Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

Larric would know the geography better than I do, and I don't care to go trawling through the last forty pages for snippets on geography (which I've done, a time or two). The badlands are up in the right general direction, right? Not due north of Qulan city but in a generally northerly direction?

IC:

"I'm not sure. If you owned a great hidden fortress and got wind of someone writing a chronicle about it, wouldn't you rather see to it that the chronicler told everyone to look in the wrong place? I don't know what to think of that... but somewhere north...ish is our best hope."

He looks around at the others.

[Kaelan]

15 leagues a day it is then.

[White Haven]

"Hmm. Should probably leave the library here, it'd be too nonportable. Few journals, triple-supply of metallic-ink marking devices, definitely can't be too careful..." Verone is off and running, well, muttering, making and erasing and modifying and revising a list of stuff in his head, before finally looking up with a distracted expression at the mention of a horse. "If one's spare, I can hold a saddle passably. Had a horse, not entirely certain what happened to it. Her. Her? Probably her."

[Panzersharkcat]

"Right. Anyway, she's in a rather beaten up state but Old Paint Bucket will do fine. Won't you, girl?" He pats the horse on the nose affectionately.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

The reason I picked up on the geography thing is that this is what the landscape looks like from Qulan; from West South-West to North-North-East, there are the foothills and forest around Mount Honeycomb, the thing itself basically North-West. North North-East to East-Northeast you have the Orhan Hills, behind them the Badlands and beyond those from behind the forest to East South-East there are the Silverroot Mountains.

That's more than half the horizon covered with very difficult terrain to search, worse, that it could be in if there has been any decent misdirection at all, and it's not how long it takes to get there that's going to matter really, it's how long it takes to rake around and find the entrance. [How long did Schliemann take to find Troy- twenty years?]

The dominant theory is that it's somewhere under the Badlands, that attempts to find and breach it may have been responsible for the creation of the badlands in fact. That it retains enough thaumaturgy architecturally embedded in it to give faint traces of it's presence away to those who seem to need a hole in the ground to shelter in, and subsequently sense the greed of a treasure hunter and cease to call out- thet's why so many people have a faint trace or an idea of where it is, but no definite information.

That was, at least, the theory that the Baron was going on, and between them Tamarin, Verone, and Alfred who heard little bits about it all can put that much together.

Those of you who are mounted, riding off, and those who aren't taking shanks' pony- avoiding or seeking people along the way? Heading into open country as soon as possible or following the road as far as it goes?

[Simon_Jester]

IC:

"The fortress is hidden so well people went hundreds and hundreds of years and never found it. We're not going to find it, not unless something funny's going on; his lordship must have known something we don't. But suppose it really is from the First Age, and all the seers of that time couldn't find it. It must be warded really, really well. So if Sihulam could pick out the baron now, but not before... maybe the baron's already left the place. Which means we're not looking for it, we're looking for him. If we meet anyone faring south, maybe we should ask if they've seen a large party of men about."

OOC:

Some of this is actually wrong if the fortress can detect the intent of passersby, invite those who want refuge in while hiding itself from enemies. But Larric would think this way- obviously, the invisible fortress is invisible, so if a man is visible, he's not inside anymore.

[Kaelan]

I would recommend the scenic route so we can ask every village we pass 'have you seen a large body of men passing this way?'

Probably be a lot easier to track the baron instead of finding the lost fortress.

[Simon_Jester]

"If the baron is this close he'll probably ride right past us; we'd want to get further out from town a good few miles first. The fortress can't be that near town, can it? But maybe we'd better stick to the road, we'll meet more people."

[Feralgnoll]

OOC: I know this might be much but is there a map we can see?

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

A map exists, in fact three, the county, the country and the world, plus numerous other tactical maps, city centre maps and things...all hand drawn by somebody, me, who is almost subject- blind when it comes to image manipulation and has no scanner anyway. (You didn't think it was just a statement that I don't have an avatar?)

I can't actually think of a way of getting this on t'internet short of physically posting a photocopy to someone who can scan it and post it. This is something I'm abysmally, pathetically bad at. Something I have to work on.

Anyway- any objections to following Dirt and Larric's plan of getting a little distance along the way on the most pointing in the right direction good road, talking to people as you go and asking them what they've seen, then turning north into the badlands looking for traces of the people going to the fort, following the searchers, and keeping lookout for anybody?

[Kaelan]

Only other addition would be to grab a symbol of the baron on a flag or tabard so we can put it infront of the people we are talking to, along the lines of 'group wearing this'.

[Psawhn]

Just as an observer (although I might be interested in joining if some free time opens up for me over the next little while; I'll have to wait and see how my schedule settles down), do you have a digital camera? If you do, can you try to take a photo of the map in bright light, and upload the pictures to photobucket or flickr or other free image hosting service of your choice?

[Simon_Jester]

We'd be glad to have you, Psawhn. Currently we're down to two highly active and three reasonably active players, so there's definitely room.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

No camera, no photobucket account. I do have something vaguely resembling a plan, though; let me work on that.

Always room for one more- Psawhn, have you any idea what you would want to be?

In the meantime, and making allowances for the fact that the characters- for Alfred this is virtually home territory- know the area tolerably well, and have a reasonable idea where it might be and where it couldn't be unless the builders were thoroughly taking the piss, and split the difference. [This may seem a bit railroadish, but why give you a choice the only other outcome of which could be your talking yourselves into going the wrong way on a wild goose chase?]

The road from Qulan to Auvaine runs along the southern edge of the Orhan Hills, it's an important and well maintained flagstoned road, (even now, apart from the actually wrecked bits most of it is well enough), and it would probably save time and energy to follow that as far as seems reasonable then strike north into the difficult country;
there's a range of low, rolling hills and downs south of the Orhan where the high ground falls away into Lake Qulath (which Qulan is on the banks of) and the Chura river valley, and in the downs the road turns more southerly; that's probably a good moment to turn off and head north from there.

The road is moderately well travelled- it's a main artery of the county, so if it wasn't there would have to be something seriously wrong. Some people moving out of the city back to Qulan or thereabouts- they say that Auvaine is a mess, not politically- that seems to be the only good thing happening, they've got an acting mayor or at least a tolerable thug in charge- but physical reconstruction is slow, hard work. You can quiz them for more detail if you like.

What may be more significant- the party has a large proportion of exceptionally sharp- eyed people; collectively you're very good at spotting things. Just as you get to the downs there are a group, eight armed men two of them on horses, you spot long before they spot you.
They're dressed in virtually everything they own, layer on layer trying to keep warm; no identifying colours, have spears and axes and a crossbow or two, none of them are mounted, and you can tell the exact moment they do notice you- they divide and dive for the undergrowth at the side of the road.

[Feralgnoll]

Rohal breathes deep to smell for fear or aggression. As well as any other clues to determine who they are.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Oh yes, lots of those. Predominantly they pong of wet wool and woodsmoke [known in this world as eau de re-enactor], but under that sweat, filth, fear, misery, hate, self- pity; at a guess, bandits- crappy ones who haven't been doing well and are feeling quite sorry for themselves.

Don't smell like they'd want to commit to anything like a fair fight, but they might try to ambush you or shoot you in the back as you go past. Also, they don't smell local, they're vaguely peppery. They might know something.

[Panzersharkcat]

He calls for a halt and rides over to Larric and Verone to consult them on offensive magic.

"I want something that can blind them for long enough that we can take them with a lot more ease. I want to take as many alive as we can. I have a feeling they might know something and I would like to interrogate them. Can you do that?"

(OOC: In short, a magic flash bang grenade.)

[Kaelan]

Alternatively you could always call out to them and inform them that they stand a better chance of staying alive if they act nice, or dirt can plant a bolt thru one of them.

[Panzersharkcat]

(OOC: Was that in character? Otherwise, Alfred will remain dead set on blasting at least one of them.)

[Simon_Jester]

"Eight of them, eight of us. And..." Larric looks up at Dirt. "He likely outnumbers the lot of them all by himself."

"I'm sure master mage here-" his expression is faintly ironic, but only faintly- "would be a fine one for plotting out something like that, if he wants help with the crayon bits I've got a rare deal on colored wax. But maybe we'd better try talking first anyhow?"

[Panzersharkcat]

"Fair enough. I will go forward to speak with them. I will need somebody to cover a retreat if things go wrong and we need to regroup to counterattack."

[Kaelan]

"dirt cover or come?"

Says dirt whilst readying his 'small' crossbow.

[Panzersharkcat]

"Dirt, come with me. Larric, could you conjure something up that can blind them? I'm scrapping the retreat portion. If something goes wrong, I want to smash the right side first. Our right, their left, that is. I want the rearmost person in the attack to make sure their men on their right are not going to come over and attack us from behind while we're attacking their left. If that works, I will lead a flanking party while half remain to keep them down." He pauses to take a breath. "Do remember the undergrowth is concealment and not cover. Just because they can't see you doesn't mean they can't hit you."

(OOC: @Feralgnoll: I think it was Chia that did that to us once in MS1 year. I don't remember if you were in my squad. I'm pretty sure Pak was. While we were off the side of the road, which was fairly steep, Chia ran over to the side and "killed" a few cadets because nobody was keeping watch on our flanks.

@ECR: How high is the undergrowth? Wikipedia says it can be from .3 to 3 meters (3 to 9 feet) tall.)

[Simon_Jester]

"Blind?" His eyes widen. "Oh. Dazzle. Right, hm..." He starts scratching his head and thinking.

OOC:

White Haven's character has much more versatile magic and will probably weigh in when he gets a chance to see this. I'm going to give him an opening.

And Panzersharkcat? Just remember, these guys are mostly armed with swords and spears, not so many bows. It affects how you cope with them- we could probably outshoot them, if it proved necessary, although I'm not sure if Tamarin brought along an archer or not.

[Panzersharkcat]

(OOC: Neither am I, which is why I'm keeping some things a bit vague. Keeping them down could mean with more dazzle things and not covering fire from bows. Of course, it would be nice if our flankers were told beforehand whether it'll be dazzle and not bows. I think we do have more people with bows, though.)