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[Roboson]

The Lost Barbican

When the world of Aerowell ended, there was little the mages could do to stop it. The Dark Moon rose in the North, and the sky was dyed purple under it's might. Under it's ominous glow, much of the world, and it's inhabitants, we're corrupted. Mages and masters across the world threw their might against the oncoming light, but one by one, they fell. In the end, it was those who fled, who survived.

To the west, the great gates of the Lost Barbican we're forced open. An ancient stronghold, it was abandoned by the First Dwarves when they dug too deep. Luwald Griswine, last king of the western mountainholme, had to abandon his ancestral kingdom when the Moontouched attacked the fortress. Having no other option, the Lost Barbican was opened, and Aerowell's last survivors descended into the ancient bowels of the earth. Behind him, others followed, and the future was cast in darkness.


Welcome to the Lost Barbican, the last splotch of darkness in a world drenched in a horrid light. You find yourself to be the leader of one of the several factions who must share the last city in the world. As such a leader, you have a seat at the Counsel of Lords, the governing body of this city. Whether you were the ancient king of a now lost empire, or the lowly sargent who led your people to this dank underworld city, your vote holds as much weight as any other member. Now you and your fellow counsel members must guide the last bastion of mortality through these tremaltous times. Through famine, plague, and the unending Moontouched onslaught, it is your steady hand and iron will that shall keep these lands afloat, or fumble them to the unholy light of the Dark Moon.


Game composition:
This game is divided into turns, with there being twelve turns in one year. Each turn will begin with the results from last month. After which, you'll receive the war notes for the coming month, if there are any, so that you can allocate your armies accordingly. Lastly, comes the issues at hand. These are issues that require the Counsel to take a vote on and are decided by simple majority vote. Whether this is as simple as raising taxes, or as difficult as allowing new refugees to join your city, the counsel must vote on how to proceed. Additionally, Lords have the power to add to the docket requests and other issues for the counsel to address. Lastly when you take your turn, I ask you update your inventory somewhere in your post. It'll go a long way if everyone can manage their own, so I don't end up spending more time balancing books than writing for the game.

Resources
In this game all resources are pooled into a single stockpile. As a result, there are a few ways to gain resources for your faction to use. If one of the Lords wishes to expend resources, whether it be to equip their armies with weapons or build new buildings, a Lord may put a supply request before the counsel. Unlike normal motions, these pass unless a majority denies the request. The second way to gain resources is to simply buy them from the stock pile (using your funds collected by taxes, more on this later). Of course sneaky lords may skim some resources off of their buildings on the way to the stockpile, or even more dreadful, steal them from the stock pile, though these come with various associated risks.

Taxes
Nothing can be certain but death and taxes. Each month lords will collect taxes from their various establishments, and enterprises. These taxes go directly into the lords coffers, and can be spent at their leisure. Useful for buying resources from the stockpiles, or from other lords, as well as units, trade goods, and boons of all kinds.

Expenses
Of course running a city is not cheap and there are various expenses tied to lordship. The first is the King's tax. This is a small tax levied on to the lords that goes into the central stockpile for miscellaneous uses throughout the kingdom, as well as to be used by the lords through the central stockpile. The other main expenses are the operation costs for buildings, as well as pay for units.

Units and Combat
Your units are the main source of actions for your faction. The main types of units are combat orientated, while civilian actions are mostly done through buildings. There are three main types of damage: piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning. Each of them has advantages. Piercing does extra damage against larger creatures, and can occasionally pierce armor. Slashing damage has an advantage against unarmored and lightly armored units. Bludgeoning damage is best used against targets which do not bleed or are heavily armored.

Espionage
Of course brute force isn't the only way to achieve your goals. Subterfuge and espionage are often great options for ambitious lords. This culminates in the spy unit, a rather sneaky unit. Upon creation they (secretly) are given a specialization. This can be something like theft, assassination, or intelligence gathering. Though the spy is often used within the city itself, a clever Lord may find much use for them in the caverns.

Buildings
Buildings are the other half of your holdings as a Lord. These are related to more civilian pursuits and often serve some sort of function. There are four main types: resource generating, service oriented, and housing, and production oriented. Mines and farms are two good examples of resource generating buildings. Taverns, shops, and the like don't generate resources, but collect revenue from the citizenry. Housing is another main type of building. Your citizens require housing, and homeless citizens have greater unrest, which can lead to a variety of issues. Taxes from houses are lower than other types of buildings. Lastly there are production based buildings. These are buildings designed to make  objects out of raw resources. These are your blacksmiths, your alchemists, and various other craftsmen. These buildings produce finished goods, which unlike raw resources, don't go into the central stockpile. However, the goods they create can often be sold for a decent sum of coin or be used by your armies or citizens for great benefit.

There is one area where buildings and military overlap: defensive structures. Walls, bastions, and other defensive structures provide no taxes, but give significant advantages during the combat section of each turn.

Magic and Gods
Under the light of the dark moon the voices of the gods have grown faint and the power of magic has ebbed. However, deep under the earth you have found your strength returning as you discover the strange magics of this abyssal land. Magic and Gods are a bit more free form and can provide unique advantages. Much of the world's magic has been lost, abandoned in vast libraries on the surface. Though through research and study, you can create all manner of spells and enchantments.

Research
Much of the world's history and advancement was lost when the surface world was abandoned. Each turn players will receive 1d10 (an amount determined by a ten sided dice) research to spend on researching a topic of your choice. When research on a new topic begins, it will be given a difficulty. This determines how many research points it requires to complete. From this  points may be subtracted if you have related research completed.

Character Sheet
Leader name:
Leader description: (physical and personality)
Leader backstory: (How you became leader and how you got to this point
Faction name:
Faction race: (Feel free to create your own race here or have a mix of a few races)
Faction backstory: (History before the Dark Moon and how your faction got here)
Faction trait: (choose two, you may choose the same one twice).

Faction traits:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Miners: Start with 1 mine.
Farmers: Start with 1 farm.
Brewmaster: Start with 1 tavern.
Blacksmith: Start with 1 forge.
Swordsmen*: Start with one swordsman army.
Spearmen*: Start with one spearman army.
Axemen*: Start with one axeman army.
Scout: Start with one scout army.
Hunters: Start with one hunter army.
Archer*: Start with one crossbow army.
Spy: Start with one spy.
Mystical: Start with one mage.
Faithful: Start with one priest.
Alchemist: Start with one alchemist.
Custom start: Work with Roboson for a custom starting option.

*You may create a variant of these instead.
**Requires additional backstory.

Spoiler: Example Character Sheet- King Luwald Griswine (click to show/hide)

Under Construction.

Spoiler: GM Note (click to show/hide)

So I've tried to run a bunch of civilization games in the past and I can never really get them off the ground. They end up becoming a lot of work really fast. So I've designed this one with that in mind. Keeping the resources in one central place for processing is going to do wonders. Setting it up so most actions are processed in one place is also going to help a lot. Last, but not least, players are going to manage their own inventories when they post their actions. So if you're spending ten iron to equip your armies, you mark that on your running inventory when you post. All of this combined is going to seriously streamline the hard part of updates and let me really focus on what we're all here for, poorly written walls of text solid detailed updates.

[crazyabe]

Spoiler: Sheet potentially filled? (click to show/hide)

Leader name: Varrith Ine Canvell
Leader description: A Short thin guy with a rather average face, he is a shrewd if moraless businessman, equally willing to stab his enemies in the back as his allies
Leader backstory: Varrith was- at one point just the previous faction leader's steward, that changed when he strangled the previous leader to death and hid the remains, as far as anyone else knows the previous leader is still alive and sending out orders, while in reality Varrith is the puppet master playing the whole organization from behind the scenes...
Faction name: The Locksmith's(Thieves) Confederacy(Guild)
Faction race: A mixture of Human, Gnome, Halfling, and dwarf "Locksmiths"
Faction backstory: The Locksmith's confederacy doesn't have any particular history before the dark moon, however it formed soon after the Lost Barbican was opened to protect the interests of the potentially legitimate businesses of its affiliated parties.
Faction trait: tavern, Spy(Influence ~ He bribed the guards, started the riot, and talked that lord's men into going on strike all before tea time...)

[Rockeater]

I'll watch for the very least

[King Zultan]

PTW

[Glass]

There will be a sheet here, later. Traits will be Mystical and either Blacksmith or Alchemist. Maybe a combo custom trait, which I’ll preliminarily call Artificer.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Leader name: Quinn Learner, “The Archivist”
Leader description: At official functions, wears black, silver-lined robes, and wields what is essentially a pure white blacksmith’s hammer with a quarterstaff-sized handle. On a day-to-day basis, wears the usual mage’s minimalist-but-comfortable silk shirt and pants. Has short, black hair, green eyes, and a gaunt face. Tends to be practical, but also thinks in terms of long-run benefits and potential problems. Tries to be kind, but may get annoyed at bullheadedness.
Leader backstory: Quinn was elected Archmage of the Hands of Silver and Steel due not only to his strength of magic, but also to his intelligence and ability to manage and appease the mages, craftsmen, and all of the factions that arose within them. Furthermore, his ability to stay calm under pressure was a thoroughly desireable trait among those that knew of the oncoming Dark Moon. With his knowledge of what was to come, he accelerated programs designed to research magics that would assist in the creation of bunkers and the stockpiling and growing of food. When he heard news of the Lost Barbican, he was the one that organized the evacuation of not only the schools, but the entire city.
Faction name: The Hands of Silver and Steel
Faction race: Primarily humans, secondarily elves (silver) and dwarves (steel), with a variety of other races such as orcs and dragonborns.
Faction backstory: The Hands were originally based out of a prosperous trade city, and were, in fact, born in two desperate schools. The Silver Hands came from a university of magecraft, and study magic theory and “pure” magic, while the Steel Hands were from what was - while called a college - essentially a coalition of tradesmen who had agreed to pool their funds to train apprentices, and became quite successful in doing so. However, as time wore on, both schools began to fall on hard luck, and due to proximity and the fact that doing so would stave off bankruptcy, they became a single institution, which taught both magecraft tempered with practicality and craftsmanship enhanced with magic, a budding field known as “Artifice”. With this, and the many new advances it brought their city, The Hands of Silver and Steel became a very prominent organization in local politics. One day, though, their mages foresaw the coming of the Dark Moon, and knew they could not stop the onslaught they would bring. They organized the evacuation of the city they had long called home, and it was under their leadership that many came to the Lost Barbican. While many that had not belonged to them before the evacuation once again left their influence upon arrival, there were numerous that stayed, as well as the students and faculty of the college.
Faction trait: Mystical and Artificer (Artificers’ workshops require more time than blacksmiths’ workshops to make things, and take longer and cost more to construct (and the handlers take longer to train), but they can build better equipment with equal or even fewer resources, plus magical effects where applicable. Essentially, compared to blacksmiths, it’s a trade of higher up-front costs and lower quantities in exchange for more resource efficiency, product quality, and sometimes extra item effects.).

[Roboson]

Glass:

Looks good to me. I like the artificer and starting with one should be fairly balanced since it will be a little while before you start pulling in lots of resources. When it comes to creating things, is it more like magitech or what sort of thing is it? Because from what you wrote there, it sounds like it would be different from run of the mill enchanting.

Crazyabe:
It's a little light on the details, but it gets the job done. One thing is, your character has to physically sit at the table to discuss issues and cast votes. So baring extreme omounts of RP, it would be hard to pretend the rightful lord is still alive and just never shows up to his job or be seen by his people. So if have a way around that, just let me know, or just make a few edits to the entry.

Barring those minor details, both Glass and Crazy Abe are accepted.

[Nirur Torir]

Spoiler: Blacksteel Mercenary Company (click to show/hide)

Leader name: Ornal Agrik
Leader description: Ornal the dwarf is a grizzled mercenary. He's now middle-aged and has spent years as a front-line fighter, with the scars and muscle to show for it. He wears heavy plate armor, and fights with axe and shield.
He's a serious, no-nonsense type. He's had his victories and his share of losses, and is a skilled combatant and tactician. He has mostly given up on this world, but fights for his oaths, the cheer of those who yet cling to hope, and to buy time for more souls to be ready for The Rockmother.
Leader backstory: When he was young, he joined the Blacksteel Mercs out of a sense of adventure. That didn't last long, but he took to the mercenary lifestyle like a dwarfling to mining. Through luck, he lived long enough to become skilled, eventually rising to the rank of captain.
Faction name: Blacksteel Mercenary Company
Faction race: 45% dwarves, 45% humans, 10% kobolds, acting as forward scouts, skirmishers, spies, and couriers. Generally, dwarves serve as heavy infantry, while humans are light infantry, skirmishers, or archers. (The horses were lost early in this war.)
Faction backstory: Blacksteel was a fairly average mercenary group, before the world ended. They focused more on quality, and had several dwarven smiths among their number. Their preferred tactic was to lock enemies into battle with the heavy dwarven infantry, before shattering them with flanking cavalry charges.
A duke, now lost to the madness, hired them to escort himself and a train of refugees to the safety of distant lands. Stretched thin by frequently joining refugees, losses were heavy, patched up by merging with militia or other soldiers, or by training qualifying civilians.
The kobolds are a recent addition. After the loss of their cavalry, a friendly warren of kobolds was hired (in exchange for food and a spot in the refugee caravan) as scouts and skirmishers.
Faction trait: Blacksmith, Axemen.
Other: (If you want write-in gods) Ornal casually worships The Rockmother, dwarven goddess of death, family, and personal virtue. She is said to gather the souls of her fallen children in an embrace of peaceful slumber, to be reborn after the world has been reforged. (The apocalypse of prophecy that would lead to the world being reforged was supposed to be 600 years ago, at the monstrous hordes of a dark lord. He was ultimately assassinated shortly after taking power.)

[Roboson]

Blacksteel looks good to me.

[Draxis]

Does this look good?

Dever Hezn of the Freeholders' Mutual Association

Spoiler: Leader (click to show/hide)

Name: Dever Hezn
Description: A middle-aged orc, with the body of a farmer. She wears her hair short in the human style, and prefers to dress more finely than expected of someone in her position. A confident orator and negotiator, who tries to make everyone feel included in a conversation while pushing their own agenda.
Backstory: Dever Hezn was a (relatively) wealthy, free peasant from an expansionist human kingdom, which in recent generations had promoted colonization and small farming to 'civilize' and pacify the traditionally orcish frontier in which she lived. As a promising child on an extended family farm, she was educated in the dominant culture, and gradually came to run the family's trade with others, and ultimately that of neighboring holdings as well.

Hezn supported and eventually joined the Freeholders' Association over the perennial disputes between the villagers and regional merchants. As an orc who could fairly confidently deal in both orcish and human circles, and with a background in commerce and farming, she was well-suited to advance within the organization, and was a regional delegate by the time the Dark Moon rose.

Spoiler: Faction (click to show/hide)

Name: The Freeholders' Mutual Association
Faction race: Humans and orcs
Faction backstory: Originally formed as a rural answer to the craft guilds which protected the interests of the urban middle classes, the Freeholders' Mutual Association had not yet managed to consolidate economic power against that of the big merchants and landowners. However, it flourished in the borderlands as a social and mutual-aid group.

As the severity of the crisis began to be felt in the countryside, the Association first organized militias and contributions to the state, and then - as that state began to collapse - refugee bands from its members, one of which was led by Dever Hezn to finally arrive at the Lost Barbican. Experienced at living off the land, both on the frontier and now on the march, the survivors quickly settled in for supply and protection in this strange place.
Faction trait: Farmers, Hunters

[IronyOwl]

Spoiler: Archfane Radulus Grimsoil of the Ashbough Concordat (click to show/hide)

Leader name: Archfane Radulus Grimsoil
Leader description: Tall and handsome in the severe manner of the Grey Elves, with light grey skin, dark grey hair, and steel blue eyes. Like most of his kind, he's humorless and efficient, with no tolerance for failure or weakness in the ruling classes and no particular regard for life or happiness beyond their practical value. He's determined to see his people flourish in this hostile environment, and has all the ruthless disregard for morality and mercy necessary to make that happen. On a personal note, he enjoys gardening and has something of a sweet tooth, though he would never let either indulgence interfere with his duties.
Leader backstory: Radulus Grimsoil ascended to the lofty title of Archfane (roughly equivalent to a human Duke) in the traditional Grey Elf manner- by proving himself superior to and usurping the title from his aging grandfather. He ruled without major incident for thirteen years before the world ended and his kingdom was shattered, at which point he was elected leader of the fleeing remnants on account of his prewar status, competence, and distance from political disputes within the survivors.
Faction name: Ashbough Concordat
Faction race: Grey Elves. Every now and then, some insane wizard or ambitious warlord will attempt to create the perfect race to wield the powers of both life and death. The results are usually fairly similar to Grey Elves- grey colored, callously efficient, and severe. While not the avatars of power that their progenitors envisioned, Grey Elves do possess a rare blend of pitilessness and desire to see things grow, which in turn promotes using horrifying methods to accomplish relatively admirable goals, and so Grey Elven lands tend to be fairly prosperous if not particularly nice to live in. They also possess a natural talent for both healing magics and necromancy, which they often half-combine to produce horrifying mutations in pets, crops, and low-quality citizens.
Faction backstory: The Grey Elf Kingdom of Starflower was once a fairly prosperous land sprawling mostly over rough forested terrain. In typical Grey Elf fashion, they ruled with callous efficiency, expanding their populations of useful life forms and culling or ruthlessly experimenting on useless life forms, trading with worthy neighbors and subjugating unworthy neighbors, and generally making the world a better place for a select definition of better. When the world ended, they fought valiantly against the corrupted mutants streaming in from the outside world and rising up from their own lands, and even experimented with mutating the mutants back into more pliable forms. When this didn't pan out and the western Archfanes began to buckle, they performed a relatively organized retreat, complete with a sacrificial vanguard of less valuable members. When this didn't pan out either and the mass exodus continued suffering heavy casualties, the surviving nobles declared the current King unfit and reorganized what was left of the Starflower Kingdom into the Ashbough Concordat, electing a competent but politically neutral Archfane to lead it. The Concordat is largely headed by the Ashwalker and Starbough families, but is considerably more democratic and loosely organized than the Kingdom was, under the assumption that small, semiautonomous factions may lead to more successful experimentation and precise decisionmaking than the remnants of the old Kingdom was able to manage.
Faction trait: Farmers, Mystical

[a1s]

Spoiler: Leader (click to show/hide)

Leader name: Ajvanāzis Ērsšraikār  (John Peter of Earthstrike in the common tongue).
Leader description: A wide-set, handsome mol covered in purple fur, as befits a chief. He has been described as progressive, optimistic and, occasionally, as too young to be in charge, though never to his snout. John Peter speaks the common tongue with the fluidity of a high elf and barely a hint of an accent, a fact of which he is unduly proud.
Leader backstory: Born in the primary clutch of chief Ziemas Egle,  Ajvanāzis was on track to replace his father as chief, when a rival clutch mate started spreading rumors that he was fond of associating with the eastern races. At the inquest, rather than deny this, he gave an impassioned speech about progress and invited those who dared to follow him. Many in his tribe (and a few from neighboring ones) did, thus founding the Ērsšraiķ tribe, which settled near the barbican from which it takes it's name.

Spoiler: Faction (click to show/hide)

Faction name: Earthstrike
Faction race: Mole People. Though the call themselves the "Molūsker!atti", a word essentially translated as "the society" or "the people",  they are often referred to as simply "Mols", a moniker they have over the years adopted as their official name in the common tongue. Mols posses an innate sense of direction and a strong sense of smell but are incapable of sight. Technologically backwards, Mole People are natural burrowers and no strangers to trading valuable rocks to other races. Despite persistent rumors Mols aren't humanoid rodents, but actually insects with vestigial middle limbs. 
Faction backstory: Mols have always lived in the areas around the Lost Barbican, and when it started to become inhabited by other races, some of the Mols have defended their holdings, others moved away and a small part have decided to join them, seduced by the use of steel tools and other magics. One of such groups is Ērsšraiķ, "they who live in the vicinity of a fort".
Faction trait: miners twice

[Roboson]

Those all look pretty solid to me. I think I'm going to close sign ups there and start writing the first turn after lunch. I'm going to see how the first few turns go and, assuming it goes as smoothly as I intend, open up two more spots for refugees who come later and are voted in.

[Glass]

Question, and something that kind of went into my assumptions when making the Hands: having a mage unit is not equal to having a single actual mage, correct?

[Roboson]

Really it could go either way.

I was intending to treat them like heros, so singular units with comparable strength and upkeep to an army. However, if you would prefer to have an army of lesser mages, that would also be acceptable. Really in the end, they could do the same things and would have the same capacity, so it comes down to flavor at that point.

[Glass]

I’ll take the army of lesser mages, then. After all, the Silver Hands are an entire school of mages.