The Imperial Purple Campaign 2024 January-May.

Back in January, while driving away from New York City I got into a phone-call with two friends and presented them with a vision for a wargaming campaign set in an alternate A.D. 69 where five contenders go for the Roman Throne, destroying their rivals and seizing the Purple.  

They were both excited and we made a list of unique relics and artifacts and the hype was real. 

An example of some of the funner relics.

Rules were incomplete as the ruleset used for the INCA-Moon campaign needed to be reworked substantially and we had real life commitments. The actual play for the campaign needed a map, new quest list and reworking to the combat rules. Monetary issues plagues us and in hindsight we should have just stolen more aggressively from ACKs (Adventurer, Conqueror, King) as that exact campaign type is what that system was designed for. So the first turn ended up starting in March.

As can be seen, the five players were rather scattered. Starting locations were determined by best luck rolls choosing a preferred starting locations, in command of either a legion at that starting location or the Praetorians (purple). 

Due to bad weather and distance the first few turns were comparatively conflict free, even if the players all took (sometimes very heavy) losses from the quest list.   

There were then skirmishes between Orange and Green for a turn before things heated up. Orange made a multi-front attack.

Three battles between Orange and Green. Three times in rapid succession, Green was crushed and his two heirs were forced to relinquish their claims to save their lives.  One the same turn, the comparatively inactive Praetorian player was hit with a massive assault of White assassins, before coincidently being hit by one of Green's navel squadrons. This was decisive and the two remaining contestants were not as numerous, wealthy or well positioned as Green. White had suffered horrible defeats in quests and would accidentally nuke Rome, lose his starting city to locusts, rebels and monsters before embracing his role as an agent of chaos. Red was hampered by the weather and unable to fully maneuver. by the time the weather had turned favorable, Green forces controlled almost everything of value in the West. 

There were still valiant attempts. Waves of assassins, valiant plotting and dark rituals feasting performed (by result if not intent), but Green's position proved decisive. Purple's forces were defeated after further ruining the countryside and sea areas near Venice, while having extremely strange quest events and Red tired to restore their position, before being overwhelmed by numbers.  

In the end, the Red were defeated in one of the most classical sounding of the battles, having fought a massive sea-battle before trying in vain to hold back the Green tide on the Sicilian fortress's walls.  

What should be learned.

1. Hype is a fleeting resource; if we somehow could have started back in January, Green probably would have been matched in mental energy by the other players, which would likely have made for a more appropriate match.  

2. ACKs already does that! I should have just used a simplified ACKs ruleset for as much as possible, rather and ad-lib an economy for ancient Rome. This would have resulted in a system with greater verisimilitude and greater player agency.  

Player AARs.

Since the document containing four out of five the players accounts is over 10 pages long, I will not be including the whole text here, but I do have a short highlight to include here.

(From the Green-Winning player)

"January, A.D. 69

When Titus first threw his hat in the ring and declared Imperial Landing his base of operations for his campaign to win a crown, he was surrounded by 8 men in his inner ring of leaders. Many more would come to lead his armies and fleets and patrols, but these original faithful would be forever bonded to their leader, despite their many short-comings.

...

First among them was old Senator Festus, well above the average leader in Gravitas and Discipline, and personal Constitution. He quickly came to command the great pleasure vessel "Imperial Fortune" and employ it in his early Diplomatic outreach. He took command of the fleet of 300 when they joined, and then took a smaller portion of 50 with him when it broke up. He lead the successful assault on resistive Lutetia, bringing it into submission, and then served as 2nd in command under Leo and the 3rd Legion in the victorious battle of Condate. He sailed a force to North Africa and (temporarily) took Ceuta. He finished his campaign at the battle of Umbria, surviving the nearly disastrous naval battle in the harbor, and then commanding a mixed force of mercenaries,  new recruits, and large segments of the 3rd and 15th Legions. There was great slaughter on both sides, but he was eventually victorious, he himself falling with an arrow in his eye at the end. He was born off the field by his faithful butler, who had accompanied him throughout the entire war, and only his desperate efforts preserved Festus alive, though his eyesight would be permanently lost. A great man. Besides him there were:

...

Commoner Romulus was perhaps the strangest commander in the force. No one in all of Titus' service was more Loyal, un-buyable even. None but Senator Clovis and Commoner Felix had a better way with words. He was even good at Discipline along the march. His one flaw, save a generally low aptitude for personal martial skill, was a Gravitas of (to use official terms) a 1. He would fly into hysterical fits of weeping and cowardice at the slightest noise of battle. It is assumed that he suffered some dreadful trauma as a child, and was forever scarred by the experience, so that an otherwise promising leader was made far less than useless on the battlefield. He was, however, a favorite of Titus, and so was put in command of a body of Horse that occupied Terraco in Spain. He went with Lucio to Pompey Minorus, but remained in his tent during the bloody night battle, plugging his ears and wearying himself with anxiety and pacing. Stouter hearts than he would have blanched at the slaughter wrought in those streets. He was then given a far more favorable task, and traveled with 4 Diplomats to the city of Saguntum, where his skills were put to good use in converting both the city and the fleet in its harbor to whole-hearted faith in Titus. He finished out the war in the company of the good Senors and Senoras of the city council..."

If you would like that in its native context and to see the other accounts and their varying styles, behold the link.

Thank you for reading. 

The Inca Moon Campaign. 2023 October-December.

Back in late September I organized a campaign ruleset from a few sources.  The general pitch is that in a weird and alternate world other powers than Spain were allowed to rush for the treasures of the new world.  This main document will be referee's/game designers view point, while links out of the document will lead to the ruleset, different player's after action accounts and something of a source list. 

The Rules and Set Up.

To follow the #noprep lifestyle that was being popularized on twitter at publishing time, I attempted to minimize as much preparations as possible, given that we were not using a stable rule system.  One of the players was conscripted to work out casualty tables (these had to be expanded in mid-campaign, but otherwise worked excellently), and also played a game of Rise of the Inkas | CATAN.  He then kept a list of what happened in that game which became the pregame lore for the native tribes in this game.  

The final state of the prequel game.

   

The map that the players got to work with.

                                                           Key.

                                                             Light gray=Mountains.

Light Green=fields.

Medium green=forests.

Dark green///Dark Gray=Jungles.

Brownish-gray tan=plains.

The bright spot with a crater in it= Nuclear Wasteland.

The bright yellow spot=Bioweapon Wasteland 

We also used the ruleset of an unpublished superhero game called Reddest Moon as a basis for many of the ahistorical elements that will become obvious to anyone reading through. By timeline the events of the Catan game end and then a modern-ish city, through supervillain type shenanigans, is dumped into the world of the Inca.  This setting was then left to simmer for one hundred years before five primer powers from 'Europa' came and tried their luck.  

Speaking of luck, one of the core mechanics of this game is the quest/luck roll.  See the quest list for a more complete idea of what is going on, though to be clear, this list was mostly kept hidden from the players. 

Countries//Players. 

Griswold=Black

Kingdom of the Danes and Ireland=Green.

Portuguese Emirates=Yellow.

Spain=White

The Codien Empire (Dutch/Danes)=Orange.

Pre-game background. (Written by the players for their own ends.)

General Outline of the Events. 

First Landing Sites. 

  

Part of the way through the second turn (many maps were lost in a art program crash).  The little black circle is a native tribe that somehow allied with the Griswold forces.  

Early Irish Expansion.

Another tribe is revealed and the Irish keep spreading, at expense of the Spanish.

Turn 5 and we have a whole bunch of spreading of various powers.  The Portuguese finding and also somehow making friends with another local tribe.  We also have a moment of complete Irish encirclement. More importantly, the Dutch conquer the allied native city in zone 11 and plunder it.  They spilt the plunder with the Spanish.

There was an Irish/Griswoldian attempt to seize zone 11.  It failed. 

Quests resulted in three large bits of the forest being reduced to ashes.  The Spanish and the Dutch united and took the native city in 41 that had been allied to the Portuguese.

The Griswold/Irish forces had again attacked zone 11 and seized it from the Dutch.  (My art program crashed and the best option at the time was to to use a secret map.  The yellow circles indicate the areas most influenced by the non-native civilizations one hundred years ago.) 

Movement towards the beginning of the 9th turn.  Many native cities were captured, destroyed and plundered or liberated from the horrors of the other world, varying from force to force or location to location.

Final Map.

Final Scoring. (Also a link to the player After Action Reports.)

Irish//Danes 227 victory points.

Dutch//Danes. 170 victory points.

Portugal//Morocco.  163 victory points.

Griswold. 69 victory points.  

Spain. 57 victory points.

Art.

A large amount of memes and art were drawn or harvested throughout and after the campaign. Most of this was hastily put together by request despite multiple program crashes, before duties compelled me to ignore the last few others.  The hand drawn are put together by a wife of one of the players

The Irish Prince Boru and one of his knights charging beneath a projected banshee, conjured of 'unknown' means. 

Boru pulling an arm off a dragon.

Depiction of Irish greed, after the player found a means of turning led to gold. 

Dutch and Spanish dividing the spoils of the new world.

Griswold ship driving off a Spanish-friendly sea serpent.

Dutch poison troopers seen through the eyes of someone they wrongfully killed.

El Cid, one of the prominent Spanish knights, holding the Shield of Immortality, the mysterious Red Stone, wearing the crab armor and other rare artifacts, while commanding his sea life bodyguards. 

The Spanish Flagship; El Dragon Marino

Prince Boru riding in tournament against Roland the Spanish, with his ice weapons. 

The fortifications in zone 11

Attack on zone 11.

One of the Irish knights striking a Dutch knight a mortal blow. 

A Dutch priest praying for safety after a strange portal to places unknown opened.

The Dutch and Spanish celebrate the First Thanksgiving in this timeline.

Portuguese forces are defeated by Spanish Da Vinci style 'tanks.'

Portuguese knight having an unfortunate experience with a cave full of mushrooms.

Portuguese chapel, built in a crack opened by an earthquake.

A Griswold knight directing ensorcelled Spanish peasantry into a trap.

El Cid defeating a giant crab which had been causing religious deviations.

Spider dogs?  I wasn't there for this part...

Irish and Griswold gun batteries firing at zone 11

Irish knights, heavy cavalry, large wolves and giants attacking a native tribe.

Portuguese killing a tribe of fishmen that had tried to pass themselves off as gods to the locals.  Also burning their palaces and temples. 

The Irish flagship; Grace O'Malley

The Spanish priest winning a wage negotiation with the lower classes.

A Portuguese knight getting lost and dying of dehydration deep in a salt mine.  Censored by request. 

A different Portuguese knight trading some of his own men for a giant wasp to ride into battle. 

Another Portuguese knight using a wasp as a mount. 

 A third Portuguese knight riding a different wasp and preparing to ram an unnatural looking flower. 

Phonica's Pictures. 

The fateful salt mine.

A Spanish knight and giant spider.

The Mushroom Cave.

Names of players have been censored out. 

Another view of Prince Boru to kill the dragon, some how 

One of the numerous attempted poisonings from the Dutch player.

Solo Session 21; He Shall Bruise Thy Heel, but Thou Shalt Crush His Head

Session 21; Begun on the 5th of December and finished on the 7th of December Of 2023. 

After casualties and discovering Bede’s fate, I have returned to the soloing game, with a new Lawful party.  A Chaotic party (run by a different player) has been working elsewhere on the island, but at the moment is unlikely that we will discuss them. 

Cosoricalta’s Cleansers. 

Richard the Charming.

Bard 1st Level. 

Tacitus the Wise.

Catechist 1st Level.

Master Keneth. 

Catchiest 1st Level.

Frail Brindle. 

Man at Arms 1st Level.

Straight-A Aquarius. 

Arcanist 1st Level.

Miles Bradwith Longstreet.

Arcanist 1st Level. 

On the 4th of December there was a massive earthquake in The Grave of Fell Heroes and the place has changed.  (Out of universe this is because my art program crashed and my in progress art projects and maps were lost.).  

On the morning of the 5th the party leaves town and heads towards The Grave of Fell Heroes.  They lose their way in the badlands and find the sea before moving through the newly carved hills and gullies before moving towards the 'graveplex'.  This is interrupted by Frail Brindle stepping on a pit viper and finding out that there are six of them within sight.  The one stepped on immediately bites (pit vipers do not roll initiative… which is kinda cool, but also makes this more likely to be a party wipe) but Frail Brindle’s chain mail is too good.  Another is in range (there other 4 are still slithering closer all around) waste some venom in the empty toe of a leather boot far too big for the owner.  Then the adventurers strike back.  Tacitus takes a mace to the nearest and bloodies it.  Master Kenneth utterly splats one of them with his intense lifting regime backed mace.  Frail Brindle misses with his attack. Richard the Charming flicks a dart at one of the oncoming, but it misses.  Straight-A’s Aquarius reserves his mystic powers and lifts his staff for a blow. Despite his spindly arms and under-defined musculature, he hits, halving the snake’s health.  Miles applies his Sleep on the oncoming snakes, three of which loose their focus and sink into a slumber. (Note/Question; does Elementalism apply to Sleep?  If so all the snakes should sleep)(Further reading, it seems unlikely in the common ACKs world). 

Next round. The snake Frail Brindle is still standing on takes another bite and rolls a 1!  The high leather boots are clearly not a mere fashion statement! The other snake continues its slithering path in and bites Frail Brindle while he isn’t looking and does 3 damage, plus poison.  He fails his save vs. poison, but unless I am mistaken, he may make another save he round for the next 1d4+2 rounds (in this case 4). Straight-A’s Aquarius pokes at it with his stick and misses. Frail Brindle makes his rebuttal and strikes at the snake underfoot he almost kills it, leaving it with 1 hp.  Then Master Kenneth reduces it to a substance comparable to that of ground beef with a mighty blow.  Tacitus another hater of chthonic snakes, he makes a mash of its back and tail, though it continues to wriggle forward.  Richard clips it with his dagger, but not enough to end its misery.  Miles misses and we go for the third round.

Morale holds and though bleeding broken and likely going to die the snake is too angry to slither off.  It attacks at those nearest it, hitting Master Kenneth through his robes.  He makes his saving throw the poison dribbling harmlessly from his body.  Frail Brindle fails his second poison roll, but he still has time to make one.  Richard strikes first at the snake, dagger ever shining but misses badly.  Tacitus misses, but Master Kenneth finishes the brute.  

Sadly, Frail Brindle does not make any of his savings vs. Poison and he dies here.  The rest of the sleeping snakes are killed and all are buried by the party and they camped there for the remainder of the day.  On the 6th the diminished party went into the Grave of Fell Heroes.  As they enter the confront 5 goblins.  The goblins announce they will spare the man things if they are fed to which the mage begins a chanting and the cleric lock shields.  Aquarius casts the arcane version of Protection of Evil, which is best imagined as flames licking the area around them with flames.  Tacitus holds action as does most of the rest of the party. Richard chucks a dart at goblin, piercing and ripping its throat.  The goblins then try to close against the shields and arcane fire. All but one miss due to the weakness of the goblins, the arcane protections and the strength of armor.  1 still does 2 damage to Tacitus. 

Round 2.  Master Keneth goes first and leads with his mace and hits one for half its health.  Tacitus, still injured, makes his strike and misses. The goblin chief then hits Master Keneth for half his damage.  Everyone else is busy keeping concentration or missing 

Round 3. Tired of messing about, Miles casts sleep and knocks out all of the goblins except for the goblin chief.  Tacitus tries to smack this one down, but misses. The chief misses.  Aquarius keeps concentrating on his protection from evil.  The rest of the party misses.

Round 4.  The goblin begins backing away, but he will not escape. The bard throws another dart, missing.  Master Keneth advances and misses.  Aquarius keeps chanting, while the others leave his protection and make attacks.  Both miss. 

Round 5.  Miles clocks the chief with his staff with a short burst of speed.  Aquarius keeps chanting, but Master Keneth gets hit and the chieftain goes down.  The remainder are then slaughtered in their sleep as Lawful Men do to Chaotic creatures.

Healing is done in the aftermath.  There is no treasure and the party is sad.  They must get that score.  Good deeds require funding and they push through the tunnel.  

Richard charming immediately falls into a covered pit trap, clunks his head and is down.  Fortunately, we have rope, grappling hooks and medicine.  Tacitus descends and tries to help quickly.   Richard is kept from death, but his left hand is crushed.  The group slips around the trap leaving it uncovered.  We do find 1000 loose pieces of silver and 2 turquoises (150 gp total)

The door is easily opened and the room to the left is entered.  There is an armory.  There are four weapons on the walls and all are special to some degree.  This is clear to one of the mage’s detect magic.  1 is a sword, 1 is an axe, 1 is a quiver of arrows, 1 is a Warhammer.  This is sufficient and they carefully leave the place.  

It is a tense ride through the Badlands, but the party makes it back to Punishment without any damage.  

Treasure was as follows

1 Sword +1 with +2 vs. spell casters.

1 Axe of +1 

1 Quiver of +1 (8) arrows.

1 Warhammer +1.

1000 silver.

2  turquoises.

Master Keneth keeps the Warhammer, which I think means we don’t get experience if we don’t sell it with out using it. The sword will also be kept while the remainder will be sold.  Per my understanding, these are halved in value, and get a total of 5000 sold together.  Thus the party has earned 5150 treasure experience and 215 combat experience.  This works out to 1073 experience to the 5 survivors, exact experience earned due to bonuses will be explored later.  

Conclusions.

As I have gotten a few more ACKs books since last time, I will begin playing with them in the coming weeks, hiring some odd classes as henchmen before these fanatical purifiers descend back into the depths. Throughout the fight with the snakes I was mentally reviewing Brian Sauvé’s singing through of Psalm 91.  Arguably one of the better parts of the session.

(I meant to post this immediately after the 7th, but things got busy, so we get a late publication.)