Tideland Empire - Quarterly Game Report 2
The time is here for the history to be told. No time wasting, directly into the report.
The Reichstag
Game Date: April-September
Real Date: April-June
The state of the Reichstag in chaos, but not in the cosmic sense. The war in the beastlands went, poorly, for the Empire. Mostly due to two factors, one the Lord Marshal (John Angularis) and High Logistician (Lord Wallac) both deigned to delay their troops in Roderhim for a month, leading to Halfin’s reinforcements being stranded and cut off by a contingent of orcs, lead by a certain freedom loving troll. This in turn, allowed for the Dread Baron Drakmor to reveal himself as being the same as the Good Duke Obsidius.
While this would have seemed to be a dire situation, the Duke turned upon his former beastmen allies, crushing them. He then presented evidence both to the church and the other electors that the Dwarves, vaunted imperial servants, we actually the original creators of the beast men tribes, and foster their numbers to maintain grip on the Empire. The resulting civil strife destroyed the capital, and rent the church in twain. Dealing with the fallout of this event has been the major concern of the electors.
In the aftermath, the alliances the duke made with his near neighbors has payed off. He has agreed, generously, to take in a small diaspora of dwarves who have abandoned their peoples in disgust. He has also official vassalized the Hollow Weald, Marshbottom and the Reed March. These events have made the Duke the single most powerful human elector. Wallac and Angularis are currently stranded in the ruins of Roderhim with a skeleton force, and seek to return to Ultimast. The Hidarian Elves have greatly expanded their military efforts, while the Lidari are being cagey with their neighbor, the good duke. Lord Captain Barca continues his scheme to connect the edges of the empire.
The biggest change is that of Consecratia. In order to perform this feat, the Duke (more properly, the Baron) used foul magics to raise an army of the dead, as well as to project his soul forth in time1, this much he has admitted to the church and sworn repentance. The church is divided on the issue, to the point of schism. The two points of theological contention are:
Whether the Baron/Duke is capable of earthly repentance, or if his actions require death for repentance to be final.
Whether the dwarves were able to create the beastmen by their own power, or were higher powers involved in secret.2
The two factions are known as the Reds and Blues, owing to the order of monks which head each Ordo Sancti Sanguinis and Congregatio Spiritus respectively, have begun a slowly escalating succession crisis for both the seat of Eclessiarch and control of the church entirely, with the only result in sight being another civil unrest, likely leading to a full on civil war.
The Mercenaries
Eschewing my previous dated format, here is a a recap of what the mercs have done. After they recovered the gem from the Wizards Tower, with the help of an imprisoned spinhx who Kanum was able to free by exploiting a weakness in the old binding seals (Collegiate wizardry check). They returned to Middlesborough. However, Odric and Ssanyu decided to leave together to Ssanyu’s home village on the edge of the Beastlands. He left some money for his portion of the caravan gaurds and would not show back up again for awhile.
The remaining crew decided to double back and check out a rumor they had heard about Gnomes being seen congregating around an old tree off the main road. Inside, they found a sunken temple complex with all sorts of horrors. Raskarr was enervated by a Shadow, but the group was ultimately successful and absconded a large amount of gold in the form of transmuted alabaster statues. With their money, they decided to travel the lands searching for mercenaries and attempted to found a settlement in an unoccupied section of the middle empire. And off they went.
A full two months of travel passed, during with the above events of the Reichstag played out. Once the players reached what they considered a suitable spot, they began scouting. They were spooked away by a large Barrow with a Skeletal Warrior guarding it, and eventually came about the ruins of a small town with a castle known as Riverside, completely abandoned. After clearing out the surrounding hex of it’s monster lairs (some bugbears and a basilisk) they set to building. Eventually, the town of Cold Water Crossing rose from the ashes of Riverside. A few trips down the river to Marshbottom and some altercations with river pirates, allegedly backed by the nation of Lidari, to establish trade lines and the domain was underway. While setting up, the group was attacked by a Dharkanavar, which they chased into the barrow and then killed. They have also recently learned of the Church schism and that their town is technically under the command of the Greater Falx Empire. Having received a visit from the Good Duke’s tax collectors. Time will tell if this vassalage plays out.
The Future
So, the mercenary game and the Reichstag game have both ended up on hold. Two players have had severe lifestyle changes and we can no longer meet on Sundays reliably. Rather than punish them with inactivity, we’ve all agreed to go back to conventional pause time, at least for the next few months and re-assess later. As it stands, I’ve learned what I wanted to from the experimental time keeping, and I am willing to call it a success. It allowed for most use of downtime than pause time will, without wasting everyone’s time like full 1:1 tends to do in such a small group. I am thinking of trying one more experiment in the future, but I am going to keep that under wraps for the moment.
Finally, this will probably be the last time I post a large update like this. The point was to learn if I liked the timekeeping, and put some form of receipts on my blog. However, there is no reason to keep doing that if the game is no longer an experiment. I will probably dump occasional updates as time goes on, but I no longer feel the need to. As it stands I’ve grown dubious of the usefulness of play reports as a method of “proving” anything about your play habits. Mostly it seems they’ve devolved something that is done as a performative measure, without any real substance behind them. More on that later.
I will be seeking to finish the Adventure Site reviews, albeit extremely late. My blog habits have been poor the last few months, mostly due to a general malaise about the state of online hobby discussion. But I’m tired of moping, I’m going to do some stuff I actually enjoy and talk about that rather than continue lazing around. Expect the blog to pick up in the near future. So for now,
Sail On,
ShockTohp
Obsidius has Elven Bloodline, though it is being flavored as a Charles Dexter Ward type situation. The Baron Drakmor is an in-universe bogey man character who, according to legend, sided against the founding of the empire with the first beastmen prophet. The actual truth of the matter is more muddy, as the Duke had the proof of the dwarve duplicity back then, but lost the war. He swore revenge, and has now gotten it.
This point may seem unimportant to the immediate game, but it’s actually the more contentious. The Church of the One’s doctrine states that only the One is capable of bestowing true life. The beastmen, while lacking souls, are truly alive. They are not mere constructs or animated corpses. This means that either the dwarves have, somehow, gained power equal to the One, or the One allowed the creation of the beastmen for some other purpose. Those arguing for the former due so as a justification for genociding the dwarves, as they have become the in-universe equivalent of the anti-Christ, capable of falsely performing miracles. Those arguing for the later case are more conflicted, as the beastmen are beyond redemption. Why the One would allow such creatures at all is a mystery they seek to unravel.