1/13/2018

9/15/2024 9:25 AM

739

4

2 wins / 0 losses

Infrangible Warden

A Treatise on Heartly Manners

A contest entry for Bucky's year's end contest: choose your own prompt II.
Play as Lord Robert, the baron of Rivellon, at the lowest point of his life. He's cheated on by his wife, betrayed by his liege and filled to the brim with a turmoil of conflicting emotions.
How does his life end? 

Avarga

Entry for EndMaster's Prompt Contest 3. In this epic tale of courage, sacrifice, and redemption, Your journey will take you to the very edge of existence and beyond. Will you stand to lead; or will your story be cut short?

Brimstone

Allow me to share my story.

Cannibal Apocalypse

Pretty sure this isn't meant for the family-friendly category.

Contest Winner

unpublished

It did not win.

Darkest Hour

unpublished

The year is 2478 and the human race once again finds itself within Sol's borders. Like a phoenix from our bitter past, we have risen anew.

Like Aeneas, we had been cast out of our home. We searched the galaxy for a new home, and like him, we found it and made it our own. We struggled and were battered by the harsh conditions. But now, both ready and willing, we will eclipse the legends of old.

Now we shall fight to reclaim what is rightfully ours.

General Butt Naked

unpublished

FOR ENDMASTER'S CONTEST<, PRAISED BE THE LEGEND.

Liberia and Sierra Leone are small countries on the west coast of Africa. Like many African countries, the lands are extremely rich in natural resources and vibrant in culture.

However, in the 1980s the climate halted in corruption and mismanagement under the All People's Congress Party. With over 70% of the people barely capable of buying a single cup of rice, survival became much harder. Not trusting in the democratic process any longer, the RUF was formed to drastically revamp the economic system and redistribute the country's wealth. They fought for education, jobs, and true democracy. In the process, they pillaged the lands and cut off many limbs.

It is in these times Joshua Milton Blahyi is born, butt naked. And in these times he'll fight, butt naked. For he is:

General Butt Naked.

Neglected

unpublished

This is my neglected story.

zExpedition Aquarius

unpublished

For centuries, man has scoured the stars, desperate to find its likeness. Thus far all was for naught; empty husks and barren rocks worked hard to crush his dreams. There was just one anomaly, one beacon amid the darkness. This is its story. This is the story of man's first foray to the stars.

An entry to Mizal's Tiny 'topias Jam. Where a lot more little bite-sized stories are -and will be- shared by other authors.

And for those that don't have the extension, and thus can't click on the storygame to open it, here's a tiny backdoor left open. Feel free to make use of it, and even leave a comment if you like.

Expedition Aquarius

zLetters Unanswered

unpublished

An epistolary novel containing the desperate pleas of a sole father. How will he bring his daughter safety in a city ripe for rebellion?

An entry to Mizal's Tiny 'topias Jam. Where a lot more little bite-sized stories are -and will be- shared by other authors.

And for those that don't have the extension, and thus can't click on the storygame to open it, here's a tiny backdoor left open. Feel free to make use of it, and even leave a comment if you like.

Letters Unanswered

Not sure about the genre but your mom makes for a hell of an actress.

Good rule of thumb is to not publish a story you could've written in one shitting session until you actually know what you're doing

My phone's still going strong!

I like Ogre

Well that's a wrap on the largest thread in recent times. I do think she's got a point about her graphic something major being harder than anything else though. If she's representative of the type of person to choose that, well, wouldn't wish being surrounded by that kind of retardy all day every day upon my worst enemy. Would even rather be an Asian.

Some of my thoughts below: - Really like this 'rework' of the mercenaries. I think at the start of the game, when I found out they actually took weeks off from your party, I mentally discarded them as useless. This makes them useful again and I'm glad for that. I think keeping them around is a fun option. Especially early on they're too expensive to abuse anyway. - Also really like the required encounter after each movement phase. Makes the world feel more immersive and lived in while also promoting more encounters to the game. I actually think this change won't make any cap on movement speed necessary as you've already essentially cut it all in half. DB's chopper was absolutely crazy because it made everything plains in addition to the provided speed. Balance wise, the added encounters also force a more generalized party as you can't safely put all your nerds on a roadtrip to a mission in Seattle and expect them to actually survive without a tard wrangler keeping them from running headfirst into Betty's arms. - Turn order is another one that is really interesting and strategic. Essentially, by handing in orders last you could be able to have your party both be able to defend a siege, and then use your own full 4 weeks to raid another one during the same turn like I did at the first siege of Albany. Meanwhile, by moving first you could try and catch parties off-guard and split up. Not sure if everyone wants this added depth though and could also slow the game down even more if a couple people went really deep into this. - As much as it pains me, agreed on removing the ability to directly attack towns being a good change for at least next game. Also completely sidelines my rant in the other thread of overhauling Town Defenses to buff them for town sieges. Agreed though, on them not going down a level with each won combat. I also think the limit of 5 is completely necessary if they apply to each resource site. Otherwise the winning strat would be to pump them up to those levels that would wipe out a party (see the other thread) while ignoring the game to run and claim as many sites as possible. There'd be zero counterplay aside from hoping for good cards. - I kinda don't like the cap to 7 town technologies. If you're WINNING that much that you're so filthy rich to afford it, you should be able to play sim city in your town. - In the same vein, I like selling cards back to the Fallen Lands. Gives more options. I like options. I don't like cards but that's just because I got clapped by them too often. - About the town roster, if their abilities aren't applied I would suggest to raise the cap to 15 (5 party, 10 in your reserve roster). Once again, more options and you'd only get those numbers by lategame anyway. Would add to the sim city feel of a powerful lategame town. Only thing I can see is the full roster being too good at defending against mercs, unless those follow their own rules. - Another thing. Kinda mentioned it in passing, but the late victory condition of 80 town HP OR 20 prestige for a long game does feel kind of fast, especially if we're about to spend all our turns actually civilizing the wilderness instead of burning and destroying anything in sight. I think this game lasted 12 turns with two people actually reaching the 80 town HP. With the emphasis on encounters, I'd suggest making it 80hp AND 20 prestige. You should be forced into difficult mission for the prestige if you want to win, especially if we aren't able to sack towns anymore. - RIP the STACK OF DOOM. As much fun as I had with them, they were completely broken.

Thank you again for hosting this game, End. Really enjoyed it and would definitely be up for any future repeat, though I completely understand if you don't want to spend entire evenings rolling dozens of dice for six people anytime soon. There were great plays, lore and interactions all around. I liked how everyone got into their own faction's playstyle and character. Thank you Mizal, Malk and Db for offering a literal gamebreaking war experience, and the others for being the juicy targets that you all were. If I wasn't busy fighting on home turf I would have loved to visit the Brotherhood's or Preservationist's hometown as well sometime. I hope y'all enjoyed the added stakes of having an antagonist around too; every game needs one after all. Oh and speaking of, sorry again Milton, for knocking you out early. Pacifists doctors just aren't meant to be neighbors to Dixie wannabe Nazi's lead by a turbo-autist who was lab-grown and designed to squeeze out as much combat score as possible out his party. We already talked in passing about the combat changes for a future game on discord. Getting rid of the STACKING cheese for example, which is a great thing. I'd also overhaul/buff Town Defenses as they just weren't worth it in their current form: I walked into a 15 garrison and 6 or 7 TD Sigma base and felt I could safely ignore the defenses which would've cost Db like 80 coins to construct just for that one purpose. Would rather have the tier 2 garrison in every case. It's pretty much that their damage only gets applied once at the start and spreads out over the party. But a party who is on death's door is just as capable in combat as a party on full hp with the combat being a winner takes it all system. So if you're certain you'll win the combat over the garrison, you can just soak the damage and move on with your day. And, adding insult to injury, after you're done swiping away the garrison, you also destroy all defenses present in one fell swoop. Really, if I'm allowed to bring some of that lab-grown autism out: with the average party having 30hp, and the damage being a 1d6 per TD, you'd need around 8-10 TD for it to be somewhat of a deterrence capable of actually stopping a hostile raid before the combat squad overtakes your relatively much weaker town roster (you have your best guys out there). That's at 8 TD an investment of 180 coins, or 3 tier 2 technologies, for not even a sure thing (you can always roll low and I saw there's many characters around with 7-9hp instead of average of 6, which would in turn bring the minimum TD level required to destroy the party up to 12). And you'd risk losing it all with just one defeat. If they offered an additional combat success during town sieges in addition to their damage, together with not losing a level with every won combat (which would be fucking expensive at these higher TD levels or cap the cost at 30), they'd be an option you would actually go for. They'd allow a relatively weaker garrison to fend off a combat squad and even be able to 'soak up' damage to the actual town health. I'm pretty sure that beefing those defenses would make for a more peaceful game too, or at least make the wars less decisive and so a worse option for everyone involved. Getting a stack of DOOM out before anyone else would not be a sure victory anymore in any case. But what I really mean to say is: I had a blast.

What the fuck?

“To the walls you fucking Mutts. Git!” The soldier was one of the fanatics, the young type that was eager to embody the New Federalist image of perfection, walking around with perfectly combed blond hair and a uniform that looked freshly pressed and still hot from the iron. He gripped a gleaming rifle in his left hand, while his right hand held the only source of light for miles. Ezekiel knew today would be harsh, long, and full of abuse. It’s been close to a year since Ezekiel had last seen home. A year that felt like a lifetime, in which every day turned bleaker than the past. He missed it: home, and his family. They’d been separated, sorted into different working details, and only allowed to see each other once a month, and that only if they all performed well. And so they did. And the soldiers allowed them one day then, where every citizen of Salem would come together and cherish one another, holding each other tight in their increasingly malnourished arms, where they were all moved to tears with both relief and empty promises to meet each other again next month. Every month, their numbers dwindled. Where there had once been seventy, only eight remained. That was three months ago, when the young Putnams last laughed, teasing Ezekiel by calling him a fat bastard. The soldiers hadn’t allowed them a day together since then—not since the war broke out in earnest, after the second attack. As Ezekiel shuffled along his detail through the dark tunnels underneath Albany, his mind wandered to every single attack upon this cursed town. During the first the enemy forces were driven off. The mutants hadn’t seen anything, but they heard the gun crack overhead. It was short and decisive. Then the people had cheered and soldiers had exchanged stories of a body being dragged through the streets. “Crawl faster you fucking animals. I need those walls up yesterday.” The soldier fired his gun at some of Ezekiel’s detail, targeting the weakest links. New faces, he saw, though most of his detail had been replaced twice over. Ezekiel hadn’t found the energy to learn any of their names. He shuffled faster, stepping numbly over their dying bodies. During the second attack, an explosion shook everyone awake underground. The fighting lasted nearly a week, with soldiers swarming the tunnels, ordering entire details above ground for the most suicidal missions. Almost nobody returned, but on rare occasions, a pair of shell-shocked survivors would stumble back, whispering of the war that sucked the breath from the air. Ezekiel’s detail had been spared much of that, instead digging the tunnels ever outward toward the enemy camp. If the second attack was torture, the third was the hell Pastor Readwell had warned about back in Salem. A single explosion decimated a part of the city and collapsed most of the underground caves. The spaces where the mutants had slept, worked, and lived were first engulfed in a deadly inferno, then swallowed by the earth. Ezekiel repressed most of those memories. It was a wonder he was still alive. Or perhaps, he grimaced, a punishment. And so the broken man shuffled alone in the small crowd, lost in memories. The ground grew more even, signaling they were close to their destination. The soldier extinguished his light, and as their eyes adjusted to the dark, they saw hints of moonlight. They were near the surface. The third attack was only last month. The ensuing fighting lasted only a couple days. The New Federalists lost that battle, surviving only by retreating to the Presidential Palace, more a citadel inside the city’s walls, letting the enemy burn the city outside. In that palace, they held out until their army returned. What followed was a month of hell. Ezekiel and the few surviving mutants were worked to the bone—literally in some cases. Their first priority had been the underground tunnels, until new soldiers arrived and redirected them to the destroyed walls. It was here that this soldier would lead them, forcing them to rebuild. Ezekiel’s feet carried him towards the place where his body would work itself beyond exhaustion. His arms ached from the carrying, his back from the swinging, his legs from the walking. Ezekiel paused, ignoring both the fresh mutants that toiled around him, and those that withered away like him. Instead he looked up at the full moon overhead for one last time. He felt tired. The fourth attack came only yesterday—cultists from the Brotherhood out west, mowed down mercilessly. They had been woefully unprepared for the ferocious and professional battles now commonplace in the East Coast. Their bodies still littered the field. Ezekiel looked back down towards Albany. The New Federalists worked day and night to rebuild and prepare, driving by an almost zealous drive for vengeance. There was talk of peace, but their actions spoke differently. Factories churned out new weapons in ever-increasing numbers. A labyrinth of walls and garrisons was being constructed atop the ruins. And troops were conscripted on a scale unimaginable just months before. Ezekiel knew what that meant. The peace would not last. The New Federalists were gearing up for war once again. He sighed, collapsed to the ground, and drew his last breath, finally free. The relentless clang of labor around him continued without pausing.

Great write up, this had to be the most eventful round yet. And Riddick is just the perfect fit for the beast that was Mack Luther, goddamn deadliest guy in the west.