AIA99 THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL GAME (PART 1) The Austrian team won the second International Legends game. So SSV, located in Austria, was honored to host the third International Legends game. This game was to be a factional game with teams aligned along nationalities and one team made up of players from many nations. There were 8 factions in all. Most factions were represented by teams from Austia and Germany. And there was one team from the US. The team members for the International team were: Marco Dinaro from Italy Nils Olsson and CJ Granander from Sweden Sigbjorn Sjastad from Norway Max Lange from Nederland Gerry Andrews, Wayne Vincenzi and Leonard Welsh from US. Character numbering within each faction was not random. Each faction was assigned character numbers based on the faction number. The first digit of the character number was the faction number. Then for all players it was easy to tell which faction a startup character came from. For example, faction 2 might have main characters in the range of 21 to 29. However, if any of these startup characters chose a hero position, the main character number was modified by adding 100. Thus hero positions in faction 2 ranged from 121 to 129. The third Internation Legends game was an "intense roleplaying" variation of the standard Adventures in Avalon module, allowing several special titles, adventures and bonuses at startup. In addition, all players could be members of one and only one faction. I played the character Mushu, c23, "the Wolfhead". Mushu was a Human Barbarian overlord with extra soldiers at startup. Nils, playing Hu Gadarn, c21, and Wayne, playing Hideyoshi, c24, were Dak Overlords, representing the "old/young Nobility". Max, playing Cara Darkstone, c22, was a Dark Dwarf Chaos Lord as stated in the standard module. Sigbjorn, playing Philmon Phix, c122, was "the WildThing" with major assassin bonuses. Gerry, playing Stan, c121, was the Monster Dealer specializing in the ability to infulence monsters. Leonard, playing Celeborn SkyRider, C25, was an Eastern Elf Magus for influence and extra arcane abilities. Since the module did not allow Dragon Lords in factions, CJ playing Angrimbor, c123, got the Hero role as Dragon Slayer. We estimated that a lot of players would start in the west so we chose our land based positions to be quite far from the most crowded areas. I was located in the north-east, near Dannemarch castle. Nils was southeast of me, while Max was based further southeast near Hammatond. Wayne was in the center of the map not to far from Shigtown. The only eastern player was Leonard located not too far from Aesiteria. Our other players, heros or adventurers, were scattered in the east. I was on holiday just after the start of the game, so a friend of mine (Nils) ran a few turns for me. When I returned, I asked him for a summary of the situation. We were Faction 2 and the other factions as seen after a few weeks of gaming were: Faction 1: A small faction that is probably only a major problem for Marco. There was no contact except for one scout. We estimated that it was located primarily in the east. Faction 2: Our team, described above, was feverishly growing troops and resources. Faction 3: Another small faction peopled by orcs which grow quite rapidly They would have to be dealt with soon. They may be a problem for Max. Faction 4: Composed of all heroes located mostly in the northern forests. Faction 5: Composed of power players. Wayne has had some contact with them. They are far away from us on the map but they may have the most prestige when dealing with humans. They will be dangerous. Their faction name is the Lords of West Avara and they are mainly based in the west. Faction 6: Little information is available except for the Human Barbarian that I slew. They appear to be a full faction that I don't know anything about. Faction 7. Daks located all over the map. They influenced the second best location, Jarlshaven. Their Pope, Sara Pezzini, c72, will get even more powerful as the game progresses. We are at war with them and they are scouting us as well. They could be trouble for Wayne. They may be more trouble to faction 8 who seem to be located near faction 7. Their main bases seem to be around the Port Telma area. Even so they have sent armies as far east as Wayne's HQ. Faction 8. US faction whose leader is doing OK. They might take Port Telma soon if faction 7 is unlucky. They are sure to try right now or very shortly. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (PART 2) AUGUST 2000 While I was on holidays, almost at the beginning of the game, faction 6 was attacked by Nils. He captured the Human Barbarian Dark Wolf, c62. In the process he killed Dark Wolf, destroyed his army and laid waste to the land. This defeat was so complete that for the rest of the game, there was no more sign of life from faction 6. In the west, Jaerlshaven was influenced by faction 7 led by the Human Barbarian Tanorie Aldai, C71. SEPTEMBER Faction 7 continues to lead the Influence aspects of the game : Sara Pezzini, C72, influenced the owner of Port Telma. September was a critical month for me: a large army from faction 1 was sighted near my HQ. Faction 1 was led by Gorm Thunderfist, c11. The army was led by Bishop Junkin, a Borgenbourg guild owner. Even more disturbing was that inside this army, there was the geased owner of Borgenbourg. Fortunately for me, they took no notice my HQ. They were just moving their geased characters north. So I took the opportunity to ambush and to destroy them and their army. At the same time, I destroyed another army of faction 1 preventing the merging of both these armies. Faction 1 had their HQ near my HQ. So from careful scouting by means of scryes and views, we learned that that Gorm Thunderfist, C11, had control of at least 3 guilds: the Ranger guild and the Knight's guild both of which were in Nortloch plus a church in Borgenbourg. In my attack on his HQ, I killed all the soldiers taken from those three guilds as well as the Borgenbourg church owner. I also successfully raided a major force which was trying to escape with everything from his HQ. My raid netted me almost all of his possessions and populations. Unfortunately C11 had gained a very high prestige, listed at 50. This was more than enough to influence the owner of Nortloch who only had 43 prestige. For myself, my prestige was still very far from that. If C11 was successful, it would be a serious problem for me because in one character action he would gain over 1,000 good soldiers, a good base on which to build his economy and an almost impregnable new HQ. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (PART 3) OCTOBER 2000 In the east Faction 5 is growing rapidly and dangerously: Parnis and Valonshire were influenced by Reinhard Hohenstein, c52, and Tosgard was taken by the tasen Paracelsus, c53; Faction 5 along with and Faction 7 would soon become our long term enemies. But for the moment, we had other problems. As anticipated, Faction 1 led by Gorm Thunderfist, c11, influenced Nortloch. But that was the last major action of Faction 1. They had already had some defeats in battle and I was able to GEAS Gorm Thunderfist. I assigned him to a combat slot in one of my forces. Fortunately he did not have stealth turned on and the assignment succeeded. I ordered the force to attack a well defended NPC location. C11 was killed in the fray! This is just another way to assassinate a character. A side benefit is that you get a battle report on the exact defences of the NPC location. Another Faction 1 leader was Bumpu, c111. Bumpu was engaged in taking out lairs and ruins. My army surprised him and Bumpu died in the melee. These defeats signaled the end of Faction 1. The other players in the faction soon dropped from the game and Faction 1 became inactive. In just a few months, two factions had been eliminated from the game: I defeated Faction 1 and Nils destroyed Faction 6. But the game was far from over! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (PART 4) AND NOW ... SOME ROLEPLAYING AIA 99 was a "level 3 interaction" game. With a "standard GM" (Klaus) who was in charge of running the game and with a "roleplaying GM" (Jorg) who was playing several background characters and was in charge of the Roleplaying aspect of the game. So ... (Mushu is the name of my Main character): "Using his considerable magical skills, Mushu did what his friends had had such limited success with. Using a charm of movement on his warmount and using some teleports, Mushu now stood before the gates of Alrand's secret city! He had difficulty masking his surprise when he recognized Xeremes of Aesiteria coming to greet him. Mushu thought Xeremes was very far away. After a brief discussion over a few wines, Xeremes decided that religious factors might prohibit him from joining Mushu for the time being. But surely they could work together on the common goal of increasing the powers of the Scarlet Hand! Mushu was far from the Korellen spies. So in talking with Xeremes, Mushu asked more directly about the group that he just joined but knew so little about. Did Xeremes know if there was any support that the Hand could give our faction? Or other people at Alrand's place that we should talk to? After months of anticipation, it was hard to avoid sounding very eager. Xeremes grew extremely impatient. "We must not hesitate! Alrand has spent much too much time in prison. Our spies indicate that Alrand would in a short time be moved to another prison. This prison was in the dark city under Avalon. If he arrives there, he would have no chance for rescue because there are too many unholy guards! We must intercept the transfer beforehand. We can provide some assistance, possibly delaying the transport with a few unforseen coincidences. But you must be fast, very fast. If you succeed in releasing Alrand, I will follow you with every resource that I have at my command." After this urgent appeal, Xeremes gave even more help with another careful hint. It concerned the Gods. In earlier times, 12 Gods prevailed over the world. Over time, nine of them had disappeared. And Gods emerge in all possible worlds. But sometimes there is a God, who is particularly connected to the practice of magic. Whoever learns his name, can thereby call on him. Xeremes would not say any more" That was the hint on how to activate the Scarlet Hand faction. But we had to guess the name of their god! After lengthy research, the solution came to us: MASINOME was the Arcane Religion god in the Realm of the Immortal games. With this information and the god's name, we were able to activate this new religion. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (PART 5) NOVEMBER 2000 Faction 7 was known as The Black Hole. One of its goals was to influence several major locations. Tanorie Aldai, c71 a mighty Human Barbarian, moved in our lands to try to influence Ebensword's Castle, F32024. But our Hu Gadarn, c21, was already at work in the castle. So we decided that our major assassin, c122, had his first important job ! Philmon Phix attempts to kidnap Tanorie Aldai ID# 71 . Picking the time and place carefully Philmon Phix uses the shadows to sneak up upon his target...... Victory!!! The actual print from the game was: "=>Tanorie Aldai ID# 71 Dread Warrior Human Barbarian Female {Stealth on} Colors: A swirling black Vortex engulfing Avalon. Why can you read this? I thought I can sneak around." The message "attached" to Tanorie was really fun because we could indeed read the message. :) The reason is this. Tanorie had a very high stealth rating but he remained "visible". We have found that in a factional game like this one, it is very prudent to wander around in enemy territory while "invisible". Our Judiciary went to work and found Tanorie Aldai to be a spy. Tanorie was executed and, because Tanorie as OMish, we were able to lay him to rest. We drew satisfaction from eliminating an enemy main character. That event is indeed a setback to any faction. Later in the game, we discovered that Tanorie was succeeded by his heir. In the meantime, Hu Gadarn was able to acquire Ebensword's Castle, our first major location. Although we started our influence attempts a little late in the game, Ebensword's Castle allowed us to secure our starting locations and to protect our main characters. DECEMBER 2000 Faction 7 was forging ahead in the west: Calae was taken by Jeredon Terkot, c74. Our Dwarf, Cara Darkstone, c22, tried to influence Hammathond. The "view character" order gave us a prestige rating of 54 for Ivanfolk, the owner of this major Dwarf location. But Ivanfolk was also the "King of the Dwarves" and the title is worth 16 prestige. So his Effective Prestige was 70 and Cara failed to influence him. A lot more time was needed before we succeeded. And we learned not to rely on the prestige given by the VIEW order. It doesn't take into account prestige given by titles. Meanwhile, I spent much time working with Xeremes of Aesiteria. Only after a change of religion did Xeremes agree to join our cause. SITUATION AT THE END OF Y2000 Major location status: Faction 1 : Nortloch, F3014, but this faction was declining in power. Faction 2 : Aesiteria, F3001, owned by c23; Ebensword's Castle, owned by c21. Faction 5 : Parnis, F3015, and Valonshire, F3023, both owned by c52, Reinhard Hohenstein); Tosgard, F3022, woned by c53, Paracelsus. Faction 7 : Jarlshaven, F3013, owned by c71, Tanorie Aldai) and Port Telma, F3017. owned by c72, Sara Pezzini. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (PART 6) JANUARY 2001 The situation at the end of 2000 was that three factions were battling for control of the game. The three factions were faction 2 ( the Knights of Tanelorn, that is our faction), faction 7 (the Black Hole) and faction 5 (the Whitestorm Dynasty). None of the other factions did not seem to pose a major threat in AIA99. So we didn't consider faction 3 a major threat. There was almost no sign of life from them. We were concentrating on the elimination of faction 1 and on monitoring the actions of the Black Hole. The Whitestorm Dynasty was too far away on the map to be a short term problem. But we were wrong. The new year started with bad news for our faction: Max's HQ was attacked and taken by faction 3. This army was led by Ashen Sugar, c133. We were lucky to have one of our characters in same the province. The only information we had was a "sighting" but that was enough to guess what had happened. Max had another major army nearby, so he was able to respond quickly and to counterattack the conquering army of faction 3 and in the battle Ashen Sugar was killed. All seemed to be under control. But Faction 3 hostility was not finished! Immediately after production, a "superhero", Ogla Mash, c131, tried a "single character attack" to take back Max's HQ. Ogla Mash assumed that Max's HQ would be almost undefended. That seemed like a reasonable assumption since in two major battles most of both armies had been destroyed. However, Max had wisely set up standing orders to train soldier at production. So the attack of Ogla Mash failed! And what a character Ogla Mash was after just a few months of gaming! Ogla Mash ID# 131 Elder Chaos Troll Male with Weasal familiar. Weapon : Mithril Blacksword Total CF : 1200 Shield : Shield (L) Total DF : 108 Armor : P-2 Dwarf Plate (L) Melee Attack Factor : 22644 Warmount : Iron Chariot Missile Attack Factor : 0 Damage Rating : 29 Invuln. Rating : 7 Mg. Att. Res. : 26 Special Attack Res. : 12 Spcl Atck Typ : Poison Special Attack Value : 875 FEBRUARY 2001 February was an important month for AIA99 influencers. Nils, c21, acquired Borgenbourg and I, c22, influenced Wolfgar, the owner of Nortlock, away from the disabled and mostly disbanded faction 1. In the meantime, the Black Hole influenced Shigtown and The Whitestorm Dynasty influenced both Shawhurst and Castle Dracon. But this month was important also due to military action in the game. The Black Hole attacked our western land-based player, Hideyoshi, c24. Hideyoshi's HQ was attacked and taken by the Black Hole. In the contest, several of his characters were captured and/or killed. Further in the west was Celeborn, c25. His position was fairly safe since it was located on Aesiteria Island, at least at this point in the game. In addition, far in the west there were lots of battles between factions 5 and 7 and 8. The Whitestorm Dynasty maintained only 800 soldiers at Tosgard. And the general of Tosgard only had a tactics rating of 15. The Black Hole attacked with 1,700 soldiers. The battle raged and 700 Black Hole troopers fell. But Tosgard was taken and the Tasen population was enslaved! Surely there was no luck for the Tasens in AIA99! Back to the east side of the map, Cara Darkstone, c22, completed our response to faction 3, and destroyed most of their assets. The game was in a "hot" phase, and the Black Hole seemed to have a slight advantage. But the first year of gaming was not yet finished and lots of things could happen! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (PART 7) FEBRUARY 2001 The former player of Celeborn Skyrider, C25, dropped the game. Leonard Welsh was happy to pick up the position. So we summarized the situation for Leonard: The game has a roleplaying GM (Jorg) who could do a lot of different things: Some examples of what he did follow. We liked the Scarlet Hand faction which was the Magic faction of the original Avalon module. So we started the game with all our main characters as mages. 1) Jorg teleported the owner of Aesiteria to our area into a Scarlet Hand location which in fact was not much more than a location with a majic shell. He gave us a riddle to find him. Marco solved the riddle and influenced the owner of Aesiteria instead of the factions in the east. This turned out to crucial for Celeborn because otherwise his position would be doomed Celeborn's HQ was 3 provinces away from Aesiteria. 2) Jorg freed the Scarlet hand owner from Avalon so we could try to influence him. Alrand is now our prisoner but since Alrand is an elf only Celeborn can influence him. 3) Jorg made a God for the Scarlet Hand faction. The Masinome religion (ala Realm of Immortal) was quite nice with decent spells and religious status tree. We could convert some of our *important* chars to Masinome priests by exchanging a skill for Masinome priesthood. All this was in keeping with the roleplaying aspects of the game. We don't know exactly what Jorg did for other factions, but we got some clue from in-game information, the AIA99 web site (yes, there is a website dedicated to this very game!) and mail with other players. These turned out to be a good opportunity to keep up to date on what we know about the other factions. So the situation at the beginning of 2001 is the following: FACTIONS Faction 1. A small group led by a Human Barbarian. Had the first Dragonking and influenced Northloch as he was WAY ahead of Marco in prestige. But most of his position except Northloch was destroyed by Marco and then the whole faction dropped. Faction 2. Our faction. See more detail below. Faction 3. The Gorgoroth group. An Orc overlord and some heroes. Not a strong group except for a strong basher, Ogla Mash. But poor caretaking of our home bases encouraged their attack on Max's Dark Dwarf home and killing lots of soldiers and guilds. The counterattack came the day after that and they are seriously weakened militarily. They still might be active with the Orcs through the south. And of course Ogla Mash is a powerful character even though he lost ALL his equipped items. They got from Jorg a Gorgoroth bonus and a nice extra char. Maybe more will be heard from them. Faction 4. Just 4 heroes that are still very active in the north but not bothering anyone. Faction 5. The Whitestorm Dynasty: Jorg gave them a title with 5 prestige early in the game, so they were able to influence major locations very fast. They were really prestige hunters and way ahead of us at this stage. They are doing OK although they only had 4 main characters from the start of the game. Now they might be in trouble and maybe have just two or three players left. Faction 7 attacked and took Tosgard from them. But they still have have most locations in the far west and the southwest. Since rumormongers stopped saying which cities that are influenced, we are not 100% sure which. Faction 5 recently took out the elven Midnight player. In general they are a strong faction, but with very few players. Faction 6. Nils attacked and totally annihilated their Human barbarian faction leader and all his characters early in the game. They seemed to be well ahead of us in prestige. We haven;t seem much from them since Nils' attack. Faction 7. The Black Hole: our main enemy took out Wayne's HQ with their Dak general, c75, and troops from Shigtown. Their Human barbarian leader Tanorie Aldai, c71, influenced Jarlshaven very early in the game. But he moved east a bit too quickly, encountered our faction and is now laid to rest. C71, c72, c74 and c75 are all influencing major locations and they have plenty of locations in the area around Port Telma. They have a new religion too called Time Lords. Faction 8. The Midnight group : They were/are being crushed by the Whitestorm Dynasty troops. In spite of the fact that their supposed roleplaying "power" is the elves, faction 5 influenced Evenclear before them. So Jörg gave them an adventure to move an entire location to an island to the south. The Midnight leader HQ has moved the last few days I think. Their leader has a decent city with numerous but not well-statused troops. AND NOW A SUMMARY OF OUR POSITIONS: c21. Nils. Near Borgenburg. Dak mercenary that has had the worst starting game in Nils' career. Just two unimpressive major locations and no humans to influence nearby has made his postion restricted in characters. He has just 15 or so. But it seems like Nils has the best army of the faction. He controls Ebensword Castle and Borgenburg. c22. Max. Dark Dwarf who is focused on Hammuthond. He has had some setbacks so it will take a few turns more. Excellent Dark Dwarf training potential, but also with few characters: he can influence only Dwarfs. c23. Marco. Human barbarian. Influenced Aesiteria and just got Northloch out of faction 1 hands. Has by far the most characters since therea are many Human barbarians in the area. Is just getting starting with real army building. Hopefully he will get more major locations. c24. Wayne. Another Dak general position, but it is doing less well. All soldiers killed by faction 7. c25. Leonard. Eastern Elf mage. Pros: 1) Far in the west, near Aesiteria, that Marco owns now. A quite defendable situation, especially if he can move everything to Aesiteria. Aesiteria is also the Masinome powercity, and holds the Temple of Magic. Also far away so tradegoods made there are very valuable. 2: C25 should influence Alrand shortly who is the Scarlet Hand leader, another roleplaying important character. But Alrand is probably close to level 40 mage. 3: Up to recently I thought that the Torvan castle would be a sure thing for you since it was owned by an elf. But apparently character 74 is there now and can probably influence it. Maybe next there turn will be an attempt to kidnap c74 ; Cons: 1:A bit low on characters like most of us. 2:Weak army with few statused troops. 3:Far away from us. 4:Very spread out with locations across many islands. c121. Gerry. Monster dealer Human barbarian. He is influencing lots of lesser balrogs but also getting quite high prestige. Will probably get a large number of characters as a major influencer. c122. Sigbjorn. Wild thing Eastern Elf assassin. Running around after targets. He nabbed Tanorie Aldai so enough to have made the main a good character! As many characterss as the rest not including Marco in spite of not really influencing. Hunting heroes at the moment. c123 Calle. (CJ) Dragonslayer Elf. Incredibly bad start with very few dragons in his area. But things are improving. Still the strongest basher and arcanist in the faction. MAJOR LOCATION STATUS 3001 Aesiteria in 34/67 FACTION 2 3003 Borgenburg in 84/23 FACTION 2 3004 Calea in 45/50 FACTION 7 3009 Evenclear in 12/26 FACTION 5 3013 Jarlshaven in 37/13 FACTION 7 3014 Northloch in 68/3. FACTION 2 3015 Parnis in 27/52 FACTION 5 3017 Port Telma in 27/28 FACTION 7 3020 Shawnhurst in 10/58 FACTION 5 3021 Shigtown in 56/40 FACTION 7 3022 Tosgard in 56/40 FACTION 7 3023 Valonshire in 19/3 FACTION 5 3024 Ebensword Castle in 77/25 FACTION 2 3028 Castle Dracon in 5/31. FACTION 5. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -