I've been following along with the ideas going around on the Dark Space Corp website and forums for the development of a new Science Fiction gaming universe for their upcoming game, Beyond the Gates of Antares. Their Forums are currently very active, and there are a lot of interesting ideas being discussed there. I was inspired by the background information on The Gates of Antares Universe to write up a couple of short fan fiction stories that take place in my imagined version of that universe, based on the little information so far available. Let me know what you think of them. In the second one, Hansa Nairoba is a special character they are creating for the game to promote their Kickstarter Campaign, and some people on the forums have suggested the model should bear a resemblance to Rick Priestley, the creator of the game.
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Monday, January 7, 2013
Monday, January 17, 2011
Grismeire Valley Campaign Turn 3 – High Elves Blue Army Attacking Beastman 1st Army at St. Mer-Eglise
The morning sun was just clearing the mountains to the east, its rays bringing a comforting warmth to the mists lingering from the night’s chill. Birds chirped in the trees, and the usual scuttle of the forests creatures was just beginning for the day as if nothing was amiss. Within the tree-shrouded vales were arranged, row upon row, nearly countless tents of the finest materials and the most brilliant white. Amongst the tents tall and elegant figures moved with a grace and swiftness that clearly marked them as members of the elder race; the blue and white panoply of their heraldry clearly marking them as High Elves of Ulthuan. In the forest of Chalons, an army made their camp. In one particular vale there were three tents, somewhat larger than the rest. It is to one of these tents a rider races, his cloak and tunic tugged by the wind as his mount carried him nearly faster than the eye could register.
“My lord, a herald from Calandras’ expedition requests an audience.” Declared one of the guards outside the tent’s entrance as the sounds of horses’ hooves and the jangling of its harness broke the reverie of the tent’s occupant.
“Show him in, Ilthalas. Show him in.” replies the tent’s lone occupant. He is an elf, to be sure. His frame is slight, moreso than those of his countrymen, and he is tall though age seems to be stooping him ever so slightly. His fine robes bear many runes and mystic writing and he carries a tall white staff, clearly identifying him as a mage of the High Elves.
Into the tent steps a clearly excited elf wearing light armor of shining mithril. He is dressed for war but lightly so. Removing his tall helmet and tucking it into the crook of his arm, he drops to one knee and bows low to the elder mage.
“Lord Folariath, arch mage of The White Tower, my master Calandras sends his greetings and bids me deliver news of his campaign to the north.” The herald says, his excitement making the words come out rapid and breathlessly.
“At ease, my friend. Be at ease. You are excited and unless my eyes deceive me you do not appear as though the campaign has met some doom. Your tunic and armor show no more than the dust one would expect on a rider from the Grismerie River Valley. Tell me, what news do you have of Calandras’ little expedition?” Folariath said, his fatherly tone helping to soothe the nerves of the herald.
“My lord, as you know, Calandras led a force to the north where Prince Tethelion of Caledor has been engaged in a campaign with the Bretons to defeat the foul Vampire and Chaos Beast hordes invading from the mountains to the North. My lord, Calandras came upon a sizeable contingent of the Beasts undoubtedly marching to engage Prince Tethelion’s forces, and engaged the Beasts in battle just this past afternoon.”
“Truly? Our purpose in these lands is to discover the lost history of our people, not to wage war. I’ve no doubt that Prince Laethelas will not begrudge Calandras for engaging an enemy but as I’m sure you are aware, every single life lost on these shores is precious. Pray deliver the rest of your report, and it best be good.” Folariath said to the herald, a slight hint of anger evident in his voice and the crackling of energy in the cool morning air.
“My lord total losses for the battle were five Sea Guard of Lothern, one Chariot of Chrace, and thirteen of the Sword Masters that campaigned with us. I am also very sad to say that Gaelith, noble son of Galen and bearer of the army standard, was slain by the foul Beastlord that commanded the enemy hordes. The Beasts, however, were slaughtered almost to the last foul creature. Indeed my lord only four of the creatures were left breathing to flee the field. Calandras was able to massacre the enemy and liberate the small Breton village, though the Beasts had already defiled it extensively.”
“Hmmmm. The loss of thirteen Sword Masters is a strong blow, but if indeed the Beasts were so thoroughly routed perhaps it may have been worth their sacrifice. If I am to make a report to Prince Laethelas I will have what details you are privy to.”
“Yes, my lord. When we arrived upon the field of battle, the Beasts had already defiled the village and arrayed themselves for battle. Their lord and a large unit of Bestigors held the center along with two large units of Gors. To the left of their line was a chariot, some hounds, and some Ungor scouts whilst to the right of their line were some Razorgor beasts, and another chariot. Calandras and Feluvian, his apprentice, could detect the presence of two magic users amongst the Beasts though it was not immediately plain to us where they were. On the final approach of our line, ghastly Harpies attacked upon our flanks. Our own lines were held at the center by Gaelith and the Sword Masters, flanked by Calandras and Feluvian each leading a unit of Sea Guard. The Chariot held our wide right flank, whilst the two bolt throwers were held to the rear of our lines in a support role.” The herald, recounting the order of battle, seemed to calm himself as he settled into the doldrums of the battle’s beginning maneuvers.
“Our forces held the initiative and struck first. Feluvian cast a spell from the Lore of Life which caused all manner of flora and fauna to erupt from the ground below the Gor unit with their battle standard. The dwellers below that unit decimated the beasts, virtually wiping it out and consuming the foul standard as well. Alas, the winds of magic overwhelmed Feluvian’s untrained mind and he burnt out… unable to harness magic for the remainder of the battle. On our left, a bolt thrower fired a salvo at the harpies and killed all but two and forcing them to retreat a ways. On the right, the bolt thrower fired at the main body of the Beasts’ line, and the two units of Sea Guard supplemented this with their own volley of arrows. The white shafts found their marks and the two blocks of Gors were further whittled by the accurate fire.”
“The Beasts attempted to close with our line but it seemed as if the loss of their center unit was too much. Really, all they managed to do was set themselves up for our attacks. One of their foul magic users cast some spell on his own troops, but the winds of magic were still raging from Feluvian’s miscast and the beast mage exploded, decimating his own unit. On our right, the Chariot engaged and wiped out the pack of hounds. The second bolt thrower fired at the Harpies but did not do significant damage. The Sea Guard and Sword masters moved forward to bait the Beasts and were rewarded with the foolish creatures charging. The outcome was obvious. One unit was wiped out. The other was decimated and fled. The Sword Masters had attempted to charge the Bestigors but were likely befuddled by the magical fury and thus were in turn charged themselves. They quite quickly inflicted heavy casualties and caused the Beasts to flee. On our left, the Sea Guard found themselves engaged by the beast Chariot and one of the Razorgors. The combat continued to be won by the consummate skill of the Lothern regulars. On the right, the Lion Chariot engaged and broke another Razorgor, but was in turn charged by the second beast chariot and their scouts, the Ungors. At the rear, our bolt thrower crews valiantly held off the two flocks of harpies but were caught up in the excitement and attempted to give chase upon the fleeing creatures. In the center, the Beastlord upon his chariot and the second beast mage charged the Sword Masters with reckless abandon and inflicted several casualties. Up until this point, our losses had been minimal. The Beasts’ lord was a force to be reckoned with and began to sell his life dearly. Feluvian’s Sea Guard charged the Beastlord in the flank but due to some foul magic items, he was just too hard to wound and continued to slay the Sword Masters.”
“Calandras began to fear total loss of the Sword Masters and started to position himself for a charge into the fray whilst at the same time Feluvian had an epiphany and ceased focusing on the Beastlord, instead focusing on the creature’s chariot and the Razorgor pulling it. The combat quickly turned; the Beastlord was defeated and run down by the Sword Masters. On our right, the Chracian Chariot had been bogged down by the Beast Chariot and Ungors. They were able to defeat the chariot, but at great cost. The bolt thrower on our right was then able to kill the chariot and more Ungors. As the battle wound down, we had slain all but three Bestigors, one Ungor, and possibly a heavily wounded Razorgor.” The herald let out a long breath of relief, having recounted the battle. Now, however, he began to wonder how the powerful mage lord would take the news.
“I see. Well, it would appear that Calandras’ tactics were sound though it would also seem the Beasts’ lack of fury played an equal part in their defeat. Indeed, the loss of the Sword Masters comes as a strong blow but one must weigh the fact that Calandras may have broken the Beasts’ back in that region. Perhaps it is fortuitous, then, and Prince Tethelion will benefit from this victory. I shall report to Prince Laethelas immediately. You have done well, herald. Now, you must return with all alacrity to Calandras and warn him that the Vampires are also about. Calandras must make ready, for I foresee another battle in his future and the Vampires will not be so easily bested. Go now, time is precious!” Folariath rushed the herald out and signaled his men to provide a fresh horse.
A victory had been won, albeit at a heavy price. Another battle, one more ominous than the skirmish that had just taken place, was looming like a dark cloud on the horizon.
“My lord, a herald from Calandras’ expedition requests an audience.” Declared one of the guards outside the tent’s entrance as the sounds of horses’ hooves and the jangling of its harness broke the reverie of the tent’s occupant.
“Show him in, Ilthalas. Show him in.” replies the tent’s lone occupant. He is an elf, to be sure. His frame is slight, moreso than those of his countrymen, and he is tall though age seems to be stooping him ever so slightly. His fine robes bear many runes and mystic writing and he carries a tall white staff, clearly identifying him as a mage of the High Elves.
Into the tent steps a clearly excited elf wearing light armor of shining mithril. He is dressed for war but lightly so. Removing his tall helmet and tucking it into the crook of his arm, he drops to one knee and bows low to the elder mage.
“Lord Folariath, arch mage of The White Tower, my master Calandras sends his greetings and bids me deliver news of his campaign to the north.” The herald says, his excitement making the words come out rapid and breathlessly.
“At ease, my friend. Be at ease. You are excited and unless my eyes deceive me you do not appear as though the campaign has met some doom. Your tunic and armor show no more than the dust one would expect on a rider from the Grismerie River Valley. Tell me, what news do you have of Calandras’ little expedition?” Folariath said, his fatherly tone helping to soothe the nerves of the herald.
“My lord, as you know, Calandras led a force to the north where Prince Tethelion of Caledor has been engaged in a campaign with the Bretons to defeat the foul Vampire and Chaos Beast hordes invading from the mountains to the North. My lord, Calandras came upon a sizeable contingent of the Beasts undoubtedly marching to engage Prince Tethelion’s forces, and engaged the Beasts in battle just this past afternoon.”
“Truly? Our purpose in these lands is to discover the lost history of our people, not to wage war. I’ve no doubt that Prince Laethelas will not begrudge Calandras for engaging an enemy but as I’m sure you are aware, every single life lost on these shores is precious. Pray deliver the rest of your report, and it best be good.” Folariath said to the herald, a slight hint of anger evident in his voice and the crackling of energy in the cool morning air.
“My lord total losses for the battle were five Sea Guard of Lothern, one Chariot of Chrace, and thirteen of the Sword Masters that campaigned with us. I am also very sad to say that Gaelith, noble son of Galen and bearer of the army standard, was slain by the foul Beastlord that commanded the enemy hordes. The Beasts, however, were slaughtered almost to the last foul creature. Indeed my lord only four of the creatures were left breathing to flee the field. Calandras was able to massacre the enemy and liberate the small Breton village, though the Beasts had already defiled it extensively.”
“Hmmmm. The loss of thirteen Sword Masters is a strong blow, but if indeed the Beasts were so thoroughly routed perhaps it may have been worth their sacrifice. If I am to make a report to Prince Laethelas I will have what details you are privy to.”
“Yes, my lord. When we arrived upon the field of battle, the Beasts had already defiled the village and arrayed themselves for battle. Their lord and a large unit of Bestigors held the center along with two large units of Gors. To the left of their line was a chariot, some hounds, and some Ungor scouts whilst to the right of their line were some Razorgor beasts, and another chariot. Calandras and Feluvian, his apprentice, could detect the presence of two magic users amongst the Beasts though it was not immediately plain to us where they were. On the final approach of our line, ghastly Harpies attacked upon our flanks. Our own lines were held at the center by Gaelith and the Sword Masters, flanked by Calandras and Feluvian each leading a unit of Sea Guard. The Chariot held our wide right flank, whilst the two bolt throwers were held to the rear of our lines in a support role.” The herald, recounting the order of battle, seemed to calm himself as he settled into the doldrums of the battle’s beginning maneuvers.
“Our forces held the initiative and struck first. Feluvian cast a spell from the Lore of Life which caused all manner of flora and fauna to erupt from the ground below the Gor unit with their battle standard. The dwellers below that unit decimated the beasts, virtually wiping it out and consuming the foul standard as well. Alas, the winds of magic overwhelmed Feluvian’s untrained mind and he burnt out… unable to harness magic for the remainder of the battle. On our left, a bolt thrower fired a salvo at the harpies and killed all but two and forcing them to retreat a ways. On the right, the bolt thrower fired at the main body of the Beasts’ line, and the two units of Sea Guard supplemented this with their own volley of arrows. The white shafts found their marks and the two blocks of Gors were further whittled by the accurate fire.”
“The Beasts attempted to close with our line but it seemed as if the loss of their center unit was too much. Really, all they managed to do was set themselves up for our attacks. One of their foul magic users cast some spell on his own troops, but the winds of magic were still raging from Feluvian’s miscast and the beast mage exploded, decimating his own unit. On our right, the Chariot engaged and wiped out the pack of hounds. The second bolt thrower fired at the Harpies but did not do significant damage. The Sea Guard and Sword masters moved forward to bait the Beasts and were rewarded with the foolish creatures charging. The outcome was obvious. One unit was wiped out. The other was decimated and fled. The Sword Masters had attempted to charge the Bestigors but were likely befuddled by the magical fury and thus were in turn charged themselves. They quite quickly inflicted heavy casualties and caused the Beasts to flee. On our left, the Sea Guard found themselves engaged by the beast Chariot and one of the Razorgors. The combat continued to be won by the consummate skill of the Lothern regulars. On the right, the Lion Chariot engaged and broke another Razorgor, but was in turn charged by the second beast chariot and their scouts, the Ungors. At the rear, our bolt thrower crews valiantly held off the two flocks of harpies but were caught up in the excitement and attempted to give chase upon the fleeing creatures. In the center, the Beastlord upon his chariot and the second beast mage charged the Sword Masters with reckless abandon and inflicted several casualties. Up until this point, our losses had been minimal. The Beasts’ lord was a force to be reckoned with and began to sell his life dearly. Feluvian’s Sea Guard charged the Beastlord in the flank but due to some foul magic items, he was just too hard to wound and continued to slay the Sword Masters.”
“Calandras began to fear total loss of the Sword Masters and started to position himself for a charge into the fray whilst at the same time Feluvian had an epiphany and ceased focusing on the Beastlord, instead focusing on the creature’s chariot and the Razorgor pulling it. The combat quickly turned; the Beastlord was defeated and run down by the Sword Masters. On our right, the Chracian Chariot had been bogged down by the Beast Chariot and Ungors. They were able to defeat the chariot, but at great cost. The bolt thrower on our right was then able to kill the chariot and more Ungors. As the battle wound down, we had slain all but three Bestigors, one Ungor, and possibly a heavily wounded Razorgor.” The herald let out a long breath of relief, having recounted the battle. Now, however, he began to wonder how the powerful mage lord would take the news.
“I see. Well, it would appear that Calandras’ tactics were sound though it would also seem the Beasts’ lack of fury played an equal part in their defeat. Indeed, the loss of the Sword Masters comes as a strong blow but one must weigh the fact that Calandras may have broken the Beasts’ back in that region. Perhaps it is fortuitous, then, and Prince Tethelion will benefit from this victory. I shall report to Prince Laethelas immediately. You have done well, herald. Now, you must return with all alacrity to Calandras and warn him that the Vampires are also about. Calandras must make ready, for I foresee another battle in his future and the Vampires will not be so easily bested. Go now, time is precious!” Folariath rushed the herald out and signaled his men to provide a fresh horse.
A victory had been won, albeit at a heavy price. Another battle, one more ominous than the skirmish that had just taken place, was looming like a dark cloud on the horizon.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Inquisitor Character Story
Before there was a Warhammer 40,000 Roleplaying game, we used to sometimes use the Inquisitor rules to do some action heavy roleplaying campaigns. This is the background story I wrote for my character in one of our campaigns.
Cameron Frist was born on the relatively backwater colonial planet Abraxis, located on the outer rim in the Donorian sector. His parents were successful merchants, and his family was relatively well off. Cameron had an older brother named Donovan, and a younger sister Selena. They lived in a rural area outside the city where his parents worked.
From a very early age Cameron showed an interest and curiosity in animals. He loved going into the nearby woods and just watching the animals all day long. He studied their characteristics and their behavior intently. When he was old enough to go to college, Cameron chose to study anatomy and biology. However, since there was no money and no real point in knowing about animals, Cameron's parents insisted he learn something more practical. So Cameron studied human anatomy and went into the medical field, which his parents led him into.
With his natural curiosity and natural aptitude for anatomy and physiology, Cameron learned quickly. He became a very good and very successful surgeon. He was making a good living, and his parents were quite proud of Cameron's successes. But before long, his normal life would change forever.
In the far outskirts of the city, in the very wilderness areas, mutilated bodies began turning up. The bodies appeared to have been torn apart by animals. People generally avoided the areas far from the cities, as they were very dangerous and wild areas that the people knew nothing of. Cameron became curious about what was going on and what creatures lived out in the unexplored wilderness regions.
The bodies continued turning up, and with increasing frequency. Even more alarming, they were turning up closer and closer to the outskirts of the city. The pattern of bodies moved in from the wilderness towards the city. Cameron had seen some of the bodies, and wondered what manner of creature could make the grievous wounds he saw.
Then Dr. Frist got a patient that would change his life. A man had survived an attack by what was believed to be the same creatures that caused all the killings. The man was severely wounded, and barely survived. Some farmers found him as he deliriously fled the creature that had attacked him. The man was brought to the city hospital. The surgeons there were his only hope of surviving. Dr. Frist managed to save the man's life, although he remained on life support machines. In his brief periods of consciousness, he described to the fascinated doctor the encounter he had with the hellish creature that nearly killed him.
Government official, seeing that this was getting out of hand, reported the incident and the other killings to imperial authorities. Before long an imperial commando team showed up, accompanied by Tech Priest Nikolai Tesla. Nikolai was an expert in alien creature and was there to investigate. He went to talk to the man who had survived being attacked. This is where he met Doctor Frist. They got along immediately. Frist was fascinated by Nikolai's knowledge and experiences with all manner of alien creatures.
After taking Nikolai to talk with the injured man, Frist told him everything else he had managed to learn about the attacks. They then talked at great length about their theories of what kind of creature they were dealing with. Nikolai told Dr. Frist that he believed the attacks were being committed by creatures known as clawed fiends of the Donorian sector. Very little was known about them. Only that they are found on many planets throughout the sector, and no one knows how they got there. They normally show up in large groups and seem to act in a highly organized manner, similar to a hive of bees.
Frist was fascinated by this. He offered to help Nikolai, saying that his knowledge of the planet and its animal life and ecosystem could be useful to him. Nikolai was happy to meet a like-minded, inquisitive individual. Very few such people exist in this galaxy. He agreed to work together.
They spent much time going over the pattern of attacks, examining the mutilated bodies, going over the survivor's testimony, and studying all the data they had. Meanwhile, the attacks continued to occur, and with increasing frequency. They didn't seem to be moving closer to the city anymore, but instead spreading out in a ring around it. They still had no pictures or good accounts of what these creatures were or where they were coming from. Cameron Frist suggested that if they could capture a living specimen they would be able to obtain invaluable information from it. Nikolai was against the idea, but eventually agree when it became clear that they weren't getting anywhere with the information they had.
Frist, Nikolai, and the Imperial Guard Commando team (which was 2 squads of 10 men) set out to capture a living specimen. They traveled way outside the city into the unexplored wilderness outside civilization. They went only a little way into this area, being as cautious as possible. When they needed to camp, the perimeter was always guarded by 5 of the men. Frist was given a weapon and taught how to use it by the soldiers, in case he would need to defend himself.
After a few days, they came upon a cave and went inside to explore. They moved slowly and quietly. Deep in the cave, they came upon an area that looked like many cambers had been dug out of the rock. They saw in one of the chambers what appeared to be a nest, with a creature sleeping in it. It was the size of a young bear, with enormous claws. The soldiers got into position aiming at the creature and waited for the Nikolai to make his move. Nikolai fired a device that was built into his bionic arm. It fired off a massive electric discharge, which struck the creature. The creature leaped up, then it's body immediately seized up and it collapsed to the ground, smoking slightly. Nikolai checked the creature and founded it to still be alive. He instructed two of the solders to carry it. They tied it up and began to carry it.
Suddenly, one of the soldiers yelled out "we've got live signals all around us. They're everywhere." Nikolai shouted back, "It's a trap! Get out of here!" That's all the time they had before the creatures were upon them. They sprang out of all the surrounding chambers with a speed that was incredible for their immense size. From every direction, the massive creatures poured out of their chambers and attacked. The soldiers began firing off in all directions. Frist was stunned and terrified as the hellish firefight erupted. Through the carnage, Nikolai yelled to the soldiers with the captured fiend to follow him. Several of the soldiers had already been attacked and ripped to shreds by the monsters. Blood and guts covered the floor and walls of the chamber.
Once he had begun to recover his wits, Frist began to fire away randomly at the beasts. One of them leapt down from the ceiling at Frist, and with one brutal swing the creature severed Frist's arm with it's claws. Frist screamed in pain as his right arm, still clinging to his weapon, fell to the ground. The creature then back-handed the doctor, who flew across the chamber into the far wall. Many of his ribs were crushed and pierced his internal organs. Frist landed on the ground, unconscious. Nikolai, blasting away at the creatures, saw Cameron fly across the room. He looked over to see his friend and student lying on the ground. He yelled "FRIST!" One of the creatures leapt onto Frist and began devouring his legs. Nikolai ran towards Frist, blowing the creature's head off with his autopistol. Nikolai pushed the creature off his friend. He discovered that Frist was still alive. Nikolai picked Cameron up on one arm, turning around to gun down another of the creatures with the autopisol in his other.
"We've got to get out of here," Nikolai shouted to the troops. "There's too many of them!" The captain of the team shouted that they'd hold the creatures off. He instructed Nikolai to take a few men and get out of there with the specimen. The two soldiers carrying the fiend and two other soldiers went with Nikolai. Five stayed behind to hold off the creatures. The others were already dead.
The five brave men who stayed behind sold their lives courageously, and managed to buy enough time for the others to get out. Most of the creatures were held up by these five men for the precious couple of minutes it took for the creatures to overwhelm and slaughter them. But it was enough. The others blasted their way out past the creatures that had surrounded them and ran for their lives. Another of the soldiers was killed when a wounded fiend, lying on the ground, lashed its claws out at him as he ran. The rest made it out of the cave. The remaining solder not carrying the captured specimen dropped all his grenades at the cave entrance as they ran out. The resulting explosion killed several creatures and collapsed enough of the cave entrance to stall the pursuit.
As soon as they had a chance, Nikolai set Frist down to check on him. At his point, Nikolai was coated in his friend's blood, but amazingly Frist was still alive. Nikolai set to work sewing up Frist's terrible wounds so that he would survive the trip back to civilization. Nikolai managed to stop his bleeding and stabilize him. They then wasted no time getting back to the city as quickly as possible.
A few days later, Cameron Frist regained consciousness. Nikolai had saved his life by repairing him with bionic parts. Utilizing his skills as a tech priest, Nikolai gave Frist a bionic right arm, bionic legs, and some bionic organs. Once Frist recovered, he could function normally with his new bionic parts. After explaining this to Frist, Nikolai moved on to some more disturbing news.
After having spread out in order to encircle the city, the clawed fiends had finally made their move. In one swift, coordinated attack, they all swarmed forward out of the wilderness. Everyone was fleeing in terror towards the city in the face of this massive onslaught. The sheer distance the beasts had to cover meant that there was still time before the horde reached the city. The suburbs and rural areas would surely be lost, but the planetary defense forces were mobilizing to set up a defensive perimeter around the city itself. It may still be possible, Nikolai explained, to defend the city from them.
Frist was stunned at the news. Everything was falling apart. Could those nightmarish creatures be stopped before they overran the city? Or would everyone be slaughtered? Frist became determined, more than ever before, to find a way to stop them. Frist and Nikolai set to work studying the living specimen they had, keeping it alive but performing all manner of medical and scientific tests on it. They worked frantically against the clock as the tide of clawed fiends flowed toward the city.
Meanwhile, the defense of the city was being organized by Donovan Frist, who had become a Captain in the Planetary Defense Force. They hadn't had much time, but did the best they could to set up makeshift defenses and try to defend the border of the entire city while letting through the thousands of fleeing refugees. Camps were set up within the borders to house the fleeing citizens, but it wasn't enough to prevent complete chaos from breaking out in the crowded streets.
Then, sooner than anyone had hoped, the creatures were upon them. The loyal defenders were able to take out many of them at long range, but it didn't seem to matter. There were overwhelming numbers if the monsters, and they just kept coming in a massive, unstoppable swarm. The defenders held at their posts as long as they could. Eventually they had to fall back. Donovan ordered that defensive fire be kept up while they moved the defensive lines further into the city.
As this was happening, Frist and Nikolai were making their breakthrough. Combining their knowledge of alien life forms animal physiology, they managed to come up with a way to kill the creatures. They had created a poison that was relatively harmless to humans, but would kill the clawed fiends. They came up with this by realizing that they clawed fiends, being not from this planet, had a completely different physiology from the life of this planet. So they were able to some up with a chemical mixture that the life on this planet had adapted to but that would, in the proper mixture, kill the clawed fiends.
They were very confident they had the perfect weapon to use against the monsters, so they tested their chemical on their living specimen. Sure enough, it killed the creature almost immediately upon inhaling the substance. Unfortunately, they didn't have the materials or the facilities to mass-produce the gas in the city. They would have to go somewhere else, make enough of it to wipe the creatures out, and come back with it. Frist and Nikolai took the instructions on making the chemical and a sample and set out of the spaceport.
When they went outside, they were greeted with complete chaos. The creatures had just broken through the military's defensive line. The Planetary Defense Forces were now fighting running battles with the monsters in the streets of the city. All hell was breaking loose. Clawed Fiends were running rampant in the streets while people screaming and fled in terror. Gunshots were heard everywhere in every direction. Just then, Cameron's brother Captain Donovan Frist showed up at the lab.
Donovan asked Frist if he knew where their parents and sister were at, and if they had managed to escape. Frist, having spent the past week in the lab, had no idea what had become of his family. "You've got to get out of here, Cameron," Donovan said. “They've broken through. We can’t hold them off any longer.” Cameron quickly explained to his brother that they had discovered a poison that could kill all the clawed fiends. They needed only to make it to the spaceport so they could escape with the formula and return with enough poison to rid the planet of the beasts. Donovan understood the importance of preserving this discovery.
Unfortunately, the defense of the area around the spaceport had been devastated. The entire area was completely unsecured and likely overrun with the clawed fiends. Donovan still held out hope. He ordered all the troops he could round up in the area to escort Frist and Nikolai to the spaceport. Donovan led the mission personally.
Gathering up the last of their ammo, the beleaguered troops set out on their most desperate mission. Donovan led them in an insane charge of deadly fire and blood and death through the streets of the city. Many of the soldiers were killed as they charged through the hordes of creatures permeating the doomed city. But none of them broke. They continued to run through the city, screaming madly and gunning down dozens of fiends in a running battle.
Donovan himself, leading the charge, was brutally slaughtered by one of the beasts. But Frist had no time to even mourn his brother’s death. The men continued sprinting and firing until they had finally reached the spaceport. The few remaining soldiers, perhaps some of the last in the entire city, set up a perimeter. Frist and Nikolai made it to their ship. Luckily, the remaining three Imperial Guard Commandos managed to protect the ship from being stolen by rioting mobs. It was one of the only ships left in the city. The periodic evacuation ships had stopped coming once the city’s defenses failed. Everyone else was now trapped. Those who had come here hoping to catch one of the last transports out all lay dead in a heap outside the spaceport.
But there was no time to think about the devastation that had been wrought. Frist and Nikolai escaped in the ship. They made their way as quickly as possible to the nearest Imperial world…
A few weeks later, Cameron Frist and Nikolai Tesla returned to Abraxis at the head of a small Imperial fleet. By this time, the city where Frist had spent most of his life was gone. His family was dead, and everything he knew was gone. His home was completely overrun with clawed fiends who had begun digging caves and tunnel complexes where the devastated city used to be. They had consolidated and started regrouping, perhaps in preparation of spreading out to attack another city. Frist noticed that they fought in a highly organized and coordinated manner for such primitive beasts.
As Frist and Nikolai watched, the entire city and its outskirts and massive areas of wilderness were saturated with chemical weapons from the orbiting fleet. The poison they used was not fatal to humans, but would prove devastating to the environment and very harmful to the population. But it had the intended effect of killing hundreds of thousands of clawed fiends.
For Frist, it was a bittersweet victory. He had already lost everything. And deep down, he knew that many of the fiends had likely survived the attack, hiding deep within their cave labyrinths. And from the behavior of the clawed fiends, Frist strongly suspected that somewhere on this planet was a queen that was controlling their behavior in their coordinated attacks on the city. They would be back. He knew it. If not on this planet, then certainly on others. His work was just beginning.
In the aftermath of this incident, Frist chose to stay with Nikolai. He had nothing to go back to on Abraxis. Nikolai was so impressed with both the courage and intelligence of the doctor that he offered Frist a position as a tech priest. He would have the same job that Nikolai did: to study and collect data on alien races in order to identify their weaknesses so they could be purged from the galaxy. Frist gladly accepted, and has had this position ever since, performing it quite successfully.
Dr. Cameron Frist had already seen much turmoil and violence, but he would soon discover that his adventures were just beginning…
From a very early age Cameron showed an interest and curiosity in animals. He loved going into the nearby woods and just watching the animals all day long. He studied their characteristics and their behavior intently. When he was old enough to go to college, Cameron chose to study anatomy and biology. However, since there was no money and no real point in knowing about animals, Cameron's parents insisted he learn something more practical. So Cameron studied human anatomy and went into the medical field, which his parents led him into.
With his natural curiosity and natural aptitude for anatomy and physiology, Cameron learned quickly. He became a very good and very successful surgeon. He was making a good living, and his parents were quite proud of Cameron's successes. But before long, his normal life would change forever.
In the far outskirts of the city, in the very wilderness areas, mutilated bodies began turning up. The bodies appeared to have been torn apart by animals. People generally avoided the areas far from the cities, as they were very dangerous and wild areas that the people knew nothing of. Cameron became curious about what was going on and what creatures lived out in the unexplored wilderness regions.
The bodies continued turning up, and with increasing frequency. Even more alarming, they were turning up closer and closer to the outskirts of the city. The pattern of bodies moved in from the wilderness towards the city. Cameron had seen some of the bodies, and wondered what manner of creature could make the grievous wounds he saw.
Then Dr. Frist got a patient that would change his life. A man had survived an attack by what was believed to be the same creatures that caused all the killings. The man was severely wounded, and barely survived. Some farmers found him as he deliriously fled the creature that had attacked him. The man was brought to the city hospital. The surgeons there were his only hope of surviving. Dr. Frist managed to save the man's life, although he remained on life support machines. In his brief periods of consciousness, he described to the fascinated doctor the encounter he had with the hellish creature that nearly killed him.
Government official, seeing that this was getting out of hand, reported the incident and the other killings to imperial authorities. Before long an imperial commando team showed up, accompanied by Tech Priest Nikolai Tesla. Nikolai was an expert in alien creature and was there to investigate. He went to talk to the man who had survived being attacked. This is where he met Doctor Frist. They got along immediately. Frist was fascinated by Nikolai's knowledge and experiences with all manner of alien creatures.
After taking Nikolai to talk with the injured man, Frist told him everything else he had managed to learn about the attacks. They then talked at great length about their theories of what kind of creature they were dealing with. Nikolai told Dr. Frist that he believed the attacks were being committed by creatures known as clawed fiends of the Donorian sector. Very little was known about them. Only that they are found on many planets throughout the sector, and no one knows how they got there. They normally show up in large groups and seem to act in a highly organized manner, similar to a hive of bees.
Frist was fascinated by this. He offered to help Nikolai, saying that his knowledge of the planet and its animal life and ecosystem could be useful to him. Nikolai was happy to meet a like-minded, inquisitive individual. Very few such people exist in this galaxy. He agreed to work together.
They spent much time going over the pattern of attacks, examining the mutilated bodies, going over the survivor's testimony, and studying all the data they had. Meanwhile, the attacks continued to occur, and with increasing frequency. They didn't seem to be moving closer to the city anymore, but instead spreading out in a ring around it. They still had no pictures or good accounts of what these creatures were or where they were coming from. Cameron Frist suggested that if they could capture a living specimen they would be able to obtain invaluable information from it. Nikolai was against the idea, but eventually agree when it became clear that they weren't getting anywhere with the information they had.
Frist, Nikolai, and the Imperial Guard Commando team (which was 2 squads of 10 men) set out to capture a living specimen. They traveled way outside the city into the unexplored wilderness outside civilization. They went only a little way into this area, being as cautious as possible. When they needed to camp, the perimeter was always guarded by 5 of the men. Frist was given a weapon and taught how to use it by the soldiers, in case he would need to defend himself.
After a few days, they came upon a cave and went inside to explore. They moved slowly and quietly. Deep in the cave, they came upon an area that looked like many cambers had been dug out of the rock. They saw in one of the chambers what appeared to be a nest, with a creature sleeping in it. It was the size of a young bear, with enormous claws. The soldiers got into position aiming at the creature and waited for the Nikolai to make his move. Nikolai fired a device that was built into his bionic arm. It fired off a massive electric discharge, which struck the creature. The creature leaped up, then it's body immediately seized up and it collapsed to the ground, smoking slightly. Nikolai checked the creature and founded it to still be alive. He instructed two of the solders to carry it. They tied it up and began to carry it.
Suddenly, one of the soldiers yelled out "we've got live signals all around us. They're everywhere." Nikolai shouted back, "It's a trap! Get out of here!" That's all the time they had before the creatures were upon them. They sprang out of all the surrounding chambers with a speed that was incredible for their immense size. From every direction, the massive creatures poured out of their chambers and attacked. The soldiers began firing off in all directions. Frist was stunned and terrified as the hellish firefight erupted. Through the carnage, Nikolai yelled to the soldiers with the captured fiend to follow him. Several of the soldiers had already been attacked and ripped to shreds by the monsters. Blood and guts covered the floor and walls of the chamber.
Once he had begun to recover his wits, Frist began to fire away randomly at the beasts. One of them leapt down from the ceiling at Frist, and with one brutal swing the creature severed Frist's arm with it's claws. Frist screamed in pain as his right arm, still clinging to his weapon, fell to the ground. The creature then back-handed the doctor, who flew across the chamber into the far wall. Many of his ribs were crushed and pierced his internal organs. Frist landed on the ground, unconscious. Nikolai, blasting away at the creatures, saw Cameron fly across the room. He looked over to see his friend and student lying on the ground. He yelled "FRIST!" One of the creatures leapt onto Frist and began devouring his legs. Nikolai ran towards Frist, blowing the creature's head off with his autopistol. Nikolai pushed the creature off his friend. He discovered that Frist was still alive. Nikolai picked Cameron up on one arm, turning around to gun down another of the creatures with the autopisol in his other.
"We've got to get out of here," Nikolai shouted to the troops. "There's too many of them!" The captain of the team shouted that they'd hold the creatures off. He instructed Nikolai to take a few men and get out of there with the specimen. The two soldiers carrying the fiend and two other soldiers went with Nikolai. Five stayed behind to hold off the creatures. The others were already dead.
The five brave men who stayed behind sold their lives courageously, and managed to buy enough time for the others to get out. Most of the creatures were held up by these five men for the precious couple of minutes it took for the creatures to overwhelm and slaughter them. But it was enough. The others blasted their way out past the creatures that had surrounded them and ran for their lives. Another of the soldiers was killed when a wounded fiend, lying on the ground, lashed its claws out at him as he ran. The rest made it out of the cave. The remaining solder not carrying the captured specimen dropped all his grenades at the cave entrance as they ran out. The resulting explosion killed several creatures and collapsed enough of the cave entrance to stall the pursuit.
As soon as they had a chance, Nikolai set Frist down to check on him. At his point, Nikolai was coated in his friend's blood, but amazingly Frist was still alive. Nikolai set to work sewing up Frist's terrible wounds so that he would survive the trip back to civilization. Nikolai managed to stop his bleeding and stabilize him. They then wasted no time getting back to the city as quickly as possible.
A few days later, Cameron Frist regained consciousness. Nikolai had saved his life by repairing him with bionic parts. Utilizing his skills as a tech priest, Nikolai gave Frist a bionic right arm, bionic legs, and some bionic organs. Once Frist recovered, he could function normally with his new bionic parts. After explaining this to Frist, Nikolai moved on to some more disturbing news.
After having spread out in order to encircle the city, the clawed fiends had finally made their move. In one swift, coordinated attack, they all swarmed forward out of the wilderness. Everyone was fleeing in terror towards the city in the face of this massive onslaught. The sheer distance the beasts had to cover meant that there was still time before the horde reached the city. The suburbs and rural areas would surely be lost, but the planetary defense forces were mobilizing to set up a defensive perimeter around the city itself. It may still be possible, Nikolai explained, to defend the city from them.
Frist was stunned at the news. Everything was falling apart. Could those nightmarish creatures be stopped before they overran the city? Or would everyone be slaughtered? Frist became determined, more than ever before, to find a way to stop them. Frist and Nikolai set to work studying the living specimen they had, keeping it alive but performing all manner of medical and scientific tests on it. They worked frantically against the clock as the tide of clawed fiends flowed toward the city.
Meanwhile, the defense of the city was being organized by Donovan Frist, who had become a Captain in the Planetary Defense Force. They hadn't had much time, but did the best they could to set up makeshift defenses and try to defend the border of the entire city while letting through the thousands of fleeing refugees. Camps were set up within the borders to house the fleeing citizens, but it wasn't enough to prevent complete chaos from breaking out in the crowded streets.
Then, sooner than anyone had hoped, the creatures were upon them. The loyal defenders were able to take out many of them at long range, but it didn't seem to matter. There were overwhelming numbers if the monsters, and they just kept coming in a massive, unstoppable swarm. The defenders held at their posts as long as they could. Eventually they had to fall back. Donovan ordered that defensive fire be kept up while they moved the defensive lines further into the city.
As this was happening, Frist and Nikolai were making their breakthrough. Combining their knowledge of alien life forms animal physiology, they managed to come up with a way to kill the creatures. They had created a poison that was relatively harmless to humans, but would kill the clawed fiends. They came up with this by realizing that they clawed fiends, being not from this planet, had a completely different physiology from the life of this planet. So they were able to some up with a chemical mixture that the life on this planet had adapted to but that would, in the proper mixture, kill the clawed fiends.
They were very confident they had the perfect weapon to use against the monsters, so they tested their chemical on their living specimen. Sure enough, it killed the creature almost immediately upon inhaling the substance. Unfortunately, they didn't have the materials or the facilities to mass-produce the gas in the city. They would have to go somewhere else, make enough of it to wipe the creatures out, and come back with it. Frist and Nikolai took the instructions on making the chemical and a sample and set out of the spaceport.
When they went outside, they were greeted with complete chaos. The creatures had just broken through the military's defensive line. The Planetary Defense Forces were now fighting running battles with the monsters in the streets of the city. All hell was breaking loose. Clawed Fiends were running rampant in the streets while people screaming and fled in terror. Gunshots were heard everywhere in every direction. Just then, Cameron's brother Captain Donovan Frist showed up at the lab.
Donovan asked Frist if he knew where their parents and sister were at, and if they had managed to escape. Frist, having spent the past week in the lab, had no idea what had become of his family. "You've got to get out of here, Cameron," Donovan said. “They've broken through. We can’t hold them off any longer.” Cameron quickly explained to his brother that they had discovered a poison that could kill all the clawed fiends. They needed only to make it to the spaceport so they could escape with the formula and return with enough poison to rid the planet of the beasts. Donovan understood the importance of preserving this discovery.
Unfortunately, the defense of the area around the spaceport had been devastated. The entire area was completely unsecured and likely overrun with the clawed fiends. Donovan still held out hope. He ordered all the troops he could round up in the area to escort Frist and Nikolai to the spaceport. Donovan led the mission personally.
Gathering up the last of their ammo, the beleaguered troops set out on their most desperate mission. Donovan led them in an insane charge of deadly fire and blood and death through the streets of the city. Many of the soldiers were killed as they charged through the hordes of creatures permeating the doomed city. But none of them broke. They continued to run through the city, screaming madly and gunning down dozens of fiends in a running battle.
Donovan himself, leading the charge, was brutally slaughtered by one of the beasts. But Frist had no time to even mourn his brother’s death. The men continued sprinting and firing until they had finally reached the spaceport. The few remaining soldiers, perhaps some of the last in the entire city, set up a perimeter. Frist and Nikolai made it to their ship. Luckily, the remaining three Imperial Guard Commandos managed to protect the ship from being stolen by rioting mobs. It was one of the only ships left in the city. The periodic evacuation ships had stopped coming once the city’s defenses failed. Everyone else was now trapped. Those who had come here hoping to catch one of the last transports out all lay dead in a heap outside the spaceport.
But there was no time to think about the devastation that had been wrought. Frist and Nikolai escaped in the ship. They made their way as quickly as possible to the nearest Imperial world…
A few weeks later, Cameron Frist and Nikolai Tesla returned to Abraxis at the head of a small Imperial fleet. By this time, the city where Frist had spent most of his life was gone. His family was dead, and everything he knew was gone. His home was completely overrun with clawed fiends who had begun digging caves and tunnel complexes where the devastated city used to be. They had consolidated and started regrouping, perhaps in preparation of spreading out to attack another city. Frist noticed that they fought in a highly organized and coordinated manner for such primitive beasts.
As Frist and Nikolai watched, the entire city and its outskirts and massive areas of wilderness were saturated with chemical weapons from the orbiting fleet. The poison they used was not fatal to humans, but would prove devastating to the environment and very harmful to the population. But it had the intended effect of killing hundreds of thousands of clawed fiends.
For Frist, it was a bittersweet victory. He had already lost everything. And deep down, he knew that many of the fiends had likely survived the attack, hiding deep within their cave labyrinths. And from the behavior of the clawed fiends, Frist strongly suspected that somewhere on this planet was a queen that was controlling their behavior in their coordinated attacks on the city. They would be back. He knew it. If not on this planet, then certainly on others. His work was just beginning.
In the aftermath of this incident, Frist chose to stay with Nikolai. He had nothing to go back to on Abraxis. Nikolai was so impressed with both the courage and intelligence of the doctor that he offered Frist a position as a tech priest. He would have the same job that Nikolai did: to study and collect data on alien races in order to identify their weaknesses so they could be purged from the galaxy. Frist gladly accepted, and has had this position ever since, performing it quite successfully.
Dr. Cameron Frist had already seen much turmoil and violence, but he would soon discover that his adventures were just beginning…
Friday, January 15, 2010
Gaming Inspiration - Richard Sharpe Books
I've read several books now in the Richard Sharpe Series
by Bernard Cornwell. The series follows the heroic exploits of a man in the British army during the Napoleonic wars. Richard Sharpe starts out the series, in Sharpe's Tiger
, as a lowly private in an infantry regiment under Sir Arthur Wellesley in India. He soon becomes a Sergeant, then is commissioned as an officer, and moves up the ranks due in no small part to his heroic deeds in the climax of each book.
Those I have read so far have all been quite entertaining. Formulaic, certainly, like James Bond stories or the like. There are usually jealous colleagues, incompetent officers, and nefarious villains do deal with, and naturally he bests them all, while getting the girl. Often while playing a pivitol role in some important historical event of the era. They are clearly action/adventure stories, not serious realistic dramas, so as expected they take some liberties. But they are fun to read and seem pretty well researched historically. For a wargamer interested in the period, the battle sequences are particularly noteworthy. They give a very good idea of the tactical considerations of Napoleonic battles, and are quite exciting to read. The books also are inspirational in that they give a good impression of the life of soldiers in an army of that period.
I have found that reading them has been a great way to inspire me in the historical gaming. Also, the entire Sharpe series appears to be out as Audio books. I like to listen to them on my drive to work, but listening while painting miniatures would also be a good way to set the mood, and do some serious multi-tasking. If you want to read them in the order in which the take place, there is a list of the books in chronological order near the bottom of the wikipedia page here.
Here is a link to the amazon.com list of Richard Sharpe books. The author, Bernard Cornwell, has also written many other historical fiction books, including a series taking place in the American Civil War. I haven't read any of these others, but I've heard good things about them. Here is a link to the amazon.com list of Bernard Cornwell books.
If you've read any fictional books that inspire or motivate you in your historical miniature gaming hobby, I'd love to hear about them.
by Bernard Cornwell. The series follows the heroic exploits of a man in the British army during the Napoleonic wars. Richard Sharpe starts out the series, in Sharpe's Tiger, as a lowly private in an infantry regiment under Sir Arthur Wellesley in India. He soon becomes a Sergeant, then is commissioned as an officer, and moves up the ranks due in no small part to his heroic deeds in the climax of each book.Those I have read so far have all been quite entertaining. Formulaic, certainly, like James Bond stories or the like. There are usually jealous colleagues, incompetent officers, and nefarious villains do deal with, and naturally he bests them all, while getting the girl. Often while playing a pivitol role in some important historical event of the era. They are clearly action/adventure stories, not serious realistic dramas, so as expected they take some liberties. But they are fun to read and seem pretty well researched historically. For a wargamer interested in the period, the battle sequences are particularly noteworthy. They give a very good idea of the tactical considerations of Napoleonic battles, and are quite exciting to read. The books also are inspirational in that they give a good impression of the life of soldiers in an army of that period.
I have found that reading them has been a great way to inspire me in the historical gaming. Also, the entire Sharpe series appears to be out as Audio books. I like to listen to them on my drive to work, but listening while painting miniatures would also be a good way to set the mood, and do some serious multi-tasking. If you want to read them in the order in which the take place, there is a list of the books in chronological order near the bottom of the wikipedia page here.
Here is a link to the amazon.com list of Richard Sharpe books
. The author, Bernard Cornwell, has also written many other historical fiction books, including a series taking place in the American Civil War. I haven't read any of these others, but I've heard good things about them. Here is a link to the amazon.com list of Bernard Cornwell books.If you've read any fictional books that inspire or motivate you in your historical miniature gaming hobby, I'd love to hear about them.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Grismeire Valley Campaign - Bretonnian Characters
Lady Aleena, Prophetess of the Lady
Lady Aleena is one of the most senior prophetesses in the land of Brionne, and as such she has acted as a diplomat and advisor to Duke Theodoric. For years she has been troubled by visions of an unknown knight that she felt was destined to do something great for Bretonnia. The Lady of the Lake has recently revealed the knight’s identity and has shown Aleena that going to Bastonne is the path that will lead her to him. Duke Theodoric has marshaled an army to go with Lady Aleena. With no real idea of how she is supposed to locate Sir Edwin, Aleena has brought with her several damsels of The Lady to be dispersed throughout the Bretonnian forces. They will all be seeking Sir Edwin so that Aleena can aid him in his destiny, whatever that may be.
Augustine Beaumont, Champion of Lady Aleena, General of the forces of Brionne
Having drunk from the grail, Augustine Beaumont is one of Brionne’s most celebrated heroes. Sir Augustine is a warrior of great skill, having proven himself on the battlefield time and time again throughout his life. Before he took up the quest for the grail, Augustine acted as a general and led several armies to great victories. An inspirational leader of men, there is none that would not follow him into battle. Since his completion of the quest for the grail, he resides in a small chapel that he built near the northern bank of the River Brienne where the Lady of Lake appeared to him. He acts as guardian of this sacred ground.
Upon learning that Lady Aleena was to leave Brionne, Duke Theodric charged Sir Augustine with the protection of the prophetess, as well as giving him command of the forces being sent to support the campaign in Bastonne.
Alexandre Fulke, Lady Aleena’s Standard Bearer
One of many knights that answered Duke Theodric’s call to arms, Alexandre Fulke of Carcasonne was chosen by Lady Aleena to be the army’s standard bearer. His quest for the grail brought him to Brionne, where Aleena sought him out to bestow this honor upon him. He accepted, as there was no doubt this is the path that the Lady of the Lake had chosen for him.
Frederic Theobold, General of the forces of Bastonne
Frederic Theobold of Bastonne is one of Duke Bohemond’s Nephews. Astonishing confident in his abilities, he is particularly gifted in the art of the joust. When compared to knights who do not have such close ties with a Duke, it would seem he has not had to work as hard to earn his knighthood. While he has performed courageous deeds, most of his renown has been earned from his performance in jousting tournaments and on hunts. With the growing number of beastman raids from the Forest of Arden, Frederic has convinced the Duke to let him lead an army to the north to crush the raiders. There is much speculation that he is only doing this to prove that he is worthy of his rank. Indeed, if the campaign is successful, his critics would be silenced.
Sebastien Lemond, Standard Bearer of the forces of Bastonne
A lifetime long friend to Frederic, there is no doubt that Sebastien Lemond has benefitted from his friendship with the Duke’s nephew. He has proven himself in battle often and is well respected as an honorable knight of Bastonne. His unyielding loyalty is his most worthy virtue. Keeping in good favor with Frederic, and in turn the Duke, is something that he obsesses over, and he is always trying to be noticed in their eyes.
Edwin Hammel
Edwin Hammel of Parravon is the youngest of four brothers. Growing up on the low end of the pecking order, it was usually the more mundane duties that fell to him. In his early teens, most of his time was spent leading patrols of peasants around the Hammel family’s territory. This gave him great report with the peasants, who looked at him as a hero of the people, a role that Edwin embraced. This was his life for several years, a time in which the need to prove himself worthy of knighthood grew strong within him.
His opportunity came when Archaon, Lord of the End Times launched his attack on the Empire. King Louen launched an errantry war to aid their allies to the east, and Sir Edwin was ever anxious to enlist. In the conflict Edwin fought bravely, primarily against orcs and goblins, and often alongside the dwarfs. His defining moment was charging to aid a dwarf cannon crew that was being assaulted by several orcs. Edwin skewered one with his lance before his warhorse was sliced open by one of the orcs, tossing him to the ground. In the fury of combat that followed Edwin had managed to kill three more of the monsters before the orcs fled. Two of the dwarf crewmen survived, and adding their firepower proved to be a turning point in the battle. For his bravery Edwin was gifted with an exquisitely crafted helmet from the dwarf runesmith Okri Grondnuk.
When Archaon was defeated and the war came to an end, Sir Edwin travelled westward back to Bretonnia. The journey was a grim one as the knights marched though a land that was in shambles after the brutal war. Upon his arrival home, Edwin found himself as one of hundreds of knights errant who had earned ascension to a Knight of the Realm. For months Edwin returned to his old duties as the Dukes in Bretonnia struggled to find enough land to divide amongst the knights. The war had given him a taste of real battle, but still Edwin yearned for more. The thought of returning to patrols that rarely found and enemy worthy of him was not something that interested him. He wanted to prove himself in battle. Edwin was granted permission to lead a small army back into the Empire to aid them as they rebuilt their home. Sir Edwin marshaled a force of peasants and a few fellow knights to join him, and he headed back into the Empire.
For years Edwin’s army worked alongside Empire forces clearing small pockets of resistance leftover from the war. Edwin was not incredibly well versed in military tactics, but usually outnumbering his opponents, this was not an issue. Battle after battle he began to learn more. He took every opportunity to learn what he could from the Empires generals. Edwin had become a competent general by the time the Empire was once again thrown into the war. As rumors of the Nemesis Crown being located circulated, the armies of the world invaded the Empire once again. Sir Edwin led his army into battle, and to what would become the defining event in his life.
His scouts had located a force of the undead near a burial site. Sir Edwin had never faced the unholy forces of the undead, and was all too eager to prove himself against them. Edwin took his normal position, on foot leading his people. He was to lead the peasants up the middle into the clearing and bring the undead to battle. Sir Bertrand, his childhood friend and ever loyal standard bearer, was to lead the knights around the left flank and smash through the enemy’s ranks as Edwin held the line. The battle was a complete disaster. Edwin faltered in the face of the undead and was nearly killed by a mighty vampire in single combat. He was dragged down and knocked unconscious as the peasants fled the field. When he awoke he found that most of the knights where dead or injured. Amongst the dead were Lady Arianna and Sir Bertrand, who was struck down by an evil cursed weapon. His army in disarray, Edwin gave orders to the most senior surviving knight to lead the survivors to link up with a nearby Bretonnian army. He then gave Sir Bertrand a proper burial, personally digging the grave. He took into his care Sir Bertrand’s warhorse and rode off, unsure of where life would bring him.
For a long time Edwin was a very somber individual, driven by anger and revenge. He had lost everything that he held dear and did not know how to handle such great loss. He wandered around the Empire back toward Bretonnia seeking death in battle, but never finding it. Eventually, as he began to deal with the grief, Edwin finally began asking himself a question that would change his life. He began to wonder why he had lived. It was his fault that the line had faltered. It was his fault that the battle was lost. It was his fault that Sir Bertrand and Lady Arianna were dead. Why should he have lived? The answer finally gave him the comfort that he sought. Surely the Lady of the Lake had gifted him with life. Edwin was meant to do something important, he was not meant to die on that battlefield that day against the undead hordes. After he came to this conclusion, he gave his life completely to the Lady of the Lake. Drifting around the land he began to think of everything as fate. Nothing was of his choosing. Wherever circumstance took him is exactly where the Lady wanted him to be. He would eventually find the Lady of the Lake or die in the effort to follow her will. In truth he cared very little which would happen, as, either way, it would be what the Lady wanted for him.
Years after the battle against the undead horde, Sir Edwin has found himself back in Bretonnia. He is currently in the land of Bastonne where fate has swept him into a conflict with the very vampire who had nearly killed him so long ago. He, of course, is unaware of these facts. He is just simply following the will of the Lady.
Lady Aleena is one of the most senior prophetesses in the land of Brionne, and as such she has acted as a diplomat and advisor to Duke Theodoric. For years she has been troubled by visions of an unknown knight that she felt was destined to do something great for Bretonnia. The Lady of the Lake has recently revealed the knight’s identity and has shown Aleena that going to Bastonne is the path that will lead her to him. Duke Theodoric has marshaled an army to go with Lady Aleena. With no real idea of how she is supposed to locate Sir Edwin, Aleena has brought with her several damsels of The Lady to be dispersed throughout the Bretonnian forces. They will all be seeking Sir Edwin so that Aleena can aid him in his destiny, whatever that may be.
Augustine Beaumont, Champion of Lady Aleena, General of the forces of Brionne
Having drunk from the grail, Augustine Beaumont is one of Brionne’s most celebrated heroes. Sir Augustine is a warrior of great skill, having proven himself on the battlefield time and time again throughout his life. Before he took up the quest for the grail, Augustine acted as a general and led several armies to great victories. An inspirational leader of men, there is none that would not follow him into battle. Since his completion of the quest for the grail, he resides in a small chapel that he built near the northern bank of the River Brienne where the Lady of Lake appeared to him. He acts as guardian of this sacred ground.
Upon learning that Lady Aleena was to leave Brionne, Duke Theodric charged Sir Augustine with the protection of the prophetess, as well as giving him command of the forces being sent to support the campaign in Bastonne.
Alexandre Fulke, Lady Aleena’s Standard Bearer
One of many knights that answered Duke Theodric’s call to arms, Alexandre Fulke of Carcasonne was chosen by Lady Aleena to be the army’s standard bearer. His quest for the grail brought him to Brionne, where Aleena sought him out to bestow this honor upon him. He accepted, as there was no doubt this is the path that the Lady of the Lake had chosen for him.
Frederic Theobold, General of the forces of Bastonne
Frederic Theobold of Bastonne is one of Duke Bohemond’s Nephews. Astonishing confident in his abilities, he is particularly gifted in the art of the joust. When compared to knights who do not have such close ties with a Duke, it would seem he has not had to work as hard to earn his knighthood. While he has performed courageous deeds, most of his renown has been earned from his performance in jousting tournaments and on hunts. With the growing number of beastman raids from the Forest of Arden, Frederic has convinced the Duke to let him lead an army to the north to crush the raiders. There is much speculation that he is only doing this to prove that he is worthy of his rank. Indeed, if the campaign is successful, his critics would be silenced.
Sebastien Lemond, Standard Bearer of the forces of Bastonne
A lifetime long friend to Frederic, there is no doubt that Sebastien Lemond has benefitted from his friendship with the Duke’s nephew. He has proven himself in battle often and is well respected as an honorable knight of Bastonne. His unyielding loyalty is his most worthy virtue. Keeping in good favor with Frederic, and in turn the Duke, is something that he obsesses over, and he is always trying to be noticed in their eyes.
Edwin Hammel
Edwin Hammel of Parravon is the youngest of four brothers. Growing up on the low end of the pecking order, it was usually the more mundane duties that fell to him. In his early teens, most of his time was spent leading patrols of peasants around the Hammel family’s territory. This gave him great report with the peasants, who looked at him as a hero of the people, a role that Edwin embraced. This was his life for several years, a time in which the need to prove himself worthy of knighthood grew strong within him.
His opportunity came when Archaon, Lord of the End Times launched his attack on the Empire. King Louen launched an errantry war to aid their allies to the east, and Sir Edwin was ever anxious to enlist. In the conflict Edwin fought bravely, primarily against orcs and goblins, and often alongside the dwarfs. His defining moment was charging to aid a dwarf cannon crew that was being assaulted by several orcs. Edwin skewered one with his lance before his warhorse was sliced open by one of the orcs, tossing him to the ground. In the fury of combat that followed Edwin had managed to kill three more of the monsters before the orcs fled. Two of the dwarf crewmen survived, and adding their firepower proved to be a turning point in the battle. For his bravery Edwin was gifted with an exquisitely crafted helmet from the dwarf runesmith Okri Grondnuk.
When Archaon was defeated and the war came to an end, Sir Edwin travelled westward back to Bretonnia. The journey was a grim one as the knights marched though a land that was in shambles after the brutal war. Upon his arrival home, Edwin found himself as one of hundreds of knights errant who had earned ascension to a Knight of the Realm. For months Edwin returned to his old duties as the Dukes in Bretonnia struggled to find enough land to divide amongst the knights. The war had given him a taste of real battle, but still Edwin yearned for more. The thought of returning to patrols that rarely found and enemy worthy of him was not something that interested him. He wanted to prove himself in battle. Edwin was granted permission to lead a small army back into the Empire to aid them as they rebuilt their home. Sir Edwin marshaled a force of peasants and a few fellow knights to join him, and he headed back into the Empire.
For years Edwin’s army worked alongside Empire forces clearing small pockets of resistance leftover from the war. Edwin was not incredibly well versed in military tactics, but usually outnumbering his opponents, this was not an issue. Battle after battle he began to learn more. He took every opportunity to learn what he could from the Empires generals. Edwin had become a competent general by the time the Empire was once again thrown into the war. As rumors of the Nemesis Crown being located circulated, the armies of the world invaded the Empire once again. Sir Edwin led his army into battle, and to what would become the defining event in his life.
His scouts had located a force of the undead near a burial site. Sir Edwin had never faced the unholy forces of the undead, and was all too eager to prove himself against them. Edwin took his normal position, on foot leading his people. He was to lead the peasants up the middle into the clearing and bring the undead to battle. Sir Bertrand, his childhood friend and ever loyal standard bearer, was to lead the knights around the left flank and smash through the enemy’s ranks as Edwin held the line. The battle was a complete disaster. Edwin faltered in the face of the undead and was nearly killed by a mighty vampire in single combat. He was dragged down and knocked unconscious as the peasants fled the field. When he awoke he found that most of the knights where dead or injured. Amongst the dead were Lady Arianna and Sir Bertrand, who was struck down by an evil cursed weapon. His army in disarray, Edwin gave orders to the most senior surviving knight to lead the survivors to link up with a nearby Bretonnian army. He then gave Sir Bertrand a proper burial, personally digging the grave. He took into his care Sir Bertrand’s warhorse and rode off, unsure of where life would bring him.
For a long time Edwin was a very somber individual, driven by anger and revenge. He had lost everything that he held dear and did not know how to handle such great loss. He wandered around the Empire back toward Bretonnia seeking death in battle, but never finding it. Eventually, as he began to deal with the grief, Edwin finally began asking himself a question that would change his life. He began to wonder why he had lived. It was his fault that the line had faltered. It was his fault that the battle was lost. It was his fault that Sir Bertrand and Lady Arianna were dead. Why should he have lived? The answer finally gave him the comfort that he sought. Surely the Lady of the Lake had gifted him with life. Edwin was meant to do something important, he was not meant to die on that battlefield that day against the undead hordes. After he came to this conclusion, he gave his life completely to the Lady of the Lake. Drifting around the land he began to think of everything as fate. Nothing was of his choosing. Wherever circumstance took him is exactly where the Lady wanted him to be. He would eventually find the Lady of the Lake or die in the effort to follow her will. In truth he cared very little which would happen, as, either way, it would be what the Lady wanted for him.
Years after the battle against the undead horde, Sir Edwin has found himself back in Bretonnia. He is currently in the land of Bastonne where fate has swept him into a conflict with the very vampire who had nearly killed him so long ago. He, of course, is unaware of these facts. He is just simply following the will of the Lady.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Grismeire Valley Campaign - High Elf Characters
Prince Finduleas Tethelion of Caledor
Prince Tethelion, one of the arrogant and powerful princes of Caledor, found, in the deepest of vaults, what he believes are clues to the location of the fabled Spear of Twilight. Through quick politicking, Tethelion was able to get a Warrant of Quest from the Phoenix King's Court giving him permission to raise an expedition force bound for the Old World. Not wanting to reveal his true goal, the Prince had his most trusted servant, Loriss, make forgeries of the documents he'd stumbled on omitting all clues of the Spear of Twilight. Loriss had no small skill in forgery. The prize had to be Tethelion's alone.
With the new documents, Prince Tethelion was able to draw quite a number of intrigued mages to his entourage, and with them came their guards, the mighty Swordmasters of Hoeth. Many of Tethelion's own kin joined in the hunt as well. In the final days before departure, Finduleas solidified his power by waking the mighty dragon, Mauglissiar.
Tethelion sent envoys to the King of Bretonnia as well as the Duke of Bastonne requesting permission to search 'their' lands for his kin's lost property.
Due to a violent storm at sea, Tethelion's ship had to diviate to the south. Upon making port at Brionne, the Prince learned of rumors of foul beasts raiding the exact area he was heading for. At the large port city, Finduleas hired a large band of ogres to protect his expedition and as soon as the storm broke, set off again for the port of Bordeleaux and then on up the river towards Parravon. Upon the outskirts of Parravon, Tethelion ordered the ogres to travel ahead to the north eastern region of the Massif Orcal to make sure the way was clear and then set up camp near the Black Chasm.
While resupplying in Parravon, Prince Tethelion again heard news. This time, however, it only worked in his favour. An army of High Elves was already in the area! It seemed that the rear guard of Captain Caradryan's army of the Nemesis Crown War was here biding their time until the troop ships returned from Ulthuan. That would give him another two years!
Tethelion's expedition travelled north towards Bastonne and made camp upon the banks of the Grisimire River. Prince Tethelion quickly rode to Bastonne where he met Duke Theodric the Bretonnian general, as well as Commander Cilliriel and Captain Asurai Durnal of the Sylvanusian Silver Helms, the ranking elven officers.
As luck would have it, one of the wretched Vampiric kin had perched in the very area Prince Tethelion's research had marked as the wayward home of what could only be the Spear of Twilight.
Taking upon himself the role of Fearless Vanquisher of All Evil, Tethelion committed his forces to the destruction of such vile monstrosities. The other Elven Commanders were only too eager to commit their forces as well. Very well, the do-gooders were welcome to to front. All distraction from his quest must be quashed...
Loriss Ankgmar
Loriss is prince Tethelion's most trusted servant. He is well learned and a mage of no little power. Though versed in High Magic as well as the lores of all eight winds, Loriss always gravatates and finds the greatest affinity with the winds Shyish and Ulgu.
Captain Asurai Durnal of the Silver Helms of Sylvanus
Asurai is one of the followers of the 'Lost Prince' Raethiel Isildur Tiranoc, prince of Sylvanus. Unlike most Silver Helms, Durnal is not of noble blood. Prince Raethiel saw the promise in him, however, and gifted him with the tools and place in the Silver Helm unit of Sylvanus. As Sylvanus rose in power, so too did Asurai Durnal's own prestige leading eventually to him rising to the place of Captain of Sylvanus' regiment of Silverhelms. Captain Asurai led the troops of Sylvanus under Commander Cilliriel Drachen of the Phoenix Guard as part of Captain Caradryan's army in the War of the Nemesis Crown.
Commander Cilliriel Drachen, Keeper of the Flame of Asuryan
Commander Drachen is one of the mighty champions of the Phoenix Guard. He led the rear guard of his Captain, Caradryan after the War of the Nemesis Crown. As such, his force was left behind in the Old World until the troop ships return from Ulthuan. Though still in technical command of the army, he shares responsibility with Captain Durnal, an elf who has become somewhat of a hero to the elves in his force. The elven force has purchased an elven villa near the Bretonnian fortress of Bastonne to wait out the time until their departure. Only Cilliriel and the rest of his Phoenix Guard know the true reason for their delay and choice of location...
Aldric Quilute
Adric is a young elf who keeps apart from the festivities at Brionne, instead prefering the immediate countryside. His eyes smoulder amber that seems to denote a fiery demeanor. He's charismatic and quite talkative once engaged, upon a vast array of subjects, from subtle lore to the arts of combat, though it's hard to miss during such times that he is prone to (frequently unprovoked) mood swings and an, at times, distracted air about him.
Quint Fellius
Quint is an old and grizzled elf who wears a beautifully crafted silk scarf over his blind, maimed eyes. The loss of sight, however, does not seem to handicap him as he walks the crowded streets of Brionne without the help of a guide or cane. His face is a worn manuscript of scars telling of countless battlefields, heroics, and tragedies. Between his shoulders rests a mighty sword almost as tall as he in the blade alone, in a scabbard of silver and pearl. The veteran is often seen walking amongst the barracks, regaling the younger knights with tales of almost impossible bravery. To look at his ravaged body and hear his screams in the night is to know that every tale is true.
Nayell Glaugeniss
It is a well known among the expedition that Nayell knows everything. The rumor is not that far off. A mage of undisputable power and a warrior of no small ability, Nayell also teaches the young Elflings of Saphrey, is an excellent dancer, speaks 23 languages (2 of which he invented), plays 14 instruments, and is a gourmet chef. Through all of this pompously arrogant genius, Nayell remains an amiable fellow, always willing to tactfully offer a helping hand to those in need. He truly feels the call to help those he finds in need. He alone of the elves of the expedition foresaw the troubles about to come to Bastonne, and for that reason above all others did he and his entourage accompany the expedition.
Prince Tethelion, one of the arrogant and powerful princes of Caledor, found, in the deepest of vaults, what he believes are clues to the location of the fabled Spear of Twilight. Through quick politicking, Tethelion was able to get a Warrant of Quest from the Phoenix King's Court giving him permission to raise an expedition force bound for the Old World. Not wanting to reveal his true goal, the Prince had his most trusted servant, Loriss, make forgeries of the documents he'd stumbled on omitting all clues of the Spear of Twilight. Loriss had no small skill in forgery. The prize had to be Tethelion's alone.
With the new documents, Prince Tethelion was able to draw quite a number of intrigued mages to his entourage, and with them came their guards, the mighty Swordmasters of Hoeth. Many of Tethelion's own kin joined in the hunt as well. In the final days before departure, Finduleas solidified his power by waking the mighty dragon, Mauglissiar.
Tethelion sent envoys to the King of Bretonnia as well as the Duke of Bastonne requesting permission to search 'their' lands for his kin's lost property.
Due to a violent storm at sea, Tethelion's ship had to diviate to the south. Upon making port at Brionne, the Prince learned of rumors of foul beasts raiding the exact area he was heading for. At the large port city, Finduleas hired a large band of ogres to protect his expedition and as soon as the storm broke, set off again for the port of Bordeleaux and then on up the river towards Parravon. Upon the outskirts of Parravon, Tethelion ordered the ogres to travel ahead to the north eastern region of the Massif Orcal to make sure the way was clear and then set up camp near the Black Chasm.
While resupplying in Parravon, Prince Tethelion again heard news. This time, however, it only worked in his favour. An army of High Elves was already in the area! It seemed that the rear guard of Captain Caradryan's army of the Nemesis Crown War was here biding their time until the troop ships returned from Ulthuan. That would give him another two years!
Tethelion's expedition travelled north towards Bastonne and made camp upon the banks of the Grisimire River. Prince Tethelion quickly rode to Bastonne where he met Duke Theodric the Bretonnian general, as well as Commander Cilliriel and Captain Asurai Durnal of the Sylvanusian Silver Helms, the ranking elven officers.
As luck would have it, one of the wretched Vampiric kin had perched in the very area Prince Tethelion's research had marked as the wayward home of what could only be the Spear of Twilight.
Taking upon himself the role of Fearless Vanquisher of All Evil, Tethelion committed his forces to the destruction of such vile monstrosities. The other Elven Commanders were only too eager to commit their forces as well. Very well, the do-gooders were welcome to to front. All distraction from his quest must be quashed...
Loriss Ankgmar
Loriss is prince Tethelion's most trusted servant. He is well learned and a mage of no little power. Though versed in High Magic as well as the lores of all eight winds, Loriss always gravatates and finds the greatest affinity with the winds Shyish and Ulgu.
Captain Asurai Durnal of the Silver Helms of Sylvanus
Asurai is one of the followers of the 'Lost Prince' Raethiel Isildur Tiranoc, prince of Sylvanus. Unlike most Silver Helms, Durnal is not of noble blood. Prince Raethiel saw the promise in him, however, and gifted him with the tools and place in the Silver Helm unit of Sylvanus. As Sylvanus rose in power, so too did Asurai Durnal's own prestige leading eventually to him rising to the place of Captain of Sylvanus' regiment of Silverhelms. Captain Asurai led the troops of Sylvanus under Commander Cilliriel Drachen of the Phoenix Guard as part of Captain Caradryan's army in the War of the Nemesis Crown.
Commander Cilliriel Drachen, Keeper of the Flame of Asuryan
Commander Drachen is one of the mighty champions of the Phoenix Guard. He led the rear guard of his Captain, Caradryan after the War of the Nemesis Crown. As such, his force was left behind in the Old World until the troop ships return from Ulthuan. Though still in technical command of the army, he shares responsibility with Captain Durnal, an elf who has become somewhat of a hero to the elves in his force. The elven force has purchased an elven villa near the Bretonnian fortress of Bastonne to wait out the time until their departure. Only Cilliriel and the rest of his Phoenix Guard know the true reason for their delay and choice of location...
Aldric Quilute
Adric is a young elf who keeps apart from the festivities at Brionne, instead prefering the immediate countryside. His eyes smoulder amber that seems to denote a fiery demeanor. He's charismatic and quite talkative once engaged, upon a vast array of subjects, from subtle lore to the arts of combat, though it's hard to miss during such times that he is prone to (frequently unprovoked) mood swings and an, at times, distracted air about him.
Quint Fellius
Quint is an old and grizzled elf who wears a beautifully crafted silk scarf over his blind, maimed eyes. The loss of sight, however, does not seem to handicap him as he walks the crowded streets of Brionne without the help of a guide or cane. His face is a worn manuscript of scars telling of countless battlefields, heroics, and tragedies. Between his shoulders rests a mighty sword almost as tall as he in the blade alone, in a scabbard of silver and pearl. The veteran is often seen walking amongst the barracks, regaling the younger knights with tales of almost impossible bravery. To look at his ravaged body and hear his screams in the night is to know that every tale is true.
Nayell Glaugeniss
It is a well known among the expedition that Nayell knows everything. The rumor is not that far off. A mage of undisputable power and a warrior of no small ability, Nayell also teaches the young Elflings of Saphrey, is an excellent dancer, speaks 23 languages (2 of which he invented), plays 14 instruments, and is a gourmet chef. Through all of this pompously arrogant genius, Nayell remains an amiable fellow, always willing to tactfully offer a helping hand to those in need. He truly feels the call to help those he finds in need. He alone of the elves of the expedition foresaw the troubles about to come to Bastonne, and for that reason above all others did he and his entourage accompany the expedition.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Grismeire Valley Campaign - Beastmen Story
Banebeast Banedrom has led a long, gruesome campaign to earn the favor of Tzeenth and to assemble one of the most terrifying forces to strike from the heart of the charred lands from whence he came.
Born from blue flame, the Banebeast was clearly destined for greatness. Life among beasts made him tough, cunning. Rather than beat the stupid savages to death with a stone or club, the Banebeast would toy with his foe, leading him in with seeming slow wit. All too late it becomes clear that the Banebeast has led you to your grisly fate.
Wielding a massive war axe, the Banebeast is a fearsome warrior who has been blessed with cunning and the power to command the winds of Chaos themselves. Aided closely by his war council, Wargor Khorghur and Ghurgor the Bray, the Banebeast's herd is surrounding by an atmosphere that registers as an overbearing dread as the Banebeast fills the foe's mind with horrific visions.
Joining the Banebeast is a herd of frightening caliber. Followed by his minotaurs and beasts whom he has blessed with the influence of the great Sorcerer, the Banebeast is eager. The Ancient Ones have been awakened in the greatest storm in centuries and there are rumors that the Banebeast has been coercing a Monster to join him in his righteous campaign for the great Sorcerer.
Born from blue flame, the Banebeast was clearly destined for greatness. Life among beasts made him tough, cunning. Rather than beat the stupid savages to death with a stone or club, the Banebeast would toy with his foe, leading him in with seeming slow wit. All too late it becomes clear that the Banebeast has led you to your grisly fate.
Wielding a massive war axe, the Banebeast is a fearsome warrior who has been blessed with cunning and the power to command the winds of Chaos themselves. Aided closely by his war council, Wargor Khorghur and Ghurgor the Bray, the Banebeast's herd is surrounding by an atmosphere that registers as an overbearing dread as the Banebeast fills the foe's mind with horrific visions.
Joining the Banebeast is a herd of frightening caliber. Followed by his minotaurs and beasts whom he has blessed with the influence of the great Sorcerer, the Banebeast is eager. The Ancient Ones have been awakened in the greatest storm in centuries and there are rumors that the Banebeast has been coercing a Monster to join him in his righteous campaign for the great Sorcerer.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Grismeire Valley Campaign - Bretonnian Story
As day broke, the sunlight played amongst the rolling waves of the Great Ocean. From her window in one of the taller towers in the castle of Brionne, Lady Aleena could see the elven ships at port. Apparently, a storm had driven the elves off of their course, but she had no doubt that it was the Lady that had brought them to Brionne. One would normally be awestruck by the sight of the elegant ships. Some might consider themselves lucky to have seen one in their lifetime. However, as Aleena gazed out of the window she thought about the events of the past few days since the elves arrived. Her eyes were fixed upon the banner displayed on the vessel. She had seen the heraldry of the dragon before. It was the sign she had been waiting for.
For years Aleena had been troubled by visions of a particular Bretonnian knight that she only recently knew as Sir Edwin. She had seen Edwin in countless circumstances; soaring through the air on a mighty Pegasus, slaying Bretonnian’s invaders, standing over the graves of fallen friends, or locked in mortal combat with powerful enemies. She had seen him lead great victories and suffer crushing defeats. He had been portrayed as an errant knight, a grail knight, and every stage of knighthood in between. She had even seen his death in several visions, all of which were different. Every time her mind was opened to the knight, an incredible feeling of sorrow overcame her, often bringing her to tears. The visions had ranged so much in content that she had no idea what their purpose was. Were they real? Did this knight actually exist? She could not escape the feeling that this unknown knight had a destiny that was important to realm of Bretonnia, and that she was somehow tied to his fate. The most recent vision granted to her by the Lady had finally revealed the identity of the noble knight.
In the vision Aleena was walking along the shores of Brionne when the Lady of the Lake revealed herself from the depths of the Great Ocean. The spectral image of the Lady raised her arm and pointed off to the north east as she spoke. “Sir Edwin needs you” she said simply. Though this was the first time that she had heard the name, Aleena knew exactly of whom she spoke. The image of the Lady opened her arms, and as she faded back into the Otherworld an elven ship could be seen just off shore. Just before she woke from the dream, Aleena focused on the ship and noticed the heraldry of the dragon.
Until the elves arrived, she remained unsure of exactly what it was she was supposed to do. When she received word that high elf ships were driven off course and forced to make port in Brionne she immediately looked out of her window to the port. The fact that she knew what she was going to see did not prevent her from having to see it with her own eyes. Aleena immediately sent Victor, her servant, to summon the Duke of Brionne. The arrival of the elves was going to lead her to Sir Edwin.
Aleena was amongst Duke Theodoric’s most trusted advisors and one of the more powerful prophetesses in the land of Brionne. When Aleena inquired about the business of the high elves, the Duke explained that they were granted permission by both Duke Bohemond of Bastonne and King Louen himself to lead an expedition of importance to the elves in the lands of Bastonne. While the details of the expedition where not given, Theodric would never question the authority of the King. The high elves offered some aid in return for the Bretonnian cooperation. It seems that the northern regions of Bastonne have been experiencing increased raids by the foul beastmen from the Forest of Arden. Duke Bohemond’s nephew, Frederic Theobold, was mustering an army to head north to crush the beastman warbands. As they would be operating in Bastonne, the high elves offered their military support.
Aleena knew that following the high elves into Bastonne would bring her to Sir Edwin. She explained to Theodoric that the Lady had chosen her to go to Bastonne to aid in the upcoming battles, and requested permission from him to leave Brionne. She had no need to ask permission; as a living embodiment of the Lady’s will, the Duke had no authority over her. She would not, however, dishonor such a noble hero by flaunting her ability to operate outside of the hierarchy of Bretonnia. Certainly, he did not want to see her leave. Not only fearing for her own safety but also not wishing to give up her council. The Duke did not question her about her leaving Brionne, if it was the Lady’s will, he would see to it that it was fulfilled. He did, however request that she give him a few days to assemble an army to escort her and aid Bastonne in the upcoming war.
This was the third morning since her conversation with the Duke. The army was assembled and they were preparing to set off this morning. Lady Aleena awaited Sir Augustine Beaumont to inform her that the army was ready to march. Sir Augustine, a mighty grail knight, was chosen to lead the army as well as serve as Lady Aleena’s champion and protector.
As Aleena waited she recalled the grand feast that was held the night before in honor of the high elf visitors. She had dealt with elves before; in her role as advisor to the Duke she had diplomatic experience with most races. Still, she did not particularly enjoy the politics of such festivities. She much preferred to observe the parties involved and leave the conversation to the other more political individuals. She met the high elf leaders and had a brief polite conversation with each of them before fading into to background of the festivities where she could observe. Sir Augustine spoke with some of military leadership, no doubt familiarizing himself with their strengths and weaknesses, as well as coordinating the timeline of their arrival in Bastonne. The stoic knight struggled to think about anything other than his duty. The arrogance of the elves had shown itself subtly a few times throughout the night. As Duke Theodric told tales of his deeds, she watched Prince Tethelion pretend to be impressed; the look on Loriss’ face as he sampled the Duke’s finest wines. The attitude of elves was well known, and to be expected. For the few instances she had noticed it, they were quick to cover it. Whether this was out of politeness or meant that they were gifted liars, she could not decide. Either way, one thing was certain; the elves where very good at making themselves likable. No one within the festivities seemed to notice these things, and the conversation and laughter continued. She thought she was blending in quite well when an elf named Aldric startled her by posing a question about her enjoying these events as much as he did. She had not been aware that anyone was near her, let alone observing her. She spoke with Aldric for quite some time. He did not seem interested in the festivities at all, and mentioned that he had adventured around the countryside since they had arrived, and intended to do so again before they left. She recommended a few locations that she felt he ought to see, places of particular natural beauty. Aldric seemed to appreciate it, and for once she felt as if she actually had an honest conversation with an elf.
Aleena’s thoughts were interrupted when she heard the door to her quarters creak open followed by heavy armored footsteps entering the room. Sir Augustine rarely spoke, but when he did, his voice carried a tone that demanded attention. “My Lady. We await you”.
Shortly thereafter the army was marching through the gates of Brionne, met by the usual throng of peasants cheering on their knightly lords. Even after the crowds dispersed, Duke Theodric watched from the gate tower. He was always enthralled by the sight of the Bretonnians marching to war. His duties as Duke prevented him from joining this particular host, and as he thought about that fact he realized that his hand was tightly gripping the handle of his sword. He released his grip and continued to watch until the army had disappeared over the horizon. Surly, none could stand before the might of Bretonnia.
Sir Edwin awoke suddenly, his hand scrambling at his side to find his sword. As he found it he rolled into a crouch, ready to strike. His eyes darted around his camp, but there was nobody there. He realized that he was alone, and it was a dream. Not a day had gone by that he didn’t think about that battle years ago, but it had been a long time since he had such a vivid recollection of the undead hordes.
He relaxed his posture and stabbed his sword into the ground as his body began to remember its pains. Edwin could not remember the last time he slept in a proper bed. As a Bretonnian questing knight he was oath bound to never sleep two nights in the same place. He began to rotate his shoulders and massage his arms to relieve his aching body from the skirmish late yesterday. The commoners on the eastern borders of Bastonne had recently been victim of a few raids on the livestock. While it was certainly not his duty to investigate this, he did so anyway. After all of these years he still had respect for the low born peasants of Bretonnia. Besides, if he was not meant to be here, the Lady of the Lake would not have placed him here. It was not long before the thieves showed themselves, a small band of oddly garbed goblins. A strange mockery of human clothing, Edwin imagined they were attempting to blend into the human village. He dispatched the unworthy enemies with relative ease, but the goblins did manage to land a few blows he felt still today. As he began the process of cleaning his blade, Edwin cleared his mind and lost himself in his thoughts.
Edwin found the dream of the battle with the Vampire rather odd. Was it a sign, or simply a memory? It mattered very little; he had stopped trying to interpret visions long ago. He assumed that every decision that he made was not in fact his choice, but rather the will of The Lady. It had not served him wrong yet. Since he began living in that fashion, life had been a series of adventures. Every day seemed to lead into the next chapter of his story as he moved through the old world. He had recently reentered Bretonnia for the first time since he left so many years ago. While his life was that of a questing knight, his humble approach was slightly different, in that he did not yearn to find the grail. If and when the Lady of the Lake found him worthy to drink from the grail, he would do so. Until then he would perform the will of The Lady, and concern himself with very little else.
Edwin wondered where The Lady would guide him next, and as he packed up his few belongings onto his warhorse, he heard an unmistakable sound. He crept to the crest of the hill where he made his camp to observe. Just as he suspected, he watched a large group of Bretonnian knights, twenty or so, gallop from the horizon. They were still a good distance away, heading off to the west, but if he got going right away he would be able to cut them off. He mounted his warhorse and made off to do just that. When the knights spotted him, one of them broke off from the group and headed straight for him. Edwin halted a reasonable distance away as a sign of peace. When the knight got close enough, Edwin could tell by his heraldry and armament that he was also a questing knight.
He spoke of a war in the northern regions of Bastonne that this group had gotten word of. As they rode to aid in the upcoming battles they had gathered more numbers along the way, Edwin being the most recent addition to the group. Certainly it was the will of The Lady that he join the reinforcements. As he rode off with the band of knights he said a prayer to the Lady of the Lake, thanking her for choosing him to be an instrument of her will.
As he retired to his quarters, Frederic Theobold considered the military council that had just concluded. As he looked around the room he noted the things that were inadequately done by his servants. Though he could not remember his name, the head of the staff would receive the list in the morning. While he did not expect the comforts of his home in the small fortress that was acting as the launch point for the campaign, he did deserve better than this.
The reinforcements from Brionne had arrived at the small fortress a day earlier than expected, a much welcome surprise. A small part of his pride was stung by the amount of aid he was receiving in the upcoming campaign, but things had changed quite significantly from the original plan. Messengers from their high elves allies, operating to the east, had just yesterday brought word that there was undead forces located in the area around Tharravil. Nothing was yet known about the fate of the town, but the news had made this into a two front war. Evidently the high elves had seen it fit to hire honorless ogre mercenaries as bodyguards, a decision that Frederic despised. The ogres were well known to work for the highest bidder, and could not be trusted. It was not a pressing issue, certainly not worth upsetting the alliance with the elves. Given the current circumstances he supposed the ogres were a useful ally. However, Frederic noted that when the high elves concluded their expedition into Bastonne, the ogres would have to be closely watched and probably eradicated. Allowing them to operate in Bastonne was not an option.
As he settled into the uncomfortable bed, Frederic thought about the strategies and tactics that had been decided upon in the council. He was launching the attack early the following morning, and wanted to be well rested for the long days ahead of him. Everything was sound, and they had more forces available than he had originally anticipated. Surly leading this victory would bring him much glory. Though he was well aware of what people thought about his position, he did not care. Simply because of his family name he felt he was judged by a different standard. He viewed it as jealousy, but nevertheless, he would answer his critics with a swift powerful victory in the war. Frederic forced the thoughts from his head and instead focused on the glory he would achieve in the following days and weeks, as he drifted into sleep.
For years Aleena had been troubled by visions of a particular Bretonnian knight that she only recently knew as Sir Edwin. She had seen Edwin in countless circumstances; soaring through the air on a mighty Pegasus, slaying Bretonnian’s invaders, standing over the graves of fallen friends, or locked in mortal combat with powerful enemies. She had seen him lead great victories and suffer crushing defeats. He had been portrayed as an errant knight, a grail knight, and every stage of knighthood in between. She had even seen his death in several visions, all of which were different. Every time her mind was opened to the knight, an incredible feeling of sorrow overcame her, often bringing her to tears. The visions had ranged so much in content that she had no idea what their purpose was. Were they real? Did this knight actually exist? She could not escape the feeling that this unknown knight had a destiny that was important to realm of Bretonnia, and that she was somehow tied to his fate. The most recent vision granted to her by the Lady had finally revealed the identity of the noble knight.
In the vision Aleena was walking along the shores of Brionne when the Lady of the Lake revealed herself from the depths of the Great Ocean. The spectral image of the Lady raised her arm and pointed off to the north east as she spoke. “Sir Edwin needs you” she said simply. Though this was the first time that she had heard the name, Aleena knew exactly of whom she spoke. The image of the Lady opened her arms, and as she faded back into the Otherworld an elven ship could be seen just off shore. Just before she woke from the dream, Aleena focused on the ship and noticed the heraldry of the dragon.
Until the elves arrived, she remained unsure of exactly what it was she was supposed to do. When she received word that high elf ships were driven off course and forced to make port in Brionne she immediately looked out of her window to the port. The fact that she knew what she was going to see did not prevent her from having to see it with her own eyes. Aleena immediately sent Victor, her servant, to summon the Duke of Brionne. The arrival of the elves was going to lead her to Sir Edwin.
Aleena was amongst Duke Theodoric’s most trusted advisors and one of the more powerful prophetesses in the land of Brionne. When Aleena inquired about the business of the high elves, the Duke explained that they were granted permission by both Duke Bohemond of Bastonne and King Louen himself to lead an expedition of importance to the elves in the lands of Bastonne. While the details of the expedition where not given, Theodric would never question the authority of the King. The high elves offered some aid in return for the Bretonnian cooperation. It seems that the northern regions of Bastonne have been experiencing increased raids by the foul beastmen from the Forest of Arden. Duke Bohemond’s nephew, Frederic Theobold, was mustering an army to head north to crush the beastman warbands. As they would be operating in Bastonne, the high elves offered their military support.
Aleena knew that following the high elves into Bastonne would bring her to Sir Edwin. She explained to Theodoric that the Lady had chosen her to go to Bastonne to aid in the upcoming battles, and requested permission from him to leave Brionne. She had no need to ask permission; as a living embodiment of the Lady’s will, the Duke had no authority over her. She would not, however, dishonor such a noble hero by flaunting her ability to operate outside of the hierarchy of Bretonnia. Certainly, he did not want to see her leave. Not only fearing for her own safety but also not wishing to give up her council. The Duke did not question her about her leaving Brionne, if it was the Lady’s will, he would see to it that it was fulfilled. He did, however request that she give him a few days to assemble an army to escort her and aid Bastonne in the upcoming war.
This was the third morning since her conversation with the Duke. The army was assembled and they were preparing to set off this morning. Lady Aleena awaited Sir Augustine Beaumont to inform her that the army was ready to march. Sir Augustine, a mighty grail knight, was chosen to lead the army as well as serve as Lady Aleena’s champion and protector.
As Aleena waited she recalled the grand feast that was held the night before in honor of the high elf visitors. She had dealt with elves before; in her role as advisor to the Duke she had diplomatic experience with most races. Still, she did not particularly enjoy the politics of such festivities. She much preferred to observe the parties involved and leave the conversation to the other more political individuals. She met the high elf leaders and had a brief polite conversation with each of them before fading into to background of the festivities where she could observe. Sir Augustine spoke with some of military leadership, no doubt familiarizing himself with their strengths and weaknesses, as well as coordinating the timeline of their arrival in Bastonne. The stoic knight struggled to think about anything other than his duty. The arrogance of the elves had shown itself subtly a few times throughout the night. As Duke Theodric told tales of his deeds, she watched Prince Tethelion pretend to be impressed; the look on Loriss’ face as he sampled the Duke’s finest wines. The attitude of elves was well known, and to be expected. For the few instances she had noticed it, they were quick to cover it. Whether this was out of politeness or meant that they were gifted liars, she could not decide. Either way, one thing was certain; the elves where very good at making themselves likable. No one within the festivities seemed to notice these things, and the conversation and laughter continued. She thought she was blending in quite well when an elf named Aldric startled her by posing a question about her enjoying these events as much as he did. She had not been aware that anyone was near her, let alone observing her. She spoke with Aldric for quite some time. He did not seem interested in the festivities at all, and mentioned that he had adventured around the countryside since they had arrived, and intended to do so again before they left. She recommended a few locations that she felt he ought to see, places of particular natural beauty. Aldric seemed to appreciate it, and for once she felt as if she actually had an honest conversation with an elf.
Aleena’s thoughts were interrupted when she heard the door to her quarters creak open followed by heavy armored footsteps entering the room. Sir Augustine rarely spoke, but when he did, his voice carried a tone that demanded attention. “My Lady. We await you”.
Shortly thereafter the army was marching through the gates of Brionne, met by the usual throng of peasants cheering on their knightly lords. Even after the crowds dispersed, Duke Theodric watched from the gate tower. He was always enthralled by the sight of the Bretonnians marching to war. His duties as Duke prevented him from joining this particular host, and as he thought about that fact he realized that his hand was tightly gripping the handle of his sword. He released his grip and continued to watch until the army had disappeared over the horizon. Surly, none could stand before the might of Bretonnia.
Sir Edwin awoke suddenly, his hand scrambling at his side to find his sword. As he found it he rolled into a crouch, ready to strike. His eyes darted around his camp, but there was nobody there. He realized that he was alone, and it was a dream. Not a day had gone by that he didn’t think about that battle years ago, but it had been a long time since he had such a vivid recollection of the undead hordes.
He relaxed his posture and stabbed his sword into the ground as his body began to remember its pains. Edwin could not remember the last time he slept in a proper bed. As a Bretonnian questing knight he was oath bound to never sleep two nights in the same place. He began to rotate his shoulders and massage his arms to relieve his aching body from the skirmish late yesterday. The commoners on the eastern borders of Bastonne had recently been victim of a few raids on the livestock. While it was certainly not his duty to investigate this, he did so anyway. After all of these years he still had respect for the low born peasants of Bretonnia. Besides, if he was not meant to be here, the Lady of the Lake would not have placed him here. It was not long before the thieves showed themselves, a small band of oddly garbed goblins. A strange mockery of human clothing, Edwin imagined they were attempting to blend into the human village. He dispatched the unworthy enemies with relative ease, but the goblins did manage to land a few blows he felt still today. As he began the process of cleaning his blade, Edwin cleared his mind and lost himself in his thoughts.
Edwin found the dream of the battle with the Vampire rather odd. Was it a sign, or simply a memory? It mattered very little; he had stopped trying to interpret visions long ago. He assumed that every decision that he made was not in fact his choice, but rather the will of The Lady. It had not served him wrong yet. Since he began living in that fashion, life had been a series of adventures. Every day seemed to lead into the next chapter of his story as he moved through the old world. He had recently reentered Bretonnia for the first time since he left so many years ago. While his life was that of a questing knight, his humble approach was slightly different, in that he did not yearn to find the grail. If and when the Lady of the Lake found him worthy to drink from the grail, he would do so. Until then he would perform the will of The Lady, and concern himself with very little else.
Edwin wondered where The Lady would guide him next, and as he packed up his few belongings onto his warhorse, he heard an unmistakable sound. He crept to the crest of the hill where he made his camp to observe. Just as he suspected, he watched a large group of Bretonnian knights, twenty or so, gallop from the horizon. They were still a good distance away, heading off to the west, but if he got going right away he would be able to cut them off. He mounted his warhorse and made off to do just that. When the knights spotted him, one of them broke off from the group and headed straight for him. Edwin halted a reasonable distance away as a sign of peace. When the knight got close enough, Edwin could tell by his heraldry and armament that he was also a questing knight.
He spoke of a war in the northern regions of Bastonne that this group had gotten word of. As they rode to aid in the upcoming battles they had gathered more numbers along the way, Edwin being the most recent addition to the group. Certainly it was the will of The Lady that he join the reinforcements. As he rode off with the band of knights he said a prayer to the Lady of the Lake, thanking her for choosing him to be an instrument of her will.
As he retired to his quarters, Frederic Theobold considered the military council that had just concluded. As he looked around the room he noted the things that were inadequately done by his servants. Though he could not remember his name, the head of the staff would receive the list in the morning. While he did not expect the comforts of his home in the small fortress that was acting as the launch point for the campaign, he did deserve better than this.
The reinforcements from Brionne had arrived at the small fortress a day earlier than expected, a much welcome surprise. A small part of his pride was stung by the amount of aid he was receiving in the upcoming campaign, but things had changed quite significantly from the original plan. Messengers from their high elves allies, operating to the east, had just yesterday brought word that there was undead forces located in the area around Tharravil. Nothing was yet known about the fate of the town, but the news had made this into a two front war. Evidently the high elves had seen it fit to hire honorless ogre mercenaries as bodyguards, a decision that Frederic despised. The ogres were well known to work for the highest bidder, and could not be trusted. It was not a pressing issue, certainly not worth upsetting the alliance with the elves. Given the current circumstances he supposed the ogres were a useful ally. However, Frederic noted that when the high elves concluded their expedition into Bastonne, the ogres would have to be closely watched and probably eradicated. Allowing them to operate in Bastonne was not an option.
As he settled into the uncomfortable bed, Frederic thought about the strategies and tactics that had been decided upon in the council. He was launching the attack early the following morning, and wanted to be well rested for the long days ahead of him. Everything was sound, and they had more forces available than he had originally anticipated. Surly leading this victory would bring him much glory. Though he was well aware of what people thought about his position, he did not care. Simply because of his family name he felt he was judged by a different standard. He viewed it as jealousy, but nevertheless, he would answer his critics with a swift powerful victory in the war. Frederic forced the thoughts from his head and instead focused on the glory he would achieve in the following days and weeks, as he drifted into sleep.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Grismeire Valley Campaign - Vampire Counts Story
The Nemesis Crown had eventually been found and destroyed by the Dwarfs. The mysterious magical crown that had captivated the great powers of the world had turned out not to be the Crown of Nagash, much to the disappointment of Byron Manfred. Though he had learned much, attained many victories, and gained power and influence through his fighting in the Nemesis Crown Campaign, he felt no closer now than ever to his ultimate goal of being reunited with his only love.
Though somewhat discouraged, Byron continued to study the necromantic arts under his master, the Butcher of Bergendorf. Byron’s continuing exposure to the soul-warping influence of dark magic conspired with his despair and desperation to drive him towards the brink of sheer madness. His mind and soul suffered the ravages of overexposure to the winds of magic as he took greater risks in his desire to advance his knowledge and power too quickly. The Butcher was only too happy to encourage this reckless behavior in Byron as well as his other apprentices. But Byron was the quickest to advance, for he was the most willing to risk all for the slightest scrap of necromantic knowledge.
Eventually, the Butcher was made into a vampire by his own mysterious master, a figure spoken of only rarely and reluctantly. The Butcher’s transformation into a creature of undeath only increased his already considerable morbidity and callous disdain for life. He spent more and more of his time performing twisted and seemingly pointless experiments on human captives, always with grotesque results. The Butcher also amused himself by having his necromancer apprentices compete with each other in perverse feats of necromancy, with the loser often becoming the next victim of his experiments. Eventually, Byron was left as The Butcher’s lone apprentice, but the souls of the others would never rest in peace.
In the course of his studies, Byron came across some evidence that he thought might point to the location of the mighty Crown of Nagash. An ancient scroll told of events from nearly a thousand years in the past, when an evil sorceror secreted away an artifact, awesome in power and priceless in value. The sorceror smuggled the artifact across the grey mountains and into Eastern Bretonnia, going into hiding in the valley of the Grismeire river. The dark wizard was eventually found and slain by a small group of brave knights, but the artefact was never recovered.
Based on the descriptions of the sorcerer, the time period of the event, and the account’s emphasis on the incredible power of the artifact, Byron thought it was possible it referred to the Crown of Nagash. The Butcher found out about Byron’s research, and informed his own shadowy master of Byron’s theory. Their Master decided that the possibility of discovering the Crown of Nagash, or some other powerful magical artifact of Nagash’s reign of terror, was worth looking into.
The Master brought together several of his vampiric minions, including the Butcher of Bergedorf, for an expedition into Bretonnia’s Grismeire River Valley to search for the artefact. In the meantime, the Beastman warband of Banebeast Banedrom had moved through the mountains into the Forest of Arden, intent on raiding the small Bretonnian towns in the forest. Having experienced their fury firsthand during the Nemesis Crown war, Byron knew he wouldn’t want to come up against the Beastmen during their search. The Master sent an envoy to the Beastmen, offering them some ancient pieces of sacred Herdstones in exchange for a truce. The Beastmen would leave the vampires alone while they conducted their search. Plus, the Beastman raids on Bretonnian settlements would hopefully distract any Bretonnian forces and keep them from discovering the Vampire expedition.
The vampire knight Vlad Tepes also joined with the Master’s expedition. Ever since the Nemesis Crown war, Vlad had been searching for the Bretonnian knight who had managed to wound him in single combat. The impudent mortal knight had escaped before Vlad could finish him off. Now, Tepes wants to find the knight and finish the duel they had started, to find out once and for all who is the superior warrior. The expedition is glad to have his skill on their side, but Vlad’s only desire is finding his foe and finishing him off in single combat.
The vampires snuck across the Grey Mountains and into Bretonnia and came upon a small mountain village. They killed every resident of the village, raising them as zombies and using them as undead laborers to construct a camp. This would be their base of operations while they conducted their search. They hoped that if they kept a low profile, the Bretonnians would be busy enough with the Beastmen that they could search for the magical artifact without interruption. Unfortunately, they did not know that the High Elf force that Byron and The Butcher had defeated in several decisive battles during the Nemesis Crown war was still in the Old World.
The High Elf army of Commander Cilliriel Drachen, though it had been beaten and forced to retreat, had not returned to Ulthuan. In addition, another High Elf force under Prince Finduleas Tethelion arrived in Bretonnia. Unknown to the vampires, Tethelion was also looking for a powerful magical artifact, what he believed to be the Spear of Twilight. Unfortunately, Tethelion believed this artifact was in the same area the Vampires were searching. As Tethelion’s advance scouts scoured the area, they discovered the Vampire expedition. They had hoped to find the Crown of Nagash before anyone had discovered their presence in Bretonnia, but now they would likely have Bretonnian and High Elf armies to contend with. It wouldn’t be easy, but The Master wasn’t going to give up without a fight.
Though somewhat discouraged, Byron continued to study the necromantic arts under his master, the Butcher of Bergendorf. Byron’s continuing exposure to the soul-warping influence of dark magic conspired with his despair and desperation to drive him towards the brink of sheer madness. His mind and soul suffered the ravages of overexposure to the winds of magic as he took greater risks in his desire to advance his knowledge and power too quickly. The Butcher was only too happy to encourage this reckless behavior in Byron as well as his other apprentices. But Byron was the quickest to advance, for he was the most willing to risk all for the slightest scrap of necromantic knowledge.
Eventually, the Butcher was made into a vampire by his own mysterious master, a figure spoken of only rarely and reluctantly. The Butcher’s transformation into a creature of undeath only increased his already considerable morbidity and callous disdain for life. He spent more and more of his time performing twisted and seemingly pointless experiments on human captives, always with grotesque results. The Butcher also amused himself by having his necromancer apprentices compete with each other in perverse feats of necromancy, with the loser often becoming the next victim of his experiments. Eventually, Byron was left as The Butcher’s lone apprentice, but the souls of the others would never rest in peace.
In the course of his studies, Byron came across some evidence that he thought might point to the location of the mighty Crown of Nagash. An ancient scroll told of events from nearly a thousand years in the past, when an evil sorceror secreted away an artifact, awesome in power and priceless in value. The sorceror smuggled the artifact across the grey mountains and into Eastern Bretonnia, going into hiding in the valley of the Grismeire river. The dark wizard was eventually found and slain by a small group of brave knights, but the artefact was never recovered.
Based on the descriptions of the sorcerer, the time period of the event, and the account’s emphasis on the incredible power of the artifact, Byron thought it was possible it referred to the Crown of Nagash. The Butcher found out about Byron’s research, and informed his own shadowy master of Byron’s theory. Their Master decided that the possibility of discovering the Crown of Nagash, or some other powerful magical artifact of Nagash’s reign of terror, was worth looking into.
The Master brought together several of his vampiric minions, including the Butcher of Bergedorf, for an expedition into Bretonnia’s Grismeire River Valley to search for the artefact. In the meantime, the Beastman warband of Banebeast Banedrom had moved through the mountains into the Forest of Arden, intent on raiding the small Bretonnian towns in the forest. Having experienced their fury firsthand during the Nemesis Crown war, Byron knew he wouldn’t want to come up against the Beastmen during their search. The Master sent an envoy to the Beastmen, offering them some ancient pieces of sacred Herdstones in exchange for a truce. The Beastmen would leave the vampires alone while they conducted their search. Plus, the Beastman raids on Bretonnian settlements would hopefully distract any Bretonnian forces and keep them from discovering the Vampire expedition.
The vampire knight Vlad Tepes also joined with the Master’s expedition. Ever since the Nemesis Crown war, Vlad had been searching for the Bretonnian knight who had managed to wound him in single combat. The impudent mortal knight had escaped before Vlad could finish him off. Now, Tepes wants to find the knight and finish the duel they had started, to find out once and for all who is the superior warrior. The expedition is glad to have his skill on their side, but Vlad’s only desire is finding his foe and finishing him off in single combat.
The vampires snuck across the Grey Mountains and into Bretonnia and came upon a small mountain village. They killed every resident of the village, raising them as zombies and using them as undead laborers to construct a camp. This would be their base of operations while they conducted their search. They hoped that if they kept a low profile, the Bretonnians would be busy enough with the Beastmen that they could search for the magical artifact without interruption. Unfortunately, they did not know that the High Elf force that Byron and The Butcher had defeated in several decisive battles during the Nemesis Crown war was still in the Old World.
The High Elf army of Commander Cilliriel Drachen, though it had been beaten and forced to retreat, had not returned to Ulthuan. In addition, another High Elf force under Prince Finduleas Tethelion arrived in Bretonnia. Unknown to the vampires, Tethelion was also looking for a powerful magical artifact, what he believed to be the Spear of Twilight. Unfortunately, Tethelion believed this artifact was in the same area the Vampires were searching. As Tethelion’s advance scouts scoured the area, they discovered the Vampire expedition. They had hoped to find the Crown of Nagash before anyone had discovered their presence in Bretonnia, but now they would likely have Bretonnian and High Elf armies to contend with. It wouldn’t be easy, but The Master wasn’t going to give up without a fight.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Warrior Priest Character Story
Before there was a Warhammer 40,000 Roleplaying game, we used to sometimes use the Inquisitor rules to do some action heavy roleplaying campaigns. At one point, a friend of mine was going to adapt the rules to do a similar action roleplaying campaign based in the Warhammer Fantasy setting. He never got around to actually running the game, but I did write up a story for the insane warrior priest character I was going to play as. So I figured I'd post it here for posterity.
The character was a normal warrior priest in the Empire, until he found himself trapped in a quarantined settlement that had fallen to Nurgle, the god of decay. Eventually, everyone in the settlement except for the priest succumbed to Nurgle's rot, and upon their death from the horrible disease, became plague zombies. Being locked in the settlement, the warrior priest has to single-handedly fight off the diseased corpses of all the former residents of the settlement, who had been his congregation. The horrifying experience left him a little unbalanced, and now wherever he perceives moral corruption, he sees physical decay and insists on destroying it.
He thrashes in his sleep, rolling around on the cold hard ground. Father Raleigh, or rather the man who used to be Father Raleigh, is haunted by vivid nightmares. He sees visions of horror beyond description, of madness beyond imagination. He sees the world engulfed in the terrifying shadow of Chaos. An unstoppable, festering decay consuming all in its path. Not only the realms of men, but the entire world is turned into a hellish nightmare of hopelessness. All is consumed. All is lost. Even life itself becomes nothing more than disgusting, rotting filth, a sick and twisted mockery of its true potential. The gift of life is but fleeting glimmer of light stamped out by the eternal darkness of evil, and all that is left is emptiness, nothingness, and the slow agonizing death of eternal decay. The Earth itself rots away, now nothing more than a barren rock drifting through a lifeless universe conquered by Chaos.
He awakens suddenly, but the nightmare continues. The maddening visions still grip him, as vividly as in his dreams. As vividly as if they were real. He lets out a scream he can’t even hear, frantically trying to force the visions out of his mind. They are too powerful for him to ignore. He begins to wonder if he is still asleep, still dreaming. Or, is he even still alive? Perhaps this is hell. What else could this be? He quickly grabs the short knife from his belt and presses it hard against his forearm. His hand shaking, he slowly drags the blade across his flesh, leaving a deep, jagged cut spewing blood. The sharp, intense pain briefly distracts him from the visions. The pain is all he has. It takes his mind off the terrible visions. It reminds him that he is still alive. It proves to him that he is real. That the world is real. That he even exists.
He continues to carve uneven cuts into his arm. Now he can think clearly. Now it all makes sense. All is pain. His mind is filled completely with the pain, pushing his nightmares into the deep recesses of his subconscious mind. He now moves the knife up to his forehead, plunging the sharp tip into his skin. He makes several straight cuts. He presses the knife so hard to his head that it scrapes ruts into his skull. Blood flows over his face as he brings the knife back down. Without any conscious thought to do so, he has carved the word “SIN” into his forehead.
He puts the knife back away and stands up in one motion. He immediately begins to walk. Blood is now dripping from his chin with every step. His face is hard and determined. His eyes are wide and wild, peering maniacally even though they see nothing but the desolate wilderness before them. His muscular body would be almost pure white from the cold if it were not covered entirely in bloodstains and massive bruises. His Book of Sigmar hangs from a chain attached to a metal collar, and sways back and forth as he walks. With each step he takes, he drags behind him three heavy warhammers. One chained to each leg, and another chained to a metal bracelet on his right arm. The hammers dig up snow and earth, leaving deep bloodstained ruts in his wake.
He keeps walking at a constant pace. All around him, in every direction, things look the same. There is nothing but snow and thin, bare trees. From time to time he passes some corpses frozen stiff in the woods. The corpses of those who fled for their lives from the outpost. Though the cold has kept their bodies from decomposing, he sees them only as rotting carcasses. Rotting, festering corpses, just like everything around him. He pays them no mind and continues his journey. He is on no path. He walks where Sigmar guides him, and trusts that he will find his way to where he needs to be. Just as he did the day before, when he walked nonstop until nightfall and then collapsed in exhaustion. His limbs could carry him no farther.
When he woke up, his whole body was sore. Only through incredible force of will was he able to convince his limbs to move. As soon as he stood up, his legs burned in agony and fatigue. But yet he continues to walk. He welcomes the constant pain. He keeps his mind sharply focused on the pain to the exclusion of all other thoughts. This wards off the visions while he walks. But the strain on his body becomes too much. When his legs start to give out on him, he pulls on the chain attached to his right arm. He drags the chain until he is able to pull the hammer up into his hands. And then, while he continues walking, he viciously beats his thighs with the hammer. He beats them into submission, refusing to allow them to give out on him. He continues to trudge through the snow. His bare feet are nearly frozen as he comes near to the end of his second straight day of walking through the frozen wilderness. But somehow, frostbite has not yet set in on his swollen, bruised feet. If it did, he would simply beat the evil decay out of them.
This is his punishment, and he shall accept it. The world has sinned against Sigmar. The world has turned their back on Sigmar and become corrupt. The moral decay of mankind has caused Sigmar to turn his back on the decaying world. That is why Sigmar would allow it to be destroyed by Chaos. It does not deserve to survive in its state of moral weakness. He realizes now that he has sinned, as well. He has not done as much as he could have to change things, to make the world better. To eliminate those who are corrupt and redeem those who can be saved. Yes, he is guilty of this sin. Perhaps the greatest sin of all. Complacency. He has failed in his duty to Sigmar. He has not done everything in his power to seek out and destroy the festering evils of the world. Now he repents for his sin, and now he pays his penance. He continues plodding through the freezing cold, dragging the massive war hammers behind him. His suffering is his penance to Sigmar. His suffering is his redemption. Soon the world of men will repent and find redemption. Soon the world of men will pay its penance. He will see to that.
He awakens suddenly, but the nightmare continues. The maddening visions still grip him, as vividly as in his dreams. As vividly as if they were real. He lets out a scream he can’t even hear, frantically trying to force the visions out of his mind. They are too powerful for him to ignore. He begins to wonder if he is still asleep, still dreaming. Or, is he even still alive? Perhaps this is hell. What else could this be? He quickly grabs the short knife from his belt and presses it hard against his forearm. His hand shaking, he slowly drags the blade across his flesh, leaving a deep, jagged cut spewing blood. The sharp, intense pain briefly distracts him from the visions. The pain is all he has. It takes his mind off the terrible visions. It reminds him that he is still alive. It proves to him that he is real. That the world is real. That he even exists.
He continues to carve uneven cuts into his arm. Now he can think clearly. Now it all makes sense. All is pain. His mind is filled completely with the pain, pushing his nightmares into the deep recesses of his subconscious mind. He now moves the knife up to his forehead, plunging the sharp tip into his skin. He makes several straight cuts. He presses the knife so hard to his head that it scrapes ruts into his skull. Blood flows over his face as he brings the knife back down. Without any conscious thought to do so, he has carved the word “SIN” into his forehead.
He puts the knife back away and stands up in one motion. He immediately begins to walk. Blood is now dripping from his chin with every step. His face is hard and determined. His eyes are wide and wild, peering maniacally even though they see nothing but the desolate wilderness before them. His muscular body would be almost pure white from the cold if it were not covered entirely in bloodstains and massive bruises. His Book of Sigmar hangs from a chain attached to a metal collar, and sways back and forth as he walks. With each step he takes, he drags behind him three heavy warhammers. One chained to each leg, and another chained to a metal bracelet on his right arm. The hammers dig up snow and earth, leaving deep bloodstained ruts in his wake.
He keeps walking at a constant pace. All around him, in every direction, things look the same. There is nothing but snow and thin, bare trees. From time to time he passes some corpses frozen stiff in the woods. The corpses of those who fled for their lives from the outpost. Though the cold has kept their bodies from decomposing, he sees them only as rotting carcasses. Rotting, festering corpses, just like everything around him. He pays them no mind and continues his journey. He is on no path. He walks where Sigmar guides him, and trusts that he will find his way to where he needs to be. Just as he did the day before, when he walked nonstop until nightfall and then collapsed in exhaustion. His limbs could carry him no farther.
When he woke up, his whole body was sore. Only through incredible force of will was he able to convince his limbs to move. As soon as he stood up, his legs burned in agony and fatigue. But yet he continues to walk. He welcomes the constant pain. He keeps his mind sharply focused on the pain to the exclusion of all other thoughts. This wards off the visions while he walks. But the strain on his body becomes too much. When his legs start to give out on him, he pulls on the chain attached to his right arm. He drags the chain until he is able to pull the hammer up into his hands. And then, while he continues walking, he viciously beats his thighs with the hammer. He beats them into submission, refusing to allow them to give out on him. He continues to trudge through the snow. His bare feet are nearly frozen as he comes near to the end of his second straight day of walking through the frozen wilderness. But somehow, frostbite has not yet set in on his swollen, bruised feet. If it did, he would simply beat the evil decay out of them.
This is his punishment, and he shall accept it. The world has sinned against Sigmar. The world has turned their back on Sigmar and become corrupt. The moral decay of mankind has caused Sigmar to turn his back on the decaying world. That is why Sigmar would allow it to be destroyed by Chaos. It does not deserve to survive in its state of moral weakness. He realizes now that he has sinned, as well. He has not done as much as he could have to change things, to make the world better. To eliminate those who are corrupt and redeem those who can be saved. Yes, he is guilty of this sin. Perhaps the greatest sin of all. Complacency. He has failed in his duty to Sigmar. He has not done everything in his power to seek out and destroy the festering evils of the world. Now he repents for his sin, and now he pays his penance. He continues plodding through the freezing cold, dragging the massive war hammers behind him. His suffering is his penance to Sigmar. His suffering is his redemption. Soon the world of men will repent and find redemption. Soon the world of men will pay its penance. He will see to that.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Warhammer 40,000 Eldar Special Character
Harai Grae Dei
Aka Lieutenant Grady
Lieutenant Grady is legendary among the pirates and corsairs of Tito’s fleet, who consider him to be a good luck charm. His fame began during a battle against a small force of Space Marines on the Exodite world of Tirathain. At the time, Grady was just an inexperienced young corsair guardian. His unit was pinned down by heavy weapons fire from a squad of marine devastators. In a legendary act of stupendous courage and foolishness, Grady shouted at his comrades to follow, and charged out of cover towards the marines.
The rest of his squad immediately yelled at Grady to stay down, but he would hear none of it. He was hardly interested in hearing any of their extremely sane advice. The others could only look on as Grady broke cover and sprinted across the open ground towards the position of the space marines.
Once Grady was in the open, the marines focused their fire on him and let loose a torrent of heavy bolter and assault cannon shots. Grady was struck several times by the heavy weapons fire, and fell to his knees. His horrified squad looked on, but the Grady quickly disappeared in clouds of smoke and debris caused by the heavy weapons fire tearing into the ground all around him.
Seconds later when the dust cleared, his squad mates could make out the miraculous sight of Grady, getting back to his feet and continuing his charge towards the space marine position. Inspired by Grady’s miraculous resilience and insane dedication, the others in his squad let out a cheer and sprinted out of cover after him.
The space marines were stunned to see Grady get back to his feet and charge out of the cloud of smoke and dust towards them. After a second’s hesitation, they retrained their weapons on him and let loose another fierce burst of weapons fire. Grady was struck again, and this time wounded more severely. He fell to the ground, finally incapacitated by the absurd amount of fire directed at him.
But as Grady collapsed, the rest of his furiously inspired squad charged past him and towards the space marines with incredible speed. With Grady having drawn such a great deal of fire from the marine heavy weapons, the rest of the squad made it to the marine position with few casualties. In their enthusiasm the Eldar pirates completely overwhelmed the marine position in the ensuing combat.
After the battle, the others returned for the heroic Grady and in another miraculous testament to his incredible resiliency and force of will, Grady actually survived his wounds. He did have to receive several bionic implants and replacements in order to recover from his injuries, but he survived. From then on, the pirates he fought with, and soon all who heard the incredible story, praised Grady both for his idiotic courage and for his sheer dumb luck.
Since then, Grady’s reputation has spread. The other pirates and corsairs in the fleet considering him to be something of a good luck charm. He inspires those around him to greater acts of bravery, as they feel much safer knowing they have Grady there to draw fire away from them. For his part, Grady has tried to perpetuate this feeling by very often doing stupidly courageous and even utterly suicidal things on the battlefield. This has led to him being wounded many times, and requiring more bionic replacements, but he still has yet to be killed.
He even survived an incident where he and a small group of Eldar pirates were mysteriously sucked into the warp and transported to the daemon world of D’Elaware. There, he and his army were made to fight against the retinues of several other champions for the amusement of the Chaos gods. All of the champions ended up battling on a massive Ziggurat of Doom. A deadly unit of Harlequins killed two of the other champions, including a massive daemonically powered Ork warboss who had completely wiped out a squad of pirates Grady had been leading, though Grady himself, as always, had survived. In fact, Grady survived the longest of any of the champions, but was eventually badly wounded by enemy fire. The surviving Harlequins rescued Grady and managed to escape the daemon world with him, and he lived to fight yet again.
Because of his insane courage and luck, all those who fight with Grady have grown to love him and even treat him as something of a folk hero. This despite the fact that most who fight alongside Grady are not nearly as lucky when it comes to surviving as Grady himself.
LIEUTENANT GRADY – 60 pts
WS:4 BS:4 S:3 T:3 W:3 I:4 A:2 Ld:9 Sv:5+
SPECIAL RULES
Fleet of Foot, Independent Character.
Iron Will: Grady has incredible will power and refuses to go down. He has the Feel No Pain universal special rule.
Cybernetic Body: At this point, most of Grady’s body has been replaced with cybernetic augmentations. These augmentations provide further protection and also incorporate redundant life support systems to keep Grady alive. Grady is immune to Instant Death from weapons with a strength twice or more his toughness. Things that cause instant death in other ways will still work as normal.
Insane Courage: Grady is always out in front of the men, placing himself in harm’s way. When part of a unit taking fire, Grady will always be hit by as many shots as legally possible when distributing hits. So if the unit takes a single wound, Grady will have to take a save for it. If a unit takes one more wound than it has models, Grady will take two saves and everyone else a single save, etc.
Man of the People: Grady is by no means any sort of military strategist or brilliant commander of troops. He can never join units of Aspect Warriors, as there is no way they would follow his orders. However, any unit Grady does join is so inspired by his courage that they may re-roll any leadership based test they are required to take.
Grady can be chosen as an upgrade for any unit of guardians, instead of being chosen as a separate HQ choice. In this case, he no longer counts as an independent character and does not use up an HQ slot on the force organization chart.
WARGEAR
Shuriken pistol, close combat weapon, plasma grenades, haywire grenades, forceshield (4+ invulnerable save).
Monday, August 10, 2009
Warhammer 40,000 Eldar Special Character
Rai luith aeth
Aka Pirate Captain Raleigh
Captain Raleigh is the captain of one of the cruisers in Tito’s fleet, as well as the leader of the ships ground forces. He is a competent naval commander and military strategist, but his greatest skill lies in his mastery of guerilla warfare.
Through many decades of piracy and raiding, Raleigh has become an expert in stealth, ambush, and sabotage. He would often sneak behind enemy lines or into encampments to plant booby traps. He would then conceal himself and wait for the perfect moment in order to spring an attack when the enemy least expects it.
Perhaps his most famous battle occurred while raiding an imperial outpost. Unexpectedly, the outpost ended up having several squads of Ultramarines guarding it. After springing their attack, Raleigh and his men suffered a brutally swift counter-attack from the highly trained Space Marines.
All of Raleigh’s men were wiped out in the ensuing firefight, but Raleigh managed to escape and conceal himself. The Ultramarines thought the battle was over, but Raleigh would not leave without avenging his fallen men.
Using his incredible stealth, Raleigh stalked the Ultramarines, waiting for individual units to be isolated. Then suddenly he would be upon them, his arcane but deadly rad grenades weakening the marines before he charged in the finish them off. Then, as quickly as he has sprung upon them, he would fade away back into the darkness before another squad could arrive to help.
Captain Raleigh repeated this tactic, isolating each of the marine combat squads, ambushing them, and then escaping into hiding. He continued his guerilla campaign until he had slain every single one of the Ultramarine guards at the outpost. This amounted to killing around 15 or 20 Space Marines single handedly.
But more importantly for Raleigh, he had killed those who had slaughtered his brave men, and avenged their loss. Afterward Raleigh made his way back to his ship to get reinforcements, and the outpost was then successfully raided. All who heard of the raid learned of the value of Raleigh’s guerilla warfare tactics.
CAPTAIN RALEIGH – 120 pts
WS:6 BS:6 S:3 T:3 W:3 I:6 A:3 Ld:10 Sv:3+
SPECIAL RULES
Fleet of Foot, Independent Character.
Master Strategist: Captain Raleigh is essentially the corsair equivalent of an Autarch. He has the Master Strategist rule, just like a regular Autarch.
Guerilla Warrior: Captain Raleigh is an expert in guerilla warfare. He has the Infiltrate and Hit And Run universal special rules.
WARGEAR
Shuriken pistol, power weapon, avenger shuriken catapult, plasma grenades, haywire grenades, forceshield (4+ invulnerable save), mandiblasters.
Rad Grenades: These extremely rare grenades saturate a small area with a burst a powerful radiation that is engineered to quickly dissipate once the initial damage is done. A model with rad grenades can re-roll any of his to wound rolls in the first round of any assault.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Warhammer 40,000 Eldar Special Character
Tito Cai caedr eth
Exiled Farseer of Iyanden
Tito was born on Craftworld Iyanden, the son of the most powerful and most respected farseer on the craftworld. From a very early age, Tito proved incredibly gifted in the psychic arts, a gift that he clearly inherited from his father. But he also developed many qualities his father did not share. His mind often drifted to thoughts of excitement and adventure, exploration of far away worlds, and the glory of battle.
Tito would have preferred to follow the path of the warrior or of the naval commander. Or even to succumb to the wanderlust and take up with some rangers to explore the distant reaches of the galaxy. But such an option was impossible for the son of an important and respected figure of authority on Iyanden. Tito’s father, pressured by public opinion, in turn pressured his son to follow a respectable path of public service.
So against his true desires, Tito followed in his father’s footsteps and set about one of the strictest and most difficult paths an Eldar can undertake: the path of the seer. Despite his whole heart not being entirely in it, Tito’s natural gifts and thirst for knowledge saw him advance quickly along the path. In fact, he was one of the youngest of the Iyanden craftworld to ever attain the designation of Farseer. Some, however, saw his rapid advancement along the path as recklessness rather than skillfulness. He was particularly resented by many of the older farseers, who had taken much longer than Tito to achieve a similar level of ability and status.
But many others viewed Tito as a brilliant rising star in Iyanden society. Before long, he, like his father, had become an important figure in the leadership of the craftworld. He met and got to know many other leaders of Iyanden society: other seers, politicians, naval commanders, leaders of the great warrior shrines, and many others. But through his rise to prominence, Tito never lost his thirst for adventure, which would soon lead him to tragedy.
One day, Tito proclaimed to his fellow farseers that in his examinations of the strings of fate, he had come to an important conclusion. In his view, the salvation of the Iyanden craftworld, and the Eldar race itself, lie in the recovery of ancient elder artifacts and worlds that were lost during the fall. In his visions, Tito saw that these lost pieces of ancient Eldar culture were the key to reclaiming the glorious heights of power the Eldar once enjoyed. He proposed that a large portion of the fleet and the aspect warriors of Iyanden be formed into a crusading force that Tito himself would lead throughout the galaxy, finding and reclaiming the shards of their lost civilization.
The farseers on the ruling council, including Tito’s father, were completely against the idea, which they considered to be far too dangerous and reckless. They all warned that they sensed a possible disaster that could result from leaving Iyanden so lightly defended. Unfortunately, none of the great farseers were able to foresee any details of the looming danger, as they claimed something was clouding their ability to clearly discern the future.
Tito thought the old farseers were just jealous of his abilities, and were being intentionally difficult. He did not believe their vague claims of a potential disaster since he sensed no such thing. Without their approval, Tito set about convincing others of his plan, and soon had a large group of supporters. These supporters included prominent admiral Kuronus Tirtu and his fleet, powerful autarchs, many aspect warrior exarchs, and quite a few warlocks who had been followers and students of Tito. They were all convinced by the grandeur of Tito’s plans and pledged their considerable resources to it.
With so much support behind him, Tito set off with his fleet and considerable army despite the almost unanimous objections of the other farseers of Iyanden. They explored the galaxy, searching out the former bastions of Eldar civilization in their search for powerful ancient artifacts. Tito personally led many battles on distant worlds, and enjoyed being in the thick of the action. Many of the exodites and rangers the fleet encountered joined up with them when hearing of Tito’s deeds and his noble quest to regain the glory of their race. Even the famed Corsair Prince Yriel joined up with Tito’s grand fleet.
Then one day, without warning, the shadow that had been clouding the strands of the future lifted, and Tito had a horrifying vision. He instantly realized the terrible mistake he had made. The Council of Farseers had been right all along. Tito immediately raced his fleet to the nearest webway portal large enough to accommodate it, and made his way through the webway back to Iyanden.
Tito’s ships exited the webway directly into the carnage of the Tyranid invasion ships of Hive Fleet Kraken. They immediately engaged the foe that was spread out all around them. By this point, most of the Iyanden defense fleet had already been destroyed, and the defenders on the ground were fighting a desperate struggle to hold off the ground invasion. Tito wanted to lead his men in the ground assault against the invading monsters, but he had learned his lesson about ignoring the strands of fate to pursue his own desires.
So, sensing that he would be needed in the naval battle, Tito ordered Prince Yriel to take his corsair fleet and fight their way through the Tyranid bio-ships to the surface of Iyanden. There his men could land and attack the Tyranid ground forces. Tito remained with the rest of his fleet in space to guide them to victory against the overwhelming swarm of living ships. Tito’s skills as a Farseer and his tactical boldness were crucial in eventually destroying the enemy fleet that surrounded them.
On the ground, Prince Yriel’s corsair force turned the tide, and Yriel himself killed the massive beast that was leading the invasion. Despite the eventual victory, Iyanden had been devastated, and countless Eldar lives lost. Those who remained could not help but blame Tito and his arrogance for what had happened. Though Prince Yriel was restored to the rank of admiral to reward his deeds, Iyanden could not forgive Tito, who was exiled from his home forever.
Though personally devastated by what had transpired, there was nothing Tito could do but to continue his quest, and many still followed him on it. He took up adventuring once again, and had many great and glorious victories all over the galaxy, including the destruction of a massive Ork horde in the Peni System, defeat of the Space Wolves on Tirathain, and victory over a mighty Chaos Space Marine army in the epic battle for the Ymga Monolith. He has also recovered many magnificent artifacts dating from the height of Eldar civilization, and discovered several previously unknown maiden worlds. To this day, Tito continues his quest to return the Eldar race to their glory days by recovering the mighty artifacts of their ancient past.
TITO – 200 pts
WS:5 BS:5 S:3 T:3 W:3 I:5 A:2 Ld:10 Sv:-
SPECIAL RULES
Fleet of Foot, Independent Character.
Psychic Powers: Tito is a farseer and has the Fortune, Doom, and Mind War psychic powers.
WARGEAR
Shuriken pistol, runes of warding, runes of witnessing, ghosthelm, spirit stones.
Kerun Rune armor: This special suit of rune armor confers a 3+ invulnerable save.
Ymga Witchblade: This ancient artifact of the Eldar race was recovered by Tito during the titanic war for the Ymga monolith. It counts as a witchblade that ignores armor saves.
BODYGUARD
Tito is normally accompanied by a dedicated bodyguard of Howling Banshees. Instead of allowing you to take a unit of warlocks like a normal farseer, Tito can be accompanied by a unit of Howling Banshees chosen as normal, with all the normal options/restrictions. This unit and Tito together are a single HQ choice.
Exiled Farseer of Iyanden
Tito was born on Craftworld Iyanden, the son of the most powerful and most respected farseer on the craftworld. From a very early age, Tito proved incredibly gifted in the psychic arts, a gift that he clearly inherited from his father. But he also developed many qualities his father did not share. His mind often drifted to thoughts of excitement and adventure, exploration of far away worlds, and the glory of battle.
Tito would have preferred to follow the path of the warrior or of the naval commander. Or even to succumb to the wanderlust and take up with some rangers to explore the distant reaches of the galaxy. But such an option was impossible for the son of an important and respected figure of authority on Iyanden. Tito’s father, pressured by public opinion, in turn pressured his son to follow a respectable path of public service.
So against his true desires, Tito followed in his father’s footsteps and set about one of the strictest and most difficult paths an Eldar can undertake: the path of the seer. Despite his whole heart not being entirely in it, Tito’s natural gifts and thirst for knowledge saw him advance quickly along the path. In fact, he was one of the youngest of the Iyanden craftworld to ever attain the designation of Farseer. Some, however, saw his rapid advancement along the path as recklessness rather than skillfulness. He was particularly resented by many of the older farseers, who had taken much longer than Tito to achieve a similar level of ability and status.
But many others viewed Tito as a brilliant rising star in Iyanden society. Before long, he, like his father, had become an important figure in the leadership of the craftworld. He met and got to know many other leaders of Iyanden society: other seers, politicians, naval commanders, leaders of the great warrior shrines, and many others. But through his rise to prominence, Tito never lost his thirst for adventure, which would soon lead him to tragedy.
One day, Tito proclaimed to his fellow farseers that in his examinations of the strings of fate, he had come to an important conclusion. In his view, the salvation of the Iyanden craftworld, and the Eldar race itself, lie in the recovery of ancient elder artifacts and worlds that were lost during the fall. In his visions, Tito saw that these lost pieces of ancient Eldar culture were the key to reclaiming the glorious heights of power the Eldar once enjoyed. He proposed that a large portion of the fleet and the aspect warriors of Iyanden be formed into a crusading force that Tito himself would lead throughout the galaxy, finding and reclaiming the shards of their lost civilization.
The farseers on the ruling council, including Tito’s father, were completely against the idea, which they considered to be far too dangerous and reckless. They all warned that they sensed a possible disaster that could result from leaving Iyanden so lightly defended. Unfortunately, none of the great farseers were able to foresee any details of the looming danger, as they claimed something was clouding their ability to clearly discern the future.
Tito thought the old farseers were just jealous of his abilities, and were being intentionally difficult. He did not believe their vague claims of a potential disaster since he sensed no such thing. Without their approval, Tito set about convincing others of his plan, and soon had a large group of supporters. These supporters included prominent admiral Kuronus Tirtu and his fleet, powerful autarchs, many aspect warrior exarchs, and quite a few warlocks who had been followers and students of Tito. They were all convinced by the grandeur of Tito’s plans and pledged their considerable resources to it.
With so much support behind him, Tito set off with his fleet and considerable army despite the almost unanimous objections of the other farseers of Iyanden. They explored the galaxy, searching out the former bastions of Eldar civilization in their search for powerful ancient artifacts. Tito personally led many battles on distant worlds, and enjoyed being in the thick of the action. Many of the exodites and rangers the fleet encountered joined up with them when hearing of Tito’s deeds and his noble quest to regain the glory of their race. Even the famed Corsair Prince Yriel joined up with Tito’s grand fleet.
Then one day, without warning, the shadow that had been clouding the strands of the future lifted, and Tito had a horrifying vision. He instantly realized the terrible mistake he had made. The Council of Farseers had been right all along. Tito immediately raced his fleet to the nearest webway portal large enough to accommodate it, and made his way through the webway back to Iyanden.
Tito’s ships exited the webway directly into the carnage of the Tyranid invasion ships of Hive Fleet Kraken. They immediately engaged the foe that was spread out all around them. By this point, most of the Iyanden defense fleet had already been destroyed, and the defenders on the ground were fighting a desperate struggle to hold off the ground invasion. Tito wanted to lead his men in the ground assault against the invading monsters, but he had learned his lesson about ignoring the strands of fate to pursue his own desires.
So, sensing that he would be needed in the naval battle, Tito ordered Prince Yriel to take his corsair fleet and fight their way through the Tyranid bio-ships to the surface of Iyanden. There his men could land and attack the Tyranid ground forces. Tito remained with the rest of his fleet in space to guide them to victory against the overwhelming swarm of living ships. Tito’s skills as a Farseer and his tactical boldness were crucial in eventually destroying the enemy fleet that surrounded them.
On the ground, Prince Yriel’s corsair force turned the tide, and Yriel himself killed the massive beast that was leading the invasion. Despite the eventual victory, Iyanden had been devastated, and countless Eldar lives lost. Those who remained could not help but blame Tito and his arrogance for what had happened. Though Prince Yriel was restored to the rank of admiral to reward his deeds, Iyanden could not forgive Tito, who was exiled from his home forever.
Though personally devastated by what had transpired, there was nothing Tito could do but to continue his quest, and many still followed him on it. He took up adventuring once again, and had many great and glorious victories all over the galaxy, including the destruction of a massive Ork horde in the Peni System, defeat of the Space Wolves on Tirathain, and victory over a mighty Chaos Space Marine army in the epic battle for the Ymga Monolith. He has also recovered many magnificent artifacts dating from the height of Eldar civilization, and discovered several previously unknown maiden worlds. To this day, Tito continues his quest to return the Eldar race to their glory days by recovering the mighty artifacts of their ancient past.
TITO – 200 pts
WS:5 BS:5 S:3 T:3 W:3 I:5 A:2 Ld:10 Sv:-
SPECIAL RULES
Fleet of Foot, Independent Character.
Psychic Powers: Tito is a farseer and has the Fortune, Doom, and Mind War psychic powers.
WARGEAR
Shuriken pistol, runes of warding, runes of witnessing, ghosthelm, spirit stones.
Kerun Rune armor: This special suit of rune armor confers a 3+ invulnerable save.
Ymga Witchblade: This ancient artifact of the Eldar race was recovered by Tito during the titanic war for the Ymga monolith. It counts as a witchblade that ignores armor saves.
BODYGUARD
Tito is normally accompanied by a dedicated bodyguard of Howling Banshees. Instead of allowing you to take a unit of warlocks like a normal farseer, Tito can be accompanied by a unit of Howling Banshees chosen as normal, with all the normal options/restrictions. This unit and Tito together are a single HQ choice.
Friday, January 30, 2009
The Battle of Prescott's Mill - Day 1
My opponent in my first historical wargame has written up a great in-character battle report. The game was Field of Battle using 10mm GHQ miniatures to play out a fictional American Civil War battle. The report is written from the point of view of S. Michael Warren, a British war correspondent and writer for the London Register.
The Battle at Prescott's Mill - 1863
By S. Michael Warren
It was a frosty Saturday morning in Virginia, with the rolling hills near Prescott’s Lumber Mill still clothed in the wispy mists of the early morning. The sun had not yet embraced the large field where lumber was meticulously stacked for retrieval by work crews later that day. There were gentle hills on each corner of what would become the battlefield, as well as light woods at the southwest edge and an apple orchard to the north.
The Battle at Prescott's Mill - 1863
By S. Michael Warren
It was a frosty Saturday morning in Virginia, with the rolling hills near Prescott’s Lumber Mill still clothed in the wispy mists of the early morning. The sun had not yet embraced the large field where lumber was meticulously stacked for retrieval by work crews later that day. There were gentle hills on each corner of what would become the battlefield, as well as light woods at the southwest edge and an apple orchard to the north.
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