Megagame Makers

We are the keepers of the hallowed Dwarven traditions, Masters of the ancient Dwarven secrets. We keep the old ways. That is the proper way of doing things. Let's be clear here. Those parasites in Urr think they are so smart, sponging of our hard work. The Gnomes laugh at our old fashioned approach while they show off countless pointless steam powered trinkets. The Orcs think they can steal and enslave their way to wealth. The Dark Empire believes that taxing peasants to starvation can be the basis of a robust economy. They are Fools. Meanwhile we are by far the richest civilization in the world.

There are 5 things worth remembering in light of what is about to happen.

• We need more food than we can produce. Normally this is a trifle, but we don't want to end up in a situation in which our external food supplies are cut off.

• To facilitate not having to fight off Orc raiders every single time we are moving some trade goods, we have dug a tunnel large enough to handle an ox cart between the basement of The Weigh House of The Free City of Urr and the King Durin X Undermountain loading dock. We could use said tunnel to aid the humans in the city, by carting supplies, or troops to them while they are under siege. Or we could provide access to the tunnel to the army of humans doing the sieging. The possibilities are diverse…

• A while ago ago during what was supposed to be the 'Final Apocalyptic War Ever!!!' against the forces of Abranoth of Grinch, one of the sides requested a mighty siege engine to use it in the all deciding siege of some great city or other. We built the bloody thing but it was never actually bought. Siege engines don't eat bread, so we warehoused it waiting for the day we might find another customer for it. Maybe The Dark Prince wants to lease it? Maybe The Free City of Urr wants to lease it so the The Dark Prince can't?

• We have a good store of armor and weapons. Some are good and some are excellent. We can earn a bit by selling stuff to the best bidder, can't we?

• Between the Metal Mountains lies The Blue Lake. It looks nice and peaceful, but because of a high concentration of unusual minerals in it, the water is undrinkable. The Gnomes buy a Hogshead of it every year and use it in the manufacturing of their raisins. During the last few years they built a device that supposedly can fight fires in Urr and in Mount CH. It drains part of the lake into a massive network of pipes and supposedly comes out the other end dousing any fire in the general area. We know the control spell of the device as well and could conceivably use it to flood part/all of Mount CH & Urr, if we wanted to…

The Longbeards need to spend 3 food tokens each week/Strategic Turn. If you don't have the needed tokens, your army will simply get up and migrate to another Dwarven kingdom that will feed them. There are the following modifications to look out for.

• The First turn of the game is an extended 4 week turn. So that is 12 food tokens for turn 1.
• If the Kingdom gains a large amount of guests, these must fed as well, consuming 1 food token per 1000 guests in one week.
• It is harvest time at the start of the game.
• Dwarven food is a bit different from human food. Have fun explaining what you are selling, if you are selling food tokens to another party. Also have fun complaining when non-dwarves try to sell food to you.

The list of available food at the start of the game:

• Emergency reserves: 15
• Normal stocks: 12
• Mushrooms: 10

Every turn you receive 10% extra mushrooms. If you eat them all it will take a long time before you can grow them again.

The list of available gold:

• Gold: 600
• Treasures: 600

Urr will probably want to sell some of its treasures to you to get extra money. It's not bad to buy stuff back from them for an under the current circumstances reasonable price*.

You could produce 5 gold pieces worth of treasure every week if you dedicate your workforce to it. This will stop if you are forced to activate your army, or go out to hunt for food. War is hell.

*That means very cheap.

You have the following weapons in stock for sale:

• 70 Dwarven armour +2
• 35 Dwarven hamers and 35 axes +2
• 100 human armour +1
• 200 swords +1
• 1 Trebuchet 3*D6

• 1st to 6th Woad Covered Dwarf Warriors (6 regular Dwarf infantry that can be made temporarily invulnerable with a Tactical Turn magic ritual),each of these units can double as an engineers corps if needed.
• 4 units worth of stone statues (Animated by basically the same magic ritual as the one above. Being chiseled from granite they are also very much invulnerable)
• 1 Heavy Trebuchet unit. (Better than anything the humans have, potentially for hire)
• 2 Raider units: The Treasure Guard and The Trap Unit.

If we are Dwarf royalty, the Redbeards are the quintessential Dwarf commoners. They mine and purify our iron, grow some of our food and craft some of our tools. Sadly their government is overcomplicated because their society lacks a true upper class. They compensate by using their clerks instead who overcomplicate everything into a bureaucracy.

The Gnomes are the race of jesters giving them the ancestral right to annoy the race of kings. If it had not been this way we would have dragged them out of their stupid smoking mountain and made them kneel before the High Council long ago.

Also have you seen the massive noses all those Gnome chicks have? I don't think the High Council minds getting teased by the Goddes Empress all that much.

They are too tall and look as though they are going to topple over any minute. They don’t live very long and breed like rabbits. This is probably why they seem to be so very numerous these days. They are incredibly lazy and always try to get rich taking advantage from our hard work. The one good quality humanity collectively has is their appreciation of Dwarven craftwork.

Anyways, now they are fighting amongst themselves and that creates a golden (GOLD, GOLD, GOLD!) opportunity for us. We don't have to take sides in the siege of Urr immediately. We have options…

Just remember, as long as we can negotiate from a position of strength it doesn't matter whose side we are on. We should however avoid having to deal with The Dark Empire from a position of weakness.

Another one of those lazy too-tall species. We have been watching them a long time and let me tell you. Elves may have a reputation as great visionaries, heroes and wizards, but they always have their own longterm plans and it is a generally speaking bad idea to get to involved.

Remember:

• Do not meddle in the affairs of the Elves for they are subtle and quick to anger. Is just as true as the great maxim:
• Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

Another lazy, short-lived and brutal human-like species. Their society is basically in a constant state of civil war. Constantly fighting amongst themselves, spreading misery everywhere they go, enslaving anyone they can grab, stealing everything not nailed down and burning down the stuff that is nailed down. Orcs seem to take a special kind of pride in stealing our stuff. Sadly when it comes to us that stuff is our gold&gems and never includes one's mother in law.

If you read this you are playing Chief Smithain or Chief Mining Engineer. To the Longbeards, magic is both a side effect of their mastery of the sacred craft as a manifestation of their inborn status as the best of the dwarves. It is not in itself a worthy pursuit. So you are only a part-time wizard, knowing only the traditional magic secrets of 'la fine fleur' of dwarfdom.

Personal magic can be used at will. Success is automatic.

• Walk in Shadows You can discretely travel to an area of the game that is usually off limits to you. Interaction of any kind by you suspends the effect. So you can not sneak up on a team of players to spy on them. This spell is mostly used to facilitate secret negotiations by sneaking into a place and then revealing yourself to the folks you want to talk to. Victims of the Charm of Forlorn Encystment can't escape or be reached by this spell.

These are massive magical rituals requiring over a 100 participants, multiple hours and several massive choirs chanting in gravely voices. A wizard player must go and request a ritual from the magic umpire during the magic phase. The Longbeards can only cast 1 spell each turn. There are separate spell lists for Tactical and Strategic turns. A player who adds nice touches, or theatrics in the description gets a bonus. Effects can be made to appear anywhere on the map. The order in which spells are resolved by the Magic Umpire is based on a first come first serve basis. Spells use either red mana or black mana. Certain spells also use other ingredients often with limited availability those can only be cast when they are in the possession of the caster. Players need to provide evidence to the Magic Umpire that they have (and are expending) those ingredients.

• Dwarfs' Culinary Bounty (red mana) An enormous feast is created, worth 4 Food Tokens for each red mana. Special: This originated from a Dwarven spell. Dwarven cuisine is wonderful, but a lot of it is very different from what everybody else eats. Side effects from Jokers usually manifest as a high portion of the meal consisting of traditional Dwarven delicacies.

• We Speak the Will of Kings (unique) Prior to the casting of this spell the high king writes a proclamation, warning the world they will get involved with the current conflict and prophesying that if a certain thing comes to pass there will be dire consequences. Then a herald goes out to circulate this proclamation amongst the 'kings of the world'. Meaning it must be signed as seen by: The Comrade Prince, The Goddess Empress, A captain regent of Urr, The Dark Prince and an Elven envoy. This document is a vital material component of the spell. Hand it over to the magic umpire when actually casting the spell. Mana is gathered the usual way and send into the future. If the thing the High King warns about actually comes to pass (the magic umpire decides, possibly creatively interpreting the text), in the next magic phase a ritual spell receives that mana as a bonus. The recipient is the spell that is going to punish the faction that causes the event the most. This spell can only be cast once.

• Set Loose the Raging Wind (red mana) An enormous, clearly unnatural storm covers the Metal Mountains this entire Strategic turn. Only people who know how to use the secret tunnel between The Metal Mountains and the Free City of Urr, or who can Walk in Shadows can enter or leave the halls of the Longbeards this turn. Besieging, or raiding the place is impossible unless you can use the tunnel mentioned earlier. This costs 3 red mana.

• Aldryk's Fire Quencher (black mana) Activates part of the gigantic sprinkler installation that draws from the lake between the Metal Mountains and has been wired throughout most of the city of Urr and the inside of the mount Central Heating. Any fire in an affected area will go out and the affected area will be flooded. If the cause of the fire is still active in the location (say an impertinent dragon), than that cause will be soaked in an ungodly amount of water. Cost: 1 black mana allows the wizard to flood any area in Urr or Mount Central Heating he chooses. 8 hogsheads of water for each additional black mana are dumped on the cause of the fire if it is in range. A joker activates the entire system flooding both Urr and the Gnomish Confederacy.
• Blue skin and spiky red hair (black mana) This is always cast combined with Eternal Warriors and must be cast within the borders of the kingdom of the Longbeards. Take all your clothes of, cover up with woad and run screaming into battle. For each black mana 1 unit who does this takes no damage this entire tactical turn. Due to time constraints, this spell can only be used to defend the kingdom of the Longbeards, or take on troops in or around the city of Urr.
• Eternal Warriors (red mana) This is always cast combined with Blue skin and spiky red hair. Bring statues of Dwarven warriors to life as invulnerable infantry units. They remain animated for 1 entire tactical turn. It takes 1 red mana and lots of statues of warriors in full kit for each unit to be created. Special: The Eternal Warriors are considered to be under the influence of Blue skin and spiky red hair while they are animated. That's because they are animated statues, not because they are literally under the influence of that spell. The statues must be within the bounds of the kingdom of the Longbeards to be animated. Due to time constraints, this spell can only be used to defend the kingdom of the Longbeards, or take on troops in or around the city of Urr. There is a limited number of statues available.
• Entourage of Pawns (red mana) This spell turns the figures of a hnetafl game into 1 unit of invulnerable soldiers for 1 tactical turn. There is only 1 hnetafl game suitable for this spell in existence. It is currently in possession of a Longbeard diplomat/wizard. The spell costs 1 red mana and that board game.
• Helmet of Otranto (black mana) Transforms one or more dwarvish war helmet(s) into a helmet looking fortress/tower(s). Such a helmet has to be in place on the spot where the wizard wants to grow a tower. The tower remains for the rest of the game. It is as sturdy as something forged by dwarves out of mithril, with walls as thick as a royal cubit can be. A Helmet will provide a refuge for 1 unit. A unit inside one of these will have a +4 defense modifier that cannot be reduced. Cost 1 black mana for each helmet. No they can't be dismantled and sold of as scrap. They cannot be used to plug holes in the city walls.