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[Andres]

Oh, there are probably benefits to staying in one place, but that's kinda boring - how would we have gotten to rampage as a dragon through some towns, or super lasered that one army, or any other number of really cool stuff we did?

The super laser killed only a few dozen men out of a few hundred (it was still pretty cool, I'll admit) and it wasn't much of a rampage at all. I still don't get why they decided to forcibly limit themselves rather than have Krlnkir attack in his true form.
Let's not force ourselves to stay in one place, then. We'll stay in one place as default but once we find cool things to do we'll go out and do them. It's a waste of time to faff about in other places for no reason, but actually going out and doing stuff is alright.

Try to find some witches and ask if they'd be willing to stay on permanent retainer with us. Since we're focusing our mental abilities on children, we'll just have some cultists do the missionary work for us.

I really like the whole "6 wings that can turn into tendrils". No strings attached - they're just awesome.

EDIT:
Name: The Cult of the Winged Lady
Looks: What symbols do they use?  Do they worship at shrines, to small dolls, in vast temples?
A lady with six wings (like the one on our necklace) or with six tendrils. Yes. Shrines are small statues of a six-winged lady with a small, cleared area in front of it for offerings; dolls look like us, wings and tendrils both applicable

I'd like people to notice that the Winged Lady has six wings and the Tall Man has four hands. Six. Four.

[3man75]

Awesome thread. Also we should talk with the town that declared independence. Get them to come back IF this guy helps us attack thraines base.

[Andres]

We don't want to attack Thrane's base - that's where the demon lives. We're not powerful to fight the demon ourselves and the only way to do so is to fight against it with an army using sanctified weapons. If that happens and the army wins, then the people will be less likely to worship us instead of the gods.

Attacking Thrane himself is the better course of action, but preparing an offensive against him is risky. If we lose, we're going to cop the blame for the failure and conversion will be even harder. The most logical course of action is to allow that city to be taken and use it as a catalyst to form our own army, but the evil that would befall the civilians is too much for us to just sit by and let happen, even with our new ambition of conquest.

Our best bet is to kill Thrane ourselves. Unfortunately, we're not powerful enough to do even that without some help. Purging that necromancer in the other city would've given us the power boost we need but it's a bit late for that now. (Maybe we can stealth our way back in and purge it?) If we can purge the bandit leader(s) or find some of Thrane's lieutenants that should give us the power boost we need to take him on.

We left Aole (that's her name, right?) in charge of the mine which means we effectively have control over it. We can use that to get discounts on arming our armies or we can use it to pressure the city we just liberated into helping us in our goals. (I'm assuming it's their main source of income.)

EDIT:

Lassef may supply troops, but Lord Michael has been notably withdrawn of late.

This Michael guy is obviously a demon cultist/gravely ill. Travelling to Lassef to purge/heal him should give us the power/support we need to beat Thrane.
Fly to Lassef.

So what happened to the brainwashed spy we left in Ferrun?

EDIT2:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Candle in the Dark

 - Organized in a non-hierarchical fashion; No member has any greater status than that granted by the respect of their peers. This includes you and the gods - you receive only the worship that your actions demonstrate you deserve. And while there is no "official" status, members that demonstrate an exceeding goodness or notable accomplishments frequently receive unofficial status and will wield

 - Prime commandment is to be good; even in the most desperate situations - so as to be a metaphorical "candle in the dark".

 - Heavy emphasis on self-improvement; Followers engage in meditation, learning, and physical discipline in order to be the best they can spiritually, mentally, and physically. Especially important are teachings on how to recognize and resist evil.

 - Seeks primarily to keep hope alive in lands shrouded in evil, and to combat that evil where it can.

 - Members devote their lives to the cause of good, but decide for themselves what that means. Some members travel to lands shrouded in evil and devote all their time and effort to promoting good, foregoing relationships and careers, while other lead relatively normal lives, seeking to promote good by example.

I don't really like the third and fifth points. On the third, that would make good really, really boring. There should also be singing and dancing and music! Joviality! Love, hope, and happiness are things that empower us more greatly than stoicism.
On the fifth point, I don't think people should devote their lives to good, or at least any more than a demon would demand people devote their lives to evil (within the same context, I mean). Instead, let's just tell them to be good. Those who are devout and of greater heart than others will seek the path of the missionary on their own.
I like the first, second, and third points though. Nothing wrong with them at all.

EDIT3: I realised that my counter-points also kinda run counter to our efforts to begin conquering. I'll think of something in the morning.

[3man75]

Well ya maybe taking him out as soon as we have ~4000 troops would be a good idea.

We should also send some kind of scout that way to report on Thraine numbers and what's going on. Hopefully the siege holds out long enough to get the support we need.

More on to the point lets take half of our shades and half of our greater shades with us and let our cult grow itself a bit. We'll use the shades when we get there to find info on this town and Lord Micheal. Who knows maybe he's just really lonely/thinks its only a matter of time until the zombies come. By coming into his dreams we can prime him to believe in us to win this war together.

Basically, info gathering with shades. Then invade his dreams (if he's not corrupt or something). Then get him to believe in us to march troops with the Lord we just met against thraine. He may have someone controlling him though like in lord of the rings. I remember that being a thing.

[Andres]

Let me see if I've got the consensus right:
Recruit the volunteers and create a permanent cult in the city.
Ask for strategic locations to found a city.
Send shades to scout out the nearby villages to gauge their fervour to the gods/level of goodness.
Send shades to determine the army size of Lord Thrane's host.
Fly to Lassef and check on the local lord there.
Include luxpanapi, necromancers, physical might, and mental might to the glossary.

I think maybe we ought to rethink our 'angel of conquest' idea. If we go that way, we'd honestly be just be another shade of demon. I'm not saying we shouldn't conquer some towns but let's moderate our behaviour a bit. I think we should limit our conquests to evil citie and cities whose governments are against our cult (officially or unofficially, meaning if they allow lynch mobs to attack our worshippers we'll conquer them).

I've also come up with an idea for a shield to complement our sword. Maybe it can take some of the energy of attacks that hit it and redirect it as an energy attack right back at them? That should give it an offence and a better defence.

[Iituem]

Previous: In which youth is restored, fealty reminded. | Current: In which paltry recruits are inducted, a site is considered, faith is scouted and dreams invaded. | Next: In which dream counsel is given, an army is set to march and children are whispered to. 

The first thing you do is recruit the three would-be cultists.  They aren't exactly the cream of the crop.  The armourer is well into his fifties, and the two younger recruits are somewhere around fourteen to fifteen.  Still, they take only minimal speaking to to convince to swear their lives to your service, so you set the armourer to preparing weapons and armour for your cultists and the cultists to training themselves and trying to recruit others.

Considering the possibility of setting up some sort of base of operations, you have one of the cultists acquire a map for you.  You study it in the hopes of finding a fine place to settle a city.  Of course, any good place to settle a city tends to already have a city on it.  Ferrun would do, as would Ferrybridge.  You rattle off a handful of existing cities, until you find one that might suit your purposes.  Further north, downstream, the city of Farrowford was destroyed in the wars about three years ago.  There are still survivors there living amongst the burnt out ruins, but by and large the area is abandoned.  It crosses a river, and there are fertile fields and hills with iron in them not far away.  It could be worth restoring.

You send a pair of shades off to Ferrybridge to try and determine the size of Thrane's host.  It will take them about six days to get back to you, because they can only fly about half of your maximum speed (which is still a very fair clip, perhaps faster than a galloping horse).  The others you send out to the villages to assess their religious fervour and apparent morality.  They return after about a day of searching; there are temples to Tokchoko, Dolrael, Jilganheim and Utran'Vitran, and people attend their services, although how faithful they are they cannot guess.  They have listened and heard scant rumour of a following of the god Slask as well, but his cult's temples are not easily found. Equally, the shades are not able to determine goodness, but they can at least tell you that they have not observed anything on the level of baby eating or human sacrifice.  Maybe the occasional purse snatcher.

You fly to Lassef yourself, arriving in the middle of the night and hovering far above the town.  Lassef's walls are sturdied than Oyral's; they boast stone foundations and the lower walls are made of stone as well, although the upper walls are still palisades.  The castle is on a par with Oyral's, but at some point was extended to include a larger feasting hall.  The streets are quiet and dark, as honest folk slumber at this time.

You can feel the town in your bones (or what you imagine to be bones).  There is a deep, abiding sadness here.  You can feel it even without going into dreams, an aching sense of loss and tiredness.  You can feel the heartbeats of this town - too many old hearts, not enough young.  You make your way into the dreams of Lord Michael, who appears in his dream to be a middle aged man with too much grey in his thick beard.  You feel the echo of a recurring dream to this place, as you watch Michael bid farewell to three young men in fine and gleaming armour - and then kneeling over the broken bodies of his sons.  For a time the Lord cries, then finds himself being chased by the remains of his children, blaming and cursing him, with a tall, imperious figure in gleaming armour with a white cape chasing at their heels, whipping each of the sons to keep them going.

You step back into your body again, hovering above the town.  What now, Lvantha?

Name: Lvantha Talaoia
Strength: 14 manpower (+0 Worship)
Mind: 15 menminds (+0 Worship)

Personal Retinue
Followers: 15 cultists (Cult of the Winged Lady, Anarchic Organisation)
Slaves: -
Servants: 10 shades, 10 greater shades

Ferrun
Followers: 1 priest, 120 spearmen (in training), 31 macemen, 35 archers, 1 armed luxpanap (John)
Slaves: 1 brainwashed spy
Prisoners: -
Servants: -


Holdings: 16r
~20 villages (4 Resources)
1 market town (5 Resources)
1 tin mine (6 Resources)
Slave Gathering (1 Resource) [25 slaves]

Upkeep: 12r
~200 soldiers (4 resources)
Training (5 resources) [120 macemen]
Training (3 resources) [30 swordsmen]

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.

[3man75]

Have our followers buy materials and plan to re-build the city of Farrowford. But not to leave until we have returned from our trip.

As for what we do. Lets talk with him in person and ask him as an angel about his sons. Perhaps he's regretful of sending them to war and not returning.

More likely than not he probably needs a shoulder to cry on   

[Andres]

What if we instead change his dream so it's only us and him in a room he finds comforting? It would be difficult to confront him in person what with the guards and his lordly duties and such. It would probably be better if we show up as a human rather than an angel. Let's not reveal ourselves just yet, at least until we get a feel on him. It's still a dream so he might not question it too much.

In his dream, take Michael into a comforting room and talk to him as a human. Don't reveal ourselves - just talk to him.
A couple other stuff you could've done as a demon:
Outlawed bacon
Harvested the tears of orphans (right after making them orphans)

So I'm thinking that all Luxpanapi will have 2 wings each and our children will have 4 wings each. That sound alright?

[Iituem]

Luxpanapi have six tentacles that look like two wings, just like us, but they're ethereal and only look pretty and harm undead.

[Andres]

Oh. I thought we had six wings that could turn into tentacles/tendrils. Maybe when we hit the point where we become a source of good we can evolve and get four extra wings? I've just image searched six-winged angels and they look freaking awesome.

[Andres]

I'm changing my action. We only came here to see if we can quickly and easily get something out of Lassef. While Lord Michael's suffering is unfortunate, we can't afford to waste time trying to fix him. Instead, we should focus on hunting down these bandits and getting our own city.

Locate bandits alongside our spectres. Try to stealth kill them. If we get into a battle, have our spectres target archers while we deal with melee troops. All bandits will be purged, except for the leader who we'll interrogate.

Tell John to pick a guy to lead our cult and have them make a Lvantha Medallion so we can contact them. Have him organise the refugees and travel with them to Farrowford. Have him spread our faith along the way.

Get Aloe (one of our luxpanapi, who should be included in the summary) to go with our army and protect the refugees. She should probably get armed as well.

Check on Marrham (our third luxpanap and governor of Ferrun, who should also be included) to see how our faith is doing in Ferrun.

Have a few of our lesser spectres whisper into the dreams of children, especially orphans and street urchins with cockney accents.

[zomara0292]

Locate bandits alongside our spectres. Try to stealth kill them. If we get into a battle, have our spectres target archers while we deal with melee troops. All bandits will be purged, except for the leader who we'll interrogate.

I will plus one everything else, but this. we could use the survivors to swell our personal military numbers, considering the fact that our group will be invading many towns and whatnot. Death of our men come with that territory, and, the need for more to replace/cushion the blow, will be great. We should give them the "serve us in repentance of your evil ways, or die." speech, after we have captured some and killed the rest. the leader, of course, should face a greater punishment. Heck, after the interrogation, if he is very helpful, we could send him to the tin mines. But that is getting too far ahead of ourselves and assuming this goes quite well.

I do personally say that we should leave a shade to do to Michael as you wish done to the children, in order to encourage him, though.

The dreams should include that of them running to our statue, or an image of either the buildings of the gods, or us, for safety

[Andres]

I only suggested we purge them because we really need to get more powerful and we need to do so more than we need to build an army. How about we compromise and we spare those who aren't that evil? We can't spare them all or we'll have evil ex-bandits as a part of our army and they might defect. We also have to be careful not to send powerful enemies to the mines or we might risk a revolt.

The idea about Michael running to our statue is a good idea.

[zomara0292]

Ok. If we do switch worship from the gods to us, lets make it a slow and steady process. And the compromise is fine .

[Andres]

Slow and steady would actually be bad for us. As we support the gods less and less, we'd still be spreading their faith through our actions. Once the line has been crossed and we definitely switch worship to ourselves, those people will resist our worship and will think of us as a traitor. The earlier we have people start worshipping us, the better, especially since we don't have a very long history of supporting the gods.