In the coming period, Novus-Utum will be running a Siege Storyline. This story may have a significant impact on the future of the city, and you get to help determine its outcome!
You will be able to go on missions to help the cities defenders, stop the attackers or otherwise affect the siege. These missions will influence a final large scale battle scene in which the city is assaulted. Depending on your success in missions, the defenders – or attackers – may have special options available to them that will directly influence the battle.
The way we track the situation in the siege is by four “meters”, plus a list of “allies & advantages”.
The “meters” track the progress of the attackers or defenders in certain regards, and their levels will impact what each side has available in the final battle. For example, the attackers have a Siege Equipment meter which tracks how much siege equipment they have.
The “allies & advantages” list will track any special benefits such as unique allies supporting the battle or secret plans that have come to fruition during the fighting.
The missions will not be run on a rag-tag basis but will be organized and there will be some signing up for them. The plan is to create consistent adventuring groups of similar and complementing skills and run them on a regular basis as part of the bigger story with a single DM, thus enabling larger story arcs that cover multiple adventures. The details will be explained below.
Meters
There are four meters to track:
Attackers: Siege Equipment – the amount of Siege Equipment available to the attackers. This meter will grow week by week as the attackers construct Siege Equipment, but the defenders can try to stop the growth or destroy what has been built.
Range: 0-25
Starting value: 0
Defenders: City Defenses – the city’s defences beyond towers and walls, including siege equipment, internal barricades, boiling oil, etc. This meter will grow slowly over time, but can also be increased by getting support from allies or clever plans.
Range: 0-25
Starting value: 5
Defenders: Supplies – The city requires 5 supply points each week to feed and equip everyone, plus 1 extra supply point each week to feed all the refugees. It has a reserve of 25 points.
The city receives 6 supply each week: 2 from Eccles (one by land, one by river), 2 from Vorus (1 by sea and 1 by road) and 2 from the Silver Rain Republic (both by sea).
As the orcs currently block the land routes to Eccles, this reduces the supply each week to 5. If the reserve goes below 0, people will die of starvation, and morale and combat ability will be significantly hampered.
Attackers: Horde Size – The size of the horde grows as more and more monsters gather, but the attackers can only support so many troops.
Unlike the defenders, the attackers have no problem eating their own, so they don’t risk starvation, but the size of their army does shrink as a result.
The horde starts at 100% size, and can plunder from the smaller towns and farming communities so it can grow by 10%-point each week (even above 100%). The bigger the horde, the worse for the defenders.
Allies & Advantages
Both the attackers and the defenders can try to enlist help from their friends (or the enemies of the other side).
Allies are listed by side individually (i.e. if North Vorus sends troops, then there they are listed by name), plus a number between 1 and 5 to indicate the amount / strength of the allies.
Advantages work similar to allies and are determined by special conditions that may apply to either side, with a power rating of the influence it has.
The combined total influences the final battle, and having certain allies may also open additional special missions or options.
Example of Play
Here are a few examples of missions that might be ran. You will be able to choose which missions your group wants to partake in, and you can come up with your own plans as well.
Some example missions that will be listed:
- Stop an orc raiding party from plundering a village: up to -10%-point to horde size depending on how many supplies the orcs are able to loot
- Diplomatic mission to North Vorus to request troops. Depending on the success, get up to a 3 point ally and/or 2 points of supply for the defenders
- Escort a supply train from Guelderine as it runs the orc blockade to supply the defenders: get 3 extra supply points for the defenders
Signing up
As mentioned, we want to organize this in a more meaningful way. This is important not just to make sure everyone gets to participate, but also to make sure that any time limits we put on missions are reasonable – it would be unfair if there are 3 missions with a 2 week deadline or bad things happen, but the team only runs 2 adventures in those two weeks.
You can sign up with any number of characters. To do so, post a reply to this thread listing the following information:
- Your characters, with their current classes and levels
- Times and days you are normally available for adventuring during the week
- Please use the
[time]Your Time Here[/time]format for convenience
- Any limits you may have in terms of number of times per week you can be available
For example:
- Lucilia (Cleric 6)
- Friday (2-3 hours), Sunday (2-3 hours)
- Sunday every other week only
If you list more than one character, please ensure that you list the character in order from the one you want to roleplay most (at the top) down to the one you are least concerned about.
This is because we may not be able to offer a slot to each and every PC you have (especially if you have a lot of them), and we will asign slots in order, with preference going to players who have fewer characters in the game.
Note: If your character does not get a slot because we don’t have enough adventures to cover all of them, they can still defend the city – they just won’t get special adventure time for it.
Afterword
This storyline is a bit experimental so we may be adjusting things as we go. My hope is this will be an epic success, but if things don’t seem to be working for you, be sure to let me know personally by forum PM. I may not respond immediately, but I will use your feedback as we adjust week by week!
