Pre-industrial Fantasy STGOD OOC/Rules Thread:

[Jub]

Read your little raid, Jub, and wrote a response showing the attack and its aftermath from my peoples' point of view. No counter attack or pursuit immediately, but word has been passed to the Crown, who will reply in the usual manner (more on that later).

That works for me. Tracking my path to Francois Lake should be easy, just follow the drag marks and blood to the shore. After that, it would be fairly easy to conclude that they went back towards Fraser Lake. From there you'd probably have to start asking around to figure out the rest.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'll have to give some thought to the details of the response, but I think this will be a good chance to show off my magic and tactics on at least a small scale. Also introduce a bit more of the royal court.

[Dark Hellion]

Rough draft of OoB

The Concordance of the Nine
History: Millions of years ago, during Time Immemorial, the earth was ruled by terrible lizards; the dragons. While arrogant and territory these dragons eventually built a thriving civilization that spanned the entire world. However, this civilization was not to last. One day, the greatest prophet of the dragon called together the wisest and most powerful of the dragons. To these gathered dragons the prophet unveiled what he had seen: a world with a burning sky, seas of blood and islands of bone, the result of a great war between dragons and the civilizations that would follow. To prevent this, the prophet told them, dragonkind would have to fall and pave the way for other civilizations to grow. At first, the gathered dragons did not believe this prophecy and went back on their way. But some began to see and hear whispers of this prophecy as well. Fearing that what the prophet said may come true, these dragons joined forces and began a program to create a group of "perfect dragons" to help them in avoiding this fate. Through the use of magic, breeding ,and technology they eventually created 9 great wyrms, all of them of power unseen before and all who could hear the whisper of the prophecy as well.
When these dragons grew to adulthood, the prophet would summon them (and only them) to deliver his final prophecy. "Dragonkind must fall for the lesser races to rise. And when they rose, dragonkind must be there again to guide them to the correct path." And so the 9 dug deep under the foot of the greatest of the Northern Mountains and put themselves into stasis, to await the coming of the "lesser species". They would not see the prophet summon the great death from the sky or see the rise of mammals. While they knew these things would happen, instead, they would sleep for millions of years, until humans came to the great Northern Mountain.
Awakening, the 9 found themselves in a world they did not know, a world they did not understand, and a world full of fragile but intelligent creatures who although lacking the might and grandeur of a dragon, had wrought wonders with magic and technology. At first, the wyrms attempted to call to any of their breatheren that had survived. Some dragons, debased from original form but bearing enough of the old blood to hear this call did come in great waves, becoming myths of monsters and thunderbirds for the native peoples of the land. However, these dragons where little better than extremely advanced animals. The 9 had pity on them and shielded them in the great forest surrounding the Northern Mountain but any plan of rebuilding dragon civilization would have to wait for hundreds of millennia.
Instead, the dragons sought to hear the whispers of the prophecy again, to see the signs, and be guided on how they should reach the promised land. But the prophecy would not reveal itself as it once did, instead feeding only the barest snippets and leaving much to interpretation. So the 9 great dragons decided they would listen and watch and confer; moving ever so slowly and only when they were assured of the outcomes.
And so has the Concordance of the Nine done for thousands of years, listening and ever so slowly guiding the races of the planet away from Armageddon.

Population
Approximately 40,000 lesser dragons

9 great wyrms

Rubicent the Red
Ambercine the Orange
Zarrintaj the Golden
Larchmere the Green
Aqualine the Blue
Tongellin the Indigo
Haze-a-sur the Violet
Aln-Darastrix the White
Ur-Darastrix the Black

Military
The Concordance has no real standing army.
However, while lacking organization and technology each individual dragon is a powerhouse of both physical and magical might.
There is a small police force of dragons called the wardens who help keep the peace within the various tribal communities and who could be called up in the case of emergency.
Additionally, many of the able bodied adult dragons would fight back if invaded.

Wardens
100 wardens at 20 points a piece
2000

Dragons
4000 dragons at 10 points a piece
40,000

The touched
Among the other races of the continent there are those who hear the whisper of the prophecy as well. For some this is little more than a half remembered dream that may lead to making a wiser decision in the coming days. For others this could be a vision of the future or a flash of inspiration that leads to some great feat. The great wyrms are cautiously interested in such individuals and how they play into the prophecy and are often willing to expend some of their considerable wealth, knowledge or might in assisting such individuals (whether indirectly or directly) in order to gain insight into their fragment of the prophecy. However, despite some linking to the prophecy these "touched" individuals are in no way beholden to the 9 nor in any other way different from their fellows in from where they hail. This has both fascinated and baffled the 9 for as long as the "touched" have appeared.

100,000 points to all other factions for use as they see fit on various events.

The Great Wyrms
Personality details to be expounded upon in final draft.

The Nine Great Wyrms of the Concordance represent the highest peaks of dragondom from the highest peaks of dragon civilization. Each is an immortal being of such vast power that their very presence on a battlefield could spell doom to armies. However, their presence also shifts the lines of fate in ways they cannot predict. As such each of the nine is loath (to greater or lesser extents) to use even the smallest fraction of their power unless they have all agreed on the surety of the outcome. Instead, they prefer long and subtle ploys to slowly direct events towards the pathways they see in the prophecy.

100,000 points set aside for various dragon related events.

[The Romulan Republic]

Here's a preliminary OOB:

The Wanderers:

100,000 Elves. 2 points each (200,000 points in total). Ordinary citizens, though most have enough physical and magical capabilities to fight if they're attacked. Call them a militia. I'm counting them in my points despite the fact that they're not soldiers because they're somewhat superhuman.

9,000 Rangers. 5 points each (45,000 points total). Skirmishers/raiders/scouts/sentries. Fight with bows (and occasionally guns) and melee weapons. Light infantry.

1,000 Mounted Rangers. 7 points each (7,000 points). Light cavalry/horse archers.

500 Guards. 7 points each (7,000 points). Elite heavy infantry.

1,500 Healers. 5 points each (7,500 points). Skilled at magic, specialize in healing.

1,500 Scholars. 10 points each (15,000 points). Elite mages.

The Queen. 10 points.

The First Captain. 10 points.

The Prince. 10 points.

The First Healer. 10 points.

The First Scholar. 25 points.

Assorted magical texts and artifacts. 15,000 points.

Edit: As you may have noticed my population is small, and they pretty much all have at least some combat ability. This is because they're basically nomads who are used to having to fight wherever they go.

[madd0ct0r]

Well that puts the touched amongst the pigeons.

I have ellsemere island, which has an ice cap, a northern peak and old lava flows called the dragon cliffs. Would your kind have any interes or stake in there?

[Raw Shark]

So, on the subject of divine intervention, I feel the need to bring up the probability distribution thing again. It was funny when it was just me, but does everybody really want a system where your civilization gets wiped out 16.67% of the time that it's invoked if we all use it? An unevenly-distributed bell curve using 2d6 or some other system is IMHO much better than my original 1d6 suggestion.

Also, does anybody have a problem with my suggested unit pricing? Otherwise, moving ahead.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well that puts the touched amongst the pigeons.

I have ellsemere island, which has an ice cap, a northern peak and old lava flows called the dragon cliffs. Would your kind have any interes or stake in there?

Not at all. Even in the old days, Ellsemere would have been quite a bit further north than my people (my geography's a bit iffy in that part of the country, but isn' Ellesmere in the vicinity of the Arctic Circle?). Now, when my people have migrated west, its literally on the far side of the country.

In any case, their are plenty of other reasons for my people to have animosity towards yours', I'm afraid.

Edit: I see your point about divine intervention, Raw Shark, and would be willing to consider revising it. Unfortunately, we still can't edit posts here like we used to be able to, so I'm going to see if that's a result of a software issue that can be fixed before making any changes to the rules.

[Esquire]

It's going to take me a little longer to get moving on story posts than I thought - I forgot I'd agreed to go see my girlfriend's family out of state this weekend. One day I'll get something up, I promise! If you want to use the Ottomans for something in the next few days, feel free, just send me a PM first or post something here. I'll be able to respond briefly to things, just not do a lot of extensive writing.

[Beowulf]

So, on the subject of divine intervention, I feel the need to bring up the probability distribution thing again. It was funny when it was just me, but does everybody really want a system where your civilization gets wiped out 16.67% of the time that it's invoked if we all use it? An unevenly-distributed bell curve using 2d6 or some other system is IMHO much better than my original 1d6 suggestion.

Also, does anybody have a problem with my suggested unit pricing? Otherwise, moving ahead.

2d6 doesn't really give a bell curve either. You really need at least 3d6 to get a nice curve. Which is part of the reason D20 uses 3d6 for stat generation.

[Raw Shark]

I think that 2d6 gives considerably more of a curve than the purely-even distribution of 1d6, but I'd be even more fine with 3d6.

[madd0ct0r]

Well that puts the touched amongst the pigeons.

I have ellsemere island, which has an ice cap, a northern peak and old lava flows called the dragon cliffs. Would your kind have any interes or stake in there?

Not at all. Even in the old days, Ellsemere would have been quite a bit further north than my people (my geography's a bit iffy in that part of the country, but isn' Ellesmere in the vicinity of the Arctic Circle?). Now, when my people have migrated west, its literally on the far side of the country.

In any case, their are plenty of other reasons for my people to have animosity towards yours', I'm afraid.

Edit: I see your point about divine intervention, Raw Shark, and would be willing to consider revising it. Unfortunately, we still can't edit posts here like we used to be able to, so I'm going to see if that's a result of a software issue that can be fixed before making any changes to the rules.

Well, the far side of the country is not that far away when you are that close to the north pole - and you mentioned a frost dragon changing your people, which I guessed might tie in, especially with one of Darth Hellion's Nine (White or Blue??). I'm trying to stifle the urge the include frost drakes in my Hyenorks and stick to good old Furry Tuskers.

[madd0ct0r]

Dammit. Ghetto edit.
- checked a polar map, and yeah, much distance still, all of it open water. https://nordpil.com/static/images/arcti ... p_full.jpg

Made a quick map of the major Hyenork regions. Names seem to change on maps of Nunavut a lot, and rivers and lakes move very quickly due to the seasonal effects. Going with this one to give eveyone a point of reference: http://i.imgur.com/GYaGh3a.png

[Simon_Jester]

Hi. On for a few hours tonight.

Hm. The divine intervention system, honestly, I think the effects should mostly be bad but not game-ending even if something does go wrong. Also, I can't really see most of us wanting to use the system. If I want grand-scale acts of magical intervention involving Ohio, I'm willing to spend points commensurate with the scale of the result. I don't want to roll dice for that.

Raw_Shark did it because he, specifically, has a country where deities wander around that aren't particularly aligned with his own faction, so that while they might well interfere in the operations of foreign armies on his soil, they aren't necessarily going to do so in a helpful or constructive manner from his point of view.

That's not the normal situation elsewhere in the game, so why do we need a dice system? Why not just RP it out and commit to paying point costs for any result that inflicts a direct consequence on the other side?

[madd0ct0r]

Simplicity.and it'd suit calling upon the dragons or a particular stellar alignment or some tepath turned hive mind or a simple storm scattering a fleet or an upwelling of magic from the crust.

Suggestion.
Roll six dice. The effect is the total times 1000 points (so between 6000 and 36,000, average of 21,000).if there is more even numbers it it goes against the opponent, if there are more odd it will go against you. The difference in the number of odd or even dice (as appropriate) decide how many seasons that effect is reapplied . A draw counts the same as an instant effect, such as a storm. ce. The affect is probable net damage to the opponent, but horrendously risky plot device. Unless players choose it to be permanent , the effect just suppresses their points, it does not remove them entirely.

So three examples that Detroit might have managed if they were players.
122333 - total 14000 points against them for 2 seasons - a summoned demon tree starts to spread around the city, taking over existing forest treescas fast as you can cut them down. Any troops in the area are at great risk with being sucked into a horrible drwam about acorns.

234556 - total 25000 points to support detroit for just now. Detroit' s necromamcers summon a deaths head visage that appears to eat the sky and stars in a horrible vision of the heat death of the universe. Worse, the chill in the air from the massive death magic triggers a torrential blizzard, trapping the Ohioans on the march and forcing them to scatter for shelter and warmth. It takes time for riders to reorganise the bulk of the army for an assault.

224455 - total 22000 to support detroit for 2 seasons. They summon a great crawling and burrowing grave worm that traps and circles the army for 2 seasons. Now it is the trenches and borrows that are no man's land.

[Simon_Jester]

Hm.

I'd say we can put major supernatural events between PCs up to gambling if there is mutual consent to gamble. Otherwise, put your money where your mouth is, and give your opponent an opportunity to spend points to cancel you out.

If a PC wants to beat on an NPC with major supernatural events, that PC should have to spend points commensurate with the desired outcome.

Also, point of information: Detroit does not have necromancers. That's rather the point of why this necromancer went rogue even by Detroiter standards, which have gotten rather low. The Detroiters are, however, practiced demonologists.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well that puts the touched amongst the pigeons.

I have ellsemere island, which has an ice cap, a northern peak and old lava flows called the dragon cliffs. Would your kind have any interes or stake in there?

Not at all. Even in the old days, Ellsemere would have been quite a bit further north than my people (my geography's a bit iffy in that part of the country, but isn' Ellesmere in the vicinity of the Arctic Circle?). Now, when my people have migrated west, its literally on the far side of the country.

In any case, their are plenty of other reasons for my people to have animosity towards yours', I'm afraid.

Edit: I see your point about divine intervention, Raw Shark, and would be willing to consider revising it. Unfortunately, we still can't edit posts here like we used to be able to, so I'm going to see if that's a result of a software issue that can be fixed before making any changes to the rules.

Well, the far side of the country is not that far away when you are that close to the north pole - and you mentioned a frost dragon changing your people, which I guessed might tie in, especially with one of Darth Hellion's Nine (White or Blue??). I'm trying to stifle the urge the include frost drakes in my Hyenorks and stick to good old Furry Tuskers.

I think you have me confused with someone else. A frost dragon does not feature in my back story.

[madd0ct0r]

Ugh. Guess so. Ok. That resolves that. I'll keep dragon cliffs as a possible plot once current threads play out.

[Beowulf]

Rules idea:
Historically, navies would put ships into ordinary, where they'd demast the ship, remove the armament, and move the ship's company to other ships (or release them). Rules wise, we could implement something similar, where a ship in ordinary at the start of the game costs less, but can't actually be used until the rest of the points is paid up (the rest of the points being the cost of recruiting the ship's company, and paying for the armament to be cast, etc). You could also put the ship into ordinary during the game, and get a refund of those points towards other military construction. This would be on the order of 50% or so. The advantage to doing this, is that ships in ordinary are much faster to bring into the game than building new ships during the game (a season versus a year or more). But the disadvantage is that they still count against you during the initial buy.

Thoughts?

[Jub]

Rules idea:
Historically, navies would put ships into ordinary, where they'd demast the ship, remove the armament, and move the ship's company to other ships (or release them). Rules wise, we could implement something similar, where a ship in ordinary at the start of the game costs less, but can't actually be used until the rest of the points is paid up (the rest of the points being the cost of recruiting the ship's company, and paying for the armament to be cast, etc). You could also put the ship into ordinary during the game, and get a refund of those points towards other military construction. This would be on the order of 50% or so. The advantage to doing this, is that ships in ordinary are much faster to bring into the game than building new ships during the game (a season versus a year or more). But the disadvantage is that they still count against you during the initial buy.

Thoughts?

We already have the +10% troops per year rule which can help grow armies, to the cap, or replace loses. It seems like this might already cover ships in ordinary and could be used to explain away new ships coming into their navy in very little time.

[Simon_Jester]

This will be my last post prior to January 3 or 4. Hope you like the big honking third chapter. Comments will be welcome and would give me warm fuzzy feelings on my return.

Rules idea:

Historically, navies would put ships into ordinary, where they'd demast the ship, remove the armament, and move the ship's company to other ships (or release them). Rules wise, we could implement something similar, where a ship in ordinary at the start of the game costs less, but can't actually be used until the rest of the points is paid up (the rest of the points being the cost of recruiting the ship's company, and paying for the armament to be cast, etc). You could also put the ship into ordinary during the game, and get a refund of those points towards other military construction. This would be on the order of 50% or so. The advantage to doing this, is that ships in ordinary are much faster to bring into the game than building new ships during the game (a season versus a year or more). But the disadvantage is that they still count against you during the initial buy.

Thoughts?

I don't see any reason you couldn't do this- pay points for an unusable object that becomes useful at a later time. However, I would suggest that we not do this on a very large scale, lest it become game-breaking.

Rules idea:
Historically, navies would put ships into ordinary, where they'd demast the ship, remove the armament, and move the ship's company to other ships (or release them). Rules wise, we could implement something similar, where a ship in ordinary at the start of the game costs less, but can't actually be used until the rest of the points is paid up (the rest of the points being the cost of recruiting the ship's company, and paying for the armament to be cast, etc). You could also put the ship into ordinary during the game, and get a refund of those points towards other military construction. This would be on the order of 50% or so. The advantage to doing this, is that ships in ordinary are much faster to bring into the game than building new ships during the game (a season versus a year or more). But the disadvantage is that they still count against you during the initial buy.

Thoughts?

We already have the +10% troops per year rule which can help grow armies, to the cap, or replace loses. It seems like this might already cover ships in ordinary and could be used to explain away new ships coming into their navy in very little time.

Wooden warships take long enough to build that this is a reasonable approach- in real life construction times could be two years or more for a first-rate ship of the line. That said, as long as things take a reasonable amount of time to produce, enough that no one can pull new forces out of their hat in time to avoid suffering any consequences from losing their existing forces, the details really don't matter very much.

It's like, if I lost all my ships on the Great Lakes, it should take several seasons to rebuild them. Not because of any historical trivia, but because it would take a year or so for the full consequences of losing my naval power on the Lakes to be carried through to their conclusion.

[Jub]

Wooden warships take long enough to build that this is a reasonable approach- in real life construction times could be two years or more for a first-rate ship of the line. That said, as long as things take a reasonable amount of time to produce, enough that no one can pull new forces out of their hat in time to avoid suffering any consequences from losing their existing forces, the details really don't matter very much.

It's like, if I lost all my ships on the Great Lakes, it should take several seasons to rebuild them. Not because of any historical trivia, but because it would take a year or so for the full consequences of losing my naval power on the Lakes to be carried through to their conclusion.

I think as long as things are kept reasonable, we can probably just treat ship building as something that gets taken care of by moderator action if anybody tries to abuse the current lack of rules.

[Raw Shark]

Did we ever figure out what we think barely-trained spearmen in bread helmets should be priced at? 0.2? 0.25? Any suggestions for my weirder stuff with advantages like stealth or disadvantages like fragility?

[madd0ct0r]

Pick the size of engagement you expect to fight at and estimate the number of musketeers vs you that give a fifty fifty chance of victory.

If the bread helmets aren't doubt anything beyond garrison I'd ignore them in the oob. You'll never have more than a few in any location AND They are ineffective against most enemies. If you a fielding thousands of them as a skirmish line to slow calvary charges then I'd price them at 0.3, maybe 0.4 if they are trained enough to fight in a block.skeletons and zombies are 0.2 so at 600point skirmish you'd have 3600 skeletons vs 2000 bread spears vs 600 trained musketeers. If we say the musketeers get two volleys before bayonets that seems about right.

[Simon_Jester]

Did we ever figure out what we think barely-trained spearmen in bread helmets should be priced at? 0.2? 0.25? Any suggestions for my weirder stuff with advantages like stealth or disadvantages like fragility?

Within reason, whatever you want them to be. It's just that 0.1 points per man is really low, because that would mean ten of your bread-helmets are worth one normal soldier. Even if your bread-helmets were totally unarmed and naked they might be able to win against normal soldiers at 10:1 odds if they were seriously trying to win the battle.

Conversely, 10 points per man is insanely high because that would require one man to be able to outfight ten normal soldiers who are all ganging up on him. Sure, some formations of phalanxes or whatever could maybe repel an army of bread spearmen who outnumber them 10:1, but only with very favorable terrain.

Also, this really IS my last post for a long time.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Should have an OOB up later today. No idea on next story post yet though.