>>33450098
So the first question is what kind of area do you guys want to start in? Normal civ rules apply for this part

I vote forest

City Ruins

>>33450324
I'll change my vote to that too.

floating island

>>33450343
>>33450324
To get things going ill just go with this writing it up now

>>33450476
Your clan the Rau'Ri were exiled from the dark elf homeland weeks ago after daring to challenge the high chief of the drow. After being forced to leave the desert you called home you have found yourself on a great steppe, low on supplies. In the distance is what appears to be the ruins of an ancient city. After coming closer to starvation than anyone would like to admit your people take up residence in one of the city's districts and find a small supply of food as well as some other items to salvage.

First we need to answer some questions about our clan. Our last leader committed suicide out of the shame of failing our people and being sent into exile, we now must select a new leader.

A) Veras, A skilled warrior and master of the spear, the sword and the bow. He knows how to get people motivated and can train and lead an army.

B) Lydia, A mage of great power, master of fire magic and passable in other forms of magic as well, she can train and lead mages effectively

C) Raphael, Architect and engineer. He helped design wells and irrigation systems for our people in the desert, he also knows how to work a forge and can serve to help our people with crafting and construction.

>>33450686
Well, we're in city ruins, so we need to be able to defend ourselves. I'd pick veras since we're okay at melee and great at ranged. Magic is for pusscakes

>>33450686
Let's see...average in melee, average in technology, exceptional in magic and ranged.. struggling with breeding, so definitely not melee..

Elemental attunement..

I'm going with B.

>>33450686
A, if the other two can be his lieutenants. If not I'm going with C.

>>33450686
A) I kinda want to see how a drow society with a male leader works.

>>33450686
Our people also have a sacred item that is the symbol of leadership in our clan, what is it?

1) A magic sword crafted from a strange meteorite that landed in the desert centuries ago. It is much lighter, stronger and more flexible than any sword ever seen before or after its creation. It is also enchanted with powerful ancient runes that light it aflame when a magic word is spoken

2) A magic shield, supposedly given to us by the gods themselves thousands of years ago. It has been used for many generations and has saved many of our leaders from an early death on the battlefield. It is said to be unbreakable by the works of gods and immortals alike

3) A sceptre, that when held gives the holder the ability to read the minds of those around them. This has saved our leaders many times in the past from backstabbings and has been a great boon for diplomatic negotiations and business deals

4) A crown that grants its holder farsight, being able to see any location in the world from a birds eye view for several moments. This is useful for reconnaisance and spying.

>>33450812
Also just FYI as gm I dont really follow the stats system that closely I see them more as loose guidelines than actual rules savvy?

>>33450813
When you dont choose the heroes, they stay in the hero pool for later selection and sometimes just join our leadership due to how the story is going.

>>33450841
I'd pick the scepter, people are cunts.

>>33450841
3 sounds interesting.

>>33450841
3

>>33450922
>>33450918
>>33450913
>>33450822
>>33450813
>>33450784
Eyeing your people crowded in the small building, you grip the sceptre and can sense their fear and apprehension about this new place as well as their doubts about the future. You rouse the people, talking about your peoples great victories in the past and their ability to overcome and beat the odds. As your speech continues you sense the crowds resolve start to firm and start setting people to work.

We currently have
60 people
10 horses
Food to last us about 2 weeks
We also have a small group of 5 people with warrior skills, not including our leader with leather armor and a variety of swords spears bows and axes.

What's our first move(pick 2)

A) Fortify our section of the city
B) Scout the area around our section
C) Train our people in the arts of (crafting, magic,war etc)
D) Other(explain)

>>33451034
>B) Scout the area around our section

>>33451034
Scout. Maybe there's a better spot? Preferably somewhere strategic/near a strategic location. A mine, a smelter, farmland, etc.

>>33451034
B, also gather all useful resources

>>33451034
B
D - Scavenge while you're at it.

In before everybody choose "backstab that little fucker" and the thread end

>>33451062
>>33451086
>>33451087
You send scouts around and through the city, they find several points of interest, a neighborhood of what appears to old abandoned noble homes in one part of the city, most already are gated and walled off and might have valuables stashed, another group finds farms outside the city, but they appear to lay fallow, they also fine some seeds in nearby farm houses. Another group finds an armory, unfortunately its been thoroughly looted but it is a heavily fortified location that is centrally located in the city. Finally they find some old forges and smelters in the market district, but no ore to smelt.

Its up to you, the ruling council to decide which areas to loot, which to settle and to assess the risks of splitting our group and making a decision based on that assessment

>>33451235
The armory sounds like a good place to settle in and fortify, and then we should move to prepare the fields and find sources of fresh water.

>>33451302
this food's a priority

>>33451302
>>33451358
sure why not

>>33451377
>>33451358
>>33451302
Veras leads the people to settle in the armory, forting it up and rebuilding the heavy gates, so that we can seal it at need. We also send a small group of people to see if they can't get the farms up and running, the farm group reports back that they have located a broken aqueduct on the other side of the city that if repaired could provide water for the farms. The aqueduct is quickly repaired and the farm starts getting water. We now we have a few people working the farm. However it is highly exposed and we don't have many people out there. The farm people also reported that they thought they saw movement and felt they were being watched when they fixed the aqueduct.

Whats the next move?

>>33451584
train some guards in the way of spear and bow, dont start shit unless they start shit with us first

>>33451639

>>33451719
>>33451639
Veras, takes a few adult volunteers aside and trains them in the arts of war with the additional volunteers we gain 5 new warriors 2 spearmen, 2 archers and a swordsmen. The farm group also reports more strange sightings and signs of activity.

Finally after 2 weeks of sightings we finally make contact after one of the mysterious beings trips and falls over a piece of debris while running away. Our people quickly move to capture and find a scraggly looking underfed human male.

After questioning him they find out that he and his family along with others are living in the sewers and are decendents of the survivors of the cities original destruction over 200 years ago.

These humans seem to have degenerated into primitives as they barely speak and understand the common tongue and seem to struggling despite the resources around them

what do?

>>33452016
Slaves? Slaves.

>>33452016
do they have anything valuable or useful for trade? General information on the area?

>>33452110
They are primitives but have stockpiled a small amount of gold and weapons on account of them being "shiny" the prisoner also speaks in hushed tones of a group of horse-men who come and enslave their people and are the reason these humans live in the sewers now.

>>33452222
Either kill the competition and enslave the primitives to be the backbone of our new colony, or save, uplift and interbreed with them.

>>33452222
just throwing this out there, we could "save" the sewer dwellers by ambushing the next raiding party then take advantage of their good will.

or we could betray them and hand them over to the slavers to curry favor, though there's no guarantee the slaver's wouldnt just capture all of us as well

thoughts? suggestions?

>>33452356
You could communicate with the slavers beforehand, letting them know you'll be able get them some slave sin exchange for whatever you want. And then use the scepter to know whether they're thinking "cant wait to betray these dipshits"

>>33452463
roughly how many sewerfolk are there? how many can put up a good fight if our cunning linguistics can't convince them to go with "our" plan?

>>33452463
but yeah I like this idea

>>33452892
After questioning the prisoner you find that there about 30 sewer folk, half our number.

>>33452892
It is also unlikely they could put up much of a fight being untrained, lacking equipment and being malnourished

>>33453028
Promise them protection if they do labor. We'll feed them from the fields they work too. Heck, even sunlight would be a huge perk for them. They'd basically be our working class.

>>33452016
Slaves

>>33453173
>>33453125
>>33452919
>>33452892
>>33452463
>>33452356
>>33452320
>>33452099
So it seems we have some conflicting opinions on the council whats it going to be guys?

A. Try to talk to the slavers and arrange some sort of deal
B. Enslave them for ourselves
C. Uplift then, make them a worker class for now

>>33452356
>we could "save" the sewer dwellers by ambushing the next raiding party then take advantage of their good will.
>>33453125
and this

>>33453300
C

>>33453300
C.

>>33453300
Kill them
Animate the corpse with necromancy
Use them as worker
If we can't do that
C

>>33453300
Joining and voting C.

File: drow necro.jpg (104 KB, 600x900)

104 KB JPG

>>33453597
I was contemplating interbreeding due to our low numbers (it's disgusting but let's be pragmatic here, we're 60, will have to heavily rely on inbreeding, and it will still take hundreds of years to get acceptable numbers), but if we can use or research necromancy then perhaps that's a better solution in the long run.

>>33453300
C and let them know they're the 99%.

File: heh2.jpg (56 KB, 600x480)

56 KB JPG

>>33453764

>>33453729
First we need to think about the one that are already here, we could think of that later.

>>33453626
>>33453597
>>33453375
>>33453336
You take the prisoner, he calls himself Jon and follow him to the sewers where you find his people huddled around a small fire. You release him and have him address the group. You grip the sceptre and read the minds of both Jon and the group and find a sense of awe and fear at our people, also hope of a better life than living off scraps in the sewer. They hand over their supplies and join us at the surface. You set most of them working on the farm while a few of the women and their children join us at the armory.

Several weeks past and the humans prove to be adaptable and willing to learn, demonstrating a quick ability to pick up the skills of farming.

We catalogue the humans items and find a steel sword made in the western style, the craftsmenship clearly showing it was likely it belonged to a nobleman or knight. We also find some steel tools and a small amount of gold bullion.

Several weeks go by as our people also adapt to our new home, while scavenging the aristocratic district, one of our people finds a case with a full of set of finely crafted steel plate armor and a shield with the symbol of the noble house to whom it belonged.

Our people begin restoring some of the old buildings and inhabiting them as the city is secured and we begin to repair and man the old dilapidated walls.

In addition we find an old map in one of the houses of the region. Showing a mine a few miles away to the west, as well as a large city around ~60 miles away called Basarat on the map.

What should we work on now

A) Developing the mine
B) Visiting Basarat
C) Giving our people militia training

>>33453952
Also D) Other(please explain)

>>33453952
>C) Giving our people militia training

do we entrust the serfs with weapons training? even if its only basic formation and spear drills?

>>33453952
Do we know what's in the mine? As in what ore?

>>33453952
We should develop the mine.

With good ore we can fashion weapons for our militias.
With ore and weapons we can trade later with Basarat.
So it should come first.

>>33454010
Iron is whats listed there

>>33454009
Depend, do we plan to threat them well?

File: 1405349903001.png (38 KB, 774x1032)

38 KB PNG

>>33454104
Ugh. Undecided?

>>33453952
C. But only Dark Elves.

>>33454175
>>33454104
you could read their minds during or before training

>>33454195
that could work, its not like they'd be getting the best equipment anyways

>>33454195
I think we can agree any hostilities would be instigated by us. In that case "would we want them to know how to defend themselves?" is the question.

I'm totally down with this guy's idea >>33453597 though, if we could find any rumors in Basarat about a necromancer tower nearby or something. But that's just me.

>>33454272
>>33454264
>>33454176
>>33454104
>>33454009
The council,still undecided opts to give only adult able bodied drow militia training, with Veras and the other warriors running them through basic weapons training, formations and defense drills.

With this Veras feels more comfortable sending patrols around the outside of the city on horseback, providing us with additional intelligence and early warning of any attacks.

A few weeks later, one of the patrols sees smoke on the horizon

What do?

>>33454544
Send scouts to investigate.

>>33454544
observe, make ready for battle

>>33454586
This

>>33454544
Investingates.

>>33454586
Agreed.

>>33455072
>>33454974
>>33454734
>>33454586
>>33454575
You send out scouts to find the source and they come back with reports of a road about 10 miles out from the city. They found what appears to be the remains of a caravan with a burnt out empty wagon and several human corpses. The corpses are of 4 men 2 in regular clothing and to with armor and weapons, most likely a pair of merchants and their guards.

There is no sign of the perpetrators of this act in sight.

>>33455240
Loot. Maybe we can find a clue.

>>33455279
this, have some serfs do it, guards hang back to ambush any ambushers if need be

>>33455279
The scouts loot the armor and weapons off the guards and search the corpses for any signs of clues, finding a few gold coins and a scroll in one of the merchants pockets. The scroll contains a contract moving cloth from Basarat to a village far to the north in the mountains.

We find iron tipped arrows in all 4 corpses of an unknown make and origin

>>33455333
The scouts return with the loot as well as a few of the arrows and upon their return, Jon, one of the sewer humans says he recognizes the arrow as belonging to the horse-men who are known to inhabit the steppe

>>33455369
Nothing in it for us, but if they raid caravans from Basarat perhaps we could go there and work out a bounty deal.

>>33455369
business trip to Basarat? Find the holder of the contract tell them what happened, offer our services to hunt down the perpetrators. Could be the first steps to insinuating ourselves into the city

>>33455470
Offering to deal with bandits and secure a trade route is a more of a matter for the local rulers. An extra deal could be made with the merchant for the clothes but that's pocket change in comparison. We should bring an educated and good looking human female with us to serve as our face and voice.

>>33455681
its my fair lady with Drow and sewer mutants

>>33455369
What do we do now?

>>33455428
>>33455470
>>33455681
So whats it going to be?

A) Find the bandits and make some sort of deal with them
B) Visit Basarat and make a deal with the merchant there perhaps a bounty contract or something (we can also check it out for other trade opportunities/alliances etc)

>>33457039
also so you guys know other is always an option if you have a better plan than listed, dont be afraid to give ideas/feedback it makes the game better

>>33457039
B.

>>33457039
B) Visit Basarat and make a deal with the merchant there perhaps a bounty contract or something (we can also check it out for other trade opportunities/alliances etc)

if the bandits attack while we are gone give orders to capture if possible

>>33457434
>>33457372
You send a party to the great city of Basarat with its strong walls and large gate. You immediately notice how developed and well guarded it is. After passing house after house you finally make it to the street where the merchant lives, you talk to his wife who points you to the market district, where you go to meet the textiles guild. You don't go into specifics but you mention that we are settled near the trade routes and that we could protect them in exchange for a small fee for travelling through our lands. They are not surprised to learn that the bandits were centaurs, saying that the centaur horde often preys on merchants in the region and that the guild we offer 5 gold a head for centaurs killed.

Shall we do anything else while were here in town?

>>33459643
POssibly buy some tech? we don;t have look into possible upgrades

>>33460373
mining tech and agriculture (plows, pumps, ect)

>>33459643
i know it's been a littlew while but is OP kill?

>>33460596
nope im back had an unexpected interruption though, I got a good 2 hours left in me though

>>33460573
>>33460373
>>33460596
You have 50 pieces of gold with you and spend 15 on buying tools for agriculture,smithing and mining. You keep walking down the street when you see blacksmith shop. Inside you see two dwarves clearly arguing. Eventually the younger of the two storms out, nearly running into you, causing your guards to draw their blades. He quickly says "I have no quarrel with you friend, I am angry my uncle won't let me start my own shop" before he walks away you offer him a job working for us, teaching our people how to craft steel. He is delighted and tells us to wait a day while he grabs his family and his 10 gold from us for his services.

We have 25 gold left and a half day yet in the city what do you want to do?

A) Stop for the day
B) Visit the slave pens
C) Go to the tavern (hire mercs, get rumors)
D) Go visit the harbor
E) Other

>>33460962
C) Go to the tavern. With all the mercs, maybe somebody will have fought the centaurs and lived to to tell the tale, and have some good insight for us.

>>33460993
this, gamble like 5 gold

>>33460993
>>33461014
You and your party go into the tavern, buy drinks and hang out. After a few minutes of making small talk you join one of the tables for a game of arkadian draw(a poker like game)

please a d100 to determine success, ill take the average of the first 3 rolls

Rolled 38

>>33461184
high or low good?

>>33461215
you want high

Rolled 3

>>33461184

Rolled 48

>>33461184

Rolled 42

well shit

>>33461324
>>33461215
>>33461361

You averaged about a 30

You sit down at the table and play several hands, bleeding money for 3 hands before taking the rest and going all in, 2 of the other 3 players fold but the third calls your bluff, leaving out of 4 gold pieces. After spending another piece on drinks youve now spent 5 gold at the tavern. The man who called your bluff is named Jarvan, a tough looking merc, with a nasty scar on his face. You drink for another few hours shooting the shit and finding out what you can. Apparently the centaur horde basically rules the area and collects tribute from the city every year or two. The city lacks much of an army and relies on mercenaries like Jarvan to fight its wars. Jarvan and you talk for a while longer and it turns out that hes in fact a captain of his own company of 50 men. They are also looking for a contract, unfortunately we can't afford his services but we now have a contact in the mercenary world.

>>33461447
You have a few hours left today would you like to do anything else

A) Go to the slave pens
B) Visit the harbor
C) Call it a day
D) Visit the leader of the city
E) Other

>>33461470
>B) Visit the harbor

>>33461470
A) Maybe we will find something interesting...

>>33461505
>>33461517

I will change my vote to the harbor to keep things moving.

>>33461505
>>33461517
You have the group split in 2 while you go to the slave markets. You see a raised platform where there are some slaves for sale. You see an old orc gladiator from the western continent, a group of humans and a group of dwarves. Each cost 10 gold, we only have 20 gold left.

The harbor group returns and reports that they have a very busy harbor, with excellent docks and shipbuilding facilities and that we could hire a ship or buy one in the future if we had the money.

What do you guys want to do?

>>33461721
Discussion time! Do my fellow players think we might be able to get the Orc Gladiator to not try and run away? Or at least lets check out his attitude. If we can secure his loyalty he could make for a powerful bodyguard.

>>33461721
if we buy the dwarfs our new blacksmith will probably want us to free them, still leaning towards them because of mining

>>33461757
we can always scan witht he rod

>>33461767
Maybe we could purchase them and manipulate them into serving us loyally by purchasing them "free" them into our employ making them a working class. I still say the orc gladiator could have something special about him.

>>33461784
Great idea! Lets at least try that.

>>33461802
>by purchasing them "free" them into our employ

godamnit

*By purchasing them to "free" them*

>>33461802
thisll work

10 for the orc if he checks out, last ten for the dorves

>>33461784
You scan all three groups with the rod... in the orc you sense rage and thoughts of revenge on those who enslaved him. Intermingled are plans for escape. In the humans you sense confusion and fear and hopes that they will be sold to someone nice. In the dwarves you sense the same but they seem to have a leader who thinks he can work hard and purchase freedom for himself and perhaps even the others.

>>33461842
We should also scan the dwarves never know what you might find, but with our scepter we should be able to easily manipulate them into loyal workers.

>>33461850
would the dwarves be loyal if we did free them?

I think we can gain the orc's trust if we help him get his revenge, though some more details would be helpful, lets not bite off more than we can chew

>>33461979
The point is using the scepter and manipulation to make them loyal but I do agree that we should scan them beforehand.

>>33461979
You ask the slave sellers and they agree to let you take both the orc and the dwarves aside separately for a few minutes to examine the goods and talk to them. You are given privacy and while holding the sceptre ask first the dwarves and then the orc several questions. After this you believe that you could get the dwarves to work for us relatively easily, even though they lack any skills right now. However based on what you read they would probably work better if we freed them. When you pull the orc aside he is stubborn and barely answers any questions. You sense an escape plot developing in his mind and ask him what he would do with his freedom if he got away. He is slightly unnerved by your question and says he doesn't know. You sense memories in him of his enslavement as a young warrior in his clan, to becoming a gladiator and fighting battles in the arena, many of them great victories and how his master sold him for pocket change when he got too old. You offer him a new choice, explaining that you can give him both a new purpose and perhaps a chance for revenge on those who enslaved him.

>>33462104
free the dwarf

take a chance and free the orc as well? with hints (potentially false, potentially true) of a place of honor in our community if he proves he can be trusted/does good work for us?

>>33462176
*dwarves

>>33462104
Buy/free dwarf

>>33462104
We have the money we should buy both.

>>33462104
up for both.
Great war chief for close quatrs combat and a race built for mining. while having one ofg them study under the dwarf we just hired..
win fucking win.

>>33462379
Also could buy us rep with the dwarf we hired for "freeing" the slaves and this old gladiator could train some fine fighters.

>>33462379
>>33462357
You pay the slavers 20 gold pieces and buy both the dwarves and the orc gladiator. You take them with you and put them up in rooms with our own people at the tavern. In the morning you gather the tools and meet with Holden, the dwarf smith and his family at the east gate and start the journey home.

A few days later you arrive home and set the dwarven smith to the forge to get it up and running and to train a few of our people, meanwhile you send a few of the adults and the dwarven slaves to operate the iron mine.

Should we free the slaves? You sense that neither of them have anywhere to go, so we are safe in that sense

>>33462536
free them, hows the farms doing?

>>33462536
Free them, tell the orc that we truly need him

>>33462536
Free the slaves but use the scepter to aid us in manipulating true loyalty. Them having nowhere to go is cool and all but true loyalty is something we should seize. Also be a true friend to the Orc because he could grant us great boons if we use him right and the best way to manipulate someone is to simply be honest, mostly anyways.

>>33462556
>>33462561
After freeing the slaves you explain to them that they will be treated the same as everyone else around here, given that they pull their weight and contribute to our peoples success. The dwarves move with increased vigor and go to work in the mines while the orc is sent to train with the rest of our warriors. We find out his name is Jericho. Jericho immediately demonstrates his skill with melee weapons in the training yard, easily beating our men and nearly overwhelming Veras himself, who is over 400 years old and considered a true expert among our people. This is even more impressive considering Jericho isn't even in his prime anymore. You have Jericho serve as our melee weapons trainer, as he is an expert in both melee fighting and small unit tactics due to his experience in the arena.

A few weeks pass and Jericho seems to be getting on well with our people when he approaches you with a request. He claims that when he was taken as a slave his wife was taken as well, its been many years but he wants us to see if we can try to find his wife for him and purchase her freedom, he says that he would be eternally grateful if we did so.

>>33462661
Sure thing bud, but do we have the resources to buy another slave? Also how are we gonna deal with the fact that she was obviously sold to a brothel

>>33462661
The mines start producing and Holden and his new apprentices begin producing a variety of steel items, both tools as well as weapons and armor. It becomes clear that after a few months of production we will have a nice surplus that we can use for sale/trade. There is also the bounty on centaur heads the textile guild offered us to consider. Another important thing to consider is that we don't have any high quality wood to make bows from as the trees are sparse and provide the wrong kind of wood. Our original bows are recurved bows made from rare trees in our desert homeland. We either need to find a source for bow wood or trade for some in the future if we want to make bows

>>33462693
We have another 100 gold left from the loot in the city, in addition in the future we will have trade goods to sell and potentially revenues from centaur bounties

>>33462661
Jericho is Spartacus now lets play this better than good Batiartus shall we? Lets make sure he is happy here and honestly look for his wife and put out feelers to keep an eye open for her but we must ensure that he stays loyal, don't have us bend over backwards to please him, but be friendly use our years of experience and scepter to stay on his good side.

>>33462803
ha I loved that show, especially the first season

>>33462821
It was pretty awesome I gotta admit.

>>33462836
Well this thread seems to be dying down and its 2am where I am so I think I might call it a night. Do you think this is worth archiving/continuing?

>>33462908
If you don't archive it I will find you and beat you to death, you don't even want to know what I'll do if you don't continue

>>33462908
Yeah, I'd try to catch it again if I could I only popped in when the gambling started but it was fun while I was here.

>>33462936
>>33462935
Alright got it achived. Ill probably open it up early afternoon eastern time tomorrow

>>33462960
Alright, unless something unexpected happens i should catch it. Looking forward to it.