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Dawn of Magic
Time: Afternoon, Odin 25, 1002 Imperial Reckoning.
Place: Hippolyte's palace, Tenosia.
Last Event: Planning war strategy against the Starfish-Men.
With solid plans made, the heroes hurry to put them into action. Relying on Hippolyte's oracular prediction of a three-week period in which to act before Starfish-Man spies become an issue, everyone agrees to a three-week schedule. With that in place, things move swiftly. Over the period from Odin 25, 1002 IR to Dva 6, 1003 IR – which encompasses Vozro, the New Year festival – each group member takes care of the matters to which his skills are best suited, while Hippolyte heads out to treat with Black Adolph.
Rufus
Rufus passes carefully filtered information through the least reliable and most corruptible parts of his extensive spy network – people who will almost certainly leak the details, even sell them. The portals from underground Tenosia convert what was formerly a difficult task that took months-long journeys by riders and runners into a matter of days. Still, it takes painstaking, hands-on manipulation and a lot of 18-hour days.
Rufus propagates the following "facts":
- Tenosia is being evacuated. This is true! The idea is to make sure that when the Starfish-Man spies finally learn the truth about the city, they immediately suspect that something big is happening there.
- Troops are being rallied worldwide for some major action. This, too, isn't a lie. Again, the goal is to pique interest.
- The world's leaders are meeting in one locale. Also a truth aimed at further fueling enemy curiosity – and at whetting the appetite of the Starfish-Man sorcerers, who would like nothing better than to sacrifice said leaders to their dark gods.
- All of this is preparatory to combating Black Adolph. A complete lie! Hopefully, this will ensure that Adolph's troops can strike from surprise.
Mushamee
Mushamee organizes the troops filing through the portals – forces pledged to him and his allies by world leaders – and drafts an order of battle. This requires a mixture of diplomacy, strong leadership, and strategic thinking – all things at which the general is adept. The final grand army consists of:
- Empire (7 legions)
- Border Legion of Maghlar.
- Julianov's Legion of Tenosia (over-strength).
- Mushamee's 1st Legion of Roma (exceptionally well-drilled).
- Nicolai's Praetorian Guard of Roma (elite).
- Occidental Fleet Marines of Toshtanag (mainly archers).
- Oriental Fleet Marines of Roma (mainly archers; ragtag).
- Potnag's Legion of Shag (ragtag).
- Indistan (3 legion-equivalents)
- Shahim's combined army of feudal levies (mixed horse and heavy foot), led by local lords.
- Kali (2 legion-equivalents)
- Asok's knights (mainly horse), led by local princes.
- Kotan (3 legion-equivalents)
- Hathig's royal army (mixed horse-archers and spearmen).
- North (1 legion-equivalent)
- Tribes of ogres and trolls, organized into something resembling a legion.
- Tenosia (1 legion-equivalent)
- Hippolyte's Amazons (elite and clad in orichalcum).
- Supernaturals (5 legion-equivalents)
- Demons who pledged to destroy the Starfish-Men out of vengeance (unknown, but equivalent to 2 legions).*
- Kerim Khan's air elementals (mainly air forces).
- Recnam's undead (unknown).
- Spirit Anaconda's strange jungle entities (unknown).
* Mushamee reluctantly calls upon these forces, reasoning that against 80 enemy legions, and even with Black Adolph's horde being equivalent to 20 on their own, the world needs all the help it can get! The demons arrive in Tenosia complete with a reeking sulfurous pit.
Vinz
Vinz consults with Nicolai to learn about the energy sources that the Inquisitors used for their great acts of magic: creating the heroes, altering reality to accept their existence, opening pocket dimensions, and so on. His hope is to find a potent weapon that he can use not to blast the Starfish-Man legions – they'll no doubt be expecting that – but to destroy the enemy's Nybboth during the inevitable commando raid for that purpose. Nicolai tells Vinz that these sources are whorls in the continuum, revealed only by diligent and risky divinations, typically extended over a period of years.
Armed with information about what to look for, Vinz returns to Tenosia and applies his special gifts to the situation. A master of dream-magic, Vinz roams the Dream World, seeking traces of wild magical potential as yet untapped by wizards. As luck would have it, he finds such a thing on the final day of his dream-quest!
Vinz returns to Nicolai with his findings. Nicolai then gives Vinz a Word of Power that will unlock the thaumic energy. The Emperor warns Vinz that while the Word will almost certainly blast the Nybboth, it stands a good chance of destroying Vinz in the process. He also explains that until the Word is used, Vinz will be a veritable beacon of supernatural power, attracting the attention of all manner of weird entities – especially the enemy!
Leif
Leif's job is to procure the legendary Black Metal from which Su's artifacts are forged. Knowing that this can be found at the bottom of the Great Northern Sea, he steps through the portal for North and wanders the land seeking wild earth elementals to aid him in his quest. After seven days in the frozen wastes, he finds a lode of them. Impressing the world's dire situation upon them, the shaman negotiates a deal: If Leif can get the water elementals in the Sea to grant passage, the earth elementals will mine Black Metal ore for him.
Leif then heads to the coast and spends three more days calling to the wild water elementals. Eventually, a tide of them answer his call and listen to his plea. They, too, see that the world's fate rests on success in the Starfish-Man realm, and that this in turn demands extraordinary assets. They agree to help.
With the two groups of elementals cooperating to bring up great chunks of black rock from the frozen abyss, Leif soon has enough ore to fill several sleds. He uses his superhuman strength to haul these over the ice and back through the portal to Tenosia. By the end of the three-week period, he has presented Kaeso with around four tons of Black Metal ore.
Kaeso
Kaeso catches up on vital studies and artificing. The studies include learning four secrets:
- Day 1: Brewing of paut (from Nicolai's book).
- Day 2: Forging of orichalcum (from the Amazons).
- Day 3: Smelting of Black Metal from ore (through basic alchemical principles).
- Day 4: Forging of Black Metal (from his long study of the artifacts of Su).
The crafting consists of:
- Days 5-7: Forging orichalcum armor for Leif, Rufus, and Vinz, using the gold statue found in Kapital as raw materials.
- Days 8-10: Brewing 30 Elixirs of Resurrection and 20 Elixirs of Leadership for the war effort, using Hathig's gift of gems to accelerate the process.
- Day 11: Using the first of the Black Metal ore brought by Leif to forge Black Metal armor for himself.
- Days 12-18: Using the raw Black Metal ore as rock to repair his flying disc, and then to improve the disc's abilities to include a "stealthy" mode that renders it invisible. He also adds some mysterious gadgets!
While these studies and works would take any lesser alchemist weeks to years, Kaeso is no ordinary alchemist. His complete lack of need for sleep and enlightenment by the wisdom of the gods themselves allow him to brew even the most potent potions in hours, assimilate a hefty tome in an afternoon, and forge a suit of armor in a day. And having the world's best forge (the Forge of Su) and materials (buckets of gems, pounds of gold, and tons of Black Metal ore) certainly speeds things up.
no subject
My problem is that over half of the party will agree with any "wait, before that I need to..." argument. It makes it hard to say "A week goes by as you make security arrangements" if they'll say "A week? Nevermind, we don't do it!" I can't force the time to pass without GM fiat, and they really get annoyed by that.
I've never actually had a group so terrified by the passage of time. For campaign reasons I can't give them a Hippolyte, and for whatever reason even GM reassurance doesn't sway them...it's a weird problem, to me. I just don't get it...if I say something about it I get an exchange much like this:
GM: "If you spend a week making the situation secure, it will have lots of benefits and no downside of any consequence whatsoever."
PCs: "No, our other mission is too time-critical."
GM: "No, it's not, a week here or there won't affect it at all. In fact, it's the dead of winter, if you delay now, your trip will take less time and you'll get more done in less time overall."
PCs: "We can't take any chances on a delay!"
...and off they go. It's strange. They're the kind of PCs who arrive in town after a two month slogging fightfest through the jungle and by lunchtime want to be back to maximizing their minute-by-minute effectiveness. I just don't get it, but somehow I figure my GMing style must be feeding it.
It's an interesting distinction between our groups. Yours are fighting a time-dependent interdimensional war but are willing to spend time as a commodity for results. My are fighting a non-time-dependent world war (or about to, anyway), but aren't willing to spend time unless they can utterly maximize the benefits. If I didn't enforce lack-of-sleep rules they'd never stop moving. :D
no subject
A way to prevent that is to enforce quasi-realistic penalties for acting without pause or preparation: FP lost in such a way that it can't heal without rest (e.g., missed sleep), gear rusting or rotting due to missed maintenance, skill penalties for half-assed planning (à la GURPS Action), etc. If the carrot doesn't work – which I think is a fair reading of what you wrote – then it's stick time. Most players will do a re-think after a battle that opens with the enemy getting free shots because the PCs had -5 for bad planning in some Quick Contest to spot an ambush; starts the PCs down a point of Move for feet blistered by hiking and out several FP from eating crummy rations; and ends with a fine sword smashed because it downgraded due to rust, or armor busted by an enemy critical hit thanks to rotting straps.
I speak from experience, by the way.
My are fighting a non-time-dependent world war (or about to, anyway), but aren't willing to spend time unless they can utterly maximize the benefits.
Heh, did you tell them up front that undue haste when seeing to counterintelligence, rear-area security, and the order of battle will give -N per rush job to the Strategy rolls that will determine who wins the war? I made that pretty clear in my own campaign. War campaigns have special needs, as the ultimate outcome hinges on a few rolls. If you make that clear, then I find that most players will do whatever it takes to eke out the extra +1. In this case, it's often smart to assign a long base time for relevant tasks and then enforce the penalties for haste (p. B346) like an utter bastard.
no subject
I am trying to be blatant about rewarding people who take their time and don't obsesses about getting 16 hours of work done every game day. :)