Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Green Pass Campaign: FAQ

Here are answers to some potentially important questions about the setting and house rules for this campaign. I'll roll this up into a document file that I can put up on Google docs, if I think of anything else to add.

*****************************************************

Q. What is the objective of this campaign?

A. This is a sandbox-style game, where there isn't any single way to "win". Your broad goal is to expand your realm by promoting the growth of your own domain (the land and people under your direct control), and conquering the domains of enemy realms. There are over a dozen large and powerful chaotic realms on the far side of the mountains that you can reach through the Green Pass region, the Undying Lands, and conquering any of them would be an impressive accomplishment. More immediately, your job is to just survive!

Q. What is my title, and how important am I in the world?

A. At the start of the game, you are a member of the nobility. You've been granted your lands by a king (usually the human King of Durnovar, unless you are of another race), due to past services rendered to the cause of lawful civilization. Your rank in the nobility is at least equal to that of a baron/baroness, although you can style yourself as something else (e.g., "thane" for a more Viking flavor) if you like. There are plenty of more powerful dukes and princes in the world with realms consisting of many domains full of other barons. So you're lower-tier, by noble standards.

Q. How do I move up in the world?

A. Gain more territory and population, and rise in personal level. If you are a thief-type, then you only care about the number of employees you have, since you don't control lands; criminal guild-leaders have no official rank, aside from on someone's most-wanted list! Everyone else bases their rank in the nobility on total population. If your realm rises to 960 families, you control a "march", and you can style yourself as a marquis/marquess, which might be possible from the start of the game. If your realm rises to 4600 families, you control a "county", and you can style yourself as a count/countess. Getting to 20,000 families, which would probably require conquering a few other domains, will give you a "duchy" and make you a duke/duchess. Getting higher than that (archduke or prince) usually requires marrying a member of the royal family -- which would be a unique plot event!

Q. How do I get more domains into my realm?

A. First, you can conquer them, and install one of your heroes as a vassal, a junior-level ruler. This gives you a new domain to directly control. Alternatively, you could install a non-player underling of one of your heroes, to make an NPC domain that is part of your realm, but not directly under your control. An NPC domain will still respond to certain requests, like conscripting and sending you troops if you need them.

Second, you can explore the wilderness, clear it of dangers, and build a wilderness stronghold for a high-level hero. Once the hero hits 9th level, families will start showing up to join the new domain, and your hero will become a vassal.

Third, you can make diplomatic advances to a population of people you rescue from some threat, as a plot event, and they might be grateful enough to accept the offer of future protection.

Q. What characters do I control?

A. You directly control a ruler and a team of heroes. The ruler is very powerful, typically a successful retired high-level adventurer, but also can't stray too far from the domain without leaving it vulnerable to attack or other threats. The heroes, who are typically friends, family, or former henchmen of the ruler who have shared in that success, will often be your "player characters" in dungeon and wilderness exploration, the researchers in your magical laboratories, or the officers in your army.

Q. How does death work in this game system?

A. When you hit zero hit points, you take a mortal wound. This requires you to roll on a "mortal wound" chart. This sometimes kills you, and other times it just leaves you seriously scarred or maimed. Generally, it's not a good thing to have a mortal wound. The effect of mortal wounds (even death) can sometimes be undone by magic. A restore life and limb spell has a chance of restoring or resurrecting you, and a wish spell always works. This kind of magic (especially the latter) can be extremely expensive on the open market, so finding someone who can cast these kinds of spells is a high priority.

Often a large-scale battle ends with one side surrendering or being captured, rather than being wiped out to the last man. Typically important commanders and troops will be held for ransom or sold into slavery if this happens, so they can be rescued (for a price).

Q. What can I do with money?

A. Money (represented by gold pieces) is earned by taxes, mercantile income, criminal activity, and looting after conquest. Once you gain it, it goes into a treasury at your stronghold or hideout. It can be used to
  • purchase goods and equipment at markets,
  • recruit new soldiers or other employees,
  • expand your stronghold,
  • perform magical research,
  • invest in the growth of your kingdom.
Q. How can I buy things or recruit personnel?

A. A market is available in towns or cities. The size of a market determines the number and quality of goods available. A Class VI market will have only a few basic items like food or arrows. A Class I market will have dozens of mercenaries, animals, powerful siege equipment, and allow you to commission large projects like ships or magical items. To determine if you can buy something, just send me a request for what you want to buy, and I'll roll on a table to see if it's present, and how many items are available.

The number of items available is limited by demographics, so you'll often find that you want to hire 100 heavy cavalry, but a market only has 13 of them! This might encourage you to travel farther to find another market, or to invest more money in your own domain's city, so it's market can expand.

You can usually find a healer who can cure you of exotic maladies (being petrified, polymorphed into a rabbit, etc) at a moderate-size market.

Q. Where can I find a really good market with lots of stuff to buy and people to hire?

A. If you start the game in Elysion (the region west of Green Pass), then you will be close to Straddleport, a Class II market. That's a decent place to hire most type of mercenaries, or purchase large amounts of equipment. Traveling between strategic hexes along a road takes about a week on foot, so you should be able to get there and back in a month. Alternatively, you can travel to the military outpost of Footman's Notch (the guarded gate at the center of Green Pass) to use a smaller Class III market, which might be closer if you are living out on the borderlands.

If you need to buy something rarer, or hire lots of top-end mercenaries, you can travel over the ocean to Durnovar. You'll need a ship, typically a sailing ship, to bring back your purchases -- maybe even a whole fleet of ships! Durnovar is roughly another week away by sailing ship (depending on ship speed). If you want to go farther afield for even more supply, you can make a long sea voyage to the distant port of Chukchi in Beringia, which is a couple thousand miles (a few months) away to the west. The sea kingdom of Beringia is populated by all sorts of megafauna suited for cold weather, like giant prehistoric mammals.

Obviously there are more sinister markets in chaotic realms beyond the mountains where you could shop, if you weren't liable to be killed on sight. Infiltration to buy something in those realms would require lots of stealth, planning, trickery, and an exit strategy...

Q. What sorts of threats exist to my domain?

A. Elysion suffers periodic incursions of monstrous armies from beyond the mountains. When these forces show up to raid domains, you'll have a chance to sally forth to meet them in the field. If you don't, they'll use spies to probe the local defenses. If your realm looks weak or your ruler doesn't seem competent, they'll probably show up to pillage your land, enslave your peasants, and maybe even besiege your castle! Even if your realm is strong, they'll probably hang around and make trouble for other nearby realms, who might reward you for your help.

There are also monthly random events that can positively or negatively affect your realm. Having a qualified and attentive ruler helps to ensure that these events are favorable rather than harmful.

Q. How do my characters (heroes and ruler) gain skills or levels?

A. In addition to winning experience from classical exploration activities like any RPG, you can also gain experience by
  • conquering enemies in the battlefield, and pillaging their treasuries 
  • expanding your stronghold, or building other structures (mage-types can build a dungeon stocked with monsters to earn experience...)
  • earning income from a domain's taxation, or from merchant activity (ships and caravans)
  • performing magical research, if you are high enough level in the right class (5th for potions and scrolls, 9th for items, and 11th for designing monsters or raising undead)
Experience from economic activities at the domain level is calculated at the end of every month, along with the monthly budget.

Q. What kind of characters do I need to field an army?

 A. Any character with at least 3rd level can command a platoon, at 5th level can command a company (a collection of platoons), and at 7th level can command a battalion (a collection of companies). Early in the game you'll probably be leading a division made of platoons, so 5th level is enough for a commander of a division of several platoons, and 3rd level is a enough to be lieutenant of a single platoon under the command of someone else.

You can also hire mercenary commanders, but they are expensive and not very loyal.

Q. What role do non-player characters (NPCs) play in the game?

A. You can hire additional characters to serve as henchmen for your heroes, just as your heroes are former henchmen of your ruler. They are not perfectly loyal, and require pay. High-level NPCs can become very expensive to retain! They are under your control most of the time, but might run away if a battle turned badly against you after a failed morale check. If you install them as vassals in a conquered domain, then the domain will be allied with you, but not fully under your control.

Hired NPCs must be lower in level than the hero for whom they are working, so if you want a 5th level NPC, you'll probably need a 6th level hero. NPCs gain levels slowly, at half the rate of a player character, since they are not making decisions for themselves.

Q. How do spellcasters get more spells?

A. For clerics (and subtypes), you get automatic access to any spell your religion allows. For mages and subtypes, you will need to either find spells in a dungeon, or research them in a library. You can either research a standard spell from the spell list, or you can invent your own new spell by mixing and matching effects from a table.

Q. Are there any restrictions on what I can do? If I find a dungeon full of low-level monsters, can I send in my 10th level mage-prince and take them apart with fireballs?

A. Nothing stopping you, but don't come crying to me if he falls into a bottomless pit. Or if your realm is attacked by the Egg of Coot while he's away....

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Ruins And Resources Tables

To generate some random ruins using the procedure I outlined in the post last fall, here are some random tables taken from Kevin Crawford's An Echo, Resounding. These ruins might represent the various locations that were discovered/explored/conquered back before the ruler retired from adventuring, in order to win him the fame that led to being given a land grant and a starting title of nobility.

Ruins

Wealth Bonus (Bonus to land value calculation): Town, Settlement, Hold, Colony, Mine, City, Ruins, School
Social Bonus (Population growth +1d10 per month): Temple
Military Bonus (Bonus to morale when defending domain): Fortress, Tower, Outpost

Then for each ruin, roll another time for....
Secondary Ruin Traits


Wealth Bonus: Treasure, Sorceries, Techniques, Resources
Social Bonus: Art, Relics, Heirs, Seat
Military Bonus: Armory, Location, Dead, Recruits

So each ruin should now give two (possibly identical) effects.

Basic Resources
These always give wealth. In hill terrain, they give double wealth and military. In mountains, they give double wealth and social.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Green Pass Campaign: Sample Turn Sequence

In ACKS, the domain-level equivalent of a "turn" is a month, and each month is divided (for simplicity) into 4 weeks of 7 days each. During the month, tasks are assigned to the ruler of the realm and the various heroes that represent "junior level" player characters; some limited orders can also be given to hired NPCs.

Then at the end of every month, some basic economic activities (collecting income, and spending some of it on maintaining strongholds and troops) will occur on a fixed schedule. Roughly speaking, each real-world game session is assumed to be preceded by one additional month of game time. So the strategic-level game is played (by individual players in their spare time) in the time between tactical-level sessions (which involve cooperation by group members).

Here's an example of assigning tasks over a month, based on the sample starting assets for the model realm of Kellsvale. A strategic-level map of the region can be found here, showing the various locations mentioned. Player domains are assumed to be located in the forest hex north east of Straddleport, but southwest of Green Pass. All of the domain-level actions in this example use information from various tables in the ACKS Core or D@W Campaign rules.

*******************************************************************

Kellsvale has a ruler (Lord Proprietor Dermot), and six heroes. To begin, let's assign one of our heroes (Master Leonhard, a novice mage) to oversee the Wyvern's Spur, a large sailing ship. The ship already has a hired (NPC) captain who handles ship operations, so it's not essential to have any nautical proficiencies. This is a purely executive position, in charge of managing security and handling an inventory of trade goods.

Running a trade ship is a good way for a low-level character to earn experience. It's safe, as long as the ship sticks to established trade routes and moves along a coastline. Trade rules allow for the detailed purchase and sale of an entire cargo, for the ambitious, but they also indicate a default level of income for anyone who doesn't want to delve into that level of detail. For now, let's just assume that the ship will run a default trade route and earn 2600 gp of net income per month, to keep things simple.

The amount of experience earned from mercantile action is always equal to the gp income, less a character's level-based threshold. For a 1st-level character, the threshold is 25. So with 2600 gp, the amount of experience gained per month as a trader will be 2575 exp.

As the threshold rises with level, this hits diminishing returns. For example, a 5th level mage would have a threshold of 650, which would yield only 1950 gp. If four characters were all working together on a ship as traders, they would split the possible experience four ways (650 each), and so a 5th level would earn no experience at all!

For now I want Leonhard to level up quickly (because mages are so useful!), so I won't assign any other heroes to his ship. Note that the ship starts in the ocean (not at my castle up the river), and will be running a safe route between Straddleport (Class II market) and the capital city of Durnovar (class I market).

Next, I'm going to try to purchase some additional personnel using money in my treasury. My best character for recruiting operations is Halward, a gomish trickster with a +3 charisma bonus. This will make him an excellent recruiter. I'm going to send him to Straddleport to hire some mercenaries and military specialists. It's a safe trip through civilized lands, so he can travel with a minimal escort of a few guards.

The distance on the map is one strategic hex. This is along roads which run from Straddleport to Green Pass, which provide for faster movement and negate terrain penalties. The size of one hex is 240 miles. Kellsvale has enough light riding horses to provide one for this mission, along with an escort of 10 mercenary light cavalry. Light horses ordinarily move at 48 miles a day, but can move 50% faster along roads. They'll be able to move 74 miles a day, getting them to Straddleport in 4 days.

Once there, recruitment will take most of the rest of the month. Each recruitment drive takes up 3 weeks, with half the available mercenaries arriving the first week, a quarter the second, and the final quarter in the third week. Each type of mercenary being recruited will have a base charge of 1d10+10 gp, based on the size of the market. This is just the cost of recruiting, not the actual salary paid to mercenaries accepting the offer (which will be much higher).

Finally, I'm going to send some of my other heroes north east to Green Pass ("the warfront"), in order to investigate the dangerous lands beyond. I want to reserve a few characters at the stronghold in case I'm attacked, so I'll keep Sir Carbry (the 3rd level paladin, who can serve as a platoon-scale lieutenant) along with the elven spellsword Master Rigard (to use as a messenger and courier), and send the others (Bradan and the other spellsword Gilcolm) north. In particular, the 3rd level dwarven fury Bradan would make an excellent adventuring hero, with very high hit points! Gilcolm can be a light scout, and a back-up character in case something happens to Bradan.

There's no hurry to get to the front, so they can walk. Ordinarily walking is at a rate of 24 miles a day, but along a road that increases to 36 miles a day. That should allow everyone (Bradan and Gilcolm) to reach the front in 7 days, where they can take residence at the fortified gates near Footman's Notch -- the mountain passage that separates lawful civilization from the realms of chaos.

Finally, my ruler (Dermot) can either simply sit back and run his realm, or he can try to do some research to create magical items or spells. Dermot already has a workshop, the facility needed to create magical items. Let's try to brew some potions.

A potion costs 500 gp, but this is cut in half if I have a formula for it. Dermot has some useful formulas like Growth (makes a giant-size hero with double damage!), Invisibility (lets an ambush-oriented hero sneak around to, say, assassinate an enemy general), and Undead Control (potentially useful in a dungeon crawl through some crypt). Let's try making a potion of Invisibility, which is a 2nd level effect. It will cost 2x500 gp = 1000 gp, ordinarily, but with the formula will cost only 500 gp. The time to make it is also reduced from 2 weeks to 1 week. In a month, Dermot can attempt to make four of these, one per week.

Ordinarily, potions require some kind of appropriate magical reagent, like the body part of a monster with a stealthy nature. Maybe this potion requires the essence of an invisible stalker. There are a few ways to acquire this essence:
  • go find and kill an invisible stalker
  • go to a large market, and buy invisible stalker essence from a merchant (random chance of finding some each month)
  • make friends with a mage who owns a dungeon full of monsters, and ask him to set a bounty on the invisible stalkers in his dungeon

Fortunately, divine casters like clerics have a fourth option. If they have a domain with a population that worships in the same faith (or function as the spiritual advisor for a domain, or build a church), they can gain divine favor from the worship of their people. This favor replaces the need for magical reagents. Dermot runs a large domain of 1800 families, and with average morale, each week he'll get 4 divine power for every 10 families. This amounts to 720 divine power per week. That's more than enough to cover the needs of a minor 500 gp item like a potion.

Each potion that Dermot attempts will require a roll for success. The base target for success is 7+, and the level of the item is added, giving a target of 9+. On a roll of 1-8, the attempt will fail, and otherwise it will succeed. Given average luck, Dermot can expect to create about two potions for every four attempts, and spend a total of 2000 gp over the entire month on those attempts. And that's just for some potions! But if one of those potions lets a team of heroes assassinate an enemy general and win an otherwise unwinnable battle, it might be worth the cost.

A concise monthly journal of all these actions should be kept. It will now look something like this:

Month 1
Day 1: Assigned Leonhard to the Wyvern's Spur, to manage mercantile activity along standard trade routes. Sent Halward to Straddleport by light horse to recruit light infantry and horse archers. Sent Bradan and Gilcolm to Green Pass to explore the borderlands. Assigned Dermot to produce invisibility potions. 
Day 5: Halward arrives in Straddleport and begins recruiting. 
Day 7: Dermot completes first potion; roll for success. Bradan and Gilcolm arrive at Footman's Notch. 
Day 12: Halward's first crop of mercenaries are available for a hiring offer; roll for reaction. 
Day 14: Dermot completes second potion; roll for success. 
Day 19: Halward's second crop of mercenaries are available; roll for reaction. 
Day 21: Dermot completes third potion; roll for success. 
Day 26: Halward's third crop of mercenaries are available; roll for reaction. 
Day 28: Dermot completes fourth potion; roll for success. Income available from mercantile activity and taxes; run through monthly economic activities (gain income, pay upkeep for mercenaries and strongholds, etc).
The list of realm assets should be updated to reflect any new assets acquired, old assets lost, or any heroes reassigned to a different task.

With the month done, it's now time for a game session, to resolve major events that will happen to the domain or to individual heroes in the next month. What might happen?

  • Invaders from the lands beyond might make an incursion into civilized lands, and another domain might request aid in repelling them. This could result in a battle, if Dermot wants to intervene.
  • Invaders might attack Dermot's own domain, which will definitely result in a battle!
  • Bradan might decide to join an adventuring party with heroes from other domains, to explore the lands beyond the gate.
A battle could be resolved using quick combat (just rolling dice based on BR ratings of troops), a miniature battle using simple rules (like the Book of Wars system from last year, using 1 figure per 10 troops), or a larger-scale miniature battle on the hex map (using the Domains at War system, with 1 figure per 30 troops, or 120 troops).

Exploration would involve a traditional RPG-style adventure, with heroes clearing out underground dens of monsters (like the dragon's lair scenario I ran last semester with Walley), or hexcrawling toward enemy domains to scout them for future conquest.

Of course there are other options that could have become available based on player choice, with multiple players combining forces to achieve greater goals:
  • An offensive army could be formed from multiple player domains, to attempt to conquer some chaotic domains beyond the gate -- and install new rulers to control them and absorb them into player realms.
  • An expedition could be launched to the uncharted lands of Cascadia, to clear those lands of threats for future colonization or find natives who might join a player realm due to diplomacy.
  • A group of ships full of mercenaries might be sent south to the Larcenous Shores, to conquer a pirate domain, claim treasures, and free prisoners.
  • Trade ships could be dispatched to the distant land of Beringia, to seek exotic troops from the northern tundra not available in Durnovar (war mammoth riders! giant, er, carnivorous sloths!)

Figuring out those greater objectives might involve hiring spies who can gather information about possible objectives. Maybe Dermot should have Halward recruit some spies in Straddleport next month, so they can spread out and gather information. Or maybe a player character is running a thieves' guild, and can provide some intelligence operatives in exchange for payment or favor...

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Domain Level Actions In ACKS And D@W

After a careful reading of all four rules books (ACKS Core, Companion, D@W: Campaigns, and D@W: Battles), I've compiled a list of all possible actions that would be appropriate for a domain-level game with ruler or vassal characters. These are in addition to all the usual exploration and tactical actions possible in RPG-style play. A pdf version of the document is available here.

Although this list is intended to be exhaustive of all actions specified in the rules (notify me if I've missed anything!), it certainly isn't intended to discourage players from taking actions that don't appear on the list because they would be resolved by free-form roleplaying, like seeking diplomacy with a neighboring realm.

MEK OP Game Night: Space Empires 2v2

After the previous attempt to play Space Empires: Close Encounters, I decided it would be more prudent to try team play, to avoid the "3 versus 1" dynamic that can emerge in a free-for-all. (Once one player starts to lose fleets, everyone wants to show up and snag some undefended colonies!) We played with diagonally seated teams, the more offensively-oriented of the configurations. I played with first-timer Jarrett "Sherlock" Locke (green and blue), and Kyle and Kim played as the other team (red and yellow). Empire Advantages are
  • Green: +1 attack when attacking, -1 attack when attacked
  • Blue: Immunity to black holes, can always use slingshot
  • Yellow: Adaptive, gains better bonuses the longer combat continues
  • Red: Rolls two dice for experience checks, uses better result
Opening moves saw Red take an aggressive expansion strategy, moving colony ships and the flagship along with scouts despite the risk of a black hole. The other three players took a slower approach, and Blue and Yellow focused on building up a network of pipelines for faster movement.
After two turns, Red is in the lead with 5 colonies.
Red's expansionist attitude extended into the border zone, and turned up three mineral markers. The Green side of the border was less rewarding. (I've just hit the Danger at the top and lost a scout!)
Notice two Red colonies about to build up on the border.
The lure of all those resources was enough to provoke outright hostilities. Green pushed its flagship forward into the neutral zone, staking a claim to the resources. Red, with only scouts in the region, quickly scraped together a fleet of destroyers and the flagship to challenge the claim. The battle results in a moderate victory for Green, as Red loses both destroyers in exchange for a fighter, before retreating with the flagship.
Green's reinforcing fleet is a carrier and two fighters.
Meanwhile the opposite side of the board looks like this:
Bug-infested space rocks, stay away!
At this point, Blue swung to hit Red in the exposed rear while Red tried to shut down the invasion with bases and cruisers. Rather than pulling back to regroup, Green pushed deeper into Red territory-- running into a hard line of three cruisers which quickly drove off the small invasion force. Meanwhile, a reinforcing Green group met the Red flagship with a fully loaded carrier... and lost.
Aftermath of the Green attack, retreated to cover a miner swiping those resources!
This came at the price of completely ignoring Blue, which methodically blockaded two colonies and wiped out one of them. At the conclusion of the game, the board looked like this:
That's my daughter Molly, surveying the wreckage.
If you look closely, you can see Blue's incursion into Red space, the retreating Green fleet, and two Yellow fleets about to take pressure off Red. This is where we called it, after seven turns and about five hours. I think the attack just about sufficed to remove Red's head start, but I still regard this situation as fairly balanced and able to swing both ways. Yellow has taken no losses and has a very nice Empire Advantage for long end-game battles.

Kyle and Kim are already planning for a rematch, and want a copy of the game to plot new strategies!


Thursday, January 16, 2014

Example: Listing Realm Assets

The three estates
Just like a standard RPG will have an "inventory page" with all the items you own, a strategy RPG will have an inventory of all the assets that the entire realm owns. Of course, some of those "assets" are individual heroes that will themselves have detailed character sheets. Here I've given an example of a list of Realm Assets in fairly compact form. Many additional details could be added from various character sheets and maps.

Note that I've scaled back the original population figures from what I rolled up last fall, to reflect the fact that clerics should get a discount on castle-building, but that this shouldn't allow them to start the game with double the population of everyone else!

Next up, I'll give an example of how to keep a log that assigns your personnel to various tasks over the course of a turn (one month), and then how to do budget various ongoing expenses at the end of the month.

*********************************************************************************
Realm Assets
Domain: Kellsvale
Population: 1840 human families
Land Value: 6.2
Date: Nov. 1, C.A. 70
Ruler
Dermot Bac Kellag, Lord Proprietor of Kellsvale, 10th-level Cleric
Exp: 310,000 / 400,000
Stats: S 12 / D 10 / C 13 (+1) / I 12 / W 15 (+1) / X 15 (+1)
Proficiencies: Command, Leadership, Diplomacy, Military Strategy(3)
Gear (136 gp): plate armor, shield, mace, tunic, cassock, robe, boots, holy symbol
Location: Gramerci Castle
Activity: Resting
Condition: Healthy (40/40)

Treasury
8794 gp

Heroes and Vassals (max # = (4+CHA+Leadership) = 6)
Sir Carbry, 3rd-level Paladin
Exp: 3524 / 7400
Stats: S 13 (+1) / D 10 / C 14 (+1) / I 9 / W 16 (+2) / X 14 (+1)
Proficiencies: Command, Leadership, Military Strategy
Gear (123 gp): plate mail, shield, mace, sword +1, +3 vs summoned, tunic, pants, boots, holy symbol
Location: Gramerci Castle
Activity: Resting
Condition: Healthy (14/14)

Bradan, 3rd-level Dwarven Fury
Exp: 5905 / 11810
Stats: S 13 (+1) / D 8 (-1) / C 9 / I 12 / W 8 (-1) / X 11
Proficiencies: Mapping, Caving
Gear (23 gp): great axe (two-handed), leather belt, leather shoes, 3x hand axe
Location: Gramerci Castle
Activity: Resting
Condition: Healthy (21/21)

Halward, 1st-level Gnomish Trickster
Exp: 0 / 2475
Stats: S 9 / D 9 / C 10 / I 10 / W 9 / X 18 (+3)
Proficiencies: Diplomacy, Bargaining
Gear (37): leather armor, short sword, dagger, robe, boots
Location: Gramerci Castle
Activity: Resting
Condition: Healthy (4/4)

Master Leonhard, 1st-level Mage
Exp: 0 / 2273
Stats: S 8 (-1) / D 8 (-1) / C 16 (+2) / I 17 (+2) / W 11 / X 11
Proficiencies: Magical Engineering, Manual Of Arms, Healing, Riding
Gear (7 gp): staff, robe, leather sandals
Location: Aboard the Wyvern's Spur
Activity: Resting
Condition: Healthy (6/6)

Master Rigard, 1st-level Elven Spellsword
Exp: 0 / 3810
Stats: S 14 (+1) / D 12 / C 4 (-2) / I 13 (+1) / W 9 / X 10
Proficiencies: Battle Magic, Collegiate Wizardry, Riding
Gear (85 gp): chain mail, pole arm, longbow, 20x arrows, 5x silver arrows, 6x arrows +1, tunic, leather boots
Location: Gramerci Castle
Activity: Resting
Condition: Healthy (4/4)

Master Gilcolm, 1st-level Elven Spellsword
Exp: 0 / 3810
Stats: S 16 (+2) / D 7 (-1) / C 6 (-1) / I 13 (+1) / W 9 / X 9
Proficiencies: Weapon Focus: swords and daggers, Trapping, Tracking
Gear (81 gp): plate mail, shield, sword +1, spear, 3x javelin, tunic, leather boots
Location: Gramerci Castle
Activity: Resting
Condition: Healthy (5/5)

Specialists (325 gp / month)
1x ship captain
2x navigators
17x sailors

Soldiers
Followers (4810 gp/mo → reduced to 570 gp/mo due to religious loyalty)
40x Light Infantry (240 gp/mo)
20x Heavy Infantry (240 gp/mo)
20x Light Cavalry (600 gp/mo)
10x Medium Cavalry (450 gp/mo)
30x Heavy Cavalry (1800 gp/mo)
10x Cataphract Cavalry (750 gp/mo)
30x Archers (450 gp/mo)
30x Slingers (180 gp/mo)
4x 1st level clerics (100 gp/mo)

Mercenaries (4635 gp/mo)
90x Heavy Infantry (1080 gp/mo)
60x Longbowmen (1800 gp/mo)
15x Horse Archers (675 gp/mo)
30x Heavy Cavalry (1800 gp/mo)

Strongholds (240,350 gp)
Gramerci Castle (172,850 gp)
  • keep (75,000 gp)
  • barbican (38,000 gp)
  • moat (200') (1600 gp)
  • drawbridge (250 gp)
  • 40' high stone wall (200') (25,000 gp)
  • medium tower (22,500 gp)
  • wooden barracks, 45' x 60' (4500 gp)
  • stone smithy, 30' x 30' (3000 gp)
  • stone chapel, 20' x 45' (3000 gp)
3x medium tower (22,500 gp)

Facilities (6000 gp)
Workshop (6000 gp)

Vessels (20,000 gp)
The Wyvern's Spur, a Large Sailing Ship

Animals (550 gp)
medium warhorse
war saddle
saddlebags
3x light riding horse
3x riding saddle
3x saddlebags

Equipment
Medium Ballista -> The Wyvern's Spur
20x Medium Ballista Shot -> The Wyvern's Spur
4x Medium Ballista ->Gramerci Castle
180x Medium Ballista Shot -> Gramerci Castle

Magical Items
Sword +1 -> Master Gilcolm
6x Arrows +1 -> Master Rigard
Sword +1, +3 vs summoned -> Sir Carbry

Scrolls
Scroll of Insect Plague and Sticks to Snakes
Scroll of Protection from Evil and Find Traps and Detect Magic

Formulas
Staff of Healing
Crossbow Bolts +1
Scale Armor +1
Shield +1
Eyes of Petrification
Potion of Undead Control
Potion of Growth
Potion of Invisibility
Potion of Climbing