A few Ideas M for F

[IrishWolf]

If anything interests you, please send me a PM

I Hate Loving You

Death was all around and the end was near. Her warriors were skilled in arms and well tested in battle, but even such factors, counted for nothing against the many enemies. They had come over the mountains, a terrible host of grim faced men, numbering at least twenty thousand, more then two men for one of hers. The fact they had not yet been swept away under a tide of warriors, was a testament to the abilities of her veteran housecarls and the fyrdmen, long used to throwing back invaders.

But the battle was lost.

The flanks of the shield wall had been turned, her army encircled and fighting back to back, as the host closed in around them. Her warriors were on the verge of breaking and when they did, they would all be slaughtered, leaving the villages undefended. Never in over three generations, had her county been laid bare to the foe. And yet, it would be under her rule, that her country would be led to doom and destruction. The last of her line, to see the last days of her kingdom.

But, from the east, come the sounds of warhorns. Warhorns which had always heralded the arrival of armies and raiding bands of their ancestral enemies. Had the thrice damned horse lords come to mock her, as their bitterest of foes died under the blades of new invaders? But the horns sounded a charge. Had the old enemy joined the new? Not if the sudden cries of alarm and the lessening of the pressure against her warriors, was any proof.

What was greater proof and a sign of hope, was the sudden flight of two thousands arrows, which landed among the invaders, slaying those still trying to hack at her warriors or forcing them to turn about. The horns sounded again, mingling with the thunder of three thousand charging horses and the shouts of five thousand levies. First came the knights, clad in mail, baring lance and kite shield, smashing into the invaders, just after a second rain of arrows. The levies charging just behind, ready with spear, axe and sword, their shields round, like those of her warriors.

Attacked in the rear by an unexpected foe, the invaders broke and fled from the field of battle. No chase was given, her own warriors exhausted by battle and the old enemy from a grueling march. Instead, both armies looked at one another. For as long as they all had lived, they had tried to kill one another but here, on a field of blood and bodies, they had fought the same foe. From within their ranks, nearly thirty horsemen came forwards. Like the other riders, they all wore mail, carried the kit shields and were armed with lance and sword. Like the other knights, they all wore nasal helmets but unlike the rest, their helmets had a bronze sheet covering the face, with holes cut, revealing only their eyes. One sheathed his blade and reached up, unstrapping his helmet, before pulling it off.

It was him, the war leader of the horse lords, the Scarred Prince.

The man who had killed her father and made her the Orphan Queen.

The man she had met in battle and given the signature scar, running from above his right eye, down through the bridge of his nose and across his left cheek.

The man who had ravaged her country in uncounted raids.

The man who had just saved her life and her kingdom.

What demands would he make now or was this some plot of his cunning father, the Crippled King?



http://gambargin.deviantart.com/art/Lady-Aelfwynn-of-Seaxna-Rice-Anglo-Saxons-427904228
http://gambargin.deviantart.com/art/Frua-Aelfwynn-of-Seaxna-Rice-Anglo-Saxons-594985556
Not inspired by these pictures but once I came across them, they solid this idea in my mind. So I was thinking two smallish kingdoms, one based loosely on the Anglo-Saxons and the other the Normans, have been at war for generations, a conflicted started by their grandfathers or great grandfathers. They have fought all their lives, until a new enemy marched in. Where other rulers would watch with glee as such a fate befell their enemies, the Crippled King was wise or cunning enough to know, that any foe able to crush his rival, could crush him as well and thus send his army out, to give aid to the old enemy.

I don't have anything set in stone for the invaders, they could be based on another Dark Ages civilization or this could be a high fantasy story, with orcs and goblins or the like. But the main plot would be the Scarred Prince and the Orphan Queen being forced to work very closely together, to drive them out and make sure their lands aren’t threatened again.

There is the possibility of a forced marriage between the two or it could be more of a growing love/hate relation, as they fight side by side.

Eyes Like Mine
So I’ve been reading some Humanity Fuck Yeah, stories on Reddit and listening to the audio books for the Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell, which is pretty HFY itself but they both got me thinking.

So, the dominate sapient life forms in the universe, are herbivores. The beings that have reached space, believe that sapience comes from the need to use tools and intelligence to overcome predators. Now and then, they do come across intelligent predatory races but those are always destroyed before they can leave their birthworlds. Humanity has been lucky, they discovered alien life before they found us. Human probes caught the destruction of another race by an alliance of herbivores, allowing us to hide, keeping below the radar, while our technology and military grew.

Many years later, as humanity readies itself, their scouts find another predatory race, about to be destroyed. These aliens, barely about to launch their first satellites, suddenly suffer bombardment from space, aimed to level their key cities. The herbivores not only want them dead but they want their world, so they can’t launched nukes or virus bomb the planet. Just a few rocks dropped from orbit, to crater cities, before the ground troops land to mop up. Everything seems to be going to plan, when a human fleet appears from the black of space. As ships duel above the planet, transports begin to rain shuttles down, packed with troops, ready to aid their fellow predators.

I was thinking the aliens would look like this
https://clydecaldwell.com/gallery/strange-relations/

But if you have something else you would want play as, I’m all for it. For main characters, I was thinking human ground forces or marine officer and female alien resistance leader

Body Heat
The universe is vast, with uncounted stars and planets of every variation but even something as unfathomable, has some general rules. One such general rule, is where intelligent life, that which will create civilizations and reach for the stars, is found. Warm, mild weathered planets, tropical Edens in fact. As such, nearly all intelligent lifeforms are ectotherms, which is too say, they are cold blooded, relying on the environment for body heat.

Or at least that was the expected, universe truth, until Humanity and a collection of several alien races called the Coalition, bumped into one another. Humans took one look at their stellar neighbors and began giving them nicknames, based mostly on the reptiles from their homeworld, mostly because of their appearance. What took the Coalition off guard, were the conditions of Earth. Every member species would have considered the birthplace of Humanity a hardship world, if not a deathworld.

As the diplomatic niceties began between the Coalition and United Terran Nations, they began to exchange personal, to learn about one another. After a short time, if one is to believe the stories on the data net, Humans starting becomes very popular.  You see, very few spaceships and space stations could spare enough power to make the cold grasp of space, anything close to comfortable for the races of the Coalition. Most could only make the temperature survivable, which to humans, was only a few degrees below pleasant. Most of the stories tended be sultry, about seducing a warm blooded human, into sharing some of that wonderful body heat.

Crusade
As the early spring rains fade and the lands begins to dry, the season of war as come. Feudal army raise levies from the common folk, the planting ends and knights ride forth for glory and honors. All seems normal, until a monk from a remote monastery, high in the mountains, where a saint was interred upon their death, stumbles into the city of Lullin, barring grave news. The monastery has been put to siege by a ragged army of goblins and their lesser kin. Thankfully there are no orcs or trolls in their numbers but they are rallied about a small number of the highly militaristic hobgoblins. The walls are stout and the gate strong but the monks there are not warriors, nor are they provisioned to hold out for long. The Church must send relief and it must be soon.

However, there lies the problem. Nearly every order of knights, who answer to the Church, have already gone forth on either crusade or to fulfill promises of aid to mighty kings and lords. The only ones left, are a small order of female knights, all of whom are lesser daughters of the nobility, with unsuitable temperaments, either for marriage or nunneries. Few in number, barely a hundred and while trained and equipped as knights, none have ever seen combat. Indeed, they have rarely been used for anything but ceremonial guards for a handful of high officials. But the Church must lift the siege, so they must be sent.

But no hundred knights, even of the finest caliber, could defeat an army of goblins in the mountains.

So the Church must find more warriors, which means they are to hire mercenaries. Scum who fight for money, rather than a noble lord, honor or the Gods. But they will be skilled and veterans of many wars. Of course, they must act fast, least all the available free companies, be hired for the season. The Bishop of Lullin, seeing the danger, acts, hiring  the Lion Company, nearly a thousand men under Captain Wilhelm Campborn and instructs them to await the arrival of knights, at the town of Pinegrove, the closest settlement to the monastery.

Possible Female Knights

http://paizo.com/image/content/PathfinderChronicles/PZO9202-Iomedae.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/7b/e3/ff/7be3ffca702069daeb8cbb5505e77867.jpg
http://orig14.deviantart.net/9edd/f/2010/114/6/f/female_knight_by_aditya777.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/f8/8e/54/f88e54dfaaa8bfef2153115f0c526c14.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/a0/f3/73/a0f373a53ddc044b136ab6b8a82c3c90.jpg