When did "Slaughter the dragon" get added to the options?
That's terrible.
I already named it Burny Sanders. You can't kill something once you've given it a name.
The Obsidian Tower
[Ashvent] - Prevents scrying in the region.
The unnamed town nearby
[Fertile Farm] = +25 food
[Glass houses] = +25 shelter
Individuals
Cinders, The Foreseen Lavashaper Combat: 4 dice, 4+ strength, Lucky, Wizard, Ranged(short) Equipment: Vulcanus Vote bonuses: +1 Mana or +1 Fortune per vote
Sanders, The Magma Wyrm [adds +25 to fortune threshold. Improves fortunes]
[Lucky] One reroll per round
[Ranged(short)] Make one attack without retaliation before melee
[Wizard] Must spend 1 mana per round or lose 3 dice
Artifacts
Vulcanus
Grants Ranged(short) to the bearer
Intelligent(?)
Summary
The Magma Wyrm would have been an excellent guard dog, but Cinders let it return to its subterranean home. Having something down there actively working to aid her fortunes was just too tantalising a prospect. She stroked her hand along the black iron collar she'd wrapped around its neck. Runes of power faintly glowed under the daylight. The funny about runes was that they could contain multiple meanings. The ancient language of stone for example had originally assigned distinct meanings to each icon. Different arrangements with respect to other runes subtly modified and combined meanings, but in the later years they had been adapted to allow for transcriptions of sounds. The coincidental arrangements of runes on the dragon's collar amused Cinders greatly,
"Ssss-ahn-duh-ruhs"
Sanders would be a fine name for the wrym. A fine name indeed. The thing looked at her with its blank white eyes. There was no doubt that its intelligence was limited to only a little more than any other animal, and it had no real hope of understanding what she demanded of it. Frankly, with the collar, it didn't matter. It knew what would happen if it displeased her, and her desires of how to shape the molten heart of the world would come across just fine.
Her hand clenched into a fist and the rocks pinning her pet shattered into dust. Its limbs scrabbled and pushed itself up, but it was clearly unwilling to flee for fear of what Cinders might do. She slapped its flank and wordlessly watched it eagerly rise up into the sky and slam down, headfirst, into the ground. For a while, the body was still visible, wiggling this way and that as it slowly carved a path down to its home. A job well done indeed.
Turning around, she saw that most of her subjects had now gathered around in a loose gaggle to watch. Behind them, she could see the pathetic bundles of sticks and holes in the wet sand that they had made themselves to sleep in. It was pathetic and it reflected badly on her. If Cinders didn't take care of this it was likely they would end up being washed away in the night by the tides and then who would do the labouring for her?
No, no, no. It was time to take care of this. The beach was not a place for anything permanent - There was plenty of room beside the new farms, which somehow already seemed to contain a pair of sheep that somebody had found somewhere. She stooped and picked up a handful of sand and let it fall through her fingers as she thought. In her head she could see a charming little village of loyal little minions singing their patriotic little songs. Now she just had a to build it. Or at least make some more respectable looking homes for her subjects.
A few hours later and there was indeed the beginnings of a settlement beside the beach in the shadow of the obsidian tower. Conical things of opaque black and white glass. She'd even found the time to focus a little and include a few transparent windows. Once she'd started, the peasants had got to work following her lead at once. They'd started carting the sand up from the beach and building into a dozen rough piles, each of which became a home. She sank the walls deep, fusing them to the bedrock. Once the shells were in place, it was time to return to her tower. The sailors could finish digging out the internal floors so that they would stand up if they wanted. It would keep the busy while she thought a little more about what else the settlement needed. And ore importantly, what she was going to name it.
Comfortable in her throne, Cinders look out at the sun vanishing into the vast ocean. Somewhere across there was Drome. And more generally, somewhere out there were the other apprentices she'd seen in her brief vision. The ash cloud protected her from their attempts at watching her, but she would have to start thinking about how she intended to react when she was reunited with one or more of them.
Turning her gaze down, the lavashaper could see that Sanders was doing his job. A much wider fortune was taking shape now. It would take longer to materialise, but she was confident that it would be well worth it. More troubling were two connections that had latched onto her own personal lines of fate. Two distinct, unavoidable, events that pulled things together into a vast unreadable tangle. All she could tell was that it came from the past and there was the potential for one or both of them to start her on a path that would be testing to say the least.
[Something will happen in turn 9. Something else in turn 12]
Decision Time
(A letter, a number and specify Mana/Fortune for your vote bonus)
Peasant action:
A: Build houses (shelter for 25 peasants) (costs 15 resources)
B: Build a farm (+20 food) (Costs 15 resources)
C: Build a lumber yard (+1 resource / 10 peasants / turn) (costs 10 resources) Build a tavern (+1 growth / turn) (costs 20 resources) E: Add a Scholar's Hall to the tower (allows research, +1 study/turn) (costs 50 resources)
F: Scout the mainland [specify south or east]
G: Raise militia (produces a [Militia] unit, costs 5 resources and 5 peasants) You need to choose option 1 if you want to do A, B, or C due to a lack of resources
1: Help the sailors with their construction (Pay 2xresources in mana rather than the resource cost)
2: Try to draw more mana from the crystal shard (difficulty 14: Success gains 2d6 mana, Failure is bad)
3: Spend some time sat on the throne thinking about the past
Mojo_Jojo on
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
Can we do F(East)-1? I don't want to risk fucking up the shard.
I don't want to keep spending wildly on mana, I want to save up and get that Scholar's Hall built so that we can maybe use it before the Turn 11 event.
And I vote for Fortune and Sandersville for the city name. Since you know, this empire will eventually be far too wide to remember places and it'd be helpful to remember where we left the dragon.
Cinders, The Foreseen Lavashaper Combat: 4 dice, 4+ strength, Lucky, Wizard, Ranged(short) Equipment: Vulcanus Vote bonuses: +1 Mana or +1 Fortune per vote
Sanders, The Magma Wyrm [adds +25 to fortune threshold. Improves fortunes]
[Lucky] One reroll per round
[Ranged(short)] Make one attack without retaliation before melee
[Wizard] Must spend 1 mana per round or lose 3 dice
Artifacts
Vulcanus
Grants Ranged(short) to the bearer
Intelligent(?)
Summary
Whatever was approaching, Cinders couldn't make any more sense of the pulsing veins right now. She'd slept poorly to make it worse. Hardly slept at all. Had she slept? Did she need to sleep now? She couldn't even remember her last meal, or the associated ceremonies that tended to be associated with such events. Maybe sleep was to be added to the growing list of activities that were no longer necessary. Of course, she was tired. Was she? It was hard to tell. Had that tiny shard fragment done this to her? If so she was lucky to have removed it when she did. She glanced over at Vulcanus. The star was merrily twirling around in the air. His eye locked with hers for a moment and it flashed in excitement,
"FIRE MOTHER. BURN!"
Still, best not to dwell on one's dwindling humanity. The sun was up now and that meant it was time to go and gather her followers and put them to use. She'd seen them collecting driftwood and dragging fallen trunks from the forest. It was slow and ineffective. Her war on the trees would require her troops to be better armed. The descent from the tower was rather more rapid than her first showy trip. Now she hopped between semi-solid masses of stone, making it down to the beach only a few short leaps. Beneath her boots the beach hissed as the sand flash-dried.
Glass, even volcanic lava-glass, was excellent at being sharp but terrible at not being brittle. Cinders vowed to one day spend some time fixing that problem, but for now it meant that she needed metal. For a lesser being that might mean the whole business was a non-starter. Fortunately, Cinders could just ask- No demand - that the stones beneath her feet stopped being coy and gave up their bounty. There was plenty of copper and zinc here. Even a little lead, tin and iron to work into the mix. She strode through the clustered conical houses, rivers of liquid melted ran alongside her. The different metals mixed and alloyed into a wonderful deep brass. By now, most of the peasants had stopped what they were doing tending the fields to come and see what their overlord was up to.
A few feet back from the trees, she knelt down and spread her hands across the shimmering metal surface. The liquid spread out into a sheet before her. Artfully, she flicked its edges outwards into a spiral. For a moment it was a crude image of Vulcanus, but quickly there were too many blades at the edges. A few more seconds and she was finished. She stole the fire from within the vast circular sawblade and it froze into shape.
Next would come one of those two-man saws she had seen in some book or other. They probably had a name. Cinders didn't especially care. She flowed the molten puddle out into a long strip, gave it a loop at each end to hold and teeth to saw through the wood. Then came the one-man felling axes. Then came hatchets. Then a lathe. Then...
The sun had started to descend when she left her frenzy of tool-making. Around her, the peasants had taken the various components and set up a rather impressive looking camp for hacking trees down and converting them into useful building materials. The great brass sawblade had been connected to a pair of handcranks that were being worked at that very moment to divide a great log in two. Above one of the tool racks was a small sign which proclaimed this to be "Glassalia Lumber Yard". Glassalia? Cinders wasn't sure about that. Soon they'd be naming one another. Or thinking! That reminded her, she didn't remember seeing Cook at all as she'd built this wonder for her subjects. How dare he not stand around looking impressed.
It didn't take her long to find him. Glassalia was small. He was in deep conversation with another of the peasants. A younger one of maybe sixteen years. The younger one's face was swollen and red from crying. He was still snivelling now. Cook turned, his eyes went wide when he saw Cinders standing behind him. She didn't even have to ask before he started explaining. And he didn't actually have to open his mouth for the lavashaper to understand. She spotted it in the youngster's destiny. How in the thirty-six chambers of hell hadn't she spotted it before. It was faint, yes, following it back into the past it hadn't existed until perhaps this morning or the one earlier. He had Potential. And he hadn't had it until recently. Now his future was bright and complex. Far beyond what Cook or the others had. Well, just how long and bright that future could be was currently up to her. She could see her own presence. A dark alternate where this future ended. Now.
Cinders dismissed Cook. He didn't need telling twice.
Now she was alone with the teenager,
"Show me."
He hesitated. So she asked again with the back of her hand.
"Show. Me."
This time he responded at a more appropriate speed. He clenched both fists and squeezed his eyes closed. The dried leaves at his feet started to swirl and vines crept out of the ground. They grew quickly but aimlessly; sightlessly probing. Cinders looked closer into what the not-a-boy-not-yet-a-man was doing. She looked at how he was trying to bend reality to his will. And she did not recognise it. Still, she recognised his Potential. That meant he could be taught. It also meant he was a threat. At the moment his ability was pitiful and without anybody else to each him, there was still time for Cinders to make a decision.
[And remember, something is going to happen next turn. This is your last chance to prepare. Something else will then happen in turn 12]
Decision Time
(A letter, a number, maybe a symbol then and specify Mana/Fortune for your vote bonus)
Peasant action: A: Build houses (shelter for 25 peasants) (costs 15 resources) B: Build a farm (+20 food) (Costs 15 resources) C: Build a tavern (+1 growth / turn) (costs 20 resources) Add a Scholar's Hall to the tower (allows research, +1 study/turn) (costs 50 resources)
E: Scout the mainland [specify south or east]
F: Raise militia (produces a [Militia] unit, costs 5 resources and 5 peasants)
G : Work a double shift on the sawmill (produces 5+1d6 resources)
Cinders action:
1: Help the sailors with their construction (Pay 2xresources in mana rather than the resource cost) [only makes sense with option F at the moment]
2: Try to draw more mana from the crystal shard (difficulty 14: Success gains 2d6 mana, Failure is bad)
3: Deal with the one who has Potential (-1 peasant). And select a symbol
4: Muse quietly on your throne
(only choose a symbol if you selected 3)
£: Execute the youth before he can become a rival
$: Imprison the young man. Maybe you'll be able to study his wizardry later. OR at least have a spare kidney down the line
%: Take the teenager as your apprentice, instructing him in the one true way of lavashaping.
&: Take the lad as your apprentice, and try to develop his own innate magic
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
F3& -mana
Lava magic may be the best magic, but it can't do everything.
I'm guessing the peasants may have an easier time eating magically grown plants than they would magma.
As for the Militia, looks like that's the only option that's available that seems to be preparing us for the unknown event. Can they use the axes and hatchets we made last round for them?
Mana because we're not likely to reach the fortune threshold in time to great the coming event, not since we sent Sanders back to his pit, and it'd be nice to have a well stocked mana bank to fuel our defense or offense as needed.
The boy is obviously been corrupted by the foul trees! Surly the only reasonable response is to try and deprogram him to lead him in the one true way, Lavashaping.
Unknown event is unknown, who knows what would be best preparation. But some meat shield militia seems like a good idea. Our army shall shine like a flame, sun glinting off their brass axes.
We can decide to execute him later if we need to, and there's no need to force him into a magic we already mastered when he seems to have the beginnings of a talent that would be more helpful to us now anyway.
We just have to make sure he knows who the master is.
The boy has two options, death or assimilation. Anything less is an affront to our power.
Look, we all know it felt good to burn the forest. Like, really good.
This boy may have the ability to create more forest. Like, overnight.
That's means we get more stuff to burn, he gets more opportunity to grow stuff for us to burn.
Not seeing a downside to letting him keep his greenery thing going.
And, of course, we got Vulcanus to watch our back in case he gets uppity.
0
Options
jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
edited December 2015
F 3 & Fortune
'Last chance to prepare' really sounds like we should build some troops, I think.
And eventually having another mage on our side that can complement our magic with something different sounds neat. What could go wrong, teaching reality-bending power to someone who used to basically be our slave?
What good's an all-consuming fire when there's nothing to burn? If the boy shows aptitude for making sticks and leaves, he could be our next of kindling.
Cheer up, kid! You just need some TLC: Tinder Loving Care.
(I'm mostly doing this to get on see's nerves, but also for the love of the game.)
GNU Terry Pratchett
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
I think I hate the idea of raise militia, which is really unfortunate cause it's probably the thing to do, but we have so few peasants. We need resources, people!
G3&-Fortune
Generalísimo de Fuerzas Armadas de la República Argentina
What good's an all-consuming fire when there's nothing to burn? If the boy shows aptitude for making sticks and leaves, he could be our next of kindling.
Cheer up, kid! You just need some TLC: Tinder Loving Care.
(I'm mostly doing this to get on see's nerves, but also for the love of the game.)
I'm certainly not going to ash you to quit, but if you want to start a pun fight, just know that you may get burned.
Personally, I lava good pun off. Or a bad pun off. Or just puns in general.
Granted, historically speaking, about 90% fail to make me laugh, or get any response at all, but you know, at least one pun in ten did.
0
Options
jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
edited December 2015
Needing resources is why we built the lumber mill!
Making a few peasants soldiers seems alright when we have food enough that we're growing the population steadily. If only we'd made the dragon a unit though it would be way less of an issue. Still baffled you guys didn't want a pet attack dragon in the hand and opted for nebulous 'bigger fortunes' in the bush.
Needing resources is why we built the lumber mill!
Making a few peasants soldiers seems alright when we have food enough that we're growing the population steadily. If only we'd made the dragon a unit though it would be way less of an issue. Still baffled you guys didn't want a pet attack dragon in the hand and opted for nebulous 'bigger fortunes' in the bush.
Lumber mill doesn't work without people to work it; it's 1 resource per 10 peasants.
Generalísimo de Fuerzas Armadas de la República Argentina
0
Options
jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
Needing resources is why we built the lumber mill!
Making a few peasants soldiers seems alright when we have food enough that we're growing the population steadily. If only we'd made the dragon a unit though it would be way less of an issue. Still baffled you guys didn't want a pet attack dragon in the hand and opted for nebulous 'bigger fortunes' in the bush.
Lumber mill doesn't work without people to work it; it's 1 resource per 10 peasants.
Yeah ok, so there will be a couple turns where that's inactive and we only get the 1 resource from the tower, but population will grow back. Not having a military at all just seems kind of risky? Cinders is powerful but I don't think fighting all our battles single combat style will be realistic or sustainable.
Posts
That's terrible.
I already named it Burny Sanders. You can't kill something once you've given it a name.
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
Decision
A1%: Glass houses and bigger fortunes
Bonuses: +6 mana, +6 fortune
Things
Fortune: 15/50 [+0/turn]
Growth: 0/10 [+1/turn]
Peasants: 12
Shelter: 25
Food: 25
Resources: 8 [+1/turn]
Silver Pieces: 20 [+0/turn]
The Obsidian Tower
[Ashvent] - Prevents scrying in the region.
The unnamed town nearby
[Fertile Farm] = +25 food
[Glass houses] = +25 shelter
Individuals
Combat: 4 dice, 4+ strength, Lucky, Wizard, Ranged(short)
Equipment: Vulcanus
Vote bonuses: +1 Mana or +1 Fortune per vote
Sanders, The Magma Wyrm [adds +25 to fortune threshold. Improves fortunes]
[Lucky] One reroll per round
[Ranged(short)] Make one attack without retaliation before melee
[Wizard] Must spend 1 mana per round or lose 3 dice
Artifacts
Grants Ranged(short) to the bearer
Intelligent(?)
Summary
The Magma Wyrm would have been an excellent guard dog, but Cinders let it return to its subterranean home. Having something down there actively working to aid her fortunes was just too tantalising a prospect. She stroked her hand along the black iron collar she'd wrapped around its neck. Runes of power faintly glowed under the daylight. The funny about runes was that they could contain multiple meanings. The ancient language of stone for example had originally assigned distinct meanings to each icon. Different arrangements with respect to other runes subtly modified and combined meanings, but in the later years they had been adapted to allow for transcriptions of sounds. The coincidental arrangements of runes on the dragon's collar amused Cinders greatly,
"Ssss-ahn-duh-ruhs"
Sanders would be a fine name for the wrym. A fine name indeed. The thing looked at her with its blank white eyes. There was no doubt that its intelligence was limited to only a little more than any other animal, and it had no real hope of understanding what she demanded of it. Frankly, with the collar, it didn't matter. It knew what would happen if it displeased her, and her desires of how to shape the molten heart of the world would come across just fine.
Her hand clenched into a fist and the rocks pinning her pet shattered into dust. Its limbs scrabbled and pushed itself up, but it was clearly unwilling to flee for fear of what Cinders might do. She slapped its flank and wordlessly watched it eagerly rise up into the sky and slam down, headfirst, into the ground. For a while, the body was still visible, wiggling this way and that as it slowly carved a path down to its home. A job well done indeed.
Turning around, she saw that most of her subjects had now gathered around in a loose gaggle to watch. Behind them, she could see the pathetic bundles of sticks and holes in the wet sand that they had made themselves to sleep in. It was pathetic and it reflected badly on her. If Cinders didn't take care of this it was likely they would end up being washed away in the night by the tides and then who would do the labouring for her?
No, no, no. It was time to take care of this. The beach was not a place for anything permanent - There was plenty of room beside the new farms, which somehow already seemed to contain a pair of sheep that somebody had found somewhere. She stooped and picked up a handful of sand and let it fall through her fingers as she thought. In her head she could see a charming little village of loyal little minions singing their patriotic little songs. Now she just had a to build it. Or at least make some more respectable looking homes for her subjects.
A few hours later and there was indeed the beginnings of a settlement beside the beach in the shadow of the obsidian tower. Conical things of opaque black and white glass. She'd even found the time to focus a little and include a few transparent windows. Once she'd started, the peasants had got to work following her lead at once. They'd started carting the sand up from the beach and building into a dozen rough piles, each of which became a home. She sank the walls deep, fusing them to the bedrock. Once the shells were in place, it was time to return to her tower. The sailors could finish digging out the internal floors so that they would stand up if they wanted. It would keep the busy while she thought a little more about what else the settlement needed. And ore importantly, what she was going to name it.
Comfortable in her throne, Cinders look out at the sun vanishing into the vast ocean. Somewhere across there was Drome. And more generally, somewhere out there were the other apprentices she'd seen in her brief vision. The ash cloud protected her from their attempts at watching her, but she would have to start thinking about how she intended to react when she was reunited with one or more of them.
Turning her gaze down, the lavashaper could see that Sanders was doing his job. A much wider fortune was taking shape now. It would take longer to materialise, but she was confident that it would be well worth it. More troubling were two connections that had latched onto her own personal lines of fate. Two distinct, unavoidable, events that pulled things together into a vast unreadable tangle. All she could tell was that it came from the past and there was the potential for one or both of them to start her on a path that would be testing to say the least.
[Something will happen in turn 9. Something else in turn 12]
Decision Time
(A letter, a number and specify Mana/Fortune for your vote bonus)
Peasant action:
A: Build houses (shelter for 25 peasants) (costs 15 resources)
B: Build a farm (+20 food) (Costs 15 resources)
C: Build a lumber yard (+1 resource / 10 peasants / turn) (costs 10 resources)
E: Add a Scholar's Hall to the tower (allows research, +1 study/turn) (costs 50 resources)
F: Scout the mainland [specify south or east]
G: Raise militia (produces a [Militia] unit, costs 5 resources and 5 peasants)
You need to choose option 1 if you want to do A, B, or C due to a lack of resources
1: Help the sailors with their construction (Pay 2xresources in mana rather than the resource cost)
2: Try to draw more mana from the crystal shard (difficulty 14: Success gains 2d6 mana, Failure is bad)
3: Spend some time sat on the throne thinking about the past
EDIT: Ob City. It is too good a pun to pass up.
Perhaps an option for which connection to focus on with possible benefits/consequences?
Actually, I've just realised that you two didn't both vote for the option I expected. So maybe it is less going through the motions.
I like Glassalia as a name. Has a nice ring to it.
I mean, it's no Space Australia. But then, what is?
Beach City / Dragonglass / Laveria
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
I want to name our settlement "Ob City," so all our followers will be Obcitians.
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
I don't want to keep spending wildly on mana, I want to save up and get that Scholar's Hall built so that we can maybe use it before the Turn 11 event.
And I vote for Fortune and Sandersville for the city name. Since you know, this empire will eventually be far too wide to remember places and it'd be helpful to remember where we left the dragon.
I mean, we may as well be honest as to where we're going with this.
3d6
So it's about 16% chance of success
I'll add a thumb twiddle option for cinders to take care of this
I'll add my vote for Ob City
I'll throw my hat in for Glassalia.
Decision
C1: Glass lumberyards for the glass God. Poorly chosen construction materials for the spun sugar throne
Bonuses: +2 mana, +7 fortune
Things
Fortune: 22/50 [+0/turn]
Growth: 1/10 [+1/turn]
Peasants: 12
Shelter: 25
Food: 25
Resources: 9 [+2/turn]
Silver Pieces: 20 [+0/turn]
The Obsidian Tower
+5 mana / turn +1 resource / turn
[Ashvent] - Prevents scrying in the region.
Glassalia
[Fertile Farm] = +25 food
[Glass houses] = +25 shelter
[Lumber yard] = +1 resource / 10 peasants / turn)
Individuals
Combat: 4 dice, 4+ strength, Lucky, Wizard, Ranged(short)
Equipment: Vulcanus
Vote bonuses: +1 Mana or +1 Fortune per vote
Sanders, The Magma Wyrm [adds +25 to fortune threshold. Improves fortunes]
[Lucky] One reroll per round
[Ranged(short)] Make one attack without retaliation before melee
[Wizard] Must spend 1 mana per round or lose 3 dice
Artifacts
Grants Ranged(short) to the bearer
Intelligent(?)
Summary
Whatever was approaching, Cinders couldn't make any more sense of the pulsing veins right now. She'd slept poorly to make it worse. Hardly slept at all. Had she slept? Did she need to sleep now? She couldn't even remember her last meal, or the associated ceremonies that tended to be associated with such events. Maybe sleep was to be added to the growing list of activities that were no longer necessary. Of course, she was tired. Was she? It was hard to tell. Had that tiny shard fragment done this to her? If so she was lucky to have removed it when she did. She glanced over at Vulcanus. The star was merrily twirling around in the air. His eye locked with hers for a moment and it flashed in excitement,
"FIRE MOTHER. BURN!"
Still, best not to dwell on one's dwindling humanity. The sun was up now and that meant it was time to go and gather her followers and put them to use. She'd seen them collecting driftwood and dragging fallen trunks from the forest. It was slow and ineffective. Her war on the trees would require her troops to be better armed. The descent from the tower was rather more rapid than her first showy trip. Now she hopped between semi-solid masses of stone, making it down to the beach only a few short leaps. Beneath her boots the beach hissed as the sand flash-dried.
Glass, even volcanic lava-glass, was excellent at being sharp but terrible at not being brittle. Cinders vowed to one day spend some time fixing that problem, but for now it meant that she needed metal. For a lesser being that might mean the whole business was a non-starter. Fortunately, Cinders could just ask- No demand - that the stones beneath her feet stopped being coy and gave up their bounty. There was plenty of copper and zinc here. Even a little lead, tin and iron to work into the mix. She strode through the clustered conical houses, rivers of liquid melted ran alongside her. The different metals mixed and alloyed into a wonderful deep brass. By now, most of the peasants had stopped what they were doing tending the fields to come and see what their overlord was up to.
A few feet back from the trees, she knelt down and spread her hands across the shimmering metal surface. The liquid spread out into a sheet before her. Artfully, she flicked its edges outwards into a spiral. For a moment it was a crude image of Vulcanus, but quickly there were too many blades at the edges. A few more seconds and she was finished. She stole the fire from within the vast circular sawblade and it froze into shape.
Next would come one of those two-man saws she had seen in some book or other. They probably had a name. Cinders didn't especially care. She flowed the molten puddle out into a long strip, gave it a loop at each end to hold and teeth to saw through the wood. Then came the one-man felling axes. Then came hatchets. Then a lathe. Then...
The sun had started to descend when she left her frenzy of tool-making. Around her, the peasants had taken the various components and set up a rather impressive looking camp for hacking trees down and converting them into useful building materials. The great brass sawblade had been connected to a pair of handcranks that were being worked at that very moment to divide a great log in two. Above one of the tool racks was a small sign which proclaimed this to be "Glassalia Lumber Yard". Glassalia? Cinders wasn't sure about that. Soon they'd be naming one another. Or thinking! That reminded her, she didn't remember seeing Cook at all as she'd built this wonder for her subjects. How dare he not stand around looking impressed.
It didn't take her long to find him. Glassalia was small. He was in deep conversation with another of the peasants. A younger one of maybe sixteen years. The younger one's face was swollen and red from crying. He was still snivelling now. Cook turned, his eyes went wide when he saw Cinders standing behind him. She didn't even have to ask before he started explaining. And he didn't actually have to open his mouth for the lavashaper to understand. She spotted it in the youngster's destiny. How in the thirty-six chambers of hell hadn't she spotted it before. It was faint, yes, following it back into the past it hadn't existed until perhaps this morning or the one earlier. He had Potential. And he hadn't had it until recently. Now his future was bright and complex. Far beyond what Cook or the others had. Well, just how long and bright that future could be was currently up to her. She could see her own presence. A dark alternate where this future ended. Now.
Cinders dismissed Cook. He didn't need telling twice.
Now she was alone with the teenager,
"Show me."
He hesitated. So she asked again with the back of her hand.
"Show. Me."
This time he responded at a more appropriate speed. He clenched both fists and squeezed his eyes closed. The dried leaves at his feet started to swirl and vines crept out of the ground. They grew quickly but aimlessly; sightlessly probing. Cinders looked closer into what the not-a-boy-not-yet-a-man was doing. She looked at how he was trying to bend reality to his will. And she did not recognise it. Still, she recognised his Potential. That meant he could be taught. It also meant he was a threat. At the moment his ability was pitiful and without anybody else to each him, there was still time for Cinders to make a decision.
[And remember, something is going to happen next turn. This is your last chance to prepare. Something else will then happen in turn 12]
Decision Time
(A letter, a number, maybe a symbol then and specify Mana/Fortune for your vote bonus)
Peasant action:
A: Build houses (shelter for 25 peasants) (costs 15 resources)
B: Build a farm (+20 food) (Costs 15 resources)
C: Build a tavern (+1 growth / turn) (costs 20 resources)
E: Scout the mainland [specify south or east]
F: Raise militia (produces a [Militia] unit, costs 5 resources and 5 peasants)
G : Work a double shift on the sawmill (produces 5+1d6 resources)
Cinders action:
1: Help the sailors with their construction (Pay 2xresources in mana rather than the resource cost) [only makes sense with option F at the moment]
2: Try to draw more mana from the crystal shard (difficulty 14: Success gains 2d6 mana, Failure is bad)
3: Deal with the one who has Potential (-1 peasant). And select a symbol
4: Muse quietly on your throne
(only choose a symbol if you selected 3)
£: Execute the youth before he can become a rival
$: Imprison the young man. Maybe you'll be able to study his wizardry later. OR at least have a spare kidney down the line
%: Take the teenager as your apprentice, instructing him in the one true way of lavashaping.
&: Take the lad as your apprentice, and try to develop his own innate magic
Lava magic may be the best magic, but it can't do everything.
I'm guessing the peasants may have an easier time eating magically grown plants than they would magma.
As for the Militia, looks like that's the only option that's available that seems to be preparing us for the unknown event. Can they use the axes and hatchets we made last round for them?
Mana because we're not likely to reach the fortune threshold in time to great the coming event, not since we sent Sanders back to his pit, and it'd be nice to have a well stocked mana bank to fuel our defense or offense as needed.
The boy is obviously been corrupted by the foul trees! Surly the only reasonable response is to try and deprogram him to lead him in the one true way, Lavashaping.
Unknown event is unknown, who knows what would be best preparation. But some meat shield militia seems like a good idea. Our army shall shine like a flame, sun glinting off their brass axes.
We can decide to execute him later if we need to, and there's no need to force him into a magic we already mastered when he seems to have the beginnings of a talent that would be more helpful to us now anyway.
We just have to make sure he knows who the master is.
Look, we all know it felt good to burn the forest. Like, really good.
This boy may have the ability to create more forest. Like, overnight.
That's means we get more stuff to burn, he gets more opportunity to grow stuff for us to burn.
Not seeing a downside to letting him keep his greenery thing going.
And, of course, we got Vulcanus to watch our back in case he gets uppity.
'Last chance to prepare' really sounds like we should build some troops, I think.
And eventually having another mage on our side that can complement our magic with something different sounds neat. What could go wrong, teaching reality-bending power to someone who used to basically be our slave?
What good's an all-consuming fire when there's nothing to burn? If the boy shows aptitude for making sticks and leaves, he could be our next of kindling.
Cheer up, kid! You just need some TLC: Tinder Loving Care.
(I'm mostly doing this to get on see's nerves, but also for the love of the game.)
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
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G3&-Fortune
Personally, I lava good pun off. Or a bad pun off. Or just puns in general.
Granted, historically speaking, about 90% fail to make me laugh, or get any response at all, but you know, at least one pun in ten did.
Making a few peasants soldiers seems alright when we have food enough that we're growing the population steadily. If only we'd made the dragon a unit though it would be way less of an issue. Still baffled you guys didn't want a pet attack dragon in the hand and opted for nebulous 'bigger fortunes' in the bush.
Lumber mill doesn't work without people to work it; it's 1 resource per 10 peasants.
Yeah ok, so there will be a couple turns where that's inactive and we only get the 1 resource from the tower, but population will grow back. Not having a military at all just seems kind of risky? Cinders is powerful but I don't think fighting all our battles single combat style will be realistic or sustainable.