A3 - Fortune, although burning down forests and whatever bears may be in them would be fun, we should start making sure our population thrives.
Tiphareth on
0
jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
I guess if we burned the forest we could do some slash-and-burn agriculture for a more long-term food solution maybe. Or weird magic stuff might happen, who knows!
I don't think doing the fishing ourselves is all that sustainable either, I'm hoping clearing land will let us/them set up farming themselves. Also, it'll give our base a nice smoky smell and float up into the sky to make stars.
+2
wiltingI had fun once and it was awfulRegistered Userregular
edited December 2015
Changed my vote to burninating, in the hope of farms.
While we're making houses, can we ask our peasants nicely to salvage the remains of their ship? I'd assume that it would result in less resources being gathered, but they'd be doing something and we wouldn't lose all of those resources to the tides.
If the glass houses win, hopefully our peasants will have the good sense to not throw stones.
I see your point but I'm going with no for the moment largely as there are lots of votes and I don't want to confuse matters
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
Fishing is simple, when you are a lava mage. Just boil water in the bay, and get cooked fish
+1
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
edited December 2015
Turn 5
Decision A 3/4: Salvaging the ships and either fishing or deforestation. Deforestation wins the coin flip Bonuses: +7 mana, +6 fortune [and +1 mana and +1 fortune from contribution bonuses]
Combat: 4 dice, 4+ strength, Lucky, Wizard, Ranged(short) Equipment: Vulcanus Vote bonuses: +1 Mana or +1 Fortune per vote
[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
As she watched Cook organize the rest of the crew to scavenge the remains of the ship for decent hut-making materials, she heard a rustle of leaves. Turing away from the ocean, she noticed the lush green of the forest for the first time. Thick with life and fertility, she could smell damp earth on the gentle breeze.
Burn
She hated the sight. She, who felt the pulse of the world and could read the fates from its heart would not let this insulting patch of kindling continue in mockery of the true power of flame. The ground between the trees cracked and shifted. In the shade cast by the fans of leaves she could see the orange glow already. Before anything had even seeped from that network of narrow rifts, the closest tinder had already started to smoke. Within seconds some of the worthless vegetation transformed into all powerful fire; a beautiful vision of her strength.
Two hours later and the fires had more or less burned themselves out, leaving the air was filled with ash and the wonderful scent of roasted rosemary and lemon thyme. Barely any lava had actually seeped from the cracks in the end. It hadn't needed to. The small patches that sat atop the cracks had started to crust over and glowed a dim red now. Tired from the outburst, her shoulders sagged and she let out a long sigh. She noted the charred remains of a number of forest creatures. A few squirrels, some birds, and at least one roasted bear seemed to be on display. At least a bit of food to keep Cook and the crew working. She muses at her odd reaction, now slightly confused as to why the forest had made her so angry in the first place.
Whatever the reason, this cleared area was now covered in rich and fertile ash. If they had a mind to, her subjects could start to farm this earth
[Clearing the forest costs 4 mana, and produces a [fertile] area that can be farmed to produce 25 food /turn (5 more than a standard farm)]
The ships had largely been cleared from the shore now. Reduced from ugly wooden corpses into neat stacks of irregular planks and a few meagre piles of nails and rivets. It wasn't much, but it was a start. What had caught the interest of Cinders herself was the little lead coffer that Cook had brought to her directly (he was already so well trained that Cook) before scurrying off to do what he could with the charcoal-coated animals from the fire. She twisted the key and the lid popped open easily. Inside were handfuls of coins of all shapes, sizes and materials. Bronze hexagons, tin triangles, a range of circles of materials from tin to steel and even a few ring-shaped pieces of silver. It wasn't riches beyond her imaging but it was still satisfying to see.
[Salvage produces 20 resources and 20 silver pieces]
Her attention was rudely disturbed by a minor tremor. Perhaps it was an aftershock from the quakes she'd conjured earlier to clear away most of that unsightly forest. No. Cinders saw a pattern deep in the heart of things after a few seconds. There was something down there. Something very large that she'd probably attracted either by arriving, forming the tower which constantly poured lava into the sea or possibly that recent act of pyromania. Regardless, it was like an particle of glass in her eye. The damned thing was entirely distorting her view of the fates. She was more or less blind. This would not stand.
[You are unable to gain fortune at this time due to the presence of the Lurker Below]
Decision Time
(A letter, a number and specify Mana/Fortune for your vote bonus every vote gains a mana bonus)
Peasant action:
A: Build houses (shelter for 25 peasants) (costs 15 resources)
B: Build a farm on the fertile ground (+25 food/turn) (Costs 15 resources) C: Add a Scholar's Hall to the tower (allows research, +1 study/turn) (costs 50 resources) Scout the mainland [specify south or east]
E: Raise militia (produces a [Militia] unit, costs 5 resources and 5 peasants)
Cinders action:
1: Help the sailors with their construction (requires the peasants to be building. 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: Go fishing (costs 2 mana, and produces 3d6 food)
4: Deal with the Lurker Below to restore your fortune sight (costs 10 mana and will probably need some violence)
Mojo_Jojo on
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
0
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
edited December 2015
I stole and butchered your writing there, zekebeau. Like I did to Jam before. And I'll do it again. I can't be stopped. I'm a monster
In future, I might increase the bonuses of people who do nice little things like that. Actually, I'll backdate that +1 mana and +1 fortune from their votes at the relevant points
Mojo_Jojo on
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
You blew it up! You maniac! [Hey, the collaborative part helps make this so much fun]
QUESTION : Can we just help build one thing and the sailors build the other? Like we spend 30 mana to make the houses and 15 resources for the crew to build the farm?
A-4
Violence you say? Why thank you.
zekebeau on
0
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
edited December 2015
No, you need to help build the thing that is being built by the sailors. It's a team effort doing one thing rather than two things getting built at once
Mojo_Jojo on
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
If there's going to be violence, let's get a fighting force so we don't have to stumble bleeding back to our survivors.
If I'm reading correctly, the Watcher is subterranean, and very large.
I don't think a handful of peasants with improvised weapons is going to be much assistance in dealing with such a beast. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that a militia will have uses, I just don't think that this is one of them.
On the other hand, it's possible that if it was attracted to our use of power we may be able to tame it and use it ourselves rather than just obliterating it outright with magic.
We bend and shape lava, a primal force of the planet, to our will. It would be completely in line with Cinder's character to bend this creature to our purposes as well.
Combat: 4 dice, 4+ strength, Lucky, Wizard, Ranged(short) Equipment: Vulcanus Vote bonuses: +1 Mana or +1 Fortune per vote
[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
A despairing facial expression toward one of the former sailors and a sweep of the arm towards the fertile ash plain sent her scurrying back to round up the others. Quickly, the peasants set about digging holes and forcing plants into them and whatever else was required for farming. Cinders didn't know the ins and outs. Or the ins. Or much at all about it to be honest. At the Institute the servants just prepared food for her. And before that... Well, she didn't want to think back to then. The life of Cinders the lavashaper started at the Institute. Although perhaps she'd need to rewrite even that now. Or have her chroniclers rewrite it. It could start when she arrived in a ball of fire from heaven to unite the world under a new era of burning rock and dancing ash. There would be chroniclers, she was sure of that.
Or as sure as she could be without being able to make any sense of the ebb and flow in the volcanicity of the land. That upset her. It upset her a great deal. It upset her too much to get back to her musings on her legacy or even what next for her fledgling empire. And that would not do at all. She turned away from the peasants busily clearly various unspecific charred objects from where there had only recently been a forest and snapped her fingers.
At that moment the magma surrounding the Lurker Below turned traitor and heeded the demands of Cinders. It seized the beast and forced it upwards and away from the roiling star. Thousands of hands composed of the very stuff of the earth gripped it and dragged it towards the lavashaper to face its punishment.
It arrived in a burst of burning shrapnel. Over her years of study, Cinders had attended a fair few lectures on the creatures of the world and even sat through a few dissections. Most creatures, at least those outside the hated oceans, shared the property of bilateral symmetry. You could cut a horse from head to tail and end up with two sections that were roughly identical. You could do the same with a man (despite the lack of a tail). And if you were really determined and had a large enough blade you could do this to one of the legendary world serpents. At least according to the sketches of them she had seen; despite these days academic wizardry was coming round to the idea that not every fanciful drawing in an ancient time depicted a real creature. So if nobody had a reliable firsthand account then perhaps they were just a work of fiction.
The thing that had just emerged in a burst of magma-become-lava did not obey this law of physiology. It looked vaguely draconic, but with four-fold rotational symmetry, as you might find in some kind of disgusting soft-bodied echinoderm. The head was a corkscrew of shining-white eyes and crystalline teeth. Wings and limbs jutted out every ninety degrees or so. Eight limbs total, each curving clockwise into a spiral, and each capped with a long black talon. The sail-like wings caused some confusion. Not just because there were four, but because why in all the worlds would a dragon that planned on spending its life deep within a molten core have wings at all. And worse still, the paper-thin things seemed to actually be managing to keep the thing aloft in the air now that it was above ground, despite their shape being all wrong. Not especially gracefully mind, but it was indeed flying. The body was a long patchwork composition, that resembled amber and crimson stained class leaded with obsidian. Along each of the four ridges that might have been spines or possible the edges of rib cages was a row of razor-sharp looking crystalline spines. Unimaginatively, flames danced from the tip of its snout.
In short, it was offensively ugly and Cinders was feeling easily offended. She crouched down and stretched out a hand behind her as the thing twirled and danced in the air, apparently waiting for her to make the first move. Unaware that she already had. Or possibly not wanting to assume the worst of its summoner and resort to violence, but it was too late for that.
"VUL-"
Cinders held her pose. Behind the twirling form of the Magma Wyrm a tiny fleck detached from her tower and started to grow larger
"-CAN-"
Her opponent was starting to look unsettled now. Or at least Cinders liked to think that it might be. It didn't really have a face that she could read the expression of.
"-US"
But it was too late. Vulcanus had arrived. It entered the Magma Wrym via the hind-quarters spinning too fast for the eye to pick out its five blades. The dragon bucked upwards in response to the artifact desecrating its internal organs. Vulcanus emerged just beneath the head (beneath relative to the ground, such a term carried little meaning for the bizarre creature) and finished the journey to Cinders' waiting hand.
Blood poured from the wounded beast. Or something analogous to that vital fluid at least. Thick, transparent gouts of fluid issued from the extended wound. Where it struck the beach, the sand fused into dendritic glassy growths. The counter-attack arrived less than a second later. It dived for Cinders, mouth (mouths?) open wide and its face split open into four twisted quarters. Inside, there was only an infinity of black. Reacting automatically, Cinders pulled a wall of rapidly cooling lava from the ground and leapt aside. The dragon bit into the wall rather than into Cinders. She responded by hurling Vulcanus once more. This freed her hands to start weaving a more personal follow-up.
Back in those safe halls of the Institute, the pyromancers had had a saying: "Fight fire with fire". It was a stupid saying, Cinders was fully aware of the hopelessness of trying to burn to death something that until a few minutes ago had been peacefully swimming in magma. Fortunately, there was more than one trick up her sleeve. She called to the earth and it responded. Stone was simply lava that had died, and it was still hers to command. Boulders that must have weighed at least ten times what she did tore themselves free from within the beach with accompanying waves of sand and pebbles. They leapt forth to slam into the dragon, beating it down while Vulcanus returned once more to sever some of those crystal spikes - although it wasn't especially clear if this was usefully aiding the fight.
Once more Cinders found herself the focus of its charge. And this time, she found herself without anything that she could fling between herself and it. Certain death was only seconds away. Until she realised that a couple of the peasants were frozen in awe and terror a little distance behind her. She dropped to her stomach on the sand. As she had hoped, the Magma Wyrm was just as happy to devour the two peasants as her. They vanished without a trace. And in doing so, the stupid beast had exposed itself.
Vulcanus returned to her hand once more as she sprinted toward where the dragon was clumsily turning back on itself. The artifact gibbered happily as she threw him once more. He struck the head, striking out a smattering of ivory eyes. It reeled and Cinders finished the task. Stones of all shapes and sizes beat down onto the dragon. More and more fell upon it, trapping its body, except for its head and neck, within a cairn. It snapped feebly as she strode forward but it was only a token effort - the thing knew it was beaten. She pulled at the traces of metal ore from within the sand and stone around her. Droplets left the ground like silver inverted rain. As they gathered they formed a ring around the neck of the Magma Wyrm: A collar for her newest pet.
[Cinders defeats the Magma Wyrm in three rounds (not counting the initial ranged round), -3 mana. She took four dice of damage, but rather than end the game rather sadly, I just had it eat a few peasants instead]
[Farm is done, so you can now feed 25 peasants. The way I'm handling growth is going to be that you'll only attract new followers once you have places for them to live and food for them. Also, I'm not going to accumulate food, it's just an upkeep thing. This is a minor tweak from what I said earlier, but I don't want to have to deal with constant overpopulation and hunger where possible.]
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: Add a Scholar's Hall to the tower (allows research, +1 study/turn) (costs 50 resources) Scout the mainland [specify south or east]
E: Raise militia (produces a [Militia] unit, costs 5 resources and 5 peasants) You need to choose option 1 if you want to do A or B 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)
What will Cinders do with her Magma Dragon
£: Keep it as the first in her burning army (10 dice, 7+ strength, [Clumsy*])
$: Send it back down below, but use it to accelerate the positive fates (+1 fortune/turn)
%: Send it back down below, but use it to generate larger positive fates (fortune threshold increases to 50, fortune events improve)
&: Slaughter the dragon
*every 1 rolled removes an otherwise successful hit
Mojo_Jojo on
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
A1£ +mana
We've got food coming in from farmers, now we need to make sure they have a place to store the food (and themselves, I suppose) so we can start growing out population.
If we keep the dragon as a siege weapon pet, we can delay our militia needs for a bit.
Mojo_Jojo,
does keeping the dragon alive but enslaved remove it's fortune blocking effect?
Also, do militia troops still contribute as peasants when they're not fighting, or would we lose that population?
see317 on
0
AnialosCollies are love, Collies are life!Shadowbrook ColliesRegistered Userregular
A-1-% +Fortune
Let's finally get some houses for our servants built and I like the idea of bigger boons for our fortune
does keeping the dragon alive but enslaved remove it's fortune blocking effect?
Yep. You can go back to having fortune bonuses.
Also, it might be handy to have a quick run down on how combat is working.
Each turn I match up every unit with an enemy.
Then I roll dice for each. Every number above the target is a hit.
I then remove that many dice from each target
When you have no dice left the unit is dead (or I have a moment of weakness and kill off some peasants)
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
[color]B1£ +mana[/color]
We've got food coming in from farmers, now we need to make sure they have a place to store the food (and themselves, I suppose) so we can
if you were trying to make housing, you chose the wrong letter
0
jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
[color]B A 1£ +mana[/color] It's always been "A"
We've got food coming in from farmers, now we need to make sure they have a place to store the food (and themselves, I suppose) so we can
if you were trying to make housing, you chose the wrong letter
Oops.
Er... I mean... I have no idea at all what you're talking about.
Posts
A3
Steam - NotoriusBEN | Uplay - notoriusben | Xbox,Windows Live - ThatBEN
Fortune
I don't think doing the fishing ourselves is all that sustainable either, I'm hoping clearing land will let us/them set up farming themselves. Also, it'll give our base a nice smoky smell and float up into the sky to make stars.
Mana
I remember something about fishing and teaching people to be self-sufficient... Ah, yes.
Build a man a fire, and he's warm for the night. Set a man on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
That's how it goes, right?
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
Burninating the countryside, but NOT the peasants....yet.
I see your point but I'm going with no for the moment largely as there are lots of votes and I don't want to confuse matters
And we're obviously helping these guys:
http://youtu.be/q0x4Kw_y4fg
We are a lava mage. We don't fish. Peasants fish.
We burn.
Decision
A 3/4: Salvaging the ships and either fishing or deforestation. Deforestation wins the coin flip
Bonuses: +7 mana, +6 fortune [and +1 mana and +1 fortune from contribution bonuses]
The Obsidian Tower
Fortune: 9/25 [+0/turn] The Lurker Below prevents fortune accumulation
Peasants: 14/0 [Hungry + Sleeping outside]
Growth: 0
Food: None, 14 needed
Resources: 21 [+1/turn]
Silver Pieces: 20 [+0/turn]
Ashvent - Prevents scrying in the region.
Cinders' Stats
Combat: 4 dice, 4+ strength, Lucky, Wizard, Ranged(short)
Equipment: Vulcanus
Vote bonuses: +1 Mana or +1 Fortune per vote
[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
As she watched Cook organize the rest of the crew to scavenge the remains of the ship for decent hut-making materials, she heard a rustle of leaves. Turing away from the ocean, she noticed the lush green of the forest for the first time. Thick with life and fertility, she could smell damp earth on the gentle breeze.
Burn
She hated the sight. She, who felt the pulse of the world and could read the fates from its heart would not let this insulting patch of kindling continue in mockery of the true power of flame. The ground between the trees cracked and shifted. In the shade cast by the fans of leaves she could see the orange glow already. Before anything had even seeped from that network of narrow rifts, the closest tinder had already started to smoke. Within seconds some of the worthless vegetation transformed into all powerful fire; a beautiful vision of her strength.
Two hours later and the fires had more or less burned themselves out, leaving the air was filled with ash and the wonderful scent of roasted rosemary and lemon thyme. Barely any lava had actually seeped from the cracks in the end. It hadn't needed to. The small patches that sat atop the cracks had started to crust over and glowed a dim red now. Tired from the outburst, her shoulders sagged and she let out a long sigh. She noted the charred remains of a number of forest creatures. A few squirrels, some birds, and at least one roasted bear seemed to be on display. At least a bit of food to keep Cook and the crew working. She muses at her odd reaction, now slightly confused as to why the forest had made her so angry in the first place.
Whatever the reason, this cleared area was now covered in rich and fertile ash. If they had a mind to, her subjects could start to farm this earth
[Clearing the forest costs 4 mana, and produces a [fertile] area that can be farmed to produce 25 food /turn (5 more than a standard farm)]
The ships had largely been cleared from the shore now. Reduced from ugly wooden corpses into neat stacks of irregular planks and a few meagre piles of nails and rivets. It wasn't much, but it was a start. What had caught the interest of Cinders herself was the little lead coffer that Cook had brought to her directly (he was already so well trained that Cook) before scurrying off to do what he could with the charcoal-coated animals from the fire. She twisted the key and the lid popped open easily. Inside were handfuls of coins of all shapes, sizes and materials. Bronze hexagons, tin triangles, a range of circles of materials from tin to steel and even a few ring-shaped pieces of silver. It wasn't riches beyond her imaging but it was still satisfying to see.
[Salvage produces 20 resources and 20 silver pieces]
Her attention was rudely disturbed by a minor tremor. Perhaps it was an aftershock from the quakes she'd conjured earlier to clear away most of that unsightly forest. No. Cinders saw a pattern deep in the heart of things after a few seconds. There was something down there. Something very large that she'd probably attracted either by arriving, forming the tower which constantly poured lava into the sea or possibly that recent act of pyromania. Regardless, it was like an particle of glass in her eye. The damned thing was entirely distorting her view of the fates. She was more or less blind. This would not stand.
[You are unable to gain fortune at this time due to the presence of the Lurker Below]
Decision Time
(A letter, a number and specify Mana/Fortune for your vote bonus every vote gains a mana bonus)
Peasant action:
A: Build houses (shelter for 25 peasants) (costs 15 resources)
B: Build a farm on the fertile ground (+25 food/turn) (Costs 15 resources)
C: Add a Scholar's Hall to the tower (allows research, +1 study/turn) (costs 50 resources)
Scout the mainland [specify south or east]
E: Raise militia (produces a [Militia] unit, costs 5 resources and 5 peasants)
Cinders action:
1: Help the sailors with their construction (requires the peasants to be building. 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: Go fishing (costs 2 mana, and produces 3d6 food)
4: Deal with the Lurker Below to restore your fortune sight (costs 10 mana and will probably need some violence)
You blew it up! You maniac! [Hey, the collaborative part helps make this so much fun]
QUESTION : Can we just help build one thing and the sailors build the other? Like we spend 30 mana to make the houses and 15 resources for the crew to build the farm?
A-4
Violence you say? Why thank you.
This Lurker Below needs to be stamped out before it can take root and we need our fortune rolls back.
B4
Steam - NotoriusBEN | Uplay - notoriusben | Xbox,Windows Live - ThatBEN
There's a mote in our eye. We should remove it.
The peasants can see to their own shelter, now that they have materials to do so.
Mana
Starvation doesn't seem to be a concern with foraging and having food for growth won't help without somewhere to put these peasants.
Let the peasants figure out their own housing, fertile farms will attract more to us. And fuck this lurker below.
Mana
This creature of the mantle shall bend to our whims or DIE.
Mana Mana (doot doo do do do)
If there's going to be violence, let's get a fighting force so we don't have to stumble bleeding back to our survivors.
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
If I'm reading correctly, the Watcher is subterranean, and very large.
I don't think a handful of peasants with improvised weapons is going to be much assistance in dealing with such a beast. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that a militia will have uses, I just don't think that this is one of them.
On the other hand, it's possible that if it was attracted to our use of power we may be able to tame it and use it ourselves rather than just obliterating it outright with magic.
We bend and shape lava, a primal force of the planet, to our will. It would be completely in line with Cinder's character to bend this creature to our purposes as well.
Steam - NotoriusBEN | Uplay - notoriusben | Xbox,Windows Live - ThatBEN
Decision
B4: Let the peasants farm while Cinders commences operation certain death
Bonuses: +13 mana, +0 fortune
The Obsidian Tower
Fortune: 9/25 [+0/turn]
Peasants: 12/0 [Sleeping outside]
Growth: 0 [At population cap]
Food: 25, 12 needed
Resources: 7 [+1/turn]
Silver Pieces: 20 [+0/turn]
Ashvent - Prevents scrying in the region.
Cinders' Stats
Combat: 4 dice, 4+ strength, Lucky, Wizard, Ranged(short)
Equipment: Vulcanus
Vote bonuses: +1 Mana or +1 Fortune per vote
[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
A despairing facial expression toward one of the former sailors and a sweep of the arm towards the fertile ash plain sent her scurrying back to round up the others. Quickly, the peasants set about digging holes and forcing plants into them and whatever else was required for farming. Cinders didn't know the ins and outs. Or the ins. Or much at all about it to be honest. At the Institute the servants just prepared food for her. And before that... Well, she didn't want to think back to then. The life of Cinders the lavashaper started at the Institute. Although perhaps she'd need to rewrite even that now. Or have her chroniclers rewrite it. It could start when she arrived in a ball of fire from heaven to unite the world under a new era of burning rock and dancing ash. There would be chroniclers, she was sure of that.
Or as sure as she could be without being able to make any sense of the ebb and flow in the volcanicity of the land. That upset her. It upset her a great deal. It upset her too much to get back to her musings on her legacy or even what next for her fledgling empire. And that would not do at all. She turned away from the peasants busily clearly various unspecific charred objects from where there had only recently been a forest and snapped her fingers.
At that moment the magma surrounding the Lurker Below turned traitor and heeded the demands of Cinders. It seized the beast and forced it upwards and away from the roiling star. Thousands of hands composed of the very stuff of the earth gripped it and dragged it towards the lavashaper to face its punishment.
It arrived in a burst of burning shrapnel. Over her years of study, Cinders had attended a fair few lectures on the creatures of the world and even sat through a few dissections. Most creatures, at least those outside the hated oceans, shared the property of bilateral symmetry. You could cut a horse from head to tail and end up with two sections that were roughly identical. You could do the same with a man (despite the lack of a tail). And if you were really determined and had a large enough blade you could do this to one of the legendary world serpents. At least according to the sketches of them she had seen; despite these days academic wizardry was coming round to the idea that not every fanciful drawing in an ancient time depicted a real creature. So if nobody had a reliable firsthand account then perhaps they were just a work of fiction.
The thing that had just emerged in a burst of magma-become-lava did not obey this law of physiology. It looked vaguely draconic, but with four-fold rotational symmetry, as you might find in some kind of disgusting soft-bodied echinoderm. The head was a corkscrew of shining-white eyes and crystalline teeth. Wings and limbs jutted out every ninety degrees or so. Eight limbs total, each curving clockwise into a spiral, and each capped with a long black talon. The sail-like wings caused some confusion. Not just because there were four, but because why in all the worlds would a dragon that planned on spending its life deep within a molten core have wings at all. And worse still, the paper-thin things seemed to actually be managing to keep the thing aloft in the air now that it was above ground, despite their shape being all wrong. Not especially gracefully mind, but it was indeed flying. The body was a long patchwork composition, that resembled amber and crimson stained class leaded with obsidian. Along each of the four ridges that might have been spines or possible the edges of rib cages was a row of razor-sharp looking crystalline spines. Unimaginatively, flames danced from the tip of its snout.
In short, it was offensively ugly and Cinders was feeling easily offended. She crouched down and stretched out a hand behind her as the thing twirled and danced in the air, apparently waiting for her to make the first move. Unaware that she already had. Or possibly not wanting to assume the worst of its summoner and resort to violence, but it was too late for that.
"VUL-"
Cinders held her pose. Behind the twirling form of the Magma Wyrm a tiny fleck detached from her tower and started to grow larger
"-CAN-"
Her opponent was starting to look unsettled now. Or at least Cinders liked to think that it might be. It didn't really have a face that she could read the expression of.
"-US"
But it was too late. Vulcanus had arrived. It entered the Magma Wrym via the hind-quarters spinning too fast for the eye to pick out its five blades. The dragon bucked upwards in response to the artifact desecrating its internal organs. Vulcanus emerged just beneath the head (beneath relative to the ground, such a term carried little meaning for the bizarre creature) and finished the journey to Cinders' waiting hand.
Blood poured from the wounded beast. Or something analogous to that vital fluid at least. Thick, transparent gouts of fluid issued from the extended wound. Where it struck the beach, the sand fused into dendritic glassy growths. The counter-attack arrived less than a second later. It dived for Cinders, mouth (mouths?) open wide and its face split open into four twisted quarters. Inside, there was only an infinity of black. Reacting automatically, Cinders pulled a wall of rapidly cooling lava from the ground and leapt aside. The dragon bit into the wall rather than into Cinders. She responded by hurling Vulcanus once more. This freed her hands to start weaving a more personal follow-up.
Back in those safe halls of the Institute, the pyromancers had had a saying: "Fight fire with fire". It was a stupid saying, Cinders was fully aware of the hopelessness of trying to burn to death something that until a few minutes ago had been peacefully swimming in magma. Fortunately, there was more than one trick up her sleeve. She called to the earth and it responded. Stone was simply lava that had died, and it was still hers to command. Boulders that must have weighed at least ten times what she did tore themselves free from within the beach with accompanying waves of sand and pebbles. They leapt forth to slam into the dragon, beating it down while Vulcanus returned once more to sever some of those crystal spikes - although it wasn't especially clear if this was usefully aiding the fight.
Once more Cinders found herself the focus of its charge. And this time, she found herself without anything that she could fling between herself and it. Certain death was only seconds away. Until she realised that a couple of the peasants were frozen in awe and terror a little distance behind her. She dropped to her stomach on the sand. As she had hoped, the Magma Wyrm was just as happy to devour the two peasants as her. They vanished without a trace. And in doing so, the stupid beast had exposed itself.
Vulcanus returned to her hand once more as she sprinted toward where the dragon was clumsily turning back on itself. The artifact gibbered happily as she threw him once more. He struck the head, striking out a smattering of ivory eyes. It reeled and Cinders finished the task. Stones of all shapes and sizes beat down onto the dragon. More and more fell upon it, trapping its body, except for its head and neck, within a cairn. It snapped feebly as she strode forward but it was only a token effort - the thing knew it was beaten. She pulled at the traces of metal ore from within the sand and stone around her. Droplets left the ground like silver inverted rain. As they gathered they formed a ring around the neck of the Magma Wyrm: A collar for her newest pet.
[Cinders defeats the Magma Wyrm in three rounds (not counting the initial ranged round), -3 mana. She took four dice of damage, but rather than end the game rather sadly, I just had it eat a few peasants instead]
[Farm is done, so you can now feed 25 peasants. The way I'm handling growth is going to be that you'll only attract new followers once you have places for them to live and food for them. Also, I'm not going to accumulate food, it's just an upkeep thing. This is a minor tweak from what I said earlier, but I don't want to have to deal with constant overpopulation and hunger where possible.]
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: Add a Scholar's Hall to the tower (allows research, +1 study/turn) (costs 50 resources)
Scout the mainland [specify south or east]
E: Raise militia (produces a [Militia] unit, costs 5 resources and 5 peasants)
You need to choose option 1 if you want to do A or B 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)
What will Cinders do with her Magma Dragon
£: Keep it as the first in her burning army (10 dice, 7+ strength, [Clumsy*])
$: Send it back down below, but use it to accelerate the positive fates (+1 fortune/turn)
%: Send it back down below, but use it to generate larger positive fates (fortune threshold increases to 50, fortune events improve)
&: Slaughter the dragon
*every 1 rolled removes an otherwise successful hit
We've got food coming in from farmers, now we need to make sure they have a place to store the food (and themselves, I suppose) so we can start growing out population.
If we keep the dragon as a siege weapon pet, we can delay our militia needs for a bit.
Mojo_Jojo,
Also, do militia troops still contribute as peasants when they're not fighting, or would we lose that population?
Let's finally get some houses for our servants built and I like the idea of bigger boons for our fortune
Fortune events improve!
Also, dat fight scene.
Yep. You can go back to having fortune bonuses.
Also, it might be handy to have a quick run down on how combat is working.
Each turn I match up every unit with an enemy.
Then I roll dice for each. Every number above the target is a hit.
I then remove that many dice from each target
When you have no dice left the unit is dead (or I have a moment of weakness and kill off some peasants)
if you were trying to make housing, you chose the wrong letter
Mana
Oops.
Er... I mean... I have no idea at all what you're talking about.