I just removed the brackets after enabling diseases. And yeah, on the schizophrenia. It's a shame abou that as a gameplay element.
The Jitte was essentially the Japanese equivalent to when a sai and nightstick had a child in I wanna say the Meiji/Edo eras (I don't remember which, been a while since I looked them up.) a strong elf can bust a head with one but they're otherwise useless unless they're made of a more substantial metal. Personally I'm in favor of falcions or the khopesh to replace it.
EDIT: Tenderroast, consider Imush yours.
Hey kids, it's time for our first history lesson on: The Rent Conflict.
The Rent Conflict was perhaps the most significant event in the History of The Shovel of Hope barring its foundation. Now, I had misread the numbers and symbols when I wrote the intro. I had assumed that the automatons struck first, being hostile to everything that breaths and all. Coupled with that I had misread some lines on the legends viewer map and thought the Eastern Seducers were located on the west part of the map. It turns out I was wrong on all counts. We, dear players, are the bad guys in this bloody, reverse Red Army at Stalingrad-esque tale of Riverrun's world.
The war began in Year 86, presumably in spring when it would be prime campaign weather. It appears to have began as a result of abductions both in 'The Shovel' and the other Dwarven nation, The Healing Cruelty. While the latter nation did fight these fell machines, they didn't commit to a full scale war due to conflict with the Frost Giants, Badgermen, and Goblins.
The automatons weren't fools, and had been gathering large numbers of fodder to send against the dwarves and thier human and elvish allies (Like The Healing Cruelty, the elves did fight and fight hard, but didn't commit to a full scale war thanks to fighting with the orcs of The Artificial Wickedness and the many Pandashi and Badgerman clans that inhabit the Dyed Forest.
The Shovel of Hope opened up the conflict with a surprise attack at Cobaltmalignent, an event known as The Bitten Siege, the dwarf Gasis Barbbarousplayed leading the assault. Unfortunately, while they had the element of surprise, she proved to be an inept commander and the battle ended in a loss for the dwarves with 83 of her soldiers dead, along with her beloved pet emu. On the upside however, her forces took almost as many automatons with them, 72 in all. However the significant number of dwarves and orcs on the automaton side weren't slain, including the enemy commander Solon Wiredrank, who would become known as The Intricacies of Libraries for his skill in this and the following battle.
Gasis would lead a greater number of dwarves against the automaton's forces at thier city/staging area of Stealmansion, in The Cut Siege. The Shovel of Hope had a massive numeric advantage with of 658 dwarves and a handful of humans, leopards, and black leucros. Gasis however was trusted to lead this second attack to redeem herself and once more proved to be a dwarf of unequaled military incompetence, getting an even greater number of dwarves killed. Along with all 15 warbeasts, all of the humans, and 229 dwarves, Gasis herself was among the fallen. Solon's forces had claimed victory but the price was indeed steep, with his comparatively tiny force of 144 losing 78 fighters and animals.
Solon would be tested (and eventually simply annoyed,) as a commander several times in The rent Conflict, the Shovelhope Army having a massive pool of evidently eager dwarves to call on to fight the war thanks to living in peace for 86 years. At the Beast-like Siege, his army of 109 would beat back the Shovelhope Army of 609, led by Igbit Syrupgalls, killing 375 of the dwarven warriors and their human comrades. 86 years of peace had clearly meant that the dwarves of The Shovel of Hope had few capable military leaders. However, Solon's army suffered proportionally terrible losses, with 76 of his dwarves, orcs, and automatons fallen.
Igbit would be humiliated by Solon again at the second battle of Stealmansion, The Steamy Onslaught. Her army of 575 lost 350 troopers and animals to Solon's 111 defenders. However, as always, Solon's army lost close to or more than half thier number, at 69 dead; losses including dwarves and orcs Solon could rarely afford to lose, as they were the ones who carried the day for thier machine-god. The Attack of Wrath saw similar results: Igbit's newly raised army of 554 lost 349 fighters to Solon's paltry 90, 66 of whom were claimed in the battle by the vengeful Shovelhope soldiers. A third clash at Stealmansion, the Conquering Siege, ended much the same: Igbit's comparatively large force of 545 crashed against Solon's dwindling 'army' of 88 warriors, with the loses being 326 to 57.
The battles however had proven one thing: Igbit actually knew what he was doing. What I had mistaken for poor leadership at first lead me to see that Solon was too great a leader and warrior to be beaten outright, but Igbit knew that the Shovelhope Army had one thing that Solon's automaton nation didn't: Sheer numbers. While Solon's orcish and dwarven soldiers were mighty, his automaton warriors were being destroyed faster than they could be built, and each clash took from his army more of the soldiers he couldn't afford to lose now. Igbit, with a nation still fully behind the war in spite of the losses, had deliberately turned The Rent Conflict into a war of attrition.
And the war went on as the previous battles did.
A second Beast-like Siege(s), the fourth battle of Stealmansion, pitted 590 against 72, Solon's army claiming 312 invading Shovelhope soldiers but costing him all 46 of his freshly constructed automatons.
The Second Battle of Cobaltmalignent, The Onslaught of Impaling, saw Solon rush his tiny army of 67 there to meet his nemisis Igbit's massive force of 647. 302 Shovelhope fighters lost their lives, but so did 40 of Solon's, among them most of his orcs. Following this came another attack on the same settlement/foundry, The Attacks of Chucking. For the first time in years Solon's forces failed to inflict the usual 300+ casualties on the invading 624 dwarf strong army, taking only 288. Solon's forces meanwhile lost 37 of its 65 strong number, still more of his dwindling orcs dying to the vengeance-and-booze-fueled bearded tide that was the Shovelhope Army.
The fighting dragged on for years when I looked it over for this.
The fifth battle of Stealmansion, The Onslaughts of Anger: Igbit's 634 would lose 280, and Solon's 63 would lose 33. Once again, Solon's usual 300+ casualties had not happened to Igbit's forces.
The next battle, known as The Charred Siege at Tormentedplays, would place the defense of an Eastern Seducer hold on the dwarf Shulmik Soakedfortified, known to the Shovel of Hope as The Tempestuous Butcher. She however was no Solon, and her defending force of 44 was killed to the last dwarf, orc, and automaton. Igbit's Army lost only 92 dwarves. Shulmik's killer? A current resident and recently arrived Swordsdwarf turned Miner of Riverrun, Ongos Fikod. Ongos may well have been the hero of the battle, and quite possibly The Shovel as a whole for slaying that walking death machine. It was also the first true victory the dwarves had had against The Eastern Seducers.
However elation was quickly turned sour when an army of 464 lost 260 dwarves at Blacknessskinned during The Rent Onslaught. General Igbit Syrupgalls, who'd been slowly but surely eroding The Eastern Seducer's ability to fight, was killed in this clash, by a dwarf of the name Gedor who also didn't survive the battle. With their commander dead, the Shovelhope troops withdrew, leaving only one enemy defender still standing, Melu Tomenteddiscover, a drow who would become known as The Ignited Bulbs for her role in the battle as commander and slaying of at least five dwarves in that same engagement.
In Opal of 98, General Zeg Cloudyaquamarine would take the helm and continue General Igbit's strategy of drowning the enemy in beards. The Attacks of Ripping saw his army of 430 lose to 20 defenders at Hellishstinks, leaving only Melu and two dwarven warriors left to defend the city. For the next four years however, this would be the only proper win the Eastern Seducers would get. From 99 to 103, the Shovelhope Army would raze foundry after foundry.
In mid-spring of the world centennial, the Shovelhope Army celebrated the turn of the century with the razing of Hellishstinks to the ground, Melu and her two surviving dwarves being nowhere to be found.
Granite of 101 would see Zeg's army level four more foundries: First, Tormentedplays, then Hatredpleats, Controllingvile, and then finally in early Moonstone, Cobaltmalignent. It seemed as though the automatons had given up, with only token resistance not even worth recording being made. Blacknessskinned and Plaitedunnamable would fall in 102 and 103 respectively.
Then in Obsidian of 104, they came once more to Stealmansion, in The Monstrous Assaults. A tiny force of four automatons and a drow routing Zeg's forces and inflicting 299 loses on the 512 strong army, though not before the automatons were all destroyed. The Drow, Eye Poisonedexited, The Carnage of Memorizing, would be killed by a future resident of Riverrun and one of the dwarves who'd been at the first battle of the war.
For such a disaster, Zeg would be replaced in 105 for the next attack on Stealmansion, The Rent Onslaughts, by Reksas Ragetringed. The attack was a dismal failure and resulted in Reksas' death, among the 302 of the 483 strong army. The only survivor of the enemy defense was once again Eye. Unib Guileshadow would lead the dwarves in the next assault, The Siege of Threats, claiming all of the defends but a few, but still losing the battle due to collapse of morale and the loss of 302 of a 444 dwarf army, along with General Unib's death. Strangely, the survivor of the Monstrous Assaults and Rent Onslaughts, Eye, was not present in this battle.
The Shovelhope Army would attack again with the Sieges of Ferocity, sending a force of 405 and losing 297 dwarves, including General Ingtak Machinesquirming. And after that, came General Led Bronzemop and The Attack of Savageries, with similar losses (once again including the general.)
Then at long last, in Moonstone of 109, The Assaults of Executing came, lead by recently returned General Zeg Cloudyaquamarine. After almost two decades of grief and anguish, Stealmansion finally fell, with only 40 dwarves lost in the battle. The foundry was torn down, the remains of the defeated automatons' gears and springs stripped out and used to build muskets and other contraptions or to be sold to the gnomes. Having finally crushed the mightiest beacon of Automaton resistance on the mainland, Zeg stepped down, allowing Borik Bronzealchemized to lead the next advance on the Eastern Seducers, the Smokey Assault.
Which predictably ended in a complete fucking disaster.
With 249 of the 331 dwarf strong force being killed. Borik would swear on and later get his revenge the following year, leading the last major battle of the war, The Onslaught of Violence. While 227 of the 351 dwarves involved would die, the Eastern Seducers would be crushed utterly, with Unholinessram, their last foundry, being leveled the following year without resistance.
What of Solon the mighty dwarven general of the machines? What about Eye, the drow second hero of Stealmansion? Or even the Drow Melu?
During the Second battle of Flydoom, known by the world as The Skewered Monsters, Melu and her dwarves met their end. Melu herself was shot and killed by an Orc-raised Drow archer of The Patterned Temptations.
Solon finally met his match in an orcish warlord Krat Witchadventure, and died during a following battle called The Strangled Menace, defending Flydoom from the same orcs. The foundry would be claimed by the orcs before the year's end.
Eye however, was killed defending Unholinessram from a minor raid led by General Zeg, just prior to the final battle of Stealmansion.
So there you have it boys and girls, it turns out our beloved Shovel of Hope was the antagonist of the war, having more or less attacked without any real provocation. My intro not only is false, but wildly inaccurate as not a single battle took place on Shovelhope soil or rock, and probably only ended favorably by the involvement of the orcs and Solon and Melu being called away from Stealmansion to defend Flydoom.
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