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Is the voting still open? If so, I'm going to vote for Elves because I'm actually one of those people that genuinely like them in most games. Although it seems like Monsters are winning by a lot and that's just fine because rats are awesome. I'm interested in seeing how the game has come along regarding patches and stuff because I remember reading pretty bad things about it around its launch so I didn't buy it.
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Jun 23, 2013 12:19
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Chapter 1: Landing on Goblin Rock Reassembling oneself was not the first trick that King Litch V has learned, but it was very useful. After all, the undead don't have many fans, especially the nigh immortal litches. And so it came to pass that Litch King died again and was reborn – well, reassembled from small pieces of skeleton – once again. Now his name would be Litch King V and that meant correcting the names on all of his belongings. A bit of a hard task to do when all of your subjects are undead. Mindless skeletons that are animated through one's will and magic make for poor artisans. Come to think of it, they also make crappy guards – that's why Fiver had died so many times already. This just would not do! But what people would willingly bend under the will of an undead monstrosity? You can't just conquer them – that would just mean replacing your incompetent dead guards with people who actually want you dead. How to win their hearts and minds? The humans are out of the question. They only respected nobility and King Litch wasn't a blue blood when he had actual blood. Even if he did take the throne by force, the nobles would tear each other apart using accusations of incest, long gone claims for lend, protectorships of defensive fortifications located in regions of extreme cold and so forth. It would be even harder with the all-male Arethi Elves, who had their heads busy with some Truth that they kept mentioning, but never really explained to anyone. Female elves were even worse, living in small villages until someone pressed them into service as archers or opened a gambling hall. Dwarves were content to smith and drink their days away in their howels, the little monsters. Wait. Monsters. Now there was an idea worth investigating. Most of the monster populations, unified into one social group after the King gave them citizenship, are made up of Goblins, an aggressively stupid, rapidly breeding folk. Kill their chief, bump a few of his followers on the noggin and now he's King Litch V of the Monsters. Eventually, with his lands growing larger and prosperous other, not as useless monster species would come. Yes, that was a perfect plan! Now, to just fly out and find a goblin tribe! ...or not. It appears that dying isn't beneficial to spell retention. At best, he could fart out an unimpressive shadow bolt. This would kill a few peasants, but he needed more than that. Conceding defeat, King Litch searched the remains of his library for books on kingly matters. After grabbing a few tomes, he gathered some scattered coins, wrapped himself tight in whatever scraps of black cloth he could find (necropolises rarely featured cloth in other color) and marched out towards a human village he vaguely remembered from his past life. Unfortunately, during the royal unholy reassembly, the village had grown into a bustling human port. That what life without constant undead raids does to an economy, after all! On the other hand, the city had it's own monster ghetto. This would become a perfect starting point... later on. For the time, King Litch V rented a room at a dingy inn (he claimed to be a poet, that's why nobody bothered him about the pale expression or diminished physique). Most of his time was spent in his room, reading through the books, only sneaking out at night to investigate or to shadowbolt a few people to get gold for the rent. Eventually he won over such ponderous tones like “The Early Campaigns of the King”, “Violence as A Last Resort: Resorting To Enough of It” or “Barbarian Ways of Looting, Raping and Pillaging, Recorded By Hybiscus Squarefoot Who Lived, Ate And Traveled With Them”, all of which helped him to become a master tactician, useful skill when commanding the cowardly lot that is the Goblin race. He also delved into treatises about magic, such a “Tapping that Lay Line” and “Turning Immaterial into Palpable Power, by F. F. Shinra the Seventh”, to fuel his mana reserves once he relearns a few specials. One day, feeling ready, Fiver paid off his bills (at such an early stage, it didn't pay to have enforcers go after you) and strode into the ghetto. A rousing speech – tactically peppered with words simple enough for Goblins to understand – and a few well placed shadowbolts, he had a band of goblins ready to follow him wherever he wanted to go. To that end, a boat was commandeered (nothing would go afterwards, since cleaning a ship after Goblins had been there just wasn't worth it), a sail was raised a course set northwards. Hopefully, those harsh margins of Ardania would be free from bigger settlements or ancient spider being civilizations.  After an uneventful and quite comfortable journey (for the King, at least – being dead, he didn't feel cold, damp or sea sickness), their ship crashed into the marshy shores of a northern tundra. By the time King Litch pried himself from the mud, the goblins had already established a city on the frozen slopes of the nearby mountains. On his way there, he was met by two warbands: one was made up of Ratmen Robbers who, after the ship crashed, were woefully underemployed and Goblin Archer, the support class of every goblin army, made possible a peculiar mix of cowardice (to go the frontline) and intelligence (enough to use a bow). With a wave of his bony hand, King Litch V sent them to explore the surrounding tundra.  All things considered, Pestyhall – gotta change that name in the future, the litch mused – was located in a fairly forgiving piece of arctic tundra. Sure, the place wasn't exactly ideal for food production, but at least there were spots of magical energy nearby – and those had a variety of exciting, potentially deadly uses!  Meanwhile, the Archers, bravely freezing their way eastward, spotted a humble human settlement of Golddale. It was a small farming community, eking out a living in a land not exactly suitable for such activities. No matter – King Litch would extend his helping hand by eventually conquering it. He just needed more forces.  To that end, a Pub and a surrounding high crime entertainment area was constructed further into the mountains. A few simple gambling halls, some stills of mushroom beer, a brothel or two filled with goblin women (or green colored pigs) was all it took. The dangerous terrain would take care of the least intellectually inclined, thus, in the dreams of the Litch, pawing way to goblin race that would one day be able to read, maybe write and not drown in the rain. A secretly state run affair (subtleties of running a pub were a bit hard for the Goblins to grasp), it would keep the goblins well fed and drunk. At the same time, this was an opportunity to grab some of the greenskins who showed aptitude in bar fights and press them into the royal service as Goblin Spearmen. Thus reinforced, the forces of the Great Wizard King Litch V consisted of such units:  "Biographers who consider the career of Marshall Nolak the Strong often point out that his famous ante-mortem declaration about spear-armed goblins not posing any threat is in fact often misquoted. It was later discovered that he meant to say "Goblins armed with spears do not pose any threat to such stout-hearted warriors as yourselves. Onwards, my boys!" To our great distress, the good Marshall never finished his thought, because he was interrupted midway through the sentence when a goblin pierced him with his own spear." From "The Overall Description of Everything" by Master Alfus Bumblegate. Goblin Spearmen were the mainstay and the best cannon fodder of the monster armies. Born in number and to a population that didn't grasp such things as “war weariness”, they presented a perfect shield for better Monster units. At least they were fast, which, to King Litch, meant moving them to their inevitable deaths that much quicker.  "Most well-informed minds believe that these archers are nothing to be feared -- for who has ever heard of an accurate goblin? And just because well-informed minds are few and far between, that doesn't mean they're wrong!" From the collected works of His Majesty's Advisor. A Goblin is given a bow and some arrows. If he doesn't choke on said arrows, he's made a Goblin Archer. To such a cruel and cowardly lot as Goblins, the bow is the ultimate weapon: it allows them to hit enemies without any fear of reprisal.  "These land-locked ratmen are true sea wolves. That is to say, well, yes many of them have never even seen the sea in their lives, but the free-wheeling spirit of a sea wolf lives in the hearts of each of these rogues." From the collected works of His Majesty's Advisor. While he rarely felt the need to wear them himself, Fiver generally respected Ratmen for their pant wearing ways. Arguably the smartest troops in any budding Monster warband, they were the beady eyes and shaggy ears of military. Unfortunately, they suffered from the beastly curse of being extra susceptible to arrows, a fact that brought endless grief to Ratmen mothers and widows.  It was Squeeks the Shanker who first spotted the trouble over the horizon. Elves. And not just some elves of the female persuasion: Arethi elves. This meant that northern lands weren't that free for the taking. Not willing to risk open fighting so early on, King Litch sent ratmen envoys to deliver a proposition of piece to the elven king, the high wizard Amberon the Dark,  Being a wise and powerful ruler – and maybe just a tad afraid of giant talking rats sent by a litch – Amberon accepted the proposal for peace! This meant, that from now on, a land grab in the north would be peaceful affair, fought by recklessly risking the lives of the settlers that were to grab the beast pieces of land instead of sending troops to enforce one's claims by force.  One of the goblin advisers – selection through a rigorous process that included asking a participant to stick his hand into fire and then selecting those who asked “why?” - said that he had collected funds from concerned goblin families and craftsmen which they were willing to send to the treasury if Fiver saw to the destruction of a band of wolves.  “You see, lord, nobody wants to wake to the screams of “wolves ate my baby!”.  "In Ardania, wolves are as ubiquitous as trees. One major difference being that trees don't eat heroes." From the collected works of His Majesty's Adviser And true, Wolves were a common nuisance in Ardania. On the other hand, they weren't a particularly strong nuisance and were usually overshadowed by other, stronger beasts – a fact that only reinforced the notion that only the criminally insane traveled the Ardanian wilderness.  It was metal against teeth, claw against paw when the wolves attacked the scouting Ratmen. Quickly, the savage beasts fell to the organized, well armed, pant wearing military might of the Robbers and the coffers were filled with money that would undoubtedly be used in meaningful ways later on.  Unfortunately, Goblins were still a part of the budding nation under the command of King Litch V. Through his Glass Ball of Limited Viewing, he was tracking a band of archers who were exploring land to the east of Golddale. The good news were that there weren't that many lands past Golddale – which meant less enemies and the freedom to concentrate the green, smelly forces in the west, driving towards whatever mysterious lands the Elves had yet to conquer (how they multiplied without having any women was anybody's guess; a guess best left unspoken). The bad news were that it was a mountain range archipelago that terminated in an ogre's hut at the tip.  "These monsters are famous for their size, strength, drowsiness -- and for their unfortunate habit of dragging fair maidens around by hair." From the collected works of His Majesty's Advisor Sure, the place was perfect for the brute. The mountains were the preferred terrain of his kind, so he always had an advantage when fighting would be invaders. There were enough goats to eat while the scenic location meant that any kidnapped maidens would be less willing to cry and shriek all the time. While ogres didn't really know why they kidnapped maidens, they liked doing that, and, once the Slighshtofenholm syndrome kicked in, the females would be of great help around the house. And while monsters didn't have any maidens worth kidnapping, a ogre was still an unpleasant neighbor, who nearly drat wiped out the scouting archers when he ambushed them in the middle of the night! Surely this had to be dealt with sooner or later – a cozy hut like that was likely to attract more ogres.  But that was to be in the future. Humans of Golddale proved to be mute and deaf to negotiation (well, King Litch V was sure of it, so he didn't even try), which meant that Golddale had to be taken the old fashioned way: over the corpses of man and goblin. As such, both of the Goblin Spearmen regiments were tasked with taking it without possibly being wiped out to a goblin... JcDent fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Apr 26, 2014 |
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Jun 28, 2013 15:20
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You keep calling him King Litch. It's spelled Lich, dammit.
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Jun 28, 2013 16:28
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You don't really need to screenshot the units' descriptions and then transcribe them immediately below. That said, I'm enjoying this so far. A bit more strategy-talk would be nice, though you weren't kidding when you said this game was kinda simple and there might not be much to talk about yet.
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Jun 28, 2013 17:07
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Nuramor posted:You keep calling him King Litch. It's spelled Lich, dammit. That's his name, see. He's King Litch the Lich. Full name Litchard.
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Jun 28, 2013 17:32
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I don't mind that you transcribe the unit descriptions. Small typo, it is called peace and not piece. Looks quite good, this neutral neighbor town is like barbarians in Civ 4, so not a part of a bigger empire? Can you convert them to monsters when you conquer them? And what about spells, useless at this point of the game? I would love to learn a bit more about your city and city management but since this is a story LP I imagine that explaining about game mechanics would be difficult. Perhaps a small mechanics upgrade so we can better understand what happens? Does each new building "consume" one city hex?
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Jun 28, 2013 22:20
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I'm fine with the transcribed unit descriptions, particularly because the resized screenshots make text a bit hard to read. This is looking good so far, though.
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Jun 28, 2013 22:28
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Litch King V the lich is going to be renamed in a an update or two. We'll chalk it up to goblin scribes being almost illiterate. As for the gameplay mechanics... I really loathe to explain them in game, since they're pretty simple and would break the narrative flow. Also? The game is dead simple. REALLY. Most buildings only have one effect - say, increase in gold production rate - and they're that easy. Also, resource production buildings don't cost upkeep. City management is also easy, since it's devoid of such things as happiness and other such nonsense that stymies expansion in CivV or Endless Space. Just have positive food balance and you're set. You can only build buildings when cities advance in level. Terrain sometimes impacts the upkeep/production of the buildings built on them (like you can see in any window that has Icy Plains). In any case, I try to weave the building role in the narrative, so you can guess the basic function of it (the Pub gives you food, but costs gold to maintain). I won't do that for every building, just the new ones (unless I have something special planned narrative sense). Unit battle is like in CivV, down to level up upgrades and terrain influence. You can't rename them, there isn't even a mod for it, which is a shame. I think that about covers it.
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Jul 3, 2013 14:30
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Having played Warlock myself JcDent is pretty much right; once I'd worked out the basic game mechanics it really is extremely simple. Fun though. Also Undead are OP as gently caress in the early game since they're effectively immune to city bombardment thanks to skeletons and thus can easily claim neutral cities with only like three guys.
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Jul 3, 2013 16:06
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Chapter 1.5: A Growing Backwater Empire. A shorter update this time, since this and chapter 1 initially were planned to be a single one, but my writing got out of hand and I was afraid it would be too lengthy. Yet it had such a well placed dramatic ending that I loathed to lengthen it Sieges! Now that's a thing that Undead did quite well. For the obvious reasons, the shambling armies didn't need that many supplies to keep operational – this meant they could stay outside a castle till it crumbled from old age. Also, skeletons didn't have much in the way of the flesh that could be pierced by arrows, the weapon of choice in all besieged cities. This made small villages especially vulnerable, since that usually meant that their first, main and last line of defense was useless. And only a bit annoying to the undead - those rib cages full of arrows made the most horrible of racket!  Alas, King Litch V now found himself in a situation where he had to make use of live troops. Sure, goblins were more expendable than skeletons – at least skeletons were loved when they were still living – but this didn't make it any easier. Then again, this was a but a small human settlement, so two companies of goblins would be enough. Sure, both of them were highly untrained and the second one was raised after a particularly dense goblin fletcher affixed arrowheads on top of broom handles, but what was one to do? The severely flattened company of archers would later on provide support, but they're of little use since even turf huts provided good cover for the defenders and allowed them to show all sorts of obscene hand gestures through their pig bladder windows.  With the assault on Golddale laid out in simple terms (“attack it until the town is taken or you all die) and left to goblin commanders, the King had to take care of some other things. Climbing into his royal palanquin (as a litch, he would never tire and could float, but he somewhat enjoyed causing misery to goblins), he ordered the greenskins to take him to the eastern edge of the city, where a new project was almost complete. The stunty smelly oafs complied and trundled down the uneven streets laid with all sorts of waste. Only the cold of the north held the horrible stench at bay – combining it with the vapors of the nearby swamps would cause sensory overload even to a litch. With scenes of abject poverty that passed for comfortable goblin living passing by, the small group climbed on top of the hill that housed the city's market – a wonderful place that sold hooves, tails, bones, smelly mold and moss and other essentials of goblin daily life. Ratmen stood out here and there, visibly nervous: there was difficulty in explaining what “protection money” is to such a dull crowd. Eventually the clatter and the clamor of the would be marketplace was past them and the small procession descended from a hill towards the massive construction at it's foot. A sort of shoddily made massive copper plate was placed, at an incline, on a huge stand and held in a wooded frame. Magical sparkles danced around the dish and smelly goblins milled around the base. A few mud hut surrounded the whole strange building. Of course, King Litch knew what it was. Regular mages fired thunderbolts and pantaloons ripping wind relying on their own reserves of mana, the strange, unknowable substance that enabled magic. Fiver, on the other hand, was no ordinary mage. His shadow bolts needed to kill more people and his magical winds had to knock down more that a straw roof of a peasant's hut. Thus, they needed a lot more mana for their spells. That's where mana traps came, used to collect ambient mana and store it in silver lined barrels for use later on, or, in case of accident, to rapidly mutate a goblin into a mass of mysterious appendages and gibbering mouths. You don't become a Great Mage just because you can collect a lot of mana; you become by being skilled enough to use those huge amounts of mana without becoming a human candle. Usually, mages have a few of them, but with the new settlement and his powers still at relevant infancy, the King only had one. Still, it had to suffice for some time. In the mean time, the day had to be won over the corpses of goblins. After the inspecting the mana trap and happy with both the collection rate and goblin casualties being within the acceptable limits, the King turned to leave when he heard a dreadful sound...  "When goblins reappeared in Ardania once more, following a long absence, gnomes were also spotted amongst their number, and were seen building a quite different style of architecture than was formerly typical for goblins. Arguments immediately broke out across Ardania over what could be hace reconciled these long-warring races. Some argued that the gnomes must have been enslaved by their green-skinned enemies, while others suggested that gnomes quite simply did not care what, or for whom, they build." From the collected works of His Majesty's Advisor.  “Oy, you sorry lot, pull yer pants up, we're to see the royalty”loving gnomes. Gnomes were the actual life and blood behind the monster cities. While the goblins provided disposable low skill workers and even more disposable troops, the actual stuff happened because gnomes had something to do with them. Gnomes had a monopoly of mushroom farms. Gnomes commanded the brewing of beer. Gnomes made sure that goblins were armed with spears that would not crumble on first impact. Gnomes cleaned the gutters one in a year. Gnomes expanded consciousness. Trouble is, they were fat, drunk louts that only ever cared for living in a city, eating, drinking and producing as much offspring as gnomish childbearing hips could bear. And they could bear a lot. It was said that goblins met gnomes on their self imposed (i.e. they got lost) exile from Ardania. Now, gnomes were a disorganized bunch of small people in a world where even cockroaches grew to respectable sizes and knew rudimentary military strategy. That's why a lot of gnomes got eaten by all sorts of nasty creatures. But from the goblin tales they learned of magical places called “cities”, where a lot of gnomes could live in one place, grow food and procreate to their hearts content. If worst came to pass, they could be defended by city walls and even troops, such as goblins. That's why they traveled with the green doofuses and eventually accidentally returned to Ardania. And now they requested the attention of Litch King V. “Oye, boss, listen up!”, - said the fattest of the bunch, while holding his pants with one hand and scratching his chest hair with another. “Them turnips lads turned this place real sour”“Turnips what no...” “Yeah, the Westhill Turnips, those assholes! They refused to marry...like... eight of our daughters!”  “More like nine!” - added a very hairy woman while stroking her moustache.“And buggered Jibby while they were drunk!”“I still can't sit!”“And they shat in our smokestacks!” - said another gnome woman, reinforcing her point by giving birth on the spot. “And they stole my dirty pants!”“You know how hard it is when you can't sit?”“And they take all them building materials, our lads have to sleep in the mud!”“And they cut off...”This continued for a bit. Fiver sort of phased out – not literally, of course – and just waited for all the clatter to stop. Once he noted a lull in the clatter – one of the gnomes passed out drunk in the middle of a complaint – the litch gave out a ghastly sigh, rubbed his eyeholes and asked  “What do you want me to do?”“Well, mount an expedition, 'course!”“Yeah, give us wagons! And goblins! And gonkeys!”“And beer!”This proved to be acceptable solution, thus making this a self solving problem – also known as the best kind of problem in the circles of lazy mages and bureaucrats. Carts could be liberated by a royal decree delivered at spear tip, the goods for the journey would probably be collected from houses of the leaving clan (and those unfortunate enough to get in the way) while gonkeys, the sort of animal that resulted by leaving a lonely donkey and a lonelier goblin alone in stable, were never in short supply. And thus, in a week, a clattering mass of gnome and gonkey left for the west, where a nice place with easy access to pigs and magical sources had been noted by the ratmen scouts.  Eventually, the King was able to return to his magical tower, built as well as possibly can be built by goblins – and with regulation compliant floating top, too! Here, in his Crystal Ball of Limited Seeing, he was able to watch the ongoing siege of Golddale. A magnificent thing was happening. After a few forays and some losses, one of goblin companies came to a sudden realization that closing your eyes and wildly stabbing towards the presumed direction of the enemy was not the best course of action. In fact, it seemed that running towards the enemy and pushing him relentlessly was the way to go! Of course, this revelation only came after one of troops got his rear end engulfed in flames (sieges provide ample fires everywhere) and ran towards a well to douse himself. In his mad charge he didn't even notice how he scattered a band of peasant defenders, but the other goblins took note. They were so happy with this discovery that they decided not to share it with anyone else.  And thus, using these revolutionary new tactics backed with wave after wave of goblins, Golddale fells. Corpses of peasant militia lined the impromptu barricades on the edges of town. Others had been trampled into the mud of the streets. The last lay in huge pile in the city square. Eventually, one man was sent by the survivors to declare their surrender and beg for mercy. Luckily for them, among the goblins a werewolf was embedded. Lucius Rendclaw, esq. Had disgraced himself by showing unfitting amorous advances towards human females and thus was driven away from the high werewolf society. With little other options – a lone werewolf was prone to death by werewolf hunters or nymphomaniac forest maidens – he had gone to Litchopolis and pledged his service to King Litch V. Thus he had to supervise the Golddale siege and accept surrender, which he had most graciously done out of his perverse fondness for humans.  Meanwhile, on the other end of the explored world, the Ratmen came under attack from cockroaches... the most horrible foe of all! Well, they weren't that combat capable, but gigantic roaches were ugly as sin and many ratmen perished in disgust. One would thing that as a sever dwelling species they would be used to such things, but the messy appearance of the sever entrances was just a ruse to scare away tax collectors. The inside was actually clean, even if not that well lit and stinking of wet fur. After the short and squicky battle, the enraged ratmen, still furious about such a gross out scare, found the cockroach nest. With their men away (and now dead), only cockroach females, babies and eggs remained there. The perfect targets for a retribution run! In the end of the day, every full grown cockroach had been eviscerated, all the eggs – smashed and the babies roasted in pans, coated in honey and sold to a traveling merchant, thus earning a few gold pieces.  The news of valiant defeat of the cockroaches and the profitable retribution reached Litchopolis, where the goblin “merchants” had a new idea. “Now, see dere, boss, if we had port, we could make ships. We could put cockroach on ships. And sell. Make money! Buy mushroom beer and pretty goblin women!”“You do realize that we may not see cock...”“Naw, boss, we new you ran a hard barge-ing. So here, we collected some gold and mana barrels. Build port, make merchants happy, merchants give it to you”The material rewards seemed quite nice and maybe the goblins would smell less if some of them “accidentally” fell into the sea, so Litch King V agreed.  The King had more important matters to attend to, anyway. A deep study of the book “The Living and Their Strange Predisposition Towards Eating” revealed to him harvest spell. It, miraculously, improved the food production in any city. The crops would grow harder, faster, stronger and would be all but immune to various bugs and weeds. Pigs would bloat to incredible sizes, full of bacon and little piglets. Mushrooms would sprout everywhere. And thus, adding food to the simple goblin population equation, would meant a booming population, too. Of course, this meant using of that mana flow to keep up the effect, but faster growth of cities was worth it.  Meanwhile, the western colonization effort had just crossed mountains and wanted to settle near a natural source of pigs. But this was protested by the Commission for Drawing Magical Border Lines, so the goblins had to move back a little.  After reaching the shores of the sea again, the gnome grandpappy Preyton decided he wouldn't move another inch, so the expedition had nothing else to do, but build their city between too magic sources that, while not as appealing to gnome as pigs, were still of great use to their King, so what were they gonna do? Just build some turf huts, call the new city Preyton and get drunk.  Of course, the King didn't want the city to be named after some lazy old gnome fart, so he ordered the previous name to be stricken from the records and replaced by “Litchship Down”. “This brings a certain grace to the city and commemorates the beginning of our glorious nation” said Fiver and Lucius heartily agreed.  Later that evening, the litch was studying various tomes, scrolls, book, charts and other implements of definite magely importance when he felt the tower shake. Some bauble slid off the shelves and shattered, releasing fumes that were probably harmful to the living. A huge elf skin bound tome “Ardanian Tax System: A Primer” fell off a table and flattened a panicking rat. Crystals rattled and gave of sounds that could only be described as fitting for an age that was interested in space. The tremors had barely subsided when Lucius, panting and with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, burst in through the door.  “My lord!...” “How did you pass the floating section of the tower?” “My Lord, cataclysms have been happening all over Ardania...”
JcDent fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Apr 26, 2014 |
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Jul 6, 2013 05:14
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Early Harvest Blessing access on a monster start, that's pretty lucky.
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Jul 6, 2013 07:32
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Nice update. Did the human town change to monsters now that you've conquered it or did it remain human?
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Jul 7, 2013 23:32
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Towns never change in terms of race once founded.
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Jul 8, 2013 04:47
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Torrannor posted:Nice update. Did the human town change to monsters now that you've conquered it or did it remain human? It has the original race. But it gets like... 50? percent growth reduction because nobody wants to be under the yoke of the "other" guys. Why this happens to undead I don't know. Then again, how do skeleton settlers work and how do undead pops increase is still a mystery, too. Maybe they send out criers to other towns to shout "bring out your dead", then buy them and resurrect them like Dusties.  Also, excuse me but I'm excited about using that smiley for the first time.
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Jul 8, 2013 15:53
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Ovbiously the way undead reproduce is by having all the skeletons get together in a big crypt and bone 
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Jul 8, 2013 15:59
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Natural disasters. Is that from an Armageddon Clock like in Fall From Heaven or are they just a thing that happens?
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Jul 16, 2013 17:49
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Natural disasters just happen at random since we're playing in Armageddon Mode. There isn't an Armageddon Clock per se, instead the world will be more or less screwed up depending on how well we manage to contain it. Assuming this LP isn't dead, you'll see what that means before too long.
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Jul 16, 2013 19:29
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Mzbundifund posted:Natural disasters just happen at random since we're playing in Armageddon Mode. There isn't an Armageddon Clock per se, instead the world will be more or less screwed up depending on how well we manage to contain it. Assuming this LP isn't dead, you'll see what that means before too long. LP isn't dead, only lengthy in writing and life keeps getting in the way. Academic life.
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Jul 18, 2013 13:07
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Chapter 2: Taming the wilds All was well in Litchopolis. The tower was still floating, favorable winds were blowing goblin stank away into the mountains where it was seriously damaging the goat population, slightly drunk gnomes were breeding and erecting new buildings to drink and breed in, greenskin troops were dying in some frozen, faraway ditch... King Litch V could just relax, study spell books and leave the state to Lucius and the assembled Council of The Slightly Intelligent Goblins And Not Morbidly Obese Gnomes (sometimes mockingly shortened to “Council of the Wise”).  But no, there were always interruptions. A goblin steward was shouting from the last step of the staircase of the non-floating part of the castle: a visitor who wishes to see his majesty! King Litch just sighed a ghastly sigh, closed “Musings on Goblin Vivisection” and floated down to his kingly hall where he would sit on his throne to listen to another complaint about goat marriage or something else as trivial. Instead, a human dirty disheveled human was unceremoniously dumped on his royal mixture straw and mud that existed instead of a carpet. “What is your name, living one, and why do seek the audience of Litch King V?” the king asked with a voice that sounded like it came from the beyond the grave, which was technically true.  “Excuse me, your highness, my name is Melchior Tanenbrook from the University of Ridgebrook. I come here to offer my services!” the guest answered while he brushed muddied straw off himself. “I see. But why did you leave the confines of your comfortable alma matter? Why didn't you stay to drink away your days and harass tavern wenches?” “Well, you see, m'lord, I and, uh, the other academia had sever disagreements about the appropriation of funds, use of quarters and controversial paper that states that there's no correlation between the ginger population and the appearance of imp portals. Those louts stated that this was a frivolous paper and that the only part that rang true was my statement that gypsies were definitely tied to demons. While, in my entire life!...” Melchior was now red and gyrating arms very fast, which made some of the goblin “honor” “guard” woozy and one of them fainted. “Stop your prattling, human! I don't know what use I could have for you. We have no universities here and no easily impressed noble ladies to swindle coin from”. “I could always be your majesty's scribe”. “But I already have one. Why would I need you?” “Well, for starters, I know that there's no 't' in “lich”...” All was well in Lichopolis. A goblin scribe shaped splat was being scraped away at the bottom of the tower...  And the heroic goblin forces of the Golddale campaign were sent East to get rid of the Ogre menace, before more of them are lured there by the wondrously placed shack. Citizens of Golddale lined the one street that the town had, happy to be rid of their heroes, prefering to take their chances with wild monsters. Alas, their celebration was incomplete since one company was left behind to wait for reinforcements and bury their dead in an anonymous roadside ditch.  Meanwhile, goblin archers were making their way through the frozen wasteland, their skin too thick to freeze, their nerves too dull to feel cold. Green leg after green leg trampled the snow underneath, leaving behind a road pockmarked by discarded goblin ration bags. Said rations were offal, goat joins and other food detritus, mixed with 50% of moss and wrapped in whatever filthy rag or rotten skin was nearby. Despite such horrible packing conditions, it neither rot, nor took maggots since it was disgusting. On the other hand, goblin religion revolved around the idea of eating the whole world. This suited King Lich V just fine since it saved foodstuff for other, more respectable troops, like ratmen or so. Unfortunately for the less valued troops, one of the forests along their path burst and an ogre surged forth, its skin marked with scars and healed-over arrows from their last meeting. And as quickly as that, most of the company was flatened by vigorous hits with a tree trunk, sending others fleeing back.  But running a kingdom responsibly can't be all fun all the time, and King Lich was forced to leave the Crystal Ball. Matters of the state required his attentions! First of all, Lucius had some concerns about the gnome population. His suggestion was simple, elegant and cheap: sent them off to build another city. He had already made the necessary preparations – ordered cart building and told some influential gnome women that the women of other clans have secretly been sending lard to court their husbands.  Then, a clearly uncomfortable elven envoy arrived and with a great dramatic sigh announced that Amberon the Dark is offering an alliance to the heathen monster kingdom. Since this meant some safety from their closest neighbor and a sweet spell that protects from arrows (a natural predator for some of the more monstrously inclined citizens of monster kingdoms), King Lich V signed it posthaste and sent the envoy on his way. Some of his retinue looked like they were about to pass out from the smell, which could have lead to diplomatic troubles, which was way more than the infant military could bear, even if they armed infants.  After the elves had made their hasty retreat towards more civilized land, a small and dirty trader, his ramshackle gonkey drawn wagon (which looked like an inverted hut since all manner of daily appliance hung from its sides) parked in the castle “yard”, scurried into the hall.  “M'lord” he said pressing his toothless mouth into a semblance of a smile “m'lord, I have wondrous wares for you to see! I have traveled far and wide, searched high and low, and thus I present the fruit of my labor to your highness!” “Oh for Krypta's sake... what is it that you're peddling, old man?”The trader rummaged in his potato sack coat and held out a gnarled wooden stick – which was magical, as indicated by its glowing end (it was either that or some oversized glow bugs were tied to it with very thin string”. “Behold! The Gnarled Staff! It belonged to a witch, oh yes, a powerful witch! Mean and old, but filled with folksy wisdom and profane magical power! Some say she could call lightning down from the sky! Others say that she could turn into a dragon and meddle in the affairs of mortals even while professing disdain towards them! Oh yes, a bitch of witch she was...” “Pray tell, if the witch was so powerful, how did you get the hold of her staff?”“Well, by plain fortune I rode her down with my wagon. She was exhausted from a fight with a hero sent by her daughter. Luckily enough, the staff remained intact, but the hero had already ransacked her hut, so this was the only thing that I got. But it's powerful and I am willing to sell it to you, m'lord!”This was a bit of a conundrum for the undead monarch. On one hand, he hadn't hired any heroes yet, so the staff was useless. On the other hand, you never know what mage would visit their far off lands or be resqued from some bear den. And the money just sat there in the treasury, not being used for anything good... “Alright, salesman, we'll take your trinket staff”. Plaguetail Ratterson had enough of this frozen north. First, they crashed on some tundra, then they built the city on some frozen rock – a suboptimal place to build severs, ratmen habitat of choice – and now he had to go even further west, to scout out a new place for the settlement. And there was nothing interesting here, except for the elven domain to the south, and that place was weird – even looking at the farms made his head hurt. And on the other side of the hill there were more frozen forests, running up to the Impassable Magic Barrier at The End of The World. There was nothing else to do but jot down the approximate contours of the surrounding area on a piece of parchement. And then he smelled it. Bears. The natural predator of colonists. Surely as he smelled it, the Lich King saw it in his crystal ball. “Bloody hell, another monster hunt...”   Meanwhile, on the front of the current monster hunt, thing were going quite smooth. Sure, goblins were getting squished on a regular basis, but the ogre was getting hurt, too. Sometimes it would step on a spear of a dead goblin, sometimes it would slip on a dead soldier and fall. Hell, once in a while a goblin would even manage to hurt it intentionally. For the survivors, this was paying off in spades. One of the goblin spearmen companies came up with the idea that presenting a unified line of spear tips towards the enemy would help to deter attacks and make them more costly to the enemy. This was proposed by Horts the Goblin, who noticed that pricking your finger on one thorn was less painfull than grabbing an entire branch of thorny bush (he was trying to find a place to poop when he noticed this). Sadly, he bled out and died after the presentation, but this only helped to reinforce the idea. Goblin Archers had advanced, too, by discovering actual aiming. By a stroke of luck, one of the archer's eyelids froze open, so he couldn't close his eyes before firing (a common goblin practice thought to bring good luck and hide them from the enemy retaliation). To his surprise, shots started landing where he wanted, so he taught the trick to his comrades. Eventually it was discovered that this could be done even without using snow to freeze one's eyelids. And the actually smart troops were learning lessons even without taking casualties in the process. Ratmen bandits were starting to feel comfortable in the wilds and eventually started coming up with ideas on how to use the surroundings to their advantage. This mostly involved using terrain features and foliage to bypass enemy attentions and especially to effectively escape after an attack. This also served to bolster their spirits, as it reminded them of darting in and out of sever pipers way back home, only this time logs they hid behind stank less.  Back on the eastern front, King Lich came up with a cunning maneuver – by using some of the goblins to draw the ogre's attention, he'd slip another company past the beast and use it to loot the creature's house. This plan set in motion, he returned to his books, where he finally cracked the secrets of a new spell, the humble lesser fireball. Sure, “Cooking with Extradimentional Beans” wasn't a book he expected to have much use from, but here he was, again able to shoot balls of searing hot magical gas.  His celebration (trying to shoot goblins in the streets below with smaller versions of fireballs) was momentarily interrupted by a gust of wind that brought vile smells and content oinking. The Ardanian wild domestic pig was a mystery to all who tried to study as something else than a haunch on a plate. It had no masking colors, wasn't exactly fierce and used to stay in one grazing spot no matter what. Any nearby settlers only needed to built pens around them and the pigs would provide a lot of food to feed the hungry bellies of the expansionists. One such pig 'deposit' had been discovered near Lichopolis and the King had ordered sties built in order to feed his growing armies. Pig hooves and tails were also a new, nutritious part of goblin provisions, which allowed to cut down the portion of the expensive mosses.  In the meatime the Goblins in the east managed to bypass the ogre and found his house unattended. After scaring away some redhead would-be princess (who insisted that the ogre was the only one who loved her), they went to do some proper looting and pillaging. Beds were chopped up, linens - eaten, books - burned, curtains - used to wipe goblin posteriors, goats – made love to... in the end, valuables collected from the Ogre's dwelling were deemed to be worth about 100 gold pieces. As for the dwelling, it was demolished and shat upon, which made this place no longer attractive to would be ogre colonists.  But this is overshadowed by even more important events. Through the back breaking, painful mutation, madness and death inducing labor of goblins who will never be remembered (because nobody wants to) barrel upon barrel of mana has been transported to the cellars undead the tower in Lichopolis. Finally, the magic reserves were large enough to cast one of bigger spells – Harvest Blessing. Sure, this would cost some mana to keep, but the resultant increase in food (and, consequently, population) growth more than made up for this. Beeswax candles were lit. Carved tablets with likenesses of lesbian nature spirits were anointed with scented oils. Pouches with dried flowers were placed around the room. Soft, effeminate words were spoken. And the air in Lichship Down crackled and turned green with virile energies of nature. Turmors and broken bones disappeared from goats. Mushrooms sprouted from the ubiquitous dung piles. Vines and other greenery, killed by various pollutants secreted by the green fold, sprang back to life. Beer turned into less-patriarchal cider. A single flower bloomed somewhere out of the reach of nincompoop citizens. Downian Goblins looked around, then up and, taking in all the green, thought in unison “Who farted?” Ratmen scouts, on the other hand, had some more important things on their hands. For example, maps and reports that showed that bears not only infested a treasure site (probably some poor caravan they ambushed and ate), but also had a bear den nearby, which meant more bears. Then again, King Lich remembered the disdain he felt for most of his subjects and colonists continued on without any knowledge about possible bear-related death.  The scouts, however, were important, thus they were sent south, away from bears and their rodent rending claws. There they found an independent monster settlement... which the elves were successfully besieging. Huts burned, field rot unattended, hostages hung from the trees, ritual sacrifices to the Elven One Truth lay in circles of unardany symbols drawn in blood. Basically, it was what they deserved for striking independent, so Ratment didn't really bother with it. They had lunch in a nearby burned farm, pointed out a cellar full of refugees to an eleven patrol and went on their merry way east.  And soon Gnomewall fell in blaze of fire and orgy of violence, the survivors damned to spend their days under the harsh whips of the elven overlords, who'd flog anyone deviating from the One Truth (for all had to follow it) but never explaining what it was exactly (for many were unworthy).  But while one city fell, another rose nearby – Dragonhall was established on the foothills of frozen mountains, nestled between a vein of iron and a vein of magic.  It also acquired the proper name of Lichholm, because, as the King said, “Dragonhall could jinx the town and attract dragons. I don't want to see any dragons anytime soon”.  These great news were made even greater since one of the goblin companies found the ogre passed out from blood loss. After they were sure it wasn't moving, they attacked it and after three hours of vigorous stomping, slashing, poking and gnawing, the beast died, the whole operation costing only ten goblin lives. The goblin forces were then ordered to head way east, to clear the bear menace or/and die trying.  Unfortunately, not everyone were as incompetent as goblins and Ratmen, in an attempt to scout more area faster, overextended themselves. Sure, they found a nice place for a city or two: the lands were somewhat fertile, another magic vein was there, ruins promised knowledge of bygone eras and a distraction for buxom female archaeologists, there was mooing of minotaurs to be heard and, just on the horizon, a faint glimmer of elven female city shimmered with gentle lough and sudden spikes of menstrual violence. Yet this placed ratmen too close to a den of monster eating spiders – who, due to their size, made away with camouflage and were horribly blue -, a holy site guarded by a fire elemental, an imp portal (already with imps) and a bear den.  Not long after a nightly assault by the spiders, with the rat survivors tending to the wounded or seeing if pieces of chitin made for good armor or just dinner plates, the Fire elemental roared over the forest. And in his fury over having to guard a holy site (fire elementals were agnostic at best, although most of them thought that there are no gods, only fire), he bellowed a great cry and sent forth a huge fireball. Ratmen were charred to the bone where they stood. Thus with nary a squeak and drenched in the stank of burning fur, ended the story of the first scouts of King Lich V's army... JcDent fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Apr 26, 2014 |
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Jul 18, 2013 15:54
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I don't think your screenshots are working. Edit: nevervmind the website that hosts them just must be down atm.
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Jul 18, 2013 16:55
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twig1919 posted:I don't think your screenshots are working. They're quite large images because they're pngs so they take awhile to load.
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Jul 18, 2013 16:58
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Great story about your new scribe and the Li(t)ch issue. I really like your writing style. So we are in the expanding phase, racing with the elves for good places to build cities. Do our races like different terrains? Are the icy plains better for us and the more green lands better for the elves, or are they worth the same to us? And a last question, is it possible to display resource bubbles like in the Civilization games?
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Jul 19, 2013 11:22
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Torrannor posted:Great story about your new scribe and the Li(t)ch issue. I really like your writing style. So we are in the expanding phase, racing with the elves for good places to build cities. Do our races like different terrains? Are the icy plains better for us and the more green lands better for the elves, or are they worth the same to us? Your questions imply that Warlock is a complex game. It is not. Terrain might give bonuses or maluses to resource production (those frozen wastes are -20% food, +20% gold because... reasons), but that's about it. I'm guessing these are the resource bubbles you asked about, right? There are special magical terrain, but well talk about it when we come to it!
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Jul 20, 2013 05:10
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No, I meant this: You can see the cows on the left side either by looking at the hex and seeing the three cows happily grazing, or you can take a look at the resource bubble showing the head of a cow (same principle with the copper in the upper left and the cotton in the upper right). I can see pigs two hexes left of Lichship Down and suspect there are more unique resources, so I wonder if Warlock has resource bubbles as well.
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Jul 20, 2013 07:32
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It's not really Majesty without monster lairs. Good to see so many of those.
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Jul 22, 2013 03:38
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Torrannor posted:No, I meant this: Ah, those things! No, it doesn't. And the thread isn't dead, it's just that life is getting in the way.
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Aug 6, 2013 13:40
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Chapter 3: The Invasion And thus, with great clamor and belching and crying and braying of gonkeys, the settlers left for a faraway place they could settle and thus be away from the attentions of King Lich V, who had more important things to do in any case.  For example, he had now mastered a great new spell that did tangible (well, more tangible that charred corpses) changes to the world: Zygfryed the Fryed's Natural Terrain Altitude Enchantment or, as it was known among mages who liked to have friends, „Raise the Land“. It's most interesting property was that when used on the sea, a fresh field of grass would rise from beneath the waves, devoid of now dying fish, stinking weeds or underwater lizard lesbian colonies. This was one of the unexplained mysteries of magic, but everybody was fine with using it anyway. The only people who ever pretended to be interested in this effect were some poor university academicians who needed to show that they're indeed working and worthy of patronage.  And to top it, great news came from Lichship Down. In the local hills, a great project was completed. A dome was constructed over a wast magic node. Inside the building there was a great deal of brass tubing and various arcane machinery (all made from gnome beer stills) that were used to capture and store mana in barrels, that were again handled by the expendable goblins. The smokestacks were there to spread the magical run-off into the environment, where they killed flying snakes, the annoying cliff racers and elf women protesting magical run-off.  Even Melchior Tanenbrook demanded some attention! „My Lord, if you would so kindly look out of this window, could you tell me what do you see?“„Some muddy huts“ said Lich and, after doing the undead equivalent of squinting, added „And goblin copulating with a gonkey“ „Well, that's true, but look above it! Look to the north east!“And then Lich King V saw. At the edge of city, surrounded by the ever present goblin slum, rose a white dome, sort of like an upscaled iglu that one northern tribe used before dragons ate them all. It looked sturdier and great deal cleaner than anything else between the Tower and the new building. „Well, scribe, what is that thing?“„That, your highness, is our alchemy laboratory! I took the liberty of inviting some of the other... disenfranchised colleagues and there we will do out magical research. We only ask a pittance for the upkeep“.„I see. But I'm no fat wife of a fat merchant, I actually know magic. So if any of you tries to present some nonsense as genuine magical research...“ „Oh, My Lord, rest assured, nothing of the sort will happen! All of the disreputable folk who were interested in joining fled at the mere mention of a ruler that knows magic!“But as all sorts of “science” and “arts” people were moving their meager possessions into the alchemist laboratory, a beasts nostrils flared far away. It bared it's canine teeth, for it was a smell it hadn't smelt in some time: academia.  And then, as if to prove his point about being ruler that is powerful enough a mage to detects shenanigans of people who use grant money to cover up their beer tab and debts to seedy monster brothels, King Lich cast the spell of fertility on the new city of Lichholm. The sky went green, life bloomed, etc. „What happen? Why sky green?“ „Eh, cousin tell me someone at Litchship fart“. „Hur, hur, farts...“ One later day, when King Lich V immersed into browsing an old, yet influential lich manuscript called „Victoria's Secrets“, he heard some commotion from down stairs. He immediately floated down to investigate and, in all probability, shadowbolt the offending party. What he didn't expect was ratman in royal clothing, wearing excessive amounts of jewelry and carrying a golden scepter. King Lich readied a minor shadowbolt: “Who are you? What is the meaning...” “Yo, king bro, I'm yo hommie rrat prince Snoop Jim-s, undigga! I came 'ere to maybe sell you mah services, kno-wut-am-sayin?” “What? Why...? “Well, I be genuine rrat royaly, real rat OP, but mah old man, he don't like ma style, so he send me away. Now I be a smart rratigga, so I think 'why not work wit da King Lich, he got all da bitches'”. “Melchior, what is he and what's this nonscence he's spewing” “Sire, I don't know what he's saying exactly, but I believe – oh Helia” the scribe fell onto his knees as seized by a fit, convulsed a little, grasped for air and shouted “I BELIEVE HE'S SPEAKING GHETTO”King Lich flashed his ghostlights in surprise “Geto? What's that? What happened to you?” “Ghetto, m'lord. I believe that word means a specific style of talk among the poor and disenfranchised rrat youth and some of the goblin. Might refer to their slums, too. Oh, and that was divine inspiration – that's how we come up with new words” “Didn't look that divine to me!” “Well, this was not a very important word that would oft be used by virtuous people. The effects are different with the word type – those naming new sexual experiences have it the best, I believe”. “Sometimes I'm very happy I'm dead. So, is it safe to shadowbolt the vermin now?” “Er, no, sire. You see, he's one of the rrat princes. There's usually quite a lot of them, so the excess ones are booted from the court to just travel around and hopefully die. Some might return and eventually become kings. In any case, you should probably hire him – he's a noble and, due to all the rat training, a good fighter! And as the legends tell us, all sorts of wayward princes are bound to become legends, and it would be good to have one of those on our beck and call!” “Alright, I'll hire him...but send him so far that I would never hear ghetto squeek again”.And thus Snoop Jim-s became the hero-errant of King Lich V, who would have preferred a wizard.  Or an archer, as the scruffy merchant appeared again and this time wanted to sell a suspicious looking bow he picked up from a corpse of an elf (only elves had truly suspicious bows – most other races carried bows that were suspicious in the “I suspect that it's just a walking stick with some string attached” kind of way). Since the king saw no use for it, the merchant was escorted away and given some offal in gratitude for his service.  Meanwhile, in the north-western expedition, goblins were bravely getting maimed by the bears. The archers, subject to torturous damage from both the elements and things like angry ogres, accumlated enough scar tissue and frost bitten skin that they actually became somewhat resistant to both death and natural damage. They would have celebrated, but their tongues had fallen off.  Their spearmen compatriots, on the other hand, got some more mauling. Well, not as much as the other goblin spearmen company, which got mauled pretty hard. But these goblins found out that while watching others get attacked by bears is not only fun; it's somewhat educational, too! If you look closely enough and maybe even do that “thinking” thing that kind deadguy keeps talking about, you might even come up with vague ideas how not to get ripped apart by furry death avatars.  Unbeknownst to them, King Lich V came up with a great new idea in the field of disposable soldier retention. A long time ago, this one mage was really allergic to all sorts of healing herbs, disliked leaches and found healing potions to be just short of vomit in taste. So he huffed and he puffed and he made the spell that would later on be known as the healing spell, the most basic spell to generals who wanted their troops healthy again or for fat mages who couldn't leave their towers.  But no sooner as his undead highness cough a goblin to thrown down the stairs (to test the effectiveness of the spell) when a messenger arrived bearing news of new construction in Lichship Down. King Lich felt some remorse about swearing to see any new structure that his subjects build, but that was what he had to do. After all, he had to make sure that it wasn't something potentially dangerous before it could be replicated in other cities. Of course, the thing that he saw was probably too stupid to be built somewhere else. “Cheese cave, guv'na”, - said a proud gnome with thubs under his suspenders while leading the king down a dimly lit cavern. “Cheese doesn't grow in caves” - stated King Lich flatly. “It sure does. Well, it doesn't usually, but this there a special, jinxed place! You just place a bite of cheese in the wall, water it with gonkey milk – and cheese grows!” “And you eat it yourselves? Not feed it to the livestock or goblins or something?” “Now why'd we do dat, sira? This is prime cheese, good for all an any gnome!” “But it's magical, unnatural cheese!” “I fail to see the point, sira.” “It's probably for the best that you don't”.Satisfied with such answer, the cheese foreman sliced a bit of the wheel that was growing from the wall. He broke it in two, eating one half and offering the other to King Lich: “Cave cheese, m'lord?” A trip wasn't a total waste of time, though. Lichholm was nearby, and the gnome settlers were temporarily staying at a field near it. The problem was obvious: there was an ogre in region, one that was continuously attacking the elves and was attacked by them in turn. Naturally, a fat gnome caravan full of fat gnome would have been a tempting target for the beast, if only for the food (gnomes were known for their tender meat). This problem had to be rectified, but the goblin companies were busy dying valiantly while fighting bears at the north. The only available asset was Snoop Jim-s and so an order was sent to him by a pigeon. The bird returning with the answer was mysteriously shadowbolted out of the sky and King Lich just had to rely on his faith that rrat prince would do his bidding.  And the royalty even got to watch the heal spell in action! Since he couldn't try on himself (undead and all) and the captured goblin escaped, King Lich decided to heal one of the goblin companies who suffered injury in their cowardly duty in the north. Visually, the spell was less interesting that harvest – it only produced some lighting effect that even charlatan mages would call “cheap”. The effect, however, was immediate: puss exploded from infected wounds and disappeared as smelly vapour, gashes in flesh closed with horrible slurping sounds, broken bones found their position and re-knit all while shaking their owners bodies in unnatural spasms. In short, a whole lot of goblins were made battleworthy almost instantaneously. This pleased King Lich and was only mildly horribly painful to the goblins.  “Take dis, fatso cracka foo'!” said Snoop Jim-s as he swung his scepter and bashed the battered ogre's head in. And as the mighty mountain of meat fell, Snoop Jim-s felt real proud of himself, and even composed a song that no minstrel would ever agree to sing. But the way was clear, and both the prince and the settlers were free to move to the new lands.  Back in the old, boring, nobody-is-trying-to-kill-us land, the human citizens finally managed to build a harbor, for which King Lich collected a bounty from the trade guild and kicked some of them about for having the insolence to think that the king can be bought. The harbor had everything you needed to keep a small fleet going. A huge warehouse housed enough apples to eradicate scurvy everywhere; brothel owners banded together to teach their whores how not to fall down when walking bow legged; pressgangs were preparing their truncheons for recruitment drives; royal inspectors where checking the inns for required seedyness and old sea dogs – for saltyness. Even a fund for widows of sea serpent attacks was put up. Now they only needed to build a ship. Eventually, when the king deems its fitting.  However, the king trusted humans enough not to check in on the new port (wasn't the case with goblins), so he was able to inspect the first (and most likely the only) Enchanter's Workshop to crop up in the kingdom. It was run by a gnome – a somewhat twisted of body, greenish of skin, wild of hair, singed and mad eyed gnome. He had a singular task (or wasn't willing to do anything else): to enchant troops' weapons with elemental magic. Research into this field (and gross incompetence) explained the damage that the gnome has sustained. However, he was as magical as you could ever pray – hoping wouldn't nearly be enough – to be and still stable enough to work. King Linch only needed to promise a steady flow of reagents, weapons to enhance and to pick up his tab at the local brothel. A fair trade, all in all.  The same couldn't be said about what came next. A goblin sharpshooter of unmatched skilled came to offer his services. Alas, the coffers were a bit empty at the time – and the king didn't want to admint that turning down the artifact bow was a worse decision that taking the magical staff – so he had to be turned down. The kingdom still had only one one hero – the ghetto speaking rrat prince that nobody wanted to be around.  The hero that the king DID hire has scouting the way south (also know as “the not-so-frozen direction”) since further west were the already scouted Rat Murder Forests. All the evidence as scouting report from the rrat rretinue foraging parties promised two things: a lot of areal fire (“dem bunch o' flying mofo snakes up in dem hills” said one sooty, smoking ratman) and an ogre.  "They say flying serpents are the reason why heroes who stray too far from their guilds often tend to dissappear." From the collected works of His Majesty's Advisor. Not willing to risk his neck fighting flying murdersnakes that breathed fire, Snoop Jim-s turned a little more south east, to maybe scout out the the western border of the elven kingdom (who, according to the reports he was getting, broke the alliance with his king) and maybe hit an ogre over the nogging. Ogres didn't fly, which made them a more favorable target.  Speaking about ogres... The northern expedition/random armed mob of goblins ran into more of the giant oafs. Before goblins could start having ogre flashbacks, a new battleplan was drawn up: most of green horde would heroically hold the ogres back by providing bodies to crush while one company would try and flank the brutes, in order to loot their dwelling, thus making sure that if the present ogres weren't slain, at least no new ones would move into the frozen forests.  And thus they did. Unfortunately, one of the blocking companies turned out to be the archers, also known for their excessive squishy-ness. Only time would tell if they survived the ordeal! Meanwhile, the misplaced spearmen were bee-lining for the ogres hut, eager to poop in pillows and steal cutlery.  But watching goblins die all day long might get tiresome, so King Lich decided to attend another building unveiling ceremony. The Lichholmians, having uncovered the iron vein they were actually sent to find, built a foundry and even found a gnome with enough upper body strength to actually work there. He used to a master plate maker, making the finest diner ware out of the finest lead availably, but now his talents would be employed making armor out of iron, for once giving the monster kingdom someone akin to a real smith and armor expert.  The first one to benefit from the gnome's craft was, of course, Snoop Jim-s, who immediately received a shipment of masterwork armor. This proved to be extremely fortuitous to him, since the armor protected from the blows of the ogre and even missiles, the natural bane of the beast folk. And even before engaging the ogre, the rrat prince had come up on a tent. A lot of halberds were lined outside and men in shining cuirasses were merrily drinking inside. Royal guards found themselves without a job when the last King disappeared, and now sold their services to whoever bought them. Their camp had to be taken into account when settling the next city.  On the topic of rats, squeeking envoys from King Rrat XLII arrived at Lichopolis and announced that, well, his domain was somewhere near by. Added to the proclamation was a short note saying that King Rrat has heard about King Lich hiring the services of Snoop Jim-s, and, as a prudent monarch, wouldn't hold it against him even if the son perished in line of duty.  “After all, it would probably be only his and his stupid manner of speech's fault”. No sooner had the rats left (with some magical cave cheese as free provisions provided by the King) did the cryer belch out “His Majesty's attentions are required by Avgustus Fon Wolfhenze and his court of fangs”. Now, this was a more noble procession – actual werewolves! They walked with pride and stature speaking of good education, great meals and royal upbringing. And even though they looked somewhat worn – not all fur was shining, one ear had marks of bad stitching and they had no servants to order about – but their importance looked palpable. King Lich V was intrigued, if only to speak to some new people who knew how to count and did it without picking their noses. Avgustus fon Wolfhenze presented himself as the leader of his clan; it was forced to leave it's former lands after the attentions of their king became too demeaning and lewd to bear.  “The poor sod – who's name I won't mention out of courtesy – totally lost it! He tried, tried to seduce our women and smaller runts! He pretended to howl at the moon and say how he felt like one of us! And then he stuffed a fox tail died grey into his trousers, so that he would appear more like us! Eventually, one lad spotted the king making a horrible mockery, a werewolf costume. This just could not do! We had to sneak out and we were on the road ever since. But luckily, we picked up on the scent of academia, the peculiar mixture of craziness and alcohol – and we wanted to see who brings civilization to these desolate wastes. Noble king, I, Avgustus fon Wolhenze, would like to pledge my allegiance and that of my clan, to you and your kingdom!”This was, indeed, great news. King Lich V read about werewolves being the nobility of monster cities, as well as formidable troops. And attracting any possesing these qualities to the frozen tundra was somewhat hard. Without a doubt, King Lich accepted their pledge, gave everyone titles that were made up on the spot (after all, there weren't that many goblins who could hold a court title; as a disastrous experiment with Master of the Hunt proved, titles don't give much prestige if their holders are utterly incapable of following up on them) and land was given between the castle and the pub. A goblin shanty had to be torn down, sure, but that was easy, since the northern climate made it easy to contain the fire. And thus, out of the ashes of goblin poor, rose a the Chateau of Loup-garou.  There were other good news, too – the distraction tactic work perfectly in the north, and the goblins managed to raid and totally destroy an ogres den. Among the wreckage they found a dusty old tome that detailed the Firestorm spell (created by Archmagus Yonah The Cinder) and some gold. The only challenge left was escaping alive.  Back in Lichopolis, the month of drunken revelry (hosted in celebration of the werewolves' arrival) had just begun when troubling news came from the coast. Over night, from seemingly nowhere, appeared a vile structure and started tainting the land. “Those fleshy heads growing out of the ground do look vile” agreed Lich while looking at the structure from atop a hill. “Is the land around it dangerous?” “Yes, my liege, we tried it a few times. See for yourself” said Lucius and threw a goblin scout down the hill, onto the repugnant mass of... wrong.At first, nothing happened. But then the skin of the goblin started to melt. This proved to be somewhat distracting to the poor creature – but not as much as the ground itself starting to consume its legs.  “Hmm, look dangerous indeed” agreed the king “But behold, I learned a new spell! It was made by a racist Grand Wizard to cleanse the land from people he didn't like, but he did mistakes while coming up with the incantation, so it only cleans the actual land. Behold!” Lightning crackled from the sky and pierced the foul ground. Mysterious cosmic lights poured from the sky, purifying everything in horrible bright flashes. Even the many husks of goblin scouts disappeared as the land was cleansed by horribly powers and restored to it's pristine, grassy state.  With vapors gone, Melchior was able to get a better look at the monsters that grouped around the fleshy, unholy hills on the horizon. “Hmm” he said while browsing “Monstrous Compendum: A Manual of Rare Mystical Beasts And Eldritch Horrors”. “Look here, m'lord, I think I know what that is”. The Lich King glanced at the page.  "We know very little about these creatures, as they have appeared in Ardania just recently. They were named "Dremers" for their resemblance to the race described in the ancient prophecy of Koatles. It is said there that at the end of times dremer-worldeates will come from the outworlds and that they will eat the sun of time, and... well, it will shine again but a bit differently. We do not know if these creatures are the said Dremers, or even do they have any kind of intelligence, but it is obvious that they are extremely aggressive strong and dangerous, and tend to attack everything on sight." (From "The Overall Description of Everything" by Master Alfus Bumblegate) “Dremer, you say? Well, this means only one thing...”
JcDent fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Apr 26, 2014 |
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Aug 8, 2013 10:14
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Oh nice. There are other players of monster races out there. Do they like you better, is diplomacy easier with them? I'm also looking forward to you giving these invaders an rear end-kicking with your rats and your rat prince.
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Aug 11, 2013 14:54
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Hahaha. So those Dremer are one of the little invasion things made to spice up the game right? Are they very dangerous?
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Aug 12, 2013 08:54
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Deceitful Penguin posted:Hahaha. So those Dremer are one of the little invasion things made to spice up the game right? Are they very dangerous? Extremely.
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Aug 12, 2013 08:55
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Deceitful Penguin posted:Hahaha. So those Dremer are one of the little invasion things made to spice up the game right? Are they very dangerous? Having played several games of this since the thread started, I can confirm that the Dremer are an absolute bitch.
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Aug 12, 2013 22:03
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Let's have a look exactly why. Here's our bog-standard freshly-spawned dremer warrior. This chucklehead has 55 hp, and deals 20 melee damage. Furthermore if you look at his resistance bars, he takes only 47% damage from the melee and missile attacks our troops inflict, 76% damage from death attacks like our Shadowbolt spell, and 62% damage from elemental attacks like fireball magic. So how hard is this guy going to be to kill?  Here's a goblin spearman. He has 22 hp, inflicts 10 melee damage, and suffers 71% damage from the dremer's melee attacks. Let's say we get the drop on the dremer and attack first. On his first hit our fresh goblin spearman is going to inflict about 5 damage on the Dremer, dropping him to 50 hp. The Dremer is also fresh, so he is going to deal about 15 damage to the goblin. Now our turn is over, and it's the Dremer's round. The dremer has 50/55 hp, or 91% of his health. Our goblin has 7/22, or 32% of his. But wait, he's sitting on corrupted land, which heals dremer by 4 hp per turn! So after throwing a completely uninjured goblin at it, the dremer will obliterate the goblin, taking a grand total of 1 hp of damage. In short, we will need to attack it 11 times with full-health goblin spearmen IN A SINGLE TURN in order to kill it. Every extra turn we take is another attack we need to throw at it. Oh, and it is going to level up a couple times in the fracas, potentially boosting its resistances or damage even further. This one guy is a match for our entire standing army, Prince Rat Hero included. But what if we used archers instead?  Oh. Our archers are going to deal 3 hp of damage to the dremer, and die in a single hit. A mere 19 arrow volleys are required to kill it. Oh, and the Dremer is also sitting on another little surprise I won't spoil for you. tl:dr - we need those werewolves yesterday.
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Aug 12, 2013 23:19
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The apocalypse is REALLY apocalyptic. Also, I grabbed this and the DLC because of the thread. It's pretty neat.
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Aug 13, 2013 00:05
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I think I have finally discovered a reliable way to stand up against the Dremer. Research the spell 'Transfer Capitol' and hide in a pocket dimension 
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Aug 13, 2013 05:16
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quote:Hahaha. So those Dremer are one of the little invasion things made to spice up the game right? Are they very dangerous? No-or rather, not quite. 'Little Invasion thingys' are things like mass treasure chests showing up, or lots of monsters. The Dremer are the entire point of the Armageddon DLC, along with Terraforming. The two are related. The Dremer are powerful enough that a special diplomatic modifier exists once they show up to try to keep everyone else mostly on-side or neutral so you can fight the Dremer without worrying too much about anyone else. NEVER let the Dremer kill another faction. quote:tl:dr - we need those werewolves yesterday. Werewolves, Clerics, Vampires. Any source of Spirit or Death damage you can get. Ghosts are actually perfect for the moment, since they're outright immune to Melee and Ranged. Emphasis on 'for the moment', because that doesn't last. Bloodly fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Aug 13, 2013 |
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Aug 13, 2013 06:49
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That's some armageddon! Is there a countdown to when they can first appear or could you be unlucky enough to start right next to them?
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Aug 14, 2013 19:42
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Minimum of 20 turns in, supposedly. But WHERE they show up is fairly random and they'll keep showing up randomly. You could 'luck out' and have them nowhere near you. 'Luck out' is in quotes for a reason.
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Aug 14, 2013 20:02
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Bloodly posted:'Luck out' is in quotes for a reason.
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Aug 15, 2013 00:44
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Where exactly they show up is random, but they always appear near/within somebody's borders, and usually multiple spawns across the world at once, so it's extremely unlikely you'll get away without meeting them for long.
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Aug 15, 2013 00:49
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Dremers are absolute motherfuckers, far stronger than anything else you're likely to encounter at this early stage of the game. Aggressive, hostile and capable of ruining the poo poo of any dozen early-game units you throw at them. Also they heal on their own terrain and are backed-up by fortified positions that shoot elemental damage. They show up near you: you're hosed. Game ruining spoilers: But like everything else their AI sucks. Unless they spawn right next to one of your cities you've nothing to worry about. And unless they show up next to your capitol you still can't lose. This game really, REALLY needed better AI.
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Aug 15, 2013 03:03
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