This is my first AAR, happy to take short questions/comments but not strategy advice.
I'll normally be having a turn (or 2...) then posting, with the gaps increasing over time.
I'm avoiding (most?) game exploits, not using teleport, etc. I'm assuming the AI has been significantly improved.
Italics are aside comments to readers.
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Jordan slowly crept through the royal library, barefoot tiptoeing past the sleeping archivist as the moonlight bounced around the silver-edged books. Having recently turned 18, Jordan was legitimately able to access the royal histories, even if the king and queen rather that they remained untouched. Things were not so easy “in the old days” and the language matched the harsh conditions. Of course, things were not much better now, with war constantly on the horizon and allies threatening to become enemies. Jordan was also motivated knowing that Alexis, the youngest royal, would be insanely jealous. Reaching the locked shelves, and using the royal key received as a birthday present, Jordan unlocked the cabinets and reached in, past the dried rats-tail, green bear paw, and chipped midnight stone, to grab the first book.
Its spine cracked and pages smelling old, it was unlike the books in the recently constructed buildings. Undoing the protective bindings, Jordan turned the first page over, barely recognizing the scrawl that the young Celestan, the not-quite-eager-monarch, had used…
Day 1, of the rest of my life
My name is Celestan, this is my journal. I am the eldest child of Zekerebast and Kiloseevemee, dirt farmers with a fertile plot of land a few dozen metres long and a dozen wide. My life used to be hard but simple, the largest threat I faced was being beaten by my twin elder brothers each time we played “warlord” by the ancient ruined fort. My father’s father was a teacher, and we still have the tattered readers – my father is barely literate but words hold great meaning to me. They make sense. I like the idea of being a traveller, with just some books and no worries. Now look at me.
It began last winter. My life’s role was to take the goats out to find anything edible for them, so we can live off their milk and eventual meat. I like the outdoors. I cannot stand being inside for long. One of those days with the goats, we were caught by a sand-blizzard. It was rough enough to take the skin off and so we sheltered in caves. While the goats licked the fungal walls, I braved my fear and explored deeper and eventually found a great shimmering blue crystal, an ancient shard I learned later. Touching it, I experienced cold warmth across my body, a tingling lethargy that deeply scared me. But soon the walls seemed to pulsate and close in on me, so I quickly left it, trying to forget it. I later on went home with the goats, crystal unspoken. Nightmares of closing cave walls lasted for days.
Weeks later I was far south chasing vultures for their eggs, and got lost and deeply hungry. I feared for my life from the local bears, bandits and wolves. I curled near a long-dead tree. As I leaned against it, I wished with all my heart that it still bore fruit. Again the tingling lethargy filled my body, but this time spread from me, into the tree and into the land around. It was filled with verdant life, an area dozens times larger than the family farm! When I got home and told my family, my brothers scoffed, but my parents not so. With the few books we possessed, with tales of strange machines and magic, they said it sounded like the act of a channeller. Once they saw the verdant grassland they were convinced. They said great things will now happen, word of my power will spread, and strangers will feel threatened, so life will never be the same again.
My time is now. We will reclaim our lost heritage.
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World: Xobril:
Medium World, 10 Opponents, all Victory conditions, Hard Difficulty
Creatures and minor Factions enabled, normal pacing
Sovereign: Celestan
Tracker (goat-hunter), Attunement (crystal energy), Brilliant (lover of words)
Insane (claustrophobic)
Faction: Zauberer
Wanderlust, Educated, Resourceful, Influencial
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