You send Banner out once more, to find more about the empire to the south. War between equal powers is often a fertile situation for your kind, and you wish to know all you can about both sides as you engineer a conflict. That done, you decide to do some more work on your beasts, especially on the stone creature and your rouses.
The stone creature is difficult for you to understand, as it seems to operate on a very different set of rules than those you are used to, and probing its mind leads to a confusing whirlwind of thousands of voices which all flee from you in a chaotic, unpredictable way. You let the creature graze on the hills, and it seems content enough, but its gaze follows you in an eerily intelligent way.
You ignore that for now, as you have other things to learn. Specifically, how many rouses does it take to make a Heightened? After a long and entertaining series of trials, you find that while ordinarily, it takes ten rouses slowly and painfully killed to make one a Heightened, if you have rouses from the same colony kill each other it only takes five.
Damena and the Seductress come back, with no notable successes or failures coming from their expedition. Some seeds have been planted in the traders, but it is uncertain if they will sprout. They come from several different settlements, mostly outposts controlled by the Empire of the Crystal Throne. They mostly think well of the Empire, and there was little discontent.
Current form: A mighty man with the head of a bison and vicious, bloody claws.
Arms: 25 (Weapon)
Body: 20 (Weapon)
Mind: 25 (Weapon)
Magic: 25 (Weapon)
Other: Holding Bonebiter, the Bloody Maw.
Samana
Arms: 4
Body: 3
Mind: 1.5
Magic: 0.5
Damena
Arms: 1
Body: 1
Mind: 4
Magic: 5.5
Banner
Arms: 2.5
Body: 4.5
Mind: 3
Magic: 0.5
Azen
Arms: 1
Body: 1
Mind: 3.5
Magic: 2.5
94 followers
64 slaves
74 servants( 5 Leplenas, 1 Burnwolf, 4 Rockcrushers, 1 Elephanea, 5 Mole-creatures, 2 Heightned(mages), 2 Heightned(warrior)
1 Seductress
1 Crow Spirit and 1000 crows
1 Alpha Rouse Spirit ad 9900 rouses
Scythes of Beleth
95 cultists
43 power (5 for totems, 18 for worship, 10 for weapons, 5 for mining)
6.5 resources (+1 per week)
Led by Samana and Damena.
The Shade Bastion
Population: 156
Copper mines, watchstalk fields
Defenses: Barricades, terrain, fields of watchstalks
Other: Magical hoop, strangely resistant to corruption. It’s defenses are gone and you can warp its magic as you will.