Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Myth: A New Age CYOA

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
The idea is brilliant. Fangshi, how feasible is it?

No one knows how the Gate spell works, anyway, so no one should suspect anything. Even if the portal can not lead to two different destinations at once, you still have to pass through the 'customs office', and you still will be marked if you don't pass the check. We can just deal with the subversives on the other side.
I bet we leave Seinsheim behind as he will be too cowardly to pass through
Well, the impression I received from Seinsheim is that he is paranoid more so than he is cowardly. That's a dwarf who was not afraid to ride into battle with ghols at his age. He did not receive his wound by hiding behind the backs of his guards.

Alternatively, he is hiding something. Why would he never step into the Silver Flame unless he knows something about it?
 
Last edited:

Fangshi

Arcane
Joined
Jan 9, 2014
Messages
1,997
Yes.

Sooner or later, Mazzarin will go away, but we will be staying.

We have few allies in the Kingdom safe for the House of Albrecht, and now that we found that it is far from being a monolithic entity and everyone has their own ideas about the direction the Kingdom needs to take, it would be nice to see where we stand with each of them so that we didn't act at cross-purposes. Last thing we want is to worry about stepping on the toes of people who are supposed to have our back.

From what their siblings told of him, they described him as a direct and honest man, and, frankly, all of the political bullshit is starting to tire us out.

Our current goal is to ensure the survival of the Kingdom, and that it is in good hands. The politicking interests us only as much as it helps achieving the goal.

We hoped that at least with him we would not have to go through what we did with Albrecht, Timo and Jan. A few misunderstandings we've had already cost Albrecht, up to and including the escape of the female necromancer, and Jan nearly got both us and himself killed after acting on his paranoia after mistaking us for something we were not.

So if he would be more frank with us, it would likely save us all a lot of trouble.

If he has concerns about us, we would like to hear them upfront, too. Perhaps we could wave some of them straight away. I guess he will have our actions to judge if our words ring true.

I assume you want to tell him all of that in writing?

Or would you rather speak it?

It may make a difference.

The idea is brilliant. Fangshi, how feasible is it?

It should be workable, it would take a few different spells though.

You won't be able to set up the Gate to go to two separate locations at the same time but you could set up two separate Gates going to different locations. As long as the hounds can filter them out you could send those that 'fail' into the second gate and those that pass into the first one.

You would need to provide a suitable excuse though.


The badges would also work, if you have them enchanted so that they are easy to find then you might be able to track down those that hold them after they have gone through the gate (provided they hold onto them).

There might be other spells that could work as well, you could ask Mazzarin if you bother to wake him up.


The biggest hurdles the ladies can see are:

1. Making enough tokens/basic logistics - how quickly can something like this be organized.

2. Anchoring the Gate(s) - if the layout of the city has been changed at all you could come out into the middle of a wall or solid stone (and die horribly :lol:)

3. Gate size - It is going to take a fair bit of power to keep a gate capable of transporting an army open for long enough to let it pass through. You would have to convince Mazzy to do it and it would take his full attention/concentration, so he might be a bit vulnerable to tampering/attack while he does it (or you would need to teach and use some of the other mages around, obviously, DT&L can't do it by themselves).


Other than that though, it should be a viable way to move into Stoneheim while filtering the army and avoiding the enemy.
 

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I assume you want to tell him all of that in writing?
Well, I want to play a "let's be frank with each other" angle with him, seeing how he was presented as a soldier in contrast to Timo or Albrecht who are plotters. I don't think these words have the same weight if they are written rather than spoken. I also don't think they contain any information that our enemies do not already know.

So I am thinking of speaking aloud.

Of course, Reinhard does not have to answer in the same way if it is something he'd rather commit to paper instead, but I want to set the right tone between the two three of us. He is the only person we can rely on in the whole army, safe for our own troops.

2. Anchoring the Gate(s) - if the layout of the city has been changed at all you could come out into the middle of a wall or solid stone (and die horribly :lol:)
Can't Finn's scouts verify this? His forces only recently were there, fighting the Beast, and if needed, his scouts can check it with their own eyes. They can get there and back in a day. And Mazzarin has ways to make them remember their orders, as Cropper can attest to.

Alternatively, the Mage has spells to travel there in half an hour (judging by the speed of his travel from Muirthemne to oasis) without engaging the enemy. He can enter the city via a different gate and open the portal from the other side, letting the army in.

Besides, I think we have vision on where the portal leads, don't we? We have seen Eris and the fetches who killed her on the other side. If the portal does not lead where we need it to lead, we can open another portal. Or is there anything that prevents that?

Gate size - It is going to take a fair bit of power to keep a gate capable of transporting an army open for long enough to let it pass through.

You would have to convince Mazzy to do it and it would take his full attention/concentration
Seekers. :lol:

As far as I remember, maintaining the Gate does not require learning the spell, right? This was how we bargained with Eris - we open/anchor the portal so that she does not learn the exact ritual, and then we hold it together.

Maz can open a portal and then get the maggots do all the hard work. And we won't be in any shape or form responsible for that because they are not under our direct command. Reinhard should be the one offering their services. :P
 
Last edited:

Azira

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 3, 2004
Messages
8,519
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Codex 2012
Why ask the seekers to identify the items? Why not ask Emrys? Boy's bright, that's for sure. And seems less likely to want to screw us over. Might even find it interesting. Thaïs might use her silver tongue to convince Emrys that we're actually doing him a favour, by letting him get a look at the objects. Could wing it as a test of sorts?
Might be he enjoys the idea so much that he'll let us sneak a look at that letter, should we want to.

Can we add Emrys as an option for identifying the unidentified objects we currently have?
 

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Can we add Emrys as an option for identifying the unidentified objects we currently have?
Sure.

I thought about him, but the boy is a novice. How long has he been with Maz, exactly? And I don't know how dangerous these artefacts are (or even if they are dangerous).

Seekers are good because they are expendable. :lol:

I guess we could ask him.
 

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Fangshi said:
The badges would also work, if you have them enchanted so that they are easy to find then you might be able to track down those that hold them after they have gone through the gate (provided they hold onto them).
I don't understand why we need badges.

Each squad, platoon or company has a commander. Commander knows the names of those he commands.

Have them send the soldiers in one by one. Name, platoon, rank - into the Gate. Name, platoon, rank - into the Gate. We will write down everyone, or if they have a list of soldiers, cross them out, and mark those who are sniffed by the hounds (or even those who could not be detected for a more thorough scan later). We won't need fancy badges to find them later on.

We can pretend it is a rollcall after the major battle they just had.

No overly difficult logistics involved.
 
Last edited:

Fangshi

Arcane
Joined
Jan 9, 2014
Messages
1,997
Well, I want to play a "let's be frank with each other" angle with him, seeing how he was presented as a soldier in contrast to Timo or Albrecht who are plotters. I don't think these words have the same weight if they are written rather than spoken. I also don't think they contain any information that our enemies do not know.

So I am thinking of speaking it aloud.

Of course, Reinhard does not have to answer in the same way if it is something he'd rather commit to paper instead, but I want to set the right tone between the two three of us. He is the only person we can rely on in the whole army, safe for our own troops.

He shakes his head and thinks on your words for a moment, "Alright, if you wish to speak like a soldier and not a politican so much the better. I have practiced my family's art but I have no love for it."

He leans in, dropping his voice to a whisper, "I do not know what to make of what I have heard of you. Some cast you as the most base of opportunists, some say you are actual heroes. All I know is that I would rather trust to my own eyes, my own mind, rather than to the rumours of others and the common wisdom of the day. I will come to my own judgement about your character and that is all I can fairly say at the moment."

Can't Finn's scouts verify this? His forces only recently were there, fighting the Beast, and if needed, his scouts can check it with their own eyes. They can get there and back in a day. And Mazzarin has ways to make them remember their orders, as Cropper can attest to.

Alternatively, the Mage has spells to travel there in half an hour (judging by the speed of his travel from Muirthemne to oasis) without engaging the enemy. He can enter the city via a different gate and open the portal from the other side, letting the army in.

Besides, I think we have vision on where the portal leads, don't we? We have seen Eris and the fetches who killed her on the other side. If the portal does not lead where we need it to lead, we can open another portal. Or is there anything that prevents that?

Yes, there are ways around it but it is something that must be dealt with.

Seekers. :lol:

As far as I remember, maintaining the Gate does not require learning the spell, right? This was how we bargained with Eris - we open the portal so that she does not learn the exact ritual, and then we hold it together.

Maz can open a portal and then get the maggots do all the hard work. And we won't be in any shape or form responsible for that because they are not under our direct command. Reinhard should be the one offering their services. :P

That is correct, the Seekers do not need to know how to cast the spell to maintain it. Though they may be able to figure out the spell from maintaining it (much as your people did). If Mazzain is going to pass the spell off to them then they will have plenty of opportunities to examine it.

Can we add Emrys as an option for identifying the unidentified objects we currently have?

Sure, I will add the option.

I don't understand why we need badges.

Then you are modifying the base plan (which is fine), but the original plan calls for badges/tokens and that is what I was responding to.

Have them send the soldiers in one by one. Name, platoon, rank - into the Gate. Name, platoon, rank - into the Gate. We will write down everyone, or if they have a list of soldiers, cross them out, and mark those who are sniffed by the hounds (or could not be detected for a more thorough scan later). We won't need fancy badges to find them later on.

That will take a long time. Filtering almost 1000 people, one at a time, will take maybe a day and a half (and that is provided that you go non stop, with no breaks in maintaining the portal/scanning the soldiers) and that is provided it only takes you two minutes per person. If there are any complications, well...
 
Last edited:

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Fangshi said:
Yes, there are ways around it but it is something that must be dealt with.
Which is why I need you to answer if opening the portal in the wrong place is actually a problem and if so, why.
Besides, I think we have vision on where the portal leads, don't we? We have seen Eris and the fetches who killed her on the other side.
What happens if you open a portal into a rock? From my understaning, you just see a rock on the other side and can't pass through.

Fangshi said:
That is correct, the Seekers do not need to know how to cast the spell to maintain it. Though they may be able to figure out the spell from maintaining it (much as your people did).
Our people had the knowledge provided by the tablet, IIRC.

The point was to not let Eris open portals to anywhere she pleases. She knew the half of the spell already (tried it, with disastrous results), but could not direct it without a tablet, or an 'anchor' (which, I assume, is the other half). If she could figure out the full spell from maintaining it, what was the point?

So I have to verify that again, I'm afraid.

Fangshi said:
That will take a long time. Filtering almost 1000 people, one at a time, will take maybe a day and a half (and that is provided that you go non stop, with no breaks in maintaining the portal/scanning the soldiers) and that is provided it only takes you two minutes per person.
Okay, so what is/was the plan with badges and why is it faster?

I thought we needed to scan people individually. How do we scan/filter people as a group? Keep in mind that the capabilities of the hounds are unknown to me, so I am not aware of our exact limits here.
 
Last edited:

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Anyway, it does not have to be exactly one at a time.

The commander announces himself and his squad. His people are then simultaneously scanned by several (say, ten) of our teams we have in place. His squad then passes through the Gate as a unit.

Bam! 10 times reduction in speed of the whole process.

It is almost like I've seen it somewhere...
Screen_Shot001.jpg

Screen_Shot002.jpg

Screen_Shot007.jpg

Screen_Shot008.jpg

Screen_Shot009.jpg
I need to finish this LP someday. :salute:
 

Fangshi

Arcane
Joined
Jan 9, 2014
Messages
1,997
Which is why I need you to answer if opening the portal in the wrong place is actually a problem and if so, why.

Depends on what you open up on really.

If you open the portal and it leads to a wall not much will happen, you just close it and try again with a different, clear memory.

However there are situations where opening up a portal can lead to more serious situations. If the area you are trying to connect to is flooded (this is just an example and may or may not apply to this particular situation ;)), then opening the portal would dump that water through to your end, probably knock you all off your feet and collapse the portal which might cause it to explode.

If you open a portal to an area you thought was safe and turns out to be filled with enemies/hazards/magic/'something horrible' then you can expect to have to deal with that as well if anything makes it to your side.

What happens if you open a portal into a rock? From my understaning, you just see a rock on the other side and can't pass through.

Yes, a rock wall is fairly safe as long as you do not step through the portal to the far end.

Our people had the knowledge provided by the tablet, IIRC.

The point was to not let Eris open portals to anywhere she pleases. She knew the half of the spell already (tried it, with disastrous results), but could not direct it without a tablet, or an 'anchor' (which, I assume, is the other half). If she could figure out the full spell from maintaining it, what was the point?

So I have to verify that again, I'm afraid.

She did not maintain it, she just gave you some of the power needed to fuel the spell. You did all the real work there.

You only relinquished control to her at the end when she had to link it to her own world.

In this case, Mazzarin would fuel the spell and set it up. He would then step away and pass it off to the Seekers who would have to hold it open for hours. They would have plenty of time to observe how he did it, whether they would be able to learn enough to replicate the feat (or at least attempt to) you do not know. That would have everything to do with their stats, how they roll and whether or not they would be motivated to try.

Okay, so what is/was the plan with badges and why is it faster?

Here is the plan you asked me to look at:

We could combine the dogs with the portal to the city if Mazzy's spell craft is up to it and us being able to convince him of the plan. Everyone is going to have to march into the portal past our Fey host on their way through. If we can mark those who fail and the portal can selectively transport those who fail somewhere else we wouldn't need the feast farce. For the marking we can have our fey friends hand out "portal protection badges" as people are walking up to it. These will be explained to be carefully tuned to the person in question and used to protect them from outside influence on their journey and would be identical by appearance and take a minute to "attune". Of course they would be passes to see who gets sorted through and who gets dropped into Mazzarin's pocket dimension prison(including the elephant handlers). This is just off the top of my head. I bet we leave Seinsheim behind as he will be too cowardly to pass through,


You do not know if using badges/tokens would be quicker, it is simply part of the plan as presented so I commented on it. Creating the tokens would take time (it would depend on how many mages you turned to the task really), whether you want to spend the time on it or not is, as always, up to you lot to figure out. :lol:

I can only tell you what the characters know/think, not what is most likely to work (or work best) in a given situation.

I thought we needed to scan people individually. How do we scan/filter people as a group? Keep in mind that the capabilities of the hounds are unknown to me, so I am not aware of our exact limits here.

Each hound can only scan one mind at a time, that is correct. If you wanted to do groups you would need to use groups of hounds and they would simply pick different targets.
 

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Alright, so how about this?

- The infantry are organized into units of 10, each led by a captain. The units have some variation but they are all based off a standard pattern. Seven regular dwarves, either grenadiers of basic infantry, led by an officer (with a veteran infantryman/grenadier to provide assistance) and supported by a single enchanter to give them a bit more punch. Every ten units is under the authority of a single commander, though a few of them have died so in some cases one commander has to lead a few extra (the demons went after the officers when they attached so the army is suffering from a lack of mid level leadership at the moment).
Infantry is the largest hurdle by far, as it comprises about 80% of the army. So let's talk infantry.

A captain sends the soldiers under his command to the groups that will be 'preparing' them to pass through the portal. What will in fact happen is that each soldier is assigned to one of ten of our groups who will note their name and rank and scan them, and then give them a green light to proceed. Assuming each scan takes about 2-3 minutes, that's a group of 100 people in half an hour (provided there are no complications). We could transport everyone in half a day that way.

In fact, we have enough hounds in our pack alone to cover units twice that size simultaneously. If Finn lends us his, we could shorten the required time even further.

It would be nice to scan some portion of the army beforehand to send through a group of loyalists to secure the location and make the transition safer for the rest of the army. The legend would be, of course, that those people have already went through the necessary procedures. Those could be our mercenaries (already scanned), Finn's people (can not be corrupted) and some of the forces that are mostly loyal to Reinhard (those are the scans/inspections that can be arranged beforehand).

Those loyalists can be the ones who deal with the subversives who will arrive to the other end in small groups.

Does this answer the logistical concerns and is it feasible enough to do in half a day (or ever sooner)?
 
Last edited:

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
In fact, why don't we separate the acts of scanning and sending our forces through a portal?

We could do it to save time, but then we would have to deal with the subversives on the other side of the Gate.

What we could also do is tell the army of our plan and start 'preparing' them without opening the portal, telling them that they need to be ready by the time the spell is cast.

The procedure will go much like described above. Once done, we will deal with the infiltrators as Reinhard deems necessary. I think that at least all of the Watcher's agents need to be put down or restrained, lest they turn on us upon arrival in Stoneheim.

Then we open the Gate, form a column of ten dwarves abreast, and march our forces through the portal in a mere hour or so.

Bros, what are your thoughts on the matter? Which one is better? Or do you have something else in mind?

Tagging archaen, the author of the original plan, to chime in.

This gives us a reason to conduct our scans in the open under the guise of some bullshit magical preparation, so we don't have to wait for several days to do it covertly, and it ensures the safety of Stoneheim. It also - supposedly - gives our army a better defensive position inside the walls of the city.
 

archaen

Cipher
Patron
Joined
Mar 10, 2014
Messages
633
Nevill I think those modifications are fine. We can call it 2.E. Screen before hand by unit and organization for traitors using the hounds under the ruse of preparing for the portal run / census of forces. All explosives should be seized and put into crates for safe portal transit. We send a trusted force through the portal first and then send as many of the traitors through in the first batches so the bulk of the non traitors cannot be induced to interfere for their "fellows". I think we should take some precautions on people killing the Seekers when they are supporting the spell. Put a kill zone around them with our host guarding them and maybe an illusion showing them off set from where they really are. It's our weak point in this plan.


1. Biv
2. E
3. C
4. C

5. B
 

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
That's what I am asking.

If we screen the units beforehand - as in, before even opening the portal - we theoretically could deal with the subversives 'safely' without having to watch out for their attempts to collapse the Gate.

Alternatively, we could scan them as they are sent through the Gate, send in the loyalists and have them apprehend new arrivals as they come in small numbers (and have it happen out of view of the main army). It seems to be what you are proposing.

So, which way would be best to go?

We could use some fairies (not just hounds) in our scans, like Finn did when he scanned our forces, to try and detect those that hounds can not (say, the regular rebels in our midst).

I like the ideas of packing the explosives away - but we will have to take it from the loyalists, as well. Though I guess we will have our own forces to fall back on.
 

archaen

Cipher
Patron
Joined
Mar 10, 2014
Messages
633
I like the idea of us scanning first as we can get the compromised units through the gate first and deal with them on the other side out of sight. I am more afraid of the main army interfering when they see their comrade of 10 years hauled off for treason than I am of a reckless ploy to try stop the gate. These are basically sleeper cells and shouldn't want to reveal themselves unless they are in imminent danger. The army was crumbling to the spider goddess' forces and a few turncoats could have routed the whole lot before we arrived and they didn't reveal themselves then.

I agree that we should use the full fey host if they agree. The day of the portal travel the dogs should be on explosive detection duty(if their mundane sense of smell is as good as their magic) to make sure none except our boxes make it through.

The other issue I thought of with the portal is the Beast and his cohort fighting the seekers for the termination point once it is established. If we use our willpower ritual and keep ourselves in reserve to hammer opposition and fight for the portal if someone interferes, it would give me peace of mind.

Please anyone that wants to add to the plan or discuss leadership of roles do chime in. What groups do we want through the portal and how do we take prisoners? Do we want on eagle on overwatch with a greater bolt to murder anyone attacking us? Do we wait to go to Reinhard till after Mazzarin says yes or get Reinhard on board first and use him to help convince Mazzarin that be needs to get to the city asap?
 

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I am more afraid of the main army interfering when they see their comrade of 10 years hauled off for treason than I am of a reckless ploy to try stop the gate.
Reinhard is the commander here and he commands authority. People love him.

If he gives such an order, the soldiers will believe him and follow.

The other Houses' guards might not, but they are a minority here, and to revolt against an heir to the throne and a reknown commander is a road from which there is no return. Those who are not accused of treason will think twice before walking it.

The army was crumbling to the spider goddess' forces and a few turncoats could have routed the whole lot before we arrived and they didn't reveal themselves then.
Who says they didn't sabotage the defences or did not supply the spider demon army with information?

They are in the minority, which is why they can't reveal themselves and have to act secretly.

The other issue I thought of with the portal is the Beast and his cohort fighting the seekers for the termination point once it is established.
Mazzarin would be the one opening the Gate. Good luck fighting him.

That we are opening the Gate inside the city which does not seem to have fallen also serves as a security measure. If they couldn't break into the city by now, they should not interfere with the portal directly.

Please anyone that wants to add to the plan or discuss leadership of roles do chime in.
I will try to clarify the plan sometime tomorrow when I have more time.

As for your questions, my guesses would be:
Do we wait to go to Reinhard till after Mazzarin says yes or get Reinhard on board first and use him to help convince Mazzarin that be needs to get to the city asap?
Get Reinhard on board right now and get to 'preparing' his own forces for the journey, determining who is loyal and who isn't. We will need the loyalists to apprehend the subversives later, since we don't have the authority to do it ourselves, and his forces have the benefit of following him directly, which means we can do this without asking the other Lords or waiting for Mazzarin to wake up:

He will help us get Maz on board with the plan since we are not on best terms with the Mage.

What groups do we want through the portal and how do we take prisoners?
We will need to play a bit of 'sheep and wolves' here, always maintaining numerical superiority on both sides of the portal in case of the traitors revolting.

A thing to keep in mind is that the Watcher's agents can be awoken on a signal from the Beast (implying they have a link to it somehow), but the rebels/cultists don't have a direct contact with their Goddess (at least, according to her sister). So the Watcher's agents can revolt on external command that we can't really 'mute', while the cultists need physical coordination or leadership. As such, the Watcher's agents pose a bigger threat to our operation and should be dealt with first.

Another thing to keep in mind is that thought the traitors 'loyal' to the Watcher are bound to be magical in nature (anyone who was not subdued by him and served him willingly probably would probably rethink their allegiance now that he is losing the campaign and with Maz around), you don't need to be touched by the Goddess to be a cultist or a rebel. We should be prepared that at least some of those will slip through the cracks, and plan accordingly.
 
Last edited:

archaen

Cipher
Patron
Joined
Mar 10, 2014
Messages
633
I wasn't particularly worried about the Beast taking the portal from Mazzarin but from the Seekers when they host it. I didn't think Mazzarin was going to be holding it open the whole time but only initially casting but I guess we should ask Fangshi how the Girls think it will work.
 

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I thought it can't be retaken when you host it.

Anyway, once the portal is open any interference can be cut short by Maz stepping insde and dealing with the problem.
 

Fangshi

Arcane
Joined
Jan 9, 2014
Messages
1,997
I wasn't particularly worried about the Beast taking the portal from Mazzarin but from the Seekers when they host it. I didn't think Mazzarin was going to be holding it open the whole time but only initially casting but I guess we should ask Fangshi how the Girls think it will work.

My understanding of the plan as it stands is that, that is correct. If you have Mazzarin give control of the portal over to the Seekers then they will be the ones to defend it from any attacks. So long as Mazzarin is nearby and free to help/retake control, he can also do that.

I thought it can't be retaken when you host it.

No, it is an active spell. It can be stolen or attacked. The aggressor would simply have to defeat the mages currently maintaining it and then make the necessary changes to the spell to achieve whatever effect they would like. That would require a fair bit of magical knowledge to successfully pull off though, the attacker would need to identify the spell, defeat the defenders without collapsing the Gate (unless the intention is simply to collapse it) and then they would need to know enough to modify it.

If they do not realize what is going on, or if they are not strong/skilled enough to affect the spell then there is little they can do.
 

Baltika9

Arcane
Joined
Jun 27, 2012
Messages
9,611
1- Biv
2- leaning heavily towards E, but do we have something to persuade Big M into opening that gate for us? For all I know, he may tell us to fuck off and open our own gate. E
3- C
If there's an issue here, it's between her and us.
4- C It's kinda sad that out of all the mages around here, our best option is a wet behind the ears rookie. :lol:
5- A
 
Last edited:

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
2- leaning heavily towards E, but do we have something to persuade Big M into opening that gate for us? For all I know, he may tell us to fuck off and open our own gate.
1) He left the planning for us, saying, basically 'call me if it is something you can't do, and do the rest yourselves'.
2) He is a busy man, and this saves us about a week. Besides, how else you can ensure that the city does not fall if not by retaking it ASAP? The plan is tactically sound and there are few, if any, alternatives that are demonbstrably better.
3) And this is yet another opportunity to flaunt his magical prowess, seeing how no one else among us can do it reliably.

If the question could be framed as 'this is our best chance, but that's a tall order; can the Great Mage really do this?', the answer is invariably going to be 'Of course I can!' :lol:

4- C It's kinda sad that out of all the mages around here, our best option is a wet behind the ears rookie. :lol:
Well, he has access to his master's expertise if he gets stuck. Though I definitely want to warn him to be careful with those, and not out of fear for the artefacts.
 
Last edited:

Baltika9

Arcane
Joined
Jun 27, 2012
Messages
9,611
Something tells me Big M isn't the type to sit his students down and walk them through step-by-step. Better than trusting it to the Seekers, at least.
If the question could be framed as 'this is our best chance, but that's a tall order; can the Great Mage really do this?', the answer is invariably going to be 'Of course I can!' :lol:
Fair enough.
 

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Okay. I will try to look at the plan and see what are its main strengths and weaknesses, and how to best use them or get around them respectively.

The first strenght is that it does not require much in a way of getting approval of the other Lords. The plan is hard to argue against. Why would you disagree with relieving Stoneheim immediately and choose to leave its fate up to chance? And if Reinhard decides that the Royal army will go along with it, what choice do the rest of them have? To stay behind and walk there on foot? That would be no better than deserting and walking back to Myrgard, because by the time they reach the city the battle would be already over.

So it should avoid one of Reinhard's main concerns:
Getting Lords Berg and Seinsheim to cooperate though may take more time than we have.

We can start gathering the Royal forces and checking 'preparing' them right away while the Prince gets the Lords up to speed so that their guards could follow suit.

Preferrably, we should be done with this part by the time Mazzarin wakes up and asks us WTF is going on, because the Mage knows better than anyone that you don't need any special insulation from 'harmful influences' to use the Gate. If not, then, hopefully, Reinhard can either stall him until we are done (he has no idea of our plan yet) or explain why we are taking that extra step without him alerting the whole camp. Alternatively, we could inform him through Emrys.

To do everything quickly we will need to enlist the help of Finn's host, and to find Finn we should free Cropper first.

We should know who is who in the army by the time the Gate opens.

So far I see the option to deal with the traitors outside of the view of the main army is the preferred one. Alright.

We should ask Reinhard if there is a location in Stoneheim that is big enough to hold the entire army, and that is easy to secure and defend, and removed far enough from the conflict raging there that it has a reasonable chance to stay in one piece. The Gate should open there, drawing from his/Finn's/Mazzarin's memory of the place, similarly with how it was with Eris.

One question we need to decide is if Maz should stay on our side of the portal, or go in once he is done casting the spell and tranfers it to the Seekers. Things are going to be much more orderly wherever he stays, as he has the power to quell any potential unrest and I doubt anyone in the army would openly oppose him after the Sea of Glass.

I think we should send Finn's people and our mercs under Berty on the other side, along with a considerable amount of loyalist forces with someone who is both uncompromised and commands a lot of authority (probably General Kjell, if he proves to be loyal). The General should be made aware of who the subversives are so that he could deal with them accordingly.

We also need to make it clear that we belong to the Royal army, lest the city defenders try to kill us.

Our mercs should go in fully armed (explosives included), which we could explain away with them being specifically trained for Gating warfare, while the others should be separated from the explosives under one pretext or the other. The grenades and other ammunition will be handed to them upon arrival. Naturally, those crates should be protected almost as heavily as the Gate itself.

The explosives should only be trusted to the ones loyal to the cause. The subversives should be disarmed (if they weren't already) and subdued somewhere where the main army can't see it, which should be relatively easy, considering they won't have explosives and will be facing overwhelming odds. The given reason for their apprehension should not be treason - which is, as far as I know, punisheable by death and therefore will force them to resist - but something more innocuous. Maybe their 'Gate insulation' proved to be less effective and they have contracted the 'Void disease' (the symptoms may include higher irritability, lack of respect for authority, and occasionally shouting "I'm perfectly fine, you fucks, give me back my equipment!") and thus have to be quarantined for a day or two until they get treatment. Just a minor setback that will be corrected shortly, meanwhile, please proceed to the gas chambers infirmary. :P

Ideally, they should not even become aware of their predicament.

Between the lack of knowledge on the subject and the army discipline where you can't really question your superiors, I believe it will help us handle the matter with the bare minimum of resistance. Nevertheless, we should position our mortars in a way that would allow us to shell any potential troublemakers, just in case. Still, I think even if there would be disagreements, we have Finn's fairies to glamour people into compliance, so I hope it would not come to that.

The Lords, Berg in particular, will require a different approach, but, thankfully, there are only two of them.

We should maintain the numerical/qualitative superiority of loyalists on both sides at all times.

We aren't really required to do anything in particular once the plan gets off the ground, so I guess we can choose to be on whatever side of the gate we feel we can help more. Probably with Finn and the rest of our mercs, helping the General in charge with his task and smoothing things out. That still leaves Maz&Reinhard to run the show on their side of the portal.

Mazzarin will work both as a guarantee of public order, and a safety net in case someone decides to mess with the portal.

Once on the other side, the army will probably need to take a bit of time to restructure, given that there probably will be some commanders who are compromised.

I guess Reinhard will be the one deciding what to do with the 'quarantined' forces. Maybe they can still be used to form suicide squads or something.

So... what do you think? Any glaring weak points that should be addressed?

Also, changing my votes to BivECCA.
 
Last edited:

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom