Fantasy Arms Race, Round Two

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I am bumping this thread to make certain that it's well truly gone and dead and not simply forgotten.

If it is, in fact, just forgotten then I suggest we think about writing up the final end game of the alien invasion and begin setting up for the next round.

This next round should be something like the dark ages with all the former alliances undone by this war and new cultures developing in the ashes.

 

[The Goblin King]

I had an evil idea today. The Confederacy has the upper hand. No doubt as they have numbers and home ground. The leader of the Stempan army, a Hobgoblin Cleric by the name of Riishthrack, does not like this war. He feels that it was senseless to provoke the Auselen in the first place and now the Confederacy is getting what it deserves. He also has a grudge against the generals of the Ta'Jinn and Cressian armies. They used to go on adventures togather until Riishthracks love died. He feels it is the others fault but also blames himself for letting her come along. In reality it was no ones fault but the Barrow-Wight who slew her. These things happen when you are an adventurer. After that the group broke up and Riishthrack went back to Stempa. He became a well respected leader of the people. The Stempan army is fiercely loyal to him. With the help of his supporters back home he declares the Treaty of the Confederacy broken. Riishthrack leads his army off the field and back to Stempa. There he crowns himself emperor. Now, I see this as a popular revolt. The people love him and he has the army on his side. The Cressians and Ta'Jinn see things differently and declare war on Stempa to free them from tyranny.

I have always imagined the Stempa as being a mostly Lawful people. The Cressians are mostly Neutral and the Ta'Jinn are Chaotic. I'm not sure why I think of th Ta'Jinn as being Chaotic. I guess its something about the wide open plains. The Auselen are of course Lawful Evil. The Stempa and Auselen both have something in common. They are Law abiding peoples who are being attacked by the Confederacy. The Stempa and Auselen forge a new treaty and the Empire is born. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that. Thus, the great war is started. The war to end all wars. Law versus Chaos.

In the end it comes down to a final apocalyptic battle between the two forces. On the Heavens River lies the Bridge of Lowrp. Also called the Gate to Jinn this great work of architecture is the main path by which trade flows in and out of the plains. Were this city to fall the Ta'Jinn would be done for. Both armies pull out everything they have including hiring mercenaries. The Confederacy convinces some Hill Giant warbands to help them while the Empire presses Goblin Worg riders into service. The battle is titantic and lasts several days. So much blood is spilled on the Bridge of Lowrp that the timbers are stained red. To this day it is also known as the Red Bridge. The Confederacy is victorious though it is a pyrrhic victory.

 

[ajanders]

Cressians Vs. Formians (and everyone else)

Sorry to have missed this particular bit of excitement.
Let me think a little here...
The central conflict, I think, is going to be between centralized and decentralized force structures.
The key, however, is going to be determining the total intelligence available to each side, as both the Cressians and their allies and the Formians have very good communications.
When we look at a Formian warrior, we see from the Monster Manual it has Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 11: that is to say, it appears pretty much like the average human mentally. It is described as "able to communicate battle plans and make reports to their commanders" (myrmarchs).
If the text is taken literally, the Cressians have a decided advantage over the Formians. While a warrior can communicate a battle plan, it can't form one. Unless it's in constant communication with a Myrmarch,it's probably running on "standard procedures", which may be complex but will not be adapted to the terrain or circumstances. It will never be able to improvise a response.
Figure it's like a fairly powerful computer, but it doesn't create responses to things, it just searches though the formian version of a Select Case statement until it finds something to do. Or explains the situation to higher authority and waits for instructions.
(Because of this limitation, by the bye, I think Dr. Strangemonkey's force structure is actually better than S/Lash's.)
The Cresian's can work out how to exploit this by shifting tactics constantly, thereby overloading the Myrmarchs mental capacity or communications bandwidth.
That could be done with something as simple as switching from two-handed weapons to sword and shield, then back.
Or by Deltanes shifting from wolf to man.
It could also be handled with different actions like attempting bull rushes, then weapon attacks.
Once the Myrmarch and his warriors have been confused, they should be easier to kill.
Now if you assume the warriors can make plans as well as the average warrior, this plan goes to heck. I suspect the Cresians are going to lose then.

Two final questions to ponder, because I'm not sure about them myself?
Would the gods get involved?
Do Formains know about combined arms tactics? If so, how much?

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I had a couple of ideas for god involvement.

But the one I'd like to share is that I believe that the Confederacy will start developing more and better divination spells. As a result of this and their highly effective command structure they develop a system for figuring out where the central portions of the Formian command net are located.

They then start taking out the command net from the top down over the course of a horrible series of days and using their very best teams of adventurers, those that aren't in Ausel, the Ausel members of the invasion force together with many of the remaining Myrmachs retaliate by staging a daring raid on the memorial city in which the confederacies headquarters are concentrated.

Over the course of this brief high level campaign the total ranks of the major leveled characters for both sides of the conflict become decimated and suffer particularly high casualties at the ends of the spectrum just below their most powerful characters.

The Formian force is now operating based on 50% of its original officer corps forcing it to play a defensive role in order to maintain command and control. The Ausel force, however, suddenly finds itself in a much freer position as their uppermost ranks of sorcerous overlords were heavily hurt, but the rest of their forces are largely preserved.

The Cressians loose a substantial portion of the wizarding corps, but the most important casualties are the deaths of the Stempan Oracles, Cressian Hierophants, and Khanate Seer Princes who formed the heart of the divine aspect of the alliance. The magical rift caused by their deaths and the deaths of the high dragon scions who lead the attack against them sends a rift running through the ritual magics that bound the Confederation in the protections of the gods.

This has three important effects.

First, it allows the Formians to drop in a second queen.

Second, it pisses off the gods a great great deal.

Third, it silences the connections between the Stempan commanders and their oracles. This is what really pushes the hobgoblin king over the edge and shocks the entire Stempan culture into a state of high hysteria and chaos.

The Confederation front dissolves into chaos.

The Ausel front becomes far far far grimmer and more terrible with the arrival of the second queen and the attentions of the gods.

 

[The Goblin King]

I had briefly considered Divine intervention. I had the image of Sky Mother and Field Father showing up. The entire battle instantly halts as all eyes turn to the gods.

But my DM instincts took over. I always use a light touch when it comes to gods interacting with players.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I agree, in general, there are situations that merit heavy and obvious divine intervention. Though in this case I think the primary aid will be Homeric in quality with the gods being really impressive at cancelling each other out, wiping the floor with mooks, and inspiring heroes to amazing new levels of heroism only to screw them over in the end.

 

[ajanders]

When Cresians attack, or why Machiavelli was right

(quote)
But the one I'd like to share is that I believe that the Confederacy will start developing more and better divination spells. As a result of this and their highly effective command structure they develop a system for figuring out where the central portions of the Formian command net are located.

They then start taking out the command net from the top down over the course of a horrible series of days and using their very best teams of adventurers, those that aren't in Ausel, the Ausel members of the invasion force together with many of the remaining Myrmachs retaliate by staging a daring raid on the memorial city in which the confederacies headquarters are concentrated.
(end quote)
I'm not sure this would be a surgical strike.
The Ausel have never been really much loved by the mainland cultures. They raid, they trade in arms, they don't believe in gods, they practice necromancy, conjure fiends, and pervert nature, and now they're selling out the prime material plane to a bunch of magic bugs.
The Stempan oracles use their powers to see the whole grisly spectacle of Auselen history and are completely out of use for them.
After they explain things to the Ta'jinn and the Cresians, it's agreed all the way around. The Stempans and the Ta'jinn are ready for a holy war to make sure the Auselen stay out of the other planes for the rest of time...heck, next time it could be abyssal ants that come over from the next plane.
The senior Cresian Huntmaster present says something enigmatic about calling some butterfly friends of his to see what they can do.
The Stempans and Ta'jinn go back to thumping Formians as best they can: while they can't pull the same trick on the army twice, they have been able to come up with new tricks pretty consistently.
Trading space for time is embarrassing in that regard, but very helpful, because the Formians have to keep readapting to the terrain with every new landform, which is just one more thing for them to worry about.

The Huntmaster, meanwhile, goes to talk with his bardic friends. Control Water, for some odd reason, is not a druidic spell. But it is a fifth level spell for bards. Figure about half a dozen bards throughout the Cresian nation can cast it. They get on a ship, go out to see, get a bearing on the Auselen coast at least and the Hive queen at most, and begin casting raise water.
After a few minutes, they get a 20 foot high 600 foot long wall of water.
A Cresian druid casts Control winds and blows the whole thing towards the Auselen coast at 25 miles an hour.
(Now, this may be a generous reading of both spells combined, I'll admit. But if a player came to me with a spell called Tidal Wave that had these dimensions, I'd probably only let it be 300 feet long, but I'd say it was 7th level. So this kind of magic could well be out there, if we permit non SRD spells to exist)
As the Cresians break open a fantasy Bud, one of the bards asks the Huntmaster "What do we say when people ask us what happened today?"
The Huntmaster smiles wolfishly. "Just tell them the surf's up. Waayy up..."

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Wouldn't entirely solve the problem, but it is freakin nasty. And clever.

 

[The Goblin King]

I wonder how many castings of Earthquake it would take to cause an island to sink to the bottom of the ocean? Atlantis anyone?

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

what you would really need are successive castings and dispellings of a volcano spell.