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Campaign Story Revised (whatever today's date is)
All,
Ok, some modifications to the basic outline.
1. Story starts, Heroes win initial gains, most subplots start
2. Heroes suffer a series of setbacks, all remaining subplots start
3. Heroes get major victory, some subplots resolve (usually to setbacks of
some sort)
4. Heroes suffer setback, some more subplots resolve, about half to setbacks
and half to advances
5. All remaining subplots resolves, then the heroes win
We've decided, I think, that setbacks should be story-written and FNA needs to
win all maps. So we'll frame the maps in such a way that while the story
receives a setback, FNA loses completely if they lose a map, but do not
significantly advance if they win a map, essentially holding actions.
Background story:
Kand has ruled Nexus for awhile, yadayada. For some unknown reason, Kand
withdrew a lot of troops, and then went on a massive wave of brutality. Many
Nexians rioted, weakening Kand's holdings significantly. Kand continues to
hold the technologically advanced continent of <insert name here>, but in
name mostly. Many conservative elements of Nexus continue to support Kand,
and many businesses and Nexian faction leaders continue to give allegiance to
the Empire, but in many regions Kand no longer maintains its own presence.
The state of affairs has gotten steadily worse for Kand over the last two
years, but Kand has held the planet. (this part can still use some
work ;) ) We'll follow the
FNA, more or less an arbitrary choice of the factions that are there
(possibly have campaigns covering several different major factions, and then
at some turning point they ally together against Kand). It is an area that
is poor in resources, hence the reason Kand hasn't focused on it too much.
FNA has established secret supply routes that are smuggled in from a richer
area (smuggled by sea, I was thinking, which allows the campaign to have some
sea maps, if anybody wants them, for the sake of protecting the supply lines,
this would be a good time to introduce the continent of primitives off to the
west that hasn't made it into the main story yet ;) ).
The campaign is *the* campaign for control of the province of Yalwa, a name
which means "Desert" in Nexian. The land itself is a desert in that it gets
less than 10 inches a year of precipitation, but is actually fairly
well-grown with grass and trees and stuff. The main reason it's called
"Desert" is because there isn't a lot of natural resources. Farming is
tricky because of the lack of rainfall, the lack of springs, and the lack of
rivers. While there are rivers, they are mostly minor (maybe some are
major?), but none are enough to irrigate much of the area for farming. The
crystal mines are nearly nonexistant, although the famed Mines of Yalwa are
to be found in the region. As a region, it's not logistically interesting to
Kand, except for the mines, but due to the nature of supplying their own
forces in the area, Kand has historically kept a significant force only
around the mines, leaving short-handed garrisons in a few other cities in the
area. For the FNA, however, the region represents an excellent starting base
with plenty of crystals to fuel a start-up rebellion. Food, however, will
mostly have to come from elsewhere (second campaign: conquering
farmland? ;) ).
Shitty map (use a fixed width font, yadayadayada, I haven't looked at the map
layouts, so this is *not* intended to be definitive; we'll need a real artist
for that, but this map should give the general idea):
____________________________________________
/ \
/ * Mines \
| M 0 Ultha |
\ o |
| u Sarot Plains |
/ n /
/ t * Kand HQ /
/ a x Enolian Air Fields /
/ i /
/ n 0 Lula /
| s /
\ /
\ 0 Rhintura /
\_______________________________________/
Act one:
Uprising - Introduction of the campaign, FNA gets their first win and a
physical command. Before this, they existed in secret. They don't even have
uniforms. The outpost is fairly isolated and there's a lot of area to cross
that's just plain empty, making supply lines run thin. But there's this
"fertile corridor" that they can march up, but it's also the most heavily
defended part of the region. The "fertile corridor" is a well-watered route
from Rhintura to Ultha, through Lula. Kand placed their HQ on that route on
the ruins of Neeno, a city they destroyed as an "example" of what happens
when you don't mine like you're supposed to. (or something, that's a little
mroe brutal than the goal of "No definitive bad guy in this game")
Second map: Controlling key areas to the northwest of Rhintura, the only
farming district in the area, and also a barracks dump, the same barracks
that provided the troops for the battle of Rhintura depicted in the Uprising.
Third map: The battle for Lula. The map starts with FNA feeling cocky, and
then partway FNA should get a message that says "Take Lula quickly, Kand's
got reinforcements!" After FNA takes Lula, the map's over, of course, but
then Kand moves in troops and establishes the front at Lula. During the
course of the next couple of acts, Kand gets a foothold in Lula.
Act two:
First map: FNA move troops from the newly captured barracks and tries to loop
around Lula to the west, with the goal of approaching Lula from the Northwest
in a coordinated two-prong attack. They get ambushed, surrounded, and must
fight to the last man, ala Anthill (in fact, Anthill could be adapted for
this map). So they win the map, but don't have anybody left with which to
run their flanking maneuver.
Second map: Kand launches a flanking attack to the east of Lula. FNA diverts
a small portion of their troops to defend their flank. Yadayada, FNA must
win, but not with enough troops to press further.
Third map: FNA has sent some troops to the mountains, moving through an area
that looks a lot like SW Wyoming (nobody lives there except a few small towns
supporting a shipping industry). At the foothills of the mountains, they
discover Area 51, or Kand's equivalent of it. Both sides being surprised,
FNA moves to take it. That's what this map is about. It's here that they
first hear of a biological weapon that was engineered by Nexian scientists
and captured by Kand that targets Kand folks. Some barrels of this stuff are
unaccounted for, although a newly liberated Nexian scientist claims to know
where it is.
Act three:
First map: FNA moves North on the foothills of the mountains, having
resupplied from Area 51, and having sent a contingent with all the neato
science stuff back to Rhintura. Since they couldn't keep prisoners, they
executed the Kandelian troops (see, no definitive good guys). This map is
them moving to quickly take the Kandelian support base (there's the top
secret base that nobody knows about, and then there's the support base next
to it, sorta like Nellis AFB by Las Vegas and the other AFB back there that's
credited with being Area 51, Tonapah, where the stealth was developed and
tested). There they learn about the General.
Second map: FNA makes a sortie to the newly exposed flank on the east of
Lula, gets ambushed. Ouch. Another one of them Anthill-like maps.
Third map: The General, using the forces that moved up from the mountains.
These forces quickly entrench themselves. Intel from the General's staff
(using techniques not quite Geneva sanctioned) corroborates the story of
biological weapons that only kill Kandelians, and troops are despatched
following the guide.
Fourth map: That battle. The troops are ambushed. ANother Anthill-like
scenario. (This subplot can be abandoned if it gets too unwieldy)
Act four:
First map: The Battle for the Enolian Air Fields. Just a fight for empty
depots that happen to have airships in them. The air fields are discovered
after rifling through the General's files, where orders are found to bury the
air fields, due to the outdated nature of the technology and the fact that
the area won't be well-reinforced. (For maximum effect, I think this might
be switched with the fourth map of the previous act)
Second map: Not sure. ;) Possibly the Sarph rift?
Third map: Not sure. ;) Should be the flanking maneuver that reunites their
forces. (Omyar Gorge?)
Act five:
First map: The Second Battle for Lula (should be self-explanatory at this
point)
Second map: The Battle for Sarot Plains, on the march to Ultha.
Third map: The Battle for the highlands leading into Ultha.
Fourth map: The Battle for Ultha itself.
Fifth map: (maybe?) The battle for the mines. Either the Empire makes their
last stand here or this is just a simple map. Maybe the battle for Ultha can
incorporate the battle for the mines, or we can just assume that when Ultha
falls, the mines go with it. In any case, there's a chance to add a battle
for the mines.
Conclusions
I'm not sure where the Sarph Rift and Omyar Gorge fit in here, actually. Jens
(or someone) should either just tell me, or modify this timeline and insert
them. I'd like to take another round of comments and then go write on the
wiki the story of the Kandelian invasion and the story of Kand, and take
another pass at updating the Story of Nexus. This should fill out the
backstory a lot and also make sure there's continuity, since they'll all be
done at once. ;) (or pretty close to each other anyway)
Also, starting with the capture of Lula, FNA should start increasing in
numbers significantly. Logistics will be an important motivation in the next
campaign, because after this campaign they should have grown too big too fast
and will be unable to feed their troops from this region. But they will have
the Mines of Yalwa, which will provide them a strong supply of crystals.
Comments and thoughts and stuff?
Dave
--
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-- The Centurion, "Balance of Terror", stardate 1709.2