Lohwand: Come Together

The Beetles - Abbey Road

Things are starting to come together with my Lohwand campaign. I'm advancing on a wide front, what with tinkering with rules (see my Armatura posts), and pondering map scale, to doing research on the Roman World. All aspects of the Roman World. Lots of reading: books, lots of books, magazines and PHD papers from Academia.org not to mention the online sources: blogs, re-enactment sites, and the like. I'm going to have to set up an "Appendix N" page to highlight the sources.

As stated before, the Tharkallan Empire is my Rome. I even called them the "baddies". Sort of an evil empire, with the goal of World Conquest. That was probably a bit harsh. Lohwand certainly has other "Baddies" and to say that the Tharkallan Empire will turn out to be the worst of the lot is a bit pre-mature. It might not end up that way at all as the campaign plays out, for it is my intention for it to play out as it will, with only as minimal direction from myself as necessary.

Comparing Tharkalla to Rome, I see I've already got things backwards, giving them Britian (i.e. Granbretton, in my campaign) before they have Greece or Egypt or Spain. (The Lormyrian League region, Stygia and the region bordering Shem on my Lohwand maps.)

Lohwand

That is fine. It's a fantasy campaign after all, not a historical one. I'm afraid they aren't going to get to Aegyptus/Stygia for a little while yet as there is an internal revolt they have to suppress first, in the provinces of Voria and Bisset.

This is not my idea completely, but rather comes 1) from the Everway card results for those provinces and 2) the arrival of the comet, which I posted about earlier. The comet has quite innocently provided an interpretation of the Everway cards that might just fit!

More later...

Later...

The Heartland Provinces

The Western Heartland

Some more mapping, this time trying to detail a bit more the Heartland Provinces of the Tharkallan Empire. Borrowing names from popular works liberally here: Michael Moorcock's "Elric", Greg Stafford's Lunar empire (Glorantha), R.E. Howard's Conan stories, Tolkien, ERB's Barsoom.

The Tharkallan Heartland Provinces I listed previously: Jharkor, Dharijor, Dharjiin and Doblian. The Western Heartland consists of Kostaddi and Karasal, recognized only after they were conquered and incorporated into the Empire. The Heartland Legions are raised in these six provinces.

The other Tharkallan provinces, like Nemedia, Voria, and Bisset, do not have the same status; the legions raised there are the equivalent of Ancient Roman Auxiliary legions. They do not serve in the province they were raised, but are posted elsewhere in the Empire. 

Map Scale

I've decided two things, or at least am pretty sure about two things: 

1) I'm going to use kilometers as the unit of measure. I had toyed with using tsan (from Tekumel) but decided it was too much monkeying about and would needlessly complicate things. (A tsan is 1.333 km);

2) I think I've settled on how "big" Lohwand is, making 50 km roughly the width of the capital 'O' (Font: Book Antigua).

I've been playing around with making scale rules to show on the maps. I just have to come up with a way to ensure they remain consistent at the various zoom levels as I highlight one region or another. I think the key is to insert the scale into the region before I zoom in to do a screen-cap, move it about to a suitable spot where it isn't too much in the way, and then do the "print screen" to put the image on the clipboard. I didn't do that for the second map shown above. I just sort of fudged the scale "by eye".

Lohwand: Tharkallan Imaginifers of the Heartland Legions

 

Roman Imaginifer

Each of the Tharkallan Heartland Legions has an Imaginifer who stands with the Legate's command party overseeing the legion's part in the battle. The standard is topped with a golden image of the Emperor and is an embodiment of his authority and power; it is a symbol of the Empire's reach and indicates that the legion bearing it acts according to the Emperor's commands. But, in Lohwand at least, it is more than just a symbol.

Imaginifer Magic

The Imaginifer standard can act as a conduit for a Far-Seeing spell cast within the Imperial Palace. The standard bearer provides the power to allow the standard to function in this manner. As such the bearers must be specially chosen and trained. 

When activated a connection is facilitated between the Emperor's Far-Seeing device, either a Palantir or a Scrying Bowl, and the Imaginifer. Range is not generally a factor; at least it has not been to date, though stormy weather at either end can disrupt the spell. When used in this manner the Imaginifer image acts as a sort of viewport, allowing the Emperor to see what could be seen from the vantage point of the standard, just as if he were standing there himself. The Emperor can only see in the direction the standard is facing but the spell allows commands to be transmitted to the bearer who then shifts the banner as appropriately. 

The Emperor does not cast the spell himself, of course, but has a High Seer from the College of Magic enact the spell. The standard "sees" with excellent eyesight, which can be further enhanced to many times magnification by the High Seer. 

It is possible for the Emperor to issue missives or commands to the legion through the voice of the standard bearer though this adds an additional drain on his stamina and so must be used sparingly.

Lohwand: Armatura v4.0

  

Some slight changes and additions...

Lohwand: Armatura v3.0

Armatura v. 3.0 (Front)

Following on from my earlier post I have again revised the front of the Armatura cheat sheet to reflect the new ideas. Also, I realized I had the nomenclature all wrong for the cards, calling the "court" cards "suit" cards. Apologies if that caused some scratching of heads! 

The main changes are that now, within the colour block that a player uses for activations - i.e. red or black, one suit is considered "higher" than the other. So Hearts and Spades are "high", Diamonds and Clubs are not.

Having made the changes, I now see yet another: under "Initiative" I say that Aces are considered "high" for that purpose. It should read that they can be "high" i.e. 14 or "low" i.e. 1 as the player wishes. Also, "high" suits can be used to break ties. That is, a 7 of Hearts (high) would beat a 7 of clubs (low).

I've also tried to cover the end of Game a little better. I'm thinking about it from a campaign perspective, rather than the "Sunday afternoon" sort of game. So if a side is reduced to the point where it fails the Army Morale roll and has lost, then there may be pursuit or there may not.

If there isn't then it is essentially like a typical game where it just "ends"  with no more fighting. The losing side is assumed to withdraw from the field as they can with no more game-play.

If, however, there is pursuit, then the losing sides units have to attempt to withdraw from the field. The units all now have Fear as a modifier, though the better units may not be too affected still. Some units that were already fearful (i.e. militias) now become terrified as well, so that should mean they collapse in short order.

Lohwand: Aces Wild!

While re-editing my Armatura cheat sheets I am recognizing nuances I hadn't noticed before.

I am already using the D10 to represent eleven values, with the '0' representing a '10' or a '0' depending on circumstances. The "Counting Zeroes" concept.

Yesterday I realized that the Ace in a deck of cards is essentially the same, with the ability to be either the highest card or the lowest. So how can I incorporate that feature? I have some ideas.

Then, today, I recalled how a friend had good and bad events in a deck based on the two red or black suits - hearts good/diamonds bad - or whatever. So now I am thinking there is room for further variations to be added to the card activation.

Example:

One side is activating on red, the other black. If Hearts are better than Diamonds, and Spades better than Clubs what is the effect? One effect could be that if a unit is activated with a Heart or Spade it gains a +1 to the Combat Result* if it is also "Counting Zeroes". 

*There will be a Combat Result table that determines how a melee is progressing.

Another option is to allow a unit that is no longer Counting Zeroes to count them for that activation - i.e. +10% to the die rolls.

A third option is to have Exceptional Leaders, as in Fire and Fury, and provide a bonus if the Exceptional Leader is present when the card is played.

Getting back to the Aces, they could function similar, but could also be linked to the "Counting Zeroes" concept. That is, if a unit is Counting Zeroes the Ace is high card; if not, then it is low card. If high card, they might have a special Command Action similar to those I already described. If low card, the suit of the Ace might still come into play as given in the examples above.

Incorporating these ideas means re-vamping my cheat sheet! I'll have to find room somewhere as they probably should go on the front page of the sheet.  *sigh*

Lohwand: Armatura v2.0

Front

I realized pretty quick that I'd left a lot of stuff out of version 1.0 - not that it would fit on a LTR sized cheat sheet anyhow. So first thing I did was resize my sheet to tabloid, 11" x 17".

Then I set about adding in the stuff I'd left out because of space or just plumb forgotten to include. The new front of the sheet is shown above. I'm still working on the back, but already I've made a few tiny edits to the front so I expect there'll be a version 3 soon enough. :-)

One thing I noticed was a player, most likely me, could pick up a card but then pass, and as long as his opponent, also most likely me, didn't also pass, he could keep accumulating quite a hand of cards. Which sounds likely a shifty, Scipio Africanus sort of thing to do, so I've changed it so it you want to pass you have to discard a card. It still lets you get rid of the chaff but at least your hand doesn't get any bigger. 

I think there are a couple of other edits as well, but here is v2.0 before the edits.

Lohwand: Armatura v1.0

Armatura (Front)

Armatura (Back)

Here is the cheat sheet for the rules I am intending to use for my Lohwand campaign. It isn't a complete set of rules but I've tried to fit on all the essentials.

It still needs a little cleaning up, as I just took the sheet for A Band of Joyous Heroes and modified it. As I intend to use this for my large scale Lohwand campaign I have modified the move stick slightly. The older (lesser) distances still show - please ignore.

Figure scale: 54 to 60mm

Figure ratio: approx. 1:24  (This is based upon my prototype cohort organization.)

Movement and Ranges use a range stick based upon a common bamboo chopstick - see cheat sheet for illustration.

Unit Traits:

Virtis - a unit's fighting ability. Roll equal or under on a D10 to score a "hit".

Disciplina - a unit's discipline. Used for morale checks, and also determine the complexity of maneuvers permitted.

Labor - a unit's ability to perform engineering tasks: build roads and bridges, siege works, mining/counter-mining, and similar.

Zeroes: Recognizing that a D10 is typically numbered 0-9, and that this actually allows for eleven possible options. The concept of "Counting Zeroes" is explained in brief on the cheat sheet. It essentially amounts to a 10% bonus to units that can count it.

Armatura: found in the melee section, this is an ability possessed by certain units (i.e. veteran Roman legionaries) that reflects their combat training and skill, giving them a bonus. A Knight of St. John, or Spartan Hoplite might also have the trait.