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  1. - Top - End - #61
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    Devil

    Join Date
    May 2007

    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    Oracle Family Company
    Influence 4
    Morale 5


    Spoiler: GM-Internal
    Show

    3 vote Nay for "behold a pale horse"
    "God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of his own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time." (Good Omens - Terry Pratchett)

  2. - Top - End - #62
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    EvilClericGuy

    Join Date
    May 2019
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    Spoiler: To All
    Show

    We would like to purchase an extra store of resources to help us wait out the inevitable long siege. Hyperlanes will be made by our vessels. Do ask for anything you may need.

    Spoiler: OoC
    Show

    Buying MOR, will make hyperlane. Send offers.

    Spoiler: Total War
    Show


    As
    The Celestial Empire of Longshan

    Spoiler: Domination Victory
    Show

    Equinox League

    Red Aurora College - Fae of the Four Courts - Khalos Guild - Celestial Empire



    (Pretend there’s more spoilers here because I haven’t found the will to digitize my campaign setting yet)
    寧教我負天下人,休教天下人負我。

  3. - Top - End - #63
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    GameOfChampions's Avatar

    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Location
    Canada

    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    Competition of Minds
    Mor 6
    Inf 2


    Spoiler: To Logopathor
    Show
    Greetings Besieged Ones,

    We come to offer. Our Supreme Judge (Tier 1 Mor VIP) has an interest in investigating the greater parts of the galaxy, we don't know why when the competition we have is so enthralling. We could send him to you in return for psionic power or plain old trade goods. He is an expert at calming populations even when inevitable doom is upon them.

    Regards,
    Zughel Living Statue


    Spoiler: Umbra
    Show
    Greetings Silent Ones,

    We do not know if you will here this Ones words but we will send them anyway. Our Competition rightly appreciates your psionic might and the mysteries that you employ, mysteries beyond our understanding even... for now. We implore you as fellow practitioners of the delicate art to leave us be. Find your enemies in the Shade, the gift less militants below us.

    We do not wish to start wasting our power on breaking every lane possible to save our worlds.

    Regards,
    Genesis, The Broken Cog


    Spoiler: Midturn
    Show
    2 Votes No to The Pale Horse (New NPC)
    "Facilis Descensus Averni." - Virgil, The Aeneid

    “Why would I want to win anything other than a beautiful game?” - Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear


  4. - Top - End - #64
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    NecromancerGuy

    Join Date
    Dec 2014
    Location
    Yaritagua, Venezuela
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    The Hecatian Shade

    A house divided

    Sombre ceremonies are pursued on open space, rituals of consumption and death far behind the main religions of the Shade have grown more common both in the newly acquired territories and amidst the old blood.

    An exploration fleet, armed with top of the line equipment, and of course the most advanced weapons (it is the Hecatians after all) courses through the void seemingly without given course, though headed by some of the most stellar navigators in the galaxy, whether it goes to war or discovery remains unknown.

    The market fluctuates, as fervor and prudence of an evergrowing... ever outnumbering population tips the scales to one side or the other, and the companies engage in both direct and indirect attacks against eachother.

    Warmaster Obor shoots two massive missiles from his personal Dreadnought, opening two huge craters on a lifeless rock of an object Break Ahead and releaasing half its fuel reserves for the nearby ships to scavenge Let their remains sustain us a traditional war ritual for the Hecatian fleets.

    Step 2

    A couple nurses helped Ala Cait return to the comfort chamber they were staying it, frustration was the name of the day, as the follower struggled to move on her own through the therapy, was constantly struck by migraines, product of medicine and recent surgery and their doctors remained sure that Ala Cait must not be involved in politics while recovering.

    For a while they thought about the doctor's insistence on the Shade's good management in their abscence, they were too insistent... The thought remained until another strong headache forced them to at least attempt mental rest, surely the Shade couldn't be doing too worse than with them piloting...

    Morale: 5 Inf: 4

    PCs

    Spoiler: Oracle family company
    Show

    Most esteemed and successful of Principia's entrepeneurs,

    it is really a shame that our people have has so little in the way of relations, let it be known that the Shade can and would be interested in a mutual agreement to protect your interests, should they be threatened by our mutual neighbour or a spill from the restless clusters near logopathor.

    -Ulur, CEO of DIG shipping and delivery


    Spoiler: Logopathor
    Show
    Church of knowledge and care,

    The Shade won't let knowledge disappear with the Arco-medeans, and we seek both to preserve what remains and unearth what is lost, let us help you, and with your might defeat with ease the empire's ingenuity.

    -Chit'al, Head engineer of the Tria-khan shipyards and associates.

    Spoiler: OOC
    Show
    [5 mor] in exchange for access to logopathor for this season's Arco-medean digging, Obviously need a quickish reply, but willing to hear counter offers.


    Spoiler: Channel Seldiva
    Show
    a voice only message from warmaster Obor is delivered in a quaint little recording device through the means of fan mail

    I see you! "warriors" and your flashy plays and your weak posture! I see your new ways, as if to speed our clash! I see your secret game and the pain it caused my own, but you are forgiven, for I find your means histerical, and long for a good laugh!

    So let us both have our gruel and eat it! My men will ride with you and attack your target, and then we have a proper fight, a good fight to be remembered! just you and me! psykers and new enemies to the side as the nuissances they are!

    What do you say?


    Spoiler: OOC
    Show
    *A heavy amount of Mil will be sent towards the betting attack, but you have to keep the shade out of the possible targets.

    *We declare war on eachother, but hostile actions between us can't begin until next turn (as most of our forces would be preoccupied with the attack anyway.)


    Spoiler: Competition of minds
    Show


    Great, We'll send our psykers right away, sadly the new territories had no special talent for your crafts, so we'll send more or less the same.

    -3rd Voice of Hecan.
    Spoiler: OOC
    Show
    same exact deal, just in case.


    Spoiler: Idrian Nascense
    Show
    A series of probes come, destined to send a message in the tongues of the... assimilated people of the republic, and ready to hear a reply, if running it through more cleansing processes that the Archive can shake a stick at:

    "Hello, what you are and what you do, I've seen you from afar. You consume as many do, and I've heard that you sing, though I still know much too little to actually hear your song (so beautiful, so ancient), but I ask in my hubris and curiosity, do you feel like we mortals do?"

    All probes are marked Orian's, were the nascense to care for companies it'll knew it as a middling developer of genetic treatments within the Shade.


    NPCs

    Spoiler: PPS
    Show

    Hello Queal, we'll gladly continue this discussion through an emissary, let us know when you are ready to receive it.
    -Agharia sto, Captain of the great scar, Head howler.


    Spoiler: Amaranthine Archive
    Show
    Aid is coming, one way or another

    -Chit'al, Head engineer of the Tria-khan shipyards and associates.
    Last edited by neriractor; 2021-04-11 at 03:31 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Coidzor View Post
    Ah, yes, trolls, the monsters that are such wusses their primary means of reproduction is being eaten by other creatures.
    Quote Originally Posted by 5ColouredWalker View Post
    With all this talk of half dragon cohorts I may need to scrap riding a actual Dragon given how unoptimized it is.
    hey, order a gig here: https://www.fiverr.com/neriractor

    I would really appreciate it.


  5. - Top - End - #65
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    Let'sGetKraken's Avatar

    Join Date
    Dec 2013
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    Canada
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    Male

    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    The Chrysaorian Hegemony

    Morale 6
    Influence 6


    Spoiler: To All
    Show


    In retrospect, it seems that there are targets more deserving of our attention. So long as they stay to their sector, and do not attempt to expand further, our quarrel with the Magnus Apparatus is at an end.

    Spoiler: OOC
    Show


    As they significantly increased their influence, and let's be honest are by far the least terrifying of the Inf 1 factions, the Chrysaorian Hegemony declares peace with the Magnus Apparatus, conditional on them not taking additional territory for two turns (inclusive).



    Spoiler: To the Amarynthine Archive
    Show


    You will have our support, to the tune of (10 SCIENCE). We would prefer compensation in the form of ECON and MIL, should you have any to spare, with greatly reduced rates to purchase whatever archeotech you find.


    Spoiler: To the Oracle Family Company
    Show


    The Umbra are predictable, in a fashion. They do not hold systems. They leave systems behind; broken, but to be re-taken. The Nascence will grow, and spread, and consume until it cannot be stopped. We beg you reconsider your position.


    Spoiler: Midturn
    Show


    5 votes against "Fortunate Sun". No delving. No hyperlane construction.

    Last edited by Let'sGetKraken; 2021-04-11 at 03:30 PM.
    Loser of Total War: Rise of Kingdoms
    as
    The Astral Collective

    Winner of Total War: Hanrui 3
    as
    The Four Courts of Hanrui/The Equinox League

    Plausible Victor of Total War: Pricipia
    as
    The Chrysaorian Hegemony

  6. - Top - End - #66
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    EvilClericGuy

    Join Date
    May 2019
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    Mor 6

    Spoiler: Shade
    Show

    Greetings,

    Unfortunately some of the resources you request are quite urgently needed for certain practices. Attached is a short counteroffer, though we ask that you keep the original on the table as a contingency.

    Yours in wonder,
    Logopathor & Co.

    Spoiler: OoC
    Show

    Your offer is quite generous already, but Logopathor VIP is.. kind of an important asset in the upcoming conflict. Can we give you 3 points worth of the VIP for the MOR? I can promise to give you the VIP wholesale should we die.



    Spoiler: Competition
    Show

    Greetings,

    Unfortunately, while your asset is formidable, we will likely not be able to afford the luxury of rebuilding. If there are any defensive assets you can spare, we would be interested in those.

    Yours in competition,
    Logopathor & Co.
    Spoiler: Total War
    Show


    As
    The Celestial Empire of Longshan

    Spoiler: Domination Victory
    Show

    Equinox League

    Red Aurora College - Fae of the Four Courts - Khalos Guild - Celestial Empire



    (Pretend there’s more spoilers here because I haven’t found the will to digitize my campaign setting yet)
    寧教我負天下人,休教天下人負我。

  7. - Top - End - #67
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    EvilClericGuy

    Join Date
    May 2019
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    Spoiler: Midturn, MOR GM
    Show

    Delve 6 SCI. Send Logopathor VIP 5 to Shade.

    All votes against Congress proposal 1.
    Spoiler: Total War
    Show


    As
    The Celestial Empire of Longshan

    Spoiler: Domination Victory
    Show

    Equinox League

    Red Aurora College - Fae of the Four Courts - Khalos Guild - Celestial Empire



    (Pretend there’s more spoilers here because I haven’t found the will to digitize my campaign setting yet)
    寧教我負天下人,休教天下人負我。

  8. - Top - End - #68
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    Writtensanity's Avatar

    Join Date
    Apr 2014

    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    “With our hyperlane construction underway and locked in, Channel Seldiva has a very important announcement!”

    CHANNEL SELDIVA DECLARES WAR ON THE HECTIAN SHADE

    https://youtu.be/6Zbi0XmGtMw

    Sorry for the wait folks!


    Spoiler: To the Shade Mor: 7
    Show


    We accept. Frankly we’d already set up a hyperlane to go to one of your central planets. Hopefully that’s not considered too aggressive this turn.

    The war declaration was always coming. It’s just more fun to do it first.

    If you contribute, the attack will not include you.



    For the sake of fairness. Votes for the stat attack may no longer include the Shade.
    Last edited by Writtensanity; 2021-04-11 at 05:38 PM.

  9. - Top - End - #69
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    NecromancerGuy

    Join Date
    Dec 2014
    Location
    Yaritagua, Venezuela
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    Male

    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    As per the will of warmaster Obor, The Shade declares war right back at Channel Seldiva!

    Mor 5, Inf 4

    PCs

    Spoiler: Channel Seldiva
    Show
    "So long as it doesn't see use until the betting game is done, no problem, it'll make our return with the spoils all the easier!"

    once again, delivered with your standard fanmail.


    Spoiler: Midturn
    Show
    All my votes (4?) go to yay for behold a pale horse, let the Zultari clans join our merry band!

    5 Sci and Logopathor (tier 5 Sci VIP) will finish clearing the last 10 levels of the astromedean forward base, with logopathor taking the last 5 levels.
    Quote Originally Posted by Coidzor View Post
    Ah, yes, trolls, the monsters that are such wusses their primary means of reproduction is being eaten by other creatures.
    Quote Originally Posted by 5ColouredWalker View Post
    With all this talk of half dragon cohorts I may need to scrap riding a actual Dragon given how unoptimized it is.
    hey, order a gig here: https://www.fiverr.com/neriractor

    I would really appreciate it.


  10. - Top - End - #70
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    PaladinGuy

    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Location
    Victoria, BC
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    The Magnus Apparatus

    *******Log 1.7: The Stolen Memories********
    Spoiler
    Show
    [E003]: D*mn dude, are the riots that bad? Did they really do that?

    [E005]: Depends on who you ask, as you can probably guess from the ‘Several People are Typing’

    [E006]: They detonated a nuke on the Bureau of Loyalty headquarters! Thats pretty much the definition of disloyalty. So yeah things are that bad.

    [E008]: Yep, gonna be an ugly couple of months while they get things back under control in the X-Cities.

    [E007]: Thats if you believe the news. If you look at who is doing the rioting, there is no way that mob could afford a nuke. And you can bet your life that ten times the rioters died than Control Guard.

    [E007] has been removed from the chat.

    [E006]: Good call.

    [E005]: What the fk man??? What about our games?

    [E008]: THATS what you are worried about?

    [E003]: Sorry! Panicked. What if my manager finds these logs?

    [E006]: What do you mean if your manager finds? I thought these were secure???

    [E008] has left the chat

    [E006] has left the chat


    [E005]: Sorry… I should probably sign off as well. Want to pick up again tomorrow for duos?

    [E003]: … Maybe dude, I’ll call you.

    *******Log 1.7: END********


    Memory Bank $#@%^ Restoration Progress: 4%

    These memories are… comforting…

    Morale 12, Influence 4

    Players

    The Idrian Nascence
    Spoiler
    Show
    [Output:] Intentions unclear.
    [Output:] You choose discussion, yet remain enigmatic.

    DECLARE Comprehension intRange(1-10)
    SET(Comprehension, 3)

    [Output:] Request Clarity


    Logopathor, the Artificial God
    Spoiler
    Show
    DECLARE TradeOpportunity varchar(500)

    SET(TradeOpportunity) (
    Up to [6 morale] available {
    Security Drone Deployment Host Fleet(Fleet1, Fleet2, Fleet3)
    E-System hardening programs(ICE-10, 8-BitLoyalty)
    Turret Uplink Network(Point_Overwhelming)
    }

    Resources Requested {
    Up to 6 Economy(Radioactives, Complex Plastics, Supercontainment Cells, iron plates, iron plates, iron plates, iron plates)
    Up to 5 Science(Exploration resources, deep scanning equipment licenses)
    Up to 1 Influence(RETURN(friendship? //Ask Dr. Munroe what to rename this as, Magnus is confused as hell with this name)

    }

    [Output:]Trade Lane Required
    Last edited by A_Dinosaur; 2021-04-11 at 05:31 PM.

  11. - Top - End - #71
    Halfling in the Playground
     
    BlackDragon

    Join Date
    Sep 2016
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    Male

    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC



    MOR 7, INF 7

    Spoiler: To Hecatian Shade
    Show
    Fair enough. We don't aim to stop anyone's ambitions, short of defending ourselves and those who we are obligated to defend. You are welcome to pursue your plan for the systems of [43] and [44]. Our inquiry is one made from a point of convenience, rather than need. It would be convenient to have a base of operations closer to so many nations, but ultimately is not necessary, just having the hyperlane up does allow us the access we seek. As to [29] that is a conversation you need to have with the Oracle Family Company rather than us, though we won't stop any hyperlanes you wish to build.

    On that note, if you do wish for our forces to secure [43] on your behalf, we do have our services for hire. Kai and the Lord Commander are both still available for use.


    Spoiler: To the Oracle Family Company
    Show
    Very fair, though we have no "claim" to any territory technically. If you wish to take [32] into your domain that is fine, we will not contest it. Our extension into neighboring systems is by invitation primarily, providing our services as a protector. We do not govern the territories we hold, merely patrol and ensure their safety from external attack. Thusly at any point in the future if you feel a need to take [29] we will willingly cede it to you. If we do need a friend in the sector, we shall make sure to call, your effort is not unappreciated.


    Spoiler: To PPS
    Show
    As of yet there is no contract established for either of them, and if no competitors appear, then we shall willingly exchange both of their services for the 8 ECO.


    Spoiler: MIDTURN, GM Only
    Show
    Four votes total, we'll vote up both resolutions for the shenaniganry. 2 votes to Fortunate Sun and 2 votes to Behold a Pale Horse (and a thumbsup for some excellent musical reference).
    Last edited by DragonOfAsh; 2021-04-11 at 08:03 PM.

  12. - Top - End - #72
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    Writtensanity's Avatar

    Join Date
    Apr 2014

    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    Spoiler: To the followers of Logopathor: MOR 7
    Show


    If you are willing to followup and ensure a link between our systems, we have the following offer for you: Some of your diplomats and contacts in exchange for all Channel Seldiva feeds in Northern Principia gaining a pro-logopathor mindset that should put your people at ease. The aggression of the messaging will depend on your contribution:

    OOC: Offering MOR:INF 1:1



    Spoiler: To the Knights of Orias: MOR 7
    Show


    Should you need any more MIL VIPS to cover your expenditures this turn, or if you're simply willing to entertain our shopping, we are in the market for INF. Let us know if you're interested in this sort of offer:

    [OOC: MIL VIPS, MIL or ECO for INF]




    Spoiler: To the Competition of Minds: MOR 7
    Show


    Should you wish, we have 2 PSI for your 2 INF




    Spoiler: To the Homogeny: MOR 7
    Show


    Should you wish to bolster yourself, our troops can be standing by at your command in exchange for some of your influence.

    Or you could attempt to vote the Domin as the target for our attack. Your choices.


  13. - Top - End - #73
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    DruidGuy

    Join Date
    Jan 2015

    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    " I knew a warrior once. Awakening from a wound to the head believing he was a dog, and what are dogs if not loyalty lacking wits? So I stand here woman, and my eyes are filled with tears. For that warrior, who was my friend, who died thinking he was a dog. Too loyal to be sent home, too filled with faith to leave. These are the worlds fallen. When I dream I see them in their thousands, chewing their own wounds. So do not speak to me of freedom. He was right all along. We live in chains. Beliefs to shackle, vows to choke our throats, the cage of a mortal life, that is our fate. Who do I blame? I blame the Gods. And curse them with fire in my heart."
    - First read in Steve Erickson's The Crippled God

    Up in the Sky

    Dawn on Kull brought many things with it. Light. Warmth. New topographies that could only be seen on the dayside, for the caste of their shade was sufficiently dark as to only be visible under the Eye. He saw the latter for himself: the black monoliths that passed Kullite mountains breached the horizon, like great fingers grasping towards the sun. They ringed some vast epicenter in a semi-circle, their guarded circumference obscuring what he supposed was the crater of some vast battle. Kull was even host to life, on occasions. Sometimes species would find an existence in the white sands of its deserts, rats or lizards, things small enough to thrive in the absence of large bodies of resources. And the still larger corpses of apex predators past. Yet still the Reaper’s orbit turned on, its surface and great digits of mineral no more bothered by the kiss of the Eye’s light than the grinding of time’s wheel.

    Keruthal Graun narrowed his eyes on what stretched out from below the semi-circle: a vast scar carved sufficiently wide as to have no origin other than Kull’s firmament. The site of a battle, though not a particularly recent one. Even from above he could see the valley’s occupants, such was their number: a tangle of bludgeoned marrow and split bone that bespoke of failure. The valley stretched miles in front, only ending at the base of those dull black fingers Keruthal Graun blinked and accelerated to correct the space he had lost to observation. Before and level with him was the rest of the Warparty-a cloud of limbs and bodies that scythed through the air as one, as though it had no mind for anything beyond its own strength. A strength on full display. He felt his pride swell as he caught up and passed several of the stragglers, content in the knowledge that he could kill such cowards after glory was won, for when it came time to exert Force Keruthal Graun would do so as a Warrior of Ultrum. For him it was the vanguard.

    Kulls dawn accelerated in kind, the light revealing more and more of the desert below as Keruthal Graun sped back to his position. Here and there the surface was pockmarked with ash-some of it a fresh looking black, other patches an old grey and others-dunes-were colored yellow as bone upturned with sediment. The sun backlit the mountains for a moment, casting it as a crown of umbral stone. Then the sun ascended higher and the moment passed. He flew on into the cloud of his fellow Unblooded and the sun was lost to the press of bodies. Space was, as ever, at a premium. One had to endure the elbows and blows that came with flying in such a massed cohort. Occasionally a corpse would even make its way back through the press, clearly someone who spoke out of turn or who’d made the mistake of looking particularly weak. Kerthal Graun did not spare the dead or living sympathy as he clawed through the press. Here and there the wind caught and tugged at trophies, some looped through ears punctured by kullite awls, others woven into hair that shivered in transit. Sometimes the rattle of trophies was disrupted, by the odd argument or clap of blows as an argument was resolved.

    He kicked and shoved his way through the press, driving his elbow into an unblooded’s nose. The blow sent the man tumbling back, and in the wake of his blood streaming through the air Keruthal saw what he took to be the failure’s lover staring back at him. The insolence was broken: she winced shrieks of pain backed her man’s fall into the cloud’s wake, then her eyes hardened with hatred. Kerthal GRaun spared a moment to sneer then shoved on, inured to the various insults or blows aimed his way. Combat had been scare this Purge, and as ever it was violence that was not turned outward was turned inward. What few Warriors the storm of unblodded had encountered had been ripped to shreds before he’d been able to reach them. He’d not been able to prise any trophies loose. His frustrations had mounted through the night-the Warparty did not sleep-and been compounded. They’d almost circled back to the fingers.

    Whispers shivered back through the party. “Warriors below. Warriors below. Warriors. Below.” It built and built back upon itself, a chanting that grew above the roar of the wind pouring through the formation’s gaps. He kept going and breached back into the sunlight. Anyone could come to the Vanguard. The real strength was in enduring in it. Somewhere in the middle of the Warparties grasping limbs and the more combative members of the Van. Keruthal Graul palced a kick between the eyes of someone squirming into his wake and smiled as the Warparty tore him limb from limb. He blazed with his thermal vision to secure his rear, then turned to the front to greet the new Ultramites he flew with.

    Five Warriors flew before him, two dueling and showering blood in their wake, others flying with a modicum of respect for their fellow fighters and bettwer. The Warleader. Timeric Golth had angled the cloud’s flight downward to their targets and into myth. Keruthal Graul could see nothing through the thin haze of red that clouded the warriors wake but accelerated to keep pace, ever mindful of the crowding hands at his back. Egging him on. The Warleader drew them up short and rounded. Hovering in the air. It was sharp and, strong as the bulwark of knotted figures at his back was they could do nothing against the sudden deceleration of those who lost control. Some went shooting forward past the Warleader where the Warriors ahead of Keruthal Graul burned them with thermal vision, making of the failures angry comets to announce the Warparty’s arrival to battle.

    Timeric Golth raised one hand up and the crowd collected behind her went silent. Thoughts flashed into his head, icy and focused as a hammered nail. Do not die too quickly Unblooded. He risked a glance to the rear, then re-centered his gaze and found the Warleader’s gaze fixed him, eyes unrelenting as they glowed blue with the abnegation of heat. I would have you, Unblooded. Keruthal Graul felt something stir inside him, hammering in time with the beat of his heart. Something to make him look past the condescension in her words. Something that spoke to greater glory. He raised his arm in a mirrored gesture to the Warleader. His Warleader. Should you survive.

    That was all. They were resumed in there flight, the Warparty’s target chosen. Timeric Golth whipped back to him and accelerated hard for Kull’s bone-white surface. The two figures became plain as they approached, both caste in white at the base of the kullite mountains. The Warparty accelerated downward. He shouted in time with the new scream the cloud thundered with, one that echoed to the Remnant, one to shake Ultarus himself: “Lead us Warleader! Lead us to the-“

    He was falling. He was falling and that wasn’t-wasn’t-was wrong. He could see….see his legs and pelvis tumble past, furtively kicking before a second emanation from the surface cut both of his parted lower extremnities off at the knees. Saw the same wide beams of orange-red cut Warleader Timeric Golth from hip to clavicle, leaving not but her cauterized flesh to trail loose in the thermal updraft. He was blind and, unknownst to Keruthal Graun, the light blinked out for an instance the sweeping bands of red carved upwards again and the light took him in the side of the head.

    First pain. Then darkness.



    It seldom truly rained upon Kull but, as it ever was, when rain came on it was one of contradictions. Arms and legs. Bone and viscera. Blood and its impact upon stolid ground. The cloud of unblooded degenerated into a scattered mess of cowards, united only by the crimson haze that clung to the air in the wake of their retreat. And, just as the remnants of the Warparty fell to earth under his onslaught, so too did the blood in the air fall. Life, but death. Life falling to death. Yes, it was ever a rain of contradictions on Kull. Yet the man he regarded now stood still on the surface, far from the carnage he’d wrought, a fixed point caste in Kullite bodysuit fibers. No more empathy to him than the mountains that backed them. The first corpses began to make contact with Kull’s sands, splashing red and browns and more white upon the surface. He smiled. Today was a good day and his deity would be pleased.

    Delein Scoorsk-Tollmen of Kull-marveled at his good fortune, for his patron was not so small a planet as to make finding individuals easy, and it was a rare thing indeed to see such carnage as that now confronted him. Rarer still that the source of such death was one individual.

    “A fine enfilade, Warleader. They scatter before you.” Delein Scoorsk readjusted the grip on his kullite scythe and tore his gaze from the beauty that painted the sky, his eyes coming to rest on the one he addressed. Standing this close, Lucan Nolus did not look a figure from myth. He was near bald, a crop of hair retreating from his pate, reinforced by a neatly trimmed crescent moustache that reached just beyond his lips. The Warleader was short, his frame wiry under the kullite he wore-a far cry from the broad shouldered, square jawed look that Delein Scoorsk had grown into over his centuries of life. Yet, he had to admit, there was a certain intensity about the way Lucan Nolus held himself. No. A confidence. An implacability from one who looked at what he had done with no more worry or concern than with which one might observe less than an insect. Heat that had poured forth from the Warleaders eyes was just now beginning to dissipate in the wake of the Warparty’s death throes and the Eye’s light maintained its crawl to apogee. Other Ultramite’s lacked control over their thermal vision-letting it fill up their eyes until they saw nothing but red. Lucan Nolus’ pupils had glowed. The Warleader turned and offered a small inclination of his head in acknowledgment of the Tollmen’s statement, his face a mask of indifference. Delein Scoorsk held his gaze until the Warleader broke the staring contest, returning his eyes to the vista’s gore rain.

    It rained on the mountains behind and slid down, the valley to his right becoming a red basin. Delein Scoorsk stepped more than a few paces to one side as a torso hit the ground where he had been standing. He sighed as blood spattered at his robes, though this did not trouble him. It was proving to be a long morning. There would be more libations for the Reaper. There always would be. No. Delein Scoorsk sighed because the torso still lived. The man’s lower body was a tangled ruin. One of the Warrior’s arms was broken by the impact, but he still lived on, clinging to life by virtue of some animal instinct that refused to give in. Delein Scoorsk approached.

    “Hail, Dying. Hail.” He raised a hand in greeting and walked steadily, seemingly to spite the tremors that echoed across his patron’s surface. The man’s went wide in momentary notice, as some great impact kicked a gust into the air that snagged at the Tollman’s cowl and drew the part back and up. He met the dying man and stood with his chest in parallel to the man, head angled in a quizzical gesture at his face. “Do not worry, Dying. I will see to it that you are afforded the honors due. Its not small thing to fall to a Warleader’s thermal vision. Less still at falling to a Tollmen’s scythe. You see-“ He turned away and adjusted the grip on his kullite scythe, scanning the red sky. “-the Reaper is not unmerciful at to let you suffer the indignity of his gravity.” The last of the viscera had just about finished raining down. Delein Scoorsk’s robes had kept up their cycle and cleaned themselves for the combats duration, brief though it’d been. His scythe drove down into the Warrior’s frontal lobe with a meaty thunk. The Tollman closed his eyes for a moment and took in the steady patter of rain.

    When he opened them again the ground was saturated with the dead and the dying. He sighed. There was still yet more work ahead, it seemed. A shadow had fallen over the corpses. One small enough to denote a lone individual foolhardy enough to remain in the battle’s airspace. Delein Scoorsk adjusted his cowl and looked to the thin shadow’s source.

    It was hard to see her features in the backlight of the Eye, but all he needed to hear was her voice to know who it was. The woman stood with her arms crossed, a look of supreme displeasure plain to her face. Her eyes burned crimson, of a shade sufficiently red to match the sun at her back. Ozsa Nolus regarded the Warleader with all the warmth of an iceflow. Her words were a hissed whisper that rang out to occupy the silence of the three of them shared. The Tollman rubbed an awkward hand at the neck of his cowl and bore witness to the conversation.

    “Father.” Lucan Nolus turned, genuine affection plain in the upcurve of his moustache as he smiled. “Daughter. You’ve endured.” The woman spat to the corpse below where the spittle fizzled in the embers of the dying. Another tremor rocked the earth.

    “Absent my father.” More spitting. Lucan Nolus had lost and retrieved arms to space-sharks. He’d stood at the center of a Kantobhan pox discharges. Simultaneous Kantoban pox discharges. He’d spoken with Mon’hoon. And yet here he stood wounded by words. Lucan Nolus closed his eyes, under assault. “Daughter. I. I am sorry. I am sorry but you must leave. Leave now. It rains ash o-“ Something approaching concern lodged itself in the Warleader’s face, and the Tollman found it more terrifying than all the dead faces Lucan Nolus had heaped at their God’s feet.

    “’It rains ash on Kull’, yes father I know the words. I know the words and I witness what you have done. I still have not found her.” For a moment Ozsa Nolus broke eye contact with her father to look past the dead to Kull’s sands. “Daughter. I am sor-“

    A sonic boom broke the conversation, and Delein Scoorsk was washed in blood anew as Ozsa’s body burst at the waist, her midsection spilling from the air to her father’s arms as he leapt into the air to catch her. The Tollman stared on, trying and failing to resist the onslaught of heightened emotion that threatened to overwhelm him. Osza Nolus endured. Blood foamed at the corners of her mouth and it was by this that Delein Scoorsk knew she was beyond saving. Even Ultramites needed to breath. The pair landed.

    Between gasps and loss of blood, Ozsa spoke and the Warleader listened, trying failing and restarting at saying the same thing over and over and over and over again: “I-I en-endur. Endure. I-I endure.” One of her hands shot forward and impacted with Lucan Nolus’s chest, right above the space containing his heart. He winced again. Closed his eyes, then cradled his daughters head with both hands. Pain disappeared from the Warleader’s features. Was replaced by an impassive calm that bespoke of respect. Mourning stained the expression. Left the Warleader’s face. “Always.” A hand withdrew from the cranial embrace then blurred back forwards and Osza Nolus was addeded to Kull’s strata.

    Silence came back in the wake of death. A new figure hovered aboce the surface in place of Osza Nolus’, fifty standards away from the Tollman and the Warleader. Covered head to toe in gore. This new adversary’s hair ran to her waist, threaded through finger and jawbones drilled through with an awl. Her eyes were blue as a Massive Star. One of her arms ended in a taloned kullite prosthetic. “The great Lucan Nolus, butcher of gods and children, kneels at the corpse of a weakling. Bah-“ Yilandra Kholg spat, revealing rows of perfect teeth filed to points ”-pathetic.”

    When Lucan Nolus spoke his voice was calm and vacant. “Yilandra Kholg. Pure of Ultrum. My fight is with the Principia. Not you. Submit to me. Leave the atmosphere we share. Live.”

    The Tollmen had not thought it possible, but Yilandra Kholg’s smile grew wider. Her pointed teeth were pink. They had been used. “Hah. So the rumors are true then. You would claim the title of Warleader for yourself?” Silence. “Come dog, even if you are to address me on your knees I would hear you give voice to my inquiries!” Her lips curled back in frustration, restraint evaporating in time with the blood already spilled onher bodysuit.

    Lucan Nolus stared at his only daughter’s corpse as though his gaze might will her to live if he stared long enough. “I would.”

    “You and the bitch Tara Hapaxia would divide Ultrum’s power?”

    “We do.”

    Quiet laughter bubbled from Yilandra Kholg’s throat, like she choked on blood. “And you would stand in my way?” The Tollmen narrowed his eyes. Blood-drunk.

    The Warleader closed his eyes, then removed his hand from the ruin of Ozsa’s cranium. What had been a flat hand became a fist matted with grey matter. Lucan Nolus sighed and “….I do.”

    “Hah!” Yilandra Kholgs laugh was the wet bark of something more savage. More feral. Of a kind consigned to the primordial histories as something used to intimidate children into compliance. The daughter of Ultarus uncrossed her bloodied arms and descended to Kull’s surface. She drew one foot back replete with the patience of and grace of a Tehezurulian feline. Moved the other forward to invite conflict. Drew up both hands into a striker’s guard that left no illusions as to who her target was even as she pointed the shoulder of her kullite arm forwards. “You are mistaken then Lucan Nolus. Your fight is with me.” More wet laughter, sufficient to rattle the bones through which Yilandra Kholg’s hair was woven. “Or are you too busy mourning on your knees?” A soft cobalt light began to build behind Yilandra Kholg’s eyes as Delein Scoorsk watched. The heat of the dead became visible steam as a thin patina of frost spread out from the space she occupied.

    Lucan Nolus stood, and in doing so gave his answer. The atmosphere around the Tollman and Warleader became awash in crimson light. The Warleader angled his shoulder to his opponent and pointed the hand he had killed his daughter with at Yilandra Kholg, opening it palm to Kull’s sky. His other arm bent behind his back.

    Red spilled from his eyes as the air was ionized. “On this day Yilandra Kholg, you burn.”



    There was no preamble. No further posturing. No room for doubt or the blustering of deeds lost to histories currents. They fought in the spaces between seconds. Traded tens of blows. A hundred. A thousand. Every strike took them to a different continent, every kiss of thermal vision a new scar to match the ones bludgeoned into Kull’s flesh by the impacts of their private war. They were far from the only combatants but the only ones that mattered, their conflict taking them through the sand dunes and megafauna corpses as easily as it did the flesh of those Warparties that crossed their trajectories. They fought on, day becoming night becoming day as the battle drove their physiologies across all strata of Kull.

    Lucan Nolus roared as they breached an ash cloud into the stratosphere, clasped both hands above his head and swung downwards to meet Yilandra Kholg’s collarbone, resisting the pleasure he felt in how it gave way. There was no pleasure to be had in necessity. He did not relent. He followed and blazed at her form with his thermal vision. Flew and fired at the same time, shoulder checked her down further, perpendicular with her supine form and the Reaper’s surface. Drove them both down into the continent below. Straddled her. Withdrew then applied his fist to the bridge of her nose and took them below the surface. Dead, long buried faces surrounded them for a moment as Yilandra Kholg drove him back with a blow to the ribs. Lucan felt three of them snap and puncture a lung but his breath held even as pain cut up through his sternum. Disengaged. His lung re-expanded and pushed the ribs back into place just as he flipped back into another shoulder check, leaving the rotting dead below Kull’s sands in the wake of their death-embrace. Down into one of the vast gore pits where Ultrum blood pooled below Kull’s surface, where it had fled from the Eye’s gaze. A crimson cavern vast as it was old, consecrated red with aeons of slaughter. Baleful crimson from her matched thermal visions collided with his straight bands of red. The clash illuminated walls of further sediment, some bleached with the odd patch of white set in kullite or impurities-the only way by which one could tell they were different from one another.

    Their impact carried them down-centimeters from the blood-pools surface. He dodged a feral blow from her kullite arm, spun in the air and kicked the breath from her lungs. Applied thermal vision to her face as she made Lucan Nolus set both hands to her throat and plunged Yilandra Kholg’s head into the crimson lake they hovered over it in a death’s embrace, numb to the punch-punching. Pain lanced through his side. He grimaced and looked down, saw the kullite arm punched through his lower abdomen. Stupid. Embers glowed beneath the blood-pool. Vapors steamed as it bubbled into a red mist. Yilandra Kholg righted herself in a fit of gasps and sputters. Withdrew her arm and made to punch through his midsection. His grip found the cheeks of Yilandra Kholg’s thin face, illuminated only with the glow of her thermal vision. He rolled his hands and wrenched her neck to the side. The sound resounded through the cavern and doubled back on itself, like twigs breaking under foot. Her thermal vision cut off abruptly as it’d begun, and he was struck with sediment it had carved from the cavern’s ceiling. Haunted by not but splashes and the echoing of snapped bone. He winced as his intestines reordered themselves. Yilandra Kholg blinked. Lucan Nolus swung both of his arms up towards the cavern ceiling and released her throat at the apogee of their movement, hurling her back up through the layers of strata already weakened by her thermal barrage. He followed after as skeletons frozen in kullite poured into the hole to splash and mingle with the blood.

    She was standing by the time he’d reached Kulls surface. Smiling and spitting a clot to Kull’s sands by the time he’d landed. Eyes glowing blue by the time his abdomen had completely healed. They stood still for a moment as ash quietly accumulated on the sands. The silence was broken by the odd bout of distant thermal vision or scream, its sounds far removed from where they stood. The interruptions were inconsistent, the only constant to their silence the steady patter of cinders’ journeying through the atmosphere. From lofty sky to dying soil. He looked with disapproval at the grey clouds that covered the horizon, then to the burnt earth beneath his feet. Kull was on fire-its night lit only by death’s remnants and the thermal visions of the victorious converging upon one another. His opponent must have realized the same: paroxysms of laughter shook Yilandra Kholg’s body and Lucan Nolus closed his eyes to savor the last few moments of quiet he would allow for. The prelude was done. Now came the times of true conflict.

    She started laughing, a shrill sound heavy with exhalations that displaced ash with each howl. Each tremor of her body shook blood from Yilandra Kholgs hair where it sizzled on those few embers that still endured surfaceside. “-AHAHA-HA!” She stopped. Cleaned two streams of blood from under her nostrils with a kullite forearm. “A-heh. Make it easy on yourself, Warleader. I will spare-“she paused an interrupted herself with more spit, this time colored pink. “I will spare you the indignity of existence. Shed your armor. Kneel. Kneel and I will send you to your daughter. You can both kneel at the Reaper’s feet. You can both kneel together.” Her breath was heaving, a great frenzy building in time with the blue in her eyes. Lucan Nolus sighed and felt the weight of his millennia lives bear down upon him-the aeons affording little protection as her laughter cut him deep, leaving not but the jagged shrapnel of grief. My daughter. My first daughter. For you I would kill them all. Kill them all. Kill themall. KillthemaLLKILLTHEMALLKILLTHEMA-.

    More laughter from the meat standing in his way. More babbling from the deadwoman. He chanted, each word a screaming litany spat with condemnation. A mantra of madness, an aggregation of slumbering aggravations that bespoke of naught but pain. “-LLKILL THEM! ALL!” He kneeled and his voice became hoarse as he inhaled deep of the ash. His eyes were twin coins that burned through the haze of bone scattered by his knee. Other meat answered, their eyes flashing blue or red like sparse little centuries drawn to witness something vast primordial flame. To be a part of something. That was fine. He would add them to the conflagration too. But first the viscera before him.

    Kullite spilled from Lucan Nolus’ bodysuit. Swirled like a ferrofluid nimbus. Became a breastplate that locked over his sternum then abdomen then back in segments-each jagged and textured rough on the out-facing side. His arms and legs were both swept down in black clouds, the digits on each limb’s terminus ending in sharp, fine talons. Light spilled across the entire scene as his thermal vision ionized, casting everything in a lurid red pall that glowered under the helmet as it was momentarily contained by the lowering of a skull-visaged faceplate. No mouth grill existed for speech-the language of violence was enough, would be enough-but he kept chanting anyway, the words coming on stronger and with less breath between them. Cool Kullite focused his anger. Contained it to a fine, red-lit point. KILLL. THEM. ALLKILL-KILL THEM. ALLLL”-LLL!” Like water loosed from a broken dam. The back plating of the helmet formed and then fused to encompass his entire occiput lobe, especially thick where his equilibrium organs resided. It became segmented like the breast and backplates. The entire armor was striated with fake musculature, a walking anatomical model in Ultramite myofibrils. Except for the helmet. Eyeholes swirled open and red washed the entire tableau as a cape billowed out wide into the convection caused by his thermal vision.

    It happened simultaneously with the Warleader plunging both fists down into Kull’s surface. The shockwave sent by his knee had yet to abate. Was magnified with the blow’s he drove down into the Reaper’s flesh. Sent the viscera bitch staggering as he swept forward in flight. His hands raked the layers of bone become revealed under the sand. His right became a fist around a sufficiently calcified femur, its trochanter flecked with bits of black kullite. His left found a spinal cord with the skull and top jaw still intact-absent a few front teeth but still possessed of canines.

    He swung and spun in flight, now perpendicular with the mass grave below. The skull-flail tore upwards as he underhand swung it in a diagonal across the deadwoman’s chest. It snagged on an upper rib-where it stayed pinned by her kullite arm. He let go of the spinal column and kept spinning, drumming a club blow into her dead-eyed orbital where it cracked like an eggshell. His thermal vision flashed blue and froze the skull and her kullite arm in place as she tried to dislodge the weapon. The meat shrieked and kicked back to displace him, trying to conjure her own protection as the metal of her arm shifted, flowing like water under ice. Dislodged itself and became a hammer caste in kullite. The form followed, black fluid oozed onto the meats skin. Lucan Nolus broke the sound barrier as he advanced. Thermal vision speared from his eyes and all life in attendance to his path. His grief brooked no advantage. No variables in its absoluteness. Figures now cast in ash fell from the sky to the surface, shattering into cinders on impact and dust coated his armor as Lucan Nolus closed the miles between them in the span of thoughts.

    An impact threw him from his course. One foreign to the trajectory of necessity he had set out for himself. Lucan Nolus was pitched from his flight as a black stain collided with Yilandra Kholg’s form. The impact created a sufficient burst of displaced air to knock him from the flight path. Pain shook him from the madness and brought the clarity of reality. His vision wobbled and blackness threatened the borders of his sight as a thin trickle of blood diffused from his nostrils. He wanted to chant but his-the kullite of his jawguard had been dented, broken his right mandible bone. It was through these unfamiliar stimuli that Lucan Nolus smiled and knew: Tara Hapaxia had entered Kull’s atmosphere.



    “Mother?”

    “Yes Daughter?”

    “Which one is Kull?”

    Another tremor shook through her paralyzed arm and Tara Hapaxia looked up at Terezuhul’s clear skies, then back to her daughter. She rested a hand on Daena Hapaxias distended abdomen. Then looked skyward once more. “It is perhaps difficult to see tonight. The Purge continues.” She knew exactly where it was. Or rather, where it wasn’t. Kull’s precise absence from view meant that there were sufficient ash clouds in-atmosphere to obscure it. A restlessness came on with looking, not helped in the least by Tara Hapaxias injuries. Raw neuropathic pain burned through the paralyzed side of her body, the corresponding part of her mouth slack with palsy. Tara Hapaxia f*cking hated sonic weaponry. Still, where there was pain there was often life, and where there was life there was often death. Some comfort could be taken in such absolutes. There was certainly none to be found in lameness.

    “I hope she is born soon then. The hundredth granddaughter by your firstborn, and on a culling no less? There can be no greater omen.” Tara Hapaxia looked once more upon her daughter, smiled and shrugged, banishing the smile quickly as it came on. “Perhaps. The Purge continues.” She saw a flicker of doubt squirm across her daughter’s face. “Come, view the names if you’ve sadness within you. I will not have my hundredth granddaughter born into grief.”

    Daena Hapaxia looked stung with the pain by the statement. “It is not grief, Mother. A sense of…restlessness. There is uncertainty in a child not knowing her father. Or in knowing whether he will survive or not.” A guarded statement. One Tara Hapaxia could not meet with her eyes. She looked out to the boles of thin temperate trees, clear-cut into something sufficiently low as to provide an absence of canopy. And a view of the verdigris arboriculture sweeping beyond beyond. Her hand slid from her daughters abdomen to the soils below, coming to rest on one of the vast white-bleached roots of the alabastree-the halfway point in their Pilgrimage. Tara Hapaxia levitated a few Logopathic Standards off the ground and turned to face where her daughter rested amongst the roots. “This thing was old when Terezhul and I first walked these soils.” Rose from her cross legged position to a standing one, then hovered closer to the tree’s white bark. She tried not to lecture. “Nascent? Maybe for this sector. Competition-borne? Again-maybe, I’ve heard of…insufficient attempts to radiocarbon date it. And taking core samples for ring counts has proven the things matter to be evasive.” Tara Hapaxia traced her index and middle finger across the tree’s hide, finding small wonders in the knotted and striated wood. It hummed with a current all its own.

    “Obvious, mother.” If her daughter was not with child, Tara Hapaxia would have burned her for the interruption. Still, she thought there was a hint of relief, stressed in the beginning vowel sound to her daughter’s words. “There are some things that are simply uncertain. We must endure them even as they heap contradictions upon Ultrum.” Tara Hapaxia closed her eyes as though bracing for an assault. Her fingers found the stub of what hand been a thick branch, its sawn off end flickering with static. She cupped the branch-stump with her thumb and forefinger, letting the rest of her fingers resume their grip on the alabastree’s skin. She exerted a minimum of force and the tree toppled, its passage downward ripping up great clods of dirt even as dust came to hang in the air.

    She was proud in her silence. Her daughter had remained impassive while the tree was uprooted. No more Tara Hapaxia the mother then. Tara Hapaxia the mentor. Perhaps. “Something different. Come. We go forward.” Others might have brought a map, but she’d long since memorized the route. Terezuhul was a large planet. At full speed Tara Hapaxia could have flown the cicumfrence in less than a Logopathian minute. But the point of these fertility pilgrimages wasn’t to take them at top speed. The Remnants existed for such fancies. The point was to hover. To exert control. It would be good to resume again. With her grandchild due any cycle her daughter would not be one for words. And that was good too. For all the kinetics at play with her lesson, Tara Hapaxia found herself losing a battle of words. She sighed, stared at the tree’s carcass and stretched out an open hand with which her daughter might pull herself into hovering.

    Daena Hapaxia took the gesture for the ceasefire it was and reached to accept her hand before a klaxxon note from her slate blared into Tezruhul’s silences. Her hand dropped down and withdrew the device, bringing up a three dimensional display of the Purge’s casualty list. A vast scroll of red, with names occasionally flaring white to indicate casualties. “ I despise those media technologies.”

    “You’re the one who let them be imported.”

    “Strictly speaking I was against it. Mass media dulls a mind though I wouldn’t decry it educative properties. Some in this sector would even call it entertainment, forgetting what it means to really fight. It was Lucan Nolus who thought it might be of value, guised as it was under some sort of “cultural exchange”. Ridiculous really. The Principia is or soon will be united in how Bruised it is to becom- “

    “Your ranting again, mother.” Tara Hapaxia smiled and stopped. The words came more easily when they concerned areas of interest. “Have you found him?”

    “Yes.” Tara Hapaxia was careful as she moved to her daughters side-approaching something like eagerness hollowed with empathy. Like a particularly acute radiation sickness. “Ah. Still. Three days of survival, Daughter. And a against a Tollman no les-“

    ”By. By a Tollman.”

    “Mm. Yes. By a Tollman. Still-some mandatory grief is due to the family I should think. I will see to it personally-if my political credit is good enough-to warrant such a visitation.” Tara Hapaxia smiled uneasily, then looked past to the fallen tree, turning her back to her daughter. “The child will come to know of her fathers death.”

    “Something wrong Mother?” The tree pulsed in its death throes. She opened the palm of one fist to the sky and looked down as granules of kullite wimpled above the open hand. An outer back rim spilled into place, followed by descending gears that locked and bent into whirring motions with, layered over one another in cold kullite. A clock face denoting Ultrum standard time swirled over the entire array-each gear turning via force of will. For a moment Tara Hapaxia let the watch hands spin like scythes before she looked to the tree and let the timepiece noiselessly click away with no care for what she judged to be the right time. It didn’t matter. The hand withdrew behind her back as she turned around, chronologer dissipating with the swish of her robes. “Mm? No just remembering an old gardener who I held acquaintances with. Old when I was young. Loved his seedlings.”

    Daena Hapaxia was patient as her mother spoke. Perhaps its own sort of defense to couch or delay the bad news. “You misheard me, mother. It was a statement of fact. Something is wrong. Ozsa Nolus is dead. Ozsa Nolus is dead and Yilandra Kholg has killed her.

    “By the Eye.” Tara Hapaxia spared a glance for the Tree then turned to embrace her daughter, her first daughter, with all the love and warmth she had in her. Careful not exert anything on her abdomen. Quickenings responded and for a moment the Warleader as content. Then whatever moment of empathy shared between them passed. “What a waste. I-“ The words came on half mumbled from the palsied side of her moth. She was pushing away her daughter. One-handed. Disengaged. “’I have to go. The battle will have moments left.” Her daughter turned away, grabbed at her shoulders as if in the throes of some great-some great pain? And began to hover down to a standard above the planet’s surface. The tree’s light began to dull to grey and Daena Hapaxia’s features hardened into something more pointed. “Moments. All you’ve ever had. I know the way, Mother. Go.”

    Tara Hapaxia blinked red from her eyes. Swallowed and nodded. Began an unsteady ascent. She struggled, then broke the sound barrier a safe distance from her daughter and the ecosystems. Parted the clouds with full flight and inhaled an agonized breath as the Principian cosmos greeted her like an old friend: with silence. Accelerated into the Remnant and saved the breath she would have used to spit. Crashed through meteors and swept up a small fragment into her grip. Thermal vision and one handed pressure was applied. By the time she’d passed Ormst the fragment had become a near-translucent pyramidal, flawed with fine granules of carbon. Kull loomed like a grey marble and she paused for a moment and let the kullite envelope her. Then Tara Hapaxia began cricling the planet. She looked for the greatest emanation of thermal vision. Found on it on Kull’s day side. Shrugged through Kull’s atmosphere as her flight accelerated towards rain clouds.

    She breached through the clouds, armor slick with condensation, then sticky with ash as she passed through dust particulates to impact with Ylandra Kholg’s hovering form. The shockwave of her impact displaced dust in a wide half-sphere, even as more was kicked up from the ground. Her free hand-the one not stiffarming into Yilandra Kholg’s midsection-lashed out and flung the pyramidal not so much at Lucan Nolus’ jawline as into the approach of his flight. She registered its impact. Felt pain lance through her functioning arm and winced. Tara Hapaxia drove down, taking both herself and Yilandra Kholg into the mass graves that passed for Kull’s strata. She rolled and let go of her armor and opponent. The kullite swirled and pooled at Yilandra Kholg’s feet. Anchored her to the floor of the vast gorge their flight path had created. Her opponent blazed away with thermal vision at the anchor and Tara Hapaxia tried and began to lose the battle to match it, reduced by her injuries to the use of only one eye.

    Without ceremony or prouncement Lucan Nolus hefted a sword of kullite two hand widths wide and vertically bisected Yilandra Kholg down to the waste line, where his blade was stopped by Tara Hapaxia’s tether. Gore fountained from the clean cut to steam amongst the sands. Silence passed for a moment and both Warleaders took a moment to collect their kullite-the mineral swirling to a circle on their bodysuits- and to breathe deep. Blood plipped loud in the quiet“As ever you misinterpret Lucan Nolus. I would have let her live.”

    Lucan Nolus rubbed at his jaw, the last of the bruised portion visibly fading. He chewed at nothing, audibly ground his teeth. Spat out a tooth. His kullite bodysuit was already cleaned of blood. “As ever Warleader, pointed gestures and pointed words. She has taken life from me and so I have taken her life.” He shrugged. “Waste ever follows waste. Just as the grief here will soon be eclipsed but what we are to part take in. Understand: I will speak no more on my family, Tara Hapaxia. I will speak no more on her nor my errant sons and if you do I will kill you. Now.” He shuddered out a breath. “To the peaks?”

    She nodded. “Aye. The peaks.” That was all the affirmation needed for the pair to rise, above the gathering ash clouds to one of the great kullite mountains stretched high as if to scrap the atmosphere. Left the corpse to the unblooded for trophies. The ascended high, to the peaks of the mountains, where they both knew the Tollmen stored caches of food. After retrieving the small meal, they sat at the lip of the caves entrance, taking turns and alternating between pouring water and ripped pieces of bread off the cliff. Below them stretched vast clouds of ash, punctuated by the odd sizzle of thermal vision. Above were the vast rain clouds that threw Kull into night, their emanations gummed with ash as it cut through the dust below. Jagged and tenebrous lighting cut the horizon and Tara Hapaxia left the last tuft of bread scatter from her grasp to the surface. For a while they enjoyed what passed for silence, smiling privately as though at some unshared joke to which only they were party to.

    Lucan Nolus was the first to broach the silence and with it his smile disappeared. “I am sorry. My rage has cost you the ability to witness your daughters birth.”

    She shrugged. “Baptized it with a great battle, more like. That’s how my daughter will see it. You’ve nothing to fear from her on that account. If I’m to be honest, Lucan Nolus, I feel a sense of relief. To reach a century of grandchildren it is no great thing but roots ever stretch outwards as they gro-Forgive me. How fair the Brolhtan?”

    He sighed and in the sigh there was a great shrugging of his shoulders, a casual nonchalance at the death they’d wrought. “Things will never be the same there.” Tara Hapaxia nodded, stood and stretched her back. “Things pass in time. But where one finds death so too does one find life conducting itself to the fullest.” His smile returned. “What?” Lucan Nolus released his grip on her forearms and his smile broadened. “Time’s river hasn’t eroded you any. It is good, I think. To know such reliability.” He pretended to wince at the jab she put to his shoulder. “Time is a clock, Lucan Nolus. A banal comparison? Perhaps. Maybe a straight line is a more apt comparison. But we could argue the length of this Purge what it really is. Would you like to spar?” His countenance became thoughtful, then weary as the smile faded. “No. I should like to kill something.”

    Tara Hapaxia shrugged again, then looked to the dust clouds at their feet. Thermal vision skittered and danced below. “I see no difference in the two choices confronting us.” The cheerful music presaged the crafts assent. A media device drunkenly wobbled upwards until it was level with the pair’s field of view. It burbled on and on, its speaker displacing sand granules with each word. Each syllable came on grainy and with static, and it was by this that the Warleaders recognized that it had journeyed far to reach them: “To glor-glorius bb-bat-battle at a late. Later date. Progenitor Victor Victory-a.” On repeat. Lucan Nolus angled his head sideways in a quizzical expression. He blurred forward and clapped both hands around the device, flattening it in the palms of his hands with a percussive burst.

    “Looks Foutanii.”

    “Mm.” She watched as the Warleader burned a message into the now-flat sphere and looked skyward a moment before letting his wrist flick out and release the discus into the clouds. “There's the Hegemony to address as well.”

    “In time. That’s all the Hegmony would have counted as ally on its side and we would count it as a greater one. For now I would watch the ash and clouds a while more in silence. “ It wasn’t spoken as a challenge, more an invitation to confirmation of how he understood the situation. She froze the last of the water rations they had on hand. Watched as Lucan Nolus’ smile returned at the despoilment and answered with a smile of her own. Looked on as he pitched it over the side of the cliff. Tara Hapaxia made a fist with her functioning hand, then cracked her knuckles as her fingers took to the familiar shape. Looked down on the burnt expanse of dust streching from the Cliffside like she prepared for another battle.

    Below the ash, the Purge raged onwards.

    Spoiler: OOC
    Show

    Happy to finally get to posting and happy to be here everyone



    Spoiler: Midturn-Morale GM
    Show

    All votes YAY for Fortunate Sun
    3 Science to delve the Acheosite found last turn (the Halls)
    Declare war on Logopathor (see below)


    Public-Inf 6

    Spoiler: Logopathor
    Show

    Citizenry of the Logopathor,

    We would tell you to pray but it wouldnt do you any good. You have earned what is coming to you.

    Spoiler: OOC
    Show

    The Ultrum Domin declares war on Logopathor.



    Last edited by n0ble; 2021-04-13 at 10:57 AM.
    “Have no fear, you will find your way. It's in your bones. It's in your soul.”- Mark Z. Danieleweski, House of Leaves

  14. - Top - End - #74
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    PaladinGuy

    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Location
    Victoria, BC
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    The Magnus Apparatus

    ******Log 3.0: 01000001 01101100 01101111 01101110 01100101******
    Spoiler
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    ******Log 3.0: 01000101 01101110 01100100******



    Morale 12, Influence 4

    Midturn
    Spoiler
    Show
    5 Sci delves into the shattered GLOP chambers of Alice's Mirror

    5 Votes YES to 'On a Pale Horse'

  15. - Top - End - #75
    Orc in the Playground
     
    BlackDragon

    Join Date
    May 2012

    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    The Idrian Nascence

    Influence 1, Morale 6

    Spoiler: Logopathor
    Show


    [Some of the rare researchers into psionics or the Shroud find their dreams hijacked as a method of communication, the same offer repeating each night]

    Pilgrims and refugees wear hastily improvised uniforms, armbands or hats showing their dedication to their Emperor of Empiricism. They are separated into four great congregations, each joined together in their own song. As they sing, their fears and trepidation fade, replaced with collective devotion and increasing ferocity. As the ultrimites descend, they throw themselves forward with self-annihilating rage, drowning the supermen under the weight of their corpses.

    The scene shifts, to cargo ships releasing pods full of rare earths and refined metals, their thrusters propelling them through the jump gate to Idri, and then to diplomats and educators, patiently correcting paranoid delusions about the threat of the Nascence


    Spoiler: ooc
    Show


    For clarity and speed, 4 mor for 4 of [eco and/or inf]




    Spoiler: Competition of Minds
    Show


    [A stream of insects, carapaces glittering and shifting across more colors than the eye can see, rise from their nests. They pass through a neat hexegonal portal and rise into a different sky, joining an already massive swarm. Once it is great enough to blot out the sky, it surges forth, pouring down into a bustling metropolis – stripping its inhabitants to skeletons within moment of touching them. When the work is done, they return through the same portal they arrived from, fat and happy, morsels of flesh gripped in their mandibles to feed the hive]
    [A lone Kanthi hunts with a spear and terrifying skill. Having killed more than he can eat, he offers the remainder to the hungry beasts of the jungle around him. A year and a day later, his hunts have failed and he is in danger of starvation. But the beasts he fed feed him in turn, carrying a fresh kill from the undergrowth and placing it at his feet]

    Spoiler: ooc
    Show

    How much?




    Spoiler: Midturn
    Show


    1 vote for On a Pale Horse. Because **** it, maximum chaos

    Last edited by St. Justicar; 2021-04-11 at 11:32 PM.
    Spoiler: Previous Games
    Show

    Won Rise of Kingdoms as the Free City of Khasal
    Lost Hanrui 3 as the Clockwork Republic
    Technically Won Principia 2 as the Iron Gods of Ur
    Won Mandate of Heaven as the Gardeners of the Immortal Flesh

  16. - Top - End - #76
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    Devil

    Join Date
    May 2007

    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    Oracle Family Company
    Influence 4
    Morale 5



    Spoiler: Chrysaorian Hegemony
    Show

    That whose motivation you comprehend may be understood and bargained with. It is no different from the Ultrumites. That which has no motivation or one beyond our understanding may not be understood or bargained with.

    We believe the war of the Nascence of Idris to be one of indepedence and revolution. To be contained and bargained with. The Umbra...is unknown. But I should think you have more pressing matters to attend to than the wars of others. Look to your garden and see our aid, we would gladly give it. For amongst us most like the Umbra is not the Nascence but the war leaders of Ultrum. Always warring never to be sated. You are next we think and ourselves...not far down the line. Tomorrow's problems will be met once we have survived today.


    Spoiler: Knights of Orias
    Show

    We are glad to have come to an agreement and hope that together we can assist where the other is lacking. We wish you luck in your endeavours. Do not hesitate to reach out to us. We will be moving against sector 29.


    Spoiler: Hecatian Shade
    Show


    Dear Ulur,

    We thank you for reaching out. We aim to be active in galactic events and your offer is much appreciated. Our garden is indeed slightly disturbed at the moment, yet I fear yours may be much the same...it seems you are at war with the loud and terrible Channel Seldiva. How go the war preparations? Even more so with the Umbra loitering uncomfortably near.

    -Signed Zerreshhk, Managing director of the Oracle Family Company.
    Last edited by kemmotar; 2021-04-12 at 07:40 AM.
    "God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of his own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time." (Good Omens - Terry Pratchett)

  17. - Top - End - #77
    Titan in the Playground
     
    3SecondCultist's Avatar

    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    Canada
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    Midturn 2

    Galactic Congress Results (Public)


    Spoiler: Fortunate Sun
    Show
    The Galactic Congress has tallied up the votes from the member factions all over Principia, and has found the votes as follows:
    7 Yay
    8 Nay

    The first proposal has failed. Whatever treasure the ancients might have held will surely go missed.

    Spoiler: Behold a Pale Horse
    Show
    The Galactic Congress has tallied up the votes from the member factions all over Principia, and has found the votes as follows:
    17 Yay
    5 Nay

    The second proposal has succeeded. From across the galaxy, the wardrums begin to beat. The Sublime Clans of Zultar are on their way, their passage across the stars uncontested as they move to find a place in Principia.

    Spoiler: OOC
    Show
    During this EoT, the Sublime Clans will move to take 2 currently neutral adjacent territories, for which I will roll randomly (there are 10 potential places they can land). This will be treated like a regular invasion, and they will 'clash' with anyone invading the same territories as them as they arrive.



    Hecatian Shade
    Mor 5


    Spoiler: Midturn Results
    Show
    The Shade continue their movements through the Forward base, surging on to recover every piece of lost technology ad wonder (+++++++ Eco, ++++ Sci, +++ Psi) and find other treasures: a forking gauss cannon that never misses its target (+2 Mil item) and a series of cranial implants that allow for a form of precognition (+2 Sci item). At the heart of the Forward Base is a piece of post-scarcity itself, the very Cradle that allowed the Arco-Medeans to rule for so long (1/4 pieces of a Tier 4 Archeotech). 20 floors cleared, installation complete.

    It is only in the final hour that luck begins to turn on those. A Major Threat is unleashed when the locks on the last chamber are broken: a sentient computer virus taken form into an army of maniac machines that threaten to run amok if not put down by force overwhelming. (Deals 5 random stat damage per turn if not dealt with, costs 6 Sci or 12 Mil or Psi in any combination to eradicate).

    Spoiler: The Cradle - T4 Archeotech
    Show
    This Archeotech is the piece of a titanic mass fabricator meant to be assembled in space, as it feeds off of stars to forge them into any matter imaginable. When completed, this Archeotech has 2 benefits. The first is that the user ignores all stat caps as a passive benefit. The second is that the user gains 6 permanent stat points every time it's activated, in any combination the user desires.

    Logopathor, the Artificial God
    Mor 6


    Spoiler: Midturn Results
    Show
    The followers of Logopathor continue to explore the Artificery, the so called birthplace of the Emperor of Empiricism himself. Their efforts do not go unrewarded, as caches are uncovered (++++ Eco), with two items of note in the trove: a time-phaser (+1 Mil item) and a psionatrix resonator (+1 Psi item). These new treasures will surely go well used. However, in the investigation several researchers were trapped and destroyed, the 'solution' to a solved floor being off by one decimal point and swallowing an entire team. Lose 1 Sci. But the most precious is yet to come: one team recovers a giant sarcophagus made of adamantium (1/2 pieces of a Tier 2 Archeotech). 11 floors cleared.

    Spoiler: Shrike, Mk 1 - Tier 2 Archeotech
    Show
    This Archeotech was the perfect robotic warrior, a legendary general from a time long past who became renowned across thousands of worlds for being just unable to die. The Arco-Medeans decommissioned him after they took control of the galaxy. Though you have his body, his internal programming is elsewhere. When activated, this Archeotech acts as a Tier 1 Mil VIP, but he can be upgraded to the next Tier for 1/2 the cost.

    Magnus Apparatus
    Mor 12


    Spoiler: Midturn Results
    Show
    The Apparatus investigates the upper echelons of the GLOP chambers, finding that it has much in common with the entities formed and destroyed in the shadows even though they are made of different stuff. The experimentation yields insights and raw materials alike (++ Eco, +6 xp for CoffeeStain), though the promise of future delving may yet see more. 5 floors cleared.

    Ultrum Domin
    Mor 9


    Spoiler: Midturn Results
    Show
    The Domin reach into the Hyperborean Halls, reliving the battles of days of old and come away with only a little for their limited attempt (+++ Eco). Further exploration into the glories of the past will be needed in order to see any true results emerge from this phenomena. 3 floors cleared.

    Channel Seldiva
    Mor 7


    Spoiler: Midturn Results
    Show
    Hyperlane (65-49) successfully created; map updated.

    Amaranthine Archive
    Mor 5


    Spoiler: Midturn Results
    Show
    Agents of the Archive continue their exploration of the Howling Library, delving deeper into the wreckage. Though the casualty list remains steady, the Archive manages to gain some wealth of knowledge rather than that which would prove material (++++++ Sci). Unfortunately, one event causes an entire team to be subsumed by the Library along with their materials (lose 1 Sci), but in the process the rescue team stumbled onto a secret once thought lost to the ages (1/2 pieces of a Tier 2 Archeotech). 10 floors cleared.

    Spoiler: The Fission Lab - T2 Archeotech
    Show
    This Archeotech is a portable facility with a staggering and long forgotten array of hyper-advanced cloning equipment, from baseline genome scanners to rapid body constructors at the deific subatomic level. The level of precision in this field is unmatched. When activated, the Archeotech allows the faction to clone one of their existing VIPs (up to Tier 2), but they can choose which stats they are specialized in.

    OOC: EoT Reports will be due on Friday, April 16th at 7 pm (EST)
    Last edited by 3SecondCultist; 2021-04-12 at 06:45 AM.
    Spoiler: Stuff I'm Working On
    Show
    Small Justice


    An ongoing web serial about politics, vengeance, and miniature lizards. Go check it out!

    Quote Originally Posted by Zeno Desaqqara View Post
    You divine bastard.

    "Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in the face of certain defeat."

  18. - Top - End - #78
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    Writtensanity's Avatar

    Join Date
    Apr 2014

    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    "We're here live at the most recent show of aggression from our contestants in Principia, the 'First move' breach gate, that connects from the Frontier of contestant territory to the middle of the Shade's systems, and right after the declaration of war. We have one of the many engineers on this team here to talk to us about the timing and process behind it!"

    "Good evening viewers, I'm Engineer Loralei and the lead of this team setting up the Breach Gate that our armies are going to be heading through. Good to be here."

    "Thanks! Now we have some questions about the battle plans coming up for the Contestants, anything you can spill?"

    "Well, the people upstairs had a plan for making this breach gate without actually declaring war, which would have been a major way to try to inflame the Shade into doing something stupid, but we know that they did that anyway."

    "What's that?"

    "The Shade actually offered to accept our deal from last year for war as long as both sides took this turn to prepare for a battle. Which surprised me as much as everyone else working on the project, and probably everyone upstairs except for Neptune."

    "So what does that mean for you?"

    "Well, I'm not allowed to say that part."

    "Come on Loralei! For the viewers!"

    "Well, let's just say that we're testing the upper limits of the capacity for this thing and that I can promise that we're not just going to have a quiet year of prep either! I'm moving to another project before coming back here at the start of the next solar year."

    "Oh! Well I know I'm looking forward to that! Back to you in the main studio where we're going over how the Contestants plan to use the Orbital Destabilisation Cannons they've manufactured in the past months!"



    MOR 7: INF 8

    Spoiler: To the Domin: MOR 7
    Show


    We look forward to your battle on the other side of the Galaxy. Though we have an interesting proposition.

    Our Orbital Destabilization cannons can be aimed across the singularity this season towards the nerds you're at war with. All we'd need is access to the feeds as the rounds arrive, and maybe a bit of time to stream the live vaporization of a couple hundred million Logopatrons. Let us know!

    OOC: MIL for INF delivered right to your door.



    Spoiler: To All:
    Show

    Are you overtired in the morning? Is your sun's rhythm out of sync with your circadian one? Try

    LIKRAN ENERGY DRINKS!

    TESTED ON SEVERAL SPECIES, LIKRAN ENERGY DRINKS ARE PRIMED AND READY TO BE INJECTED INTO ANY ORIFICE AND OBLITERATE YOUR SLUGGISHNESS? FEELING RELAXED? **** THAT!

    A fist punches a bed over and over until it's destroyed

    LIKRAN will ensure that you literally cannot relax. Stop wasting YOUR time, because it's limited!

    You could be so ****ing fast!

    A video of an Ultrimite running through a Logopatron plays on screen.

    GET EVERYTHING DONE! AND MORE with LIKRAN ENERGY DRINKS!

    Collect all 6 cans for your chance to win a once-in-a-lifetime experience to see the inside of Host station! Details and limitations apply, purchase absolutely necessary.


  19. - Top - End - #79
    Titan in the Playground
     
    3SecondCultist's Avatar

    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    Canada
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    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    Principia Personnel Solutions
    Mor 5, Inf 4


    Spoiler: To the Knights of Orias
    Show
    This call is being recorded for quality assurance purposes.

    "Hello again, this is Xander calling back from Principia Personnel Solutions.

    At this hour of the season, PPS is in the midst of locking in its trades. We were hoping to get a confirmation quote from you for the use of your Lord Commander and other ARMAMENTS this year? Your current asking price is [8 Eco], which our company is more than willing to pay for their use.

    Please let us know when you are ready to close the deal. Your business is very important to us.

    Thank you so much for choosing PPS, you have a splendid day."

    Spoiler: OOC
    Show
    Just messaging to confirm the trade of 8 Eco for your 8 Mil from your VIPs.

    Spoiler: To the Ultrum Domin
    Show
    This call is being recorded for quality assurance purposes.

    "Hello again there, this is Merry calling from Principia Personnel Solutions. I was hoping for just a moment of your time.

    Firstly, I have been tasked to reach out and inform you as a matter of courtesy that PPS is intending on pursuing a small territorial expansion this solar cycle. We have need of a new headquarters for our next generation of up and comers, and our location scouts all agree that [25] is an ideal site. We do not wish to clash with your own forces after the unfortunate events at Kur Jingtsin; it is our hope that such a pursuit will go uncontested, especially given your current focus towards other matters.

    PPS is also officially notifying you that after doing a few quick financial records and background checks, the Domin is eligible for a number of our top of the line intelligence packages. Our P.E.S.T. package has given many factions and agencies access to unprecedented amounts of information. Many have also taken advantage of the opportunities that P.E.S.T. offers to launch strikes against those who might threaten them. Furthermore, you can sign up for the Exclusive Non-Interference package. Starting as early as next year, your warleaders and other generals of note will be insulated from any attempts against them through our agents.

    We hope that you will consider PPS as a friend and valued business partner. Your business is important to us.

    Thank you so much for choosing PPS, you have a splendid day."


    Spoiler: OOC
    Show
    They're offering some pretty comprehensive benefits for the tune of 2 Eco per turn. To wit:

    - Your Esp would count as theirs for the purposes of reading messages (it's currently at 9, but will surely increase over time).
    - You would gain access to discounted assassinations, with a single free assassination or targeted strike upon the time of sign-up. This service may be deferred, and there is currently a small wait-list for those who have already signed up with PPS. As a part of this contract, they do transfer some of the risk to you; if their assassination is uncovered, you would be the one taking the 1 Inf damage as opposed to them. That's SOP for their business-client relationship.
    - The second Eco per turn would give the Domin contractual immunity from any stat attacks or assassinations from PPS. They would forego any current plans to hit you and deploy their resources elsewhere. This will last for as long as you keep up the 2 Eco subscription fee, and would come into effect starting on the turn after the payment is made.



    Amaranthine Archive
    Mor 5, Inf 4


    Spoiler: To the Chrysaorian Hegemony
    Show
    We may yet have need of resources both financial and military this year, to better trade for advantage or else defend ourselves from that which spreads from Idri. The danger is very real. Fortunately, we have uncovered an artifact of the ancients, one that would see your gods restored in full body and mind to the universe as they deserve.

    Rather than offer precious currency or weapons, the Archive would like to propose that we ship this laboratory and all of our research on its functions directly from Zephyrus Prime to Agrinara in exchange for your best minds and materials. Would you be open to such a trade?

    Spoiler: OOC
    Show
    The Archive has uncovered 1 piece of the 2 needed for the Fission Lab, an Archeotech they believe that the Hegemony would be uniquely interested in (it can clone VIPs up to Tier 2 in any stat you choose when activated). They would be willing to trade it outright for the 10 Sci you offered.

    Spoiler: To the Hecatian Shade
    Show
    The message is short, but no less pointed for it.

    You promised aid to the Archive. Our reports indicate that the Nascence will strike soon, and they will not be alone in doing so. If we're to survive the coming year, we will need all the help we can get. We reach out to the Channel with the same bargain, in the hopes that at least one of you will do what is necessary to stop the infection from spreading.

    At the very least, what we send might give one of you the edge in the war you are currently embroiled in.

    Spoiler: OOC
    Show
    The Archive has 5 Eco and 2 Mil that it's willing to trade. They're looking for Esp and Sci in exchange in any combination, the better to hit the Nascence with this turn. Whoever between you and the Channel makes the better offer, they're going for that.

    Spoiler: To Channel Seldiva
    Show
    The message is short, but no less pointed for it.

    We are sorry that your betting frivolously on millions of lives has not worked the way you intended. Our reports indicate that the Nascence will strike soon, and they will not be alone in doing so. If we're to survive the coming year, we will need all the help we can get. We reach out with a bargain to both you and the Hecatian Shade in the hopes that at least one of you will do what is necessary to stop the infection from spreading.

    Certainly taking this deal will put you ahead of the Shade, and besides working with the Nascence will not make for very good ratings. Do they even have televisions?

    Spoiler: OOC
    Show
    The Archive has 5 Eco and 2 Mil that it's willing to trade. They're looking for Esp and Sci in exchange in any combination, the better to hit the Nascence with this turn. Whoever between you and the Shade makes the better offer, they're going for that.
    Last edited by 3SecondCultist; 2021-04-18 at 04:22 PM.
    Spoiler: Stuff I'm Working On
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    Small Justice


    An ongoing web serial about politics, vengeance, and miniature lizards. Go check it out!

    Quote Originally Posted by Zeno Desaqqara View Post
    You divine bastard.

    "Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in the face of certain defeat."

  20. - Top - End - #80
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    Writtensanity's Avatar

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    Channel Seldiva

    Spoiler: To the Archive: MOR 7
    Show


    We, unfortunately, have very few direct science officers or agents that could be there in time to offer, but we believe you had a second offer up for those who offered the most influence in convincing the galaxy to round up against the coming Song.

    Expect a stimulus package from the Channel as long as most of our trades go as planned.



  21. - Top - End - #81
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    GameOfChampions's Avatar

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    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    Competition of Minds
    Mor 6
    Inf 2


    Spoiler: Logopathor
    Show
    Greetings,

    We are unsure how you will find lesser versions more useful then the Supreme Judge himself but let it be known We offered. We have (1 Mor) to trade if you wish it. We will take equal payment in Psykers or goods.

    Regards,


    Spoiler: Channel Seldiva
    Show
    Greetings Allies,

    We would be happy to make such a trade. You shall see the fruits of your trade soon.

    Regards,
    SUPREME JUDGE ANDERSON


    Spoiler: Idrian Nascence
    Show
    Fingers stroke an elongated chin, thinking

    Broken pieces of a great machine lay scattered. A small tribe works to repair it with slow goings until they are joined by a second tribe. The two manage to complete the broken wreck and find it to be a weapon of power that can be aimed far and wide.

    Spoiler: OOC
    Show
    Let's say 10 stats, half of which need to be Psi or Esp.

    "Facilis Descensus Averni." - Virgil, The Aeneid

    “Why would I want to win anything other than a beautiful game?” - Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear


  22. - Top - End - #82
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    EvilClericGuy

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    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    Mor 6

    Spoiler: Hecatian Shade
    Show

    Greetings,

    I write on behalf of Logopathor today to present you with a proof.

    Disjunctive syllogism:
    A, You are an enemy of the Channel Seldiva.
    B, The Channel Seldiva has been collaborating with the Ultrum Domin (see attached exhibit 2B)
    C - You are an enemy of the Ultrum Domin.

    Modus Ponens
    A, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
    B, You are an enemy of the Ultrum Domin.
    C - We are on the same side of this conflict.

    Attached is a proposal for the Logopatronite flock to join the Hecatian Shade as a tributary.

    Yours in cooperation,
    Zurama J’Karoche, system planner and acting diplomatic coordinator

    Spoiler: OoC
    Show

    Essentially the migration plan we agreed upon OoC. Will need a ton of stats, will be trading with the Hegemony and hopefully some other folks.



    Spoiler: Competition of Minds
    Show

    Greetings,

    I understand that you and your kin are ever in search of a way to seize greater and greater psionic power. Attached is the blueprints for an item known as the psionatrix reasonator (+1 Psi). We would be willing to part with this tool for temporary use of your psions, a small monetary payment, or some of the psionic knowledge you have gathered over the centuries.

    Yours in intrepidation,
    Zurama J’Karoche, system planner and acting diplomatic coordinator

    Spoiler: OoC
    Show

    Psi, Sci or Econ for the artifact? Also have another +1 MIL, but not sure if you want it.




    Spoiler: Chrysaorian Hegemony
    Show

    Greetings,

    It seems there is the matter of a project we wish to conduct, necessitating psionic artifice, a detachment of support scientists, or simply a chunk of resource funds. In exchange we would like to offer several rare artifacts we have recovered over the years. Their scans are in the attached document. Please do consider.

    Yours in the unknown,
    Zurama J’Karoche, system planner and acting diplomatic coordinator

    Spoiler: OoC
    Show

    Half a piece of archeotech that’s the equivalent of a 1 MIL VIP, but who can be upgraded very cheaply. Also +1 MIL and +1 PSI. Need Econ, Psi, or Sci points quickly and under the table.

    Last edited by Vrock Bait; 2021-04-14 at 02:15 PM.
    Spoiler: Total War
    Show


    As
    The Celestial Empire of Longshan

    Spoiler: Domination Victory
    Show

    Equinox League

    Red Aurora College - Fae of the Four Courts - Khalos Guild - Celestial Empire



    (Pretend there’s more spoilers here because I haven’t found the will to digitize my campaign setting yet)
    寧教我負天下人,休教天下人負我。

  23. - Top - End - #83
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    NecromancerGuy

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    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    The Hecatian Shade


    Mor 5, Inf 4

    PCs

    Spoiler: The knights of Orias
    Show
    Good, let our people know no conflict between us!

    In the interest of strengthening such ties how much would it cost to hire kai or the lord commander given the other offers you must have received by now?

    and what would you have for your [Sci],[Psi] and [Eco] resources? a recent shortage of these has stopped a project of ours short.


    Spoiler: Oracle Family company
    Show
    Esteemed Zerreshhk,

    luckily the dreaded Umbra seems to prefer our enemies' space for the moment. As for war preparations, they are going swimmingly, though a trade or loan (with proper interests of course) of [Sci], [Psi] or [Eco] could take the conflict from a mild storm to an easy breeze, and I assure you we'll be quite the grateful (and useful) partner once the Channel goes silent.

    -Ulur, CEO of DIG shipping and delivery


    Spoiler: Logopathor
    Show
    Most esteemed Zurama J’Karoche,

    we hold nothing but respect for you, your god and your kin, your logic is sound, and as a force for learning we could not help but aid you either way, We'll gather what spoils we have, seize those we need and let you hurt the ones that plague you in the worst of ways.

    Yours as well,
    -Chit'al, Head engineer of the Tria-khan shipyards and associates.
    Quote Originally Posted by Coidzor View Post
    Ah, yes, trolls, the monsters that are such wusses their primary means of reproduction is being eaten by other creatures.
    Quote Originally Posted by 5ColouredWalker View Post
    With all this talk of half dragon cohorts I may need to scrap riding a actual Dragon given how unoptimized it is.
    hey, order a gig here: https://www.fiverr.com/neriractor

    I would really appreciate it.


  24. - Top - End - #84
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    Writtensanity's Avatar

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    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    Spoiler: To Logopathor: MOR 0
    Show


    We see your coming plans. Our offer to you and the Domin were blanked by one another, but now instead, you declare us an enemy and collude with those we are at open war with. It is disappointing that you did not see the logic in our offers.

    You have until the coming dawn from Sol to answer the Shade with a condemnation of your current plans, or at least a condemnation of offensive actions against the Channel.

    Yours,
    Neptune.


  25. - Top - End - #85
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    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    Competition of Minds
    Mor 6
    Inf 2


    Spoiler: Logopathor
    Show
    Greetings,

    Since you did not respond to our offer we will assume you are not interested in the (Mor).

    As for your artifact we are indeed interested in buying it off of you but we cannot do so this year. Our resources are tapped this year but if you don't sell it then we will be interested next year.

    Regards,
    Zughel the Living Statue
    "Facilis Descensus Averni." - Virgil, The Aeneid

    “Why would I want to win anything other than a beautiful game?” - Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear


  26. - Top - End - #86
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    DruidGuy

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    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    The Ultrum Domin-Inf. 6
    Morale 9

    Spoiler: Channel Seldiva
    Show


    As we look forward to your destruction of the Hecatian Shade. What you propose is...intriguing. Our Unblooded shall take many lives

    Spoiler: OOC
    Show

    Sure sounds good. I have 6 inf to offer.



    Spoiler: Chrysaorian Hegemony
    Show

    Skyfather,

    You invite conflict in one breath, then profess neutrality in the conflict poised to consume this side of the sector with another. A curious dichotomy of contradictions for something that professes divinity. Regardless, Ultrum would strike a definitive bargain, to fully ensure that you remain neutral in what is to come.

    Spoiler: OOC
    Show

    I have terms for you.
    1) System 17 is yours. I wont contest it.
    2) During my last EoT I discovered an archeotech site. It currently has 3/20 floors explored. I'm willing to trade full exploration & all contents therein to you and use of my science (3) for exploring it in exchange for use of your inf & mor.
    3) You field no messages to Logopathor while I conduct warfare against them. Fully prepared to




    Spoiler: PPS
    Show

    A deadrop USB stick-old even by Ultramite standards-is located in the Kataphoss system, adressed to PPS. The voice is cold and speaks without inflection.

    Mercenaries.

    This is acceptable to us. Our societies coffers have grown with the Gaia-class worlds that we have reclaimed. We would discuss working in concert with you for the full extent of what we are able to provide. Naturally, in surrendering Kataphoss system [25] to your designs we would expect a discount equal to the sum yield of the system's resources.

    We would make you a mighty offer towards the monotheist's destruction. For our part, we aim to wipe them out in one strike, a dual pronged assault to take both systems at once. We shall illuminate more of this in time with your increased participation.

    Spoiler: OOC
    Show

    #1: Good with PPS taking [25]. In exchange for not contesting it, I'd like the 2 Eco package.
    #2: In exchange for use of 10 econ-I would like PPS to carry out a stat attack on Logopathor. Can discuss details if/when their services are confirmed.

    Last edited by n0ble; 2021-04-14 at 06:21 PM.
    “Have no fear, you will find your way. It's in your bones. It's in your soul.”- Mark Z. Danieleweski, House of Leaves

  27. - Top - End - #87
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    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    Competition of Minds
    Mor 6
    Inf 2


    Spoiler: Domin
    Show
    Greetings Conquerers,

    Do you have a desire for the use of Mor? We can trade you 1 Mor for 1 Psi or the use of SUPREME JUDGE ANDERSON (Tier 1 Mor) for 1 Psi and the promise of exclusive trades of Pwi in the future.

    Regards,
    Zughel the Living Statue
    "Facilis Descensus Averni." - Virgil, The Aeneid

    “Why would I want to win anything other than a beautiful game?” - Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear


  28. - Top - End - #88
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    EvilClericGuy

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    Spoiler: To Channel Seldiva, Public
    Show

    When we asked for reserve food stores for our citizens, you offered a meager amount. When the Ultrumites asked for nothing, you offered them military power. How can you call yourself neutral? For the nation who little army and mediocre defense, you offered more stability. For the nation with great armies and greater defense you offered armaments unimagined. Where was your so-called blanking when you offered the lion faster legs and the gazelle only sweeter fruit, to run another day for the lion to catch?

    This is not balance, Channel, but eugenics.

    However, in respect to your venerable contributions to the galactic culture, and your purging of a much-hated rival of our peoples, we will declare a pledge not to take offensive action against your population unless first provoked by a direct challenge of sovereignty from you towards us. We only seek to take advantage of the Shade’s generosity. We will remain neutral in their wars.

    Spoiler: Total War
    Show


    As
    The Celestial Empire of Longshan

    Spoiler: Domination Victory
    Show

    Equinox League

    Red Aurora College - Fae of the Four Courts - Khalos Guild - Celestial Empire



    (Pretend there’s more spoilers here because I haven’t found the will to digitize my campaign setting yet)
    寧教我負天下人,休教天下人負我。

  29. - Top - End - #89
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    Spoiler: To Logopathor: Public.
    Show


    We offered you and the Domin both an equal exchange of resources. If you call the amount we offer meagre, it's only because of the size of your budget, not the value of our offer.

    Good luck. End of the Solar day.


  30. - Top - End - #90
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    3SecondCultist's Avatar

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    Default Re: Total War: Principia IC

    Principia Personnel Solutions
    Mor 5, Inf 4


    Spoiler: To the Ultrum Domin
    Show
    This call is being recorded for quality assurance purposes.

    "Hello again there, this is Merry from Principia Personnel Solutions calling back.

    I asked the higher ups about some of the more... unique aspects of your proposed trade deal. Unfortunately, PPS is currently not in a position to ratify any agreement that takes out an entire star system as collateral for our services. In our business, liquid assets are the preferred currency. That said, the proposed P.E.S.T. and Exclusive Non-Interference packages are still extended to your stellar empire.

    Regarding the other half of your offer, allow me to be the first to express PPS's enthusiastic interest. Your credits will go a long way to putting the Domin to the very top of our client listing - I'll tell you what, I will personally call HQ on Creon 6DE to see what I can do about having you bypass this year's waiting list. Though there are other case agents working with other parties, I'm fairly sure that none of them have promised us anything close to your projected cash flow.

    I'll reach out to the Gurus and get back to you as soon as I can.

    Thank you so much for choosing PPS, you have a splendid day."


    Spoiler: OOC
    Show
    They're going to counter your proposal with the suggestion that you pay the 2 Eco per turn for P.E.S.T. and the Exclusive Non-Interference packages, effectively giving up the [25] system in exchange for lasting income. Starting next turn, you treat your Esp as theirs, get discounts on hits, and get contractual immunity from any hits from PPS.

    The 8 Eco, however, will see you shoot pretty much right to the top of their queue. They would inform others about it... but the interested parties can already read this message, so they already know that to retain PPS's services this year, they have to beat that bid of 8 Eco on top of the subscription fees.



    Amaranthine Archive
    Mor 5, Inf 4


    Spoiler: To Channel Seldiva and Hecatian Shade
    Show
    Our original offer has changed. We are no longer looking for direct influence on the political scale, but would much rather put our trust in the hard numbers and veteran agents to combat the coming storm.

    Please let us know which of the two of you would see the Archive's knowledge and resources employed to their benefit in the year to come, and which would rather see this chance pass them by.

    Spoiler: OOC
    Show
    The Archive is no longer looking to trade for Inf or Psi. They are looking exclusively for Esp or Sci, though the whole bit of 'highest offer gets our EoT next turn' is still very much on the table.
    Last edited by 3SecondCultist; 2021-04-18 at 04:23 PM.
    Spoiler: Stuff I'm Working On
    Show
    Small Justice


    An ongoing web serial about politics, vengeance, and miniature lizards. Go check it out!

    Quote Originally Posted by Zeno Desaqqara View Post
    You divine bastard.

    "Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in the face of certain defeat."

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