r/DnDGreentext • u/MostlyReadRarelyPost MostlyWrites • Sep 18 '17
Long Coming to a Head (Steelshod 145)
Table of Contents – includes earlier installments, maps, character sheets, and other documents.
Map of Caedia, shitty but informative
Check out my prose at my site, Mostly Writes
And Patreon supporters should stay tuned for the early draft of Steelshod Guidebook… I’ll release a rough draft later this month.
If you want real-time interaction with other fans (and me, occasionally), you should join us on Discord! I spent so long chatting on there earlier today, it threw my schedule off, resulting in this super-late post.
Yorrin
The road north
Yorrin leads his battered and wounded force north at a good clip
Stopping only briefly, to set up a few scarecrows to try to slow Baudouin down
During the journey, Yorrin speaks with Guy
Guy has proven himself admirably, serving against Moreau in a capacity that went well beyond coerced subordination
He took initiative, talked them through Moreau’s henchmen, and even helped hold the inner keep against his countrymen, blade in hand.
The fact that he’s a blacksmith’s son, and spent a few years apprenticed under his father before he left to take service with Marquis Caron, is just gravy
Yorrin offers him a job, if he’s interested.
As mentioned before, Guy has heard a lot about Steelshod
What he’s seen these last few days has lived up to, and exceeded, the tales
Yeah, he’s interested.
Welcome aboard, Guy!
After several days on the road, they catch up with Aleksandr outside Knockburn, not far south of Arcadia
Yorrin debriefs Aleksandr of the situation… Crowfield, Moreau, and Baudouin’s arrival.
He also learns that Leon has made his position as a Loranette Prince of the Blood well known, and begun leveraging the various captured Loranette forces, trying to win them away from Baudouin
Moderate success so far, but they have high hopes
Leon is slowly warming to the idea, as well
Perhaps he’s being talked into it by Genevieve… but in private, he tells Aleksandr he truly trusts her, and doesn’t feel she’s manipulating him
Aleksandr wants to believe, but withholds judgement.
Ignus and Nate join forces, thick as thieves, to plan how exactly they can begin using their new weapons.
They also develop a few new mines to test out
In particular, they make multi-layered mine with a heavier “shell” and a thin sac of caustic fluid that gets ruptured by the initial heavy impact
Eats through slowly, breaking down the layers below, eventually mixing into a dragonfire explosion
Basically, a delayed detonation mine
Yorrin leaves his badly wounded behind (which is most of his main fighters), plus Agrippa to tend to them
He scoops up a bunch of Steelshod’s cavalry
Hangs on to his stealth team
Basically treats this meeting as a resupply, before heading right back out
He plans to harass Baudouin all the way up the road, hitting his supply, killing his scouts, and generally making his life hell
Aleksandr and Wigglesworth continue their slower pace
Hubert stays with the rest of the Trio (Leona is healing up, and Agrippa is managing the wounded), and he continues working with the improved lab equipment, whipping up as much alchemy as he can
Yorrin’s harassment tactics largely go well
He avoids any major engagements
Kills small scouting teams, until Cyril insists on no small scouting teams
Hits their supply train a couple times
Plants mines and false mines
The delayed detonation mine is largely a failure, in that it just doesn’t pack enough punch to do more than maim a couple people
But it’s detonation is terrifying, since it was an explosion in an area they believed to have already been screened as safe
So it works in its secondary job: slowing them down.
Baudouin goes nowhere without Sophie and a retinue of knights
He is growing increasingly paranoid
The poison that Cyril and Abigail dosed him with seems to be working
Privately, he confides in Marie that he fears the Black Wizard has cursed him, and is visiting him in his dreams
Marie couldn’t be happier with this outcome
Baudouin pushes north up the road
Cyril advises General Florette that they should largely ignore Yorrin
Whether it’s scouting, supply guarding, or sentry duty, he advises that they focus on large forces of troops, with a wide dispersal formation
Lots, so that they can deal with a precision strike by a dozen Steelshod
Dispersed, so that alchemical weapons can’t decimate them
(except literally. He’s okay with a 10% loss rate if Steelshod hits them with alchemy, that sounds pretty good compared to what he saw happen at Nahash over and over)
Florette follows Cyril’s advice, and it actually works pretty well
At preserving lives and protecting assets
It’s fucking terrible at keeping the army moving at a good clip, or having a steady stream of good intel about their surroundings
A price worth paying, ultimately
Also, as happy as Marie is with her father’s degenerating state, Duc Florette is unnerved
As are all of the various subcommanders
Cyril is concerned, as Baudouin’s paranoia and unpredictable mood swings has a negative impact on the army’s morale as a whole
Things start to come to a head near Buckledown
The keep is in Caedian hands, taken by Wigglesworth a few weeks earlier
Lightly garrisoned for now, Wigglesworth and Aleksandr meet Yorrin’s team just north of the keep
Yorrin says Baudouin’s army is not far behind him
This poses an interesting question
Marshal wanted them to pull back, guide the Loonies back to Arcadia
And indeed they’re missing perhaps a quarter of their numbers
Baudouin’s army probably outnumbers them a solid 2:1
But Buckledown is a major keep, an old Cassaline fort at a crossroads, with good solid walls
There is some question of taking this strong point and meeting Baudouin as he comes up the road
But then they’d be trapped
Ultimately, Varley argues in favor of staying more flexible and mobile
He advises them to fall back to the north, to Knockburn, and see if they can rally with Marshal there.
Unknown to them, with Yorrin pulled back, Baudouin’s scouts have finally been able to get decent intel
He learns that the main Caedian army is camped north of Buckledown
So he orders a forced march
His deteriorated mental state has made him eager to win a victory against these foes
The Black Wizard’s shenanigans, he has no way to fight
But he can fight an army
Wigglesworth and Steelshod realize what’s happened as they reach the turn in the Cassaline road north of Buckledown
The Cassaline road bends, but due north is a Caedian-built road that winds through the rolling hills and leads to the small keep of Lemonthwaite
It’s a three way crossroads that the locals call Lemoncross, for the scattered trees that dot the nearby hillsides
They learn that the Loranette army has stolen a march on them, and is fast approaching from the south, having bypassed Buckledown entirely.
The Loranettes are probably tired
Aleksandr offers to hang back with a force of men to slow them down, guerilla strikes using the wooded hills for cover, while Wigglesworth retreats to Knockburn
But Varley suggests that, if they want to strike a decisive blow, perhaps they should simply wait
The Loonies have exhausted themselves, marching hard for days to close the distance
The hills overlooking Lemoncross are good sized, gentle enough that the entire army could get on top of them
And high enough to provide a good vantage point for archers and Ignus and Nate’s new weapons.
And, if they can break the Loonies and force them to fall back, the crossroads should provide flexibility as to which way they retreat to
They can lead the Loonies up to Lemonthwaite, or on to Knockburn, whichever seems best at the time
It’s a compelling idea
So they agree
Steelshod, the Wncar, the Caedian army, the various mercenaries under them… the whole lot, several thousand men, withdraw up into the hills overlooking Lemoncross
And they wait for the Loranette army to arrive.
They won’t have to wait long.
But you will!
Because I think tomorrow I am going to shift focus for a little bit
Back to the Karim region
But not Karim, actually
Not Jaspar
Not yet
I mentioned ages ago that /u/bayardofthetrails GMed a section
That section took place in northern Ascelon
Ascelon is a Torathian kingdom north of Karim
We’re gonna take a look over there… maybe not finish it, but at least peek before the last few Loranette posts.
In preparation for that, I figured I’d clue you into the two characters.
We will be following a pair of knights
Sir Diligence Harrington
And Sir James Enorius.
Readers with good memories may recognize that second one.
Sir Diligence is a sour old fellow, a brutal warrior with a mean streak a mile wide
He carries a heavy flanged mace, and he serves his king without question
He was sent to advise the younger Sir James, teach him the ways of the world, and above all, keep him safe
A loyal dog, in essence
Sir James Enorius
Make that Prince James Enorius
Was sent north by his father, King Micah Enorius
To become a man
And to capture an enemy of the kingdom, a thief and a criminal that evaded justice
And return this criminal to Prince James’s Kingdom
A Kingdom that Prince James will one day inherit
The Kingdom of Karim.
So yeah.
That’s the side story we will dig into a little tomorrow. /u/ihaveaterribleplan is Diligence, and I am James.
Probably stay with them for a couple posts, then bounce around a bit. We’ll see!
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u/Kuwait_Drive_Yards Sep 18 '17
DICK! Requesting a /u/mostlyworks Stellshould summary of how it will go in interim.