- Hunt down the escapees
- Burn the bodies
- Corrupt the silver, allowing the staff wielder to control undead without being a necromancer, talismans that can "turn living" and weapons that will bind victims souls within the weapon
- Go stomp some more hamlets/small villages to rebuild our horde then go and "siege" a slightly larger one, preventing escape with the zombies and making them go mad in their dreams. Hopefully the surge of evil should coincide with the birth our wolf-progeny
Malkus and the wights hunt down those villagers who thought to escape, capturing them and dragging them back to the village. Fifteen captives are acquired this way, including several children.
Zombies and captured villagers are put to work constructing a makeshift forge. It takes a few days, but only a single traveller passes by the village, and is easily captured. Fortunately the village already had a decent smithy, with the necessary equipment to work silver, so you soon have all the facilities you need.
Corpses are hacked to pieces and piled up next to the fire. Once it is burning brightly, zombies start throwing in chunks of the rotting flesh. A foul stench fills the air as they combust, causing the captives to choke as they are forced to bring the jewellery and dump it in the glowing crucible. It does not take long for the silver to start to melt, coalescing into a large lump. In this more volatile form the presence of the silver is like a bad headache- you can feel it sapping your energy even as you stand there. But as more bodies are thrown into the fire, the silver starts to tarnish, absorbing Evil out of the air like a sponge, black streaks rippling across the surface.
Even so, you can tell it will take a lot more than that to fully corrupt the metal. So you take a dozen of the captives and hold them over the crucible, the heat searing their faces, and stick your razor sharp nails into their eyes. Their screams can be heard on the other side of the valley, scaring birds out of trees. Tears of blood run down their faces, dripping onto the metal, giving it a slight reddish tint. You break bones, pull out fingernails, and generally use every trick in the book to extract the maximum of suffering from the victims, going so far as to spend a modicum of energy to keep them alive past the point they would usually die, each injury staining the silver that little bit more, every cry of pain reducing your own suffering at being near the metal.
After several hours of non-stop torture, the silver has become nearly crimson, with black streaks running through it. As it bubbles in the heat, the sound of screaming can be faintly heard. Eventually the captives start dying, and you determine that this will have to suffice. You have Malkus bring forth his sword, already a cursed weapon, and dip it in the tainted silver. As you speak an unrepeatable string of demontongue, the blade seems to soak up the silver, forming a series of glowing runes. Malkus pulls it back out, and you pronounce one final ear-twisting word; the blade's new name. Which is, when translated into mortal language;
-[Something Evil]
The staff is shoved into the fire along with a fresh batch of corpses, and soon begins absorbing Evil. You direct energy from all over the village into the staff, all but consecrating the surrounding area, causing it to quickly blacken. You direct several zombies into the flames as well, their own undead essences quickly being incorporated into the spongelike metal. The staff is retrieved from the forge, the once noble form now twisted by the heat, the once pure metal now tainted black. Despite this, it still causes discomfort amongst you and your minions- though not as much as before. It will require more work than you can manage here to corrupt such a powerful artefact.
The remaining silver is poured into a mould, forming six medallions; a clawed hand with a socket in the centre, to be filled with an appropriate gemstone once you get round to it. Upon these you also pronounce demonic 'blessings', and imbue them with your power. Once they have cooled, you hand one to Malkus, who goes down on one knee to accept it, and gratefully puts it around his neck.
The remaining captives you also gift to Malkus, to 'keep him warm' during the cold night. These too he accepts gratefully, the women quailing beneath his lustful gaze.
With Ginkozan a burnt out husk, you travel north again, making your way from hamlet to hamlet, razing and raising. One or two villages put up something resembling a fight, but never anything that cannot be handled by your personal intervention. After a week and a half of this, you return to the south, to the village of Hoimura.
Hoimura is a reasonably large village, numbering perhaps 300 inhabitants. It sits upon a small rise in the middle of a forest in the middle of a valley, surrounded on three sides by a babbling brook. Quaint cottages decorated with wood carvings encircle a village green upon which people gather to talk jovially about the weather. Winter has brushed across the valley, giving the village a delightful dusting of white snow, in which delighted children frolic. Needless to say, it disgusts you.
Your brutewolves announce your presence with coordinated howls around the village, causing parents to usher their children indoors and gather together nervously. Then you send in a small group of zombies, who lurch up the road into the village groaning mindlessly. The terrified villagers flee before them, though a few stand and fight. The zombies tear into them, slaughtering the unprepared villagers. Before long, however, someone organises a coordinated resistance, who manage to put the undead down for good without further casualties.
The attack nevertheless shakes the spirits of the entire village, who soon send a crudely armed militia into the woods to investigate. They make their way down the road, into the forest, which seems far darker than the happy little woods that the children were playing hide and seek in the day before. They encounter two trees that have fallen down, blocking the path. They send two people back to the village to get help, then set about removing the blockade with their axes. The two are not even out of sight, however, before the brutewolves descend upon them, tearing into the terrified militia, who don't even manage to raise their weapons before the wolves have knocked them down and torn out their throats. The 'lucky' pair witness the attack, and run screaming back into the village, yelling incoherently about giant wolves.
The villagers soon get together and decide to fortify the village, using old furniture and nearby trees to form barricades around the perimeter. Not a moment too soon, as another horde of zombies emerges from the woods, slamming their fists uselessly into the makeshift defences. The villagers drive them off with hunting bows, but not before four are dragged down from the barricades and off into the woods, their cries for help falling on helpless ears.
With a watch rota organised, the village reluctantly goes to sleep, only to fall into nightmares the likes of which they have never before seen. With incredible fidelity they see themselves torn apart by wolves and zombies, their eyes plucked out and eaten by skeletons wearing tattered armour, who turn to look at them- them the dreamer, not the lifelike corpse lying on the dream-ground- and laugh mockingly. Many a villager awakens with a start, madness in their eyes. Indeed, some go completely mad, ignoring friends and family and running out of the village, into the woods- the echoes of their horrified screams the cherry on top of the terror sundae that is this cursed night.
The next day, a man hobbles out of the woods, leaning heavily upon a staff as wrinkled and old as he is. An emaciated hand emerges from under his cloak, beckoning the villagers to come listen to his words. He tells them that Doom has befallen them, that they have fallen beneath the malevolent gaze of Nokluvgn, and that none of them will survive unless they submit to his will and join his forces.
The villagers do not take kindly to this news, and decide to
shoot burn the messenger on a pyre. The old man does not resist as they tie him to a stake in the village green, nor does he react as they light the bundles of sticks beneath his feet. Even as the flames run up his body, he remains distressingly still, until the villagers start throwing things at him in an effort to make him do something. Yet all he does is laugh softly as the fire consumes him. Then the remains of his cloak fall away, and he stretches his wings. The villagers stand paralysed, utterly confused, before the man breaks through his bonds like they were made of paper and lunges into the crowd, the fire still licking up and down his body.
He opens his mouth impossibly far and bites the head off one man before he can blink, snatches up a pair of children and squeezes them till they pop, then grabs a man and a woman and flies off, chewing loudly on his captives as he goes.
The villagers scatter, returning to their homes (with the exception of the children's parents, who tear out their hair over the little mutilated corpses). Over the course of the next few hours, sixteen villagers sneak out into the woods, where they call out your name and beg for their lives. You swear them into service, then have them take up arms and storm the village at the head of a horde of zombies.
The villagers manage to hold off the newly converted and their undead backup for a while, but you whisper the price of failure in your follower's ears and they redouble their efforts to slay their former neighbours. The villagers stand no chance against the fanatical onslaught, and the barricades are overrun and torn down, zombies spilling into the village. At your command your followers grab fleeing villagers and drag them back to the forest, where the taste of betrayal wets your appetite for their flesh.
Night falls, and moonlight lights up the village with an eerie glow. In the forest, the brutewolf who is to be the mother of your children is panting heavily, clearly on the cusp of giving birth. She snarls and snaps at any who approach her, and you decree that your child shall be born in an environment of death and suffering, ordering all your forces to attack the village.
Zombies crash against the barricades like the tides against the shore. Skeletons clamber over the top of their more fleshy brethren to attack the villagers trying to drive them off, whilst your mortal servants dismantle the defences, allowing the wights knights to charge into the village, followed by Malkus, who directs the forces towards maximum destruction. You fly in yourself, swooping down and dragging defenders into the sky, where you disembowel and eat them, letting their remains rain down upon their friends.
More than two thirds of the surviving villagers fall in the initial assault, and the remainder are scattered and terrified, utterly incapable of offering any sort of meaningful resistance. The mother enters the village, ravenously consuming the flesh of the fallen, sucking up smoke from the burning houses, absorbing wave upon wave of Evil. She howls in pain as the demonic forms within her stir, movement clearly visible beneath her fur. As the remaining villagers are taken captive, you approach the brutewolf to witness the birth.
Smoke pours from within her, clouding the area. She huffs and puffs, and with some difficulty squeezes out an indistinct form. But she is not done; more smoke and more puffing heralds the birth of a second child, soon followed by a third. Once the third is born, all three start to whine at the same time, perfectly in sync. The mother turns round and licks them clean, revealing three wolves with small wings and stubbly horns, with blades along their tails. All three are female, and all three seem to act as one, as they crawl synchronously towards their mother's teats and start to suckle in the exact same rhythm.
They are, by your estimation, as close to 50/50 wolf/demon as makes no difference. Their gestation was shorter than ordinary, and no doubt their growth will be faster still than that of an ordinary brutewolf (which is itself accelerated compared to an ordinary wolf)- you estimate they will reach adult size within a month or two. On closer inspection, their fur is not just grey, but smokelike, although it is perfectly solid. From the way that other smoke coils around them you can tell they have an affinity for it, and the way the eyes of the zombies follow them suggests that the undead too have a natural connection with them.
Curiously, though there are three bodies, you detect only a single soul- which explains the synchronicity. Perhaps you should refer to them as she, for in a way they are just the one being. Either way, further observations will have to wait until she/they grow(s) older.
Now then. You have about 40 captives, a village full of evil, and 1-3 new daughter(s). Obviously your next course of action is to
-Eat the captives, absorb the Evil.
-Enslave the captives, use the Evil to raise the dead.
-Do something completely different.
Congratulations, it's a girl(s).
In related news, back in Fozdoch, four new brutewolves were born in the brutewolf clearing.
Also your cults did some stuff. Also also, winter has come. Early snows in part of Fozdoch this year, might be a long winter.
(This update lasted two weeks)
Name: Nokluvgn
Age: 9.5 months
Physical might: 62 (+3 p/w: province-wide suffering)(-6: Imbuing cursed medallions)(+12: OMNOMNOM)(-2: Leakage)
Mental might: 69 (+3 p/w: province-wide suffering)(-1: Silver damage)(-6: Imbuing cursed medallions)(+10: Terror)(+6: Worship)(-3: Leakage)
Followers:303 (16 followers, 167 cultists, 7 magically trained cultists, 4 Nails, 46 Nails (armed), 1 Finger (heavily armed), 40 mercenaries (armed), 3 Lesser Wordbearers, 4 Wordbearers, 2 trained Wordbearers (armed), 7 knights (heavily armed), 7 mining engineers, 1 Mayor (lesser Wordbearer), 1 Duke)
Slaves: 18 (4 priests, 1 high priest, 7 guards (armed), 6 captives)
Servants: 277 (12 Brutewolves, 3 Smokewraiths, 15 spectres, 4 giant-rat-packs, 10 black imps, 4 ultraviolet imps, 40 skeletons, 4 Hollow Remnants, 3 fungal druids, 210 zombies, 3 Klrntvs, 8 Wights)
Cults:
The New Way: Medium organization. 235 members (115 cultists, 7 magically trained cultists, 4 Nails, 46 Nails (armed), 1 Finger (heavily armed), 40 mercenaries (armed), 3 Lesser Wordbearers, 4 Wordbearers, 2 trained Wordbearers (armed), 5 knights (heavily armed), 7 mining engineers, 1 Mayor (lesser Wordbearer), 1 Duke)
Slaves: 18 (4 priests, 1 high priest, 7 guards (armed), 6 captives)
Power level: 24 (15 used)
Of which: 3 spent recruiting, 3 spent worshipping, 3 spent converting engineers at the mine, 3 spent arming Nails, 3 spent training new acolytes (9/12)
Secrecy estimate: (somewhat risky)
Resources: 1102 (+40 p/week: Duke's income)(+6: Copper mines)(-12: arming cultists)
Locations: Nuulyd: Merchant & town council & jail connections. Mayor converted.
Castle Brylib: Court connections+.
Oegorda: Nokluvgn may have been detected here. No wizards to be found.
Fözdoch Province (misc): No special features.
Other: More of the mining engineers are tempted into hedonism and worshipping you. The rest have unfortunate accidents. More are recruited in Nuulyd, and arming and training continues.
The Arms of He Who Beckons: Medium Organisation. 52 members (52 cultists)
Power level: 7 (4 used)
Of which: 3 spent on extra training to stand out, 1 spent recruiting.
Resources: 0
Locations: Army camp near the capital. Divided amongst several units of trainees.
Other: The training officers do not seem impressed by the cultists extra work, so far. They continue training, certain that they will stand out eventually. Meanwhile, two fellow recruits are tempted into joining.
Champions:
Mischa Alwiz: The Duke's 'loyal' companion, now corrupted by the allure of evil.
Physical Might: 2 (+1: the Vessel)
Mental Might: 12 (+5: the Vessel)
Knowledge: Magic, adequate Necromancy.
Possessions: Grey imp (knowledge of human & demonic magic, disguised as a crow), the Vessel (An urn containing 100 souls and a chunk of Nokluvgn's essence; +1 physical and +5 mental, enhances spell-casting stamina. Large and unwieldy, requires knowledge of Necromancy to use)
Other: Still training 6 cultists and 2 Wordbearers in magic.
Malkus Rom: The captain of the mercenaries in the Duke's employ, he proved an especially eager convert, requiring only the most minor of rewards before pledging his loyalty to you.
Physical Might: 11 (+2: Devil-horse, +2: Unnamed Sword)
Mental Might: 3 (+1: Burnt Silver Medallion)
Knowledge: Competent Tactics.
Possessions: Devil-horse (A huge black horse with demonic strength and intellect; +2 physical strength, greatly increased mobility), Unnamed Sword (+2 Physical, captures souls of its victims (increases Mental)), Burnt Silver Medallion (+1 Mental, attracts Evil and repels Good)
Other: Really enjoys the company of his new concubines. Expresses to them the magnificence of Nokluvgn. They seem unimpressed by the words of a rapist.
"Kate": A female Wordbearer, trained in combat and magic and provided with arms and armour, now the vessel for your demonic offspring.
Physical Might: 6
Mental Might: 5
Knowledge: Adequate Mesmerism, basic Magic.
Other: 3/8(?) months pregnant. The extent of her pregnancy at this point suggests that it too may not be so long as normal, though neither will it be considerably shorter.
Demon-Brutewolf offspring: Triplets. They have wings, bladed tails, and horns. Her fur ripples like smoke, yet is solid. They only has one soul.
Physical Might: 0 (baby)
Mental Might: 0 (baby)
Other: 0 months old. Likes the taste of blood, mother's milk.
Fortresses:
Fellshore: Was a small fishing village nestled between a small lake and a forest (with mountains not so far in the distance), it has now been razed. It is undermined with many tunnels and chambers forming a twisted maze, lit with smoky torches, where the shadows form strange shapes in the corner of your eyes.
Smallish labyrinth (10, increases secrecy)(being upgraded to Medium Labyrinth 76/200)
Hidden altar: A suitable place to sacrifice to you and praise your dark name.
Copper Mine: A recently reopened mine. The engineers recruited by the Duke have been converted or killed (7/7 converted), Black Imps will now be brought in to oversee work in the mines.
Copper Veins: Generates income (5 resources p/w) if fully staffed (requires 100 workers and 10 overseers)(currently at 90 workers and 7 overseers, generating 3 r p/w)
Author
Topic: Demonhood 2 -Number of giant minions lost: between 0 and 3- (Read 143409 times)