2023/11/22: The Formian War Part 1 Report
General Summary
Knight, Ba'alzamon, Kit, Terana, Sunderfury
With this session, we step back in time to play out the anticipated war between New Hallownest and the yellow formians. King Knight has been frantically calling up allies and making preparations to strike before the formian assault army is ready, and while strong combatants have been gathered, more numbers are still required. New Hallownest has the funds, so it's just a matter of finding the troops.
Knight checked in with Eldrin. Apparently Inkanzor the Archlich thinks Eldrin is the most adorable thing he's ever seen and essentially wants to adopt him. Eldrin is less than enthusiastic. Eldrin may be able to be released from his work for a bit to help with the war, but he and Knight agreed to save that for an emergency.
One unfamiliar solo mercenary showed up. William Kit is a cat-man mercenary. He has previous connections to Taven and Sith to some extent, mostly because both were candidates for "Cat-Lord".
Terana was available to show up. She brought Baby, Cole, and Azyn. Azyn is now a serpent of legend (and also a 1-headed hydra) rather than a giant constrictor snake. Terana is taking a break from dealing with the absurdly pacifist elves.
Ba'alzamon called in a favor and was joined by the Witch of Wrath, who is also sort of one of his familiars. He also unfroze 50 of his super-trolls and brought them along. He has prepped 100,000 regular goblins and 20,000 hobgoblins. He has opened a gateway between Guaradon and New Hallownest so those troops can reinforce at need.
Kit once again failed to lose the besotted catgirls Plum and Emerald, so they came along as well. He's also bringing his animal followers: A sand snake named No Name, a flying snake wyvern named Mixer. Mixer is the size of a standard wyvern, but is just much more snakey in appearance. About 60 feet long.
Everyone came together for a planning session. While they were starting, a young-looking lady walked in. She had a mohawk of fiery red hair with glowing tips. Her eyes were similarly glowing and were also producing inch-long streams of fire. Semi-scandalous clothes, as if a fire dragon goth were going out on the town. Ridiculously long nails. Her name is Syrrecia. Her dad sent her to do community service, and New Hallownest is a community that needs some service. (Her dad is Veragna of the Fire Pool Alliance.)
Terana handed out comms devices to the strike teams so they could keep in touch with each other and New Hallownest.
The flyers only drew one adventuring party, but it was a good one. It was an Alvidarian party sponsored by the Order of the Silver Chalice.
For this fight, New Hallownest was coordinating with Derkusk's Tribe and Druin Kraz.
Due to time constraints, the party went to Argerus to hire mercenaries. Their first sight was a parade of flashy, competent troops with silver spears. Terana brought the party to a temple of an elven war goddess that she knew of, and the priests there were able to give the group some recommendations.
Xuldracki Order. Relatively strict mercenary brotherhood. Troops in the millions. Looking for work. Oddly religious, but trustworthy.
Crimson Eye Mercenaries. Dark elves, humans, orcs, goblinoids. They've been trustworthy so far, but you want to keep an eye on them.
The priests said their own troops would be available in a month or two if New Hallownest needs to run the mercenaries off later.
The Crimson Eye Mercenaries have ramshackle buildings set up on Argerus. Barracks? Unarmed fighting and sounds of betting inside. 2.5 million for roughly 750,000 troops, if we go for the "main battalion". They also have 30-40 "heroes" who are adventurer types and can be hired separately. Prices for them start at about 15k and go up to about 50k. These guys seem very competent overall. Questionable reliability, though.
Xuldracki Order. 6-story fortress. Ominous. Dark cloaks and swords. Aligned with or have the fashion sense of Nazghul. The actual troops are people in dark armor, with tabards with the symbol of a stylized hook. Magical darkness. Seem very professional, if very ominous. May have wizards? Have a collection of skulls of enemy commanders they've defeated. 2 million for the campaign assuming it's successful within a week. More if we want any part of the loot. Prefer to be hired for a full campaign and handle it completely on their own. Don't want clients in the area of operations. Don't want local deities being involved or invoked. Seem effective, but very evil. Extreme collateral damage in area of operations.
The party agreed that the Order was probably a very bad choice. The fact that Knight was almost attacked by their representative when Knight told him their services were not required only reinforced that impression.
On the way back to the orcs, the party happened across a dejected old warrior, his manservant, and their warhorse and donkey, respectively. The warrior resembled a well-armed and very scarred Don Quixote. Old warrior of clearly long experience. When the party asked what was wrong, he said he was apparently "no mercenary", as he broke his last contract due to moral objections.
After further conversation, the party learned that the man was King Edward Celris of Kalgrid. He and his people are from the world of Egain. There is almost no magic in his world. He and his people only recently found out elves and dwarves exist there. One of his people found an invisible portal on his world that leads to Argerus, which is how he got there despite his world's minimal magic. His country needs food, and he has an army, so he thought that mercenary work might be a way to get the funds to buy the food. Apparently the country is suffering from a famine that may or may not be curse-related.
The party offered both work and aid. While Knight did not have the funds to pay the full 50 million the king was looking to earn, he offered to hire the king's army for 25 million per month, which should be doable if the next month's mithril income remained constant. The party also offered direct aid in dealing with the food shortage, though of course they didn't expect him to work just for the promise of help. Evidently, while the king's army was not overly familiar with magic, they were highly skilled and disciplined, and capable of facing whatever the more magical worlds could conjure up.
Before finalizing a contract involving such a huge amount of money, Terana summoned Saheeb (and happened to get his sister as well, as they were having a family discussion at the time) to verify the old man's story. The man was telling the whole truth, and evidently isn't much on lying in general. According to Terana, while the king is a nonmagical warrior, he's got a special spark in him and is essentially halfway to paladin. Perhaps, after longer exposure to magic, he'll start to manifest the corresponding abilities.
With that so easily handled, Saheeb then scried to get the details on what was causing the food problem in the kingdom. Determining the details was easy, thanks to the lack of magical defenses: it turned out there was a doomsday cult. Saheeb handed the king a scroll with the details of who was involved and where they were. With that, the cause of the problem should be easy to solve.
Naturally, King Edward was very grateful. He considered himself indebted to the party. He offered for the party to come with him as he went to give orders to his troops. They of course accepted. Upon arrival, they found that the world made Knight and all the party's magical gear feel drained, though not harmfully so. They also found that apparently one day on Argerus is about an hour in Egain.
To counteract the time differential, of the king's knights, a man named Sigurd, took Terana to the staging area in the enormous city about 12 miles away using superspeed horseshoes he had found. She got a flagstone for Ba'alzamon to use as a focus for the portal and headed back, and then the party teleported the stone to Ba'alzamon to start the portal while the rest of the group went back to talk to the orcs.
The portal Ba'alzamon made, boosted by a special staff of his, seems to be permanent. It's inside New Hallownest and leading straight to the city in Edward's kingdom. Magic is pouring through from the New Hallownest leyline nexus. It's... probably fine.
Knight didn't hire mass troops from the orcs, but did hire two parties of five highest-tier heroes from them, including the spear-wielding orc who had impressed Terana earlier. His name's Longfang. He's about a match for Terana and is scarier than most of the Leithien adventurers the group procured.
With sufficient numbers and hopefully sufficient elite agents, our heroes returned to New Hallownest to make final preparations for the assault.
Rewards Granted
2 xp
Character(s) interacted with
Inkanzor the Archlich, Baby, Cole, Azyn, the Witch of Wrath, Plum, Emerald, No Name, Mixer, Syrrecia, priest of an elven war goddess, representatives of the Xuldracki Order and the Crimson Eye Mercenaries, King Edward Celris, Saheeb, Tahitha, Longfang, Sir Sigurd
Created Content
Notes
Thanks to a zone of truth, King Edward and the party found out the king is a master of the piccolo.
Derkusk (plus orcish army of unknown size)
Lightning Tuskers (Crimson Eye hero group #1)
Order of the Bloody Brand (Crimson Eye hero group #2)
Silver Chalice Knight order sponsored group (Alvidarian group)
Erevan's Folly (Leithien group #1)
Halcyon (Leithien group #2)
Company of the Emerald Flame (Leithien group #3)
Bramble Flame Bandits (Leithien group #4)
Leithien Spec forces/3rd house unit (Leithien group #5)
Leithatorian spec forces with Drago (Leithien group #6)
Rebel Crown group (Leithien group #7)
Local heroes of New Hallownest (The Hollow Knight, Rodger, Zem, Et-Kehri, Ngel Sfet, Avalon, Zolsikar, Scyka)
Inter-session notes:
Adventuring groups coordinated to strike at the yellow Formian caverns (awaiting target assignments):
Report Date
23 Nov 2023
Primary Location
Secondary Location
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