Plan : Invisible hand
Finding the Enemy :
1) Create extremely, extremely simple magical charms. They send a signal as long as the person wearing them is alive, when magic is used in their vicinity, and when they're severely distressed. Hand these out to the Duke's soldiers. Any attack is sure to trigger them.
2) Send Spectres to keep an eye on patrols, and to investigate any errors that may show up.
3)Create a big board with a map of the province, where we can pinpoint and keep tracks of all the attacks, hoping to find a pattern. Place it somewhere in the underground temple. Torture a very good and a very evil person (use the data from the recent dream scan to find suitable candidates) and use their body parts as a part of the map, trying to create a magical way to detect sources of evil and good in the province
4) Offer a significant award for information that leads to the capture of those who have murdered the Duke's forces
5) Start aggressively investigating the disappearances of tax caravans and soldiers. Send out troops in force to recover the lost taxes (no tax arrives = no tax paid) and interrogate possible suspects.
Drawing out the forces of good
1) Temporally re-occupy Fellshore with a decent amount of forces
2) Krvlnt's start systematically destroying villages surrounding Fellshore. Mindcontrol all those within, and bring them to Fellshore to be consumed.
3) Duke's forces provide token resistance, but are always too late or ineffective.
Expanding Forces :
1) Start recruitment among the Duke's forces, separate (for now) from our current cult.
2) Use Evil created by the Krvlnt's expeditions to :
- 20% Black Imps
- 20% Spectres
- 20% Ultraviolet Imps
- 20% Corrupt some Ravens. Eye in the sky and all that.
- 10% Us
- 10% Mkilzk
3) Have the Duke hire some more mercenaries. We have the funds, and they're easily converted.
4) Try to hire an unscrupulous alchemist or other such person. Their craft is often likened to necromancy, so it should be possible to find one who's just a tad to close.
5) Try to find if there are any users of wild magic near. Their craft is sometimes likened to necromancy, so maybe we can recruit them.
Defensive Preparations :
1) Have the laborers of the mine start construction on a wall for defensive purposes. Use arrests to increase labor force so that production does not falter.
2) Have the laborers of the mine start construction on a very small chapel within the mine. Staff the chapel with cultists preaching a twisted version of the faith, and thus starting corruption of all the people in that mine. Their desperation should make them easy prey.
Well, there wasn't exactly overwhelming support for any amendments. I might work bits of them in anyway, but for now we're just going with this.
(Mind you, this is plenty to do, even without the amendments.)
You recline on your recently-installed throne in the underground temple. Smoke drifts through the air, almost obscuring the view of the map hanging on the opposite wall (although naturally smoke does not actually impair your own vision in any way). Kate finishes reading a report, and sticks one last pin into the cloth. It joins several others in the north-west corner, though there are individual pins scattered all across the map.
"Looks like the do-gooders are residing in the north-west", Kate says, "Shall we focus our efforts there?"
"SEE TO IT"A terrified man sits tied to a chair. A Wordbearer, wielding a red-hot poker, walks back and forth.
"You enjoyed your reward money, did you?"
The man says nothing, staring transfixed at the glowing metal.
"We upheld our end of the bargain. So why is it that not a single person in the village you claimed housed the resistance knew a single thing about it?"
The man tries to stammer an excuse, but is cut off.
"You really think we might fail to extract even the most well-kept secrets from someone?"
The man breaks down, and starts pleading for mercy, saying he only did it to feed his family.
"Oh, don't you worry about your family. They have been... taken care of."
The man struggles against his bonds as the Wordbearer draws closer. He starts to feel the heat radiating from the poker, unnaturally hot.
"You have nothing to give to us, no information with which to buy your safety. I can see your thoughts running through your head. And yes, you are correct. This is going to hurt a little."
Passersby pass by more quickly as the faintest trace of a scream emerges from underground.
...
The village awakes with a start at the sound of something crashing through the trees. People leap out of bed and run to the windows to see what is going on. In the darkness, there is little to see, but the sound of eldritch cries produce enough fear to make up for it.
Villagers are running around in terrified confusion when a sudden change overcomes roughly a third of them. They stop in their tracks, vacant looks on their faces. Then, calmly, methodically, they turn on their friends and family and start raining blows upon them with inhuman strength. Then the beasts emerge from the trees, towering over the village, walking awkwardly on their many tentacles. People try to flee, but their mesmerised neighbours grab them and hold them tight, whilst tentacles shoot out and wrap around the rest. Their necks being snapped is the fate of the lucky. Others are drawn towards the
bodies of the three great beasts and 'eaten': in truth, they find themselves trapped eternally within the indescribable interior, their unending agony what the creatures truly feast on.
In the end, only a handful of the non-mesmerised villagers survive, and these are dragged by their weak-willed brethren through the forest, following in the trail of the Klrntvs, travelling through the night before arriving at the ruins of Fellshore. A lookout spies them in the morning light, and opens a hatchway within the burnt-out husk of a building, leading them down into the labyrinth, where they either walk or are thrown into cells, which armed cultists lock behind them.
Not every attack goes so well. Though no village manages to mount an effective resistance, many manage to flee the great beasts and their mind-controlled minions, escaping into the forest. Many others die before being captured; in the end, only 90 captives end up in the (cramped) cells at Fellshore.
Worse still, when the Duke sends his soldiers to 'stop' the rampaging beasts, they end up being led by a particularly eager young officer, who ignores orders to march slowly, racing his troops to villages under attack, and after a few failed attempts, manages to catch the three fiends in combat. Though the Klrntvs suffer only minor injuries, and the soldiers are either captured or killed, it still represents a... failure.
There is some confusion amongst the garrison at Fellshore as to what they are supposed to do with all these captives. They can't keep them here forever, so they need to be disposed of somehow. Some reason that the captives belong to those that captured them, and provide captives to the Klrntvs to eat. Others argue that the only good captive is a dead captive draped across an altar to their dark lord, and many of the captives suffer this fate, empowering you from afar. At the end of the week, only forty captives are left, and the garrison sends a messenger to Nuulyd to request clarification.
Following in the wake of the Klrntvs, you siphon energy from the destroyed villages, which you use to summon:
20 black imps
20 ultraviolet imps
20 spectres
40 ravens (well, you don't summon these, but you corrupt them)
whilst you consume some of the power for yourself, and channel some of it into Mkilzk.
You briefly consider starting yet another cult into which to recruit the Duke's soldiers, so that they wouldn't be able to betray your secrets if they were captured, but then you realise that a far easier method would be to simply not tell them anything worth knowing. Which is a good policy regarding your less important followers anyway. You tell Kate to shift her recruiting efforts to within the Duke's soldiers, as well as his newly employed mercenaries.
You also consider recruiting some alchemists or druids (real druids, the kind that use wild magic), but Mischa points out a flaw in your plan: Alchemy is illegal, and Wild Magic, whilst not technically illegal, is still frowned upon by civilised folk. As such you are unlikely to find practitioners of either by simply asking around.
She does mention that she heard that the Ura employ druids, though that may only be a story.
Towards the end of the week, two reports arrive in Nuulyd. One is from the Duke. He reports that his soldiers travelled to the villages from whence tax collectors never managed to return, and levied new taxes upon them to make up for the lost revenue. They did so successfully, and without major complaint. He mentions how nice it is to see all those coins flowing into the treasury again.
A second report comes from a spectre, one of the ten you sent to follow patrols in the north-western parts of the province. It clears its ethereal throat and begins to recite an epic ballad. You cut it off and threaten it with seven successively worse hells if it does not just tell you what you want to know. It looks somewhat disappointed, and reluctantly recounts the tale:
I was following the soldiers from a distance when suddenly a snowstorm appeared out of nowhere, centred directly over the patrol. Flashes of bright light could be seen within the swirling snow, which I decided would be bad for my health to approach. Within minutes, the snow cleared, and I could see that all the soldiers were either dead or incapacitated. A dozen men dressed like bandits emerged from the trees and started to drag the bodies into a neat line, folding their dead (or dying) hands across their chests before kneeling down to pray. Don't ask me why. Then what I assume was their leader, a person wearing a white cloak, touched each of the bodies in turn, causing them to dissolve into a golden mist, which blew away upon the breeze. I decided it would not be wise to hang around someone capable of wielding such powerful magic, and returned here at once to deliver this report. And I spent the entire journey composing the masterpiece that would have related this story, only somebody
doesn't appreciate my art. You rise from your throne to throttle the spectre, but it somersaults out of reach and flies out of the room.
The week ends on an alarming note, as the feeling of dozens of minions dying reaches you from the east. Within the space of fifteen minutes, every last zombie, skeleton, imp and troll that you provided Malkus with is snuffed out, and Malkus himself is injured. The wights survive, as do your ethereal forces, but that does little to make the situation less worrying.
In response to this, you
-Leave Fozdoch again and head east, to see what has happened.
-Ignore it, focusing on local matters.
-Send some reinforcements to Malkus, whilst you stay in Nuulyd.
-Do something completely different.
Also anything else in the plan happened. Charms were made, and distribution has begun to senior soldiers and officers, but will take some time to permeate the entire army. Stuff at the mines happened (see below).
And Malkus got rekt.
Name: Nokluvgn
Age: 11.5 months
Physical might: 73 (+1 p/w: province-wide suffering)(+16: Sacrifice)(+5: Death and Destruction)(-1: leakage)
Mental might: 77 (+1 p/w: province-wide suffering)(+1 p/w: Worship)(-5: Mass-produce charms)(+5: Death and Destruction)(-3: leakage)
Followers:525 (289 cultists, 14 cultists (armed), 7 magically trained cultists, 50 Nails (armed), 1 Finger (heavily armed), 56 mercs&soldiers (armed), 52 soldiers (armed), 26 senior soldiers (armed). 3 Lesser Wordbearers, 2 Wordbearers, 2 magically trained Wordbearers, 2 trained Wordbearers (armed), 1 Wolfmaster (armed), 7 knights (heavily armed), 7 mining engineers, 1 Mayor (lesser Wordbearer), 1 Duke)
Slaves: 18 (Under cult control)
Servants: lots (4 Brutewolves, 3 Smokewraiths, 30 spectres, 4 giant-rat-packs, 40 corrupted ravens, 30 black imps, 24 ultraviolet imps, 6 fungal druids, 3 Klrntvs)(Others under cult control)
With Malkus:(10 smokewraiths, 26 spectres, 8 Wights)
Cults:
The New Way: Medium organization. 432 members (289 cultists, 13 Acolytes, 50 Nails (armed), 1 Finger (heavily armed), 56 mercs&soldiers (armed), 3 Lesser Wordbearers, 2 Wordbearers, 2 magically trained Wordbearers, 2 trained Wordbearers (armed), 5 knights (heavily armed), 7 mining engineers, 1 Mayor (lesser Wordbearer), 1 Duke)
Slaves: 18 (4 priests, 1 high priest, 7 guards (armed), 6 captives)
Servants: 48 zombies, 24 skeletons, 4 Hollow Remnants.
Power level: 31 (20 used)
Of which: 8 spent recruiting, 4 spent constructing underground temple in Nuulyd (91/100), 4 spent harvesting from the fungal forest, 4 spent training new Nails (12/30)
Secrecy estimate: Fine
Resources: 1137 (+20 p/week: Duke's income)(+5 p/w: Copper mines)(-18: constructing underground temple in Nuulyd)(-40: constructing walls and chapel at the mines)(+12: fungal forest)(-8: Kate's recruitment)(+40: Recovered taxes)(-2: Mischa's studies)
Locations: Nuulyd: Merchant & town council & jail connections. Mayor converted.
Castle Brylib: Court connections+.
Oegorda: Nokluvgn may have been detected here. No wizards to be found.
Fözdoch Province (misc): No special features.
Other: Construction of walls starts at the mine, using prison labour. A small shrine is also installed in a cave within the mines, with a statue in your image taking pride of place. The prisoners, already dealing with black imps on a daily basis, are not exactly fooled, but are forced to listen anyway.
The Arms of He Who Beckons: Medium Organisation. 78 members (52 soldiers, 26 senior soldiers)
Power level: 8 (5 used)
Of which: 3 spent on extra training to stand out, 2 spent recruiting.
Resources: 0
Locations: Barracks near the capital.
Other:
The Cult of the Wolf: Low organisation. 15 members (14 cultists (armed), 1 Wolfmaster(armed))
Servants: 20 wolves, 6 brutewolves
Power level: 4 (4 used)
Of which: 1 spent worshipping Nokluvgn, 1 spent worshipping Mkilzk, 2 spent recruiting wolves.
Resources: 40
Locations: 3 weeks out of Seiyojin. They must head west for another week to reach the lands of the Ura.
Other: Still travelling and recruiting wolves from the forests.
Champions:
Mischa Alwiz: The Duke's 'loyal' companion, now corrupted by the allure of evil.
Physical Might: 2 (+1: the Vessel)
Mental Might: 15 (+5: the Vessel, +1: Burnt Silver Medallion)
Knowledge: Magic, competent Necromancy.
Possessions: Grey imp (knowledge of human & demonic magic, disguised as a crow), the Vessel (An urn containing 100 souls and a chunk of Nokluvgn's essence; +1 physical and +5 mental, enhances spell-casting stamina. Large and unwieldy, requires knowledge of Necromancy to use), Necromancy study book (enables further Necromancy progress), Burnt Silver Medallion (+1 Mental, attracts Evil and repels Good)
Other: With no other orders, Mischa resumes her studies, making use of the various fruits of the fungal forest to aid her in this endeavour.
Malkus Rom, the Black King: The captain of the mercenaries in the Duke's employ, he proved an especially eager convert, requiring only the most minor of rewards before pledging his loyalty to you. He now serves as the Black King of the East, ruling from the ruins of Seiyojin over an undead empire.
Physical Might: 10 (+2: Devil-horse, +2: Blade of Eternal Ash, -1: Black Staff)(-1: injured)
Mental Might: 4 (+1: Burnt Silver Medallion, +1: Blade of Eternal Ash, -1: Black Staff)
Knowledge: Competent Tactics.
Possessions: Devil-horse (A huge black horse with demonic strength and intellect; +2 physical strength, greatly increased mobility), Blade of Eternal Ash (+2 Physical, captures souls of its victims (increases Mental by 1)), Burnt Silver Medallion (+1 Mental, attracts Evil and repels Good), Black Staff (-1 Mental and Physical. Enables raising zombies (max 20 p/week), basic magic attacks, and minor mind control)
Other: Suffering only minor injuries, he flees with his wights and succubus, leaving the rest of his forces behind. His devil-horse takes him and his 'bride' down the side of the mountain, where his pursuers cannot follow (without falling and breaking their necks). The wights follow less quickly, but given their ability to recover from things like 'broken necks', they too are able to travel where mortals cannot.
"Kate": A female Wordbearer, trained in combat and magic and provided with arms and armour, now the vessel for your demonic offspring.
Physical Might: 6
Mental Might: 6 (+1: Burnt Silver Medallion)
Knowledge: Adequate Mesmerism, basic Magic, novice dream-explorer
Possessions: Burnt Silver Medallion (+1 Mental, attracts Evil and repels Good)
Other: 5/8(?) months pregnant. Continues to hone her newfound ability to invade dreams. Tries to invade Mischa's dreams, only to discover that a wizard's dreams are well guarded.
Mkilzk: The child of Nokluvgn and a female brutewolf. Triplets. They have wings, bladed tails, and horns. Her fur ripples like smoke, yet is solid. They only has one soul.
Physical Might: 12 (+3: Evil Influx)
Mental Might: 6 (+1: Worship, +1: Burnt Silver Medallion)(+1: Evil Influx)
Knowledge: Speaks demontongue. Capable of (limited) transformation. Smoke manipulation. Mastery over the undead.
Possessions: Burnt Silver Medallion (+1 Mental, attracts Evil and repels Good)
Other: 2 months old. Growing less quickly. The influx of Evil causes her to grow extremely quickly in less than a day, reaching almost full size. She is still growing, but not as quickly as before. Her strength may increase slightly over the coming weeks, but otherwise it should be fairly stable- unless she starts to consume more Evil. The newfound power also unlocks an affinity for the undead within her, as she finds that she can control zombies and skeletons in her vicinity with unparalleled precision.
Fortresses:
Fellshore: Was a small fishing village nestled between a small lake and a forest (with mountains not so far in the distance), it has now been razed. It is undermined with many tunnels and chambers forming a twisted maze, lit with smoky torches, where the shadows form strange shapes in the corner of your eyes.
Smallish labyrinth (10 defence, increases secrecy)(upgrade to Medium Labyrinth halted: 76/200)
Hidden altar: A suitable place to sacrifice to you and praise your dark name.
Copper Mine: A recently reopened mine. Converted engineers and Black Imps oversee the work of the prison labour.
Copper Veins: Generates income (5 resources p/w) if fully staffed (requires 100 workers and 10 overseers)(currently at 100 workers and 12 overseers, generating 5 r p/w)
Crude Walls (under construction 10/100)
Small chapel: A corrupt shrine where the prisoners are forced to listen to twisted sermons. Not that they pay a lot of attention.
Author
Topic: Demonhood 2 -Number of giant minions lost: between 0 and 3- (Read 141577 times)