Warlocks
year of 34, spring and summer (and a little bit of winter from the year before it)
15th obsidian (of 33): Mestenu goes through the notes inscribed on soft clay inlaid on a bone tablet, a so-called journal. He has so many questions. why do we have so many bone crafts? ((The predecessor must have run out of stone and made bone hourglasses with craft productions))
why are there around twenty gem splints laying around? why are there unfinished orders for more? At least the foodstocks look good. 500 units of prepared meals and 300 of meat.
A considerable amount of filled phylacteries, skulls, bones and leather. Good.
He immediately started with the most pressing task that was the easiest to solve: naming the skeletons and zombies. Lacking in immagination, he instead tried to recall as many of the deieties the different members of their encampment worshipped. He decided to dedicate one zombie each to each, using the deity's name with the "bola" suffix, meaning 'sevant'.
One of the two last remaining zombies had already been named 'zippo' by somebody else, and the remaining one was dubbed 'stumpy' due to his lack of both hands and one leg.
The skeletons were named 'rattles' and 'dirtstained' after the first distinguishing feature that popped to his when he saw them.
Next up were noble positions. Apart for the mistress reserved for Deus, he felt forced to appoint Bred Mournsavaged as keeper of knowledge, since he was the only one who had a slightly better clue on how to appraise the value of goods than the rest. The position of fleshmonger proved difficult to fill, all of them would be horrible for the job.
He ended up choosing Dent for the job as a way to repay whatever 'debt' Dent thought he owed him, and partially because he was amongst the least terrible at doctorwork.
17th obsidian: Dent seemed to have been taking a stroll in the caverns, when he was attacked by a few cave bears. Luckily the overlord managed to get there in time and finish them off easily.
Mestenu didn't get the information first hand, but instead he was notified by a zombie while he was organizing the construction of ovens for coke production. The zombie also informed him of some amusing news:
Deus had no whip available at the moment she was made mistress, so she opted to issue a beating instead as punishment for the ex-steward almeyu. She had apparently punched him in the gut so hard, he vomited all over the fortress. Learning that almeyu and deus were married made the news that much sweeter.
Spring of 34
15 granite: An additional skeleton has been animated. He was named 'grin'. Three more were ordered to be assembled.
Meanwhile, a second and a third cave complex were discovered, along with a vertical tunnel that connects them. The secondary caves have crystals growing in them, while the teriary ones sport nethercaps. One of the zombies leans over the edge and spots an old abandoned chest at the bottom, and reports to its masters.
16 granite: the tattered clothing situation gets more dire with each passing day, and it's about time something is done about it. A few sets of clothing are ordered at the tailor shop.
25 granite: The mining out continues and so does the exploration of the 3rd cave layer. Another minion spots something turquise and gleaming. Another fifteen pairs of hollow, lifeless eyes dart in the same direction to confirm the suspicions of the first. Raw Adamantine.
What a boon! And once alerted, mestenu knew exactly what the first load would be used on: a new wraithblade for the overlord. The bone one he currently wielded was effective, but not enough weight could be put into a blow without shattering it.
Eventually, a skeleton will be inscribed with metalcrafting skills to produce the finest blade possible, and a sloppy tunnel is dug in the direction of the adamantine cluster.
7th slate: Mestenu noticed a new skeleton had been assembled. He named it Teblfewred after the named cave bear whose skull now was in much better use.
11th slate: The work proceeded slowly but... well... not steadily. Simply slowly. More alarmingly, during a morning stroll by the necromantic altar, two partial skeletons of what turned out to be warlocks were discovered. Caskets were soon created and the bodies interred, after a futile attempt to revive them.
15th slate: Uh oh. An intruder has been spotted nearby the encampment. A titan, it appears. It emanates a psychic aura of positive energy that suppresses the elditch magics of the warlocks. Has the creature been summoned by the elves and tasked to destroy us? Or is it acting of its own initiative? It is impossible to know.
((seriously though. Aura of giving and kindness? is there a more appropriate foe for warlocks?))
4th felsite: The forest Titan approaches camp and rests on a cremating furnace. While it is not actively charging to battle us, it is undoubtedly scouting or trying to find patterns to exploit weakness. Something must be done soon. Telepathically the warlocks agree on a pre-emptive attack. Dozens of zombies swarm the creature to keep it busy, while the three elite fighters of the camp, The overlord, Deus and a two headed four armed ghoul, flank the creature.
A sea of angry limbs punches and holds down the titan, pinning it down by holding on to legs and wings, preventing it from fleeing.
The zombies do occasionally get gored though. One of them has his neck broken.
The overlord and a few more warlocks join in on the slaughtering of the great beast
The overlord and some zombies get in a good flurry of blows.
7th felsite: After three days of fighting, the battle has come to an end.
After a good three days of fighting, the overlord delivers the killing blow by jamming his wraithblade into the beast's exposed brain through the cracks in its mighty chitin
the scene at the creature's coprse. Its white ichor soaks the ground.
13th felsite: The hospital is full of zombies. While swarming the opposing force with relatively weak undead punchbags to grasp and hold on to their limbs seems like a good strategy, the downside is that the zombies are direly missed as a workforce. Warlocks are made to do physical labor again since adamantine strand extraction needs to proceed quickly.
The overlord is also hospitalized, but surprisingly it is from an earlier wound from when a giant roach skewered his (then unarmored) foot.
16th felsite: The corpse of the forest titan is being butchered, Mestenu is curious what it will yield. Meanwhile, an artifact is being made. Mestenu managed to coax Kreysetal to start cutting gems, but she has removed her pants in protest.
A semi-nude Kreysetal. Very sensual. Every time she is asked why she is pantsless, she gives a different answer. Because the pants were itchy, because she works more creatively this way, because she can't find something to wear that she doesn't hate. Mestenu personally thinks she spent way too much time with the succubus in the dungeon, and has grown bored of her husband Setar. Trying to seduce other warlocks by showing off her body, rejuvenated by dark magic.
((I also think it's very funny that our designated gem handler is called something similar to Crystal))
A very large amount of chitin and meat is peeled off the corpse. Don't mind the reptile man skull.
((sadly I did not have the option to ressurect this beast as a corrupted undead butterfly, forest titans are not megabeasts))
20th felsite: An artifact bone armor is created. It will adorn the overlord once he is well again.
I think the image on the breastplate is supposed to imitate or inspire strength in the wearer.
22nd felsite: A group of goblin lashers has sneaked up on the camp! This poses a significant threat, since their barbed and bladed whips can easily snap off limbs. Moreover, the overlord is still hospitalized. Deus and alzam, the two headed four armed ghoul, are the only real warriors to their disposal.
23rd felsite: The earlier tactic of sending in zombies first does not seem to work so well. The lashers dole out a large amount of punishment against the zombies, but luckily they can take it. One of the zombies falls over, lifeless.
This is more or less the same spot the titan was slain. Were the goblins chasing the titan? Is this titan's ichor precious to the goblins in some way?
Zombies taking a lot of cutting whiplashes to keep the goblins busy
As Deus and the ghoul sneak in to flank, they luckily do much better than the zombies. The goblins are soon decapitated or run through by deus and the bone wraithblade that was earlier used by the overlord. The goblins are killed and humiliated.
A flurry of lashes rains down on Deus but she checks each and every one of them. She then counterstrikes and ends up decapitating a goblin.
More logs of Deus parrying lashing strikes with great ease, and attacking from the side. She disarms the goblin quite literally, and he bleeds out eventually.
goblin corpses and aftermath
Summer of 34
3rd hematite. Mestenu gets in close and feeds the hospitalized overlord, meticulously taking care of his needs. Perhaps he will remember this service when the time for reward has come.
28th hematite. The overlord has recuperated.
8th malachite. New zombies are attracted from a nearby graveyard. They are named Stoneface and stonehands. Mestenu plans to use them for hauling blocks of stone, but he wonders when he will have the luxury of being able to spare two sets of working hands.
13th malachite. The zombie Sebwerbula is taken by a mood. His determination is an inspiration to the entire camp. He crawls out of the bed using his hands, dragging his broken and missing legs behind him.
20th malachite. The keeper of knowledge keeps pressing on the fact that we need better armor, particularly mail hoods, and has mandated their production. We still have very little metal, so the mandate was ignored.
7th galena. The keeper of knowledge has lost his patience, and he has decided to scapegoat a zombie. He is sentenced to jail.
14th galena. An even bigger threat approaches the camp. A group of human warriors has come to siege the warlocks! 10 men and a horse stand on the top of the hill south of the encampment, their shields gleaming in the dawn's rays. The leader on horseback is quickly identified as the Ape Kupegulud, the son of a local minor lord.
The list of invaders. All of them are armed with (padded) leather or cloth armor, metal crowns, heavy looking morningstars and maces, as well as shields and bucklers.
19th galena. The humans have made camp on top of the hill, but this situation won't last. A quick plan is drafted. A token force will be left inside the fortification above the river, together with Dent the fleshmonger. He can try and cure the hospitalized zombies. Meanwhile, the bulk of our forces will be moving supplies underground and sealing us off by removing the top of the stairs.
the human camp
The zombie sebwerbula finishes his artifact, a smooth wooden iron maiden. Is this an omen of the victory to come, or of defeat?
Mestenu starts to ponder if this iron maiden is so plain because the zombie has no creativity or if it's because it had to drag its legless corpse and was physically limited in its efforts.
22nd galena, Five more humans join the encampment. No doubt scouts that have circled around our entire campsite looking for an easy way in. These humans are no fools.
The majority of the food, bone and coke supplies have been dumped down the main stairway. The upper stairs are removed. The entrace to the caves that exists on the surface has already been sealed. Now just the drawbridge has to be raised.
24th galena, Dent needs to pull the lever to lock himself in, but instead opts to have a long mealtime instead! Dent, you fool! pull that lever!
dent eventually gets the message and pulls the lever
EDIT: added pics
(( Have 90% of the year played, will do a autumn winter writeup in an hour or two))
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Topic: ☼Battle of the 8 Armies☼ - Looking for players (Who wants some Waaaaagh?) (Read 125292 times)