AAR: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 13-16)

[jotwebe]

From the notes of George Gammell Angell, Professor Emeritus of Semitic Languages at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island

Fragment IV.a

The Aboleth - Physiology

Though sometimes described as eel-like, the aboleth as commonly pictured has a closer resemblance to the rattail fishes of the family Macrouridae, the most common benthic fish of the deep sea. However, despite some superficial similarities, the aboleth follows a fundamentally different bauplan.

One obvious deviation is the vertical instead of horizontal arrangement of the aboleth's eyes, which in turn are able to perceive light both above and beyond the human-visible spectrum. It is a persevering misconception that aboleths enslave Merman mages for the purpose of observing the heavens from above the waves -- they are perfectly capable of seeing the stars even from the bottom of the sea. They simply prefer to employ slaves for routine tasks.

The aboleth possesses severel more sensory organs: a sophisticated hearing system distributed over their body that is relatively ill-suited for usage on land -- its strengths are the low frequencies of chtonic disturbances and far-traveling sea noises.

Along its side the aboleth is equipped with a strange ichtyid organ that perceives electrical charges and which also only functions when submerged.

The characteristic barbel-tentacles on the aboleth's head, apart from their function in immobilizing larger prey and draining its life force, are in addition sensory organs able to detect vital energy and mental activity.

end of fragment

Fragment V.c

Ontogeny and Society

The aboleth species is characterized by an extreme sexual diorphism: The females are immobile coral-like growths that spew forth a flood of young aboleth spawn with unbelievable fecundity. These are the elder aboleths' preferred source of nourishment, and are in turn provided with the bodies of mentally lobotomized sea creatures to feed upon.

Male aboleths' lifespans are measured in millenia, the female polypal colonies grow older by several orders of magnitude. They are however afflicted with long periods of dormancy, during which they do not create any new young. What causes these strange jubilees is unknown, save there seems to be an influence of certain constellations and a role played by the unspeakable rites performed in the vile so-called temples of this ancient race.

The young aboleth's scales are quite hard at the time of leaving the maternal polyp, and it yet lacks any power over the minds of others or, indeed, any powers of higher reasoning. A cowardly creature, it prefers to feed on carrion or prey rendered helpless by its elders' mental powers.

After about a millenium, the spawn has grown enough to be about one and a half man's length from snout to tail and has developed a rudimentary sentience, although yet incapable of communicating meaningfully with other intelligences. The telepathic ability is rudimentary in complexity yet powerful in projection: the monstrous fish-thing is capable of what is among cognoscenti known as a “mindblast”, a stunning and even immobilizing psychic attack. In this phase of its life, it is called a giboleth.

Some giboleth develop an exceptionally close mental tie with the polypal mothers -- these are known as gibodai and develop the ability to drain and store life force, which they then provide to the coral growth. Their mental and physical growth is forever stunted, yet they are treated with uncharacteristic deference by the larger and more powerful aboleths.

In the Black Tablets of Hathat, the giboleth/gibodai stage is compared human puberty, or “a young man newly taken to the spear”. There may be some sense to that, for it is in a mere one or two centuries that it achieves the ability to express itself fluently, comprehend and apply the occult principles of stellar and aquatic power, as well as develop a life-draining ability akin to that of the gibodai. At this stage in its life it may correctly be called an aboleth. It has grown even larger, but has shed most of its hard scales, leaving its skin covered with a slimy mucus.

fragment ends

[Immaculate]

Originally Posted by Excist

I have a business meeting tomorrow night, and I just realized that I'm not sure when I'll get back tomorrow night. Can we have a 24 hour delay please?

Havn't seen your turn up so i added another little extension. Hope everything is alright.

[jotwebe]

R'lyeh

In the farthest reaches of the encircling ocean, where the briny surface currents meet the great wall of ice and plummet into the deep, there is an abyss under the black sea. Past the roots of icebergs the currents plunge, leaving behind the world of light, shedding colors one by one.



The pressure increases relentlessly, and the ice-chilled currents pass a lifeless zone where even the merfolk cannot breathe and only certain strange squid drift in sluggish dreams.

Finally, in this gloomy realm, there is a colorless plain of slimy ooze. The carcasses of sea-creatures slowly decompose, playing host to disgusting coiling throngs of boneless hagfish and spiny, long-legged crabs.



Yet the current is pulled even deeper: over jagged, rocky cliff into a crack of even deeper darkness, so cold that the water would freeze but for the merciless pressure that squeezes the very mind into strange and warped shapes. Down into the chasm, past the ghostly lures of vast and monstrous great-jawed fish of stunning ugliness.



Deeper into the abyss, the current is met by pillars of strange gases rising from the cracked rock, half obscuring the brooding Cyclopean basalt blocks that lean at subtle and surreal angles. In the center of the city, spanned by arching bridges, there is a cleft where even the aboleths do not venture.

This is the ancient city of R'lyeh. There has been some disturbance and unrest lately, as a strange Atlantean has come among the slaves, pale, pudgy, and uncanny, always appearing where he was not expected and speaking of the death of the Pantokrator and the advent of a new era. Nyarlathotep this Atlantean called himself, but whence this outlandish name hailed from, none knew to say.

Among the aboleths, the powers were split in their opinion. Most disdained this arrogant Atlantean, yet some were swayed by the impelling fascination and allurement of his revelations. In the year 63,123,288 Nyarlathotep's enemies, worried about his ever-increasing fame and popularity, decided to take action.

Nyarlathotep was again speaking to a crowd of slaves and lesser aboleths, capering on top of a bridge that spanned R'lyeh's central chasm. As was his fashion he proclaimed a vast change; a time, drawing near, in which the hidden stars themselves would be shaken.

Of a sudden a group of five aboleths, among them the notorious L'grss, closed in on the crowd, followed by a large mass of those degenerated slaves known as lobo guards. The aboleths began to bend their vile minds upon Nyarlathotep, adding to vast pressure of the deep a mental component.

The Atlantean prophet let loose an unholy shriek, and an even greater sense of foreboding settled on the scene. The towers of R'lyeh swayed in the grip of an earthquake, and the chasm suddenly gaped wider, ripping apart the bridges in tumbles of Cyclopean blocks.

Nyarlathotep also fell, and the aboleths moved to the chasms edge, driven by cruel curiosity.

Suddenly, with uncanny speed, five pallid rubbery arms shot upwards up out of the darkness and wrapped themselves around the stunned aboleths. Even their vast size did not avail the hapless creatures as they disappeared into the deep, wailing and gibbering.

In their place a monstrous octopoid head rose out of the widened chasm, while the prophet Nyarlathotep stood on its pale dome and shouted out his damnable prophecies in vile ecstasy: "Iä! Iä! Yöt-Webbogoth hath come!"



(next: gameplay updates)

[Immaculate]

F*cking A!

Sweet intro!

Yeah, i guess we are at turn 18; if peeps want to start posting their turn 1-3 stuff they are welcome to do so- especially if their non-gaming time-constraints get tighter in the week are are looser on the weekend.

[Excist]

Can we add 6 hours to the clock and move to a 30h quickhost to combat the deadline creep?

Turns are getting too long to do them back to back, especially with treaty and trade negotiations.

[Immaculate]

right- no problem.

EDIT: wait- you are signing treaties? Shouldn't i be involved in this? Surely you want to take my offer.

[Immaculate]

Also: For jotwebe:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6078/141.full

[Excist]

You made sure I wouldn't be able to afford your ransom so I just have to finish Pan as fast as I can and then focus on you.

[Immaculate]

Arcosephalae
Turn One: Sweet Dreams

Click the turn name. Even the Eurythmics love Arcosephalae. And it shouldn’t matter if Annie Lennox looks like that- “I travel the World and the Seven Seas. Everybody’s looking for something.”

Anyway, it’s a little early to post my first turn- we are only on turn 18 in the game but I don’t feel I am giving too much away and I have time to post tonight and less over the next few days so I thought I would get right to it.



Here’s the nation description. I think generally they are not usually thought of as an early game power. Their mystics allow for excellent communion evocations however and so, in my opinion, they begin to come into their own once you can field communions and you get some command over evocation magic. Their militaries are not generally considered very good or anything. The myrmidons are really slow and require a ton of resources. I won’t be using many- mostly because they are slow. Another unit they mention are the Pegasus riders and these aren’t bad at all- with both 16+ defense and 16+ protection. I was in a game recently where the arcospehalae player took an earth 9, astral 9 bless and his Pegasus riders were totally bad-a$$. I won’t be doing that however.

The philosophers are interesting (see screenshot below). They cost 50 gold and generate 5 base research plus 1 point per point of sloth. That translates to very efficient research. They are, however, old. The oreids are awesome and I will get to them when I start fielding them.

The last and perhaps most important thing to mention is that we are led by an awesome song from the 80s, “White Wedding” by Billy Idol. If you haven’t applied yourself to rediscovering the beauty that is Billy Idol, than you are missing out. You can’t listen to it seriously- you have to adopt a sort of facetious good-naturednes but if you do that, you will surely enjoy them.

Click the link.

“White Wedding” has a number of titles, each more grandiose than the last. Beyond that, I will share no more at this juncture. So for now, lets move on.



For those of you who are familiar with the map “Shadowshore”, I am starting in the bottom left hand corner. Which means no real resource-heavy provinces around me None of the neighboring provinces are mountains or forest. At this point I am really praying for iron mines or something near to my capital.

You can see that I had my starting commander do some patrolling while I jack up taxes a bit. Additionally I set my scout to be a Prophet of “White Wedding”. His will be the job of sharing the ‘good news’ of 80s rock with everyone.

What else can you see in this screenshot? Right. The scales. As you can see I took lots of order (money, less events), sloth (less money, much less resources), misfortune (offset hopefully by the order scales) and magic (faster research).



I recruit a bunch of slingers to augment my starting army. Slingers suck but they are cheap and don’t cost much resources so its pretty much the only thing I can hire.



More interestingly, here is the commander I hired this turn. With sloth scales and magic 1, he produces 9 research point per turn for only 50 gold. Many will get diseased and die in the first winter but it will give me a strong early research. I have to be sure to capitalize on it though because other researchers (mystics) would last longer and be able to forge and cast spells.



Lastly, I had some money left over (because philosophers are so cheap) so I put a bid down for some mercenaries.

At this point i don't have any strong strategic plans. Its a pretty standard opening i think.

Anyway, that’s the first turn. Cheer for Arco!

[jotwebe]

Welcome, friends of the squamous and tentacular, to R'lyeh turn 1.



I'm starting with an awake kraken, it should be able to solo a province on turn one. It has a massive amount of hitpoints, but low dominion could be a problem. For that reason the prophet will follow it and hopefully catch up when the kraken goes on a small detour. It goes east.

I prophetize the starting scout while I set taxes to 140% and patrol with the starting army. And the prophet-to-be gets renamed to Nyarlathotep, sine he obviously is one of his avatars.

This is the map zoomed fully out:



As you see, except in a few places, the sea is a narrow one province wide ring. Since reinforcing it will be tricky, I will take my time assembling my expansion army. This turn I'm recruiting slave trolls and a polypal mother. I want one in R'lyeh anyway, and this way I'll get a turn of preaching out of it before my dominion is too high for it to make a difference. Mages will come later.

The army, once completed, will set off southwards, in the the opposite direction of Yöt-Webbogoth.

When the stars are right, they will meet again.