Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

[Kaelan]

Well half of that's gone completely over Dirts poor head.
"Where?"

[Simon_Jester]

"Wait, where did you see him swallowed up by the earth?"

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

'Any of them would have done- we were trying to catch them up, this local lord, looking for, looking to be hired- there were, we had to run, there were men, escort, bands of warriors, the crowned mountain, the tree in the river, the halo, all three of them were there; we followed them into the dry hills, to a hill that seemed no different from any other, and suddenly there as a terrible duststorm from out of the blue sprang up, and the skies darkened with it and the earth shook- and they were gone.

We should have known then but- where? Oh, yes, where. One dead slab of sandy rock looks much like another- I recall it was not far within the broken land, closer to the edge of it, closer to living things than it should be; only a couple of broken hillsides away from the small mountains.'

he doesn't know what the proper name of anything around here actually is, but he's describing the near edge of the badlands quite close to the Orhan Hills by the sound of it.

[Simon_Jester]

IC:

"I see, I see." Larric nods encouragingly and takes some more notes in cramped, unreadable shorthand on his slate book. He speaks a bit slowly, this is a foreigner, and a scared foreigner, after all. "All three barons, you say? Huh. Must have been quite a sight. Do you remember how you got away from there? Anything about the roads? The more that iss known, the better..." he glances disapprovingly at Tamarin's man-at-arms, the homicidal one.

OOC:

Bad cop, good alchemist?

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

'They were all, all eying each other. All sending scouts, all chasing each other's scouts. Why they want, why they think it worth- one struck out into the wilderness and the rest followed.

Roads? They were like our roads, not your roads- hopeless for carts and wagons, most got left behind. Those devil- bastards of the burning bird amused themselves with them or there would be a tail of broken fragments, bleached skeletons.

They danced around each other for a day, maybe three, moving from this hill to that, and we survived for a while on what they lost, threw away and left behind- then we heard the thunder from beneath the earth and the plume of dust rising into the sky.

Those were the ones with the halo, and they threw away everything racing towards it, is it some kind of ritual sacrifice? I do not think it has worked.

The others, including the men you seek, headed for the cloud and the noise. We headed away. Turned our backs to it and ran, pushed our way past all those coming towards, were pushed off the track and scattered, found ourselves together here where the green is, before we wee scattered again by fire eyed men on heavy horses and black hearted greenskins on pigs of death. And again, and again- a hundred and fifty of us to begin with, now, now-' he manages not to start crying, but only just.

[Simon_Jester]

"It has been a horrible, horrible winter. You are wise to want to go home. If I was from somewhere else, I would go home too."

OOC:

Waiting on the others now that we've got the really critical information we need, or at least the biggest piece of it.

[Feralgnoll]

"These vile creations must be dealt with."

[Simon_Jester]

"What, the Twentieth Cataphract? You first."

OOC:

Orcs on war-boars and violent "flame-eyed" (i.e. murderous and possibly caster-supported) men sounds a lot like the way the Twentieth would appear to a mercenary unit utterly unready to deal with their onslaught. Since the barons were running into the fortress to escape the Twentieth, it's hardly a surprise that a mercenary company nearby would get squashed when a unit of the Twentieth came chasing after the barons.

[Feralgnoll]

"The animated men"

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

Um, I think you're badly misunderstanding what's being said here. "Flame-eyed" could be rhetorical (i.e. they're really fierce and aggressive) or it could easily be some relatively simple enchantment cast on otherwise normal soldiers by a wizard on their side.

No evidence of special magic animation involved.

[Feralgnoll]

OOC I looked too hard into the mention of skeletons. I did misunderstand.

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

Well, clearly some necromancer did that part, but it doesn't necessarily represent an urgent problem. Having necromancers running around is bad news, but it's also sort of... business as usual as long as they don't start devouring entire towns with hordes of zombies.

Hunting down every necromancer is like hunting down every thief or assassin. Theoretically it's a good idea, but it's probably more trouble than it's worth and we can't afford to get sidetracked.

[Feralgnoll]

OOC we are good getting sidetracked

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

There's good, and there's too good. Bad enough when outside parties can sidetrack us; much worse when we do it to ourselves.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Yes, yes you are. Wierdly (me too), necromancy is one thing the Twentieth never had much to do with apart from the colonel herself, who doesn't have much choice in the matter- she needs it to keep her own ghosts under control; there are stories to that effect, but precious little evidence- and most of the stories turn out to be something like their eating captured animals down to the bone anyway. There is actually a good reaon for this.

Speaking of side tracks, this would actually be a good moment to take one, physically- break off the main road and head north. For this group (the proportion of people with sharp sight and special sensory gifts is very high, which makes sense) probable best bet is to bounce- or lumber, clamber, scramble, slog and suffer more likely- from hilltop to hilltop, scan as much of the terrain as possible and look for anything that might be it, and if nothing looks likely move onto the next hill with a good view.

After all the investigation earlier which ate a fair bit of the morning, it was a clear, smooth road this far though, so about three and a half, four hours of daylight and twilight good enough to see by left; enough to make a start anyway. What are you doing with the two prisoners?

[Feralgnoll]

"If they swear to go back to an honest life, let them go"

[Simon_Jester]

To the knights: "Milord? Milady? I think I know how to make them leave the county as fast as they can go, no matter what else might happen. Then they're at least someone else's problem."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Tamarin was thinking about it; the advice she was getting was "just kill them, it's not like they aren't bandits and outlaws anyway." If you have a more humane solution, 'If you can be sure that they will do no harm, then- yes, please go ahead.'

[Panzersharkcat]

"Let them go. I promised they would come to no harm if they answered our questions." He turns to them and says, "However, if I catch you in the act of banditry again, I will crush you."

[Simon_Jester]

Larric turns to the renegades. His eyes look a little wild- scared, and he's letting it show.

"You said you want to go home? You don't know the half of it. The demon-woman- her name is Johanna Calvern. They just made her countess of Auvaine- of all this land, for leagues and leagues in every direction." He waves a hand around. "Gods help us all, she lives here now. So believe me, you really want to go home to Zarthan. Do yourself a favor. Don't tarry. Don't make trouble. Don't rob anyone, don't kill anyone. Your luck isn't up to it. Just go, and don't come back. It's not worth it, trust me. If I spoke Zarthani, I'd probably be going south of border with you. The whole kingdom's a madhouse, even we know it. There's no shame in wanting to go home from a land like this, after a winter like this."

"So just... go." He spreads his hands.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Those are actually fairly good reasons; the two of them- the other one's starting to recover- start to limp away, one supporting the other. Look back anxiously, expecting to be shot in the back. Eventually, once enough feeling recovers in the paralysed one's legs, running away as fast as they can. Heading for the river, where at least there are boats and they can make some distance towards home.

There is some grumbling from the yeomanry, but Tamarin manages to convince them eventualy that the Zarthani were jinxed, born under an unlucky star; some muttering of 'so what about us then?' but they are let go.

Any bright ideas as to how to find it, now?

[Simon_Jester]

Larric checks his notes.

"From the sound of it, somewhere in the badlands, close by the hills. Should be lots of tracks leading to it." He glances at Rohal. "And... if I got the story straight, there was a good-sized battle or two fought somewhere round the invisible fort. They had the Twentieth chasing after them, one of them left some wagons and slow stuff behind, plus what happened to those Zarths. We see a battlefield... we might be close." He shivers.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

So what are you all doing with the four hours of daylight and half-light you have left? Tamarin suggests 'We could wander lost in that maze of rock for days. Moving from hill to hill, looking for sights of the clashes around it, seems more likely to succeed.'

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

While Larric is agreeable to this, we should get some of the others in on this, especially Panzer and Feralgnoll. Unfortunately, they're both in college and final exams are coming up, so there is going to be something of a dip in attentiveness to the game, I suspect.

[Kaelan]

Dirt's happy to jog up and down a few hills to search for signs of battle (also to hunt for game on the way back down).

OOC
Bit late for revision now....