Герои 3 - карта Breaking the Barriers

События

• Intro all 1
  Grнand Berkenmeister never did quite fit in with the other Beastmaster children. He did not seem to enjoy baiting basilisks, gorgon riding, wrestling gnolls, or shooting wild serpent flies like his peers. He instead seemed to prefer hanging out with his older sister's friends, and seemed especially fascinated with the witch magic cantrips they practiced. Much to his parent's horror, when the day came for the Choosing, he stepped forward with all the girls when the Supreme Cauldron-Mistress from the renowned Guild of the Full Moon came by to choose initiates. Without batting an eye, the evaluator gave him the test, for it is well known that Beastmasters have an appalling ineptitude for magic. Much to everyone's amazement, he passed the test with one of the highest ratings ever seen. Trapped into taking him to the Guild's School for Witchcraft Training by the results of the test, the Supreme Cauldron-Mistress departed with him and her entourage of prospective initiates. Grнand returned a short while later, humiliated. He was laughed out of guild headquarters for committing the inexcusable sin of a witch...being born male.
• Intro all 2
  Scдtcha Snakebiter was born into a very famous witch family. Her mother and her Grandmother both served as Head Mistresses in the Witch Guild's Elite School of Black Magic. Great things were expected of her. But she made some great friends with boys her age, and played with them all day rather than doing her studies for basic cantrips and memory exercises. She did excel at the traditional boy pursuits of hunting, trapping, wrestling, and fighting. She had an almost uncanny control over the beasts that live in the swamp, and could make them do her bidding when the boys her age could not. The day of the Choosing came, and her parents' misgivings were confirmed when she failed miserably at her magic test. A week after the Supreme Cauldron-Mistress left, the Grand Enslaver of the Beastmaster's Guild swung through the village on his yearly recruitment drive. Scдtcha disguised herself as a boy, and easily passed the tests put to her. Her disguise was betrayed by a jealous peer later that day, after the Grand Enslaver already had conferred guild acceptance on her. He agreed to take Scдtcha to the Guild Headquarters anyway, to have a council session decide upon her case. She was turned down, her acceptance revoked, for the unforgivable Beastmaster sin of being a female.
• Intro all 3
  Grнand and Scдtcha's stories would have gone unnoticed, if it were not for a mysterious political faction that found out what happened and took up their cause. Some say their motivation was to destabilize the fragile new government of Erathia. Others say that they wished to spark unrest and ill will between Tatalia and other regions. After the Restoration of Erathia, a tenuous era of peace and prosperity was starting. A High Court was set up to handle legal issues, and a radical philosophy of equality and fairness was preached. The faction backing the young witch and beastmaster filed an unfair discrimination suit, and won. The guilds were ordered to open their doors to all eligible applicants, irrespective of gender. The Repugnant and Fetid Order of Beastmasters (RaFOB) and the Black Witches Coven , codefendants in the court action, were outraged. They vowed to go to war to preserve their way of life, guild secrets, and to avoid the expense of building separate dorms and outhouses. The Crown, too busy elsewhere to enforce this decision, decided to provide support to two local minor nobles to press the war for them, with the goal being to force the guilds to accept the two students by right of conquest. If defeated, the costly effort would not be repeated and the two guilds could carry on as usual.
• Red & Blue
  At last! After living in this backwoods duchy for all of your life, a chance to bask in the attention of the crown! This is your big chance to add to your prestige, gain new lands, and maybe even get a royal court appointment. Besides, you never liked those swampland neighbors. They control all the crystal and gem markets, and you have to pay an outrageous exchange rate at the local trading posts for them. It's a good thing that your best childhood friend in the neighboring dukedom is your partner. You have worked well in the past together, and, as you peer out across the River Tyr towards the thick, steaming jungles, you realize you may need all the help you can get.
• Orange & Pink
  Well, that tears it! Those drylanders have meddled once too often with ancient guild rights. The time has come to say no more. The time has come to defend the secrets, prerogatives, and our way of life. The time has come for War. You learn that the Crown, whose military forces are occupied elsewhere restoring order after the vast conflicts that have wracked the continent of Antagarich over the last few years, have vested the enforcement of the court decision into the hands of your nearest dryland neighbors. You breath a sigh of relief that you will not have to face the entire might of the Erathian armies, but you also hear that these two dukes will get regular support from the crown during the course of the campaign. Your forces are scattered and weak after the devastation of the undead Lord Haart's invasion. You will have to build and recruit fast to stave off defeat.
• Secret Door.
  Your plebemaster reminds you: Just in case you have forgotten, there is a secret door behind the town that leads directly to the other guild. It may soon come in handy.
• swampies1
  Although the Beastmaster and Witches guilds have not always gotten along, the current struggle will force you to work together closely or perish. The first few meetings went well. The witches have found a way to control the weather, and will arrange for it to rain on the invaders for weeks in order to dampen their enthusiasm. The beastmasters have set up some Welcome to the Swamp ambushes along the waterways. You both agree to aggressively expand and recruit from the creature dwellings scattered throughout the region. The region is also rich in resources. Getting the mines and other industries working to help support the effort is also a goal.
• Witch in River
  An interesting rumor reaches your ear. It seems that there is a rebel witch living in a mysterious floating hut in the middle of the River Tyr who will teach all comers a way to traverse marshland much more easily.
• Guild fees
  Some Guild dues have come in from some loyal alumni.
• letter from beastmasters
  A grubby, barely literate, and almost illegible letter arrives from The Repugnant and Fetid Order of Beastmasters Dear sickly drylander, If you enter our swamps, we will drown you. No, no, no! That will be too easy! We will cut you up slowly and feed your still living flesh to our Carnivorous Plant! Yeah, yeah! That sounds better, don't you agree? Flatulently yours, The Grand Enslaver of the Repugnant and Fetid Order of Beastmasters.
• Guide to the one-ways
  The Guild Historian comes up to you excitedly. We have discovered the secret to the one-way gates finally! A old piece of parchment is shoved under your nose. Red is to bolt to when enemies appear Blue is for the topside for the sky we hold so dear Brown is for the caverns when we want resources to appear 3 of blue, and 3 of brown, visit the green tent first or else you will be locked out of town!
• Prisoners
  You have learned that Grнand and Scдtcha have been imprisoned in the swamplands by the enemy due to the security risk they posed. If you can find and rescue them, they will probably willingly use their knowledge of the swamps to help you get around.
• Resources
  Well, your supply of gems and crystal, for decades the prime export out of this part of Tatalia, has been cut off due to your part in this war. It seems you will have to go and take over the mines yourself!
• letter from the witches
  A terse letter flies in your conference room window and lands neatly on the table If you pursue this foolish course of action, you will only be depriving yourself and your family of your life. No one has ever successfully invaded this swampland before. The swamp takes care of its own, and will swallow you and your wretched army without a trace. This is not a threat, it is a fact of life. The choice is still yours Sincerely, The High Cauldron-Mistress of the Guild of the Full Moon
• resources swampies
  Gleefully you terminate the trade in gems and crystals that has been the only source of these valuable supplies to the drylanders nearby. That will teach those landlubbers! Lets see them build an army without those critical supports!
• Spies
  You wonder about how the swamp dwellers seem to know every move you make. Those witches are either really, really good at their scrying, or else those giant eyeball looking plants across the river really are eyeballs!
• Rain
  As you cross the River Tyr, the rain starts coming down in sheets. You wonder whether those witches have control over the weather. The dank, gloomy, and fetid swamplands seem to swallow you up as you enter them.
• drylanders
  You watch with hilarity from a spyglass as the drylanders try to slog through your swamps. They are more powerful than you thought, but you shouldn't have to worry too much since you can easily outrun them.
• Rain 2
  Well, it has been raining for 8 days straight now. The sky is greenish gray, the ground is greenish gray, the water is greenish gray, the (limited) horizon is greenish gray, and your socks are turning greenish gray!
• beastmasters
  Having worked closely with the Witch's guild, you realize that maybe they are not that bad after all. Their magic abilities sure has come in handy, and their are fairly decent fighters. If only they would stop insisting that you Beastmasters start taking baths!
• witches
  Your respect for your allies has increased dramatically over the course of this conflict. Those beastmasters were ferocious fighters, and even show some promise with magic, of all things! You just wish they would bath more than once a month!
• Rain 3
  Curse this infernal land! Your clothes are wet, your armour is wet (and rusting!), your socks are wet, your sleeping blankets are wet, and your spirits are definitely wet! Will it ever stop raining?
• witch2
  Well, these are exciting times! Not nearly as bad as the great newt eye shortage back in '62, or the bat-wing embargo that the Overlords imposed in '47.
• beastmaster2
  WooHoo! Nothing like a good swamp war to stir the blood and exercise the beasts! Things had been getting too complacent around here. You wonder how you can entice more drylanders to invade every couple of years...start excluding gnolls from enrolling? (Nahhhh...who would care?)
• Rain stop
  Well, it finally stopped raining! It takes only a few minutes of enjoying the sunshine before the insects descend upon you and your army with a vengeance. Mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds start sucking your army to the point of anemia! Who would ever want to live in this cursed land!
• The rain stop
  The witches finally let the rains stop. Even you were getting tired of it, but you take solace in the fact that the drylanders suffered far worse, and the swamp is even harder to traverse than ever for them.
• alliance
  After joint operations have sealed a bond of friendship between your two guilds, you secretly agree that maybe a female beastmaster would be possible, as well as a male witch. Only the newfound respect for each other's abilities brought this about. But these drylanders must be taught a lesson about guild rights, and they at least must be tossed out of the swamps on their ears! On with the war!
• vow
  You vow, if you ever get out of this morass alive and victorious, that you will ask for an earldom in the desert. You never thought you could hate water as much as you do right at this moment!
• joke
  ...and the latest Beastmaster joke circulating around is: What is dry and can get divided into five parts? ...a drylander as lunch for a Chaos Hydra! (Hey...these guys live in a swamp, their sense of humour probably has not evolved too much!)
• An envoy
  An envoy from the Crown arrives to ask about how the battle is going. When he flippantly asks you why it is taking so long, your aides have to literally drag you off of him and pry your fingers away from his throat!