Jert and xhatterx's gaming blog

Ok, so here's the short prologue I wrote to begin our narrative for or games:

Kumite meditated, focusing on the nothingness of being that Uraken spoke of in his training.   He opened one eye at the scouting party that had returned; or at least one of the three goblin ashigarus he had sent out to look on ahead at the coming road.  He hadn't expected much: many of the new ashigarus were adventurous little goblins from the slums of Klune who came to the academy for the kimonos and intricately patterned clothing.  Kumite remembered to calm his mind, think on the positive aspects instead of his natural instinct toward annoyance like Uraken had taught. 
  "Deys like dwarfses, but meana," the young goblin squeaked, "foula.  And all stitched togedder like.   And they 'ad dis big one wit one eye..."
  But Kumite had stopped listening at this point.  He knew of what the little goblin continued to babble about: the dwarves of Mid-Nor were close - ahead, actually, despite their naturally slow speed.  He knew they would be seeking what Shogun Uraken had sent him to this cold blasted land for....

thanks atreju; I just finished the next bit! These narrative will stand in for our battle reports for the time being - xhatterx and I are trying to finish up some paint jobs before we start taking pictures for battle reports! We plan on eventually doing videos in the long run...

But anyway, here's the narrative from our most recent game:

  Kumite cleaned the black blood off his blade from the last undead dwarf he had slain.   He looked upward to see one of his ashigarus giggling hysterically while now and then hacking at a hairy dead hand as it slowly crawled through the snow toward the dwarf corpse it was cut from.  As the hand struggled its last, the ashigaru quickly found another undead body part crawling around, and began gleefully hacking again.   Kumite studied the ground to see several black trails and pools staining the snow.   He briefly shared in his soldier's amusement before shifting his attention to Crispy, the fire support goblin who they had come upon before the battle.

  They had found him under the snowy dark boughs of a fur tree, clutching a small box and muttering to himself.  Before Kumite and his warriors could get any sense out of him, undead dwarves rushed over a nearby ridge  - obviously  hunting the little mage.

  Leading them was a pumpkin-headed scarecrow brandishing a fearsome grimace and grotesquely hobbling around on stiff wooden legs.  Throaty, menacing laughter seeped from the scarecrow, causing the ninja that had been accompanying them lose his nerve and flee.  Kumite and the rest of his warriors found their courage, and met the dark fiends on the snowy ridge - their well-trained blades began cutting each dwarf down.

  Midway through the fight, Crispy's muttering rose in cadence while the box he was holding glowed brighter and brighter.  He then opened the box, and a tiny but impossibly bright flame danced onto the ground and exploded.  A huge shape loomed in the smoke, and then rushed at the closest creature of darkness, easily tearing it apart.

  The battle concluded shortly after, with a lone ashigaru defeating the scarecrow.  As the foe fell, his pumpkin-head left his body, speedily floating away through the trees while continuing its hideous throaty laughter.   Before Kumite and his warriors could think about pursuit, Crispy slumped backward into the snow while the creature he had summoned disappeared in a fiery cloud of smoke and embers.

  The little fire mage now sat under a snow-covered tree once again, clearly exhausted but loudly arguing with one of the ashigarus about the pronunciation of his name - Cris-pee, not Crisp-lee.  Each goblin seemed to be making fun of the other - Crispy with his refined Cadwallan accent, the ashigaru with his backwater jabber.

  "Cap'n,"  Kumite was interrupted by a voice behind him.  He knew it came from the ashigaru he had sent off hunting several hours ago.  He was surprised to find two ashigarus standing in front of him - one of whom he didn't recognize.  This second hunter shifted nervously in front of him - avoiding his scrutinous gaze - while the first continued:

  "We foun' meat cap'n!  'E din't put up muchova foight needa," the little hunter smiled toothily and held up a bloody corpse impaled on a stick.   Kumite studied it for a moment before realizing it was, in fact, Snoozle - the giant rat he and his soldiers had been saddling with their now dwindling gear and supplies.  It was painfully obvious that the hunt had been unsuccessful, and that goblin ingenuity had led to the demise of their poor pack rat instead.

  Kumite sighed, but nodded approval at the first hunter, then turned his attention back to the second.  A sneaking suspicion formed that this was the ninja that had run screeching from the battlefield, especially considering the footprints the deserter had left in the snow lead in the direction the hunters had come from.  The more Kumite thought about it, the more it seemed totally plausible for the ninja to have discarded his gear - having worn a mask kept him anonymous while in his service - and crept back with the hunting ashigaru.

  Indeed, courage was something his soldiers lacked in even the best of circumstances.  Kumite recalled one of Shogun Uraken's teachings: "Courage must be hoisted and flown; give your warriors a flag - they will follow. "  A flag to rally around wouldn't be a bad idea, and it dawned on him as he stared at the shuffling deserter that he had the perfect flagbearer right in front of him!  What better role for a deserter  - and no less with Snoozle's pelt as a flag.

  Kumite realized while he had been lost in thought of what to do with the deserter that the hunters were still standing in front of him, looking expectant and nervous instead of their usual mischievous or dimwitted.  He let them shiver in the snow a few moments more before asking,  "Is there anything else?"

  "Well see cap'n," the first hunter cleared his throat, "we foun' summin'... that is, we was gonna keep it for meself, bu'..."

  "'E foun' treashja!"  The second hunter overcame his nervousness at the mention of what was in the deepest part of every goblin soul: a lust for treasure.  Before Kumite could begin lecturing the little goblins on Uraken's teachings of using discipline to overcome the seeming need for shiny stones and baubles, the first ashigaru continued:

  "Oi, shut it!  You wansn't when der!"  He screeched at the other goblin.  "Eh, yeah cap'n, see but iz de kine of treshja dat's too big an' 'eavy ta lif' - iz look loik a big 'umey 'ead, buh green 'n shiny..."

  Kumite's eyes briefly widened.   The Shogun had sent him to these abominably cold mountains searching for several artifacts; one of which he termed as "the jade head of Altun Ha."  The ashigaru's description fit nicely!

  "Excellent young ashigaru," Kumite bowed with his fist in his open palm, "you make the Shogun proud!  You will lead us there once we have scoured the battlefield."  The ashigaru bowed as Kumite had, then dashed off to pick at a ruined corpse in a nearby snowbank.

  "As for you," Kumite seized and lifted the remnants of Snoozle's corpse from the stick impaling it and handed it to the deserter, "skin this pack rat.  Our warriors will need courage in the coming battles - you will fly the flag and show them that courage!"

“Furiously running over the snow dunes, a solo sentinel scout stumbles upon the blood soaked snow.
Hurling out an alarming shriek, the sentinel alerts the ominous horde steadily lurching the over embankment.
Adjacent to the killing ground, the Mid Nor crudely start mangling together parts of bone and flesh, while the Larva starts regurgitating the fallen.
The Mid Nor oppressor urging the possessed to fallow the green skins.
Guttural moans of the sluggish Mid Nor bellow over the frozen landscape... the walking expired obey the Despot, a handful press on in pursuit of the goblins, while the others head towards the stagnant swamp lands....”

-Mid Nor War Journal 06/18

Crispy lay under the crushing weight of the debris of the collapsed tomb, praying to Rat that he wouldn't be found - or, that he'd at least be mistaken for dead and left alone. He could dimly hear the sounds of the soldiers of The Despot surveying his dead comrades. Curiously, he noted that they were checking the corpses of his fellows very thoroughly - usually in his observations of Mid Nor warriors scavenging a battlefield, they moreso picked apart their fallen enemies, looking for... spare parts. This was different: he could just see small trinkets and coins as they tumbled at the feet of the closest scourge bearer - probably out of a pouch an ashigaru had carried on him. It looked as though the dwarves were searching for something among the dead...

He thought back to how he'd fallen under this mess: starved for supplies - particularly weapons - they had stumbled upon an aging graveyard sinking into the swamp. Most Goblins did not look after their gear, finding it easier to replace it with whatever they found on the battlefield. More importantly though, goblins were particularly sensitive to the time that had passed since they had last found treasure. The number one motivating factor in the majority of goblins heading out from their cozy homes was a dream of finding treasure which they used to barter for exotic junk - and the more treasure found, the more trinkets they could purchase in foreign places. Some even jealously guarded and saved their treasure, obsessed with dreams of the titles they would buy when they returned home - if they returned home.

The graveyard had multiple tombs, which every goblin knew were excellent caches for weapons and scattered shiny treasure. Kumite was leading them, and instructed several small groups of ashigarus to fan out so as to check as many tombs as possible.

Kumite and Crispy had accompanied one pair of ashigarus to the first set of tombs; though, as they began plundering, they could hear the distinct sound of metal rapidly clinking on stone. Before any of them could find the origin of the noise, a Mid Nor sentinel raced toward the nearest ashigaru on its mechanical legs. Crispy chanted a quick incantation before opening his fire box and watching a small flame dance toward a spot on the nearest tomb wall mere feet away from the ashigaru being charged by the sentinel. This was a small mine that he hoped would explode and kill their adversary before it reached the ashigaru. Crispy then ran to the far side of the tomb to hide and watch for the right moment to spring the trap. And so battle was joined, but went disastrously:

As he began the incantation that would explode the mine, two scourge bearers - nasty, tough dwarves of The Despot with jagged, disease-ridden blades - appeared and charged from behind a pile of rubble. Crispy watched as Kumite and several other goblins rushed past the opening of the tomb, piling in on the fray. Weighing his options, he decided that the potential of destroying three servants of Mid Nor was worth the sacrifice of the lives of a few ashigarus. There were sure to be several more goblins lurking around the battlefield, likely to join the battle as reinforcements. And besides that, he and Kumite were probably outside the blast radius of the mine, or could rely on their survival instincts to shrug off any shrapnel...

On that thought, Crispy spoke the last word of the incantation, which was immediately followed by a loud explosion and the tomb walls falling down on top of him.

By some miracle of Rat, he was still fully conscious, though completely paralyzed under the weight of the rubble. He couldn't see much of the battle after this point, but could hear his fellow goblins struggling to regain themselves amid their wounds and burns. The dwarves on the other hand seemed largely unaffected, and proceeded to finish off his comrades.

Now he still lay under the crumbled tomb, cursing ill luck and stupidity, and wondering what he could do to free himself. The problem was, his fire box was pinned under him, and his arms were splayed above his head. It had grown deathly silent, leaving Crispy to wonder if the scavenging Mid Nor warriors had moved on. As he began to feel the slightest incling of safety, he was suddenly gripped by fear as he was roughly seized and pulled out from under the rubble. He squeezed his eyes shut, as he fully expected to feel the horrid warmth of his entrails as some servant of Mid Nor tore him apart. After no such bloody fate befell him for several seconds, Crispy carefully opened one eye. His fear immediately turned to relief when he saw that it was Kumite standing over him looking annoyed and a little worse for wear.

Crispy relaxed, deciding to sit up against the tomb rubble for a moment. He studied his rescuer, who was leaning on his glaive, obviously hobbled by their defeat. Kumite plucked a small pale green bottle from his belt, and handed it to Crispy. He uncorked it, and recognized it as a queer liquor brewed by the Zoukouian goblins that tasted eerily cold and nausiatingly fresh, but made aches and pains vanish. Both goblins drank; Crispy then pulled his fire box out from under the rubble while Kumite used his glaive to stretch his back and shoulders. Moments later, they were back on their feet, rushing toward the next set of tombs.

As they sprinted with their newfound strength, Kumite filled Crispy in on the rest of the battle: he and an ashigaru regained themselves after the explosion and quickly dispatched the scout while moving into combat with the scourge bearers. This counter offensive was short though, as their dwarven opponents were fresh and unscratched, while Kumite and the ashigaru were badly wounded and burnt, and so were struck down.

"Hard fight," Kumite huffed, "but I was not their goal."

Crispy shot him a quizzical look.

"They only disabled me, but maimed and searched the ashigarus."

"I noticed that too..." Crispy gasped as he did his best to keep up, "like they were specifically hunting ashigarus..."

Kumite shook his head, "No matter. Mid Nor hunts my warriors - I will hunt Mid Nor."

They arrived at the next set of tombs to see another scouting sentinel ambush a pair of ashigarus. Heartened by the sight of their approaching commander, the ashigarus fought the scout off, but not before suffering heavy wounds themselves. A short distance away, Kumite caught sight of the scourge bearers who had defeated him earlier, and rushed toward them. As he hurried away, he signaled to an ashigaru at his side to 'stay on the mission' and pointed at a tomb mired further on in the swamp. A greedy smile passed over the ashigaru's face, as he understood this meant he got to go treasure hunting while everyone else fought. Kumite then turned back to the scourge bearers who had now opened what appeared to be an ancient drainage grate, escaping to the tunnel below.

Crispy watched as Kumite pursued the scourge bearers through the grate, but his attention suddenly shifted when he heard a preternatural bellow. He looked in the direction it had come from to see a goat-faced Mid Nor warrior weilding a cruel scythe. He charged a nearby ashigaru, easily cutting him in half. The warrior bellowed again as he used the momentum of his strike to move into the next ashigaru who tried his best to defend himself, but was cut down nonetheless.

Holding his natural goblin fear in check, Crispy was careful to avoid this warrior - as he was clearly some fell champion of The Despot - and repositioned himself further from the main skirmish in order to cast more spells. Seeing the scourge bearers emerge from another drainage grate behind the ashigarus, Crispy carefully chanted an incantation. His fire box held loosely in his hands, it began to glow brightly. As he finished the incantation, he opened the box and a red-hot sphere resembling a cannonball thumped onto the ground shooting sparks in all directions as it sped toward the scourge bearers, leaving a trail of steam, smoke, and burnt foliage. The first undead dwarf narrowly dodged the fiery ball, while the second attempted the same but was not quite fast enough. The ball struck him on the foot, briefly engulfing him in flames. As he writhed from the pain of his burns, Kumite emerged from his pursuit through the grate and made short work of him. Caught by surprise, the second scourge bearer quickly met his end on Kumite's glaive.

Weary from the fighting, Kumite and his ashigarus began slowly closing in on their new opponent. He cut down another ashigaru, but more goblins kept coming to the field for reinforcement. The undead dwarf began backing away from their advance, but his eyes began to glow a sickly green colour, brighter and brighter. Curiously though, he had an expression on his face as though he were listening to something none of the goblins could hear. This continued as he got enough distance from the goblins before sinking off into the foliage of the surrounding swamp.

The battle won, the goblins looked around at eachother in relief, but were immediately startled by a crash followed by the sound of coins and other things tinkling on the ground a short distance away. They all turned to see the treasure hunting ashigaru emerging from the far drainage grate, completely overloaded with treasure. He couldn't carry it all, and one box had spilled gold, jewelled trinkets, and weapons everywhere. Despite their obvious fatigue, the other ashigarus sprinted off to stuff anything they could into their pouches, some of them taking the time to loudly castigate the treasure hunter for attempting to get away with so much loot.

Kumite stood and watched, and Crispy stepped forward to join him at his side, but stumbled. He looked down to see he had bumped into one of the fallen ashigarus sinking into the mud. He glanced to the side, noticing Kumite looking down too.

"Why were they searching the ashigarus?" Crispy wondered aloud again. "Their limbs and appendages are far more valuable to Mid Nor than anything they would ever carry... Maybe they made a mistake; maybe they are searching for the artifacts we took from the mountains..."

Kumite shook his head, "Don't know. I recall Uraken's teaching: 'When one does not know, meditation will bring an answer - or at least, peace.'"

"If we took something of value from Mid Nor, the other goblin bosses will be attacked too..." Crispy replied.

Kumite thought for a moment, recalling having cautioned against separating their forces - especially considering that goblins always relied on their strength of numbers for survival, and so splitting up in desperate situations was totally counter-intuitive to natural goblin instinct. But Bazuka had the last word: their forces would be split into several smaller groups with each goblin boss carrying one of the artifacts they had plundered from the mountains.

"Then we must reach Bazuka-sama's army before Mid Nor does." Kumite concluded.

Thanks I'll be doing other characters and perspectives as we get more stuff painted and get used to bigger games and different miniatures.

Thanks; that's something I really liked when reading fluff and fiction for other games, so it felt like the game was properly rooted in the world it was supposed to take place in. xhatterx and I read lots of battle reports and wanted to do a bit more with them than what we tend to see in most places online. These games play so much better when a game becomes a narrative, or at least that's how we feel. Like I said above, we're working on the visual side of stuff to spruce up the narrative a bit more, so there's more to come!