The first thing you do is bury the dead, both the zombies and those slaves that died trying to liberate the town. You hold a mass funeral and consecrate their graves that their spirits might go on and not be tied to this world.
You give Ferrun your blessing to inaugurate Marrham as their new governor. You take the liberty of reclaiming Mistwalker from him, which he is a little reluctant to return, but reward him for his bravery by turning him into a luxpanap, which proves popular. You spend a few days discussing the details of Marrham's new rule; in the end you are able to secure a moderate concession of men and resources (some fifty spearmen and a fifth of their production) in return for a promise to remain for a month and help rebuild.
Freshly mined and smelted tin flows downriver from Stworca's Hamlet and you and Marrham send out runners to try and re-establish trade with the surrounding villages and those towns not under Lord Thrane's rule. You are somewhat successful at least in finding buyers (especially by establishing trade with some of the free towns to the east) and the proceeds go towards helping rebuild Ferrun itself. People flock to the town, especially refugees from the north and west where Lord Thrane's captains are still establishing his rule, and the town approaches its normal size again. Another fifty spearmen join you as a result, mostly refugees and those with axes to grind against Thrane and his necromancers.
You rededicate the temple to Tokchoko, holding a three day ceremony and feast using the stores and treasury from Sir Braithe's castle. With the old priest dead, you call the priest from Fere's Pike and he helps train a couple of the resistance veterans as new priests. One remains at the temple to minister to his new flock, whilst the other agrees to go with you until Lord Thrane is dealt with and help by blessing weapons and so forth. He has no strong belief in your personal divinity, unlike those that have begun to worship you. You try to discourage them and play up the power of the gods, but they are resolute. Marrham and the other Ferrunites aren't too happy about it, but in light of your contributions they are willing to let them continue so long as they leave when you do.
The cultists fashion little tin amulets in the likeness of the one you wear - you could probably bless the amulets and train them to use them like you do to give them an edge against demonic forces. Either way, the devotion is flattering if not entirely wanted. Their worship feeds the gnawing hunger in the pit of your soul, and as much as you may not have asked for them it takes away the need to destroy a soul to feed. They are armed only with little daggers or axes and less trained than even spearmen, but their full-time commitment does empower you and means they are more likely to do extreme deeds in your service if you ask them (and even if you do not).
You study the black bronze idol, which provokes some unrest. Nevertheless, you learn from your study; as expected, the idol extracts and stores physical Evil from particularly dark acts, especially human sacrifice (and the more painful, the better). It sends part of its stored dark power to a distant receiver; you cannot follow the trail far, but it stretches west rather than north to Lord Thrane's camp as you might have expected. It also sends power to the dark medallions. It also has a faint taint of more concentrated Evil, as if it had been touched by a demon at some point. Concerning.
You certainly could not (and would not) replicate such a device, but you find ways to tinker with it. The first thing you learn to do is simply to cap its ability to transfer dark power to its desired sources. This will be a relatively cheap and easy act for you, requiring minimal use of your essence, and would weaken enemy necromancers and their undead (and limit them raising more). The second, harder trick is to reliably subvert these idols as you attempted before; channelling pure Good through them and destroying or seriously damaging anything dependent on its supply of Evil (especially the undead).
You are weak and cannot reliably destroy the idol and contain the outburst of darkness so you have a bronze chest forged, lock the idol inside and then melt it shut. You then erect several wards around the chest and expend a little energy to open a deep crack in the earth at a randomly chosen spot. You cast the chest into the abyss and seal the crack as if it had never been made. With luck, this artefact of evil will never trouble you or anyone else again.
You have Braithe's lieutenants executed; they agree to repent rather than be destroyed. The mercenaries, faced with the chance to not die, join your forces and pledge allegiance to you.
You offer Braithe a choice; Talk and repent and you will publicly execute him swiftly and with as little pain as possible. Don't talk, and you will burn his soul into nothingness in an excruciatingly painful death. Word has spread about what happened to the first necromancer you met; he opts to talk.
Thrane and his cohorts were mercenaries working for one of the dozens of petty warlords and would-be kings in these broken northern lands. Thrane was a mage of middling power but he trained all of his lieutenants as his apprentices; a single mage might only be somewhat useful, but a dozen all throwing fireballs could be a valuable unit in their own right - especially when also trained as decent soldiers. One day they were hunting down some former soldiers for the bounty when Thrane and two of his lieutenants were searching a network of caves in the high hills. A few hours passed and only Thrane came back, burned and bedraggled but possessed of a fiercer will than they had ever seen. He insisted they set up permanent camp near that cave and began erecting fortifications around it, sealing the gates with wards and allowing only himself and a select few of his most trusted lieutenants in.
Braithe tells you that he cannot say what was in that cave; he was not one of the few selected for entry. Those that went in came out changed, much like Thrane did. They seemed stronger, or sharper, or simply more paranoid. Thrane brought in forgers and soon these idols started coming out of the cave fort. He started retraining his lieutenants, Braithe included, as necromancers and teaching them how to raise the dead and infuse their spells with darkness for greater effect. Braithe tells you he regrets this act; you do not especially care if this is genuine repentance, but you give him some token comfort by telling him that the gods do forgive.
Braithe and the other lieutenants were sent out to recruit and conquer, bringing idols and medallions and training their own apprentices as necromancers in turn. Power constraints have always been a great problem for mages, he tells you, but the idols and medallions and the sacrifices have provided him and his fellows with more power than they could ever hope to tap without access to a (rare) mana source. You presume this is the reason why mages have not taken over the world by now.
Braithe does not know any more, not even the complement of Thrane's forces - he has been on his own for two months now and has received little news from his lord. You have a map of these broken lands brought out and he marks the approximate location of Thrane's home fort. It is west of Ferrun quite a ways, and he tells you that Thrane's lieutenants have captured much of the land between there and here. You will need to sneak, fight or bargain your way through those lands if you want to go there. With this last piece of information you give him his final rites. He is brought out to the market square before a crowd that boos and jeers and curses him for what he did to their families, but you demand quiet for the act itself; the respect due any man due to die. The crowd obliges, if somewhat grudgingly.
Mistwalker swings, the song of the blade cutting through the deafening silence. Braithe hits the ground with two thumps and the crowd bursts into a roaring cheer.
After all your work in Ferrun, the town's future and prosperity is all but secure. Marrham is established as its governor and advised by a council of elders with a clear heirarchy that you helped to establish. Trade links are being rebuilt and with patrols and assistance from the newly established Ferrun militia (composed largely of the old resistance fighters) the surrounding lands are probably more secure than they were in Sir Townsend's time. With the temple restored and properly staffed, the citizens are well-prepared to fend off further attacks by the undead. You have done all you can here, and now it is time for you to move on.
Before you move, it is important to remember that not all (or even any) of your followers have to travel with you. If you leave them here in Ferrun and dedicate resources to training them, you can train them from spearmen to macemen or swordsmen and even archers. As usual, this will take about a month. You can train followers on the go, but the resource requirements will double.
To the north, what news you can gather tells you that the siege of Ferrybridge is going badly for the defenders. Thrane's forces remain camped outside, a large portion of which is undead. There are periodically fires within the city walls, some self-started, others from the occasional fireball Thrane's men toss over the walls. The Lord seems content to wait for the city either to surrender or sally forth in desperation. You could head north now and try to save them before Thrane takes the city, but you will be sorely out-numbered and under-equipped. You will have to rely on guile and the luck of the Rarely Neutral Gods to win.
To the west are the lands Thrane has already taken. Taking on his lieutenants will be easier than striking the bulk of his army and will deprive him of necessary resources and power for the ongoing siege - it will also give you a chance to liberate more towns and gain more followers and a stronger army for the attack. More than that, even further west is Thrane's fortress and whatever he discovered within the cave it protects. This course will rely on your martial ability.
To the east are a loose coalition of towns that Lord Thrane's armies have either not yet reached or have successfully fought off what few soldiers and captains he has sent against them - from what Braithe said, Thrane was not bothered about dedicating resources to capturing that region when he could besiege Ferrybridge instead. These towns are healthy, well-organised in defence and could provide great assistance to your cause if you could convince them to provide resources and men, to ally with you or even to become subjects. This course will test your diplomatic skills.
To the south, beyond Stworca's Hamlet, there lies a wizard's tower. Well, sort of. From what you understand it was an abandoned monastery that a powerful wizard and his apprentices occupied back when the Empire still held sway over these lands. They have remained utterly neutral since the various civil wars began to rage through these lands and command enough magical force that they can keep that neutrality up, but have made no efforts to expand their lands or help others in the ongoing conflict. You could try to win over the support of this wizard, who could be a powerful ally and even teach your cultists how to use magic of their own, but words alone are unlikely to sway so rigid and self-interested a mage. This course may find you questing to win a powerful ally.
Will you go...
North: Head to Ferrybridge, try to stop Thrane with weaker forces before he can take the city. (Risk)
West: Forcibly liberate the other necromancer towns to gain more supporters. (War)
East: Negotiate alliance and support with the free towns. (Diplomacy)
South: Win support from the wizard and his tower. (Quest)
Name: Lvantha Talaoia
Strength: 13 manpower (-1 Sealed Evil, +1 Worship, +2 Helping the Needy)
Mind: 14 menminds (+1 Worship, +2 Helping the Needy)
Personal Retinue
Followers: 12 cultists, 120 spearmen, 31 macemen, 35 archers, 1 armed luxpanap (John)
Slaves: 1 spy.
Prisoners: -
Servants: 10 shades, 10 greater shades
Holdings: 16r
~20 villages (4 Resources)
1 market town (5 Resources)
1 tin mine (6 Resources - The mine has expanded from self-investment!)
Slave Gathering (1 Resource) [25 slaves]
Upkeep: 4r
~200 soldiers (4 resources)
Items:
Mistwalker: +2 vs undead & demons if you wield it. More effective when a mortal holds it.
Lvantha Medallion: +3 vs undead, +1 vs demons on both mental and physical atacks.
Cultist: 1 Str, 2 Mind. 1 hp, 15 morale, 2 mobility.
Cultists have really good morale, even though they're pretty weak physically. Unarmoured and mobile, they make for good flanking troops but their real use is their adaptability - cultists can be trained into specialist units such as mages, priests, spies and so on once you find suitable trainers. Ordinary followers can only be trained up the standard infantry or cavalry trees.
Plus, untrained cultists or 'armed cultists' (read: cultist spearmen) give you power through worship. It's pretty useful. If you permit a mid to high level of cult organisation you can send them out to establish little sub-cults in your name. Even if they fail to establish cults, they can be sent out as untrained spies or informants to get you general information about areas before you visit them in person.
Gods have existed since the beginning of the world, according to scripture, and since scripture is the only source of information anybody has about the origin of the gods you have to assume that's the truth. They are different and significantly above demons and angels, even though they may or may not be empowered by prayer the same way.
Anyway, fun with decision making! Basically you can try and do an incredibly risky coup-de-grace and take out Thrane directly. You don't have good chances here; I won't give you Thrane's exact troop disposition because you don't have scouts there, but it's enough to besiege a city (unlike your 200 men). Then again, the RNG might help you out and I'm sure you could come up with a crafty way to get around his plans.
Alternately, you can do a little conquest a la Demonhood and go after the other necromancer towns, maybe going on to try and hit Thrane's home base whilst he's away. I'm sure he's left that completely unguarded, because he is not at all genre savvy. (Tip: He is.)
Option three is diplomacy - you can get a big follower and resource boost if you play your cards right, but I appreciate it isn't everyone's cup of tea. Hence option 2, blowing sh-t up.
Option 4 is classic RPG matter: You're off to see a wizard who may or may not subject you to
a side-quest some sort of trial before even meeting you, let alone helping you out.
Oh yeah, and someone
finally suggested actually interrogating one of these necromancers before you killed them. I've been waiting three updates for someone to think that up. =B
You also should define your cult. You will need the following...
Name: The Cult of Lvantha Talaoia (Or something else.)
Level of Organisation: From None (You are the sole leader and everyone else is your servant) to Highest (There are so many tiers in the complex heirarchy of your cult that the lowest level consists of hirelings who don't even follow you.).
Looks: What do your cultists wear? What symbols do they use? Do they worship at shrines, to small dolls, in vast temples? What do these look like?
Practices: How do the cultists meet? What do they do at their meetings? What do they do in general?
You can change the cult later, but the larger it is the harder changes will be to implement.
Author
Topic: Divinity. - Dreams Invaded: 2 (Read 57820 times)