I want to keep the planet unnamed, but I need to refer to it by some name. In my language our planet is called Earth, and that’s just a fancy name for “dirt” so I’m referring to the planet in this game as Dirt. Anyway…
In an attempt to demonstrate a few game design choices without revealing too much, I want to talk about the lore and mechanics of one of the Inland Desert Cities. The Inland Desert has three cities and (at present) three unclaimed territories, and was originally meant to be this world’s version of Mordor, or the Warp, or whatever generic chaotic evil realm comes to mind. But, I’m both bored and disappointed with that, because that’s too easy and runs contrary to the theme of the game. With that, I will resume writing here once I have figured out one of the three: Orcs; Undead; Infernal.
It’s the next day. Let’s go.
For a period of time between roughly 1,400 and 900 years ago a now-lost planar rift opened in the middle of the continent, and for half of a millennia nomadic peoples from the three impacted planes drove their herds in and out of the rift, between three nearly-identical Dirts, with the small differences that one of the alternate Dirts was inhabited by magical creatures who defy the known conventions of biology and physics, and the other alternate Dirt was an eternal hellscape filled with big monsters and magic people. When the rift closed, large populations of Fae and Infernal - both of which are exonyms - found themselves stranded on Dirt.
Though the Infernal found the tribes of the River Valley Region polite hosts and eager friends, the unbearable humidity of Dirt drove them to the Inland Desert, where they’ve lived since. Time, as it is wont to do, went on.
Stories became facts, facts became bigger stories, bigger stories became myths, myths became beliefs, and beliefs developed practices and became religions; more than a few of those religions featured a magical land as reward and a fiery hellscape as punishment. An inconveniently-timed famine needed a tangible scapegoat at which to direct the combined discontent, and the Infernal were the group targeted. Two early cities united their forces and welcomed tens as many from other regions to form The Grand Army, and a holy crusade that unified a variety of different religions around the extermination of a people began. The Infernal, being unfamiliar with the concept of a military - or even violence as a means - decided to contact former trade contacts who were in fact familiar with those concepts: the Orcs (aka the Coalition of Orcs, Goblins, and Trolls). The only survivors of The Grand Army were deserters and those who stayed to tend the Undead Lands. Rich from their plunder and lacking a home, the Orcs settled down in a vast jungle crater in the middle of the desert.
The Infernal, who to this point were still living in small villages based around groups of families, each of which sent a representative to council, chose to unify and build an impregnable fortress whose current name is Hellscape Temple, inside of which they built Sanctum, their City. Both because of their ways and because of their recent past, the Infernal society is a multiethnic, multicultural society, as they take in nearly anyone who seeks sanctuary, a home, or even a brief stop in Sanctum. As a result Sanctum is the most technologically-advanced civilization native to Dirt*, but that doesn’t count for much as this is a rough facsimile of the bronze age with the anachronism dials finely-controlled to excess in some areas.
Wealthy through trading their goods and powerful through diplomacy, the people of Sanctum have never needed to fight. Regardless, many who live within Sanctum formerly served in the armies of other Cities, and the Infernal Temple houses a small city’s population of soldiers and their families, and the goods, merchants, and services to support them. Some look at the fact that half of Sanctum’s population is Infernal and the rest is a mix of people from all over the continent and see demonic entrapment by the publicly-establish Infernal wizards creating a hierarchy of battle thralls to mass forces and create a Grand Army of Sanctum, ready to take over every City on the continent. Others, correctly, point out that Infernal society is made up almost entirely of genuinely nice people, and that Sanctum is a very nice and welcoming place. But still, those wizards… Isn’t if funny that…
None of that is going to be in the game. But, that is what I use to write the numbers and little blurbs and abilities that are in the game. For example, let’s take the Infernal’s military Units. As established as part of their story, Infernal don’t really fight. They have artisans and smiths and philosophers and poets, and some have magic. But, the garrison of the Infernal Temple is where the soldiers come from, I guess, and that must be staffed entirely by people from other cities. Following and playing with that logic informed the three types of Infernal Units. Yes, I am going to capitalize game terms every time (or, more accurately, every time I remember to or feel like it). Every City has three units, each of which costs a different amount of Resources to buy: a cheapest, most common unit; a more dangerous and more expensive unit that’s still cheap enough to have a lot of; the one that’s so expensive that you only use one, possibly two per battle. What follows is the first draft of the in-game lore blurb for each unit, its stat block (with the cost omitted), and a brief explanation of how the lore and mechanics intersect. After that, I’ll have a breakdown of what the stat blocks mean in general.
The Tinkerer is the core of the Infernal army. The Tinkerer doesn’t actually fight; they construct the Constructed, strange enchanted objects that can fanatically follow a few basic orders. Because the Infernal of Sanctum don’t fight, they rely on outsiders living in the Hellscape Temple to protect them while they assemble the Constructed, and inevitably they also need the citizens of the Hellscape Temple to teach the Constructed. If confronted in battle, a Tinkerer will usually try to Stun their attacker and flee rather than fight.
The Tinkerer is the summoner, and is the most expensive unit in a city where the units are weighted a little pricer. Like all Infernal units the Tinkerer is immune to fire. The Tinkerer has no attack, but can construct a Constructed up to 2 blocks away. The Constructed are summons that don’t get their own turn; they have to be given a turn by a Unit using an action with the Enable tag. The Tinkerer has a reaction melee attack; once per round, when an enemy unit moves into one of the eight squares around them, the Tinkerer can stun the enemy unit and move up to 4 blocks. If played well, every round the Tinkerer adds one more unit to your army; this is why they are the most expensive unit. Tinkerers cannot cure themselves, but they can Repair their Constructed and any Units with Broken. The Constructed are also units with their own stats, but I’ll post those at another time.
Fire Priests are scholars from the Hellscape Temple whose studies in the religion and magic of the Infernal consumed them. They are one with the Flame of Death; they are one with the Flame of Life. Fire Priests call upon the Loving Flame to purify those who would harm them. The Fire Priests inspire the Constructed to fight those who would harm the Infernal.
The Fire Priest’s main role is to grant turns to Constructed, which they do by using their melee attack. Fire Priests deal low damage, but they catch enemies on fire, which deals damage every turn. The Loving Flame ranged attack has the Line tag, which means that the attack hits 4 consecutive squares in a line, starting anywhere within the reach of the attack. If enemies are grouped, that is a very strong attack, which is why the melee attack is the one with Enable. Fire Priests can cast Cure, meaning that they can heal themselves or one ally they can touch 1 HP per turn.
The City Guard are highly-armored soldiers who live in the fortress of Hellscape Temple. Descendants of the Repenters of the Crusade, the families of the City Guard have lived in Hellscape Temple and protected Sanctum for generations. As descendants of the Crusaders who dare to take arms, the City Guard are doomed to the Undead Lands after death; in the meantime they wear armor and work out a lot. In combat the City Guard use a large shield as their primary weapon, charging, bashing, and then grappling with their opponents. To taunt enemies at range they fire handfuls of small stones in large slings, but the slings have a secondary purpose: the brightly-colored slings are used to signal the Constructed to attack.
City Guard are the tanks. These Units have a Curse; every city has one unit type that has a Curse or Quirk. The City Guard’s Curse is that every City Guard unit that dies joins the Undead Lands army at the start of the next Development Phase. The City Guard’s charge attack can give them double their movement, as long as they’re headed toward an enemy, and that attack also immobilizes the targeted unit for one turn. The Guard’s ranged attack has the same Damage 1 and Line 4 tag as the Fire Priest’s Loving Flame, but it’s not as immediately dangerous as it doesn’t inflict Flame. But, it has the Enable tag, which grants an immediate turn to a Constructed of the player’s choice. Like the Fire Priest, the City Guard has a choice of a weak attack with a useful effect or a weak attack that gives a Constructed a turn. City Guard have armor that absorbs the 1 damage from every attack, but they lack the ability to Cure or Repair.
A summary of the Infernals in combat: they increase their numbers each turn, they have higher than average HP, they’re expensive, they catch everything on fire, and when their tanks die they go to another army.
Since I didn’t explain the numbers and tags… Combat phase is played on a grid, and the numbers associated with Melee and Ranged Reach as well as Movement relate to the squares on a grid. Every square you move is 1, and diagonals are 2, being 1 over and 1 up. That’s why all Reaches in the game that aren’t Touch are all even numbers. Touch means the action targets one of the eight squares around a Unit.
Tags are used to describe the effects of an attack action, or the attributes of a Unit. The tags used in these three units are:
*This excludes the Fae, and depending on the player’s dice roll, possibly the Valley of Time and the Stellar Spire. Those two Cities are broken because they don’t break game mechanics, they break game lore.
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