Blood Red Moon
The Sack of Gaztelu Mugatik
In addition to the wargames and boardgames I enjoy, I am also running an FRP campaign that has been going on for over two years now. We have well over 100 sessions on the books and it is still going strong.
Session Reports
You can check out the Session Reports here, at the Hobby Workshop - Low Fantasy Campaign Playtest. The primary reason I started the campaign was to test out some game mechanics, including a magic system, for an FRP supplement I had in mind.
In a humorous twist, the players loved it and it has gone on and on.
Earlier this year I added a few Patron Players, “outsiders” to the game who didn’t participate in Session Play, but rather were in charge of making decisions and plans for important NPCs. One of these NPCs has been raising an army in the Wilderlands for months now, preying on caravans and kidnapping travelers. This Chaos Enchanter, one Rassogos the Scholar, has also been digging for lost secrets, underground and in dusty libraries. He believes he has discovered the key to finding an ancient artifact of immense power, lost to the ages. He wants to recover this artifact and use it in his quest to fulfill the wishes of his patron deity and march to the sea, leaving a swath of destruction.
After releasing an avatar of this deity, trapped for centuries, he has raised his banner and his army of undead, bandits and humanoid Skarn marched on the fortified town of Gaztelu Mugatik.
His forces assaulted the town from the north and south. The southern contingent attacked the main gate while the Chaos Enchanter lead a force against the rear wall of the Keep itself, using magic to undermine the walls.
They were soon breached and the ravening undead and humanoids were able to enter the city, wreaking havoc!
The Situation
I played out the siege using modified Chainmail rules on a large hex map showing an abstracted layout of the town and its defenses.
Unbeknownst to the Chaos Enchanter, the Party of adventurers had entered the Keep and were in negotiations with the corrupt Steward over some unpaid taxes. The rhetoric escalated quickly and the PCs became embroiled in a combat situation with the guards. The situation looked grim until the Chaos Enchanter’s forces attacked. The guards were drawn elsewhere, and a Noblewoman who had fled from the monsters into the Keep found the Party and offered to show them a way out.
They fled down into the dungeons beneath the Keep itself.
The Siege
The actual siege was played out, turn by turn, using Chainmail rules with some scenario-driven modifications. I made videos of this epic battle that I had fully expected the characters to join. Alas & alack! They did not join.
Here is the set-up and introduction, you can watch all of the videos on yootoob.
Force Statistics
The Chaos Attackers and the Town Defenders are statted as below, based on the Chainmail system.
It took about 15 turns, but the forces of Chaos prevailed, burning most of the town and putting the people to the sword. the Chaos Enchanter plans to Raise many of them after the town is secured.
Alternate Methods
I was quite excited with the way this battle worked out. I was especially pleased that the Chainmail rules were flexible enough to cover this unusual situation.
(These wealthy merchants were captured!)
For the sake of completeness I took this opportunity to re-fight this battle two more times: once with Tony Bath’s Siege rules from Setting Up a Wargames Campaign and a WIP version of the Hextrail combat rules.
The next article will go through these processes and describe the results.
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Purple Druid Presents Wargame Culture
(AI artwork created by me, using MidJourney)