Room - Handymen Village
In the next two rooms, crumbling columns and eroded murals dominate the space. Smoke from the kitchen sinks down from above and the room smells of stew.
Doddot can't make sense of the paintings. She's pretty sure that certain small figures, such small figures, are dwarves, but that's about it. They depict strange shapes and scenes, settings unfamiliar to even the surrealist dwarven art that had recently come into vogue. A knot of weary nausea winds her stomach and Doddot stops looking at them.
She's considering what to paint over them when she trips over a heavy chain, about as big around as her bicep . It rattles off into the darkness.
The darkness rattles back.
Doddot's already running.
Every dwarf knows about handymen. With anatomy much like two hands glued together in a U-shape from pinky finger to thumb, handymen are vicious, social predators. They construct vertical colonies, stringing up long metal chains much like spiders build webs. They use these chains to move around, swinging along them by their fingers, sleep like bats, and detect territorial intrusion. They prey on other creatures by caging them between their cupped hands and digesting them over months.
They're after Doddot. The scrabbling of their claws on stone inaudible over her screaming bloody murder. The dwarves of Dimorc hold save the day. The mages hold the ladder, blasting any handyman who tries to climb up to the first floor. The soldiers make quick work of the rest, when they finally arrive.
The handymen routed, Doddot's dwarves clear out their nest. They spray it down with vinegar to disperse the pheramones and crush every seedpod they find. The handymen threat is neutralized.
They leave the chains. Handymen construction is second only to dwarves and those chains make climbing easy for even the frailest dwarves. No need to build the same ladder twice.
Onward and downward.
Summary
- 9♦️ - +11 Trade Goods
- 4♦️ - +6 Trade Goods
- A♠️ - Monster Village
Combat Summary - The Cat Fight
- Handymen - 30 STR - +20 from the 2x room size (10 x 2), +10 from the depth (2 x 5)
- The Dimorc Disputantes - 5 Soldiers at 5 STR, 2 Mages at 6 STR.
- No hostiles in range for Monsters or Soldiers.
- First Blood - Mages for 12 Ranged, Monsters to 18 STR.
- No hostiles in range for Monsters or Soldiers.
- Mages for 12 Ranged, Monsters to 6 STR.
- Monsters for 6, Soldiers to 19 STR (one deceased).
- Last Blood - Soldiers for 19 STR. Monsters defeated.
The Hold
Buildings
- Library - 2/5 Mage Occupancy, Good Magic: Nurse's Sigil (when Units move through this square, they recover all of their STR).
- Kitchen - +50% STR to units housed in adjacent squares (current: Library).
- Forge - 0/1 Cannon Occupancy, can build traps.
Formations
- Natural Magic - Good Magic: Pawtral (May pay 5 Trade Goods to roll 1d4. Rolling a 4 gains a friendly Sabretooth, 20 STR + 2 movement, spawns from Kennel during combat. Also, lovable cats.)
- Volcanic Shaft - Dormant. For now. Intersects river of magma. Rule of cool: erupts on both floors.
- River of Magma - Liquid. Doesn't do anything. Intersects volcanic shaft. Rule of cool: erupts on both floors.
Remnants
- Wishing Well - May play 10 Trade Goods to roll 1d2. 50-50 Good v. Bad Magic on result.
Resources
- Resources - 1/50
- Trade Goods - 22/50 - ( +17 from 9♦️ and 4♦️).
- Soldiers - 4/X - 5 STR
- Mages - 2/5 - 4 (+2) STR
- Cannons - 0/1 - 30 STR, 1/fight
World Notes
Dramatis Personae
- Doddot Dimorc - The ostensible protagonist mining the caves beneath her family hold. A bit dim herself.
- Hamgard - The chef! He's never been a chef before, but he's figuring it out quickly.
- Sandwich - Doddot's gross white cat, hatchling of the Pawtral magical room. He accompanies Doddot on her adventures.
Historical Events
- The Cat Fight - Doddot's first significant military victory, a skirmish that took place in the Pawtral magic room. Mages and Soldiers bravely fended off an onslaught of handyman, using the ladder as a chokepoint.
Takeaways
- This was a slick first combat. I could have been more strategic about my units and avoided that soldier dying.
- A picture of the whole hold so far! I'm quite pleased with how this worked out, with the kitchen smoke feeding those two empty chambers. I think I might put a Kennel in one of them, to have somewhere to spawn a Sabertooth as a frontguard/first line of defense.
- I have the coin to throw at the well now! Going to do that next turn, the combat made this sequence of rooms engaging enough.