that their rage appears to be contagious. While the personality… eccentricities of the boar riders are well known, it appears that the musk from the great boar induces similar effects in the infantry. While this has little practical effect, it does make fights break out in camps more often where Hog Knights are deployed and not adequately groomed.
--[Moderate Bug, Intractable]
The diet of the Zehlin boar is also a further consideration. Opportunistic omnivores, the material needs of the giant boar can be readily satisfied with anything to hand. Their fluid intake, however, is prodigious. The cold bogs of Zehlin make gigantothermi a benefit, and rarely do they need to cool off in such climes. However, in warmer climates, or when pressed to battle, the animals overheat easily, and require vast amounts of water in order to recuperate. This limits how frequently they can be deployed in charges, and limits their overall efficacy in hotter climates.
--[Minor Bug, Fascinating]
A final, bizarre twist, is that physicians have difficulty addressing the injuries of the great boar. The creatures can bear tremendous wounds with little surprisingly little bleeding or chance of infection, hinting toward some biological property yet unknown, but at the same time traditional herbal treatments have been ineffective- and crippling injuries such as broken bones are often left unset as no known treatment can sedate the animal for long enough to handle. This often leaves such animals crippled and at reduced capacity, as they are forced to rely wholly on their natural healing.
Devil Eggs
[Common Deployment]
[3 Mortal Dregs]
A simple conjuration and binding ritual, an inexpensive clay pot, and a steady hand can do much work. Each Devil Egg contains a sub-sapient being from the deep, quite capable of being angry about being captured, but not nearly powerful enough to plot something as complex as revenge. The clay pots used are simple in construction, and this very simplicity enables them to whether the increased entropy of their captive quite easily. On shattering, the captive deep one is released, and its pent up fury is expelled. The spirit is relatively weak, and without anything to possess its energies disperse rapidly- much to the detriment of anything living. The unrefined energy of the deep doesn’t cause wounds per se, but it does cause panic attacks, seizures, partial paralysis, and uncontrolled bleeding from mucous membranes - along with the occasional rare effect brought on by conscious effort of the deep entity. Without a direct hit from an urn, these effects are unlikely to kill by themselves, but they are enormously disruptive to enemy ranks and very likely to temporarily disable several individuals and steeply reduce morale.
[Minor Difficulty, d6: 4]
--[Minor Bug, Intractable]
The urns provide good containment of the spirits, but those who have to handle still feel bleedover effects. A general dread, a feeling of being watched, night terrors, nausea, heart palpitations, etc. While these put soldiers in no great danger, Devil eggs are typically concentrated in a smaller number of slingers with special cases, rather than disseminated broadly to the infantry due to morale issues.
--[Moderate Bug, Cluster]
A somewhat more significant issue is the fact that, if one urn cracks, the bleedover energy from the deep will likely overwhelm the seals that any other eggs are using. This means that, if one egg blows, every other egg within range will detonate. This, as one can imagine, will be attended with dire consequences for anyone remotely in range.
Renewable Infantry Gear
[Ubiquitous Deployment]
[1 Mineral, 1 Fruit Of the Land]
Much as a foundation of stone sunk and anchored to the wet depth of the Zehlin bog speaks volumes of the civilization determined enough to lay it, the neat and orderly state of the Zehlin general infantry uniform in spite of the filth it’s often forced to wade through speaks volumes of the military. Basic armor is provided by the long gambeson, woven from sedge fibers and stuffed with batting derived from a mixture of plant and animal fibers. Waterlogging is minimal, prevented primarily by a waxy coating applied and maintained by infantry as part of their camp routine. Helm, carved from gourds and worked for comfort, cap the outfit and are frequently given some minimal additional carving by the soldier for good luck or simple personalization.
Armaments making sparing but good use of metals. Each soldier is issued a plain wooden round shield, a spear with a worked iron head, and a brace of four short javelins with iron tips.
While the gourd helms are symbols of each individual infantryman, it’s the thick swamp-leather boots that have become the symbol of the infantry. Fitted for long campaigns, they’re one of the oldest symbols of the hunters who brave the deep bogs. So iconic are they that ‘Being fitted for his/her boots’ is a common way of saying that a young Zehlin is undergoing the struggles associated with transitioning from a child to an adult.
[Trivial Difficulty, d4= 1. 0 Bugs]
Quicken The Dead
[Ubiquitous Deployment]
[1 Mortals, 1 Soul Dregs]
The principle of quickening the Dead is simple. A communer reaches out to the simplest of creatures from the Deep, nearly formless beings that congregate around bodies to look for the tidbits of mortal dregs. Such beings are of minimal intelligence, but certainly still able to enticed to inhabit the body of the recently deceased in exchange for passage to the other side and morsel to feed on. This reanimates the bodies of the fallen and allows them to be put to work again. The enhanced entropy caused by the Deep spirit inhabiting the body causes decay to progress more rapidly, but the Deep being is capable of animating even a skeleton- although that is a frail form with little strength or substance. With little understanding of life, the reanimated are guileless combatants. They frequently strike with savage clubbing blows, regardless of how well this suits their weapons, and can only be shouted into the barest facsimile of tactics.
Despite their stupidity, they are relentless combatants that feel no hunger, fatigue, infirmity, or fear.
Special Deployment: After gaining or losing territory in a region, you can opt to burn 1 Soul Dreg resource to double your number of undead infantry on that territory. Burned resources cannot be spent for anything else on that turn.
[Minor Difficulty, d6= 1. 0 Bugs]
Sea Chariots
[Common Deployment]
[1 Beast, 1 Fruit Of the Land]
Functioning as much as a covered wagon as a boat, variations on this design have been used for decades as fishing and mercantile vessels. For military intentions, the design is primarily reinforced, streamlined, and increased slightly in size in order to accommodate supplies for longer journeys and more hostile encounters. Shallow bottomed and single-sailed, the Sea Chariot runs light on the water and can easily be propelled by its oars for moderate distances. The Frillnecks newts, however, typically make that a non-issue. Enormous and mostly tractable, the creatures are broken in at a young age and accustomed to long hauls and the sounds of soldiers. With them as beasts, Sea Chariots can glide without manpower for hours at a time before the beasts need to be fed (which can be done with most vegetation and almost any fish) and rested. A slight weakness of the creatures is that, as newts, they are relatively soft and fragile creatures. While few other beasts enjoy their flavor, they can be wounded easily by weapons fire and are difficult to armor.
[Minor Difficulty, d6= 2. 1 Bug point]
[Minor Bug, Complicated]
One small issue with the Military Sea chariots is in their shallow bellies. While this serves them admirably in terms of speed across Sargasso and keeps the motions of the frillnecks from pitching the vessel significantly, it can be problematic on choppy or stormy water when a sudden wave can overwhelm the deck more easily than other craft. (This vessel randomly may perform more poorly outside the Stillreach. Effect is worst in the Mossteeth)
Research Lead: A point of interest, discovered during the grooming process, is the gelatinous mats of hog blood. Initially thought to just be normal mats from lack of grooming and constant exposure to mud, spa workers have found these to universally be caked shields of blood. Surgeons removing foreign bodies (such as barbed arrows, spears,and chunks of tree that the hogs ran through) have been able to watch the behavior happen under their very knives. The hog receives an injury, blood flows, touches their bristly hairs, and a reaction occurs. Instead of flowing normally, the blood almost immediately gels around the wound. While this should make it a hotbed of infection, only the outer, dried, layer of blood seems consumed by parasites, while the inner layers of these gel pads remain conspicuously free of disease.
Research Lead (Sunlight Arrows):Materials are very important choices for transformation candidates, and gold seems (at present) to be the easiest and most powerful choice for harvesting solar energy. Brass and bronze both show potentially, but fewer materials survive the transformation, and those that do cannot capture the same level of energy, or capture it as quickly, as gold does. Of other alloys tested, rose gold showed strong performance, capturing a hybrid of the sun’s light and heat rather than simply its light, allowing it to accomplish about 80% of gold’s effects. Of course, this results in an even lower melting point and makes the arrows unsuitable for firing at longer range (reasons discussed below). A curious candidate is the naturally occurring material iron pyrite. Its sunlight transformation is unstable, only capable of gaining and releasing a charge once before crumbling into fragments, but it only shortly behind rose gold in terms of efficacy.
As for different mechanical configurations of the materials, cores are unsuitable as the core must be directly charged by bathing it in light, and, when activated, it is the core that releases energy. Sheathing the core causes the exterior to melt, or generate Burning miad crystals, on activation. Melting the exterior generally causes the innards of the core to melt, destabilizes the arrow in flight, and generally doesn’t work well. A thin outer coating works, but runs into an issue where it burns itself off in flight. The archer has to activate the arrow as they fire, and the arrow will burn throughout the flight. For spears, they could briefly withstand their own thermal load, but arrows are of such lower mass that they begin to burn away rapidly. A thin coat of material burns away even faster, causing the material below to be superheated but burning off the outer coat.
As for an investigation of how the burning penetration happens, testing strongly indicates that the nimbus of light around the arrow translates rapidly to heat, melting the contact point, and allowing the bulk of the weapon to push through the semi-molten material. Essentially, it’s a hot knife going into wax. The light itself appears to primarily act as an energy carrier for the heat, with characteristic nimbus acting as a sort of rate-limiter for the thermal discharge and preventing the transformed objects from melting themselves to slag in a singular burst of energy.
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Topic: Zehlin Team Thread - FR20 [~4 Players] (Read 8692 times)