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[Talion]

Discovery Phase

Investigate Runic Component: Shape Meaning

Shape Meaning Discount Gained
Adept understanding of Shape teaches us to form a more meaningful and holy icon. It more readily accepts mana from the environment, making any Chant or Inscription less burdensome to infuse.

Hint Token: Runic System Experiment(Inscription): Ward(Air) - Fizzle
With this test we have determined that Inscription is a system that clings firmly to the rule of three. Without at least three Runes the sap does not transform into a substance capable of etching objects. Four Runes shall not work as it causes undesirable reactions with the sap, causing the mana to escape. Naturally five Runes is right out.

It is now Spring, Turn 0 Design Phase

Spoiler: Rune Skills (click to show/hide)

Rune Skills are a measure of your nation’s understanding of the Runes. They are measured as Unskilled, Apprentice, Adept and Master. You cannot make use of Meanings or Elements until you have at least an Apprentice level understanding of them.

Meaning
Shape - Adept - Mana Discount
Attack - Apprentice
Ward - Apprentice
Form - Unskilled
Control - Unskilled

Terrestrial Element
Air - Master - Chanting, Fate
Fire - Apprentice
Earth - Apprentice
Water - Apprentice
Wood - Adept - Inscription

Celestial Element
Fate - Apprentice

Spoiler: Equipment (click to show/hide)

Mundane Equipment
Longsword: A double-edged blade and a cruciform hilt. A versatile weapon capable of cuts, slices and thrusts. Requires training to wield, can be used one or two handed.
Expensive (Land 2, Ore 2)

War Axe: Can be used as a tool in a pinch, this is a single-handed weapon that does well against heavily armoured foes. Can be used with minimal training.
Cheap (Land 1, Ore 1)

Pavise Shields: Metal reinforced, wooden shields designed to be worn on the back to protect a crossbowman while they reload their crossbow.
Cheap (Land 1, Ore 1)

Northman’s Shield: A round wooden shield with a metal spiked boss. This shield is reinforced with metal around the edges. These shields are carefully painted with unique designs to help identify the hero who wields it.
Cheap (Land 2, Ore 1)

Brigandine Armour: Strips of Windforged Steel cushioned by wool and linen on both sides. Only the vital organs are protected with Steel in order to keep costs low. Cloth gloves and hood help to ensure that every part of the body has at least some protection.
Cheap (Land 2, Ore 1)

Scale Mail: Scales of iron on a leather hide backing.
Expensive (Land 2, Ore 2)

Light Crossbow: Based on the bow and mounted horizontally on a frame. Powerful, but reloading is slow and dangerous. Each crossbow has been standardised, allowing even lesser skilled crafters to build a functional weapon of war.
Cheap (Land 2)

Standard: A flag used to identify units and maintain order in battle.
Cheap (Land 1)

War Cart: A four wheeled cart used to carry crossbowmen to battle. Unfortunately the lack of horses on the island leaves it unusable at the moment.
Expensive (Land 3)

Magical Equipment
Wind Cart: A four wheeled cart with a hollow cylinder in the back. This cart is designed to be crewed by a Chanter who is capable of propelling the cart at walking speed using a variant of the Wind Chant.
Expensive (Land 3, Mana 2)

Windforged Steel: All metal equipment has been improved with access to Windforged Steel. It has a blue colouration.
National Expense - Infrastructure

Temple of the Voiceguard: A training ground for the Voiceguard, Chanters trained to use simple cantrips to support our troops in battle.
March: A cooling wind to make an army’s journey easier. (Wind)
Smoke: Obscures the battlefield with smoke. (Spike of Smoke)
Poison: Gathers poison from the local area to douse our weapons. (Gathering of Poison)
Ember: To set fires. (Wind of Embers)
National Expense - Infrastructure

Note: I’ve removed Infrastructure costs as they should always be National Expense.

[TricMagic]

.... Great.. Now we have next to nothing from that. Well, on to Ve Solution to the Poison problem.

Nightmares, trickery, our foes know nought the value of True Combat!
I Shall forge my Armor, and Rend them Limb From Limb! Who's with me!~

Hero: Basalt, the Indomitable.

He who takes up Arms shall be thrice blessed.

Forging a Set of Plate, of Blue Steel, to cover the chest.
Greaves of Windforged steel, Gauntlets of the Same.
Armor covering the entire body, and a Helm made of True Steel.

And so made, now an Axe, a great Crescent, a curve pointing outward, it's opposite, crescent points, the shaft bound to the blade.
Our Hardest Wood makes up the shaft, carved with grips and designs of snarling wolves and harsh winds.

The Crescent Axe, a blue moon, with curve inward on one side, and heavy curve outside. To bash, sever, and execute.

The armor needs some refinement, cloth to fit the armor to the body, and keep it from jostling. And of corse, I should make sure to keep care with the gauntlets as well. Segmented metal, to better grip this Mighty Axe.

No cowardly poison shall pierce this armor!

Spoiler: discord-axe-design description (click to show/hide)

Crescent-shaped blade that starts from a thick piece in the center, connected directly to the haft
The crescent-shaped blade extends both above and below this, adding a bit of reach while retaining a shorter haft and also allowing you to hook legs, shields, and weapons with either side of the blade, when necessary

"Men! We go to War, tear those cowards to bits!"

Berserker Knights
A group of MadmenHoly Knights of the Loji, who take up Full Windforged Plate and Double-headed Berserker Axe to bring fear to our foes. No measly attack can pierce our forms, and we will charge with unmatched Vigor to killshow them our Holy Mission.

Story of Basalt's Orgin
Basalt heard of the cowardly tactics used by the enemies. Not only the Iqua, but apparently that traitor as well. While a craftsmen as well as a Warrior of his People, He shalt to teach those cowards the meaning of Holy Battle. So he worked a day and night to create armor that arrows can never penetrate, that swords shall never cut. And hopefully, that other heavy weapons will only bend, but not break.

So done, he then crafted a brilliant Axe, of Lunar Crescent, and engraved the shaft with wolves and wind, the head with intricate(to his eyes) patterns to strike fear and awe into others, our symbol upon it..

But he was not yet done, he donned his creation, and sought to gain allies in his Holy Quest, followers and fellow knights to lead the Crusade against the Heathens! And so, with rousing speech,{Rargh!!}, was successful.

With plans in hand for his designs, he now awaits the command of the Council.
To begin his Quest to kill that coward who dared to call herself Hero. And that Traitor who dares send assassins.

[Madman198237]

Well, that was less than ideal. It's possible that we have more Chanters now, though we don't have any Inscriptions to go with the Shape experience bonus. We could research an Inscription of some sort based on our previous ones, I suppose, or we could attempt to directly counter the enemy's arrows with an elite unit meant to hunt archers, or we could just do our own hero to improve our performance on whatever front we so desire.

Jarls of the Northmen
Leaders, rulers, warriors. A Jarl leads each village and town of the Loji, a Jarl captained each ship before the heretics confined us to these wretched shores. They earn their position not through birthright, but through war and conquest. We are commanded to conquer and war if we wish to ascend, and so our leaders win their right to lead through bloodshed. Each Jarl wears an improved set of Scale Armor, a shirt of scales that hangs to the knees, with steel greaves beneath. Steel gauntlets cover the rest of the arms and the hands, and steel helms and a neck-guard protect the head and neck. They sling their shields over their backs, wielding instead weapons in two hands. Arrows, spears, and swords they shrug off, barely feeling it through thick padding and tough steel. Their own blows are not so easily ignored. Some choose to take two War Axes, some Battleaxes on a long two-handed haft with a crescent blade to hook their enemies and drag them out of even the best shieldwalls, some use Steel Halberds with a myriad of tools to kill their foes with.

In battle, Jarls lead retinues of scale-armored Huscarls, warriors sworn to fight with them and defend their leaders, albeit with lesser arms and armors. The Jarls and their retinues strike at the weak points of the enemy line with hammer-blows that cannot be matched by any foe.

-Gets us a new elite unit of sorts, armed and armored for killing things. Axes like they'll carry will make them quite terrifyingly capable of ripping through anything with less armor than them, and anything properly armored will have to fear them---after all, they probably won't have halberds or a Dane axe equivalent [which is what the Battleaxe is a copy of], which are the best weapons to fight an armored man with, since the way these combats are won tends to involve wrestling and dagger stabs to vulnerable spots. This is, unfortunately, where scale falls short: It is, hypothetically, possible to stab up under the scales and get the person, though for many obvious reasons it is exceedingly difficult to actually cut through the leather strips holding the plates together, and even harder to do any meaningful damage with such a stroke, since it will be mostly parallel to the flesh.
-Also gets us new forms of armor and weapons, though if those can't just be immediately used by the rest of our soldiers I won't be too sad. Halberds are the only ones that would be really nice to have, and even then we don't need them since nobody has cavalry. I'll probably propose an alternative to this later, but this was something I had already planned out.

[TricMagic]

To keep in mind, the sooner a suitable hero hits the field, the sooner they level up. And the Holy Knights of Zerk shall certainly do with Basalt at their helm.

Also, elite armored units, VE, but nothing they have is going to beat them, short of trying to cook us in our armor. And I'm pretty sure they both use Water rather than Fire.

[Madman198237]

...we are not taking a trip into loonyville with "berzerkers". If we're going to use a name so uninspired as berserkers, we're at least going to spell it right. Also, there's no way we can afford full plate armor in massed deployments. A few warriors can't turn the tide unless the enemy's willing to make like the oldest civilizations and just go home after their champion(s) are defeated.

Yes, the earlier we deploy a hero the earlier they level up, but they're fairly likely to die. I'm also considering attempting an Inscription instead, but I like the idea of deploying elite units. We can base heroes off them later, if we feel so inclined.

Oh, and I forgot to include the name of the Jarls' retinues, so I fixed that.

[TricMagic]

We should at least get it before writing such a thing off. It's not like these elite units deserve anything less.

Base is the Hero, Basalt, and he can wear such things. Then there are his inspired knights. They also are lower in number than normal, but that does fit with the cost of there gear.

A single Berserker Knight is so well armored that the enemies attacks won't do anything, and their weapon a mass killing of wheat, which is what those archers are in the end. Add to the fact that dealing with someone in their ranks makes it far easier for the rest to close the distance while they're busy.

Given that, they are well worth the price to turn combat to our favor. It's their thing to disrupt by being an indestructible force.

[Madman198237]

The problem is whether that hero will actually behave like that mechanically. Remember that hero's benefits to a front are fixed to die rolls, and so designing a hero to hunt archers won't increase the risk to the enemy's archer hero.

An elite unit, however, will make said hero mostly irrelevant. One person (The hero) shooting effective arrows is basically useless, whereas several hundred to several thousand (all the other archers, not able to really hurt a bunch of full-armored elite warriors) is not so useless, depending of course on the scale of battles the GM is considering. An elite unit built to remove their archer contingents will do just that, and do it well.

[TricMagic]

I don't really see the benefit of Finicky Scale vs Simple Plate. The Plate and Axe are simple things to roll for. Improved Scale will likely be as expensive on it's own, due to the fact that it's made up of a similar amount of material. Beating the steel into shape isn't realy difficult, being large pieces.

Eh, assuming no one else has ideas,

Basalt, the Indomitable, and the Holy Berserker Knights (1)
Jarls of the Northmen, and the Huscarls (-)

[Madman198237]

Basalt, the Indomitable, and the Holy Berserker Knights (1): TricMagic
Jarls of the Northmen (1): Madman

Well, for starters, scale isn't finicky any more than plate armor is simple. Also, there are in fact many technical reasons plate was not achievable for millennia, and full plate will still take more metal and more manufacturing effort (resulting in greater Ore costs even than the amount of metal will suggest) than scale armor, while not providing so much of an edge as to be worthwhile.

We could also do Shape(Water) Ward(Wood) Attack(Air) (Gather Poison as a Chant) as an Inscription, or do the Wind Chant as an Inscription to see what would result. Either one might get us something usable against the enemy, while the revision could certainly be used to apply the results if they're worthwhile.

[TricMagic]

I don't really see your design as something that will work out. No real order to it. Still, at least both offer some form of protection against our foes poison.


If the Hero design goes well, we get an elite unit that can easily turn the tides. And he might yet generate Fate points, since he is a hero. Important people and things and all that.

[Atomic Chicken]

(1) Basalt, the Indomitable, and the Holy Berserker Knights: TricMagic
(1) Jarls of the Northmen: Madman
(1) Experiment, Inscription - Shape(Air), Ward(Air), Attack(Air): AC

[TricMagic]

We do plan a crossbow improvement after this, you know?

[Madman198237]

Yet if we get an enchantment that turns away arrows or improves the strength of bows or improves Chants it'll have more use in the coming fights then a new crossbow, so it might also be something to consider for revisions. A medium crossbow might not, in fact, be our optimum course of action.

[Jilladilla]

If I'm being perfectly honest? Not feeling trying that experiment right now, and 'Berserker Knight' just fills me with cognitive dissonance (I'm sorry TricMagic, my mental image of a Berserker is very different from that of a Knight!)... Well, that and I do favor the people over a hero.. And the double-headed axes; sorry, it's just extra weight for our soldiers to swing around for little benefit; yes, due to its positioning it should cause it to hit that much harder, it will exhaust our men faster as well. I mean, I suppose it is a backup in case the axblade grows dull, but a dull ax is still a pretty decent bludgeon, but if you want something on the reverse of the axblade make it a hook or a spike or something, make the weapon more versatile.

(1) Basalt, the Indomitable, and the Holy Berserker Knights: TricMagic
(2) Jarls of the Northmen: Madman, Jilladilla
(1) Experiment, Inscription - Shape(Air), Ward(Air), Attack(Air): AC

[TricMagic]

...

k then, some type of reverse headed axe?

And so made, now an Axe, a great Crescent, a line pointing outward, it's opposite a guillotine, the shaft bound to the blade.
Our Hardest Wood makes up the shaft, carved with grips and designs of snarling wolves and harsh winds.

The Crescent Axe, a blue moon, with deadly curve inward on one side, and heavy curve outside. To bash, sever, and execute.

this has two in it's make, but primarily uses one head. better? Closer to Dane I suppose.