MP Game - Yarnspinners

[PashaDawg]

You guys are wacked out!!

[Alneyan]

I am quite wacked myself, because of all those squids and the silly Machakan who won't let me take their forts without a fight. Was this game supposed to be "Call of Ctuhlhu", and actually a game of survival?

Well, good luck to the remaining players against the rise of R'lyeh (and don't forget your astral magic, will you?).

[puffyn]

---- Arcoscephale, Turn 50 ----

We met them as the day died on a high, windswept plain, between the Braegen Marches and the pass over the Godsgraves. Two small battalions of hypaspists and Vinogres stood before our mystics and priests. Another squad of hypaspists formed my personal guard, and a fourth guarded Orokestes, who now leads the mystics.



Across the way, the sharp-eyed amongst us could see the invaders. Many were human: a score of elite huskarls, nearly as many men armed in wolf-skin with great two-handed swords, a squardon of archers on the right-flanks, and a group of the evil death sorceresses who had lead the ambush that killed Thymbre. There were trolls, massive creatures with great clubs. There were dwarf-mages, each cunning and ancient and cruel. There were nightmares on the left flank, their spears red in the setting sun, stained forever with Thmybre's blood. There were other wonders: an immortal fay boar, a gargoyle, animated into life... and then there were the Vans. More beautiful beings I have never seen, and the eye danced around such wonder, unable to comprehend what it was seeing. And the greatest of these sat on the world's largest horse. This is the One-eyed Bully, Lord of Frost. Ancient and terrible, with a horse swift as the wind. It is easy to see why he is a worshipped as a god.



The sky turned dark, and a freezing rain fell. Behind me, the mystics began to mutter their spells. I raised Athena's sword to point out the terrible wight which lurked at the back of the foe's army, and watched in amazement as heaven opened and smote the foul thing with lightning. I shouted a warning about the danger posed by the trolls on the flanks, gestured, and a thunderbolt fell among them. Again, I pointed, this time to the smoking ruin the blast had made, and again the sky struck the earth. One last time I raised the sword, and suddenly three men who stood near the boar vanished in a shower of light.

The nightmares charged, and the archers let fly, as my men obeyed orders and held their ground. The death-priestesses shouted foul incantations and curses to scare our forces into attacking. Praying that Athena might avenge Thymbre, I pointed my sword at them - lightning thundered down all around them - and they died with a horrible scream.



Todd now charged, heedless of my calls, far beyond the safety of the spear line. A terrible whirlwind of death descended upon him, and a frightening apparition, but he dodged the blows, struck back, as if his sword could tear the magic sinews of these charms. The nightmares had almost reached our lines, so I called out for a charge and ran forward with my men. A hail of blades fell over us. My men caught most of them on their shields, but one struck me in the arm, and I began to bleed profusely. And it was all for naught, for just as we reached the nightmares, they vanished in a hail of magic.



Now I heard shouts of alarm from the mystics. The one-eyed bully charged the length of the battlefield in a blink of an eye, skirting our phalanx to attack Orokestes. "Oh boy, I can lead the troops now!" Todd called, across the din. "You should go make sure he doesn't get stabbed or else I'll have to go home." So I went. A heavy mist had fallen now, and weapons seemed to be thrusting out of it even when no foe could be seen. The enemy must have somehow flanked us with a small force, who now roved among our unprotected magicians. I cut my way through.



Then the fog cleared a little, and I was face to face with a horse that towered over me, and danced like a storm at sea, or the face of the mountains. I called for Athena, and lightning struck around my foe, but hurt him not. Grabbing what courage I had left, I slipped amongst the thousand hooves. They flashed through the air more quickly than the eye could see, yet I was always quicker, and as I thrust my sword up toward the towering giant, lightning flew from the tip and danced over him. Suddenly he became clear, no longer a thousand images of himself. I tried again, but could not get past his spear. Orokestes called out in a loud voice, and for a moment, my foe was still. "Thymbre!" I cried, and drove towards him with my sword; Zeus' light flashed again, and the gods claimed back one of their own.




They broke soon after. None surrendered, but none escaped back to sing in the halls of Vanheim. Afterwards I came across one of the Vans. His body was crushed, but his noble face which had welcomed a thousand thousand new suns in the east remained unscathed, gazing up onto the dark, brooding sky- the last it would ever see.

---

[Sedna]

R'lyeh, Turn 50

Heh-heh, suckers all.

Man is disappearing into the waves with pleasant abandon. I'm a little concerned that the rebels up there may start to think that Xlikloth is a competent general, so I've called forth the water queens, equipped them with the finest array of magical items, and sent them onto the land. They are such beautiful killing machines that I'm sure the troops will worship them instead of the false prophet, and thus return to the sea. And Man is still fighting Machaka too, oblivious to my hordes seething outside their cities and fortresses.

Caelum was gullible enough to send me the chalice- some religious token I've never understood the importance of. Oh yes, I said, I'll send it back in a few months after I've been healed. So far I haven't seen any of its mystical healing properties, but it makes a pretty good spittoon.

Cthugul has been busy. Upset with the slow pace of the Void Gate, he collaborated with good old Sammy (I'm surprised Sammy isn't dead yet. Every other pet human I've had has died really fast) and worked up a spell to directly call an abomination. I love abominations. Almost as much as the great purple. The spell seems to damage them en route, and so they end up a bit mindless, wandering around, bumping into things, killing slaves, and ripping apart the fabric of the universe. Sammy comes through again in the pinch though, with a very helpful book called, "How to give your Abomination the gift of reason". Evidently, you can either hit them repeatedly with the book or you can shot them with nature magic, right there above the eye.

I'm going to give this one a cute name, one of those cute little frosted unicorn heads, and something to fly - and then unleash it upon an unsuspecting world. And then Cthugul will get more, and more... Sure, the spell takes a lot of magic pearls, but it's better than relying on the void gate and its endless string of Othernesses and Things.

[Sedna]

R'lyeh, Turn 51

A small set-back this month. I had ordered the garrison in Vankara sound to secure the city on the cliffs above. This is the home of the Vans, a rapidly vanishing race thanks to the genocidal efforts of Man and Arcoscephale. I thought their capitol might have some useful toys, and anyway, I certainly couldn't leave it in the hands of Man. I guess they had insufficient arrow fodder, or Man had too many magic users or something, because we were repulsed back into the sea. Ah well, I'll order them to try again.

The rest of the Manish war goes well. The trees are rapidly disappearing from the eastern lands and Machaka has recently broken the Man army in the south. In fact, a scout reports that this loss left one of their troublesome air queens stranded with a small army in Syzran. My death sorceresses up north have been constantly cursing men into ghouls in distant lands. Useful enough, but a mighty force of ghostly cavalry works much better against air queens.

The bird-folk, my last real competition in this plane of existence, have launched an ill-conceived war against the fire-humans. Perhaps they will be successful. Both sides have certainly had many years of peace in which to develop, but the birds cover much more of this world. Still, it a perfect opportunity to strike. While the fiery devils of Abysia distract the fluffy-ones, I'll quickly raise a couple armies in the deep places by their shores and then march to another swift and certain victory.

I long to join them, but this blasted chalice thing seems to be broken. Perhaps it was a mistake to use it for drinking unicorn blood mixed with baby brains. The first Abomination is all set to kill things though. I dub him Mithridates (Mithy, for short), and send him to test the strength of the birds in one of their newly conquered lands.

[Sedna]

R'lyeh, Turn 52

Thuella the air queen lives, but for how long? My ghost riders struck, slaughtering two mages and slew of archers, but the cowardly Thuella flew away. At this point, her few remaining troops are more of a liability than an aid.

Mithy did fine against the birds. They have this annoying enchantment which strengthens their local defenses, but not strong enough to stop an abomination! Mwhahahah...

Every city of Man is now under siege. We'll break into a few of them soon. I'm especially interested in pillaging their homeland in Skjomen's Steps. My lovely Limne will be directing that battle. After that, I'm going to quit fooling around with Xlikloth. I've carefully arranged things so that his army is stacked with those loyal to me, and at a single word they will slaughter him, all for the greater glory of me.

At last we have been able to summon Bathusma, queen of the deep. Most of her magic gear is ready to go, but I'm still waiting for the one item I outsourced. There is a very reasonable individual within the empire of Arcoscephale who was willing to forge a dread blood thorn for me for a fair price. That should arrive shortly, and then Bathusma will bathe in the blood of those who oppose me.

[Zen]

OOC:

I have to say this has really turned into a fantastic type of game. A little long in the running, but now that I've seen it to near completion I really like the idea. I enjoyed quite a few of the different aspects of the game.

Particularly: Puffyn's posts as well as his "Dramatis Personae" really illustrate his position in the world.

I wanted to say that for the next Yarnspinners, I'd like to join and have the entire set of Players post on (perhaps an entire website for the game) a Dramatis Personae or Index.

Have any of you that have been playing this game thought about the next game and ways to make the game more enjoyable (as mostly an AAR) for the viewers in terms of website logistics?