Darkness Rising

[The Colonel]

If he passes by anybody, Bill asks "Hey, how's Junetta?"

If not, Bill and Rona gets up to shenanigans. Psst, T. Coil, check your bed before you sleep. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Walking away from a shenanigan
"Everyone's grossed out by corpses, even me and I'm a croakamancer"

[WaterMonkey314]

Triage... continues to hide from the Archons, though of course they notice the wards and what not appearing on various units. In his free time, Triage tries dabbling in Applied Thinkamancy by talking with Junetta and trying to understand if her psychological profile is any different after turning. In particular, how have her views on the Uncroaked and Healomancy as a discipline shifted?

[0beron]

In his free time, Triage....talking with Junetta.

Triage discovers that Vinny is already conversing with Junetta, and he eagerly invites Triage to join them, visibly pleased that one of the higher-level casters "native" to the side is taking an interest in him...if VERY indirectly and unintentionally. "Triage, how good to see you! Enjoying the game of Archon cat-and-mouse? Junetta and I have discovered that staying put but out of the way works quite well while the Warlords keep them occupied, please do join in. We've been discussing magic theory, as well as places Junetta has been in her travels."

[ETheBoyce]

T. Coil stands perfectly still for a moment just looking at Brick's face, then with sudden motion he flings the potion at the bodyguard's face even as he turns to walk away. He speaks as he walks away from the pair.

"Ultimately that potion was useless to me anyway, any action I take not involved in killing my enemies is frankly a waste of my time."

T. Coil has several, to him, more important people to spend his time on. The Archons of course, but he would also love to gloat just a little bit about the other former Elves seeing the light, so to speak. At some point he will return to his quarters and find a corpse in his bed, he becomes annoyed mainly because of how amateur the attempt to shock him is; he will let the little prank go for now, he will have to show Bill a proper prank at a time when corpses aren't needed for an upcoming battle.

[MarbitChow]

Dis popping orders
Rihanna agrees to stay for a single additional turn for 1000 shmuckers, but informs you that her usual price is 1000 shmuckers for turning a unit, and 2500 per turn for increasing production. This gift to Coil was in return for favors rendered in the past, but she considers them even now.

Turn 6: 3 Naughty Kitties w/ 4 Zed Archers
Turn 7: 3 Naughty Kitties
Turn 8: 2 Heck Pups
Turn 9: 2 Heck Pups
All will reach Dis City on Turn 9.

Tod's and T. Coil's interrogation of Wandereus and Junetta
Breatheairia currently has a Master-level Hippiemancer named Philodendron ('Phil') Amaranthus, a low-level Thinkamancer named Areolawyn, a high-level Dollamancer named Elmoruxpin, a mid-level Healamancer named Kurelite Woonds, and low-level Shockamancer named Gandolfa Lundgren. Breatheairia had been blessed with 2 healamancers, which is one of the reasons Junetta was allowed to remain in the 'backwoods', warding the less-defended cities. Lundgren had been sent to the front in order to gain experience, so she may be considerably higher level by now. Phil is their Chief Caster.

Wandereus can fill in some details about the Breatheairian Chief Warlord. She's a high-level Heavy Archer named Romanaveratnalunda, a fierce leader and dancer and one of the most beautiful creatures in the kingdom. She rides an winged Fryahovar into battle, one of the unique creatures that Breathearia can pop. The wings indicate that the Fryahovar is at least 5th level - the beasts don't pop with flight, but gain it with sufficient experience. Breatheairia actually has two distinct city types, since they chose not to convert several of the Farkistan cities, whose units were similarly align. Former Farkistan cities can pop Gumps, Gumptions, and the dreaded Gump Roast, a fiery death-dealer. Breatheairian cities can pop Faeries, Fryahovar (four-hooved creatures with a sharp horn) and Fae Done-aways, dwagon-like creatures with a number of unique abilities. Wandereus has never seen most of these creatures, so he cannot provide accurate stats.

Wandereus and Junetta are fairly familiar with the city layout between here and Breatheairia, and although they're not sure of exact distances (something about the turnamancy process has left some of their memories hazy), they can still recall the general layout and paths between the cities.


Numbers indicate the shortest-path distance between the two points. If lines do not connect two points, there is no practical path that leads directly between them.

Vinny's conversation with Junetta
The Magic Kingdom is the region where casters whose sides have fallen end up, if they survive their side's passing. As such, they sustain themselves by selling their services to different sides. They forbid casters whose sides are still standing from selling their goods or services to other sides in order to maintain their monopoly. (Thinkamancers and Predictamancers are often stationed within Portal Park to detect those who enter with such intentions.)
Basic scrolls start at 1000 shmuckers each, and get significantly more expensive the more powerful the scroll is. Basic potions are also in demand, and are priced similarly. Very wealthy sides usually buy up most of the magical resources almost as quickly as they can be made.

Tod's request that Vinny examine the magic items
As far as he can tell, nobody made the magic items. They don't show any signs of distinctive craftsmanship that casters put into their items as their signature. These appear to be generic items that spontaneously popped into existence.

Charlie's Archons
The Archons behave as perfect guests while in Dis City. They're up in the airspace practicing flying in formation when the Balrug arrives, but make no effort to leave the city when it departs again the next day, so while they notice Junetta and Wandereus, you manage to keep them away from Triage and Vinny for the duration of their stay. Their body language is always precise and flirtatious, and they drop no hints about about their own home or Charlie's affairs.

Buffy does comment, however, on the lack of heraldry amongst the units. The style that the Tenebrisian units portray still seems very mercenary to her; they don't seem to have a distinctive flair that differentiates the sides. She notes that the elves are also somewhat unimaginative in this regard, but Jetstone, for example, has some lovely uniforms. She suggests that your ruler give it some thought, and mentions in passing that Charlie can provide Image Consulting Services if you'd like for a very reasonable price...

Spot Check Clarifications
First, when does a character's spot check happen? (At the beginning of each rould, when it is time for the character to act, immediately after the spell is cast, whenever there is a possible interaction between a veiled unit and a character who can spot check, etc?)
Characters get a single, secret spot check once for each spell, made when the Foolamancy'd unit is first seen. If they witness the spell being cast and the unit change, they may automatically make their spot check, depending on the spell. Changing a unit's appearance while it can be seen, for example, won't fool anyone, but units can vanish from sight and cannot be targetted unless spotted again..

Next, do spot checks consume any actions of the character making them or are they 'free'?
Spot checks are free and hidden. You'll only know if you make one successfully; you're assumed to be alert at all times.

Thirdly, do leadership bonuses on the foolamancer factor into the checks?
No. Only the Foolamancer's own stats do.

Lastly, once a single character makes a successful spot check, can other characters attack units the spotter can see? (In essence, can we make like Old McBushybrows?)
Once a unit makes a successful spot check, they can automatically convey their knowledge to all those on their side.

Role-playing XP for the current session
The next RP session begins after the completion of the next combat scenario.

Yuri : 4 RP XP
Tod : 3 RP XP
Rolf : 3 RP XP
Vinny : 2 RP XP
Coil : 2 RP XP
Bill : 2 RP XP
Brick : 2 RP XP
Triage : 2 RP XP

Please finalize Dis City popping orders for Turn 6 & 7.
Note that, if you choose to sacrifice one of the uncroaked, you can choose what units to pop for Turns 8 & 9 after you see the army stats. Also, let me know if there are any outstanding or additional questions you'd like answered before the start of the next scenario.

[Swodaems]

low-level Shockamancer named Gandolf Lundgren.Lundgren had been sent to the front in order to gain experience, so he may be considerably higher level by now.

Didn't they say before that the shockamancer was a woman?

They forbid casters whose sides are still standing from selling their goods or services to other sides in order to maintain their monopoly.

Could we get permission to sell things if we were willing to part with a percentage of our profits? (I'm thinking along the lines of getting a legitimate license to do business, not bribing someone.)

She suggests that your ruler give it some thought, and mentions in passing that Charlie can provide Image Consulting Services if you'd like for a very reasonable price...

I ask her what other services Charlie is willing to offer us and the prices for those services.

Please finalize Dis City popping orders for Turn 6 & 7.
Note that, if you choose to sacrifice one of the uncroaked, you can choose what units to pop for Turns 8 & 9 after you see the army stats. Also, let me know if there are any outstanding or additional questions you'd like answered before the start of the next scenario.

(MarbitChow, I was looking at the unit list in the campaign reference and noticed that there were only 6 zed archers listed instead of 8. (We popped 2 a turn on turns 3,4,&5 and received 2 on the Balrug along with the royal guards.) We also seem to only have 3 brickbat swarms. (All three we had before, survived the battle of sunshine dale and 1 more came with the Balrug.)(When the Balrug arrived.))

Okay, excluding brickbats, uncroaked, and the balrug, we currently have 35 regular units in Dis city. The PCs are another 10 units and Wandereus and Junetta bring the count up to 47. Currently, 6 of those 47 (Tod, Yuri, Wandereus, and the 3 level 2 dancing leaders) are leadership. (Bill may not need Leadership if he is stacked with his uncroaked.) We are adding 14 units from Tenebris and popping either 8 or 10 garrison units depending on if the elves attack on turn 9 or 10. That brings total unit count up to 59 or 61. I'm thinking that Dis' production has a few options: Creating 4 garrison leadership units + 4 or 6 other units so everything can get a direct leadership bonus, Creating a garrison stack of some useful unit type to field and ignoring the fact that some units won't have their own leader, (We could create 8 flyers, 8 dancing archers, 8 dancing spearmen or 8 dancing warriors.)

MarbitChow has said Wandereus will be able to take dancefighting, and archers will be able to hit most of the field, so I think the best option we have for turn 6,7,8,&9 is to pop a single lvl 1 garrison leader and 7 garrison dancing archers for Wandereus to lead. For turns 6&7, this means we'll pop a leader and 3 dancing archers (beefy for the spare AP) before we can send an uncroaked to get more accurate stats on the enemy and finalize production orders for 8 &9. Anyone see any problems with this idea?

[BLANDCorporatio]

Tod's and T. Coil's interrogation of Wandereus and Junetta

bla bla bla bla bla

the Breatheairian Chief Warlord. She's a high-level Heavy Archer named Romanaveratnalunda, a fierce leader and dancer and one of the most beautiful creatures in the kingdom. She rides an winged Fryahovar into battle, one of the unique creatures that Breathearia can pop.

Wait wait wait, what? This is getting interesting. Will is looking forward to crossing long range parabolic paths with Romanaveratnalunda and get a few arrows in her heart. Literal, or preferably, metaphoric arrows.

Buffy does comment, however, on the lack of heraldry amongst the units. The style that the Tenebrisian units portray still seems very mercenary to her; they don't seem to have a distinctive flair that differentiates the sides. She notes that the elves are also somewhat unimaginative in this regard, but Jetstone, for example, has some lovely uniforms. She suggests that your ruler give it some thought, and mentions in passing that Charlie can provide Image Consulting Services if you'd like for a very reasonable price...

Will would have some ideas in that regard, no need to pay Buffy. First, the new, turned units may do with bicep-bracelets that connect with chains with forearm bracelets. Also, all units should wear more spikes, with various combos of red and black, and also chains. Skull helmet, skull shoulder-guards, skull codpieces, also chains linking shoulder to chest. Inverted cross tattoos everywhere, Hermetic runes floating in the air for no reason in blood red, and creepy HAL-like ruby pendants. Did I mention, chains.

(Images are work-safe, surprisingly)

Spoiler: show

[0beron]

They forbid casters whose sides are still standing from selling their goods or services to other sides in order to maintain their monopoly.

Could we get permission to sell things if we were willing to part with a percentage of our profits? (I'm thinking along the lines of getting a legitimate license to do business, not bribing someone.)

Give it up Swod, he's determined not to let us generate income from MK activites.

[Lord of Monies]

True, but Charlie comes to mind now. He's a big name in the magic kingdom because, yes, he is a good customer but as we've seen he's a customer that's also willing to offer his own resources in conjunction with casters. Read: Jillian's turnamancer. Admittedly, it's easy for Charlie to do something like that by way of the arkendish, but maybe that's our way in. Not outright selling our products, but services to help other casters more readily complete any contracts they have. It would help us garner favour with other casters for future scenarios just like the current favours we've used to help us with current scenarios. The more casters we can have in our debt or feel friendly towards us the more resources we'll have to call on when in a tight spot.

[0beron]

Yes Monies, that would be good logic...if Marbit were actually following the comic on this. He's clearly not, cus it's his game and he's made certain decisions about how it will work for a variety of reasons.

[Lord of Monies]

Yes, but let's take a look at Marbit's wording.

They forbid casters whose sides are still standing from selling their goods or services to other sides in order to maintain their monopoly.

That's not what we'de be doing. Another side, let's say Jetstone as an example, commissions something or other from a caster in the magic kingdom. Can't think of a specific example of what, but that doesn't matter. They go to a caster in the magic kingdom. We'd be using a caster of ours to help that caster if at all possible in fulfilling the commission. We wouldn't be directly helping another side which is what Marbit's wording is in relation to. Instead, we've effectively made a middle man out of Jetstone's choice of caster without Jetstone ever knowing. As a result, we could mayhaps request of the caster a share of the earnings or no money but an i o u instead. Work like this might be rare to come across as we'd need to be in the fortunate situation where we know a caster in the magic kingdom who's helping another side and for us to be in a position where we can help them, but it's not against Marbit's wording and doesn't even have anything to do with the forbidding motions anyhow. It boils down completely to how the caster in question feels about accepting our aid in the matter.

If we have casters with down time and juice, it is by far in our best interest to send them into the magic kingdom to develop contacts and friendships.

[MarbitChow]

Didn't they say before that the shockamancer was a woman?

Er, yes. Yes they did. I may have misspoke in the previous post. That's been addressed. Ms. Lundgren thanks you for your attention to detail.

Could we get permission to sell things if we were willing to part with a percentage of our profits? (I'm thinking along the lines of getting a legitimate license to do business, not bribing someone.)

If you want to deal in the MK, you can do so in Rands. They don't convert back to shmuckers, but you could use them to do things like get Turnamancy services later without spending shmuckers for it. The MK is a monopoly, and you cannot use their resources to find sides to hire you. If you come across sides in the area that are not hostile, you may certainly attempt to bargain with them directly.

I ask her what other services Charlie is willing to offer us and the prices for those services.

You name it, Charlie will attempt to make it real, for a price. The most common is, of course, mercenary hiring, and that and Thinkagrams are really the only services with set prices. Everything else is negotiable. Charlie also has extensive contacts in the Magic Kingdom and can get you the best bargains for all your side's magical needs.

(MarbitChow, I was looking at the unit list in the campaign reference...

Campaign reference has been updated. It does not yet list the incoming units, or the units that will be popped at Dis, but should otherwise be accurate now. I'll be adding a section for the campaign NPCs this weekend as well, so Junetta and Wandereus will also be updated and listed.

True, but Charlie comes to mind now. He's a big name in the magic kingdom because, yes, he is a good customer but as we've seen he's a customer that's also willing to offer his own resources in conjunction with casters. Read: Jillian's turnamancer. Admittedly, it's easy for Charlie to do something like that by way of the arkendish, but maybe that's our way in. Not outright selling our products, but services to help other casters more readily complete any contracts they have. It would help us garner favour with other casters for future scenarios just like the current favours we've used to help us with current scenarios. The more casters we can have in our debt or feel friendly towards us the more resources we'll have to call on when in a tight spot.

Note that Charlie hires from the MK. He hired Vanna - and offered her to Jillian. Charlie doesn't make money in the MK - he spends it.

Yes Monies, that would be good logic...if Marbit were actually following the comic on this. He's clearly not, cus it's his game and he's made certain decisions about how it will work for a variety of reasons.

I believe I am following the comic on this. The MK in the comic is a SOURCE of magic, created by casters that have lost their side. Sides purchase FROM the MK : scrolls, services, training, etc. Sides do not SELL to the MK. I've made an explicit decision about scrolls for an in-game balance reason, but even then, I'm following the spirit of the comic in that. You never see Wanda, or Sizemore, or Maggie MAKE scrolls. You see them obtain them from the MK, or some nebulous other source.

You can offer your services in the MK, and if you do so, you'll get Rands, same as any other caster. Rands don't convert back to smuckers, but you can use them to barter for other services. You can also offer your units out as mercenaries to other sides - Jillian is proof of that. But gaining shmuckers is hard, and the best way to do so is to capture more cities. And note that most of the services you can provide are not really in high demand in the Magic Kingdom itself, since they're offensive in nature and the MK is neutral.

[MarbitChow]

If we have casters with down time and juice, it is by far in our best interest to send them into the magic kingdom to develop contacts and friendships.

You will (probably) not profit in shmuckers from this course of action, but this is good advice.

[MarbitChow]

For turns 6&7, this means we'll pop a leader and 3 dancing archers (beefy for the spare AP) before we can send an uncroaked to get more accurate stats on the enemy and finalize production orders for 8 &9. Anyone see any problems with this idea?

Just highlighting this in case others missed it. Your Chief Warlord has proposed a course of action and asked for your feedback. If there are no objections, I'll advance 2 turns by end-of-day tomorrow based on this and post the Breatheairian army's stats so you can make final preparations.

[WaterMonkey314]

Dis popping orders
Wandereus can fill in some details about the Breatheairian Chief Warlord. She's a high-level Heavy Archer named Romanaveratnalunda, a fierce leader and dancer and one of the most beautiful creatures in the kingdom. She rides an winged Fryahovar into battle, one of the unique creatures that Breathearia can pop. The wings indicate that the Fryahovar is at least 5th level - the beasts don't pop with flight, but gain it with sufficient experience. Breatheairia actually has two distinct city types, since they chose not to convert several of the Farkistan cities, whose units were similarly align. Former Farkistan cities can pop Gumps, Gumptions, and the dreaded Gump Roast, a fiery death-dealer. Breatheairian cities can pop Faeries, Fryahovar (four-hooved creatures with a sharp horn) and Fae Done-aways, dwagon-like creatures with a number of unique abilities. Wandereus has never seen most of these creatures, so he cannot provide accurate stats.

From this, and the Thinkagram image of a Warlord on an unwinged Fryahovar, I take it that Romana is not leading the attack on us?

OOC: Can she self heal?

[ETheBoyce]

Do Wanderus, Junetta, or myself for that matter know the levels of any of those cities? Thinking ahead we will want to take another city soon after we beat down the Elf counterattack, I'm thinking going after Scarlet Hills first would be best since we could then take the mine for extra income, on the other hand Logan's Run is closer.

Also I'm going to suggest most strongly that we let an Uncroaked bite the bullet and let us know the enemy stats, preferably on of the decaying ones <_<.

The MOAR ARCHER plan is one I agree with and have been advocating!

[Swodaems]

Do Wanderus, Junetta, or myself for that matter know the levels of any of those cities? Thinking ahead we will want to take another city soon after we beat down the Elf counterattack, I'm thinking going after Scarlet Hills first would be best since we could then take the mine for extra income, on the other hand Logan's Run is closer.

I think taking Logan's Run next is the way to go. We'll be able to get a buffer up between our capital and any elven cities. Of course, if we find that one of the 3 cities is rather undefended, then we may what to choose that one. (MarbitChow, there are 3 paths the elves could use to attack Dis city. Do we know which one is being used?)

If possible, we may want to consider not razing the next city we take in order to increase the number of unit types we can pop.

[The Colonel]

I can send an uncroaked to see the stats.

TAKE THE RUN, It will become a buffer between the Capital and the Elves/

[ETheBoyce]

Another thought, perhaps we should change Triage's or Vinny's Raiment so as to get people to think they aren't Tenebresian before we send them into MK?

[The Colonel]

How did Triage's conversation with Junetta go?