Happy New Year, New Game, New Players (Finished: Dojango/Mictlan Wins!)

[Excist]

Mandred stood staring grim-faced, his gaunt lined face and furrowed brow watching his troops advance with a fanatical obsession. His single eye twitched first left, then right, mentally tagging every notched spear and missing armband on his rag tag and under-equipped army.

Harrow-gor had said this day would come...MUST come. Have faith he told himself. They will hold. They MUST hold. There is no other way.

His eye flicked nervously up across the open field. A dozen knights stood at the ready, burnished scalemail shining almost iridescently in the sun only partially obscured by the bright logos hand-painted on the shields hinting at past glories, family properties and enterprises and even a few rare monsters from the wilds. Their warhorses were well-bred destriers obviously well-trained for the rigors of battle. These would not flinch at the smell of blood. These muscled masses of black fur and barding held these humans up to a respectable height and they weighed 3-4 times any one of his Pale Ones and probably twice as much as the Ancient Ones. Their Gauntlets held Lances of solid steel. At galloping speed those could pierce and kill on contact. Behind them stood another half dozen cavalry archers testing the wind and at least one more squire aiding each of the Knights. This could turn ugly. But it wouldn't. Harrow-gor had told him what to do. It would work. Why didn't he feel more certain?

The Knights had finished lining up and broke into a gallop readying their lances to pierce through his line of troops like the barbs from a Manticore attacking a herd of sheep.

Mandred unfolded the cloth around a shard of obsidian harvested from the Seal as his troops readied themselves in formation to receive the charge. 3 simple words: Gno'll, Ung, Thano. A dark current of liquid power ran through his veins. His troops' resolve seemed to firm. Did they feel it too? All at once the charging Heavy Cavalry came crashing into the Ancient Ones that had inexplicably strode madly forward in the last few seconds. Lances aiming for chest or gut on the large targets standing before them all struck true and with horror Mandred watched spines of metal sprout from the backs of the Ancient Ones. In the same bloody instance they bellowed as if one otherworldly beast and whipped around in rage and mindless fury pulling the few fools foolishly holding onto their lances from their saddles to be trampled by the horses behind them. Faster than his eye could track armored ragdolls were spitted on spears or grabbed from the saddle by the neck in an impromptu hanging just to be used as an improvised weapon against their brethren. They moved with a strength and precision that was previously unknown in Agartha. Their fatal wounds that should have meant certain doom were ignored in favor of killing and crushing the enemy in a primal orgy of death fueled by a power that is so new, yet, to these Agarthans was truly very, very old. 2 Knights had escaped the reach of the Ancient Ones and were just leveling their lances to charge into the weaker ranks behind them when that same power bubbled up inside Mandred once more. As instinctual as a cough or a sneeze dark power issued forth from Mandred and the air seemed to shift as if there was a shock of thunder without sound and both man and beast fell to the ground as their souls were ripped from their body. Two heart beats later the last knight stumbled down alongside his suddenly lifeless mount blank eyes staring at the sky.

Mandred looked up to see the Ancient Ones deep in both their enemies blood and their own madness forgetting everything they learned about warfare and teamwork. Horse Archers had tried to quit the field when the squires and footmen went down like a sack of flour, however, unfortunately they could not ride faster than the towering Ancient Ones' long legs could carry them.

This felt right. This felt good. This was the true path to cleansing themselves and cleansing the world in the blood of those that would resist the ascension of the True God. All that Harrow-gor had promised will come to pass.

Mandred uttered the first words since the massacre started:

Praise Harrow-gor!

[Nosantee]

As a small note I would have appreciated the fact graphs would be turned off...

[Excist]

When I set up the game on llamaserver I set graphs to off and they're not showing stats on the web. Are the graphs set to on in the in-game settings?

[Torgon]

I think he just means that the standard setting is to have graphs on, but in this case they're off, and the initial description of the game didn't indicate this.

Not a huge deal, personally. I think that since this is an RP game, graphs to off makes much more sense then on. There's no magical source of info telling you how everyone's doing, and you actually have to use scouts. However, graphs on or off might have a bearing on strategy, even pretender design. For instance less need to take an awake rainbow for crazy early research, just bluff to everyone that you have an awake pretender and crazy early research.

We're there any other settings that were not default?

[Immaculate]

Originally Posted by Excist

I am leaning towards the Cradle of Dominion map (its about the size to nation ratio that would be good for 10 nations), but I wanted to check out Shadowshore first, but wasn't able to find it in the maps section. Does anybody have a link for it?

Also, I would like to get this kicked off this week. As soon as the map is finalized it will be hosted on llamaserver and Pretenders may be submitted.

The only non-standard setting will be score graphs off. Any intelligence will have to be gathered manually.

It was indicated (though not in the first post as is the standard apparently)

[Excist]

Yes, I guess as an RP game I kinda thought it went without saying for graphs to be off.

The OP stated MOST settings would be standard and later clarified that the only non-standard setting would be graphs. If anybody was basing their pretender design on game settings and not an RP theme (I for one have a terrible design in strictly competitive terms, but awesome design for a tragically flawed Agartha that should be fun to play nevertheless) then they should have asked what wouldn't be standard.

[Nosantee]

Aha so it was stated, my bad!

I guess we know what this means.
Everything I say may or may not be a lie, but it's probably gonna be a lie. Infact, it's all gonna be lies. You know what, just don't listen to anything I say.

Let us 'Diplomacy'. I'll start working on making fun little write ups and maps in a bit. Probably every few turns. Hopefully noone hates their locations being given away (battle, castle, etc) cause if I find it, it's going on the Tir na n'Og map updates!

[HoleyDooley]

Good stuff Nosantee. Go for it.

[Nosantee]

Tir na n'Og
Intentions

010325
TNMS30620sf

Our expansions are going well! We've taken the lands of Cimri, Ligria, and Winter Peaks with minimal losses and a great haste. Our lands however seem quite rebellious and about 70% of the populous aren't to pleased with the tax hikes. However, we're crushing the dissidents to bring peace back to the capital. Site searching is going well and we've stolen quite a few gems from witches. The cursed troops have been dealt with.ocA 1525Z

On the positive side we've discovered a new neighbor! We welcome the people of Helheim as our new friend and ally. We hope with this map that we can express our intentions and hopefully we may stay out of each others way as we continue our campaign (Sign NAP3 Y/N)? ocA 1527Z

As well, we've met... Formoria? FORMORIA!?
FORMORIAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
FORMORIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!ocA 1528Z

A LOUD BANG IN THE BACKGROUND, A DOOR SLAMING POSSIBLYoc

I apologize, the captain has entered and rage and is taking no more questions.ocB 1531Z

...NQoc 1536Z
...NToc 1541Z

[Immaculate]

A bird, black as death and with hollow eyes appears upon the castle walls of the Tir Na Nog. In his claw is clutched a scroll. A guard takes the scroll and the bird disappears into a dry ash on the wind.


what the scroll says will only be known to the tuatha (see private message)