>>15048506
Have we observed the patrol routes long enough to know them?
Are the patrols predictable, or are they mixing up the times and routes?

>>15048644

Yes, patrols are predictable, but not very disciplined, so occasionally they accidentally mix things up a bit just because they're going slower or faster than they're supposed to.

Yes, you know them well enough to be able to dodge around them in theory. Also, map of Artall. You're at 1-R.

>>15048722
I think we should go out, get our group, and come back and begin killing Kef and Gerdo in their sleep and ambushing the patrols.

First, let's identify a house that we can use to hide in if necessary; are the doors locked on all the houses, or could we enter one if we need to hide from a patrol?

Oh, my, I've forgotten the archives!

>Previous threads,
>http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/14979882/
>http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/14987008/
>http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/14992476/
>http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15003212/
>http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15013979/
>http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15024994/
>http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15037664/

>>15048804
Most houses are very simple, 2-3 room affairs. Hardly any of them even have locks. Some of them don't even have doors.

>>15048826
And the Kef are 2-3 to a house, and the Gerdo are 4-5 to a house, right?

>>15048837
Kef are 2-3 per house, yes. Gerdo appear to always sleep in units of four.

Alright. I'm still going with bringing our warband in stealthily, identifying the farthest Kef house and most remote from the patrols.
We quietly sneak in, and knife the sleeping Kef in the throat.

We also need to think of a way to ambush the Kef patrols without letting them shout out a warning.

>>15048879
It should be noted that all inhabited houses are quite close to one another and to the patrols, being that only ten or so houses are actually inhabited.

Regardless, if you'd like to try and sneak your band into the town, make a stealth check for them (2d6).

>>15048938
We could stay outside the village and ambush more patrols, I suppose.
That would be the safer option. But the Kef will only send out larger patrols, ones we might not be able to overpower easily. Not to mention they might send for reinforcements from Veridia.

rolled 1, 2 = 3

i wouldnt suggest sneaking them INTO town, just close enough to move in and help us if an alarm goes off. anyway roll.

rolled 1, 5 = 6

>>15048981
Our odds of winning are greater than zero!

>>15049002
Well shit.
We need to get out, fade into the forest.
We might be able to ambush the pursuit force they send if it's small enough, but I doubt it.

>>15049002
Damnit. Do we get a bonus for knowing the patrol routes and knowing where the Kef are?

>>15049002

Well, you do win ties. So it's not completely hopeless. You've got a...1/12 chance of success.

rolled 6, 2 = 8

Kek, forgot to roll.

>>15049086
Fuck. We need to pull out before our entire war party is discovered, and hide in the forest. If we're lucky, the Kef will assume we're just stragglers trying to get food from the village, rather than an actual war party.

rolled 59 = 59

Order our people to snipe them from afar when they stop us, while we retreat

You send your zombie familiar (which is still unnamed, so if you'd like to name it, feel free to do so) to rendezvous with the other Koyani and bring the band into the town. Unfortunately, one of the Koyani trips over something on the way in. And he's wearing chainmail. A pair of Kef patrollers immediately run to investigate, but as they round the corner, one of them is immediately shot to pieces by the volley of arrows, while the other has the good sense to duck. He shouts an alarm and then turns to run away.

>What do you do?

Health: 12/17
Torment: 8/30

>>15049237
Take down that guard as quickly as we can.
Is he within tackling distance? If he's not wearing armor, I say we capture him.
If the general alarm has been raised, run away with him and the dead Kef's body (don't want to leave a trace) back into the forest where we can torture the Kef for Torment in safety.

>>15049327
im going to have to second this. kill the guard and scatter, meet up somewhere safe in 5 minutes.

>>15049327
He's wearing chain, yes. If you plan on killing him, may I ask why spending a point or two of Torment and blasting him with lightning, fire, ice, or the conjured element of choice isn't on the table?

rolled 5 = 5

retreat into the fucking forest.

Let them come into an ambush or give up thinking that this was a small group of stranglers.

>>15049413
I was under the impression that, while the spell itself may not cause sound, the effects of evocation spells generally have very loud noises associated with them.
Such as death-screams and the bright light of a lightning bolt and such.

Alright, he's wearing chainmail, and I don't want to get into a tussle.

Voting to use 2 points of Torment to encase the Kef's head in ice, causing damage and muffling his shouts. I hope that gives our group time to fire a second volley.

>>15049433
We can retreat into the forest if the general alarm is raised. Otherwise, we might still be able to salvage this operation.

rolled 60 = 60

>>15049473
Oh
I thought he already raised the alram.

Also, I think 1 torment would be enough to encase his head in ice. We have evocation level 3 after all.

>>15049568
He shouted out, but since people are asleep, there's no guarantee anyone even heard it.

Also, the level of a school of magic affects what we can do and how much power we can pump into the spell. A 1 Torment Ice-Cage is still going to be weak, doing only 1d6 damage.
I think we should spend the extra Torment for extra damage and making the ice thick enough to properly muffle sound.

rolled 1, 2 + 2 = 5

>>15049467

You reach your hand out, and the air turns both damp and deathly cold around the Kef, and then clench your fist, causing the moisture in the air to freeze solid, coating him from the head down to the ground in ice. Shards of the stuff, frozen in the air around him, fall to the ground and shatter. Molio runs to the frozen Kef and shoves his sword straight through his throat before the ice can begin to melt. Blood leaks out into the ice and then onto the ground when Molio pulls his sword out of the hole.

Around the corner, across the main square of the village, a Kef guard races across the roof of the town hall/chapel, apparently having come up from the second floor. He's headed for a belltower at the far end, to wake the sleeping Kef and Gerdo, while meanwhile the other three patrols race to the square to investigate the alarm.

Roll 2d6+4 for Molio's shot, against the 2d6+2 rolled above for the Kef's ability to dodge.

rolled 5, 5 + 4 = 14

>>15049639
Come on, Molio! Do your Dark Lord proud!

Can cast an evocation spell at the Kef as well?

rolled 6, 5 + 4 = 15

>>15049639

Hey, Molio is a great shot.
We should transmute his bow

rolled 3, 5 + 4 = 12

>>15049668
nah, we're good


We should try to remove the bodies and wait for other Koyani from the fortress to join us.
We need to take at least dozen of these fuckers alive and torture them for many days straight.

>>15049696
Our hidden fortress is a day's march away, though.

If we're taking this village, it'll have to be tonight, and using the Koyani here already.

Keep in mind that there are two dozen Koyani imprisoned in the guardhouse; there are some Kef guards, but our group should be able to overpower them as long as we get inside without raising the alarm.

>>15049668
>>15049683
Fuck yeah! Molio's awesome.
We need to transmute his bow if both of us survive long enough to get more torment.

The shot hits the Kef in the thigh, burrowing itself deep and probably cutting into an artery. The Kef tumbles down one side of the chapel's steepled roof and falls to the ground below, slowly bleeding to death. Two of the Kef patrols are now heading towards the alleyway to investigate the source of the arrow, while the other patrol is heading into the chapel, presumably to raise the alarm themselves.

>>15049771
Knowing the layout of the village, can we cut off the patrol going towards the chapel?

>>15049811
No, they're closer to the chapel than you are.

>>15049828
Are they close enough to kill them both with a 3 torment ice evocation?

>>15049828
Do we have time to kill the Kef patrol going to the chapel with Evocation spells, such as a fireball or lightning bolt to the two of them?

>>15049771
Alarm is no good!
We have a good chance at killing the patrols but if that alarm goes off we're fucked.
No amount of torment is too much to kill the patrols silently.

If it works we can capture all the sleeping ones and torture them all to death, more than making up for any torment we use now.

>>15049859
The limit on Conjuration spells is line of sight. So, yes. Keep in mind you may sacrifice 1d6 to expand range of the AoE by 10' radius, to add in 5 AP*, or for anything else you can think of, really.

*Armor Piercing

>>15049887
Okay.
3 torment ice spell on the guards heading to the chapel.
2d6 to damage, 1d6 to increase AOE to 10' so we can catch both of them.

I say ice because both fire and lightning seem like they would cause a lot of noise and light that we REALLY don't want right now.

>>15049887
Chainmail has DR 1, right? Was chainmail the one that reduces fireball damage? And lightning damage would be unaffected?

We have 6 Torment left.
I suggest we use them. 3 Torment for ice encasement like we did with the other Kef, damage of 2d6 and 1d6 used to expand the effect to both of the Kef trying to get to the chapel. That should immobilize them enough that we can get there and shank them.

Again, an icy mist spreads out across the ground, beneath the feet of the running Kef. Clenching your fist, the mist solidifies into ice and shoots upwards, impaling one of the Kef through the chest and the other through the shoulder and leg. The both of them scream in pain, and you get a one Torment refund for your efforts. The second Kef is still alive (barely), but impaled through the shoulder and dangling, he isn't going anywhere.

The four Kef round the corner from the main square and attack your group, and are immediately greeted by another volley of arrows. Most of them go wide, but the two recruits you picked up in the forest both strike their target, killing him. Your followers pull out their glaives looted from the Gerdo and rush towards the Kef, beginning a bloody melee which they soon get the upper hand in through weight of numbers if nothing else. They're not able to capture any of the Kef alive, but the entirety of the enemy patrols have been killed within the next twenty seconds of frenzied battle.

Health: 12/17
Torment: 4/30

>>15050118
Go with the two that were imprisoned here to free the prisoners.
Have our demon go finish off the one we ice speared and then regroup with us.
Have Molio and the rest of the guys we brought with us go house to house starting wit the one nearest to where the prisoners are tying up and gagging everyone they can and killing everyone they can't.

Use transmutation to break any locks we need to get to the prisoners.
That is, if the fight didn't wake anyone up.

>>15050160
There's a pair of Kef in the guardhouse when you enter, still groggy and panicked. The two recruits fling a net over them, then rush in to gag them, tie them up, and finally disarm them, before they can get themselves disentangled. The recruits lead you to the trapdoor leading down to the cellar and lower the ladder down into the cell, allowing the twenty trapped Koyani out.

When you emerge back outside, you find that eight Gerdo were captured in nets...And then you ran out of nets. The rest of the Gerdo were killed. There was also another Kef in the town hall who, backed into a corner, fought Molio and his team to the death. The battle was rather lopsided. Your zombie familiar has also killed the wounded Kef you'd impaled with your ice Conjuration spell.

>>15050371
Hmm...
We need to invest in more nets. Or at least some rope.
Well I think we should quickly torture the netted gerdo to free up the nets for the remaining Kef.
Then go house by house, netting as many as we can, killing the rest, torturing the netted to free the nets lather rinse repeat.
Once we have the last of the Kef captured interrogate them on incoming patrols/shipments etc to find out how long we can stay here undisturbed.
Once we either get the info or if no one knows then torture them all to death.
If we can stay for at least a day then we camp here tonight.
If we can't stay they we'll move as far into the woods as the Koyani can get before becoming too tired and make camp.

Do demons have to sleep/eat etc?

>>15050471

There are no remaining Kef (barring the two you've got captured). Most of them were killed in the battle, and the garrison wasn't that big to begin with.

Oh, also, yes, demons need to eat and sleep if they're in a living host. Less and less as you gain higher levels, but at level 2 you're pretty much operating off of normal human limitations in terms of food and rest.

>>15050560
Then interrogate the kef, torture the gerdo, proceed with the plan about where we should amp.

>>15050577
*camp
fuck my keyboard

>>15050577
What exactly do you mean by "if we can stay?"

>>15050659
Sorry for being a little unclear.
I meant if there aren't going to be any patrols or scouts or anything arriving at the village within a day.
The last thing I want is getting ambushed in the middle of the night while most of our guards are asleep.

So if we're going to be alone for at least a day camp in the village, else move our asses to a more out of the way place.

>>15050695
Ah, I see.

The Gerdo give you a grand total of fifteen Torment as you slowly torture each and every one of them to death, forcing the others to watch in order to build up a proper feeling of dread. Cordelia also seems to have finally broken down a bit from the hours of moaning and screaming, giving you another point of Torment and increasing her Compassion to 2. Is there anything in particular you'd planned to interrogate the Kef about?

Health: 12/17
Torment: 20/30

>>15050794
patrol routes, supply shipments, imminent attacks etc...
Any movements of troops or supplies.

>>15050794
composition of their forces

>>15050817
After a bit of "persuasion" the captured Kef reveal everything they know (well, that's what they say anyway, could be lying). It isn't much. Patrols don't come very often, supply shipments are monthly on the ides, and after they realized that their Gerdo patrols were being picked off they'd sent to Veridia for reinforcements.

You get two more Torment from the interrogation, though, so there's that.

Health: 12/17
Torment: 22/30

>>15050849
>after they realized that their Gerdo patrols were being picked off they'd sent to Veridia for reinforcements
Looks like we're not staying here!

How tired are the Koyani?

Is there any food here? I seem to remember we were having a sort of starvation problem back at the fortress.
If there is, have everyone grab as much as they can carry as quick as they can.

Then finish off the Kef as painfully as possible and get as far away from here as fast as we can and make camp when it looks like the Koyani will start dropping from exhaustion.
Also, transmute Molio's weapons/armor. He's currently our best soldier and I want to reward him.

>>15050910
Even if Veridia sends only a war party (14 people or less), it will take them 24 hours to reach the logging village from there. As the size of their force increases, their speed decreases. Distances are typically measured in klicks, which are not kilometers but rather about a sixth of a mile. The reason for this is because 60 is a very easily divided number and ten miles per day seemed like a reasonable baseline for overland movement speed.

So it's 80 klicks to Veridia from Veridia-R and 40 further klicks to the hidden fortress from Veridia-R. The messenger they sent wasn't mounted (mostly because I'm still working out how fast mounts can travel), and even assuming he's very fast (120 klicks (20 miles) per day, as he IS a messenger) it'll be about dawn by the time he even arrives in Veridia. Meanwhile, the forces from Veridia can move only 50 klicks per day, double if they forced march and arrive tired. So, you've got time.

>>15051082
Alright then.
This means we can make camp here and take more time loading any provisions we can find into anything we can carry them in.
Though we should still leave early so we can move slow. Both for the burden of anything we loot as well as making at least some effort covering our tracks.
Once they see all the corpses they'll know we're somewhere in the area, hopefully we can prevent them from finding out where the fortress is with a little caution.

Oh, and we are NOT sleeping or indeed doing anything until those last few Kef are dead. The dead men will tell enough tales, the last thing we need is a live one giving them more information.

>>15051170
Thinking on it, I have decided that calling units of 15-80 people "troops" instead of "platoons" is more fitting for the setting. That one had always bugged me a bit, but it wasn't until just now that I thought of anything better.

You send most of your group to sleep, staying awake with Molio and a pair of Koyani soldiers for another hour to torture the remaining Kef to death, netting yourself another two Torment. It's several hours after dawn (not long before noon) when your tired band of soldiers and recruits are finally all awake. It was a rather long night. There's no trails, let alone roads, leading out to the hidden fortress, so carts are out of the question. Instead, you gather up what you can in baskets and sacks, ready to leave just before noon and several hours before the arrival of the reinforcements even if they forced march their way here.

Before leaving, Molio recommends you burn the maimed corpses of your enemies. Leaving very obvious signs of excessive torture lying around is a very good way to advertise that you were only mostly dead. On the one hand, it'll certainly be intimidating, but on the other, it'll also draw a lot of attention.

>>15051312
Burning is probably the best option.
The last time we showed our hand did not go well.
If we can, drag the bodies into a heap and light them on fire with a torch or something.

If we don't have anything to make natural fire with then use evocation. We don't need damage so much as area so I think 1 or 2 torment would do.

After that, try to follow behind the others with Molio and cover our tracks.
It doesn't need to be good, just hidden enough that it won't be obvious.

August 22nd, 726 2A

You stack the corpses up along with a lot of dry wood (the summer heat makes the latter abundant) at the edge of town and set the whole thing on fire. Hoping it doesn't spread to the whole village and not having the time to make sure, you leave it to burn. You and Molio do your best to cover your tracks on the way back, but there's only so much you can to cover the passage of thirty people through the foliage.

It's well after sunset when you reach the hidden fortress, but your exhausted recruits nonetheless go running into the bottom floor to reunite themselves with old friends and missing family. You hear from the freed Koyani that the young men were all executed, however the young women and children were herded away from the village in cage carts, off on the road to Veridia. Whether they actually ended up at Veridia, and for what purpose they were taken in the first place, no one knows.

You spend a single Torment transmuting Molio's equipment into fine steel masterwork, including his bow and quiver of fifteen arrows. He thanks you for the gift and swears never to give up the fight for Artall until the Kef are driven from it completely or he is dead.

>What do you do now?

>>15051362
Wait, what about burying the bodies?
Wouldn't an entire garrison simply disappearing be better?

>>15051460
Is Veridia the only remaining population center in the area? Are there other small towns and villages we could attack?

We should have a watch set up, in case the Kef reinforcements found our trail and are coming towards the fortress.
Once our war party is rested, we should go out again, and ambush the Kef reinforcements as they try to find us.

We're doing pretty okay with the guerrilla warfare thing; we're almost to the next level.

>>15051473
1) Burying bodies takes time. Too much time.
2) what makes you think they wouldn't be able to see the fairly obvious mounds of dirt left over?
3) what the hell kind of bandits or raiders buries they victims? We're trying to make this look like a random raid for food and loot by bandits.
4) If they dug the bodies up they'd see the signs of extensive torture

>>15051495
No one has any idea what happened to the other three villages surrounding Veridia. Communication was cut off by the invading forces before any word got out. Marvell has called a council with Benif and Molio. You are invited, of course, but you can also simply ignore them completely and do as you please. It's not like they're going to stop you.

>>15051495
I like this idea. We raid another small camp or village for more supplies and a level up. If that goes well we can start ambushing caravans on the road/pulling guerrilla tactics on these fuckers.
The only problem is our troop shortage. So we should focus on increasing our torment safely until we can level up binding.That seems to be our best option for disposable shock troops/scouts right now.

Btw, exactly how far does this whole binding thing scale? Will we eventually be able to raise entire demonic armies from the corpses of our enemies or is it a more quality over quantity thing where we'll be bringing in other major demons?

>>15051524
I think we should go and sit in on the meeting.

Besides, we need to have them identify the locations of the other villages. I think we should clear out at least 2 of the 3 before we begin thinking of attacking Veridia.

>>15051524
Information is power and a demon can always use more power. Go to the meeting.

Also, please keep in mind that every odd-numbered level the amount of Torment harvested per creature tortured goes down significantly.

>>15051565
I understand that you need it there to limit our power, but it seems kind of harsh, especially for a Level 3 demon and given our situation as it is.

We need that level up in order to become stronger. We're going to have to start taking more prisoners so that they can be tortured over the course of days and weeks to generate the Torment we need.

>>15051544
Each level of Binding gives you an extra point of Control, which is basically like a population cap in an RTS in that you will receive a full refund of Control points whenever a bound demon is killed. Every Binding spell typically uses up one point of Control, no matter how high a level it requires or how much Torment it costs (there are exceptions, but they're exceptional). So, for example, the level two spell Minions gives you 1d3+3 bound demons, who collectively take up just one Control point. The system as written doesn't really support summoning massive armies of demons to act as your vanguard, leaning more towards the elite minions end of things, but keep in mind that the rule for magic is that it can do anything you can possibly think of, so long as you have a high enough level and enough Torment. So you can certainly experiment, not only with binding an unusually high number of demons but also with finding other ways to create a magically subservient army.

>>15051565
Question: You said that we could bind demons to living creatures at the risk of them fighting with their hosts and being ousted. Does binding demons to unwilling prisoners generate torment?

>>15051655
It isn't going to decrease by that much. You'll still be able to get at least one Torment out of every prisoner captured on average (level 5 is the point where things really start hurting). The purpose of the Torment crunch is to allow you to level up early on using captured prisoners without making it possible to level up dozens of times in a matter of weeks just by sitting on top of two or three towns with a chunk of the population stuffed in a Torment Engine.

>>15051681
Not for you, no.

>>15051707
Aw... No eternal torment engine/demon army hybrid for me.

Well, I guess that just leaves sitting in on this meeting for right now.
We can plan for our engines of war and torment once we have a more stable foothold.

Key thing: MORE NETS AND ROPE! We can never have too many nets!

While I'm writing the first part of the meeting up, I'd like to remind you that there is an incredible resource you're not currently using that you're sitting on top of. The quest isn't designed such that this resource is necessary to win, but it will make the early game a lot easier than it has been. See if you can figure out what it is.

>>15051762
Our incredibly powerful ass?

Or do you mean the ability to gain torment from the Koyani?

>>15051762
Tormenting the Koyani? While it would give us Torment, it detracts from our fighting force.

Are we able to communicate with Hell? Get intel and other kinds of indirect help from our allies there?

There's those amphibious people, but they mostly stay out of Koyani affairs.

August 23rd, 726 2A

"Lord Malapraxis," Molio says, saluting and bowing his head as you enter. Marvell makes some complex gesture which you assume is some sign of respect for a superior in Artall's religion. Even among followers of Ashtoreth, the details of religious gestures, organizational structure, and basic doctrines vary wildly. So long as it's her they're worshipping and they're doing nasty things regularly, she doesn't really sweat the details. Benif bows his head slightly as you enter.

"Your reports?" Marvell asks.

Molio nods his head and begins to speak. "Scouts report that Kef reinforcements from Veridia have arrived in the village. They've begun searching the forests for us, but they haven't got anywhere near our location yet. They're still holding Bishop Arvarius in Veridia, however...I can't imagine he will hold onto his secrets forever."

Benif reports in next. "There's enough food in the fortress to last us another six weeks, including the two weeks' worth of supplies brought to us by the raiding party last night. Our shortage of good iron with which to make weapons or armor is still as much a problem as ever, however."

Finally, Marvell speaks. "My dreams remain the rambling imagination of any sleeping man. Hell has made no effort to contact me."

>>15051784
Neither. But the first is close.

>>15051791
They're either for us or against us!
See if we can find out any information about them.

Also, can transmutation be used to create poison?
I remember a suggestion to poison the kef's water supply with some sort of horribly painful debilitating poison, both weakening them for a potential attack and gaining massive torment at the same time.
Definitely something to look into.

>>15051845
It has to be a variety of poison you're already familiar with...And you're not really familiar with any poisons. Increasing your Survival will help with that.

>>15051838
What, transmuting our form so that it looks like that of a Kef, in order to sneak into their villages and more easily kill them in the night?

Or do you mean enhancing our physical body in general?

>>15051838
Are our pants magic?
Or do you mean Cordelia?

Hell, we never were the smartest of demons anyway.

>>15051884
No. Not Cordelia.

>>15051898
I am so confused right now.
Any more hints?

Or can you, you know, just tell us since we're obviously all forgetful idiots.

>>15051845
Marvell can tell you that the Sahuiru are typically hunted for sport by the Koyani people, but the logging village never really had the kind of large noble class lying around doing nothing that you'd need to hunt anything for sport.

Molio can tell you that the Sahuiru prefer to be left alone, and that they raise lizard/fish creatures called Cheref to sic on anyone they take a dislike to. There probably would've been war by now, but the Sahuiru don't like going far from their lake. Molio's not sure what their population is, but he's seen at least forty of them in one gathering before.

>>15051926
I don't want to just tell you, as that would be taking away a lot of the impact my players have on the quest. I'll do my best to drop some more hints as things go on, but for now it's probably best to forget about it and focus on the problems at hand: The reinforcements camping in the logging village and Bishop Arvarius' ongoing imprisonment.

>>15052001
I really want to rescue that bishop but I still think it's a bad idea. Our numbers can't be used in a stealth assault and while we have a lot of torment lying around right now I don't think it's enough to just blast our way in and out of Veridia.

Speaking of torment, is there a range limit or could we, theoretically, have someone on the other side of the world torture someone to death in our name and get torment from it?

Has anyone archived this yet?

>>15052056
It doesn't appear so. Or if they did, they didn't use the Koyani Quest tag.

>>15052050
No range limit, no. It's also worth noting that you lost by a very small margin last time you went to Veridia. You were seriously about three Heavy Kef away from success.

>>15052050
I think we should go with the plan outlined in >>15051544 and >>15051495
As for when to attack Veridia, I think when we're level 3 or 4 should be good enough. With a big reserve of Torment, of course.

Thread's archived, everybody vote.

>>15052159
Who exactly do you plan to bring with you? Molio and the four soldiers from before? Keep in mind there are more soldiers in the fortress, but taking them with you would mean leaving the fortress unguarded. There's also now a very large pool (thirty) of recruit-level Koyani to pull from.

>>15052257
Can Molio train recruits?

If we're going to just be taking out patrols, then I think 2 of the soldiers, that couple who had really good aim, and 10 recruits is enough for using the ambush tactics we've come up with.

I also think that we should spend the Torment points to Transmute the bows of the 2 soldiers we bring and of the old couple; they've got the best aim out of everyone, and it should really help.

My overall plan is to spend a day to ambush and kill the Kef reinforcements that came to the logging village, and the patrols of one of the 3 remaining villages.

>>15052313
With time, Molio can train recruits, yes. A lot of time. If you make it to winter, that would be a perfect time for it. Assuming you find enough food to make it through winter. And don't die in the meantime.

The other villages are very far from here (keep in mind this village is remote, about twice as far from Veridia as the other villages). You can't raid their patrols and the reinforcements in the logging village in the same day.

Damn. So we may be able to make a run at Veridia and mow everyone down with evocation at our current power level. That would get us the bishop and thus a tremendous information boost.
But I'm still really wary about attacking the place we died last time AGAIN in a similar way.
But it's on a time limit and time is running out...

I don't know man, with good rolls we can do it but all it would take are a few streaks of bad luck and even if we don't die they'll know we're alive again and we'll probably lose a few of our men.

WHY MUST DECISIONS BE SO HARD?

>>15052412
Alright, we'll stick with the reinforcements, then. They'll be easier to take care of than an entire village, and we need to secure this area before we can move a large enough group the distance to take another village.

Here's my suggestion for war band composition: Us, 2 soldiers, old sniper couple, 15 recruits. I'm hoping that this will get the recruits some combat experience, however light it may be, and they can help in stripping the Gerdo and Kef patrols of weapons and armor.

>>15052448
Let's level up to Level 3 and get a good reserve of Torment, then, before attempting the rescue again.

>>15052477
Yeah, I agree. With another level this could be easier, or it might not change anything.
I vote we attack the Kef at the logging town and then if that goes well it's on to Veridia.
Hopefully this time we can use our zombie friend as a meatshield instead of our guide.

Health: 12/17
Torment: 23/30

Compassion: 2
Will: 4

You will be taking two soldiers and seventeen recruits.

>Is this acceptable?

>>15052537
Yup. That compassion:2 is another reason to level up.
I don't want another rebellion on our hands.
Once we're stronger than our host THEN we can start leveling up compassion but it seems like anything above 0 is a slippery slope.

>>15052573
Very well. Roll 2d6+6 to begin the hunt.

rolled 1, 2 + 6 = 9

>>15052606
Com on box cars!

>>15052637
WHY DICE WHY?

>>15052647
Always expect the worst from /tg/ dice.

>>15052704
>>15052647
>>15052637
Could have been worse.
Not much worse.
But at least it wasn't snake eyes!

>>15052637

Your troop heads through the forest, doing its best to be stealthy. Unfortunately, its best isn't all that good, with a force twenty men strong, the vast majority of which are untrained. You find an enemy war party, with two squads of four Gerdo, each led by a Kef, and the whole party led by a Heavy Kef. Unfortunately, they also find you.

Bolts fill the air as you and your followers fire on the enemy war party, and they return fire. Fortunately, you're still in the thick of the trees, while your enemy is caught in a clearing. One of your recruits is killed, and the Heavy Kef puts an arrow straight between your eyes. Fortunately, your body is supernaturally resilient, and this proves to be only a mild injury. The enemy Gerdo and Kef are quickly pincushioned by your superior numbers. The Heavy Kef, badly wounded, turns to flee, and is able to get away successfully.

Health: 11/17
Torment: 23/30

>Will you pursue?

>>15052882
Note: I said bolts when I should have said shafts.

>>15052882
Pursue! Run him down and capture him alive. I have a use in mind for him.

>>15052901
UNICORN AWAY!

>>15052901
You pursue him through the forests, taking a shot whenever you can. You quickly leave behind all but your two soldiers. Will you stop and regroup, letting him go, or continue your pursuit? Note: You've hit him occasionally, but the plate armor has stopped you from bringing him down.

>>15053016
Continue the pursuit, and use a point of Torment to create ice shackles to stop him.

>>15053016
Plate armor is vulnerable to lightning right?
I say we zap him with 1 torment.
That ought to slow him down enough to catch him.

>>15053037
You blast the Heavy Kef with lightning, catching him in the shoulder. His armor carries the current into the helmet, and from there into his skin, frying him in his armor.

Roll another 2d6+6.

rolled 1, 3 + 6 = 10

>>15053100
Come on dice, don't fail me now!

rolled 3, 2 + 6 = 11

>>15053110
Welp.
At least it's better than the last time.

Did I murder the number generators parents or something?

>>15053110
Oh. Oh, my. That's possibly even worse than a nine, under the circumstances. One moment while I run a battle in the background...

>>15053135
Goddamnit.
I've got to stop rolling dice.

This is why I didn't think the castle assault would work.
We are one unlucky as hell demon.

When you return, you find your troop has fallen under attack from a pair of dual-wielding Elite Kef. Fortunately, one of them swung wide, got one of his swords stuck in a tree, and was cut down by your recruits' glaives, but the other continues to shred through them with impunity. Two of your recruits have died already (you now have 14 recruits, 2 soldiers, and yourself in the troop).

>>15053201
Set him on fire.
2d6 should be enough.
If he isn't dead after that then engage in melee combat.

>>15053201
3 points of Torment to capture that Elite Kef! Ice cage him, and then have our group tie him up.

He will suffice for the plan I have.
We set up a trap, with the Koyani in the treetops, and then we skin the Kef alive and make a shirt out of his skin. His screams will hopefully draw a patrol which will get shot full of arrows and caught up in nets when they come to investigate.

Two points to kill or three points to capture? Please roll 3d6 with your vote, if a consensus isn't reached, I'll go with whichever rolls highest.

rolled 1, 3, 3 = 7

>>15053252
2d6 to kill.

rolled 6, 3, 1 = 10

>>15053252
Capture.

>>15053264
>first die is a 1 AGAIN
>1337
>7
WHY DO THE DICE HATE ME SO?

rolled 2, 1 + 4 = 7

>>15053280
Alright, roll 2d6+3 Conjuration to catch him in the ice against his combat roll above to leap out of the way while you're constructing the cage.

>>15053311
Let's hope he rolls better than I've been rolling.

Also, why is every roll so low today?

rolled 5, 4, 1 + 3 = 13

>>15053311
Here's to capturing him in ice.

>>15053354
Success! As the Elite Kef leaps through the air, his twin blades whirling towards another of your hapless Koyani Recruits, a familiar icy mist envelops him and, an instant later freezes into a cage around him. He slams into the side of the cage and slides down onto the bottom, trapped on all sides by a wall of ice. Gesturing towards the ice prison, you incase his feet and hands in ice, leaving him helpless, and then break away the walls, which are now unnecessary.

Health: 11/17
Torment: 19/30

rolled 3, 5 + 3 = 11

>>15053311
Wait, 2d6? I was voting to spend 3 Torment points. Unless creating the cage uses up one of the 1d6.

>>15053386
That was just a normal opposed skill check, not a damage roll.

>>15053378
Well, either of the two rolls were above the Kef's dodge, so it's okay.

Knock him out so that it will be easier to bind him.
Strip him of his armor, and hand out the weapons and armor from the Kef and Gerdo amongst our group. Have two of them go and drag back the Elite Kef's body back here and strip it too.
Have them pile up all of the bodies underneath one tree, and then use ropes to hang the Elite Kef from the tree's branches; make sure that we break the bones in his hands and wrists, and ties his feet together.
Then the Koyani will get up into the trees, and we'll skin the Kef alive; I want to know how many other Kef and Gerdo are patrolling this area, and I want his screams to attract more Kef to the ambush.

Also, if we Transmute the plate armor from the elite Kef to masterwork, how much better or worse will it be than our current armor (masterwork chainmail, I think).

>>15053425
Sorry, I meant to say "Drag the Heavy Kef's body back here and strip it of the plate and its weapons."

Welp. I'm going to sleep. Don't get us killed again.
Flattery will only get you so far in the face of repeated failure.

>>15053425
Elite Kef don't have plate armor, they have leather (which is DR0, totally unarmored is actually DR-1, i.e. +1 damage to every attack that hits you). Also, if your Combat skill is 2 or below, plate armor counts as unwieldly, giving you a -1 to all your Combat rolls so long as you're wearing it. Masterwork fine steel plate gives DR4, which on top of your DR1 natural armor would have a total of DR5, making you almost impossible to hurt with normal weapons (barring maces, which have the 2AP, and if they beat your Combat roll by at least 8, which is a critical hit and ignores all armor from any source).

>>15053493
Alright, so we should save the plate armor for when we can increase our combat skill to 3, then.

We should still distribute the leather armor from the Elite Kef, and the weapons from the Kef and Gerdo.

You arrange the Gerdo and Kef like your favorite death metal album, and then get to work skinning the Elite Kef alive while your troop hides in the tree above. You gain one Torment from the process, which you're still in the middle of when you're distracted by getting shot in the back four times by Heavy Kef, who have managed to sneak up on your troop because these people are not soldiers. Fortunately, you have incredibly high armor, and half of the arrows don't even break your skin.

Your men (and the occasional woman) immediately open a volley on the Heavy Kef, but they're far off and have good cover, as well as plate armor. In the first ten seconds of the fight, one of your recruits is killed. Several of the Heavy Kef are injured, but none have died.

>What do you do?

Health: 6/17
Torment: 20/30

>>15053672
This is getting ridiculous. We need better weapons to get through the plate that the Heavy Kef use.

3 Torment Lightning against the Heavy Kef (lighting is good against plate, right?), spending 1d6 to turn it into a chain lightning to hit all of the Heavy Kef.

rolled 5, 5, 6, 4, 3, 2, 2, 6 = 33

>>15053706
Roll 2d6+3 to-hit. The rolls above are for all four Kef collectively. Three is added to each pair.

rolled 3, 6 + 3 = 12

>>15053738
That's a big number to beat.

>>15053749
It's four separate rolls. They ended up 13, 13, 11, and 8. So, you hit two of them.

You throw a ball of lightning into the chest of one of the Heavy Kef, killing him. It spreads to one of the others, searing his arm, and the other two dive out of the way, and then resume trading arrows with your men. Another two recruits are killed, and while the arrows that strike the Heavy Kef don't do much individually, the wounds are beginning to pile up. Most of the remaining three are close to death.

Health: 6/17
Torment: 17/30

>What do you do?

As much as I don't like spending our rapidly depleting Torment, I think we need to Transmute some of the bows in our war group to masterwork in order to get past the Heavy Kef's DR.
Were we able to get any composite bows from the Kef, or are they all regular short bows?

Also, what's the DR of plate that's not masterwork, as most of the heavy Kef are using?

>>15053844
3 Torment, Ice Cage them. We need to torture them in order to make back all of this lost Torment.

>>15053845
Normal plate is DR2, masterwork/fine steel is DR3, masterwork&fine steel is DR4. Your masterwork, fine steel chainmail is actually better than their armor.

And yes, I've been having the Koyani loot all the corpses you've been making. Most of them have decent weapons now.

>>15053858
If you plan to ice cage them, roll 2d6+3 for the attack.

rolled 5, 4 + 3 = 12

>>15053969
Come on boxcars!

rolled 6, 6, 4, 2, 2, 3 = 23

>>15053978
Rolling their defense. As before, separate into pairs, add 3 to each pair.

>>15053995
>6,6
Damnit, diceroller! Box cars for the Players, not the enemies!

Two of the Heavy Kef are incased in an icy prison, but the third leaps clear and fires a shot at you, which is caught in your mail. Your followers open fire on him, but to no avail. The final Kef turns to his imprisoned comrades and begins trying to break them out.

Health: 6/17
Torment: 14/30

>>15054025
Charge and tackle him to the ground. Shove our fist down his throat. At the least, make contact with his armor and transmute its joints solid.

The Heavy Kef has just managed to break down the ice wall and is going to work on the ice wrapped around his comrade's wrists, hacking away with his sword, when you tackle him to the ground and transmute his armor into a solid piece. While you focus on transmuting the armor, the half-freed Kef closes his eyes, strains against the frozen binds, and breaks through them, then draws his sword and stabs it into your arm, leaving only a light scratch through your armor. And then the hail of arrows impales him, leaving you with two Heavy Kef prisoners and an Elite Kef who is still only mostly dead.

Health: 5/17
Torment: 13/30

>>15054138
Our health is pretty low; use 1 Torment to heal ourselves up. Have our group strip down the Kef and bind them. Have them gagged as well.

Have them watch what we do to the Elite Kef. Have the Koyani hide in the treetops again; this time, they had better not fail in ambushing any approaching patrols.

Our Bound Imp is here, right? Let's use him to do the torture for us, while we stay on the lookout for approaching Kef patrols.
Finish skinning the Elite Kef.
Then take one of the Heavy Kef, and with a knife, begin loosening his teeth, cutting up his gums in order to dig the knife's point into his jaw and levering the teeth out.
Finally, for the last one, stuff him into the middle of the pile of corpses, and then burn him alive.

>>15054196
No, you didn't bring ImpGerdoZombie, as he wasn't listed with the troops you were bringing with you.

It's around the time you're digging the teeth out of the Kef that you notice a faint sobbing in the back of your mind. It appears that the torture has finally started to get to Cordelia. When she notices your attention turned to her, you can feel her trying to grit her teeth, realize she doesn't have control of her own body anymore, which very nearly causes her to breakdown completely, but she composes herself and retreats back into her corner of your shared consciousness. You harvest two Torment from her and her Compassion has risen to 3.

Your men notice the approach of the next patrol before you do, another pair of Elite Kef. As usual, the battle begins at range and is over before it can get any closer. In the opening volley, one of the Kef is pincushioned while the other shoots one of your soldiers through the neck, killing him. Seconds later, your second soldier has also been killed, and the second Elite Kef is quickly killed himself.

Health: 17/17
Torment: 20/30

>>15054340
I understand that these are trained soldiers we're fighting against, but damn our guys suck.
We've lost 8 Koyani today. Are the remaining 7 wearing armor of some kind, at least?

>>15054433
No, at their low levels, Koyani recruits can't even wear chainmail effectively. All the guys who knew how to operate in armor just died. The Kef Elites are...Well, elite. Also, you've rolled really badly for random encounters. None of your rolls, by me or you, have been higher than...I think four natural. That's part of it.

You have cut through about half of the enemy patrols in terms of raw strength, however (meaning, the remaining half could be a small number of strong enemies or a large number of weak ones, depending on rolls). Not counting the new garrison in the village.

Also, you started out with 19 Koyani and now have 11.

>What do you do next?

>>15054461
Fine, let's set up ambushes like before. The more soldiers that Veridia has to send out, the less we have to deal with when rescuing the bishop.

Also, I think we need to let some of the Koyani do the torturing in our name for now; Cordellia's Compassion is rising to uncomfortable levels.

>>15054569
Very well, 2d6+6.

rolled 3, 5 + 6 = 14

>>15054587
Rolling for encounter.
Can leather armor be transmuted to work better? I assume that our Koyani have scavenged the Elite Kef's leather armor and are making use of them.

>>15054630
Yes, it can be transmuted to masterwork and "stoneskin," which is a catch-all metaphor for the hide of any creature with a DR1 Natural (when it's made by the Koyani, this is usually Gerdoskin).

The leather armor was looted (you have four suits now), but it doesn't actually do anything until transmuted, as Koyani (and demons) have a racial trait called Persistent, which treats them as though they're wearing leather armor even when unarmored.

>>15054729
Before the encounter, I'd like to spend the Torment points to transmute the leather armor; the Koyani are our mooks, but they're limited enough that we can't just throw them away.

Around you, your keen demonic senses can make out Kef and Gerdo maneuvering through the woods. Your enemies appear to be converging on your position, now. Apparently they don't know exactly what your position is, however, as a Heavy Kef and four Kef Soldiers wander into your ambush. Focusing fire on the Heavy Kef, you're able to bring him down quickly (though he kills another of your recruits almost immediately), however by this point the Kef Soldiers have spread themselves out through the woods, resulting in a long, drawn out snipe-fest. Another two of your Koyani Recruits are killed while you pick off the last four Kef, and they end up firing close to thirty arrows in your direction as well. A few of them even manage to leave a few scratches on you.

None of your armored Recruits were killed (or, for that matter, even damaged).

Health: 11/17
Torment: 17/30

>>15054923
Continue with the strategy. Maybe the problem was that we brought too many recruits, which present too many targets for the Kef to miss.

>>15054923
Can we tell how many of the foe still remain? If there are only Gerdo left, I say we go hunting for some torment.

Also, once this is all over, a speech praising our surviving recruits in order. Something about forming the skilled and powerful core of an army that will sweep their race into glory, then transmute their weapons. It might keep them emotionally stable after losing a good deal of their squad.

>>15055025
Agreed.
Okay, I have to go sleep now; it's all up to you!

>>15055025
No, you can't tell exactly how many are left. There's definitely a far number of Gerdo, but you can't pin down any exact numbers.

>What do you do now?

>>15055103
I say we wait in ambush and draw in one more of their patrols to bring down their numbers, then go hunting.

>>15055103
my vote is to fall back and move to a different position for ambushing, as the Kef might be catching on as to where our location is simply by the amount of missing patrols

The enemy forces around you have you very nearly surrounded, now. Their ring began on the northwestern side, and though there's still space to escape to the south and east, it's rapidly being closed up. A Kef leading a squad of four Gerdo spots your ambush too late to retreat back to the rest of their force, and again arrows fly through the woods. One of your armored recruits is killed with a well-placed shot from the Kef, while the Gerdo go down like flies. In just thirty seconds, three of the Gerdo are killed and the Kef is badly injured. The two remaining enemies turn to flee, and while both are hit on their way out, the Gerdo survives.

You're almost completely surrounded by enemy forces.

Health: 9/17
Torment: 17/30

>>15055454
Well, time to clear out of dodge. We've put a hurt on the enemy forces, so our mission has been reasonably successful.

Have our recruits fall back through the gap, and we will need to pull a bit of a distraction. Find an enemy squad and throw something showy like a fireball at them to draw attention away from the gap, then book it out of there. Heal up before we do this, of course.

>>15055558
How much Torment are you going to put into that distraction attack?

>>15055596
How much of a visual display would 2 torment give? If it isn't much, 3 would be the maximum I would be willing to spend.

rolled 4, 1 = 5

Your Recruits pull themselves down from the trees and begin running for the gap. Seeing this, some of the Kef forces move to close the gap before you can get through it, ignoring cover for the sake of speed, while the rest start shooting at you. Two of your wounded Recruits lag behind and get killed by arrows. As the remnants of your troop and the Kef forces begin to converge on the gap, you throw a fireball in an effort to distract them (and maybe kill a few). The fireball goes a bit wide, but it slows the Kef down enough for you to reach the gap before them. From the other side come a group of four Gerdo led by a Kef, and with no time to slow down and fight, your group must kill the enemy in one hit or else risk their slashing at your fleeing backs as you run past them (the only alternative is to stay and fight them while more and more of their soldiers come down on top of you).

One of your Koyani Recruits is speared on the end of a Gerdo glaive, while the others slash and stab at the Gerdo with their own looted glaives, their blows mostly landing wide as they run through the gap. You attack the Kef, but your blow falls short. His retaliation is caught in your chainmail, however. Two of the Gerdo have fallen, and the other attack your Koyani as they flee, but they are too slow. A volley of arrows from your fleeing enemies claims another of your Koyani Recruits as you run.

Health: 17/17
Torment: 14/30

>Roll 2d6+1 Survival check.

rolled 2, 5 + 1 = 8

How many recruits do we have at this point, and how well are they armed?

rolled 6, 2 = 8

>>15055994
There are three Recruits remaining. All of them have looted glaives and composite bows, and two of them have transmuted leather armor. One of the ones wearing transmuted armor has been injured.

You've made it out of the range of the Kef armies, but they're still following you. If you head back to the fortress now, they'll follow you to it. Make another Survival check to try and lose them...Failure will mean bringing you back into range of their bows.

>Make a Survival check(2d6+1)
>Choose whether you'll fight or flee if caught

rolled 1, 3 + 1 = 5

>>15056030
Heal the wounded one, we can't be slowed down at this point. If we can't escape, fight. They will be a tad strung out when chasing us, so we might be able to cause enough casualties for them to give up on us.

The enemy begins to catch up with you, and you decide to turn and fight. Strung out by the pursuit, the first enemies to arrive are two squads of four Gerdo, each led by a Kef. Your three remaining Recruits and you fire a volley, bringing down the lead Kef and one of the Gerdo before they can even notch arrows to their bows. The usual snipe-fest begins, but you begin moving in close to make use of your powerful axe and shield. The Gerdo drop their bows and pick up their glaives, but they can hardly touch you through your shield and armor. You begin picking them off, but with your entire war party exhausted, it's slow going, and a trio of Heavy Kef arrives to reinforce the struggling remnant of the Gerdo war party before you can finish them off.

You begin trading blows with the Heavy Kef while the Gerdo and your Recruits continue shooting at one another. By the time the Gerdo are finished off, all but one of your Recruits has died, along with all of the Kef. You've felled one of the Heavy Kef, but four Kef Soldiers arrive to reinforce them, firing at your one remaining Recruit, and quickly killing her. The Kef Soldiers then move to cut off your retreat, helping the Heavy Kef to slowly whittle your health down. It's working, and eight Gerdo, the last of the enemy force, have just arrived.

Health: 8/17
Torment: 11/30

And now I must get to sleep. I may start the quest earlier than usual tomorrow, considering that I also have to leave it at 17:00. It may start as early as 12:00. Meanwhile, I leave you to find yourselves a way out of this.

>>15056405
>go off on a beer run and it seems one of my compatriots rolled us into a shitty situation.....

hmm, we obviously should try and escape, blast some fire or lightning in their faces, and proceed to run like hell? its too bad about our warband getting slaughtered...

Goddamnit.
I knew this was going to go to shit.
STEALTH people! Remember it!
We were doing good until someone decided to stay in one spot slowly torturing people until almost all out troops were dead.

Although, I admit, my horrible, HORRIBLE rolls kind of got us into that mess in the first place.

Can someone explain the system this game is running off, what stats mean etc?

Well, since this hasn't 404'd yet, I supposed I'll continue it from here.

>>15058473
This quest is the testing ground for this system, so it's being added to and edited as time goes on, which is a big part of the reason why I've been slow to release details about it, as I didn't want to explain any rules until I was reasonably certain they wouldn't fundamentally change.

The system basically runs off of opposed rolls. For example, if you're fighting one opponent, you roll 2d6, add your Combat score, sometimes an equipment bonus or magical bonus or something, and then your opponent does the same. Highest roll hits the enemy.

I'm working on writing up an actual rulebook as the rules are constructed, but it'll be a while before that's completed even partially.

>>15059554
Alright then.

Fuck, we're screwed.
The way that our recruits get killed even when they have the advantage of surprise is just terrible. I know they're just civilians fighting against actual trained soldiers, but our kill/loss ratio is simply untenable given our assets.
Have you been including the combat capabilities of the two soldiers into the rolls?

Mmy computer's internet has gone screwy, posting from phone now. Yes, the soldier's capabilities were counted. I've been using the regular combat system for this, and they've been attacking just like eveyone else.

>>15059712
Are the Heavy Kef all within range for a chain lightning attack? Will it also hit the Kef soldiers?

I think we need to spend 3 Torment and do a 2d6 chain lightning attack to kill as many of them as possible quickly.

>>15059761
The Heavy Kef are both within 20' of each other easily, as are all the Kef, but not both groups together. So, you can hit either group with a Conjuration attack, but not both.

>>15059779
Target the Kef soldiers with a fireball made to hit them all with 2d6 damage. There's more of them, and so they could wittle us down more than the Heavy Kef.

You point a finger in the direction of the Kef Soldiers firing at you, and a tiny gout of flame shooting out from your finger to strike a tree in roughly their center, and then exploding violently outwards. One of the Kef leaps out of the way of the inferno, but the other three are consumed by it completely. You shrug off the blows of the Heavy Kef with your shield, and the arrows from the Gerdo fall far short.

Health: 8/17
Torment: 8/30

Next Goal:
Take all remaining able-bodied Koyani, and attack the next nearest village; the logging village we cleaned out before has a new garrison but they will likely only patrol close to the village in large groups.
There's nothing there that we want, but by forcing the Kef to defend it, we can force them to concentrate their forces there, while we attack another target.
Another village may have more Koyani for us to free, and therefore more recruits.

>>15059888
Turn back to the two Heavy Kef and fire a 1d6 chain lightning at them, using 2 Torment. Hopefully that will kill them and we can concentrate on the remaining Kef and Gerdo.

>>15059904
It's not even capable of killing them.

>>15059984
Really? Their Life is still that high?
Alright, spend 3 Torment to do 2d6 damage.

You blast the two remaining Heavy Kef with lightning, knocking them to the ground, where they lay still for only a moment before rising to their feet, swords ready. Another flight of arrows from the Gerdo fails to do anything, but the one remaining Kef Soldier strikes true.

Health: 6/17
Torment: 5/30

>>15060002

Probably this, not that I really understand what's going on.

>>15060139
You are a demon. You have been summoned to kill the Kef, who are the ancestral enemy of the Koyani people, who summoned you. Your efforts at organizing a guerilla movement against the Kef went well initially, but then failed spectacularly once your losses hit a critical mass and you no longer outnumbered your opponents 3 to 1. Now your entire force has been killed except for you, and you're fighting two Heavy Kef, one Kef Soldier, and eight Gerdo. Gerdo being the cannon fodder of the Kef army.

>>15060135
Goddamnit, we're going to die again at this rate.

Spend another 3 Torment on lightning to kill the two Heavy Kef so we can turn our attention to the remaining Kef soldier.

Are our soldiers still alive? What have they been doing?

>>15060207
All but one is dead, I think?

So pretty much nothing, as they're corpses.

Maybe bump it up to 4/5 torment, we've pretty much only got one shot left, so we may as well make sure it works.

>>15060218
No mention of the soldiers has been made, whether they've been injured or killed.

Also our skill in Conjuration is 3; that's the limit for spending Torment points in spells.

>>15060207
No, your entire troop has been killed. Also, you can't put more than three Torment into a Conjuration effect until you raise your Conjuration skill higher than three.

One of the Heavy Kef is killed by your attack, the other dodges. None of your enemies have managed to do any damage.

>>15060285
When did the two soldiers die? After our fireball attack?

Kill the remaining Kef soldier since he's easier then turn to the Heavy Kef.

>>15060314
The two Koyani Soldiers? They've been dead for quite a while now. Killed by a pair of Elite Kef while you were still trying to lure enemies into an ambush by torturing ungagged prisoners.

>>15060368
Alright fine. Let's just get this battle over with. Kill the remaining Kef Soldier, then the Heavy Kef. Use conventional attack. Then we kill the Gerdo.

>>15060368
Sounds like this whole thing has had a poorly thought out plan.

>>15060397
No, the plan would have worked, if not for elite soldiers and soldiers with plate showing up in force due to bad encounter dice rolls.

The Kef Soldier proves very stubborn and evasive. Meanwhile, the constant tides of Gerdo arrows occasionally find their mark, whittling your health down one tiny bit at a time. You do finally kill the Kef, however.

Health: 3/17
Torment: 2/30

>>15060422
No plan survives contact with the RNG.

>>15060436
Can we heal up right now, such as getting behind a tree for some cover?

2 Torment Chain Lightning on the Gerdo? One more volley from them and we're dead, we'r emore likely to dodge attacks form the Heavy Kef than a bunch of arrows.

>>15060476
You're in melee with the Heavy Kef, so no

>>15060479
Alright. Let's go with that. We're out of other options.

You send a blast of lightning out to the Gerdo, striking one and killing it. The lightning leaps from one Gerdo to the next, killing only one other but wounding all of them. Panicked and unled, the Gerdo flee the battle. The Heavy Kef glances over his shoulder at the fleeing Gerdo, then turns back to you and grits his teeth, his hands clenching the hilt of his sword.

His sword clatters against your shield, he jumps backwards to avoid your axe, landing on his back. You step forward, plant one foot on his blade, and drive your axe through his helmet and into his skull. Panting heavily, you step back. The cost to your own side has been steep, and the blow to Koyani morale when they learn what happened will not improve the situation. And several of your enemies have escaped to the village, taking with them tales of an enemy who shoots lightning and fire from his fingertips. An enemy who must surely be either a sorceror hiding in the most backwoods part of the world imaginable, or else a demon. But you can't spell pyrrhic victory without victory!

Health: 2/17
Torment: 0/30

>What do you do now?

>>15060772
Can we still chase the Gerdo down? They're stupid and will only think of fleeing.

Pick up a bow and a quiver of arrows, chase down the Gerdo and don't let any escape.

>>15060798
I'd like to point out that you've put us in an impossible situation:
We have nowhere to run, only 3 soldiers, no support, against an enemy that can come at us with plate and superior numbers, our powers are dependent on either using up our own soldiers or successfully capturing the enemy, and you've put us on a time limit (the bishop's interrogation).

Admittedly, a lot of the problems were related to the diceroller, but that doesn't change that our situation was originally designed to fail unless we got really lucky.

>>15060819
You have a hidden and easily defended base to operate out of, a sizable number of trained soldiers, you're leading a race comprised entirely of vicious, bloodthirsty born soldiers who shredded trained soldiers with a kill:death ratio of about 10:1 up until your numbers were cut in half and you intentionally drew as much attention to yourself as possible. Instead of cutting your losses and running away, you decided to keep on trucking even after it was explicitly stated that the enemy was converging on your position. The concept of Torment Engines was brought up in the very first thread, yet out of the half-dozen or so Kef you've captured at various points, not one of them have you kept alive longer than six hours. You knew full well that the troops in Veridia were a force to be reckoned with, but when they marched out of Veridia and into your logging village, you attacked them instead of the weaker targets garrisoning the other villages. You attacked them with a force comprised almost entirely of people who were, until yesterday, peasants, even though you have several trained soldiers and Molio on hand.

>>15060957
A sizable number of soldiers?
You haven't mentioned how many we actually have.

>>15060957
You assume that we know what you know concerning the setting and the situation.

Fine. How many soldiers are actually left in our hidden fortress? Are any able to use plate?

Action: Go back to the fortress, have a group go out and recover all of this equipment from this battle, then put together another war band to attack the most distant village to make the Kef keep guessing as to where we're located.

>>15060957
>or so Kef you've captured at various points, not one of them have you kept alive longer than six hours.

this.

I was reading the archives and when we captured the village with about a dozen live prisoners, I thought "finally, some breathing room" and then it was decided to do the same thing we did as before and I was "dammit, you dumb fucks!"

Whoever was on during that time, what the hell were you thinking? It was such a great time to take at least half a dozen of them back to torture them for few weeks.

Lets just torture some Koyani .... or Juliet

>>15060957
You say we have a hidden and easily defended base, but it's distant from any of the fighting we need to do, operating near it to actually take advantage of it as a safe haven only lets the enemy narrow down where they need to patrol, and it won't be hidden for long because, as you said, the Bishop won't be able to hold out forever. And as soon as its location is known by the Kef, it won't matter how easily defended it is, because they could just throw enough Heavy Kef at the problem.
I don't think this advantage you say we have is as good as you think it is.

>>15061030
There are now eight Koyani Soldiers (and Molio) left in the fortress, along with twenty five Koyani Recruits and eighty Koyani who are either very young children (12 or under) or very old (60+), and either way useless in battle. All of the Koyani Soldiers can wear plate.

>>15061133
It's not perfect, but it allows you to pick your battles. It gives you a lot of time (so far, close to a solid week in-game) with which you can set the terms for every single battle that happens, because the enemies can't attack your headquarters. You also seem to overestimate the amount of Heavy Kef the enemy has on hand. What makes you think that what you just destroyed was only some tiny fraction of their total forces? You completely annihilated the garrison on that village, leaving no survivors. You don't think they'd spend the bulk of their forces trying to combat that?

>>15061190
>What makes you think that what you just destroyed was only some tiny fraction of their total forces?
Because you use a random number generator to determine encounters, and so we can't ever be sure about the enemy force we encounter.

>>15061208
I use RNG for force composition, not force size. Basically, the force gets a certain number of points, different enemies are worth different amounts of points, and every time you kill one they lose those points. Every time you cause them to run away, they lose half of those to desertion. If you'd scouted the enemy before attacking them, you'd have had an idea of how big their forces were.

>>15061163
Go back to the fortress. Get a patrol of soldiers to grab up all of the equipment and bring them back.
Distribute the weapons.

As their final act of serving Ashtoreth and working to ensure the fall of the Kef, everyone above 60 is to be placed in a Torment Engine to channel Torment to us.

We gather Molio, 5 soldiers, and 10 recruits. Arm as many of as possible with Transmuted leather armor, composite bows, and glaives. The rest will stay behind to protect the fortress.

Does plate cause a negative modifier to stealth checks? What about chainmail?

Provide our current inventory of chainmail, plate, and weapons and any bonuses that they might have so we can distribute them properly.

>>15061260
Bring along the Imp this time. That was an inexcusable oversight the last time.

I'm telling you.

Got back home.

We have about a hundred people there. Torture them all a little bit, so that there is no lasting damage.
Use the gained torment to upgrade all of our soldiers equipment, put as many soldier into heavy plate armor. Then gather some more to torment to level up. Using the skill points level up Enchantment and improve everyone's equipment even more.

If it leaves such a bad taste, explain the leaders why you are doing this.

>>15061260
Alright, inventory:

-----Weapons-----
-More glaives than you know what to do with
-Similarly, more composite bows than you could possibly actually use
-And actually, plenty of swords. Basically, you can equip every battle ready follower you have with any weapon that Kef forces have been using.

-------Armor-------
-More chainmail (DR1, -1 Stealth) than you know what to do with.
-9 suits of plate armor (DR2, -2 Stealth, -1 Survival).
-3 suits of transmuted leather armor (DR2).
-Molio's transmuted chainmail (DR3, -1 Stealth).

When in the wilderness it's Survival, not Stealth, that's used to determine who gets the jump on who. Also, masterwork plate doesn't have a Survival penalty (but it does have the Stealth penalty).

Who exactly do you plan on running the Torment Engines (which, given your resources, I imagine is basically just going to be "tie up old people and beat them with sticks, try not to kill anyone")? It should also be noted that typically, one accuses those to be placed in a Torment Engine of some kind of crime. Even if it's an obvious lie, having any sort of lie helps make people feel better about it, which makes them less likely to rebel. Besides, being punished for something everyone knows you didn't do is a special kind of torture.

>>15061407
>Torture them all a little bit, so that there is no lasting damage.
Will that even generate Torment?
Probably better to put the elderly into Torment engines.

>>15061424
It depends on what he means by "a little bit." It's definitely possible to extract Torment without doing any physical damage to someone, it just requires more creativity.

>>15061500
Starvation. Sleep deprivation. Water boarding.
Without a complete definition of what constitutes Torment, it's difficult to come up with means of torture that don't leave some kind of mark or damage, without modern technology.

>>15061554
Suffering constitutes Torment. Anything unpleasant constitutes Torment. Once you've got things going on a big enough scale, even small things like a slap to the face or a rude word, administered across tens of thousands of people, could generate Torment. If you mandated that every second son be sent to what is basically a leper colony at the age of thirteen, the social ostracization, lack of freedom, and lack of opportunity would generate Torment. Not very much from a single person per day, but when 1/5 of the population is subject to it, the numbers add up. If six billion people get a whiff of a really bad smell and it's done in your name (or by your hand), then the sheer scale of it will allow you to squeeze some Torment out of that. Although the Material Plane doesn't even have a population of six billion, but you get the point.

>>15061500
Are you just referring to causing physical pain but only a small enough bit that it won't really damage a Koyani permanently? Like a series of small, thin papercuts and then applying lemon juice or some other light acid to the cuts?

If you're referring to emotional torment, that will require something like a public airing of sins, or some way to cause extreme emotional distress, which usually would require causing permanent injury to someone. Like maybe the children.

>>15061554
>>15061613

Waterboarding might be just good enough, no?

And I think there are numerous tortures that inflict a lot of pain but don't leave permanent damage

>>15061639
Waterboarding is the quick one. Sleep deprivation requires a few days. We could beat a person with the local equivalent of a bar of soap wrapped in a towel, as long as we avoid hitting them in the face.

You've got to give some specific examples of what you want done.

Also it seems we need to come up with excuses. Even though we're a demon and so being tortured by us should be a given, the Koyani will likely revolt if we don't give them some veneer of an excuse.

>>15061639
I confess I've never been waterboarded before, but from what I've heard, it seems like the kind of thing that would get you a Torment or two out of a Koyani if you kept it up for a while. Say, twenty or thirty minutes. Going longer wouldn't help much, though, there's a cap on how much you can get per day from a single Koyani.

>>15061672
In order to prevent a revolt, you just have to provide some kind of excuse that will allow the Koyani outside the Torment Engines, and especially the ones RUNNING the Torment Engines, that this sort of thing would never happen to ME. It just happens to OTHER people.

>>15061689

Okay, seems like an idea.
Hopefully Cordelia wont freak out and beat us at the battle of Wills ... but with our luck with dice that might just happen.

Just make sure to explain the more important dude of your plan.

>>15061613
Okay, but given our current population of around 100, what level of pain would we have to inflict for a measurable amount of Torment to be generated, at a rate of, say, 10 Torment a day?
Waterboarding of random civilians under the pretense of 'not working hard enough' or 'stealing food/supplies', with an invisible exception for the soldiers to generate a sense of oppression in the Koyani civilians as well as an incentive for them to become soldiers; would this be enough?

>>15061709
Now you're thinking like a demon!

Well, you've got eighty civilians. If you tell Molio to pick out ten of them a day, pretty much at random, for waterboarding, that should give you the ten Torment daily. You'll have to increase the numbers once you hit level three to maintain the same income, but for now, that should work. The exemption for all those in the army (including Recruits) means two things, first that the people most capable of rebellion won't do so, and second that all the children being waterboarded will just try to behave their best until they turn fourteen(ish) and can become a Recruit themselves.

Well, the bad news is that about half of my D&D group has flaked out on me again. Again. But the good news is, this frees me up for another few hours to continue Koyani Quest, until around 20:00.

>>15061805
Include 'inciting sedition' and 'espousing defeatism' as possible charges. Of course, if a soldier actually commits a crime, put him in the Torment Engine for the day.

>>15061895

Would we be able to generate more torment if we focused mainly on children? (not exclusively but say 60%) if their parents know what is happening then that should cause them to be in emotional pain to right?

>>15061805
Molio and Marvell are the only ones who knows what's actually going on. Benif's faith is...lacking.
Once we capture more prisoners, he can put those into the Torment Engines, and use less Koyani.

So how many days are we waiting? And with what forces will we attack one of the other villages?

How long will it take us to get to one of the other villages?

>>15061917
Alright, then. Your plan is to draw up the following list of crimes:
-Failure in duty
-Theft
-Inciting sedition
-Espousing defeatism

All such crimes will be punishable by waterboarding. If less than ten crimes are actually committed in a day, then some charges will be trumped up for all those not in the military in some capacity.

Now, how much of the plan are you going to reveal, and to whom? The cover story, of course, is going to be told to everyone, but who's going to be told the whole truth, so that they can manage the day-to-day trumping up of charges?

>>15061997

I say Molio and Marvell only for that

>>15061958
Very few are the children who still have parents. Children in general are more emotional creatures, and give more Torment, however.

>>15062031
Seems
good enough

We desperately need a level up

>>15061997
Marvell, the priest. He's the only one who seems trustworthy enough.
Molio is another candidate, since he seemed to invest a lot of loyalty when we took the logging village.

But right now I'm thinking only Marvell.

>>15062064

I think Molio is important because he is a soldier though, he can help make sure the other soldiers go along with it more easily.

Also, who exactly will be administering individual waterboardings?

>>15062111

Ask Marvell and Molio who would be able to do it, get a small group of individuals and rotate them so they don't start getting to many second thoughts and give them incentives to remain loyal beyond not having the threat of torture themselves. Maybe something like extra rations or something like that.

>>15062153
Molio can recommend several of his soldiers. Marvell can only offer Alef, his now middle-aged deacon. Still, that's about four or five potential candidates, all of them fiercely loyal to either Marvell or Molio. Marvell can think of about a dozen others who'd be willing to do it for the extra rations, but he's uncertain whether they might break down and do something drastic eventually.

>>15062111
Have Marvell and Molio choose a pool from amongst the military.
Torturers, when working in that capacity, are to wear robes and hoods that hide who they are, so they cannot be identified.

>>15062201
Keep it only within the most loyal, and don't declare who the torturers are.
The general mistrust will keep people from getting together and effectively fomenting rebellion, if they aren't sure of who to trust.

>>15062201

If we use two a day and have it rotate every other days (two days on, two days off) that may be able to be good for now. Later when we start getting more enemies to torture I am sure we can use whatever soldiers we want to torture enemy combatants that have killed their friends.

Considering how much trouble the Heavy Kef gave us, can we get a mace we can switch to from our axe?

>>15062237
Very well. Neither Molio nor Marvell seem at all pleased with the latest turn of events, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

>What do you do now?

>>15062277

We really need a plan on how and when to deal with the captured priest, he is a major liability or asset depending on if we can get him. We can't rush in blindly again, but we do have to hurry.

>>15062262
Yes. The armorer hasn't got any good materials to work with, but he can make just about any weapon, and you can transmute it into fine steel masterwork.

How many heavy plates have we looted?

>>15062432
Nine suits. See >>15061421

>>15062277

I say we oversee the gathering of the first prisoners as well as their torture, watch how the torturers react and see how far things need to go to gain the necessary Torment.

Send small groups of scouts to check out enemy targets for:
unprotected civilians
unprotected food and supplies

And complie reports on all nearby settlements.

>>15062481
This also could generate torment from Cordelia .... and unrest

>>15062587
Do you mean Kef or Koyani civilians?
Because if Kef, Veridia seems to be the only place.

We should take one of the other villages; not only will we get prisoners but we might free some Koyani.

Sending scouts seems like an okay idea, but with the Kef and Gerdo patrols, we may lose some. How many in each scout group, and where will you send them?

>>15062779
Koyani civs.

I'd say groups of 2-3, enough to watch each other, but not enough to be obvious, and with orders to retreat without engaging the enemy should they feel pursuing their mission would lead to conflict.

Without a map of the area, I can't say where to send them, but I guess all small settlements in the nearby area. With about 2-3 being scouted in a day.

How many days are we going to spend Tormenting the Koyani? Keep in mind that it will take time to get to another village, and that any scout group we send could get caught by a Kef patrol.

Also, we need to have the armorer beat either a glaive or a sword into a mace. We'll transmute it into a masterwork fine steel weapon when we have the Torment points available. But we need a weapon that can punch through Heavy Kef plate without us using spells all the time.

>>15062874

We don't need to accompany every scout group surely? I'd say we need to spend 2-3 days building up torment, but there's no reason why in that period we can't get our minions to scout a couple of villages.

August 24th, 726 2A

There's not much work to be done in the fortress, which is good, because children do the vast majority of it, being more capable of and much more easily bullied into carrying heavy loads around and keeping things clean than older people. The older people spend most of their day spreading gossip, complaining about things, and waiting to die. So, really, more or less the exact same as they were in the village.

While you observe, several of the brattiest children and most bitter old people are accused of failure of duty or espousing defeatism (respectively), and punished for their "crimes." Tied down to a table, with a piece of cloth placed over their mouth, which is then soaked. It doesn't take long to reduce the children to tears. The older ones tend to start by shouting obscenities before eventually begging for forgiveness for crimes they know they haven't committed. Children tend to yield up a point of Torment after only ten or fifteen minutes, though it varies from one child to another. The older people tend to take longer, closer to thirty or forty. One old bastard holds out for close to two hours. If you mandate standardized punishments, you'll likely collect a variable amount of Torment every day, averaging at about ten. The torture of children does not sit well at all with Cordelia, who is almost constantly muttering her various and sundry justifications to herself whenever you check in on her corner of your shared mind. You gain an extra 3 Torment from her, but her Compassion has risen to 4. She'll be less likely to react if she doesn't have to personally watch it happening.

You send small scouting parties of two or three of your sneakier Recruits out, giving them strict orders to observe without engaging the enemy, and emphasizing caution. One scouting party simply observes the garisson in the logging village and reports back at the end of the day, but the other three are sent to the observe the other villages, and won't be back until tomorrow. Those scouting the logging village reported back that only a single patrol was sent out, comprising of a pair of Elite Kef, who went out to wear a stream floods into a surprisingly large underwater cavern, several niches of which have been filled in with rocks. Going under for several minutes at a time, they excavated several of the niches, perhaps searching for the entrance to your hidden fortress. Unfortunately, the area they were poking about in was in fact a Sahuiru burial ground. When the Sahuiru found them near sunset, they quickly killed both the Elite Kef, taking a few casualties of their own in the fight.

Health: 17/17
Torment: 13/30

Re: map, see >>15048722 for a crude map of Artall, including the villages near Veridia(1).

>>15062895
>>15062860
There are 3 small villages in the region, and they're about a half day's to a day's march away, one way. It's been covered before.
All of the villages are occupied by Kef, and if the logging village was an example, only the old will have been kept, if not outright executed.

No, we don't need to go with any of the scouts, but that doesn't address where they're going to go, and how much time we give them.

>>15062945
Standardize the punishments, and start having them be done in our name and in Ashtoreth's so that we can start getting Torment without being present.

Have the armorer produce a mace for use from extra glaives, so that we can transmute it; we'll need it when we fight Heavy Kefs.
We'll transmute other weapons and armor as needed when we decide on which village to attack.

Shall I just skip ahead to when all of your scouts have returned, then? That'll be two days from now.

We should gather up torment enough for a level up, methinks.

>>15063073
On second thought, have 4 maces made, and see if the armorer can make us a proper shield we can transmute.

Standardize punishment and have the punishments done in our name with the proper rituals so that we receive the Torment without being present, in order to keep Cordelia's Compassion from rising.

>>15063093
That goes without saying. The scouts will be back in 2 days, and then we'll need another day to prepare a war party. That's enough time to level up.

>>15063073
The general consensus seems to be yes to skipping ahead, unless something comes up in the meantime.

Do we have patrols up around the fortress to make sure that Kef patrols don't get too close?

They should be ordered to only observe, and report back to the fortress if a patrol gets too close, so we can mount an ambush with overwhelming force.

August 25th, 726 2A

The scouts report in for the day. In the logging village, the Kef forces have withdrawn! It's not really clear why. A messenger arrived from Veridia, apparently with orders to retreat from the village. The scouts, fearing some kind of ploy, did not enter the village to investigate, however it appears from the outside to be completely deserted. From Veridia-Y and Veridia-G, it appears as though (as of August 24th, at least) the Kef have left a small garrison there, about the same size as the one that was on the logging village. Veridia-G's economy is built around a quarry, while Veridia-Y is mostly farmland. The countryside surrounding both villages is home to a Sahuiru Tribe like the one near your own village. No telling what the status of the villagers or the hidden fortresses is, however.

You also gain eight Torment from the day's torture. Justice! You spend one of the Torment on transmuting a new shield and mace from the armorer.

Health: 17/17
Torment: 20/30

August 26th, 726 2A

The scouts report in for the day. Still no sign of any Kef in the village, and the scouts from Veridia-V are back. Veridia-V has apparently been turned into some kind of labor camp! It's farmland, like Veridia-Y, though Veridia-Y's fields are much better. It appears as though Veridia-V is being used to feed the garrisons of the other villages and Veridia. All the soldiers were executed, but the able-bodied young men were kept to work the fields.

You gain twelve Torment for the day, and Ashtoreth takes one Torment as her 10% tax from it. Other of your various and sundry demonic superiors might start levying taxes or demanding a flat rate as tribute, especially once your Torment income starts growing, but for now they've left you alone. If you can make your superiors like you, they'll be less likely to tax you, and if they're more than one rank up, they may promote you as well, which will give you one less lord to worry about. You may recall that you are beholden to Baron Caim, his lord Count Andromaleus, his lord Marquis Fenix, his lord Duke Valefor, and his lord King Asmodeus. And Ashtoreth, of course. Thus, if you wanted to get yourself promoted to Baron in order to get yourself out from under Baron Caim's heel, you'd send gifts of Torment to Count Andromaleus. It'll take quite a bit to impress demonic nobility, however. They're already pulling in a lot from their vassals.

Health: 17/17
Torment: 32/30

Your excess Torment has resulted in a Torment Explosion! Roll 1d6.

>>15063384
>Your excess Torment has resulted in a Torment Explosion! Roll 1d6.
What?

We were planning to level up as soon as we hit the cap, how the hell did this happen?

rolled 4 = 4

>>15063457
[roll]

>>15063457
Torment income is immediate, which is intentional to stop players who have an opportunity for a Torment windfall from immediately cashing all of it (for example, if you suddenly come into control of a large portion of land, it's dangerous to immediately start extracting Torment from all of it, so instead spread the oppression slowly). Minor explosions like this one are designed to be mostly irrelevant, and in fact because Cordelia's Compassion is already above three, this roll of 4 does nothing. Bigger explosions involve rolling more dice, thus opening up the possibility for much nastier results if you're not careful.

As mentioned, Cordelia's Compassion is already high enough that the roll does not effect you. It is now late at night on August 26th, 726 2A. What do you do?

rolled 5 = 5

>>15063569
LEVEL UP OF COURSE!

>>15063759
Well, I'm actually off about now. I didn't have time to stick around for the level anyway. Tomorrow at 14:00, though. Please sage all responses after this one, particularly if you're posting hours after this comment.