after-action report

Deeds of the Dukes of Chariton, part IV

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(It’s been 4.5 months since my last post in this series. Oops.)

Deeds of the Dukes of Chariton

IV: Victory and Succession
April 2676 – July 2680

In early April 2676, Duke Truman mustered his levies and became known as a skilled fighter.

Prince Salathiel of Iowa, King Franklin’s fourth son, was born on May 15, 2676.

Duke Truman’s friend and chancellor Lavon began to speak in tongues, so he was replaced as chancellor by Milo Trenton, a knight in Duke Truman’s service. Lavon was given overall command of Duke Truman’s 1400 men once they had all gathered at Kirksville, and the army began marching south to Moberly in early May.

In early June the improvements to Maryville’s walls were complete and, a few days later, Duke Truman’s 1400 men met Count Napoleon’s 600 men near Carrollton.

After some initial skirmishing saw Lavon Graham’s 700 men put the Thompson pickets to flight, Theophile Lucerne and Lavon Graham, commanding the Chariton right and left respectively, advanced in support of the Chariton center as Lavon and his 500 men charged Count Napoleon’s 500 men.

Some 200 men of Duke Truman’s army were killed and wounded, while 500 of Count Napoleon’s men were killed and wounded. Only a few of Count Napoleon’s light horse and light infantry managed to flee East, and Duke Truman’s men began to lay siege to Moberly.

Count Napoleon’s surviving men raided near Hannibal and Kirksville, but Duke Truman decided that Count Napoleon’s 80 men were not going to cause any real threat and taking Moberly would bring about a faster end to the rebellion.

In January 2677, Duke Truman’s daughter Evanora was betrothed to Roquat, the eldest son and heir of Duke Poynter of Driftless. After Phineas resigned as spymaster, Duke Truman made his friend Lavon spymaster.

In March 2677, Moberly and Count Napoleon surrendered to Duke Truman. Count Napoleon was taken into custody and imprisoned in Maryville.

In June 2677 King Franklin created the Duchy of the Quad Cities. In August, Duke Eustace of Iowa’s ambition to become King of Iowa was discouraged by a visit from King Franklin, and in September King Franklin inherited the barony of Moline from Baron Otis of Moline, who died of a sudden illness at the age of 39 years. Duke Truman sent Milo Trenton to improve relations with King Franklin, but this failed to have the desired result when Milo Trenton accidentally insulted King Franklin.

On Christmas Day 2677 King Franklin of Iowa summoned his vassals and declared his intent to return Rock Rapids and the surrounding lands to Iowan rule as opposed to its current rule by the 15-year-old Queen Lacotawin of Lakotah, the granddaughter and successor of Tasinagi the Lame. Continue reading →

Current projects

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Crusader Kings 2:

(After The End mod) ChAARiton: A history of the Dukes of Chariton (rulers of the lands once known as northern Missouri) and their descendants, starting in 2666. At present I’m thinking about ending this around 2766, after one century of gameplay, so I can update the mod to a more recent version. So far, according to Google Docs, I’ve written about 18 thousand words, and I still have at least 20 more years to write about, so I’ll probably meet or exceed 20 thousand words.

(CK2+ mod) AARkney (working title): A history of the Pictish chiefs of Orkney, starting in 769 and ending… well, whenever I feel like ending it, I guess. I haven’t worked on this very much, and have only started working on it briefly about a week ago.

Master of Magic:

(untitled): a narrative of the progress of a game of Master of Magic as a wizard specializing in Life and Sorcery magic (or, in Magic: the Gathering terms, White and Blue) and ruling a city of High Men. I’ve played the game for 20+ years now, and have come up with several characters. My goal at the moment is for a sort of generational saga, because I always enjoy reading those. While writing earlier today, I realized I need to do some research on medieval houses, and possibly urban society in general.

Master of Magic

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Master of Magic is a single-player turn-based strategy game originally released in September 1994 for MS-DOS. The player is a powerful wizard whose goal, along with their computer-controlled counterparts, is to dominate the two worlds of Arcanus (similar to Earth) and Myrror (more magical and with various flora, fauna, and minerals that aren’t present on Arcanus) through military or magical might. In this game, magic is (like Magic: The Gathering) divided into six schools of magic: Arcane (available to everyone), Life, Death, Nature, Sorcery, and Chaos. Instead of the technology tree available in most strategy games that requires you to research technology in order to advance, you spend turns researching various magical spells, until (if the game lasts long enough) you can research the Spell of Mastery and win the game.

You begin the game in January 1400 with a small town populated by one of the races. If you start on Arcanus, you can choose from the Orcs, three flavors of human (High Men, Barbarians, or Nomads), High Elves, Halflings, Lizardmen, Gnolls (like the D&D race, basically humanoid hyenas) or Klackons (insectoid, basically giant ants), while Myrror is populated by Dark Elves, Beastmen, Trolls, and Dwarves. Not all of these races are necessarily present in any particular game, and each one has its differences. While the Orcs can build any building, the High Men (for example) can’t build Fantastic Stables, so they aren’t able to build a unit like the Nomad griffin cavalry. Other differences include population growth (slower or faster than “normal”) and diplomatic relations – some races get bonuses to “unrest” if their city is occupied by another race that they don’t get along with. Additionally, a few races (High and Dark Elves, and possibly Beastmen if I remember correctly) have magical populations that generate “mana” (i.e., power that can be used by the ruling wizard) directly, without requiring construction of religious buildings. Additionally, various roaming heroes may offer you (or your opponents) their services or be summoned via spells that can lead your armies to victory with their various abilities and skills.

I don’t remember now when I first heard of Master of Magic, but it was probably at some point within the last five years or so while reading about strategy games and/or fantasy strategy games. At some point in the last three or four years, I found it via Good Old Games (gog.com), which has (or used to have) the most recently patched (March 1995!) version available bundled with DOSBox, which I’ve played on my Linux computer with the aid of Wine (software that allows Windows programs to be run on Linux, not the alcoholic beverage).

At some point within the past month, I had the idea of writing a story set in a game where my actions, as the game player, were in the background of the story. I decided to do this with Master of Magic, so instead of writing from the perspective of the ruling wizard I would write from the perspective of his subjects. After some “random” generation with a list of heights, Myers-Briggs types, hair colors, and possibly a few other characteristics I can’t remember offhand, I’ve concocted (so far) 4 viewpoint characters, including an ENTJ soldier, an INFP scholar, and an ISTP merchant. Due to my playing the High Men, intending to base their religion on medieval Catholicism, and having a variety of viewpoint characters, I feel like I owe George R.R. Martin (author of A Song of Ice and Fire, also known as the Game of Thrones series) some kind of apology. Since I really enjoy his work, maybe no apology is necessary. At any rate, so far I have vague ideas for how I plan to start the story and I’ve played the game for 16 years (1 month per turn). I should probably start writing soon, but I feel like I need a better title than “the Master of Magic story”.

Deeds of the Dukes of Chariton, part III

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(I played and wrote about these events more than a week ago. As of this morning, I’ve played this game as the Duke of Chariton to 2701, so there’s plenty more to come.)

Deeds of the Dukes of Chariton

III: War and Rebellion
January 2670 – April 2676

In April 2670, Duke Truman purchased an indulgence from the Pope, and news of the pope granting absolution reached Duke Truman near Des Moines mere days before King Franklin summoned his vassals to war, announcing his intent to return Rock Island to Iowan rule.

In late April 2670, Rose, the young wife of Duke Truman’s marshal, was the subject of salacious rumors after she was supposedly seen in a compromising position with the Count of Thompson, who was 22 years her elder. In early June, Rose died after a brief illness.

In June 2670, heathens from Michigan raided the country near Hannibal.

In July of that year, Count Napoleon requested to be allowed to duel his rival, Duke Truman’s marshal, over affronts to his honor. Duke Truman allowed the duel.

Duke Truman’s marshal, a man named Phineas, would later marry Maisy, a woman from the Canonate of Boone, part of the Boonslick Republic (also known as the self-styled State of Missouri).

In September, the heathens from Michigan who had pillaged Count Hamilcar’s lands were raiding near Ottumwa, so Duke Truman sent orders to muster men from his lands around Kirksville in order to defeat the pagans. 600 Chariton men under the command of Count Hamilcar and Lavon Graham marched north from Kirksville to Ottumwa and met the 500 Northmen near Ottumwa, where they were also joined by 500 men led by the Canon of Shoquoquon.

The 1000 Iowans met the Northlanders south-east of Ottumwa in early November. Count Hamilcar commanded the Duke of Chariton’s men on the Iowan left, while Canon Flint of Shoquoquon commanded his men in the Iowan center. After putting the Northlander scouts to flight by his vastly superior numbers, Count Hamilcar joined the Canon of Shoquoquon in attacking the Northlander center.

On November 24, His Holiness Praised-Be died in battle against the heathen King Louis of Louisiana at the age of 48. The College of Cardinals quickly elected Pleasant Cottonclad, the Abbot of Doniphan (a vassal of the Duke of Lead Belt, in southern Missouri).

Upon his hasty election, the 31-year-old new Pope, who had been commanding troops near Rapides in Louisiana, assumed the name of Cruxipher. Continue reading →