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Happy to see this updating once again. Really hope the next ruler is a Muslim, those guys could use some help.
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Feb 27, 2017 04:41
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| # ? May 14, 2024 17:36 |
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Game Update 35 - The Peasant Wars It is dawn on the island. The dead sleep in their tents. Only two are awake - Joakim and Paulius. Joakim is setting up logs as targets. Paulius sharpens one spear after the next.  : Six hundred years ago my people held spears just like these. : War does not change, brother. There is nothing but spears and shields and horse.He gives the last target a few kicks, making sure it holds. : And faith!: Ha! Sure, brother. Spears and horse and faith.Joakim looks his makeshift course over. Dozens of targets line the beach, some alone, others in tight formations. It is not much, but it will do. : Caravan! Awaken! Awaken and train!... Four hours later, the dead are exhausted. Joakim calls for a break and orders a field kitchen set up. : You will eat together with the brothers and sisters in your unit. You will speak together, and you will sleep together. From today on, you will have no friends but the brother to your right and the sister to your left. Now, eat!The tired dead attack their bowls much better than they attack their targets. Joakim sits down with Paulius. : Brother, I need more leaders. You've travelled with these people for so long. Did none of them soldier in life?: Many did. But we are the damned, brother. We are traitors and thieves and murderers. Every night, our camp grows smaller. Your leaders flee to haunt the woods.: And yet, you are not worried.: I grew tired of worrying long ago, brother. I worried in life, and for centuries, I worried in death. But it did not cleanse me before the Lord, and it will not end my wandering sooner. It is far too late for us to worry.: I can't say I share your outlook.: Nor do I expect you to. I would much rather you share the story of your rebellion.Joakim sighs. : Well, Skjalg died during the Nidaros campaign. Harald the Bastard ruled his Danmark now. : Our army left at the perfect time. The rest of Harald's army was trapped in the mountains in Nidaros. He had a choice: deal with the Khazars, or deal with us. : We were still an army back then, with orders and marching. : We were not prepared for Harald to make friends oversees. : The Albionish were the kind of friends to bring their trouble to your home. But they married very well. : We laid siege to Tonsberg and captured travelling Vestlander men. They told us stories of the rest of the Christian world. : We were lucky. A few months into the siege, great news came. : Harald died as his father did, alone and afraid in the mountains. : He had no sons, so the noblemen voted for the next Queen.  : Gyrid spent her youth in Khazar lands, travelling with one clan or another. She picked up her heresy there. : The council of heretics did not like her heresy, and sent her kin to set her straight.: I do not know what they had to argue about, they both thought their god wore Jesus as a cloak. They all burn in hellfire now. : She took the Vestlander oaths, and ruled the land as her kin did, with murder and betrayal. : She found the weaker men in our army easy prey. Traitors within our ranks set our tents on fire, sending her men a signal. We were putting out the flames when the knights hit us. : You ran?: Everyone ran, brother. These knights were not men, not really. They were demons wrapped in steel, brought fourth by vile Vestlander prayers, cleaving soldiers in half. Who could watch all their friends die like that and still fight?  : I lost my trackers in the woods. It took me a week to get to our old hiding places. By then, the knights rode to Kola, for some pissant count's claim on the frozen north. : I heard the frozen north fought back. : There only a few dozen of us left by then. Most ran for their homes, or were cut down by the Vestlanders. Some snuck into their armies, instead. They knew the trade, and there was always a war. : Others found a holier war to fight in. : I lost faith in the cause that day, brother. The Vestlander dogs were unstoppable.  : Nobles all around Scandinavia bent their knee to their convert queen. : But not the people. Never the people. From the humblest peasant, to the richest borgermeister, they knew scum when they saw it. : But that was not enough. The nobles still held the weapons, and they still held the land. : It disgusted me. Hopless, the people followed their nobles into petty war after petty war.: I left my homeland, crossed the Baltic, and joined a monastery. I saw your bones in Stolpe, Paulius. You looked well for your age.: Thank you, brother. I try to stay healthy in this hereafter. : The strangest thing happened to me at Stolpe. I met a knight travelling further into Khazar lands, to protect those walking St. Olav's way. The man was Oddarvejar scum, but as gallant and pious a Catholic as any I've seen. : We spent many a night arguing about politics and faith, and in the end, I went east with him. We watched the crossroads, sheltered pilgrims, and fed the hungry as far away as the tent city of Masakava. Torgils was their shield, and I was their flame. : And for a while, I thought I had found my purpose. I was to be a lighthouse for the lone ships in the night. I would steer men's souls around the treacherous reefs of life. : But in Masakava, I heard grave news from home. A great army of peasants declared Vanaheimr a land with no kings, for kings could no longer protect them. Thousands of men took their scythes and made pikes of them.  : They held their own against the Upplander dukes, only to be mopped up by the Vestlander cavalry. : The Queen did not lie in wait while I pondered the Father's path for me. : She grew ever stronger. : She turned on those closest to her. : She needed to be stopped. And so I went home.Joakim finishes his bowl and looks around at his troops. : If we have no leaders with us already, then we'll just have to train a few ourselves.He stands up. : Brothers and sisters! Enjoy the meal that the Father has provided for you. You will need the strength for rest of the day.: Back to training in five minutes!... The desert sun is merciless. Ulfr walks through dune after dune, until at last he finds what he seeks. Thousands of pits fifteen feet deep spread before him. Pits too narrow to sit in, carved into the sands by slaves before the sun took the last of their strength. The Judgement Pits of Zaranj. A tired man leans on his staff, taking a short rest before moving on. His robes were gold and blue once, but the wind and the sun burned them until they no longer stood out from the sand. He wears a crown of rubies and kundan and silk, though the centuries have dulled the stones and tore the fabric. The man notices Ulfr and hisses.  : Another shade! The Darkness taunts me with visions yet again! : Not a vision.: A trick, nothing but a trick! No living man has come here in three hundred years! Begone, vision!: Said already. Not a vision. Looking for a king.The worn man laughs. : A king! There are no kings here, mirage.: There is an Emperor.: There was, once, so many years ago. But he was a terrible man. And the Justice Giver gave him a terrible sentence.Ulfr mumbles. : Shouldn't have killed Darwesh.: Darwesh and Alah-Verdi, and Tura, and Larkka, and Farid, and so many more. But I did anyway. And so what?! I built him a church! I made his voice heard from the Indus to Zaranj! I gave him generations of faithful!The worn man looks directly at the sun. : You hear me, you bastard! I made you! I found you weak and broken, burned by the crescent and the wheel! Without me, you would be nothing but a tale herders tell their children at night!The sun continues its journey across the sky, refusing to stop for a tired man yelling in a desert. : Could buy you favour. Kill his enemies.: What enemies, mirage? You see all this? No man can challenge the Justice Giver.: A god can.The tired man thinks on this. : And you have a plan to hurt this god?: Something like that. You want closure, Pujman? Follow me. Be the Sword of Zun again.Pujman hesitates for but a moment. : Very well, mirage. Let's go kill a god.He slams his staff into the sands, and chants. His voice booms across the valley, shaking the pits, swirling the sand around them. : Hear me, Judged Ones! You, who died because you were unworthy! You traitors, thieves and murderers!: I am Pujman, the Sword of Zun, the Thrice-Crowned, the First Saint! The Justice Giver Grants you his reprieve! Follow me, slay his enemies, and be freed from these sands! Arise!He taps his staff on the ground, and the sands shift. Thousands of cells open up, each pit wall shifting to the side until the men inside can crawl out. And so they do. Thousand upon thousand of men with no flesh dig into the sand with their hands until they claw out, an army of bones and fury and regret. Pujman turns to Ulfr, his crown glistening in the sun. : Where to, mirage?
Kayten fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Mar 16, 2017 |
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Mar 16, 2017 10:38
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When the living are gone, the dead shall dance upon their own graves. Or, y'know, something equally profound and/or poetic. Good to see this hasn't hit the hay yet!
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Mar 16, 2017 14:08
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I just want to say that this LP is totally marvelous and awesome. Looking forward for more.
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Mar 17, 2017 19:11
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Kayten posted:
The Blackest Night falls from the skies, the darkness grows as all light dies, We crave your hearts and your demise, By my Black Hand, the dead shall rise!
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Mar 17, 2017 20:38
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Technowolf posted:The Blackest Night falls from the skies, Casual reminder, these are our "good guys".
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Mar 18, 2017 05:49
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Game Update 36 - Interference It's the end of a long and exhausting day. The dead have finished their drills, polished their armour, and cooked their food. Fires dot the encampment that Joakim has set up. The dead eat. The unlucky few that drew the short straws patrol the camp perimeter. Joakim and Paulius walk from watch station to watch station, testing their troops' craft. : Hold the pike with both hands! Ten laps around the camp! Go!He turns to Paulius. : This is what I have to work with?: You go to war with the army you have, brother. They would suffer eternal pain for you. Be gentle with them.: We do not have time to be gentle. The great enemy is gathering his strength as we speak. He's to march to that accursed castle.: Your people are tired, brother. They have a long journey ahead of them tomorrow. Let them rest. Come, tell me more of your war with the enemy.: You are right, brother. You need to know the enemy as well as I do, should anything happen to me.They sit down near a campfire, and Joakim resumes his tale. : Instead of sailing back home, I joined a boating crew heading to Vanaheimr. I thought to stoke the fires of rebellion there first, to strike at the invading Vestlandet armies.: I went from village to village, preaching to the peasants. They were good Catholics, and they feared the western heretics. Many joined up with me, and left for the forest. : But I was not the only one hard at work. The heretic queen sat on her stolen throne, and judged the simple folk thrown before her. : She spent much time at court, arguing theology with anyone who would listen. : She took money from craftsmen, and strung up merchants. : But as always, the peasants suffered most. : Her cursed family court was unlike most of the Christian world. It stood still.: Even the Romans travelled with their followers from one crumbling castle to the next. : As she consolidated her strength, I rallied the peasants. The Vanir civil wars took their toll, and many of them fled to the forest with me, rather than be forced into another upstart king's army. : Of course, the Vestlandet dogs stood to gain the most from the civil wars. Smelling blood in the water, the queen pounced. : And the Father smote her for her insolence. : She died choking on her own blood.He crosses himself. : The Father's Justice. : Her heir was a distant nephew, whose father spent too much time with the horse-fuckers. It is him we hunt now. : His coronation took him by surprise. I heard he was being ridden by a horse when they told him he was the king of all Danmark. : He surrounded himself with horsefuckers, and listened to their twisted perversions of the scriptures. : He took well to the Vestlandet traditions, of course, and interfered in Vanir wars as Gurid did. : He would strike at the weak, time and time again. : He took a liking to the Vanir forests, and hunted a local demon, the Great White Bear. : He spent most of his time in the forests back then. His council warred for him. : And just like every Vestlandet dog before him, he treated his peasants like dirt. : Taxes were raised, and those who couldn't pay were drafted into his armies. : His horse-fucker cousins out east pretended they were people. : Many of them took the abandoned castles burned by their kin and named themselves kings. : In the far south, the children of the Demon Queen held egypt in their grasp. : On paper, the Sheban emperor was an elected nobleman. But in practice, her filthy line held most of the empire. : But still, they were Christians, and they were invaded by the sun-worshipping heathens. : I must admit, it was a strange time for a holy war. : The Radiant Padishahate, as they called themselves, fractured again and again.: The Radiant Padishah lost almost all control of the provinces. The seven greatest Shahs decided that they would elect the next one themselves.  : Einar did not care. He was hunting his bear. : We got lucky. One of our peasants found out where he was hunting, and we laid our trap. : An old woman played her part. She sold the idiot a poison, disguised as a hunting potion. : It took days to work through his veins, but he was in agony. : But the Father was not with us that day. An emissary from a horse-fucker kingdom recognized the symptoms, and brewed him an antidote. : He stayed in his palace, pretending to be a father to his children. : I heard that at night, he had mares brought to his bed, as is the Khazar custom. : After a few weeks, the bastard recovered. He was well enough to hunt again. : Something happened to him in that forest, though. He went inlooking for that cursed bear, but came out a different man.  : He joined his men on the field, and was the first one to charge in every battle in Vanaheimr. : Again and again he would throw himself into the fray, killing Vanir after Vanir. : His enemies brought the greatest force in all of Europe against him, but by then it was too late. : He had tasted war, and wanted more. : His council did not like this change. They got used to ruling in his stead, splitting taxes bled from peasants between them. : He fired some, executed others, and the rest fell in line. : He would war until his heart gave out. : So I took matters into my own hands. I went to his camp myself, under the guise of a preacher...... The camp of the Three Armies is a strange sight indeed. Row upon row of perfectly raised French tents clash against the patchwork of the Khazar ones. The Zunbil dead work day and night, erecting a stockade around the camp. The French knights and their squires eye the dead with suspicion as they attend to their uniforms. The horsemen drink airag, throwing bottles at the dead when they grow empty. Every time one hits, a satisfying clunk rings out. The dead do not care. They work. Ulfr and the three kings bicker in the war tent.  : Starving them out is the only option! I will not have my men dismount and climb ladders like peasants! : If we encircle them, we lose our mobility. We stand still, we die.: We are already dead.He turns to Creat. : And how will you starve out a castle on the sea? We have no fleet. Don't worry, my prisoners will take the walls. Your knights can sit at home, polishing their swords.: You will watch your tone! I am the king of France, and I will be treated with respect!: Do not test me, Franceman, I have killed people for far less!: Majesties. Please.The tent grows dim, and a chill wind halts the conversation. A tall, skinny man walks inside. Another step, and he is a beautiful woman. Another still, and she is an Aztec child.  : So this is the army that has my cousin so scared. I did not think it possible, but it makes me think even less of him.He looks around the tent, until he finds Ulfr. : You look shabby even for a mortal. You must be Ulfr.: You know my name. We do not know yours.: I am the Dweller in the Darkness, the Floating Horror, the Faceless God, and thousands more. You may call me Nyarlat.: A creature born of The Darkness, mirage! We must kill it!Nyarlat laughs. : I am not Andair, mortal. She has her followers, I have mine.: Your cousin. He holds Amir?: "Holds" is not the right word. Sothoth wears him like a glove. It makes it easier for him to interact with mortal. His form is not well-liked by your kind.: And what is his form?: Globes, mostly. A few tentacles here and there. Endless horror of the void. The usual.: Why are you here?: There are changes brewing in the Yellow King's court. Sothoth picked the wrong side.Nyarlat smirks. : And I can't wait to rip that smug bastard's heart out and feed it to him.: That does not answer the question.: You must be Creat. Lucifer told me all about you.Immediately, Creat's face lights up. : You've spoken to Luci? How is he?: Turned inside out while still breathing. I made sure to make it very painful.With a screech, Nyarlat's arm grows larger, a mess of bone and muscle and obsidian, until it is as tall as as any man. He grabs Creat by the face with it, and lifts him in the air, slowly crushing his skull. The French king tries to scream, but no sounds come out. Nyarlat slams Creat into the ground, head first. Slowly, he releases him, and his arm shrinks back to normal. : Be silent when your betters are speaking.Creat tries to stand up, but his legs will not hold him. Ashamed, he remains on the ground, blood pooling under his misshapen head. He looks away from the god looming above him. Nyarlat inhales and smiles. : Your fear is quite savoury. But no matter. I am here to offer you a pact. You will assault Akershus castle. I will convince Sothoth to send his troops out, and face you in the field.He points at Ulfr. : You. You will join me at a side entrance, and I will take you to The Threshold. I will open it, and you will find your trader friend.Ulfr thinks on this. : What about you? What do you want? From us?: Your attack will fail. You will all face unbearable agony, but will not die a second time. Your bones will be ground beneath the feet of horrors you have never even imagined.Nyarlat's face twists into something resembling an expression of wistfulness. : But for a few minutes, you will distract the Yellow Court. That is all I need.Ulfr reaches out his hand. : Deal.Nyarlat looks at it in disgust. : I will not permit you to touch me, mortal. We have a pact. I will see you at Akershus castle.Nyarlat leaves the tent, and disappears into the night.
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Apr 15, 2017 07:55
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You've certainly taken this in an interesting direction, what with all the outer gods and poo poo.
I can have moments of... eccentricity and sometimes be quite curious about things. Please forgive me if I do something foolish or rude.
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Apr 15, 2017 19:44
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Excellent, soon, soon.
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Apr 15, 2017 22:46
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I wasn't expecting this to go to Stellaris so soon
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Apr 16, 2017 04:13
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Bumping so this doesn't fall into the archives.
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Jun 11, 2017 08:27
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Hitlers Gay Secret posted:Bumping so this doesn't fall into the archives. Thanks, HGS! Sorry, guys and gals, real life hit me hard, had to deal with a whole bunch of poo poo for a while there. Things have finally settled down a bit, though, so expect the finale of the CK2 leg by Friday this week!
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Jun 13, 2017 07:12
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I know how it gets, just take your time and do it when your head feels fresh for it. Looking forward to the conclusion!
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Jun 13, 2017 11:50
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Wait "leg" are you really still going to go for EU4?
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Jun 13, 2017 13:33
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Rodyle posted:Wait "leg" are you really still going to go for EU4? Oh yeah, for sure. I got plans all the way to Stellaris. Should be on abetter schedule, too, things settled down.
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Jun 14, 2017 05:32
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Kayten posted:Thanks, HGS! Guess who lied about the posting dealine! It's this guy! SOrry, guys, had more work than anticipated this week, but next Friday.
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Jun 18, 2017 00:28
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I just read this whole thread, good times. Has it been established yet what happens when you squish a dead guy? Is Creat going to recover or just vanish or just go around being maimed?
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Jun 24, 2017 15:41
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Pester posted:I just read this whole thread, good times. Has it been established yet what happens when you squish a dead guy? Is Creat going to recover or just vanish or just go around being maimed? Good question! The dead will continue to feel all the pain from their wounds, no matter how severe their injury. Their suffering lasts as long as purgatory itself. Also, get hype: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWE4b1cadck
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Jul 7, 2017 14:25
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| # ? May 14, 2024 17:36 |
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Oh my god, this is amazing. Call me hype. I entirely approve of converting Crusader Kings 2 to Warhammer, best twist in a PDX megaLP. Also, great musical choice. ZearothK fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Jul 7, 2017 |
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Jul 7, 2017 19:56
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