The sun rises over the Smoky Mountains, revealing dew- and fog-covered valleys, the remnants of East Tennessee after the veil fall. The parting fog reveals a settlement, a mixture of old and new buildings with a definite medieval flair, a castle on a hill overlooking a medium town with people beginning to truly leave their homes for work. Whether it be working fields and shepherding herds or more skilled work like blacksmithing and carpentry.However, to you this is the new beginning; your father lies buried in the graveyard next to the small orchard the family has maintained for generations. With his passing you are now the duke of Stone Bridge. A man you had once thought indestructible layed low by a poisoned arrow from some Swail clan scum. His armor had stopped dozens of arrows, spears, and axe strikes, but there is always one. What had been an attempt to open some communication to at least lessen the constant hostilities between some of the mountain clans and your own house, not to mention all the other houses and noble lords that dotted the rivers and hills just below the mountains, instead ended in the death of your father and some of his retinue by ambush.Now though is not the time for grieving, for you are a Duke of Stone Bridge, and you must take your vengeance as all lords of the hills and rivers do through reiving, and you shall not just stop at some lives of their boys and whatever herds you can claim from Clan Swale today; no, you shall destroy their main winter settlement if you can as you stand from where you were kneeling before the cross that marks your father, and you begin sending riders to all who swear their arms to you in the outlying villages as you order your servants to prepare rooms for the lords and knights with a mustering space for their respective retinues. This is a quest set in a post-apocalyptic America where, at least to your knowledge of the surrounding regions, it is anything from forest and mountain clans who only wear their highest chain and live a semi-nomadic lifestyle all the way to the early modern period, circa the English Civil War, with everything in between being possible. You and the lands you control have a tech level of mostly the hundred wars era equivalent with some things that are more advanced, like stagecoaches. Your stylings and culture are somewhat inspired by English border reivers, but you're more likely to have some full plate, but you will have more medium and lighter cavalry in the form of hobelars and similar things. Monsters and magic similar to fantasy do exist with monsters being not uncommon, some even talk of different races, but magic of any real power is incredibly rare.Feel free to ask any questions you may have this my first time running a quest here What is your name [ write in ]Are you married or at least betrothed already [ yes/no ]
OP, may I ask what is with the formatting?>Name: Jacob Duke>No
If you mean the text formatting for the general writing it was more spilt up until I guess my copy and paste messed it up, for the options that's just how I did it because it's my first time writing a quest on here and I don't know how else to do it.
>>6377082Ah, yeah, spacing often needs some adjustment after posting in the 4chan texr box. Also, and I mean no offense, but I strongly recommend being a bit more particular with some of the punctuation for readability. That said, it's a cool premise!
Yeah, punctuation is not my strong suit I use a grammar and spelling checker but, in the future, I'll look at more closely.
>>6377051>What is your name [ write in ]Isabel Holbane>Are you married or at least betrothed already [ yes/no ]Married
>>6377115Just wondering if you meant for your vote to be a female character I mean I could try writing her, but I had planned on it being a male character I probably should have mentioned that.
>>6377118Yes
>>6377115Supporting
Voting will be done around noon tomorrow I'm going to be honest I'm not sure how I could make this story work with a female main character not to mention I don't think I have the skills to write that. So I might not count those votes I'm sorry for not making that clear earlier .
>>6377079+1
Just so you have a general idea of what land you control, if the county is red, that means it is definitely under your control. Of course, that's often through vassals rather than directly, though there are still dangers in these areas, such as monsters and bandits. The yellow counties are technically controlled, but that just means you may have a few towns that are always under threat by various groups.measurements of the land total land you controlTerritory size 2770 square miles total 2687 square miles land 83.5 square miles water
>>6377051>NameLee-Reeve of House Wesmoreland>Marital StatusBetrothed. Would be quite unusual for an Heir Apparent to not have a fiance.
Nice I don't know if you made that yourself or got it somewhere else but that is super cool.
>>6377246I just made it. UUUU
It is far more interesting than the map I made, which honestly took me far too long to decide which counties to actually give you. Also, for making that map, I will go ahead and give some lore you would know in character about some other places in Tennessee. The most powerful nation, so to speak, and self-proclaimed petty king of the whole state is the ruler of Memphis and most of West Tennessee. He considers you and Duke Donegal to be his vassals, but due to the time it takes to actually get to you and his contentment to just become rich off of the Mississippi, he doesn't actually ask anything of either of you really. Your closest equal rules from Knoxville and that area, while as far as anyone knows, Nashville is a massive monster hive, and few if any who go their return, and those who do are usually just passing through at night via boat if possible.
>>6377253So something like 'iss.
Pretty much I'll expand on nearby states and the really big powers that you or may not ever run into at some other point.
Absolutely crazy to realize that a lot of the geography of tennessee would not exist after all the dams were blew'd up, and didn't exist just 85 years ago. Center Hill and Dale Hollow would be canyons instead of lakes.
There is a reason the Tennessee valley was considered the worst place in America for a very long time chattanooga randomly getting flooded by up to 54 feet of water just being an example. though luckily for you and your vassals the TVA was somehow far more effective at creating long lasting infrastructure to a point and magical apocalypses are a little less explosive than nukes flying.
I have finished asspulling names for the duchies and things. Take them or leave them as you will, hopefully it will give you some inspiration.
Some more lore just so you know generally what you have available to you militarily for black powder weapons you technically have access to them but only really as part of your own castle as bombards on walls or a couple in storage you lack people who really understand them that well so your limited in how many you can operate at a time and by the fact that if you wanted to move them you would need to disassemble them put them on a wagon and lug them with your army as for handgonnes and equivalent things you don't have access to them really at all.
I'm calling the vote now wining plan is Jacob Duke and you are not Betrothed yet though that will probably happen soonish. I will probably have the next update out sometime tonight as always ask any questions about the world and stuff I love answering those.
Five days pass as your vassals filter from their own holdings; that's a new feeling. They're yours, not your father's. Enough of those thoughts; you have a war to plan, you think to yourself as you school your face from the subtle break in the facade. Rooms fill in the castle as lords and knights filter while their more common-born retinues gather in a massive tent city outside of the castle while more horsemen and carts continue to gather, whether it be camp followers always eager to support an army or the soldiers themselves.Though you have omitted two of your lords, Baron Hackney from having to gather here at Chattanooga, as he holds the town of Benton, which will likely be your staging ground for moving into the Okoee Wildlands, and Count Herron, who controls Cleveland, which is on the way to Benton, once you have linked up with their forces, your total forces would be around two and a half thousand men.
The army finishes gathering, and with two more days passing, rain and fog make the already difficult task of making an army move as even a semi-cohesive force. It is not some well-ordered march talked about with the greats of military skill; no, it is like a wheezing animal dragging its way across the road as wagons get stuck in mud or detritus needs to be moved off of the roads for the rest of the force as you finally reach the outskirts of Benton, the rain threatening to flood the whole valley. It feels like mud tries to devour men if they step off of what remains of ancient paths.With many of your lords gathered together in the halls of the manor, you begin going over the aged map in front of you. Clan Swail has several holdouts they use in this region; they have a large camp at Parksville Lake. They have two more camps on both Big and Little Frog Mountains. While by far their largest towns, so to speak, are at Ducktown and Turtle Town, though there are other clans in your more northern holdings, trying to overextend too far north could become quite an issue.
What is your general plan for this campaign? While things can change due to stimuli like an ambush, it can lead to you changing plans if you take a lot of losses.As an example, and some basic starter options >Will you try and keep your army together as one large force?>Send out riders and men to begin reiving the land, stealing cattle, burning farms, and causing general havoc to try and force a field battle. >Split your army into several forces to try and begin sieges or attacks on multiple locations at the same time.> feel free to write in and edit these options to your liking
>>6377502>>Advance in full force to burn and pillage Parksville Lake first, then striking deeper into Ducktown and then Turtletown if we can manage.
>>6377502If we can fight a pitched battle, our heavy foot will decimate the tribals' light foot. The enemy relies on raids and ambushes. Keeping our forces massed together is the obvious choice to prevent devastating ambushes, but then our logistics and supply trains will be vulnerable to raids that will threaten to starve our army.>Send out riders and men to begin reaving the land, stealing cattle, burning farms, and causing general havoc to try and force a field battle.Our main force will maneuver to oppose any massed force they gather to try to attack our riders, while our riders will forage from the very supplies of the enemy. The tribals will have no choice but to either have a battle with our heavy foot or else give ground to our advance and hope to draw us into a longer and more vulnerable supply line.
I submit to the council of the Lords a plan to secure our supply lines through the Okoee tanglewood. Steep hills tangled thick with mangolia and piled knee deep with chestnut husks marks the entire northern flank of the 12 hour march to Ducktown. A hill fort and archer barge at the two flat areas along the trek should be a cost effective way to secure our supply lines from Benton, while the garrison at Benton should be able to harass any counterplay from the Hiawassee passes in the north. Once we reach Ducktown, a third hillfort can be constructed for foragers to launch their raids from while our heavy foot opposes the movements of the enemy's main force.By having three hill forts, we can overnight safely at the midway fort and reduce the travel time of our wagons to Ducktown to six hours. Our heavy foot could travel three hours towards the middle fort and escort the wagons three hours back, while riders could escort them the entire way. It would make our logistics virtually unassailable.
This is what virtually the entire trek looks like for those who don't know.
My guess what the tribal economy is like, if 1000+ years from now the Chestnuts have recovered and drop enough chestnuts to support pig populations like they used to. Lots of wild turkeys and small deer too.
Yeah for those not in the know Polk county which is where you are Benton being the actual county seat is mostly taken up by the Cherokee national park and has been more overgrown than it already is in real life. Also don't expect flat terrain basically ever this is east Tennessee there is a reason it was the one part of the state that large plantations never really caught on most farming being done by subsistence farmers and it was mostly used for mining and logging.
Next major update will either be early Tuesday or late Monday I will be busy until then likely, but I can always answer questions and stuff if you have them.
sorry for the wait next update will be tomorrow I was unexpectedly busy today.
>>6377776I'll +1 this.>>6377502
A plan had been created, and upon your orders some river boats and barges, often used for carrying whatever grain or livestock was produced in Benton, were commandeered for use by some of your crossbowmen and archers so as to better encircle the camp at Parksville Lake. While the camp had some rudimentary fortifications from a land approach, it was unguarded to the lake, which would soon be their downfall.Another contingent of your men were to build a series of small hill forts from available timbers or logs not much more than a palisade and a blockhouse but more than enough to hold back most attacks from the Swail clan contingent. From these various hill forts, the lighter of your riders would be tasked with perhaps what they do best, the so-called reiving. Your riders would take to every hill path and field, and anything that could be connected to the Swail clan would be stolen, burned, or killed, be it people, livestock, or grain. While technically the Swail clan was perhaps a bit better prepared than some groups for this type of attack, having little in the form of vast fields or herds instead often focusing more on the hunting of the vast boar and deer populations in the region, they also had a great weakness to this tactic. Only their largest settlements had many fortifications or even structures that could be truly called fortifications, and so your men burned every hovel, taking as they will, though they know the rules of such tactics in that a portion must always go to the other main host lest they lose all the baubles they are allowed to keep.
Your host finally makes it to the palisade of the Parksville camp, and from its walls, what is supposed to be their local chief, or some equivalent meets your eyes from the walls, and you give him the last chance he will have."Chief of this camp, will you hear my words and surrender your people and camp to me, or will you condemn them all to die today?" His only response was to draw an arrow and loose it as fast as he could right at you, the men you had ridden forward with putting shields and their bodies in front of you, not that the arrow was likely to injure you anyway, also having donned your plate; however, the same meager weapon had been what killed your father, so you shall keep such pride quiet for now. With this attack you ride back to your host, some obviously enjoying the fact that this attempt at negotiations failed; after all, the looting of even a poor camp such as this could, if lucky, grant a peasant quite a sum. The barges and boats that had been commandeered have moved to the lakeside of the camp. Crossbow bolts and arrows soon begin flying into the town; even if it doesn’t always kill, it creates panic among the people of the camp of less martial standing, which creates more issues for the men trying to prepare for the host on the other side of the wall. As your line begins moving to the gate and wall, a simple ram made of a log fitted with a metal cap is soon bashing against the gate, causing it to buckle and break with every strike.To say that the sack of any settlement is an ugly and bloody affair would be too generous a word, as billmen began feeling the gateway made by the ram, the gate having splintered and the hinges knocked off as the billmen pushed into the camp on the other side. Some unlucky beings were hit by axes or arrows from the men or few women who tried to fight, only to be replaced by another until the line split and men of higher standing, armored in full chain plate and brigandine, began smashing their way through whatever defense the people could make, some when trying to make a run for it further into camp to set up again, only to be hit by a lucky bolt.After the fighting was done, the looting began, and anything worth its weight was stripped, and then one of your men, a knight of yours, directly approached you among the chaos of the looting and began to ask you a question. “My Duke, I have a question. My men have discovered a storehouse full of what must be the remaining women and children. I have set guards to the building, but I was wondering what your orders were about this discovery. They have makeshift arms, but they seem content so far to just sit in that building."The next update will be far quicker probably tomorrow night.
sorry forgot to post this part > what do you order done with the women and children along with the camp in general it has a wooden palisade with a busted gate and about thirty structures most hovels though some larger ones?
>>6379323Seize whatever we can from the camp, let the women and children either come under our protection or flee at once.
>>6379323> what do you order done with the women and children along with the camp in general it has a wooden palisade with a busted gate and about thirty structures most hovels though some larger ones?Let the men rape and then kill the women over 35 years of age, out of sight of the others. Send the women and girls below 35 back to Benton to be sold as concubines or brides.Kill the boys over 12 years of age.Boys between 6 and 12 assigned as indentured servants as squires to knights of the realm, boys younger than that adopted by patriotic families and brought up as proper pious Stonebridgers.Compost the bodies of the slain into nitrite soil for making powder (if such knowledge has not been lost).
Optionally, we could also sell the boys as slaves. The sinews of war are money.
>the camp in general it has a wooden palisade with a busted gate and about thirty structures most hovels though some larger ones?Oh, didn't even read this part. Take the good hewn planks and half timbers to build the hill fort garrison structures with, burn what's left where it lays.
Character opportunity: Who is our army's quartermaster?Character opportunity: Do we have an engineer or foreman, perhaps a siegemaster, in charge of building the forts?Worldbuilding: How many years, as the Stonebridgers reckon it, have passed since The Fall?Worldbuilding/Technology: The cities and libraries are all ruined, but might copies of pic related be recovered from survivalist caches and bugout bags? I bet there are crazy innawoods schizos out there that have made copies on ceramic plates or something durable to stand the test of time, even if their hiding places might be buried in a millennia of topsoil accumulation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eohlo3XSBrQFinal spam post (probably): Is "Stone Bridge" a castle built on Rock City?
There won't be an update today as I have been going through resident evil with a friend, but I can answer some of these questions. Stone bridge is loosely supposed to be Chattanooga its explicit location is probably somewhere near lookout mountain. you know of powder and a few of your engineers understand powder in a basic sense but really only scrivener Doran knows how to make and getting him to explain much of anything is like pulling hens teeth all of the powder he does make for you or that you buy from other sources what little you can trust won't get ruined in the constant fog and rain is put to use for what bombards you have or the occasional making of Petards (siege explosives). As I said earlier you are some where towards the middle of the tech tree known to most people so to speak with the most advanced people you know being the oath keepers out of Pennsylvania and other areas who are equivalent to early modern tech and the English civil war. your character has no reason to care when the fall happened as far he cares what came befor ethe fall may as well just be Atlantis with some proof in our eyes though scholars have generally tied the fall to have been about 2000 years ago however the magic part of the fall caused a lot of things that mess with calculations and understanding of things such as mines which should be empty being refilled or mountains not being grinded down by time while some lakes or rivers are far larger than they should be.
The aftermath of a battle can be a warzone in and of itself as vulture scavengers, whether they be beast or man, claim all they can to be put into their own hoards, whether it be fine pelts, chain hauberks, or even food and drink. The women and children had met the fate that befalls most in the sacking of a town, though you took no part in it, both due to the fact that it would be below a man of your station to scrabble in the mud with peasants and freemen for scraps like dogs.Instead you and some of your nobles and knights occupied yourselves by looting the main hall of the camp while it could in no way compare to the grandeur of even a lesser nobles manor it had plenty of baubles and finery stolen from caravan’s, towns, and barges while you would consider your castle home of Stone bridge to be a holdout of civilization in these hill lands you have once been to the lands of petty king Lyonel in Memphis and the sheer excess and splendor of his lands could be intoxicating just from the sight but you know that his family didn't become rich and powerful by being too picky in what they took and so many of this chieftains pilfered goods are set on a wagon bearing your crest though you're unsure how this massive intake of extra goods will affect the de facto quarter master of your army Sir Exter a aged knight veteran of many battles still a steady hand with a mace but beginning to show his age as his red hair is seemingly more white than red not to mention the eye lost so long ago he had a new helmet commissioned for himself that only has one eye these new recaptured goods may ease his mind from the lost time having the men work the fields or perhaps the extra work of cataloguing will cause him be more irritable than usual.Later that nightCamp had been set up; the lucky or the powerful claimed some of the still-standing buildings for the night, while others set up tents and campfires to keep the rain that had begun falling from soaking them to the bone. You had claimed, along with the higher nobles, the main hall as your garrison for the night; drinks and pilfered meats were being eaten as gossip flew between men. As you were about to finish the tankard of mead you had been slowly nursing throughout the storm, the large oaken door opened, and in walked a group of reivers, seemingly of the yeoman variety, who approached you after asking permission, which you granted.
The one in the front begins speaking. "Milord, we have a report for you. I’m sure it might be nothing, but we figured we should tell you. While we were a ways west of Little Frog Mountain, our horses all started getting spooked along with our hounds. They were about to shake out of their own fur. After a while they calmed down a bit, and we thought nothing of it, probably just a family of bears or maybe a big cat or something. But then we heard a massive roar, and the ground started shaking like something was hitting it, followed by some massive roar. We decided then it was in our best interest to hide ourselves in the little hunting camp that we raided earlier. Trenton peeked out of one of the walls, and we saw what must have been a dozen ogres and troggs, not to mention all the goblins, foul beasts. They are following them. They were coming from down south, I think, and where they were headed, I think it may have been Duck Town, but I can't be sure. What I can say is that no matter how fat and stupid those hobgoblins are, they don't make the noises we heard, so there is something big out there. It has to be at least as big as the trees with how loud it was.”This news is most troubling. While such foul beasts have been known to hire themselves out on occasion, the news of something so large—there are only two places such a beast could come from to your knowledge: either the ruins of Nashville or Atlanta. How they are controlling such a monster is a question in and of itself.Theorize, talk, and plan to your heart's content, but the real votes will come Monday, as I may have D&D tomorrow.
