"Mril-Minda sprang from the shadows, her dagger striking flush with an artery in Queen Maud's neck.
As the pregnant queen bled out, her halfbreed killer paid no heed to the fact that she just ended two lives,
snuffed out a bloodline, and doomed a kingdom to war; Mril-Minda only felt satisfaction for a job well done,
and a curiosity as to what rare treasures she might buy her husband and daughter at market with her pay."
-Inscription of the Face of FateSmith Lord Aurora Wordfire, Refuge Queen of Silent Hammers, Empress Consort of the Southernfrost, and Queen Consort of Bedlamb and the Marble CitySkills and Abilities:
-Although my social skills are rusty from isolation, I am highly respected as one of the few remaining first diggers.
-I am the greatest mortal metal-smith and furnace worker, without question. My skills in this area even surpass those of some gods.
-I have also mastered many other crafting skills, unrelated to the furnace.
-So long as my history is recorded in the language of the diggers, my soul and mind cannot truly be snuffed out (Granted by the World Weld)
-I can create mighty artifacts by inscribing the items I create with the great deeds of myself or the item's intended recipient (Granted by the World Weld)
-I am aware of the general location and activities of those who wield my artifacts, and I may exert light influence over their behavior (Granted by the World Weld)
-I can detect the great deeds of others nearby (Granted by the World Weld)
Artifacts and Minions:
The World Weld - Links my soul, the digger language, and the laws of reality itself. Allows me to easily create lesser artifacts.
The Face of Fate - Makes the wearer a mighty fighter and assassin. Wielded by Mril-Minda, who is preparing to travel to the Beetle Queendoms to do in some important drow.
Known Mortal Family:
(Husband - Absent) All-Lord Ukareem the Silver, Emperor of the Southernfrost
(Husband - Absent) Scholar-King Emscythe, Monarch of the Marble City and Secretary General of the Greatwalls Alliance
(Husband - Absent) Bloodlord Haigen the Usurper, King of Bedlamb
(Mother-in-Law - Present) Trumil, the Slime Mold Hag
(Infant Son) Prince Dremscythe, Heir to Silent Hammers and the Marble City
Military Population:
15 Force Units of Human Phalanx (x1.2 Bonus to open field battle. Avaible for 109 more months, or until the Kingdom of Narm enters a state of civil war)
5 Force Units of Dwarf/Drugar Militia (x1.3 Bonus to defending cities or fighting underground)
5 Force Units of Goblin Warslaves (x.75 Penalty to fighting in bright sunlight, does not need food to act)
3 Force Units of Charcoal Tribe Elf Rangers (x2 Bonus to fighting in the woods)
2 Force Units of Drugar Siege Operators (x4 Bonus to attacking cities, x1.5 Bonus to fighting megabeasts, x.25 Penalty in all other combat situations)
1 Force Unit of Weremule Warmonks (x3 Bonus to guarding VIPs, x.1 Penalty against Nickle Silver weapons, does not need food to act)
Civilian Population:
13 Labor Units of Assorted and Mixed Breed Diggers (2 LU to 5 FU Conversion Rate before material mod)
8 Labor Units of Halfling Commoners (2 LU to 4 FU Conversion Rate before material mod)
5 Labor Units of Goblin Slaves (2 LU to 4 FU Conversion Rate before material mod, does not need food to act)
4 Labor Units of Highborn Dwarves (1 LU to 4 FU Conversion Rate before material mod)
4 Labor Units of Highborn Drugar (1 LU to 4 FU Conversion Rate before material mod)
2 Labor Units of Human Commoners (2 LU to 7 FU Conversion Rate before material mod)
1 Labor Unit of Hobgoblin Drivers (2 LU to 7 FU Conversion Rate before material mod, does not need food to act)
Basic Resources:
x16 Food (+1 Per Month) - Your people can and do feed themselves, but food from the royal grainy must be provided for people to put aside their own livelyhood and peruse your interests. Spending 1 food allows you to issue an order commanding up to 5 FU or LU. Converting LU to FU will also usually cost additional food. You can deploy trade convoys to try and convert other resources into food.
x21 Wealth (+1 Per Month) - A representation of the various coins and paper currency in your treasury. Used to buy other resources and favors, and is generally the most effective resource to use as a trade good.
Advanced Resources:
x9 Wood (The most basic construction resource. Artifacts made from wood tend to harness the power of nature)
x6 Stone (A more sturdy and less flammable construction resource. Artifacts made from stone tend to harness the power of earth)
x37 (+3 Per month for 109 months) Marble (A more valuable form of stone that can be combined with iron to make steel at a smelter. Artifacts made from Marble tend to harness the power of light)
x9 Bronze (A military resource with a .80 Material Mod. Artifacts made from bronze tend to harness the power of fire)
x4 Steel (A military resource with a 1.5 Material Mod. Artifacts made from steel tend to have protective effects)
x5 Bloodstone (A magical military resource with no material mod. Both common gear and artifacts made from Bloodstone are particularly deadly towards all the digger races)
x1 Night Mithiril (A magical military resource with a 1.7 material mod. Artifacts made from Night Mithiril tend to aid in criminal activity)
x2 Deep Sapphire (A magical Military resource with a material mod of .5. Gear and artifacts made from Sapphire are great at drawing out the sorcerous power within one's blood)
x6 Sulfur (A magical resource used in the worship of wicked gods and construction of advanced siege weapons. Artifacts of sulfur are favored by wicked gods)
Known Allies and Enemies:
Bardhill County (Ally, Trade Partner) - The fertile and clay rich human territory that completely encompasses your land. The ruler, Count Chance, deeply respects the craftsdwarfshipp and military skill of the diggers. In exchange for resources and a loan of troops, you have agreed to aid him in an anticipated civil war against his fellow counts when the king dies.
Southernfrost Empire (Ally) - The southernmost and mightiest of the northern dwarven civilizations. Southernfrost is rich in bronze and labor. The empire is ruled by your husband All-Lord Ukareem the Silver.
The Greatwalls Alliance (Ally, Trade Partner) - A loose confederacy of prosperous drugar city-states that pays tribute to your husband, Scholar-King Emscythe. Rich in copper, sulfur, and flux stone.
The Kingdom of Bedlamb (Ally) - Nation of drugar ruled by your husband Bloodlord Haigen the Usurper. Rich in iron, flux stone, and gems. Currently defending against invasion from an unknown drugar kingdom, and raids from an unknown dwarf kingdom.
The Beetle Queendoms (Enemy to All Diggers) - A drowish nation that sits between Silent Hammers and The Greatwalls Alliance. Traders can navigate around it, and they are currently too busy dealing with surface elf raiders to pose a threat.
The Pinewoods Tribes (Hostile) Small yet fierce surface elf civilizations that sepperate Silent Hammers from the Southernfrost Empire and the Kingdom of Bedlamb. They find the very ideas of commerce and industry to be deeply offensive, and slaughter trade convoys on site as a rule.
You think long and hard about Count Chance's offer, but eventually you decide to accept. He agrees to send you the troops and first shipment of marble right away.
---
Gathering your household, you explain that you are about to enter a creative trance to produce an artifact, and that as such you will be incapacitated for some time. As sex is an act of creation, you expect to still entertain your husbands in bed, at least until you fall pregnant, but aside from that you warn that you wont be doing anything unrelated to the completion of your project. Your court is adviced to run Silent Hammers in your stead, and your servants are ordered to force you to eat, drink, and bathe at regular intervals.
With your affairs settled, you head to your room and send for the kingdom's finest samples of Night Mithril, Sulphur, Steel, Bronze, Marble, Stone, and Wood. Once everything is delivered you take a deep breath and activate the World Weld.
---
The next eleven months pass to a beautiful beautiful beat of hammer on anvil and chisel on stone. You are vaugely aware of falling pregnant and giving birth, but these events hardly serve to slow you down. Flame and steel, marble and deft hands, worship of the metal sacred to criminal halflings; These are the things important to you, and all else is pointless dreams or distant memory.
---
You come too naked in your workshop, surrounded by your household and clutching a horrifying mask against your chest:
The Face of Fate: This Night Mithril Mask takes the form of a digger's face. It bears a steel circlet adorned with marble 'gems', and alternating spines of bronze, common stone, and wood. Wooden earrings adorned with sulphur hand from the mask's ears.
The wearer of this artifact may not be harmed by weapon or magic, unless the smith or caster responsible is an ageless creature such as a Drowish Noble or First Digger. The wearer's speed is increased by the mask, and this bonus to speed increases the deeper the wearer ventures underground. The wearer is unharmed by fire, and may stride across light and shadow to instantly warp to the heart of any flame in sight. While partaking in illicit activity, the wearer is invisible, and may only be revealed by particularly powerful supernatural light sources. The souls of Queen Maud and her unborn child are bound to this mask by the will of the Five Fingers, a Pantheon typically worship by the Halfling Criminal Caste. The Five Fingers compel these lost souls to possess wild animals in the wearers vicinity at the wearers command. Queen Maud will only possess large creatures, and will distort their bodies into the form of a black stallion that shares in the mask wearers power. The unborn child will possess smaller creatures to spy or fight on the wearers behalf. Animals rarely survive being possessed by the mask. The wearer of this artifact my corrupt, assimilate, and easily gain possession of lesser artifacts not tied to the World Weld.
After taking a moment to admire your creation, you order it delivered to Mril-Minda and demand to see your child. Your firstborn is a male of Drugar Blood, and somewhat scrawny for somebody of his age and genealogy. He is already almost two months old, and as the trance you were in left you in no position to mother the child, it was given the name Dremscythe by his aunt, Captain Balrogsim, and passed off to a wetnurse shortly after being born.
Interested as to what fate might have in store for your firstborn, you carry the child to your forge, still glowing with embers used in the creation of a mighty artifact. You raise the child above the furnace, and gaze into it. The dying flames bend to your will and grand you a vision - albeit one you find rather disturbing.
---
While you were deeply entranced, creating first children for both yourself and the World Weld, your soul and subconscious began to treat both projects as one and the same - the child and the artifact are linked, and your son will suffer for it. Dremscythe is cursed and blessed to serve as a tool of death, He will be a natural prodigy in learning to use weapons and destructive magic, but will live a life devoid of contentment unless he is permitted to kill often for fun and profit. Furthermore, he is destined to control the Face of Fate. Should both survive until Dremscythe is old enough, he will try and kill either Mril-Minda to claim the mask for himself, or her family so that he may marry her and possess both the artifact and the one who it was made to be used by.
---
Eventually you get dressed and overcome the immediate shock of learning your son's fate. You rest for the better part of a day, before calling in your court for a briefing on the situation.
Lord Urist the Lefthanded speaks first.
"My queen, while you were preoccupied, I lead expiditions to thorughly scout the upper regions of the Trollish Wastes, and have prepared a full briefing on what we might build and where. As it stands, we have just enough building materials to complete a single Dark Fortress, but we will need a better supply of food unless we want to work slowly, only employing our uneating goblin laborforce.""If you wish to gain more food and lumber to build with quickly, queen," Princess Myguwen, leader of your Elf Rangers, chimes in,
"I'd suggest sending your citizens to chop trees and gather fruit in the territory of the Pinewood Tribes, backed by my rangers, of course, to protect them from those backwards disgraces to elfkind who live there."Trollish Wastes Development Report:Construction Types:
Fungal Farm - 10 Construction Resources to Build, 0 Wealth per Month Maintenance. Allows you to send Labor Units of Population to acquire food. Amount of food given varies by location.
Monument - 15 Construction Resources to Build, 0 Wealth per Month Maintenance. Erecting Monuments to the great deeds of yourself or your artifact wielding heroes deepens your understanding and control over the World Weld.
Watchtower - 20 Construction Resources to Build, 0 Wealth per Month Maintenance. Houses and Defends up to 6 FU of Soldiers.
Quarry - 30 Construction Resources to Build, 1 Wealth per Month Maintenance. Allows you to send Labor Units of Population to acquire rock. Amount and type of rock given by a quarry is rolled when quarry is first constructed.
Mission - 40 Construction Resources to Build, 1 Wealth per Month Maintenance. Houses and Defends up to 10 FU of Soldiers. If a cleric of any sort is stationed at a mission, you may command up to 5 Labor Units of population to interact with local savages without having to spend food.
Fortress - 50 Construction Resources to Build, 0 Wealth per Month Maintenance. Houses and Defends up to 15 FU of Soldiers.
Dark Fortress - 50 Construction Resources to Build, 1 Wealth per Month Maintenance. Houses and Defends up to 15 FU of Soldiers. If a Bugbear or other appropriate magic user is stationed at a Dark Fortress, it produces Goblin Slaves.
Scouted Locations:
Tunnel's Mouth - Where the Trollish Wastes meets the Human Kingdom of Narm. Building a military installation at this Bottleneck will allow you to effectively tax all trade using the Trollish Wastes Road, and any troops stationed there would be well positioned to partake in a human civil war.
Screaming Pits - Located near wild Bugbear lead Goblin Tribes, who would likely compete for the right to inhabit a Dark Fortress built in their backyard.
Breedlands - A stretch of road that is often visited by particularly horny and aggressive trolls during breeding season. Erecting a military installation will make trade with the Greatwalls Alliance safer and more profitable.
Oddearth Cliffs - Local Savages claim to find strange rocks here; Perhaps you should construct a quarry? Also would make a great staging area to raid the monster ranches of the Beetle Queendoms.
Dragon's Grave - A site where a Good Dragon fought an Evil Dragon to the Mutual Death. A mission build on such hallowed ground would be maintenance-cost free. Would also make a good staging area to attack the Beetle Queendom's copper mines.
Dung-Slopes - A great location for a fungus farm. Could also serve as an ideal staging area for scouts looking to explore lower levels of the trollish wastes to find new sites to expand into.
Construction Rules:
1 Food allows you to command up to 5 LU of citizens for a month.
Over the course of a month, 1 LU of citizens can add 1 Construction Resource to a project.
Citizens working in such a wild location should probably be protected by military guards. 1 Food allows you to command up to 5 FU of soldiers for a month.
Author
Topic: (SG) Rise of the Smith Lord (Read 20434 times)