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Message: <blockquote data-quote="s/LaSH" data-source="post: 783414" data-attributes="member: 6929">The Stempa are guaranteed to be involved this time. They're the more clerical community, and probably have outer-planar contact abilities sufficient to determine the source of the threat.(And while we're on Stempan divinity, I suspect they'll have their major deities, but also revere a host of minor spirits and things - household divinities, nature spirits like nymphs and dryads, and the like.)As for the formian ability to make war over sea, I suspect they have probably conquered worlds enough to be familiar with aquatic tactics. While they themselves can't maneuver underwater, their fortress is watertight (as if that'll matter), and they can Dominate aquatic creatures to do their bidding in the subdual of a world. They also have a number of Apparati of Kwalish - perhaps a hundred, suitable for a sizable aquatic domination excursion and also surprisingly effective on the battlefield. Their Myrmachs can teleport without error, but cannot take anyone with them. Overall, while the Apparati can convey 200 troops maximum, they don't have the endurance to make it to the mainland - unless they sail on the surface with an Auselen fleet.The Auselen developed large vessels to transport their creations to overseas markets. The formians will probably make use of these, and their workers can take a hastily manufactured wooden hull and Make It Whole very quickly, greatly hastening the hull-making process until they rival the Cresians in hull-laying speed.Meanwhile, the Cresians and Stempans both have sizable navies, especially now that they've got greater trade over the area (one good thing about making peace with the army that came over the unknown horizon).However, recall that Ausel is something like 8 days sail from the mainland, through fairly rough seas. An Auselen naval blockade has weather control magic.As a result, the first raider force from Cresia meets Auselen patrol hulls five days out. The seas are rough, but the Auselen miraculously seem to always be sailing in calm water while all the waves break on the Cresian ships. This is no surprise; everyone knows the sorcerers guard their isle. But what the Auselen weren't expecting was a sustained lightning bombardment from their own stormclouds.Call Lightning has a tremendous advantage at sea. What happens when a ship gets struck by lightning? A mast splits, structural integrity is compromised, and if the deck's wet the crew get unpleasantly strong tingly sensations. Although Auselen magi can retaliate with fireballs and lightning bolts and ice storms and walls of ice and cones of cold and even chain lightning, one good Dispel Magic can fairly reliably counter these offensive spells at Medium range (when they come in range, as readied actions), while Call Lightning is employed at Long range and results in repeated strokes of lightning - the Auselen can't use reliable counterspells, and even if they do use Dispel Magic, I believe it would only affect the individual bolts. It's like artillery, people! And who knows what happens when a ship breaks under the bombardment and the next bolt hits the water instead?That, of course, is when defense stage two gets invoked. Cresian escort dolphin skiffs are easily co-opted by taskmasters when they come in range (Medium), and because they're just animals the formians don't have any qualms about smashing them into Cresian vessels at full speed.And did I mention the dire sharks? Ausel has never relied solely on their geographical isolation for defence from the 'unworthy'. The dire sharks are a courtesy detail, so to speak, much in the way that Magrathea being 'lost' was only the first line of defence. Once the fleets close (not the full fleets, I should emphasise, simply a dozen or so ships from each), the dire sharks have been arranged into strike formations by their taskmasters - they can tear the keel from a Cresian vessel with one coordinated bite attack along its length.Anything else with ideas and tactics for a naval battle? Who would win?</blockquote>

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