Magic and Muskets: Megedagik's War (flintlock fantasy)

[IrishWolf]

Ill news has reached the court of Kingdom of Theula. A long letter to King Henri IV, penned by the Viceroy of the Vridux colonies, Governor General Augustin-Loup. Detailed within it’s pages, were a series of woes. A new spiritual leader seemed to have risen among the Alfin tribes, the native peoples of Vridux, a shaman named Megedagik. This shaman preaches for all the tribes to set aside their differences and drive out the human colonists. He has a strength of voice never heard before, claims to speak prophecies and see the future. He is said to brew a potion, which will make the warrior who drinks it unkillable and it seemingly works, as it takes a direct shot or blade to the heart, to slay those who assault the human colonists and their allied tribes. Most damningly of all, the shaman seems to be able to summon what the Alfin call Gobelines, humanoid creatures which look like shortened, deformed, grey skinned Alfin, who delight is slaughter and torment.

Scores of settlements, several blockhouses and even a small fort, have been overrun by battle-crazed Alfin and their cruel Gobeline allies. The Governor General begs for aid, more troops and most importantly, one of the King’s mages. If it wasn’t for the shaman, what few regulars he had, the scattered colonial free companies of marines, the militia, his provincial guard regiment and what few Alfin allies they still have, could hold off the enemy. With a few more regiments from the home country, he could see them defeated. But he really needs the mage, to deal with Megedagik. If they cannot stop the creation of the brew, then New Theula will be lost.

Distant from the conflict and not understanding the extent of the trouble, King Henri, nevertheless, has dispatched a mage to the colonies, along with her bodyguard, a full company of Royal Grenadiers, sixty men and officers strong. Not that the King believes the Viceroy needs the mage but there are political undercurrents in the court. While the Royal Mages are oath sworn to the King, some of their small number, do not feel appreciated enough and have begun to support ministers and nobles, who would see the King’s power reined in. Sending a mage to the colonies is more a power play by the King, to prove to them that they are bound to his will. Although the mage in question, might not be one of those directly opposing the King but a sacrificial lamb, to prove the point.

Greeted by Augustin-Loup, when she landed at the port city of Roubeuge, Capital of New Theula, the mage was instructed to head to Fort Vivien. There she was to meet with guides, to take her over the frontier, to where it is believed that Megedagik is living and would help find him. However, the soldiers she and her bodyguard meet at the fort, a handful of marines, militia and Alfin allies, commanded by a sergeant Luc Berger, were far from satisfactory, in the mind of the mage and her captain of Grenadiers. They looked rough and savage, hardly dressed in the case of the Alfin warriors and barely uniformed for the Marines. Such a sharp and unprofessional contrast to her own Grenadiers.

Almost at once, as they marched from the fort, the Captain of Grenadiers began to ignore Sergeant Luc, waving away all of his suggestions and advice. The Grenadiers would march in full kit, in column, like proper soldiers. None of this loose, skirmish formation the Marine told him to use. The Alfin were primitive cowards, who would flee from real fighting men. As the days passed, Luc began to bring in warnings. They were being watched, followed even. A warband would catch them in ambush. Again, he was ignored and sent away with his command to ‘scout’.

Two week after leaving the fort, Luc and his scouts were the only ones not to be surprised when the forest around the column was suddenly filled with arrows and musket shots, followed by whooping Alfin warriors, covered in their warpaint, waving hatches and gunstock or ball-head war clubs. The fighting was fierce, the Grenadiers, although taken unaware, proved their worth as royal guards, even if they were slain nearly to a man. When the gunsmoke cleared,very few were left standing. Most of the scouts made it through, although some of their number joined the broken bodies littering the field of battle. The Grenadier Captain was dead, as were most of the sergeants and corporals.

However, there will be a problem with so few, other than the amount of foes they will face and a lack of backs to carry supplies. It wasn’t just simple arrogance, which made the Captain send Luc and his scouts away everytime he returned to the column. There have always been rumors but it's kept a semi-secret in the royal courts back home, that mages, in addition to their great abilities, have powerful hungers and sexual urges. Male mages tend to keep small harems of courtesans, where female mages tend to take lovers from among their bodyguards. Now, she has just a few, mostly unaware of her needs, to satisfy her, if they can.

Magic
Magic is invoked with the speaking of special words and the right hand gestures. There is no one language of magic, as humans have learned, as they explore and colonize the world of Tirione. However, since they discovered writing, humans formed several distinct schools, each with it’s own language and series of gestures, for those few graced with the ability to use magic, to conduct their spell work. It is well documented, among human sources, that mages always have great appetites, for food, sex and drink. The more powerful the mage, the greater their desires. It is theorized that their bodies are tempting to fill the void, when magic is not flowing through the mage. It should be noted there are few fat mages, no matter their hunger but mages tend to have lots of children, although said offspring have the same chance of being a mage, as one with none mage parents.

Alfin however, do not have any written language and have not developed distinctive styles of magic. The words vary from tribe to tribe, even those within large confederations and language groups, as do the gestures. They also have a great deal more magic users than humans do. However, these mages or shamans as the Alfin call them, are far weaker then their human counterparts. In fact, when humans first landed on Vridux, they did not think the Alfin had mages and thus no human kingdom has invested in studying Alfin mythods.

Where human mages make grand displays of their power, hurling fire and lightning or rising up walls of earth or tearing open the very ground beneath an enemy’s feet, Alfin magic is far more subtle. Shamans pour their energies into grinding herbs and plants in just the right way, chanting the words their teachers told them, to make health salves or more importantly, the body paint used by warriors. The warpaint can make a warrior stronger or faster or even luckier, in small ways. Just enough to overpower a bigger warrior or to make a long shot or run away. It is said that humans once used magic like this in the far past, druids painting warriors with woad but as writing evolved, so did their magic.

The new paints and the strange brew being made by Megedagik and his followers, are far far more potent then any Alfin magic seen before.

Royal Grenadiers

The Theulian Royal Grenadiers are a special formation. Almost every regiment of foot, including the four infantry regiments of the King’s Household, has a grenadier company. The largest and most powerful men in the regiment, they form an elite flank company amd are used to spearhead assaults. The use of grenades has fallen out of favor but the usefulness of grenadiers has not. However the Royal Grenadiers, are not attached to any regiment but are independent companies, serving the King. First raised simply to provide the monarch with more tall, powerful looking soldiers, to impress visiting dignitaries, the Royal Grenadiers now serve as bodyguard for the King’s Mages. Modern warfare has proven more deadly for mages, in in past eras.

The Royal Grenadiers are also among the least corrupt of the Royal Household. While the other regiments, both of foot and horse, are filled with the sons of nobles and rich merchants, who bought their way into the prestigious posts, the Royal Grenadiers are not. They recruit from new men from other regiments in the army. To join the Grenadiers a man must be under thirty and served at least ten years, five years if they’ve seen combat or have survived being part of a Forlorn Hope. There is also a height requirement, all Grenadiers must be at least five foot ten inches tall. Moustaches are also required.

Grenadiers are uniformed and equipped with the following;

Bearskin cap with a red bag
Royal blue and red calot, also called a forage cap
Royal blue Coat with silver buttons and scarlet facings
Royal blue waistcoat with silver buttons
White shirt
Royal blue breeches.
White stockings
White woolen gaiters
Black leather shoes

Land pattern musket
Triangular bayonet
Hanger (short, slightly curved sword)
Cartridge box with thirty rounds
Powder horn

Colonial free companies of Marines

All of the Theulian colonies, scattered across newly discovered lands, are under the supervision of the Navy Ministry. To provide them with regular troops, the Navy raised scores of Colonial free companies of Marines. These men under arms, were never intended to serve aboard ships, despite being called Marines. Mostly recruited from port cities and their surrounding areas, many of these men are criminals, given the choice between the King’s Justice or the King’s Crown (a silver coin). Others are men who for one reason or another, need to leave the country. Some of young men looking for adventure. Colonial recruitment is discouraged, as most colonies have labor shortages.

Upon enlistment, each Marine is given the following;

Black felt tricorne hat
Grey-white and blue calot, also called a fatigue cap
Grey-white coat with copper buttons, blue cuffs and turnbacks
Blue long-sleeved waistcoat
White shirt
Blue breeches
Blue stockings
White woolen gaiters
Black leather shoes

Sea pattern musket (ten inches shorter than Land pattern)
Triangular bayonet
Hatchet
Cartridge box with thirty rounds
Powder horn

However, the Marines on the frontier are on the end of a very long supply line. Often they don't receive new uniforms for years. In the Vridux colonies, those uniforms are often intercepted by the Viceroy, to use them for his provincial guard. Not to mention, a good Theulian made woolen coat and tricorne are worth a good deal on the frontier, to the barely paid marines. Often the marines in the Vridux colonies, sell their coats or keep them for winter and use the waistcoat as their uniform in the warmer months. Those marines, who did not save their coat for winter, often wear a locally made coat called a capot, which is made of wool, hangs down to the knees and has a deep hood. Their tricornes also get sold and most marines wear either their forge caps or locally made knit caps. The woolen gaiters and leather shoes wear out rather quickly and tend to be replaced with Alfin style buckskin leggings and moccasins.

Their muskets, which are not sold, under threat of a flogging, do break, get lost or stolen. Sometimes there are extra sea pattern muskets for a marine to replace their longarm with but often those in the frontier garrisons, have to replace their weapon with a locally made musket, which will be of the same caliber but can’t take a bayonet. Other times they are replace them with the longer, more accurate but smaller caliber and longer to reload, hunting rifles made in the colonies. In some cases, the best one can do is a blunderbuss or fowling piece. Marines also tend to add fighting knives and pistols, when they can get them, to their personal armaments.

There are rumors that some of the men in the Colonial free companies of Marines, are not men at all but women in disguise. Young women who have made themselves up to look like boys, so they can enlist for adventure or to escape marriage. Some rumors say that these women are the wives of soldiers who died from disease or combat, taking their husband’s place, with the officers looking the other way, due to manpower shortages.

Such rumors might be based in truth but are always denied.

Alfin Warriors

The Alfin are the native people of the Vriduxian continent. They resemble humans to a great degree, with long, tapering ears and a slightly darker skin tone, with black or dark brown hair. They live in villages, grouped into large tribes and even form confederacies or alliances, normally based around language. Like humans, there is no one Alfin language but families of languages.

The Alfin warriors or at least those of the tribes living in or around the human colonies forming New Theula, go into battle covered in warpaint. The face or even the whole head, chest and arms are colored in patterns of black, red or blue, each unique to the warrior with overlapping style by tribe. The greater amount of paint, the more skilled and experienced the warrior, although the sons of chieftains often get more paint then would another warrior of equal skill. These paints, made by the tribe’s shaman, are said to enhance a warrior’s skill. It is believed that an enemy must be able to see the warpaint for it to work and thus most warriors go into battle in little more than moccasins, leggings and breechcloth. Most warriors also shave the sides of their heads, leaving a strip of hair running over the top or shave most of their head, leaving only a knot of hair at the back of the skull. Their hair is then styled with tree resin and feathers. Piercings, of bone or those trading with the humans, gold or silver, are common.

It is uncommon but not forbidden for Alfin women, to take the warriors path. Most of the time, Alfin women only take up arms for a short period, in harsh winters, when the tribe needs as many hunters as they can get or in times of war, when the warriors are away and the village is attacked. However, some find they like the warrior life and remain as much. Others take up weapons for revenge and live only to fight their enemies. However, female warriors who get pregnant, are not allowed to fight or hunt and when the child is born, must give them up or stop being a warrior to raise the child.

Alfin warriors have a large variety of weapons;

Bows, with arrows tipped with bone, stone or steel
Lances, long spears again tipped with bone, stone or steel
Hatchets, stone or steel
Knives, stone or steel
Warclub, a one handed club with a rounded hardwood or stone ball at the end
Gunstock club, a two handed weapon, shaped like a musket stock, if far more flat
Muskets and rifles, either trade for, given as gifts, stolen or taken off the dead
Smallswords, again either trade for, given as gifts, stolen or taken off the dead
Some Warriors have had human blacksmiths make them custom weapons

It should be noted, that the warriors following Megedagik, almost all from the tribes, which are the traditional enemies of the tribes who have done the most trading with the humans, have not given up their firearms or steel weapons.

Militia

Hunters, trappers, farmers and townsmen, the Militia is made up of all able bodied men in the Vridux colonies. Some groups are more than willing to defend their homes but not to leave them. Most of the militia around Fort Vivien, are settlers forced to flee their new homesteads, which had pushed out west, beyond the line of forts in the region. Although it should be noted, there are more than a few bands from the east, either eager for the glories of war or because they don't want their homes or towns to be burned to the ground, like so many of those already attacked.

There is no uniform along the Militia or standard arms. Each man wears his own clothes, ranging from the jacket, waistcoat, shirt, breeches, stockings and shoes of the farmers and townsmen, to hunting shirts and even full Alfin garb. Weapons range from hunting muskets to rifles, blunderbusses, fowlers and pistols, with hatchets, woodaxes, knives, hammers and all manner of tools, pressed into service.

Gobeline

Until the rise of Megedagik, the Gobeline had never been seen in living memory of the Alfin. Mostly, they were just myths mothers use to frighten children into doing their chores. Spirits living under the mountains, which will eat people, welding shinny weapons. Humans, those few to survive Gobeline attacks, claim the creatures can die and bleed black blood. It is reported that the weapons are copper spears, axes and swords. The appearance of the Gobeline, caused several of the Alfin tribes, who had been allied to the humans, to switch sides.


So, I am looking for players to take on the role of the scouts (Marines, a few of the Militia forced to join in and allied Alfin warriors), surviving Royal Grenadiers or the Mage, as they attempt to avoid warparties of Megedagik's followers and complete their mission, of killing the shaman and making it back alive.

Character Sheets

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[b]Player:[/b]

[b]Name:[/b]

[b]Age:[/b]

[b]Gender:[/b]

[b]Race:[/b]

[b]Faction:[/b] (Marine, Grenadier, Militia, allied tribe or Mage)

[b]Rank:[/b] (Marine or Grenadier)

[b]Appearance:[/b](pictures are welcome, please also give a written description)

[b]Sexual Preference:[/b]

[b]Equipment:[/b] (weapons, trinkets and gear)

[b]Backstory:[/b]


Current Roster

Luc Berger

Player: IrishWolf

Name: Luc Berger

Age: 33

Gender: Male

Race: Human

Faction: Marine

Rank: Sergeant

Appearance: Luc is a man of average height, standing around five foot six. He normally keeps his black hair trimmed short, forgoing the soldier’s queue and has grown a moustache, both of which would have gotten him punishment duty, back in Theula. His light brown eyes are wary and watchful, in his weathered face. Dozens of scars dot his hands, arms and chest, some are old and fading, from his less than lawful youth and some are more recent. Most are plainly knife cuts but there is a good size and freshly healed scar on the ribs of his left hand side, from a flint tipped spear.

He has managed to keep or replace his issued shirt, waistcoat, breeches and calot. His coat and tricorne are long gone, as are his shoes and gaiters, which he replaced with buckskin leggings and moccasins.

Sexual Preference: Hetero, dominate

Equipment: Sea pattern musket, bayonet, hatchet, knife, cartridge box, powder horn, clay pipe, wooden canteen, oxhide pack with extra shirt, moccasins, extra thirty rounds, spare musket flints, tinderbox, bottle of applejack, tobacco pouch, mess kit, small brass spyglass, haversack with hardtack, dried beef, salt pork, dried peas, corn meal.

Backstory: Luc was born a bastard. His mother was a prostitute and who his father was, was a mystery, could have been a sailor or a merchant or a lord. His mother did her best for him, what little that was and tried to keep him safe. However, by the age of six, he was running with other street children and by the age of ten, had learned to pickpocket and beg. He did his best, when his mother grew sickly, to support her but when he was twelve, he was orphaned and homeless. His skills kept him from starving and when he was fifteen, he had joined a gang. Learning how to burgle, he became a housebreaker and killed his first man at sixteen, when a house he broke into wasn’t empty, like he thought.

By the age of twenty-two, he had a rather long list of crimes, including a few more murders. However, he was caught in the middle of a burglary, when the boy he was teaching that skill, gave them both away to the police. Capture, with no willing to pay for his release or able to break him out of prison, Luc found himself facing a judge. Given the amount of silver and gold on her person, when he was captured, he was looking at a hanging, until the judge offered him a way out, to join the Navy’s Colonial free companies of Marines. Better than swinging for a jeering crowd, he took the deal.

Marched straight from the court to the garrison, he was equipped to be a soldier and within the month, was sent across the sea to Vridux. His skills at moving quietly and his wary eyes would save him, within a year. While out on patrol under the command of a lieutenant, then private Luc survived his first encounter with the Alfin. His lieutenant, a man more interested in surveying the land with a spyglass, so it could be divided up, did not notice the warriors from a raiding band. Luc did however and raised the alarm. The marines were able to see the warriors off but not before the lieutenant took an arrow in the back, as the man started to berate Luc.

The next ten odd years, his growing woodcraft and his other skills, made him a good scout and got him promoted to Corporal. Six years ago, during the River War with the Brudian colonies to the south, over the Wáhta Valley, he made sergeant. Put in charge of a detachment of scouts, both human marines and Alfin warriors, his detachment was among the first to exchange fire with the enemy. Cut off from the main Theulian army, although it was a grand name for a handful of Marine companies, some of the Provincial Guard and the Militia, he led his scouts in an Alfin style war, until the Brudians were forced back.