Book 2 – Text Updates 025

[ftl]

Interesting that Jetstone is getting another royal heir soon, as is Transylvito and Faq. Perhaps a new generation of CWLs raised on Parson-tactics to give him a run for his money?

Even more interesting that Slately has no interest in making Trem the heir, nor even allowing him to remain as Chief Warlord a minute more than necessary. Not that Trem seems to mind -- he seems too much of a philosopher and strategist to want either job, which is why I still think he'll end up King of Jetstone before the day is out. I really hope we find out what Slately has against his eldest son? Is it just the fact that he is the least stereotypically "noble" of his three sons?

It might not be that Slately has anything *against* Trem.

Trem seems to be happiest not doing battle on the front, but doing diplomacy and back-room strategy. The other sons also look to be better fighters and more imposing, though not as good tacticians. Slately's happy letting the other sons get the glory and the fights they want, Trem's fine with that - why would the fact that everyone gets the roles they want mean Slately has something *against* Trem?

[Zeku]

All dwagons concentrate on knocking Jetstone units off of the towers and walls, and kamikaze Jetstone ground units on the way down. Wanda finds some way to reach the ground, or cast at garrison level. Every caster archer and dwagon that hits the ground is either wounded, or becomes a new decrypted. The decrypted archers prioritize the wounded Jetstone archers, and from there, the dominos fall.

Lots of dwagons become decryped, drama ensues once the Tool feels less suggestive.

[Evil Jedi]

The thing I'm most interested in now is what Trem wants to ask GK. He said the hardest questions need to be answered by them. It might have something to do with Ossomer, and if Trem can somehow get him captured. He was also worrying about all the Foolamancy, so one question GK can answer for him is where Wanda is exactly among the fliers. That's all I can come up with so far.

[splintermute]

Wait - the courtyard has a roof? Made of glass? Sharp, shatterable, smoky glass? But the airspace zone extends to the ground?

Smashy smashy!

[TheDemon]

Wait - the courtyard has a roof? Made of glass? Sharp, shatterable, smoky glass? But the airspace zone extends to the ground?

Smashy smashy!

Wait, that's not all. Non-essential troops will be there (infantry and heavies, I assume). If Parson can get the dwagon corpses through the glass roof and onto the ground, then get them decrypted there, the decrypted dwagons will engage these (unlead?) stacks, and Wanda can decrypt them as they die as well. Jetstone will be left with a force of mostly archers and casters.

That is if Parson has a way of using decryption to cross zone boundaries.

[Firkraag]

Wait - the courtyard has a roof? Made of glass? Sharp, shatterable, smoky glass? But the airspace zone extends to the ground?

Smashy smashy!

Wait, that's not all. Non-essential troops will be there (infantry and heavies, I assume). If Parson can get the dwagon corpses through the glass roof and onto the ground, then get them decrypted there, the decrypted dwagons will engage these (unlead?) stacks, and Wanda can decrypt them as they die as well. Jetstone will be left with a force of mostly archers and casters.

That is if Parson has a way of using decryption to cross zone boundaries.

Wanda can jump. Short speech about how "whether or not she survives" the fall will demonstrate "the will of the Titans". Que impressive-looking drop from dwagonback among the corpses she is going to animate.

Or she will not surive (casters manage to shoot her down) and her "master of the Arkenpliers" status means the artifact will automatically animate her corpse once she is on the ground and positioned to animate all the unled stacks. Now que speech about the will of the Titans.

Jetstone shouldn't be so smug

[Gorky]

Anyone else find "treachery-prevention efforts" to be vague and sinister-sounding?

[valce]

This seems like a good opportunity for Parson to engage in typical 'evil side' tactics -- destroy the roof of the area where the non-essential units are, let the falling roof kill a good chunk of the non-essential units (which I presume includes some of their knights and other non-ranged infantry) and decrypt them. Then the non-essentials can be used to attack archers posted to the Garrison and the flyers can hide in the courtyard!

In any case, I think Parson needs to attack ASAP. The longer they wait, the more time Jetstone has to redeploy and prepare strategies. Perhaps they should attack while the initial parley is happening, using some Foolamancy sleight-of-hand?

-V

[build6]

It might not be that Slately has anything *against* Trem.

...

The other sons also look to be better fighters and more imposing, though not as good tacticians.

so Slately isn't too far off from Stanley, who's on the extreme end of the spectrum by basically picking warlords based on how they look?

[kagato23]

Wanda, it occurs to me, might actually be safe. It counts as a fall if your mount is killed and you fall across the boundary, but what happens if you let yourself fall on a live mount? Simply tell it to stop flying and let gravity do the rest?

The fall could almost certainly kill her dwagon, but if she's riding a live dragon when it actually hits the ground, it might only count as damage against the dwagon, or provide her with some sort of safety net (ie, if you fall on a live mount, you can be incapacitated or injured, but won't die). She and anybody else on the dragons as they fall might actually get off damage free, which means it' s just a matter of decrypting the mounts. It's up in the air, as it's a mechanic the world has probably never had to deal with before, because everybody knows you can't do this! Of course, everybody knows you can't effect multiple hexes at the same time, and that warlords can't go into the magic kingdom...

My theory, btw, as people have been using these threads to speculate, is that Parson will in fact pull off the amazingly good win. Why do I think they'd do this, making them "unstoppable" again? Because GK isn't about to get that unstoppable. this is just one side of the coalition, and if it goes bad here, all the halfhearted joiners will get deadly serious (possibly including one Caeaser, the possible new TV head, who is starting to get that everybody should have taken GK more seriously). And Charlie is still actively working against them, and Jillian is probably going to take a huge chunk out of them while they are committed here.

But the big thing, the Chekov's gun that simply hasn't been fired yet is still sitting on the shelf from book one, and Charlie and Jillian are in fact the people to fire it off.

Jillian actually knows what parson is. Charlie knows what parson can do. After this turn, they might communicate a bit more and get the whole picture of him. Including HOW he was acquired.

Charlie has capital, and great relations with magic kingdom, who's already nervous about Parson's side.

Which means that a very special scroll of PLOT might soon be used, and specify "bring us warlord/s who have BEATEN parson"

At the very beginning of the story, Parson was about to go up against his friends in an epic new war game. That might still happen.

(Edit, that would be like, the cliffhanger at the very end of book 2, I mean that speculation long term)

[effataigus]

Seems to me that any time an author, GM, or movie director mentions a glass barrier in the upper half of a room one of two things is going to happen: someone is going to fall through that barrier or someone is going to jump kick through that barrier.

[raphfrk]

Or she will not surive (casters manage to shoot her down) and her "master of the Arkenpliers" status means the artifact will automatically animate her corpse once she is on the ground and positioned to animate all the unled stacks. Now que speech about the will of the Titans.

Ofc, in that case, there is no guarantee that she would be decrypted as a GK unit. Currently, the decrypted become members of the same side as the owner of the pliers. If the pliers casts the spell on Wanda itself (they are apparently sentient), then there is no link to GK.

Maybe, Wanda gets up after croaking and all decrypyed switch to her side.

She certainly isn't going to permanently croak one way or another.

[Quanton]

I wonder if Wanda has actually already started taking out units, under the cover of Jack's foolamancy. The 'they showed no signs of impending aggression' comment sounds ominous. Would warlords necessarily know right away if some of their units are croaked? Does everybody in the city get a foolamancy check, or just those who are actively looking for something amiss?

In any case, we'll probably find out what Tramennis intends to ask Wanda before any action takes place. I suspect that the 'harder questions' are about Jillian and Charlie. Or perhaps about what happened at Gobwin Knob. Or maybe he just wants to express his outrage at what Wanda's done to his brothers and his people.

[Glenn]

Jillian told Tramennis that Wanda wasn't really a Toolist, so he'll probably want to ask her just exactly what she does believe. I'll be interested to see whether Wanda explains to Tramennis why it's so significant that Partson is back as Chief Warlord. She might say something like, "I do not fear death or defeat, because it is not the will of the Titans that I die today. But I do regret that I somehow deviated from the true path the Titan's desired me to follow, because it means they have intervened to restore Lord Hamster to the office of Chief Warlord. If you really understood what Parson was capable of, you would accept our terms. Parson shall correct my error, and give me victory, but we both may pay a far higher price than even I would prefer."

[kagato23]

That seems unlikely. I can't see wanda bragging to the enemy "oh hey, here's this guy you should totally watch out for!"

A more stoic "the fates have put us all on our paths, come at me and let us see who the titans give victory" sort of deal would seem more the kind of final word she'd have.

[gazes_also]

Oh dear, turns out Tramennis isn't entirely stupid.
He won't put any troops under the flyers, he expects foolamancy and will adapt tactics to the results of the first volley. He expects it to be a lengthy deliberate massacre.
He also wants to parley (presumably with Ossomer), that could muddy things a bit.

That glass roof is definitely coming down.

I suspect Jack is not going to survive. From a narrative point of view, he has been Parson's mentor/best friend on Erfworld, and the mentor figure has to die for the protagonist to reach his full potential. I hope not, I like him, but it seems inevitable.

Wanda will survive because somebody will figure out that croaking the pliers-bearer could have consequences too awful to contemplate.

Time for the Jetstone family reunion...

[Fug]

I wonder if there might be a safer way to fall.

In the summer updates Parson tried to ride a yellow dragon, which eventually crashed because it couldn't carry a heavy unit, leaving both Parson and the dwagon (slightly bruised) on the ground. Could they pile enough riders on dwagons such that they are overloaded and fall? Would this trigger a slow descent similar to loading it with a heavy unit?

Also now the stack Trem was leading don't have him stacked with them making them more vulnerable to attach. The yellows might not have been able to hurt the warlord that much but could probably melt some archers or injure a caster.

[HAND_OF_VECNA]

Trem mentioned that spacerock has no tunnels. Does this make them extra vulnerable to subterrainian attack?

[Lamech]

I'm assuming that the glass isn't actually all that fragile. It probably has strength based on other factors, just like the walls have strength based on unit numbers. Still a few dwagon corspes crashing at full speed...

Regardless if Trem is thinking things like heavies, and stabbers are non-esential then he is forgetting about that whole decryption thing. Even if she can't decrypt across zones she will almost fall and there is a chance she survives to decrypt some dwagons. I truly doubt the archers, will last long against dwagons, warlords and knights that can fight back.

In the summer updates Parson tried to ride a yellow dragon, which eventually crashed because it couldn't carry a heavy unit, leaving both Parson and the dwagon (slightly bruised) on the ground. Could they pile enough riders on dwagons such that they are overloaded and fall? Would this trigger a slow descent similar to loading it with a heavy unit?

Maybe... Remeber though that Parson isn't really a Erfworld unit; maybe he is a semi-heavy unit or something. I also note (IIRC) from that incident that the dwagon seemed fully capable of moving with Parson when not flying...

[cdrcjsn]

In the summer updates Parson tried to ride a yellow dragon, which eventually crashed because it couldn't carry a heavy unit,

I thought it crashed because Parson, as a garrison unit, had zero move?