GURPS Fantasy Warriors Session 7: Alliance With The Imperial College

Characters:

Granmarg The Striking Vanguard, The Boulderstruck, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate
Pomegranite The Treefallen, The Spymaster

Mielikki The Field Marshal, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate

Thicket The Grandmaster Terramorpher, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate

 

The Earthling Games

In the midst of the chaos of preparing for The Games ahead of schedule, one of the messengers that had been sent abroad had finally returned, with news all the way from the Elven Forests far to the east.  He'd been held up at the woodline and not let further in, and had surmised that the elves were locked in heated debate over the political situation in the Empire, which would take months or years to resolve.  He left after only a few days, intending to make it back to the Highland Forests before winter fell.

The triumvirate had little time to dwell on this, though, as Cliffsedge, the overseer of The Games, was announcing new competitions on an hourly basis, and they had to be ready to compete for their posts at any time.  Thicket and Granmarg were confident in Terra and their abilities, respectively, but both Mielikki and Pomegranite sought to tip the scales in their favour.  Mielikki "coincidentally" ran into Cliffsedge at one point and offered up a suitable plot of land his family owned for the competition to be field marshal, which usually featured mock battles.  Pomegranite simply broke into Cliffsedge's office and read his documents to try to glean the nature of the spymaster's game.  His analysis suggested that it would involve pickpocketing.

The first competition of the Triumvirate was that of the Champion, and so Granmarg competed in a grappling tournament.  The bouts were decided by the first person to be either thrown to the ground or pushed out of the ring, and despite raw strength not being his style, Granmarg won his title handily.  Pomegranite had been practicing his sleight of hand, which ended up all being for naught when the competition was actually to break into a fort and steal a document.  When it was clear that another was going to emerge victorious, he falsely accused his rival of being a traitor.  The claims and false evidence were enough to secure Pomegranite his post again, though at the cost of much of the loyalty of his underlings who now realized they could be removed at a moment's notice.

Finally, the entire reason they'd called the Games early arrived, and the next high priest of Terra was to be decided.  The good news was that the moderate they'd appointed, Qorvex, lost out.  The bad news was that he'd been replaced by a much more radical recent convert to the imperial faith, Friedrich Quarry.  Quarry had adopted an imperial first name in honour of the late emperor after suffering a crisis of faith when the recent earthquake collapsed the temple complex at the Mountain's Maw.

 

The competition for field marshal was held on Mielikki's families lands, but it was not to be mock battles, but instead a strategy game played with stone tiles on a wooden board.  He also framed his rivals as cheaters, which resulted in him winning, but at the cost of the other military offices being filled much more randomly, which inevitably led to less capable commanders being appointed.

 

Thicket was shocked when the competition for Grandmaster Terramorpher wasn't the same map-making competition it had been for the past five hundred years, and was instead a public speaking segment where whoever could provide the best plan for acquiring more weapons and armour would win the post.  The fierce debate lasted days, and gradually morphed and changed topic.  By the time it was being decided between Thicket and Groutite, one of Mielikki's advisors, they were arguing over whether to advance troops slowly while terramorphing the shape battlefields or to launch lightning strikes that quickly overran their foes and didn't give them a chance to react.

 

Fearful that his opponent would win, Thicket openly bribed the judges, and won, but at the cost of a loss of faith in the institutions of the Games and other competitors following suit, leading to many of those who could afford it taking offices they were unqualified for.  Since all those competing for high office were from the upper class anyway, this wasn't as big a shakeup as one might have thought, though when some realized this, it led to even further loss of legitimacy.  A movement opposing the current government was forming.

Legitimate Rulers

On the first meeting back in their headquarters, and after their first act of arranging to have the meetings of the new reform movement observed and infiltrated by spies, the Triumvirate heard from another of their messengers who had just arrived.  The Segretan League were now at war with the "false emperor" Ulrich, having rallied behind Luana von Kastrop, daughter of the old Emperor.  They were steadily losing ground, and it looked grim.  After a brief discussion, it was decided that there wasn't much they could do in response to this.

 

In addition to that, they now also had the issue of a radically pro-Imperial High Priest of Terra, as well as where to invade now that they were sworn off of attacking Lumene.  Ignoring the former for now, Pomegranite suggested attacking the dwarves, again, and was shot down, again.  That left the Imperial College, but nobody really wanted to go to war with the faction that was closest to being an ally.  Instead, Mielikki suggested they form an alliance and then jointly go to war with Ulrich, invading through the College's province of Halberst.  The College could seize lands from the Imperial Province of Tauschun, and in turn could hand part of their northern lands over to the earthlings.

 

Another meeting was arranged on their border; Grand Magister Vasili was ill, and so Jasper Sunmeadow, a halfling High Magister of the Path of the Sun with dyed red hair and comically oversized silver chains wrapped around his shoulders and hanging to his knees, was negotiating in his place.  He quickly revealed himself to be a no-nonsense scholar, who wasn't particularly interested in his role as a diplomat.  Jasper bluntly asked what they would gain from war with Tauschun, to which Pomegranite equally bluntly replied that they could have the Empire.

 

But the College didn't want the Empire.  As Jasper told it, those who rose to the rank of High Magister were uninterested in such political office, which would simply be a distraction from their scholarly pursuits.  Suggestions that Ulrich was a tyrant who couldn't be trusted were also fruitless, as Jasper pointed out that the usurper was a College-trained Magister, which meant he could understand their needs and demands: exactly the type of ruler the College would prefer anyway.

 

Mielikki diverted the discussion toward the actual procedure of electing the next Emperor; with the dwarves and elves out of the picture, that left them with seven electors, meaning whoever was going to win needed only four votes.  The earthlings and Segreta would surely vote against Ulrich, and Lumene had sworn to uphold the innocence of the triumvirate in the assassination of Emperor Friedrich.  On the other hand, an alliance between the earthlings and College that defeated Ulrich could appoint their own elector for Tauschun, which would put them at three immediately, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to get Segreta to support them.  Not to mention the potential of swaying either Baronde or Wrost.

 

On the mention of those two kingdoms, Jasper informed them of what the College had heard since the last meeting.  Baronde was seeking a renegotiation of their feudal contract with the Empire, with an emphasis on reducing the amount of rice they were obligated to provide to 0 or as near as they could get.  Given Barondian rice was feeding much of the rest of the Empire, that would be a hard deal for Ulrich to accept.  For the earthlings, who ate stones and trees, it would be much more palatable.  Wrost, meanwhile, was silent, and none of their own messengers had returned.

 

The earthlings took a brief recess and began to discuss more seriously the idea of an earthling becoming Emperor.  It wasn't something most of them had even considered (though Thicket considered it essential that a Terra worshipper was in charge).  Pomegranite put himself forth, but was shot down by Thicket for his religious tolerance, and by Granmarg for cheating to attain his office.  After some back and forth, they settled on a candidate they could all be happy with: Thicket's nephew, Cliffside.

 

He was very pious, was College-educated, and had attained his office legitimately.  Mielikki also seemed to support this, for some unknown reason, and so, entirely unknown to him, Cliffside was now in the running to become the next Emperor. Returning to the negotiating table, the earthlings put forth their proposal of an alliance that sought to put Cliffside on the imperial throne.  After terms were established (they back Cliffside, the Highland Forests sends Magisters back to the College to deal with the missing Path of Prophecy), Halberst finally agreed to stop sitting on the fence, and war was declared on the usurper.

 

The Invasion of Tauschun

Come spring, the joint earthling and College army invaded the Imperial province, pillaging the countryside as they slowly wound their way through the hills toward the capitol of Kaskorata.  Thicket's strategy saw them rob the peasantry blind, which somewhat made up for all the bribes the triumvirate had spent to "win" the Games.  After several weeks, their scouts reported that their plan was working: Ulrich's forces were marching back from the Segretan League.

 

As they travelled further south, they were surprised to find that the local peasants were surprisingly devout.  Not to Astraeus either, but to Clio, the goddess of form, whose great temple lay on a moor just inland from the coast far to the south.  The first thing that alerted them to this was in a village that the army was raiding, where every door had been carved with Clio's symbol of a fractal spiral.  Closer to Kaskorata, they found the fractal carved onto stone, and even crossed disused fields where the grass seemed to have been cultivated to grow into the pattern.  Alarmingly, one morning Thicket and Granmarg awoke to discover the very same pattern carved onto their chests.

 

On the morning after they arrived within sight of Kaskorata, Ulrich's forces had finally caught up, and the earthlings marched into the hills north of the city, denying the Tauschun cavalry their mobility.  As they hiked up and established their camps, the earthling scouts reported that Ulrich's army was commanded by Hans Hessen, the Imperial Marshal, and consisted mostly of Tauschun levies.  They were joined by Dietrich's Company, a mercenary band from Carasco, one of the minor city-states in the Segretan League.  Dietrich was an assassin who knew the Path of Secrets, though supposedly he lacked College training.  Further, a mysterious unidentified elf in a blindfold accompanied Ulrich himself.

 

 

Notes:

Each of the players came up with the game for another player.

 

Thicket tied the NPC he was rolling against in his game twice. 

 

You'd think Thicket being a radical conservative Terran worshipper might result in some doubts that he still had Terra's favour when he lost his game and had to bribe somebody, but have you considered that actually Cliffsedge is probably just an Imperial spy who rigged it?

 

"Cliffside" exists because Thicket's player misremembered Cliffsedge's name.

 

The tokens that represent each nation in Tabletop Sim so far:
Highland Forests: two cats

Lumene: card golem

Halberst: blank piece of paper

Tauschun: fully animated dragon (but small)

 

The Magisters the PCs are sending off to the College are all going to be their political rivals.

 

All gods are associated with a pair of the Paths of Magic.  Clio's Paths are the Outer Path of Mutation and the Forbidden Path of Change.  The only Path not associated with a deity is the dwarven Path of Forging.  What exactly this means is subject to great debate in the College.

 

For the next battle, instead of Tactical GURPS Combat, we're going to try out a simplified system that's more "theatre of the mind".  Hopefully without all the positioning it will be faster.