(Game Information : Liathaven)
Line 23: Line 23:
  
 
In the face of the Navarr's terror-tactics, a significant number of orcs are quitting Liathaven without fighting, reinforcing Jotun armies elsewhere. It remains to be seen how significant this reinforcement might seem. This special order was the result of an [[opportunity]] for the Navarr to employ vicious tactics against their enemies to increase their ability to drive the Jotun out of Liathaven - it may or may not remain available to them if they choose to strike into northern liathaven and complete the liberation of the territory.
 
In the face of the Navarr's terror-tactics, a significant number of orcs are quitting Liathaven without fighting, reinforcing Jotun armies elsewhere. It remains to be seen how significant this reinforcement might seem. This special order was the result of an [[opportunity]] for the Navarr to employ vicious tactics against their enemies to increase their ability to drive the Jotun out of Liathaven - it may or may not remain available to them if they choose to strike into northern liathaven and complete the liberation of the territory.
 +
==Our Neighbour's Field==
 
The Citadel Guard march from Spiral to the verdant chaos of Reikos. The magic that has transformed the Highborn territory has not yet run its course. Scattered across Reikos are loci where the transformative magic is still breaking down the last ruins of the Druj occupation, but they do not impede the progress of the Urizen forces as they march north and west toward their ultimate destination - the newly forested region of [[Reikos#Tamarbode|Tamarbode]] claimed by the eternal [[Llofir]], via its herald Gilean.
 
The Citadel Guard march from Spiral to the verdant chaos of Reikos. The magic that has transformed the Highborn territory has not yet run its course. Scattered across Reikos are loci where the transformative magic is still breaking down the last ruins of the Druj occupation, but they do not impede the progress of the Urizen forces as they march north and west toward their ultimate destination - the newly forested region of [[Reikos#Tamarbode|Tamarbode]] claimed by the eternal [[Llofir]], via its herald Gilean.
  

Revision as of 15:18, 31 August 2016

Overview

The Empire fights on two fronts, against the Jotun in the west and the Grendel and the Barrens orcs in the east.

The Navarr army of the Black Thorns continues their efforts to liberate southern Liathaven, leaving the Jotun with a clear lesson as to the repercussions of their actions in the south-western forests.

Retribution

As Summer pales into Autumn, the Navarr raise the banner of Thorns. The warriors of Navarr flock to fight with them, both those from the other forests and the survivors of the Jotun's rage. The Senate has ensured that there are plenty of weapons and armour to equip them. Their numbers swollen by new recruits, they are further bolstered by the forces of thirty Navarr captains, and half a dozen Imperial heroes of other nations, who bring with them an additional two and a half thousand troops.

Even the dead rise to fight the enemies of the Navarr. The Jotun raise burial mounds over those they honour, but they have left the bodies of the dead Navarr where they fell - a fatal mistake. On the last night of the Summer Solstice, a thousand murdered Navarr rise to heed the echoing call of Winter magic. Shambling; abominable; hungry for orc flesh; thirsty for orc blood; they howl for vengeance against those who slaughtered them, slew their families, burnt their steadings, scattered their stridings. They are terrible.

... the Black Thorns will utterly destroy
any Jotun they come across.

General Ulric Y'Basden

Yet even they are not so terrible as the living. The Navarr who still breathe launch ruthless, terrifying attacks against the orcs. They fall upon the hated enemy with cruel, savage attacks that leave no room for mercy on either side. The bodies of the fallen orcs are despoiled, displayed as trophies to fill the faltering hearts of their foe with terror. Wherever they are victorious they make grisly scarecrows of the fallen orcs - providing a fearsome lesson to the Jotun as to what it really means to face the full fury of the Navarr, unleashed at last.

The anger of the Jotun falters. As it is, only token forces remain in Liathaven - scattered warbands hunting the remaining defenders through the trees. It becomes clear as the Black Thorns advance that these warbands are unprepared for the cunning of the Navarr. They present little challenge - their tactics are better suited to pitched battles than to the relentless, unending guerilla assault of seven thousand mobile Navarr and their unliving cohort. A weak-seeming band of stragglers turns on the warband that pursues them as the trees sprout archers like murderous fruit. A poorly defended steading proves too ripe a prize to resist ... only for the Jotun to discover the token garrison has faded away and now they are surrounded by an army of Navarr. A "routing" band of Navarr ambushers leads the unsuspecting Jotun into the vallorn miasma then fades into the shadows as the orcs fall to packs of shrieking husks.

The darkness that the Jotun have always feared lurks beneath the trees has come alive, and their warbands are no match for it. Their warriors learn that when they fight these heirs of Terunael, they will not fall in heroic combat but will be slain unawares, butchered like sheep, oblivious to the danger until it is too late. They will not rest beneath burial mounds, but will hang rotting from the trees of the forest, torn apart and defiled utterly. Their certainty that their heroism will carry them across the howling abyss begins to falter. Anger at last begins to give way to fear.

The western orcs pull back, retreating first to Western Point and thence to Hordalant and Reinos. They refuse the tempting lures placed before them, withdraw rather than attack, and as the Autumn Equinox approaches they begin to quit southern Liathaven altogether rejoining the Jotun forces fighting elsewhere, in less terrifying terrain. They fall back where they see movement among the trees, where there is any hint of Navarr forces. The Jotun do not like to fight beneath the dark canopy of the forests at the best of times ... and this is very far from the best of times for the orcs.

Within six weeks of the end of the Solstice, Beacon Point is liberated. The Black Thorns and their allies - both living and dead - push on to Western Scout There is some scattered resistance ... and during the day the Jotun hold their own. But when night falls, the orcs die, alone and afraid, voiceless, in the dark.

Game Information : Liathaven

The Navarr have liberated one region of Liathaven (Beacon Point) and made significant gains in a second (Western Scout). If the situation does not change the Navarr will have liberated the whole of southern Liathaven by the Winter Solstice, breaking the Jotun control of the territory and making it once again a contested territory. Furthermore, thanks to their liberation and control of the paths of Lan Thúven, they will be in a position to strike into West Ranging to permanently sever the Jotun supply lines into the Mournwold.

In the face of the Navarr's terror-tactics, a significant number of orcs are quitting Liathaven without fighting, reinforcing Jotun armies elsewhere. It remains to be seen how significant this reinforcement might seem. This special order was the result of an opportunity for the Navarr to employ vicious tactics against their enemies to increase their ability to drive the Jotun out of Liathaven - it may or may not remain available to them if they choose to strike into northern liathaven and complete the liberation of the territory.

Our Neighbour's Field

The Citadel Guard march from Spiral to the verdant chaos of Reikos. The magic that has transformed the Highborn territory has not yet run its course. Scattered across Reikos are loci where the transformative magic is still breaking down the last ruins of the Druj occupation, but they do not impede the progress of the Urizen forces as they march north and west toward their ultimate destination - the newly forested region of Tamarbode claimed by the eternal Llofir, via its herald Gilean.

Outside of Tamarbode, the more supernatural effects of the Spring magic that has consumed the territory are beginning to fade. The fungi and moulds, their purpose completed, are dying and rotting and being replaced with fresh new growth. The trees that replace them grow with preternatural speed, it is true, but for the most part they appear quite normal - no doubt grown from seeds that had laid dormant in the ruined soil during the Druj occupation. The ruins of Chalcis Mount, Haros Water, Longshire, and Riverwatch are gone. In their place, untouched greenery flourishes.

In Tamarbode, however, the magic is still very much alive and busy about its own business. A living green forest covers the entire region, a viridian wall made rainbow by a hundred exotic species of mushroom and toadstool. Spores hang like heavy fog in the air, and here and there truly immense mushrooms push up through the canopy toward the open sky.

The Urizen army pushes calmly forward, balancing a desire to conquer Tamarbode with the need for caution in the face of an unknown threat. Almost immediately they encounter resistance - but it is a slow kind of resistance that comes as much from the supernatural terrain as from any conscious opposition.

First the spores that hang heavy in the air must be dealt with - wet cloths across the mouth and nose work well enough but must be constantly refreshed. Some of the troops find even this insufficient, suffering extreme allergic reactions to the air itself, being forced to fall back from the fecund madness that has claimed Tamarbode. Those who are exposed to the air for too long fall suddenly ill. Hallucinations claim some of them, making it impossible for them to tell the reality of the living jungle from the fantasies inside their heads. Others begin to suffer difficulty breathing, to the point where any exertion becomes impossible and they must be transported back to fresher air and safer woodlands outside Tamarbode. In neither case do these reactions prove fatal, but they slow the advance of the Citadel Guard just as much as the thick undergrowth.

There is some shadow of the Spring realm at work here that attacks the tools, weapons, and armour of the soldiers pressing into the mysterious kingdom that Llofir has claimed. Straps come loose, wooden hafts are eaten through by parasites and opportunistic fungus, even metal is not spared becoming prey to weird rust-like growths that hungrily devour iron and steel.

Not all the obstacles encountered in Tamarbode are so passive. The plants themselves seem to resent the presence of the Imperial forces, and conspire against them. In a few cases, some of the trees themselves appear possessed of a jealous sapience and the ability to move their branches at least - although there are no sightings of actual mobile trees such as those that besieged Holberg. Mostly it is just roots catching and twisting ankles, or branches tangling in cloaks and hair ... although that said there are a few cases where something that seemed at first to be great tree leans forward with a bestial roaring noise and attempts to crush a soldier or four in coiling meaty tendrils.

Then there are the new inhabitants of the region, which are encountered with increasing frequency as the Urizen get closer to the centre of the region. They appear to come in three basic shapes. Small, mostly cowardly creatures that flee before the Urizen advance. Human sized guerillas that strike from hiding and either seek to bear individual soldiers away or spray caustic or madness-inducing spores before retreating back into the undergrowth. Large, mammoth-sized horrors that provide a significant threat, usually accompanied by a score of the human- or child-sized entities.

Behind it all, an awareness of some sentience that seems to be profoundly aware of the disposition of the Citadel Guard throughout Tamarbode, and that directs the relatively weak defenders to impede and harass them as they move forward towards the heart, toward the earthwork scholars call "The Sign of Tamar."

The Urizen advance is slow, and by the time the Autumn Equinox draws near, it is not complete. The captains estimate they have recaptured a little over half the region - much of the same land that the Wolves of War claimed during their attempt to drive the orcs out of Tamarbode before their swift flight to Sarvos in the wake of the Grendel invasion. There are also signs that the resistance here is increasing - and quiet concerns about how much that resistance might increase once the Equinox rolls around.

Game Information : Reikos

At the moment, there is no significant opposition to the Urizen army. Any "casualties" quickly recover once removed from the weird forested region with no permanent damage done. If nothing changes, the Citadel Guard should have conquered Tamarbode and cleared out the remaining supernatural defenders by the Winter Solstice.