Ep 8: Mythic Bastionland Solo Campaign
Wherein Marcourte is Slain by Plants
Herein lies the continuation of our Mythic Bastionland war epic. The Mulnarn rebels scramble to recruit additional troops from the farmlands, Gnomepolean attends his coronation, and The Weaver Knight rides for the Sky Boulder.
8th Good Day of Worwen, Ulf 638th Year
Afternoon Events Check, d4 → 3: No
Gnomepoleon leads his army up the sacred hill at sunset. Embedded in the rock is an ancient tablet— twenty lines of runic text etched into the cold granite, facing the sky. They say the Story Stone is from the time before the Dark Age, back when everything was gnome.
Gnomepoleon is surrounded by chanting rotwives and murmuring Hylomorphics. He approaches the stone, all eyes follow his tiny footsteps with baited breath. He attempts to read the Story Stone but finds that he cannot (d20 → 13: Fail). The wise gnomes also attempt to read the texts and (d20 → 14: Fail) are unable to make out more than a surname and the ancient gnomic word for ‘soup’.
The gnomes look at each other. Gnomepoleon thinks fast and attempts to pretend that he can read the tablets after all, and begins to give a speech about world domination, but it is (SPI Check d20 →20: bad failure) a bad bluff and not appreciated by his audience. The dictatorship hangs by a thread. Chark the Chewer wonders if he, Chark the Chewer, might be the chosen gnome after all instead of Gnomepoleon, as the Deep Seers proclaimed back in the Mucky Wood. I make a Luck roll and with a 3, Gnomepoleon is faced with ‘Problem: Something Potentially Bad’.
Over in the Lumewood, the fires (d6:6 → Increase) are getting out of control. The flames spread into the Loomwood to the north (they are different), and threaten the castle to the south. The injured Mulnarn rangers cower with the otters in the burrow.
Meanwhile, the fire threatens to spread to the castle. The Ulfans prepare to fight the fire, transferring a unit from the fields to the castle. The fire is now functionally a warband, but we’re going to use the Hexwars rules as a combat shortcut.
Ulfans vs. Wildfire
Ulfans: 3d6 → 2, 4, 5
Wildfire: 2d6 → 2, 4
The Ulfans beat back the fire by rolling the highest single d6, with a 5. We’ll give them a SPI roll, (d20:17 → fail), and the Ulfans choose to stay in the safety of the castle for now.
At Lake Nism, the hydra is still rampaging through the lakeshore towns without resistance from the fisherfolk militia. The monster feels compelled to move towards the sea, and will only deviate if given the opportunity to occupy a ruined tower. Ulf’s Mantle is too far up in the peaks for the hydra to reach it from the lake, as it cannot fly yet. Instead it will move downstream.
The hydra swims quickly, while the surviving fisherfolk make themselves scarce. By nightfall the hydra has made it to the riverbanks on the northwestern side of the lake.
Using Gnomestones Hexwar rules, reinforcements arrive at the end of each week, which is tonight. The Mulnarn captain in Falberge commands her troops to capture as much territory as possible with the time left.
Each Mulnarn warband outside the pink border will attempt to capture their respective hex. The Mulnarn get 1d6 per unit, and the defenders get 1d6, which the default strength assigned to the commonfolk in an otherwise unprotected hex for instances of capture. Bad things will happen if either side gets a 1.
Mulnarn 1d6 per hex → 3, 5, 6, 6
Commonfolk 1d6 per hex → 5, 2, 4, 2
Results: 3<5; 5>2; 6>4; 6>2
The rangers are unsuccessful at winning over the farmers in the west, but the rest of the warbands convert their field hexes. The map now looks like this.
Further southwest, the halflings are also triumphant in raising the rest of Nebbit’s Heath to arms (3 > 2). The halflings are going to war!
The increased territory means the Mulnarn capacity is 15 and 1/3. Mulnarn receives 2 new warbands per week. If they expand their territory to a capacity above 20, that number will go up to 3 new warbands per week. I roll to see where the troops spawn. Farmers fleeing the wildfire join the warbands in the northeast, and I throw in a bonus halfling unit to reward for Tollix’s success and sacrifice.
Meanwhile the Ulfans will receive new troops at a steady stream of two per week, which will increase if we move to the next tier of the tension table. I check to see if the new troops are led by a knight (d6 → 5) and they are not, but they do have a special feature. We roll on the MB charts and find that these units are led by an envoy, sent to negotiate with the Mulnarn.
Gnomepoleon the Tiny General will also receive two units per week as a baseline. I add the boundary of the gnomes’ territory to the map, though they won’t have the same reinforcement rules as Mulnar. They can still capture landmarks if they desire.
Finally, Sir Tollix and his most trusted watchmen ride south to the Sky Boulder as the sun sinks over the fields in the west. We made a sitemap for the occasion.
Time to play the game:
Sir Tollix - VIG 11 CLA 16 SPI 12 GD 10 A1 Attack d8
Trusted Watchmen - VIG 10 CLA 10 SPI 13 GD 3 A1 Attack d8
First let’s make a wilderness roll: d6 → 5, Encounter Landmark. The Sky Boulder does not appear to be occupied. The soldiers approach cautiously on foot.
First they must ascend the loose talus slope. VIG checks are required (d20 → 19, 1: Fail, Success), and the Weaver Knight tires before his platoon. He takes 1d4 VIG loss which will persist during this delve (d4 → 2), going down to 9.
As the watchmen approach the Sky Boulder, they see what appears to be a palisade of wooden stakes ringing the base of the sandstone pillar. Tollix, winded, sends forth his scout, a young man named Lanches Longfin. The scout has 15 CLA, which is good, since he’ll need a CLA save against the danger ahead. He rolls a 15, barely dodging a pair of roots as they attempt to skewer him against a boulder. He returns to report to Tollix about the hazard.
The Weaver Knight needs a plan. On a 1 he retreats, on a 2 or 3 he sprints, on a 3 or 4 he fights, and on a 5 or 6 he’ll attempt a creative solution (d6 → 3: Sprint). They will attempt to charge past the roots to gain the interior of the tower.
Magical Roots - VIG 10 CLA 7 SPI 10 GD 4 Attack d6 blast
First we will simulate the charge as an attack roll. If the soldiers roll high, they may be able to gambit (d8, d8 → 3, 4). Not enough to get by easily, but enough to reduce the roots’ guard to 0.
The tubers writhe and lunge. The blast hits anyone in range (d6, d6 → 2, 4). Tollix guard to 8, Watchmen Guard to 0, they are wounded with VIG to 9. SPI check (d20 → 14: Fail) shows that the Watchmen are temporarily stunned. One of their number is dead (the warband started at 19 strong). Let’s posthumously name them Marcourte.
The watchmen will not get an normal attack this turn. Tollix needs to focus. He rolls his attack (d8 → 8), then uses the Feat ‘Focus’ to get a free Gambit, which he’ll use to lead the warband past the danger and into the tower. His CLA save is a 17, a failure, so he’ll be fatigued from now on. His fierce attack subdues the roots, but it seems like they’ll be back. Why were they guarding the tower?
The Mulnarn watchmen shuffle one by one through a humble pointed archway carved into the sandstone. Faded symbols line the archway, remnants from a bygone era. Memories left by the monks who formed this sanctuary made of rock. The watchmen touch their pendants and murmur prayers to Ulf.
As they walk forward, their ears are filled with a chorus of animal hoots and squeals. The watchmen light torches, and see that the pillar is hollow on the inside, circular chamber extending above and below. The soldiers stand on a platform connected to stairs, spiraling up into the darkness, clockwise, also known as gnome’s left.
The center of the chamber is open, and from the pit rises a sharp biotic stench as well as the animal cries. Below resides a menagerie of wild things, waterhawks and reedbeetles, lootgrubs and scaly spike gibbons, columnfleas and golden fuszurks. The creatures splash in the dark stillwater that obscures the bottom of the pit. Tollix knows that Rushka would call this place sacred. “Ulf created all, and He loves small creatures Ulfbest”. It is a mantra of the Ursnaen druids. “All things are sacred, for Ulf created all things.” Tollix sighs. It does not seem fair, that so much violence could arise from such a benign statement. Not everyone believed that everyone was His creation.
Several of the Mulnarn are devout to the teachings of Ursnae. They gaze down into the murk, muttering solemn intonations, asking for wisdom, guidance, luck. They pray to the creature spirits, to Ulf, to the Great Bearmother herself. Tollix allows them their due. Through his fatigue he senses the latent energy of the Sky Boulder. The refuge is stained with bygone grief.
When the last intonation fades, Tollix orders his guards up the staircase. The soldiers’ bootsteps are muffled by thick film of sand and dust and the echoes of the animal symphony below. The sandstone on the pillar’s far wall is marred with dark streaks. Tollix flexes his hands stiffly, then runs the finger of his embroidered glove along the darkened stone. It's wet, and crumbles away from his touch as softly as fish roe. The dark streaks climb all the way to the ceiling, which is also made of solid sandstone. The stairs ascend through the floor, and Tollix and his watchmen follow them into the next chamber.
They step into spacious circular chamber. Light fills the cave from pairs of embrasure windows facing in each of the cardinal directions. Inside, the Sky Boulder is an invaluable fort, nigh impenetrable in a siege, with sweeping views of the Fogglades, Nebbit’s Heath, and the Mountains of St. Vrune.
The watchmen relax instinctively, but Tollix is as attentive as always. The chamber has deteriorated with time. The film of soft sand covers the ground here too, and the floor is littered with bits of rock and wood and bone. Longfin finds a understated passageway leading further upward, but the corridor is choked with years of sedimentation, interspersed with damp roots. They remind the Weaver Knight of the plant defenders at the base of the pillar, and he orders the scout to keep a safe distance.
The sun is setting, orange light streaming through the western window to shine on a pair of faded tapestries hanging on the opposite wall. They are artfully woven, Tollix notes, but moldering. The left one sparkles in the sunlight, bright colors displaying a troupe of gallantly-dressed warrior bards. Tollix knows them by their reputation; they are the Vagabonds of Sodortha, and formidable. The colors on the right tapestry are muted in comparison. The cloth reflects none of the sun’s rays, instead appearing as if through a dingy glass pane on the most overcast of days. The knight squints at the dark patterns, and recognizes the lineage of monks who built the Sky Boulder, with their twin disciplines of stone and shadow. He finds their grim countenances comforting in an eerie way. Tollix wishes he could ask the monks how Ulf created darkness, but there has been no trace of a Stoneshadow monk since the time of the Kyroans.
The Weaver Knight gives the order to set up camp. The watchmen eat their cold rations on bedrolls in silence, then say a blessing for what once was Marcourte, what has always been Ulfmatter, and what was needed for Ulfforge. Ulfflesh will be remade.
That’s all for this surprisingly immanentistic episode of Gnomereign: A Gnomestones Story. Well, I guess we could finish up with one more roll.
Night Event Check: d4 → 1: Yes
Ah.
Alas poor Marcourte. Lots of interesting moving parts in the overall story and the detailed exploration of the sky boulder was a treat following the earlier site creation exercise