TURN ONE: DESIGN PHASE
Shaping: The Wall-Breaker, Champion
There are times when even a powerful and skillful Dark Lord with myriad tools and methods might wish to take the direct approach. Times in which an obstacle might not need to be circumvented, reduced, enchanted, or even avoided entirely, but confronted. Smashed into a thousand pieces and scattered with the swing of a mighty hammer, reduced to dust and tread underfoot. The Wall-Breaker is a manifestation of inexorable advance, unstoppable power. A ruined figure, what race it may have been is unknown and quite probably unknowable. It is a massive bipedal figure, almost thirty feet tall and bearing thick armor and a massive two-handed warhammer. Its brutal hands have three fingers, tipped with adamant claws, its head bears a horned helmet, its sleek form disrupted by reinforcing plates. Its torso seems for all the world to be a slab of armor steel shaped into the mockery of a humanoid form, its arms and legs covered in thick mail and heavy plates. The only adornment upon it is the forged symbol of the Dark Lord on its breastplate, a hammer aflame set beneath a crown rent apart. It has no will but the Dark Lord's own, not even the lowest form of cunning or desire. It fights with simple, brutal swings of its hammer or claws, and is capable of tearing apart even the mightiest of soldiers or fortifications through pure brute strength. The Wall-Breaker might be mortal, but if so none have ever struck a blow hard enough to kill it. It has been forced to retreat, even left unconscious for centuries, but it always wakes again.
The Wall Breaker: Normal (roll:6) Champion Standing over a deep pit, the Dark Lord stretched forth with his power and called an old servant to heel. Summoned forth from the depths of the earth, the Wall Breaker towered over the Dark Lord and his Council. A War-Beast, a relic from the days before the Fall. Thick slabs of armor cover it from head to toe. It carries a heavy hammer, only suitable for one with monstrous strength, and the claws which bear it are forged in adamant. It is strong, and incredibly hard to kill. It is also very slow. Its armor bears the ancient sigil, the hammer aflame set beneath a broken crown.
The Wall Breaker is a force of destruction, and that alone. It does not lead or command. It makes no tools or weapons. It smashes and destroys. To aid in this pursuit, The Dark Lord invested in its claws and hammers a dark power. Its adamant claws, blessed can shred through stone and steel easily, and the hammer multiplies the force with which it strikes tremendously. Only the Armaments of Heaven themselves could possibly resist the power of these weapon, and then they would have the brute's pure strength to deal with.
Bonus! Gain Enchanted Wall Breaker Weapons.
Artifice: The Silent Hand (unit, tier 3)
We have a few humans amongst our ranks, and will likely be able to recruit more as we go. For now, however, we must use what we have. Luckily, having only a few humans available anyway allows us to train them to very high proficiencies in such arts as we wish them to know. The Silent Hand is a division of our forces composed exclusively of humans or other creatures whose polities are our enemies, for now just humans, and trained in the side of warfare nobody sings many songs about. They know how to infiltrate a populace, assuming positions of responsibility, power, and importance amongst our enemies' defenders and rulers. Disguises, cloaks, daggers, poisons, it is all their domain.
Operationally, the Silent Hand works to remain completely hidden. While individual members might occasionally take action during, say, a pitched battle, they have always been placed there such that no connection to the rest of the infiltrators can be determined. Most of their operations revolve around quietly sabotaging enemy efforts; slight misreadings of scouting reports provided to commanders, falsified documents substituted by subverted diplomatic couriers, trusted advisers temporarily or permanently replaced by disguised agents. Ideally, these agents are never discovered and never questioned, but if they are discovered, they take a painless poison and die without ever being interrogated.
For equipment they get the aforementioned disguises and various concealable weapons and ominous cloaks for leading enemies into ambushes. They also get not-ominous cloaks, for when they want to actually get sneaky things done without looking like they're getting sneaky things done.
No agent of the Silent Hand would ever carry a badge or identifying symbol, but the banner that hangs to the left of the Dark Lord's is theirs; a steel dagger held by a golden hand, inverted, in golden flames below a broken crown in gold on a black field.
The Silent Hand: Normal (roll:3) Tier 4 Some of the cultists, in between worshiping the Dark Lord, scrounging arms and armor, and scaring orcs by telling them about the sun, prepared themselves for re-entry into normal life. It took some convincing, but they ditched the Dark Robes, tried not to constantly praise the Dark Lord, and ,perhaps most importantly, stop hissing at the sun.
Overall The Silent Hand are quite adapt at keeping an eye on the enemy. While not quite up to the level yet at editing reports and assuming positions of additional responsibility, they can quite certainly get word of enemy movements and layouts of castles and fortifications. They are also quite handy with a dagger and poisons.
Being more of a more strategic Asset, their presence on the battlefield will be at a Tier 4 level, where they are quite deadly at surprise attacks, but their staying power in a fight, particularly against well-equipped foes, is lacking.
Artifice: Legio I Deeping Guard (unit, tier 2)
We need somebody to guard the tunnels and hallways of our fortress, and to take fortresses and hold them. Luckily, fighting in confined spaces is pretty similar whether there's a thin roof above you or miles of solid rock, and a wall is a wall is a wall, whether it's carved into the bones of the earth in a vast cavern close to the very mouths of the underworld or built out of some mud bricks next to a river. We've raised a unit of orcish soldiers in heavy armor, bearing tall rectangular shields and warhammers. With protection enough to make them seriously obnoxious to actually kill and weapons short enough to wield in confined spaces and deadly enough to kill even armored foes, the Deeping Guard makes for a useful addition to the orcish rabble. Most importantly, they are disciplined fighters capable of operating in formation and, even more importantly, they will obey orders. Including such orders as "don't pillage that village" and "prisoners of war are not food" and "civilians are not enemy combatants that just aren't fighting right now". They are also therefore responsible for enforcing order and the rule of law in captured settlements and amongst the lesser soldiers of our forces. We might be a Dark Lord's evil army but we're an evil army with standards and a desire to not spend every minute of every day crushing revolts and hunting down ragtag bands of heroes fighting for freedom or whatever.
Their armor is thick mail, burnished black, over a steel-grey gambeson. A white surcoat bears the symbol of a hammer with a golden head and steel-grey shaft with golden flames burning up the handle. The shield is white and bears the symbol of the Legions which hangs to the right of the Dark Lord's own, an inverted hammer in grey and gold again, topped with a helm reminiscent of the Dark Lord's crown; steel-grey with a black gem in the middle. Their full helms also recall the Dark Lord's crown, but more practical and less ornate, as befits a line unit.
Legio I Deeping Guard: Normal (roll:4) Tier 2 To join the ranks of Legio I, an orc must past the test of Darkness and Light, where they must cross 50 meters without being caught by the Light, a cultist who periodically turns around to catch any movement. If the orc is seen moving, they are “eliminated”. Despite being a test of the utmost gravity, orcs often continue to “practice” even after passing.
Armored in mail, burnished black over a thick gray gambeson. They bear tall tower shields into battle, and wield vicious war hammers as their weapons. They are trained to fight in formation, and hold together even when pressed dearly. The need to obey orders are heavily ingrained in them during training, so while they are unlikely to break discipline, they seldom take the initiative on their own.
At the moment they also lack a strong leadership structure, their lack of initiative making them poor candidates for proper captains. They are generally better on the defensive than on the attack. They make excellent guards, and often protect important persons and positions.
Sorcery: Cunning Disguise (I)
A basic spell but no less useful for it, Cunning Disguise temporarily changes the appearance of a (willing) target to match that of another person that the target knows. Its duration is a mere couple of hours, and it is reliant on how well the target knows the person they're trying to look like. It can't change someone into something with a different number of placement of limbs or joints since the movements would be extremely wrong and it can't do much to change the height of the target (though some disparity in height and build is acceptable), and the appearance change is merely an illusion. It won't be disrupted by physical contact but the contact occurs with the person wearing the illusion and not the illusion itself, i.e. if your target was wearing wide sleeves you should probably wear some yourself so there's actual physical contact should you inadvertently swipe your sleeve across a table full of breakable objects.
Spell - Cunning Disguise: Normal (roll 6) Tier (I) For several weeks after the development of the Cunning Disguise, acolytes would disguise themselves and others to aid in various pranks and hijinks. This merriment ended after one foolish acolyte disguised himself as the Dark Lord. Upon discovery the Dark Lord only chuckled, and strengthened the spell cast on the poor acolyte to randomly change his appearance every few hours, and forbid its removal. No one, perhaps even the acolyte himself, remembers his true face.
The Cunning Disguise spell changes the physical appearance of the target, and can draw upon either the caster’s knowledge or that of its recipient. It can include the clothing and accessories, but is more stable when it is focused on the body if the build is similar. The illusion improves based on knowledge of the target, and can even help imitate their voice.
It is rather stable amd low maintenance for a spell, so even an new acolyte could cast one that last for a few hours. However, it is still indeed an illusion and does not alter any physical properties.
Bonus! Gain: Minor Champion*: The Shadow-Walker (II) The Shadow-Walker found she had a special affinity for the Cunning Disguise Spell, and so eagerly embraced training to best utilize her abilities. She is a capable agent and spell caster, able to go into the field and apply Cunning Disguise to other members of The Silent Hand. Her direct combat abilities are rather lacking, however.
It is now the
REVISION PHASE. You get 2 Revisions this turn to modify, create variants, or train Minor Champions. Reminder that Minor Champions can and (probably will) die, depending on how they are used in battle.
Author
Topic: Dark Designs: Turn Two-Battle Phase (Read 12405 times)