Mkilzk and the brutewolves, should assault travellers here, attempting to lure out the defenders. Kill the shepherds, take the flocks, generally act like a big nuisance.
Meanwhile, we summon a few rock trolls higher up the mountain. Their duty is to stay hidden until we prepare to attack, and then start throwing rocks at things.
At the same time, we convert our prospective cultists, and have them drop a rope down below. They will fish up the Things, which are a custom zombie that doesn't die, but rather continuously repairs itself with the bodies of those it slays. Not made for durability, but intended to keep the cost down.
The battleplan would go as follows :
1. We start murdering travellers
2. The city sends troops to investigate and kill the bandits
3. We crush their small detachment.
4. Our trolls reveal themselves, and start bombarding the town
5. The enemy is forced to send units climbing up the mountain to go after them, as they will be out of range of their ranged units (Thanks gravity). Since there's no path, this will take a while.
6. We unleash the things from the Sewers. Their goal is simple, keep the enemy forces bottled up on the wall. Defensive fortifications are build in layers. If we can keep them bottled up on the primary layer, while we take the second, they will have to assault their own defenses.
7. The Black Imps break through, and deploy additional zombie reinforcements.
8. Take a form of a giant armoured smoke-breathing worm-like creature to dig a tunnel and participate in the attack from below
Here we have a traveller, a visitor to Seiyojin. He has wrapped a scarf around his face to keep warm in the light snow. Suddenly he hears a yelp from the side of the road, as a cloud of black smoke billows up. He turns towards the smoke, confused, which is when he spots the massive wolves lurking in the shadow of a rock. He gives a startled cry and starts edging backwards, keeping his eyes on the wolves.
With their ambush ruined by Mkilzk's inexperience, the brutewolves decide to just rush the man. Despite their prey being aware of them, the brutewolves easily overpower the lone traveller, his cries for help ringing out across the mountain. He is soon dead, and the brutewolves (and Mkilzk) start to feast. Once they have eaten most of the body, they run off, leaving the corpse to be discovered.
Here we have a soldier, a sergeant from the Seiyojin garrison. He examines the remnants of the corpse.
"Must've been wolves, sir", states one of his privates[addr=Military ranks translated for convenience]*[/addr].
He spans his hand across a bite mark on the body. "Bloody big wolf", he says. "Be on the lookout."
He shivers, and looks across the mountain. "Something strange is afoot"
Here we have a dozen soldiers, equipped with hunting gear. They are performing a night patrol of the hillside where the shepherds bring their flocks, holding their flaming torches high as they look for wolves. They consider this exercise to be a waste of time, but orders are orders. Then they hear howling in the distance. Then they hear howling somewhat closer. Nervously, they draw their weapons.
Then a new sound reaches their ears; clicking and rattling. Confused, they look around, just about in time to see three dozen skeletons charging out of the darkness, wielding rusty swords and makeshift clubs. A single skeleton is no match for a trained soldier; indeed, they manage to fell several, before the numerical superiority overwhelms them. Half a dozen fall, and the rest attempt to retreat. The skeletons block their way, however, and they are forced to fight their way out. Whether through desperation or luck, they manage to cut down a dozen skeletons and break free, at the cost of two of their own.
They run across the meadows, the clattering of bone on bone close behind them. Two brutewolves appear before them, and it is only through sheer luck that they manage to dodge past them. They manage to reach the road before the brutewolves catch up to them; two of them are knocked down by the beasts, though their armour saves them from instant mutilation, and a desperate struggle ensues. One manages to grab his dagger whilst the wolf is biting down on his other arm, and even as it bites all the way through, they use the pain to give them the strength to jam their dagger into the brutewolf's burning eye, killing it. The other gets a hold of his sword whilst the brutewolf is distracted, and fends off teeth and claws before eventually jamming their sword into the beast's underbelly.
Their victory is shortlived, as six more brutewolves descend upon them. In their injured and exhausted state, they don't stand a chance against 3-1 odds, and the brutewolves soon rip out their throats in vengeance for their fallen brethren.
The two survivors reach the settlement, and collapse exhausted before the two guards standing at the entrance. "Sound the alarm", one says, "The Dark Ones are coming"
The guards look horrified by this, and one immediately runs off to ring a bell to awaken others. The other helps them stand up, asking them what they mean. "The risen dead are upon us. Monstrous wolves with eyes of fire. They are surely spawn of the Dark Ones, here to bring darkness across the sunlit empire"
"Are you sure? Were they not bandits, or something like that?"
The men do not have time to answer before a crashing noise announces the impact of a large rock into someone's house. More rocks start to rain from the sky, and they run for cover as they crash down around them. They look up the side of the mountain, where the outline of two hulking trolls can be seen, picking up and hurling rocks at the settlement. They decide to seek safety in the central compound, and assist other soldiers, summoned by the bell, in guiding civilians through the town and into the temple proper.
Several citizens have the misfortune of being targeted by the trolls, who aim their throws at the groups of people. Eleven people die by direct impact, and many others are injured, either by being grazed by a rock, or being hit by rubble or shards of the rocks themselves. But most manage to find safety inside the large, sturdy building.
Inside is pandemonium. Soldiers run around with their armour half on, monks try desperately to calm people down and keep them out of the holier sanctums. Eventually a shaky form of order is achieved, and soldiers are posted to guard positions, whilst the monks guide people to safe locations within the temple. The sound of rocks crashing through the roof keeps people on the lower floors, but the structure holds. Mothers clutch children; fathers put on brave faces whilst they howl with fear inside.
In a hall with a polished wooden floor, the walls decorated with scenes of the gods watching over the world, and a large, imposing statue of Aeolos against the back wall, a dozen families sit nervously on the floor. Six monks and a soldier stand watch, waiting for something to happen.
Something happens.
A door in the back wall bursts off its flimsy decorated hinges, and out shambles a host of rotting corpses. Most get up and flee, but a few are rooted to the spot by terror, including several children who refuse to be dragged away by their parents. These unlucky few quickly fall victim to the heavy blows and rancid bites of the zombies, who make a point of ripping off their limbs to use as clubs.
The monks' courage proves lacking, as they too begin to flee from the undead horde. Only the soldier is determined to go down fighting. He gets his wish, as they quickly close in on him and tear him to pieces.
The zombies move out into the corridor, and move on to the next room, bursting inside, only to find a squad of eight soldiers watching over a group of five monks in prayer. The soldiers stand paralysed in horror as the undead close in on them, only belatedly raising their weapons to defend themselves. The first casualty is almost immediate, as an unprepared soldier is covered in zombies, who rip the limbs from his living torso, leaving him to bleed to death on the floor. The zombies suffer injuries, but no casualties.
But once the soldiers find their footing, and the monks get up and join the fray with their martial arts, the tide turns. The zombies are beaten back. One soldier triumphantly stabs a zombie through the heart. Another manages to cut off both arms. One soldier is particularly ambitious, and manages to decapitate a zombie. All are horrified as their triumph proves premature. The zombie stabbed through the heart does not react at all, but continues shambling forwards, down the length of the blade. The delimbed zombie merely leans down, and his arms sort of flow back into their rightful place. The decapitated zombie's head rolls across the floor and bites the soldier on his ankle, whilst the body moves haphazardly in his direction.
One of the soldiers screams "They can't be killed!" and runs off. The others are shaken, and return to the attack hesitantly, not knowing whether the coward was right or not. A zombie catches a monk in the middle of an extremely elegant, nay, beautiful attack that involves a mid-air pirouette by grabbing his leg as he is in the air and smashing him to the ground with his own momentum
*, cracking his head on the floor. The soldiers continue to hack at the relentless undead, hoping that something will work. But so far, no luck; even if a zombie falls over 'dead', it soon gets back up.
One of the monks eventually manages to get one to stay down, after dancing around it and delivering such a blow to the back of its head that his fist goes through its skull. The battle continues, with the spirits of the living somewhat uplifted by the knowledge that they can be killed. However, morale may win battles, but it does not necessarily win duels, as two unlucky soldiers discover. The living find themselves increasingly outnumbered; the second successful slaying of a zombie (roundhouse kick to the head) is cold comfort as the zombies begin to overwhelm them. Another soldier is dragged away from his comrades, zombies chewing on his flesh. Eventually the survivors decide to pack it in.
But they are totally surrounded; the only way out is through the nigh-immortal undead. All but one of the monks perish as they push their way through the crowd, and it is a measly crew that flee the room.
A response is organised; four squads are sent to deal with the problem. As the undead are shambling towards the next room (which has already been evacuated) they are interrupted by a flurry of arrows. Not that they do any harm, of course, but they get their attention, and they start shambling towards the row of shield-bearing soldiers standing guard over the archers. Another flurry of arrows; another failure to slay a zombie. Yet another, and still they push on, now looking somewhat like pincushions. They reach the junction beyond which the archers are positioned- and are greeted by, surprise, another volley of arrows coming down the other corridor. Which yet again has no effect.
They crash into the shield-wall, and by focusing their efforts they manage to drag a man out of formation and rip into his throat. But the wall holds, and a boring, nigh-pointless battle ensues, with zombies bashing uselessly on the shields, whilst archers down the other corridor pepper them with arrows. Eventually, through sheer persistence, the archers manage to score enough hits to the skull to reach whatever it is that holds these things together, and they start to fall.
Boring!
Meanwhile, something more interesting is about to happen. The ground quakes, and the defenders curse their luck that there should be an earthquake at a time like this. But this is no earthquake, as they quickly discover, when a giant worm bursts through the floorboards, swallowing whole a group of people who happened to be in his way, smoke and fire billowing between the scales that cover it.
The worm rears up inside the room, damaging the ceiling, and then leaps forward, and swallows a dozen more fleeing civilians, before breathing fire over dozens more
*. It proceeds to crash through the flimsy walls, eating monks and soldiers and anybody else that gets in its way.
It takes a while to organise a response, during which time the beast kills dozens more, but eventually it finds itself surrounded by soldiers, backed up by chanting monks and two dozen archers. The beast puts up a good fight, obviously, killing many of the soldiers that hack away at its sides, but the sheer numbers are too much. Arrows, swords, and the constant chanting of those blasted monks eventually drives the beast back underground, burrowing its way out of the compound, back to whatever hell it came from. The soldiers cheer and celebrate, waves of relief and joy radiating off of them, reminding him of his failure.
You sit upon the mountainside, metaphorically licking your wounds. You eat a few black imps as punishment for not finishing the tunnel on time, but your heart isn't really in it.
...
Well then. Time to
-Attack again, using all of your forces this time. No messing around with tunnels; they have suffered casualties, they are shaken and terrified, surely a frontal assault will work?
-Retreat. It isn't worth it, and despite their casualties, they may still be able to defeat your forces in a fair fight.
-Lay siege to the place, slowly chipping away at their numbers, corrupting them from within, until they are weak and vulnerable.
Hmm. Not the best outcome. Perhaps you shouldn't have relied on the black imps finishing a tunnel in a week when they said it would take 'a long time'. Perhaps merely granting zombies regeneration (you made 20, by the way, and they are now all dead (for good)) without granting them additional combat abilities was not the best use of your power.
Ah well. Lessons learned, eh? I'm sure you'll bounce back from this. After all, they did suffer more casualties than you (even if most were civilian (The exact numbers: 109 civilians, 36 soldiers, 23 monks)). So in a way that's a win.
Oh, in other news, Mischa finally found herself a tome of necromancy, plus the remains of a long-dead necromancer. Score!
Name: Nokluvgn
Age: 10.25 months
Physical might: 43 (+2 p/w: province-wide suffering)(-10: Summoning Rock Trolls)(-10: Augmenting zombies)(+12: OMNOMNOM)(-10: Battle damage)
Mental might: 66 (+2 p/w: province-wide suffering)(+3: Worship)(-2: Summoning Rock Trolls)(+7: OMNOMNOM)(-10: Shame)(-2:Leakage)
Followers:369 (248 cultists, 7 magically trained cultists, 50 Nails (armed), 1 Finger (heavily armed), 40 mercenaries (armed), 3 Lesser Wordbearers, 4 Wordbearers, 2 trained Wordbearers (armed), 1 Wolfmaster, 7 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: lots (10 Brutewolves, 3 Smokewraiths, 30 spectres, 4 giant-rat-packs, 12 black imps, 4 ultraviolet imps, 5 midnight imps, 79 skeletons, 14 Hollow Remnants, 6 fungal druids, 270 zombies, 3 Klrntvs, 8 Wights, 2 rock trolls)
Cults:
The New Way: Medium organization. 296 members (170 cultists, 13 Acolytes, 50 Nails (armed), 1 Finger (heavily armed), 40 mercenaries (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)
Power level: 25 (15 used)
Of which: 6 spent recruiting, 6 spent constructing underground temple in Nuulyd (33/100), 3 spent searching for Necromancers.
Secrecy estimate: Probably fine
Resources: 1110 (+30 p/week: Duke's income)(+5 p/w: Copper mines)(-22: constructing underground temple in Nuulyd)(-5: Mischa's search)(-6: Kate's recruitment)
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:
The Arms of He Who Beckons: Medium Organisation. 59 members (59 cultists)
Power level: 7 (4 used)
Of which: 3 spent on extra training to stand out, 1 spent recruiting.
Resources: 0
Locations: Army camp near the capital. Divided amongst several units of trainees.
Other:
The Cult of the Wolf: Low organisation. 15 members (14 cultists, 1 Wolfmaster)
Power level: 4 (4 used)
Of which: 3 spent worshipping Nokluvgn, 1 spent worshipping Mkilzk.
Resources: 0
Locations: Following Nokluvgn
Other:
Champions:
Mischa Alwiz: The Duke's 'loyal' companion, now corrupted by the allure of evil.
Physical Might: 2 (+1: the Vessel)
Mental Might: 12 (+5: the Vessel)
Knowledge: Magic, adequate 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)
Other: Deep within a forgotten network of caves, learnt about by studying a two-hundred year old geological survey, Mischa finds what she has been looking for: the lair of a Necromancer. Skeletal remains are littered throughout the caves. Near the center stands an altar to some long-forgotten demon. And facing that, sitting upon a marble throne, is the skeletal remains of a Necromancer; the bones still possess tell-tale Evil residue. And in an alcove nearby, in remarkably good condition, is the holy grail (for Mischa's purposes): a book titled 'A Beginners Guide to the Noble Art of Manipulating Darkness'
Malkus Rom: 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.
Physical Might: 11 (+2: Devil-horse, +2: Blade of Eternal Ash)
Mental Might: 4 (+1: Burnt Silver Medallion)
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)), Burnt Silver Medallion (+1 Mental, attracts Evil and repels Good)
Other: Stopped complaining about the cold after you threatened to summon an Incubus to have its way with him, greatly amusing his concubines (whose complaints you ignore).
"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: 5
Knowledge: Adequate Mesmerism, basic Magic.
Other: 3.75/8(?) months pregnant.
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: 3 (child)
Mental Might: 2 (child)(+1: Worship)
Knowledge: Understands demontongue.
Other: 0.75 months old. Growing extremely quickly.
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, increases secrecy)(being upgraded to Medium Labyrinth 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)
Author
Topic: Demonhood 2 -Number of giant minions lost: between 0 and 3- (Read 143564 times)