Topic: (SG) Rise of the Smith Lord (Read 20786 times)

Mithras · « **Reply #105 on:** July 15, 2017, 02:46:43 pm »

As I recall our intention was to meet one particular savage. We should probabl try to find out if Donna Sherry can (or wants to) get us that meeting.

Weirdsound · « **Reply #106 on:** July 15, 2017, 03:41:12 pm »

"Hobbits are unique amoungst the races of man,
in that although they have their own culture and
homeland, they rarely forge nations. Instead, they
live in the shadows of human and digger walls and
society, content to offer their support or opposition
to local government as they see fit."

-The Races of Man, by Taxonomy Lord Albright

Smith Lord Aurora Wordfire, Refuge Queen of Silent Hammers, Empress Consort of the Southernfrost, and Queen Consort of Bedlamb and the Marble City

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Refuge City of Silent Hammers

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

"Is good, yes," you agree, "...for me. What do you get out of this."

Donna Sherry laughs. "Branding Iron think it is matter of time, not if, you make war with the dons. I hear stories of first diggers when little girl, yes? You lot was supposed to be impressive... Best chance of survival is throwing lot in with you. Need to make you strong. Help you grow cajones so we can cut of cajones of enemies."

"Fair enough," you admit, "but I was hoping to meet with a very specific savage. He is a bugperson who lives in a hive and controls a powerful demon. Could you introduce me to that colony?"

The old halfling falls silent, clearly caught a bit off guard. Eventually she clears her throat and speaks softly. "You speak of The Eastvile Drone. Most mighty wizard in the Trolly Wastes. Will be hard to make meeting, but I will try. Make no promises. Womenfolk in his colony mindless, they kill any outsider who gets too close. Will send disposable messenger ahead to see if he wants talk to you, if no, some of my other friends might have other ways to arrange meeting."

Reguardless if you want to take Sherry's help or not, post any other business you might want to attend to before leaving on your adventure, as well as your monthly Worker/Military orders.

IronyOwl · « **Reply #107 on:** July 15, 2017, 04:54:49 pm »

Reposting my old plan with some adjustments:

Survey Silent Hammers Soil
-4 FU Assorted/Mixed Diggers (10 LU)

Work Dung Heap Farm
-2 FU Slutty Human Commoners
-2 FU Slutty Hobbit Commoners
-2 FU Assorted/Mixed Diggers With Superior Taste In Whores
-3 FU Slutty Human Phalanx (guards)

Seal Trade Deal (and start hauling it back?)
-4 FU Drugar Highborn
-3 FU Assorted/Mixed Diggers (hauling duty)
-5 FU Goblin Slaves (free, hauling duty)
-1 FU Hobgoblin Drivers (free, hauling duty)

Diplomacy With Assorted Hobbit-Approved Savages And Hopefully Hive
-Ourselves and All-Lord Ukareem the Silver
-1 FU Weremule Warmonks (free)
-2 FU Goblin Warslaves (free)

20 (paid) FU, -4 Food
Expected gain: +6 Food, +2 Wealth

Other Business:
-Get our hag that 2 wealth

Mithras · « **Reply #108 on:** July 15, 2017, 05:17:23 pm »

Agreed with Irony Owl on the labour distibution

We should accept Sherry's help. It might be worth checking if she has any deeds, though I expect not.

Also we should take this opportunity to find out more about the Eastville Drone and his kind before leaving to talk to him, so we might have a better idea what we might have to offer them.

Dopl · « **Reply #109 on:** July 16, 2017, 04:44:19 am »

+1 to irony and mithras

crazyabe · « **Reply #110 on:** July 16, 2017, 12:52:01 pm »

Funk · « **Reply #111 on:** July 16, 2017, 01:57:54 pm »

Quote from: IronyOwl on July 15, 2017, 04:54:49 pm

Reposting my old plan with some adjustments:

Survey Silent Hammers Soil
-4 FU Assorted/Mixed Diggers (10 LU)

Work Dung Heap Farm
-2 FU Slutty Human Commoners
-2 FU Slutty Hobbit Commoners
-2 FU Assorted/Mixed Diggers With Superior Taste In Whores
-3 FU Slutty Human Phalanx (guards)

Seal Trade Deal (and start hauling it back?)
-4 FU Drugar Highborn
-3 FU Assorted/Mixed Diggers (hauling duty)
-5 FU Goblin Slaves (free, hauling duty)
-1 FU Hobgoblin Drivers (free, hauling duty)

Diplomacy With Assorted Hobbit-Approved Savages And Hopefully Hive
-Ourselves and All-Lord Ukareem the Silver
-1 FU Weremule Warmonks (free)
-2 FU Goblin Warslaves (free)

20 (paid) FU, -4 Food
Expected gain: +6 Food, +2 Wealth

Other Business:
-Get our hag that 2 wealth

+1

Weirdsound · « **Reply #112 on:** July 16, 2017, 03:13:10 pm »

Quote from: IronyOwl on July 15, 2017, 04:54:49 pm

Other Business:
-Get our hag that 2 wealth

Quote

Also, upon returning home and finding out about the eagle attack, you provide your mother-in-law with the coin she needs to hunt down the sorcerer/werebeing.

Blink and you'll miss it

---

"Claim the sky for yourselves, for the darklands, and for the glory of Maygrunzil!"

-First Commandment of Maygrunzil

Smith Lord Aurora Wordfire, Refuge Queen of Silent Hammers, Empress Consort of the Southernfrost, and Queen Consort of Bedlamb and the Marble City

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Refuge City of Silent Hammers

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

"So he is a good wizard and his hive workers are good killers. Anything else you know about him?"

Donna Sherry shrugs. "Not really. My dealings with him usually through Grand Priest Cloudthief, who I meet you with. I know he from Eastvile, terrible deep place beyond the homes of Beetle Queens and Scholar Kings. I know the colony he mate into is Gem Wasps who escaped slavery in the Beetle Places, but he not that species himself."

You are vaguely familiar with the Gem Wasps, a species of semi-sentient domesticated insect bred by the drow to serve as labors and fodder in situations where goblins just wont cut it. Like most hive dwellers, only the queens and drones, who tend to live comfortable lives as artisans, scholars, priests, and mages, are particularly intelligent. They are known for doing great craft-work with common decorative gems that the proud drow wouldn't be caught dead touching, and their queens have been known to produce artifacts.

After taking all this information in, you extend your hand to Donna Sherry. "Alright, I accept your help."

"Good. Make smart choice. Donna Sherry take care of you."

---

You spend the next few days organizing and deploying your labor force, before assembling your guard and meeting with Donna Sherry's people in the shadow of Axeltax Tower. The Donna, it turns out, has decided to make the trip herself, and is accompanied by five wagons, 2 FU of hobbit guards and human mercenaries, and three terrified translators.

The oldest of the translators wearily explains that the party will first venture out far into the trollish wastes to meet the furthest tribe from Silent Hammers, before working its way back. This is to buy Sherry's messenger's time to try and contact the Eastvile Drone, who dwells relatively close by. His colony aside, you will be meeting three tribes.

The first is a group of savage Drugar who live on a rock formation called the Diamond Cliffs and sell diamonds and drug fixings to the halflings.

The second is a semi-nomadic tribe of Opal Elves, a subspecies of drow known to focus more on profit than intrigue and demon worship and are often tied to hobbit criminal activity.

The third is a pod of skin-cutter nymphs, the twisted cave-dwelling fey ancestors of selkies and siren who Donna Sherry employs to guard her vast fortune.

---

After about two weeks of travel, you and your party has moved far beyond even your furthest outpost at Dung Slopes. Donna Sherry's guards point out a massive formation of Kimberlite ahead, the top of which seems to be carved into buildings and zigurats. "Diamond Cliffs." Donna Sherry explains, "We meet first people there."

Your heart sinks, and you can tell your husband Ukareem's does as well. "Shit... My queen... these are feather drugar!"

The feather drugar is a reclusive culture that build their homes only in Kimberlite, and worship Maygrunzil, a bird goddess of poorly understood origin. Followers of Maygrunzil openly seek to steal the sky from the surface world and give it to the caverns, a plan that would shake up the status quo and likely kill much of the world's population. Needless to say they are universally loathed by dwarves and even their fellow Drugar.

Openly aligning with such creatures would make you many enemies, but would come with some benefits if you could pull it off. Clerics of Maygrunzil can convert faint yellow diamonds into lightning diamond, a mythical gem that contains the wild power of stormclouds. Feather Drugar also depend almost entirely on goblin slaves for labor, and as such their population consists almost entirely of skilled soldiers, scholars and priests. Their potentially apocalyptic ambitions aside, Feather Drugar are known to be quite affable, and those who do dare ally with them find they make fierce and loyal friends.

It is also likely that your interests align with theirs on a more personal level. You saw in the prophecy of embers that the drow and their demon pantheon would turn the sky to ash and cavern ceiling to sulfur. You doubt Maygrunzil would want that to happen.

"I will go up first," Donna Sherry declares, "conduct business with Grand Priest Cloudthief, and anounced first digger queen as friend. Good plan, yes?"

IronyOwl · « **Reply #113 on:** July 16, 2017, 06:41:27 pm »

Good plan, yes.

...do we have a plan? I'm not sure we want to openly ally with skystealers, but we do need a unified digger race...

Mithras · « **Reply #114 on:** July 16, 2017, 07:07:15 pm »

Perhaps a secret alliance agaisnt the drow. I don't think we've yet made public that we have left our solitude to make war upon the drow, until then it is perhaps best to keep our dealings with these diggers private, if not secret. We might even be able to come to an agreemet with Donna Sherry to move help us work with these people clandestinely.

IronyOwl · « **Reply #115 on:** July 16, 2017, 07:46:51 pm »

Ooh, hobbit buffer, that could work.

VoidSlayer · « **Reply #116 on:** July 16, 2017, 10:35:10 pm »

Let's just listen for now. Explain we are a first digger who knows virtually nothing about what has happened since the first times and are looking to learn about all the races of dwarves and drugar. We can make alliances and such at some later time.

Maybe ask after their religion, it could be that what they propose is just misunderstood(or they are actually insane apocalypse cultists who we don't want to piss off in their own house).

Dopl · « **Reply #117 on:** July 17, 2017, 04:31:05 am »

Just listen for now, if business is done it will likely need to be done through someone else. I do think we should learn more, and even if we declare an open alliance with them, would many hate us if we do it simply for the defeat of the drow, and then just have treaty and allow trade?

Weirdsound · « **Reply #118 on:** July 17, 2017, 02:56:10 pm »

"My children, go forth and avoid deception on matters of faith.
Even us first diggers are not to be trusted; We might have met gods,
but we are still mortal and flawed. Unless a god appears before
you to give its word, you must at least entertain the possibility that
any revelation might be a lie."

-Last Will and Testament of Kamchurch the Faithful

Smith Lord Aurora Wordfire, Refuge Queen of Silent Hammers, Empress Consort of the Southernfrost, and Queen Consort of Bedlamb and the Marble City

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Refuge City of Silent Hammers

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You wait with your party and some of Donna Sherry's guard while the Hobbit leader goes up to talk with Grand Priest Cloudthief. After a bit more than an hour a group of Drugar dressed in robes made from colorful feathers emerge from the fortress and take one of the cartels wagons back inside.

Ukareem watches the proceedings with a mix of curiosity and horror. "Absolutely fascinating... but surely you are not going to conduct business with these freaks, are you?"

"Not likely. Not directly anyway..." You admit, "but I don't wish to be rude to Donna Sherry, so I will meet with them. I've been in isolation for so long, husband. I've only heard rumors about why other diggers hate these people so much. The least I can do is hear their side of the story before deciding for myself."

"I there is wisdom in that course of action."

---

Thirty minutes later, two befeathered diggers appear, flanked by about a hundred armed goblins, to escort you upstairs to the meeting. You, your husband, and Brother Anders are lead through the cliffside fortress towards the top of the tallest zigurat. Along the way you note that the interior walls are well lit and painted with colorful artwork depicting birds, dragons, and historical figures. Well dressed citizens, who have likely caught wind of the fact that a first digger is visiting, line the passageway hoping for a look, but the goblin guards keep them at a safe distance.

By the time you get to the top, your legs are quite sore. Looking around, you flabergasted by the view above you, as instead of a cavern ceiling you can't help but stare at a nearly full moon, stars, and clouds against a black sky.

"Impressive, isn't it?" asks the Drugar sitting on a throne made of diamond at the head of a massive table. "I'm thinking the same thing, you know. This is the first time a first digger has ever graced the Diamond Cliffs with her presence. Your isolation and mastery of metal and flame are the stuff of legend, Smith Lord. Please, have a seat."

"Grand Priest Cloudthief, I presume?" You reply as you mosey on over to the table and claim the seat next to Donna Sherry. "That isn't real is it, you didn't actually steal a piece of sky, did you?"

"No." The priest admits, "Tis just an illusion, to tide us over until we may have the real thing."

"Take the sky?" You ask, "Do forgive me, for I have heard rumors that you seek to do such a thing while I was in isolation, but didn't know what to make of them. If you pardon my asking, who is this Maygrunzil you worship, why dose she desire to move the sky, and why do others hate her so? Please educate me, cleric."

Cloudthief offers a wide grin. "You flatter me, Smith Lord. I never in my wildest dreams would have thought that I would someday get to give a history lesson to a first digger. I would be honored to give you the answers you seek, or rather try."

"Try?"

"I'm afraid that not much is known about Maygrunzil's early history," he explains, "and every feather colony has its own take on the story. I will tell the tale that has been passed down by my predecessors, and like all who explore or partake in my faith, it will be up to you to decide where the truth lies."

"I suppose that is fair enough."

Leaning back on his throne, the priest gestures for two youthful acolytes to bring him a chalice, which he takes a long drink from before begining his story.
"The history of Maygrunzil's interactions with diggerkind begins with Pazo the Explorer, I'm sure you are familiar."

"Hardly, he was among the first of our kind to venture away from the Oven of Origin, and he never bothered to return. I had few friends until very recently, and he was not one of them. I know what he was about though. He sought to see all of the mortal realm."

"Indeed." the cleric nods sagely, "His travels brought him to the Eastvile, a darkland not terribly far from here. Just beyond the lands of the arrogant Scholar-King and horrific Beetle Queens. In this place he encountered a surface dweller, a cloud dragon. The dragon was there to pay homage to a fallen friend, an immortal being named Maygrunzil whose physical form was destroyed and whose incorporeal spirit was cursed so that it might never leave the underground. The Dragon taught Pazo how to interact with Maygrunzil by praying at the burial site of her physical body. Pazo took notes on his encounters, and moved on."

Cloudthief grins, "Several hundred years later, Pazo's daughter, Jewl the Vaultcracker, and her followers were excommunicated from the church of the digger gods for their various crimes. Jewl was heartbroken by this, as she was a woman who valued prayer highly and couldn't imagine a life without it. Pazo felt pity for his daughter's plight, and recalling his encounter with the dragon and his disembodied friend, encouraged her to seek out Maygrunzil so that she may use the lonely spirit as an object of worship."

Jewl found Maygrunzil, and the pair quickly came to an understanding. The digger and her followers would keep the spirit company, and in turn Maygrunzil would take on the burden of being their object of worship. Maygrunzil was worshiped as a goddess of storms, earth, pity, and bright colors. But, as it turned out, Godhood was no burden for Maygrunzil. Unlike your pantheon, who are mighty beings that created and serve the diggers out of a sense of duty, Maygrunzil actually draws strength from worship. As her followers grew, so did her power and influence. Although she could never leave the depths, her voice could soon be heard by anybody who recited the proper prayers under ground. She used her new power to provide for us, just as we provided her with new power.

"Sounds like a fair arrangement," Ukareem interjects, "but where does the sky stealing stuff come in?"

"Where most of the negative things facing diggerkind today come in, surface dweller," Cloudthief exclaims with a look and tone of pure racial hatred directed at your husband, "the civil war. As Maygrunzil Worship had to remain underground for obivious reasons, her followers sided with first drugar, and her church exploded in number. The second Drugar Emperor, Kestrel the Deep, was also a grand priest of Maygrunzil, and for a brief time her worship was the state religion of my people. The theft of the sky was Kestrel's idea; A way to inflict righteous revenge against the wicked dwarfs. Maygrunzil, who missed the sky more than anything, bought into this plan, and although she could never figure out how to pull such a hiest off, made the pursuit of the sky for the caverns her chief commandment."

"And yet the other Drugar hate you now?" You prompt.

"For that we have to thank Kestrel's nephew Sage King Sparrow, a mighty wizard and cleric of many gods, including Maygrunzil. Sparrow spent five years giving serious thought to the whole 'steal the sky' plan, considering and anaylizing it from every possible angle. In the end, he concluded there was no possible way to accomplish the theft that wouldn't kill off at least 85% of civilized life both above and below ground. He confronted Maygrunzil with his findings, but the goddess was stubborn. She refused to recant her desire to steal the sky, and swore that she would protect her worshipers and their allies from the consequences of her actions. Sparrow thought this naive, and turned on his goddess, leading the Drugar to prosecute her faithful for the 'greater good and safety of all'."

"And you are okay with this?" You ask, "Why does she still have followers at all after that?"

"Aside from her ambitions, Smith Lord, Maygrunzil is still a benevolent goddess who attends to our needs," the drugar explains, "No two feather societies are the same, but mine does the absolute minimum work towards stealing the sky required to keep the goddess we love appeased. Other tribes want vengeance against those who hate them, and actively devote themselves entirely to Maygrunzil's ambitious goal to see their enemies destroyed, but I personally find such behavior distasteful and selfish. The Church of the Feather should not be an instrument of hate, but one of pity towards the goddess that has always pitied us. Her desires might not always be pure, but we owe it to her to at least try and carry out Maygrunzil's will.

You suppose you could say these people are misguided at worst. They don't strike you as insane or nihilistic Armageddon cultists, and they seem polite enough, even if Cloudthief did take shots at two thirds of your husbands...

Would you care to discuss matters of a secret alliance, the Eastvile Drone, or any other topic with the Grand Thief? Or is it time to politely say your goodbyes and move onto the next savages?

Dopl · « **Reply #119 on:** July 17, 2017, 04:38:58 pm »

Propose an alliance for sure, they seem sane, and if we can cause their sect to grow with our support, then this sect could become the face of the religion, and the hatred will cool, maybe.

for sure short term alliance atleast.

I am worried about the hostility shown to our husband though

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Author Topic: (SG) Rise of the Smith Lord (Read 20786 times)

Mithras

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Weirdsound

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IronyOwl

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Mithras

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Dopl

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crazyabe

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Funk

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Weirdsound

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IronyOwl

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Mithras

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IronyOwl

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VoidSlayer

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Dopl

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Weirdsound

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Dopl

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