#Crossbows & Catapults

[whats-in-a-sentence]

The bottom floor of the chamber was filled with catapults, every type of catapult ever conceived by gnomes. There were sling catapults, cross-bow catapults, willow-sprung catapults, steam-driven catapults (still experimental – they were working on adjusting the water temperature.

"DragonLance Chronicles: Dragons of Winter Night" - Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

[doomreturn]

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Crossbows & Catapults Box Art by George Doutsiopoulos

[billlaotian]

[ttrpg-smash-pass-vs]

On the left, Siege Ogres! About 10 ft (3 m) tall, ain't the sharpest tool in the shed, and they basically only care about 3 things: Eating, smashing (destruction), and smashing (fuckin). While most ogres are notoriously dumb, THESE are smart and patient enough to build tools and work well with others! Armor, chains, rides for their friends, battering rams, or giant crossbows! Some even strap small catapults on their back to launch goblins at people!

On the right, the Cloud Giant Smiling one! 23-25 ft (7-7.6 m) tall giants in the sky! The weather bends to thier whim, they're natural shapeshifters, and they have all sorts of magic for illusions and fog clouds and invisibility! Even a bit of weak mind manipulation, though they prefer to just use thier amazing persuasion, deception, and slight of hand skills. These ones LIVE for the drama, wearing masks with triumphant smirk on one side for mischief they cause and a grimace on the other because Storm Giants are higher ranked than them. They're tricksters, they value craftiness, and they'll eagerly do things others would think beneath them.

[slimylittlemaggot]

Did my first DnD session just now. Literally nothing happened until we went to the bar except for me spending 1 gold and two daggers for leather, string, and 12 sling ammo (special rocks)

But when the party went into the tavern, the tavern keeper was being harassed by some cultists(?).

My party rushed them. I stayed back, sneaking up on one and putting my sickle around their neck. I went first because sneak, the bastard ducked under my attack from like two inches away, one of the idiots slashed my robe, and in return I melted his face off with poison spray. He was about to die. When my turn happened again, I hit him with infestation (no damage. Parasitic moths got distracted by the lights). When my turn came around again, I walked up to him after he fumbled his crossbow, and decapitated him with my sickle for ruining my robe. While all that was happening, one cultist got smacked by a boomerang, one got slammed into the ground so hard it left a crater (burtle the baldbarian later tried to pay for it, unsuccessfully), and then another got headbutted twice, once sending him flying up, the other sending him flying into a wall, causing no damage luckily. Other than killing that guy obviously. Meanwhile the cleric casted catapult, sending a ton of utensils at the last guy (one that got hit by a boomerang) and knocked him out (he was later put in jail the next town over. (At least thats the plan.)). So that's three dead guys, a ruined robe (a five inch cut on the sleeve), and one unconscious guy. The cleric later casted mending on my robes and I calmed down.

Anyways now we have a map to the stronghold of strength and getting there will be the next session. Unless I'm allowed to keep looking for cool bugs, In which case its the next five.

Yippee!! You should absolutely be allowed to keep looking at cool bugs

[shuttershocky]

So hmmm shutters, how normal is it to be completely stuck at 7-9? I've tried a bunch of guides and even with those and an e2 myrtle to print DP I can't deal with the dogs fast enough :( I'm not sure if I should promite courier/another defensive vanguard to e2 to see if it helps, but this really is tough

I have a sneaking suspicion you may be extremely underleveled if you're taking on an E2L20 recommended stage and the one E2 you mention is Myrtle

So when you take on 7-9, what you need to do is make a tough frontline ASAP, and then immediately work on taking out the enemy flagbearers, since each one that's alive provides a stacking buff to the enemy which is what makes the dogs so strong.

There are video guides out there that will show you how to do it with a very underleveled party, so I'm going to show you how to do it very simply instead, if you don't mind not having an autodeploy.

What you do is that you put that E2 myrtle in your party, and you use it to borrow an E2 Mountain to completely trivialize the right lane.

Now, I don't have certain lower rarity units like Courier, Catapult, Gummy, etc raised so I might have to use a couple weird replacements to try to replicate a low level party getting carried by Mountain.

These are:

You can replace Zima with Courier, or any other Pioneer Vanguard stronger than Fang. They just need to be tough enough to survive the dogs so that Myrtle's Vanguard healing passive will see them through. If you don't have one, bring a Defender like Beagle or Cardigan and have an extra vanguard on the backline.

You can replace Shirayuki with any decent sniper that can take out the upper left flagbearer. I tried using an Artilleryman so they attack slower, but you might have to mess around a bit with this one

Jaye can be replaced with Gummy S1, or any other unit that can self-sustain while dealing damage (Gummy has a crit which lets her fight). Using Jaye slows down your DP gain because of the merchant trait, so beware if you use him in your own clear.

I also made sure to use Myrtle's skills late in case you don't have her at S1M3, and used Kroos + Adnachiel to take out the enemies running down the middle lane.

If you need more help to survive the crossbow enemy being empowered by the Flagbearers, bring Spot, and place him where Myrtle is after Myrtle gets you enough DP. Spot's heal, tankiness, and evasion granted to allies when his skill is active should see you through. Unfortunately, my Zima is a bit too strong to need Spot's help.

Let me know if you need more help or want a non 6-star solution

[thewingedbaron]

BG3 Fic Feburary Day Five!

(Still a little behind right now, but working on catching up)

WARNING: Depicitons of Violence and gore. If that's not your thing, maybe skip this one.

Read on Ao3

Day Five: First time seeing companions in battle

The crossbow bucked in Alyss’ hands as the bolt sped away and tore out the throat of the goblin sounding the war horn. The raiding group had already reached the Grove’s gates and were pounding mercilessly at three humans that had been locked outside when it shut. Alyss could see the defenders on top of the wooden wall, armed with crossbows and bows to  rain down fire on the attackers. Lot of good it was doing them. With the goblins attacking their mercenary allies in front of the gate, none of the defenders could get a clean shot. Not the mention the goblin’s own archers and casters working their hardest to keep the defender’s behind cover. That, Alyss decided, was where they would start.

“Lae’zel, get that bastard with the stick and work your way in toward the bugbear.” Alyss called, loading another bolt. “Gale, rocks for cover, do your best to cover the Blade of Frontiers.” 

“The what?” 

“The idiot who just jumped down into the fray waving a sword around.” Alyss snapped back. “Shadowheart, help me get the archers, then pinch the main group with Lae’zel.” 

There was a round of affirmative nods as the group set about their tasks. Lae’zel sprinted right, slamming into a knot of goblins like she had been launched from a catapult. Bodies and blood flew with each swing of her blade. 

Gale worked his way left, alternating between firebolts and ice crystals as he chipped away at the goblin’s own casters. Confused by the crossfire, one their warlocks stepped out of cover to find their new attackers, only the eat a firebolt to the face. One caster down, Alyss thought. 

For her part, Alyss started to wear down their archers. Ordinarily, she would aim to injure, firing for arms and legs. An injured target often took two out of the fight, but goblins cared little for their wounded. Instead, her bolts slammed into chests and shoulders, slowly dropping the opposing archers one by one. Next to her, Shadowheart whispered the words of a spell, capturing a flame in her hand. 

“Ignis!” She shouted, sending the flame off like a bolt of her own. A moment later, she cursed as it slammed into the stone cliff-face, a few feet above her intended target. Shadowheart snapped her fingers in frustration, and a holy flame slammed onto the goblin from above, removing them from the fight. Alyss cocked an eyebrow at her companion. 

“Watch out!” Shadowheart cried, throwing her shield arm over the ranger. Three impacts slammed into the hardwood face, intercepting shots meant for Alyss. The ranger snapped off another shot, dropping one of the offending goblins in response. 

“Sorry!” Alyss reloaded. “Didn’t see that one.” 

“You’re lucky.” Shadowheart replied, regaining her composure. “Eyes off me and on the enemy next time.” 

The pair paused, both faces turned a slightly deeper shade of red as Shadowheart’s words registered. 

“Lae’zel needs help. I’m, uh.” Shadowheart nodded several times to herself. Below them, the gith warrior was tearing through a pack of goblins on her way to the bugbear as if they were wet parchment. 

“Right, got your back.” Alyss replied stiffly. By the time either of them looked up, it was already over. The mercenaries were battered, but alive, and steaming mad. Lae’zel was surveying the scene like  a general overlooking a battlefield, waiting for the next target to reveal itself. Gale approached them slowly, too busy trying to scrape the blood off his robe to notice the awkward silence between the other two members of the party. 

“Well, that was quite fun, wasn’t it? That Lae’zel is quite the warrior.” Gale smiled. “Are you two injured? You both look like you’ve been walloped over the head with a goblin’s club.” Gale’s smile faded as his two companions nodded stiffly at him and began to make their way toward the Grove, not acknowledging each other, or him. Was it something he said? He pondered for a moment before realizing that he was alone on the battlefield. 

“Now wait just a moment, I’ll not be left behind!” He called, jogging after the party as the gate began to lift.

[zrinboy]

Trick or Treat! 🎃

Please enjoy some pics of my 1/72 scale Turnip28 armies!

"The Slugs Lament", converted from a Hät 1/72 Napoleonic Spanish Infantry Sampler box.

"The Grand Bombard" converted from a Hät 1/72 Napoleonic Austrian Infantry Sampler box and a cannon from 2007 board game Battleground: Crossbows & Catapults.

Oh and take these as you go!

[navcommrelay]

/////Begin Transmission/////

Assessment:

Did someone unbox a damned museum and park it in the staging area? Obsolete second- and third-line gear...ancient SLDF equipment... Pre-Succession stuff, backed by what look to be antique parade ground ‘Mechs crash-prepped to something approaching combat readiness. Dear God, I hope the apparent focus on redundancy is enough to compensate for the glaring deficiencies present in equipment this old. This stuff would have been a formidable threat…in 3049."

/////End Transmission/////

{Assessment Received.}

{Analysis: Positive Assessment.}

{Authorize Deployment....Done.}

{Contacting Operations Command.....}

Links to squadron overviews below the cut. Tagging folks by the suggestion of @is-the-battlemech-cool-or-not, thanks!

@starcommanderhannahlewis @the-clawtake @harwood-pmc-official @the-tired-merc @lt-chari @msn-04iinightingale @snords-sword @house-steiner-stays-winning @karriethemechtech @starcolonelkatrinamoon @is-the-battlemech-cool-or-not @killer-orca-cosplay @jaded-falcon @scorpians-sting @combined-arms-merc-groups @on-a-mechtechnicality @freelance-belter-catgirl @callsignpuppy

[backwaterscum]

@alongtimeago sent: Liminal space meme: 3: deep in the mountains. ► from here.

Their little community has grown in so many numbers that it's becoming more important to hunt. Daryl can't feed these people on squirrels and rabbits any more, and though it takes some effort to track, kill, and bring deer back, in a way it feels like it's worth it. Nobody had ever expected their home in the prison to be sustainable, and now there's a vegetable garden, and a library, and schooling for the children they've saved. Now there's living, not just surviving, and bringing a deer home to turn into food alongside this month's harvest feels like the right thing to do.

Daryl's spent the past half hour tracking one such deer, moving closer to it in purposeful, confident strides. And when finally he sees it bent to drink from a stream, he aims his crossbow, brows furrowing as he focuses on getting it in the eye. The bolt lets loose swiftly, silently, and without even a noise the deer is killed. Its body collapses gently into the dirt, and he smirks to himself before rushing over to collect it.

...that is, until he sees the body flying over the treeline.

And the way it's launched towards him.

"What the fuck--!"

Daryl just barely avoids it, listening as the body crashes into a nearby rock with a sickening crack. As one of the undead it still twists, still growls and snarls and reaches for him, and he has to pull the knife from his belt to stab it through the head and silence it forever. Its blood spills wet and thick over the grass, but by now he isn't paying it any mind; more important is looking out where he's sure that body came from.

He contemplates the deer. Then, grunting, he picks it up, hoisting it over his shoulders and starting his jog in the direction the dead body came from.

Daryl isn't sure what he expected when he finds the source of the disturbance. A catapult, maybe. Or a comically large trampoline. Certainly not a clearing of beautiful flowers and, right in the middle, what looks to be a small child with their hand outstretched. In front of them is another walker, suspended in mid-air and snarling all the while. For all that its rotted fingernails reach out to grab the little one, it seems incapable of reaching them.

Then the child's hand darts out, and just like the body earlier, Daryl watches in stunned silence as this second dead one flies away. Now he's certain what the fuck doesn't even begin to cover it.

"Wh..." It's just the two of them now, and he's not sure if the kid knows he's there. At this distance, he notices the little guy's got what looks to be a mix of elf and bunny ears on his head, but he shakes his head and suspects it's some kind of weird costume. Kids can have fun in the end of the world, sure-- it's the floating bodies that really concern him.

He opens his mouth, hesitant at first, before he doubles down: "Hey-- hey, kid! The hell did you come from?"

With the deer still on his back, Daryl comes forward.

[doomreturn]

[superheroauthor]

I’m Alive! Sparky The Superhero’s Story

Chapter Two – Hunting the Vampyre

(Part 1 The Crusher’s Fall)

She's a big lass and a bonny lass

and she likes her beer,

and they call her Chubby Applebottom

and I wish she was here.

                        Historical, Great Earth

   My dream was one of ecstasy and fulfilment.

   I was myself again. In my forties, I think. The real me, before I died.

   I was in my workshop or someplace very like it. All around were tools, some normal, some strange to ordinary people.

   I saw my hands lift out the green globe from a hidden pocket and place it on the workbench. I left it there, a pale globe waiting to be awoken, waiting to fulfil its meaning.

   I went to another bench and took down a long cylinder of metal, some six inches long, about an inch wide. Into the vice it went. I then used a hand-drill to try and bore a hole right through it. The metal was hard and so I tapped the drill bit with several sparks to harden it and give it a tiny amount of magic. Now the metal parted easily and the bit went right through leaving me with a long hollow cylinder. I now took out a plate of metal and cut a piece of it out with a hacksaw. This I drilled in several places.

   I took a lump of wood and carved it into a more rounded piece.

   You see, I was making what we called a gum. I think that’s the word. It is an archaic word, dating back to the Great Earth. It is a projectile weapon. A sophisticated projectile weapon with moving parts.

   Bow and arrows worked on this planet, crossbows, catapults, slings that fired small spears but there were no working part projectile weapons.

   It was not that these things were banned, just that no-one had thought of making one. They were far too complex, even with magic. Who would need one in a city when you can carry a sword or knife or stave?

   I noticed my hands were smaller than they used to be but still very nimble.

   My hands were carving and smoothing down the handle to the gum. This was going to be my greatest achievement if I could make it work.

   Gum? Gut? Grim? Something was not right.

   Gat? Grat? Grun? Gum?

   The word was wrong. A small projectile weapon . . . I reached deep into my mind. Suddenly it was flooded with ways of making living people into zombies. Not good zombies but slow-walking, stiff-moving zombies. The sort people would notice at once unless it was dark.

   Ah, there. There was the memory I was seeking. The projectile weapon was a gun, a handgun.

   A gun!

   I moved some plans across to this bench. The first design was one that was a one-shot gun. One you had to reload each time you wanted to fire a projectile. The next one was a side by side, firing two shots with two triggers.

   Ah, there it was. This one had a rotating cylinder in which you put projectiles. There was a ‘close-up’ of that cylinder on the plan. It had seven drilled apertures. Seven little projectiles could be loaded into this.

   My thoughts drifted and I just watched my hands, drilling, shaping, making the handgun until it was fully formed. I had used screws to hold it together. That and solder made from silver and green-metal.

   I opened up the gun and span the cylinder, it rotated as smooth as silk.

   Now for the projectiles. They were nothing special. Just bullets in a mould. Like when I had been making silver bullets to kill werewolves for my catapult. Those were round, these were longer and cylindrical.

   I did it. I finally did it. I opened up the green sphere, the momo globe. At the bottom I could see a golden leaf and it was covered by a thick green liquid. I had never seen such a thing before. The green liquid seemed to move, to undulate, to dimly shine.

   I had never seen this before but my body knew what it was. I dipped the end of each bullet into the green slime, one after another until I counted one hundred. Ninety-three went into a pouch. The remaining seven were loaded into the gun.

   Now the finale. I eased off the top of my left index finger and a line of sparks flowed forth. I let this line hit the hammer mechanism of the handgun. It heated under those sparks and glowed red, a puff of black smoke and I knew the job was done. I replaced the tip of my finger.

   I replaced the tip of my finger? This was not the old me. The one that had lived. This was me, me, Sparky!

   Sparky dreaming!

   The dream changed and now it was black. I knew this dream. I hated this dream but I could not escape it.

   I was in the old manor house of Doctor Gory, a female doctor of incredible beauty who was totally nuts and liked inventing the weirdest things that had ever been even imagined. The house was far from normal cities, far up north. Past Castle, past Dee and Ness. From there she used a special train that she had built, just for her own use, at great expense. It travelled from Ness to her hidden estate. On that estate a castle, a manor house and many parks.

   A park? Of course, you are a city person, you don’t know what a park is.

   That is an area of greenery with bushes and trees and wild things growing. Animals but not beasts live there. There are no parks in The Smoke. There simply is not room.

   I was in the cellar of the manor house in her laboratory there. I was the first you see, the first dead body. Doctor Gory was trying to use sinus like the sinus-tists did on Great Earth. She was wanting to use technology, not even fully understanding what technology was. It had never existed here, not on this planet.

   On this planet was magic and clockwork and steam.

   Tied down to an operating table, a slab, ‘tricity was passing through my body, never-ending. Although my body twisted and arched, bent and shook and twitched, it did not come to life. I had died ten years before and the body had rotted. She wanted my body, my brain as I had been an inventor, a man some thought a genius.

   The dream flickered back to me, alive, as Sparky.

   I now know all languages and have a lot of knowledge I did not have in my real life. I have the knowledge of every person used to create me, even the ones whose body parts were ruined and discarded in the process of making me. The only part of me that truly belonged of me was part of my brain. The front cortex. The rest of me was made from hundreds of other people.

   The dream flickered back and I was still dead. Only my head laying on the slab, the ‘tricity still passing through it, so it had a chance to survive and not rot.

   Doctor Gory’s process used decayed body parts in order to give life to the rest. She kept adding and adding human remains and stayed with the parts that survived the process. The only truly original part of me was that chunk of my brain. All the time the creator was working on the body ‘tricity had to be passing through me and the body or the whole thing would die.

   I had hundreds of parts attached to me at different times and slowly but surely parts attached to me did not die. Four parts of a skull that could withstand the process and then a torso. A tongue, an arm, a leg, another leg. Parts discarded, parts attached until I was whole and the flesh was now fresh.

   Trepanning my skull to put another line of ‘tricity into it, a hole in my chest to add a line to my heart. A monumental surge of power . . .

   I’M ALIVE!

   I woke screaming, as I always did. No-one complained. No-one ever complained about my screaming.

   The first one who had done just that had been beaten to a pulp in the fear and anger the dream had left me with. He had been banging on my door as I awoke, still half in my dream-state. After that the landlady told all her residents, then and after, I suffered from grisly nightmares and none should go near me when I woke.

   One fool ignored this and smashed open my door while I was still asleep and screaming from my dreams. The crossbow bolt took him in the heart and he died.

   A hefty bribe to the landlady, a golden sovereign no less, and it all went away.

   Dawn had arrived.

   Everyone say hello to Dawn.

   The best time of the day!

   I thought carefully about what I was going to wear today. The trench coat always, with its secret pockets and magic, it was one of my most well-designed items. My trousers were looking dirty and I brushed them out best I could and then brushed off my trench coat too. I did not clean my boots. Shiny boots get you noticed. I did brush my brown bowler hat, mould had started to grow on it.

   In the cities, everyone wore a hat. A person without a hat was not worth calling a person. A poor man would wear a cap, a poor woman a scarf around her head. An office worker would wear a bowler hat, the rich man a top hat. The women of these elevated peoples would wear a hat of varying colours, sometimes with frills, sometimes with elaborate decorations, sometimes just a plain hat but always a hat, never a scarf. A boy would always wear a cap until he was an adult, a girl a plain bonnet.

   Working boys and girls wore bonnets – sex workers. The men and women who gave so much pleasure. The pillars of the city, the people that the city could not do without.

   Even roadmen wore hats, even normal tramps and drinkers who lived under the arches. To be without a hat meant you were a non-person. Someone who should leave the cities and go outside.

   My shirt was linen and could do with washing to get the bloodstains out but there was no time for that today. I looked around for my silver topped cane, I found that and then I saw it.

   It was there.

   On the inner sill of the window, the gum!

   No, not gum, gone, no not that – gun! Handgun!

   Someone had made that gun and it was not me. It was someone in my dreams, someone very skilled. Someone who had plans and designs for such a thing. I had no such plans, not in my last life, not in this life.

   It had a rosewood handle, a reddish brown that made it stand out. A long barrel, about five inches, a chunky cylinder for the bullets to live in.

   There was even a carrier, a holster for it. A leather holder but with no belt strap. I turned over the holster and saw the blue patch on it and understood.

   I washed and dressed. I changed my mind on what to wear. I put on a suit. An old brown suit but a suit nonetheless.

   I pressed the holster to my belt and it stuck fast. That holster would be firm now. I gathered up the tools of my trade.

   Killing unnatural creatures that was my trade. The Creators made them and I killed them. Partly to stop normal people from getting hurt, partly just to piss off the Creators who made them and were so proud of these abominations.

   Today, I would be hunting a vampire.

   The first vampire was created about two hundred years ago. Created, not formed naturally. Not a single human being had ever became a vampire through a pact with the devil. The first vampire was created by Otto the Bloodthirsty, just outside the city of Czar. Myths had been circulating for centuries about such creatures, so he created one.

   Vampires are very different from the myths about them. In the stories they are affected by a long-lost God, whose son was nailed up to a cross. The myths tell us crosses will drive a vampire back.

   Vampires do have a connection to crosses. They collect them. When shown one, the vampire will often try to buy it off you for their collection, however basic it might be. As there is no relation between modern religion and vampires, they have no fear of them whatsoever. Same goes for holy water. A stake through the heart, whatever it is made of, kills them, as it would any human. Cutting off a hand works just as well, letting the blood completely drain out of them so they are vampire no longer. Their hearts pump blood at a much faster rate than humans, so this can be very quick and they cannot fight while it is happening as they are becoming weaker at a fast rate.

   We now come to the myth of vampires making others, like werewolves are supposed to do but cannot. Halfbloods is the name, those that have been turned by vampires into a similar form of themselves. They can walk in day but cannot make other vampires. They drink purely to kill and to taste blood. Halfbloods look sallow and have dark rings around their eyes as if they have not slept in weeks. They are skinny and emaciated as they can no longer eat any food or take any drink at all. Once you know about them, they are easy to spot.

   When a vampire dies their skin ages and then falls away to leave a skeleton. When a halfblood dies its skin goes black and they just lie there.

   I was after a very special sort of vampire. The Vampyre.

   The Vampyre was supposedly from the Old World. Humans had migrated from the Old World thousands of years past but their myths and stories were still part of our lives. Part truth, part fiction, they were still our myths.

   Vampires, in the Old World, in a place called Bulgaria, had a creature called the Dhampyr. This abomination was the result of a breeding between a male vampire and a female human. In the Old World that is. Here they had to be made. And only one person made the Dhampyr. Madame Jenna.

   Not the sweetest of females but the Creators never were. Her mind was twisted and her hobby was torture. In making all the unnatural creatures, she always used torture. To make a vampire you needed a live person. It took a special sort of Creator to take a live person and turn them into a half-dead one. A creature that lived on blood and nothing else.

   Madame Jenna made the Vampyres, a weaker sort of vampire but still very powerful. And she did this by first torturing the human subject until it was out of its mind.

   This Creator had three workshops that I knew of, but she was not the objective. The new Vampyre was. It had killed two working girls in Whitechapter, also a male for rent in Sojo and a woman in Bankside. It was rumoured the woman in Bankside was not a prostitute which confounded the stories from the grotty newspapers. The Daily Sketch had been using big banner headlines to tell everyone of a serial killer that was killing prostitutes, snatching them in the fog and taking them away. Their bodies were being found horribly mutilated in nearby alleyways. The Sketch had reported seventeen of these murders.

   I had asked a reporter from the Daily Sketch what he thought. He had confided in me (after I broke both of his arms) that there had only been four grisly killings, the others were normal murders blown up to look good and sell newspapers. He himself had sliced a female murder victim open to make sure the story ran and ran.

   He died, slowly hanging from a lamppost. No-one really cared – he was a reporter after all and a most unpleasant one at that. When reporters stop bothering the families of murdered people, when they stop intruding into innocent people’s lives, then they might get sympathy. When they stopped making things up just because the story did not suit the facts, I might defend them. Until then, they were fair game.

   So, the fourth victim was different. From my reporter source I was told that she had been cut up, her body was half drained of blood and there were puncture wounds in her upper right thigh. This victim was not a street person. He had heard that she was on the drug Eternity.

   Eternity was a strange narcotic indeed. Normally people got addicted to drugs and came back day after day for more. With Eternity, only one dose was needed. One dose and you dreamed the life you wanted to have. Your body did all the normal things, it went to work, it washed itself, it cooked, it ate and drank. Your mind though was on a whole other plane.

   It was always the same dream. You were a God on Earth 1.1. You mixed and battled with other Gods. The whole population of the planet worshipped you, would do anything for you that you asked them to. The Gods used mortals as their pieces of a game. The battles of the Gods were fought using mortals. That game took an Eternity.

   There was only one problem with the drug Eternity. As it was a one dose drug, it was hideously expensive. The going rate for one tablet was . . . twenty-five pounds. That was a huge amount. Half the price of a terraced house. And who could afford to own a house?

   I had all the details of this woman. She was single but very rich and not an heiress, nor ever married. Where had the money come from? Even a high class call girl would not make that sort of money.

   An office worker might get a mortgage for that sort of money for a property but then he would be paying back his whole life. And it would be a very well-paid office worker to do that. Most people rented, only one in maybe five hundred ever owned their own place, even with a mortgage.

   I left via the window as usual. Even in daytime the smog was fighting a battle with the normal air to who controlled the streets. Visibility was not bad today, you could see almost thirty feet in front of you.

   The streets were busy. A woman got pushed into the road by a pedestrian in a hurry. We heard the scream as the tram rolled over her. No-one paid any attention. This was quite normal. Men, women, children pushed into the road and sometimes killed by trams was a day-to-day occurrence here. There were just too many people on the pathways.

   I purchased a newspaper from a vendor on the corner and went to the tram stop. It was a stop covered because of the rain at weekends. I did not open my newspaper. All too soon a tram screeched to a halt. On I got, ignoring the driver. I sat down on the top deck. I was at the front so I could watch who came up the stairs.

   Two stops down the conductor came up and seeing me approached.

   “Single to Bankside,” I told him, watching his every move.

   “Two pennies,” he told me. Bankside was a long way through the city.

   He looked me up and down and so I took off my trench coat and he saw my suit and took note of my brown bowler hat.

   A suit and a brown bowler hat did not mean a city gent. They wore the black bowler hats and did not get on the trams near the slums. No, a brown bowler meant a wages clerk or something lowly but still an office worker. Maybe an accountant down on his luck as I had not come from the best of areas.

   “Won’t rain today mister.” He pointed to my coat as he took my tuppence and gave me my ticket. “Not for a couple of days yet.”

   “I feel the cold!” was my excuse and he shrugged and went downstairs to catch more fares.

   I got off at Bankside, my coat over my arm. This was why I was wearing a suit. No tramps here, no roadmen, no beggars. Just men in suits and bowlers passing back and forth. The occasional man in a top hat, presumably an owner or a director of a company.

   Two Crushers were walking up and down, moving on people who do not fit. One of them, even now, escorting away a working girl. Both of them ignoring the flower girl who was selling roses and buttonholes.

   I got a buttonhole, a tiny red rose bloom to bring out the brown in my suit. It also made me fit just a little more. With the bloom I was now more likely to be an accountant than a clerk. I moved through Sharpneedle Street and down an alley into Gower Street, another alley and into the back of Broker Mansions. Four storey houses, semi-detached but local for the businessmen of The Smoke as townhouses.

   I noticed even the air seemed better in this area, less fog. I did not know why this was.

   A street urchin made a grab at my coat and I knocked him aside with the top of my cane, stunning him but not hurting him too much. I had no problems with what he was doing. Everyone had to make a living. Everyone had to earn their crust.

   I found the house I wanted, number thirteen. I went between two houses and was about to go into the garden of number thirteen when I saw someone about to open the back gate from outside.

   Now there was a bonny lass if I ever saw one. A face so pretty it would make angels weep. Near on my height, topping out at about five foot ten. And cuddly, she must have twenty stone and she waddled as she moved. A true woman, not one of these sticks that thought they were feminine.

   This woman was no lady who starved herself for the sake of fashion. She was truly beautiful. She wore a pale pink hat, wide brimmed with woven strands of straw as its decoration. The pink of the hat was faded but the hat nonetheless was in good condition, no mould, no holes.

   Her dress was faded pink too with a red border at the bottom, hemmed to stop it fraying. A red border too around the bodice that tried in vain to hold the overflowing mounds of her breasts. Her bosoms were pushed up by the bodice, almost but not quite escaping.

   I did nothing . . . but watch. She opened the garden gate and went in. The garden was not much. There was not enough space in the city for large gardens. It was just grass with a border of flowers left and right.

   Up to the back door this vision of loveliness went, I heard a snick then a crunch and then another crunch. She was breaking in through the backdoor. It seemed fair. Most thieves would have slid a knife in and snipped the window sash and gone in through the window. I would have gone in that way. Very little damage and easy to get in . . . and no noise.

   This glorious entity of pulchritude though would have had problems getting through the window with her curvaceous body. The door made excellence sense and now it was open I moved like a cat through the garden and followed her in.

   She had ignored the kitchen, the living room too, maybe because the curtains were open. I could hear her feet clump up the stairs. Moving low, I followed her, I did not approach the stairs until she was past them and into one of the bedrooms. I bided my time, counting to one hundred. I then went up.

   She let out a scream when she turned and I was in the bedroom beside her. In her hand was a wooden stake. Drawers and cupboards were open, her breathing was hard. She stared at me and I just stared coolly back. I did not do a thing.

   A silence of moments that seemed like hours passed between us before I spoke.

   “Robbing the place?” I asked, grinning to hopefully show I was not bothered by this.

   “I am not!” she declared haughtily. “I am looking for clues.”

   “Yeah and I am Methuselah the Mechanik!”

   Mechaniks were the sinus-tists of this world. They invented the things we use every day. They used clockwork and magic and steam and made trams and trains. It was they that invented gas lighting. They made the glow globes that are in nearly every household. They made glass by putting sand in clockwork steam presses.

   Methuselah was the first and greatest, or so the legends go. He worked with the punks to make more cities. They showed him how to make trains that ran on steam made by clockwork and magic. They showed him how to build houses in a day by piling bricks and using steam-leverage magic.

   “Not you are not. He is dead centuries ago.”

   This was a beautiful but literal person. I looked into her hazel brown eyes, noticing her pretty face once again. I would put her age about twenty and five.

   “I mean, you are not looking for clues. What clues could there be here?”

   “I am hunting vampires. There was a spate of killings in Castle about three months ago. Twelve men and one woman died. Most of them were prostitutes, some were just poor. No-one was ever caught for it. The Crushers only hunt what they can see. They don’t investigate crimes unless they are bribed.” She paused for breath. “We have had four in this city now. Three prostitutes, two woman and a man and one that does not figure. One that is plain wrong. So, I am investigating, looking for clues as to why the vampire took this one.”

   “The newspapers are claiming seventeen. It has to be true. It is written there in black and white.” I was trying a theory.

   “Newspapers? Huh! They would not print a true story without embellishment. They cannot print facts, just stories about how they see them. Mother Thompson’s six-year-old was snatched. The reporters camped out on her doorstep for a year. They pestered and pestered her until she longer wanted to go out. She stopped shopping then stopped eating. That only made the newshounds more interested. In the end, she hung herself to get away from them. And guess what? That became a story too.”

   “On that I do agree. The only good reporter is one sitting on a sword.”

   That made her smile and that single look, that tiny bit of emotion, lit up her face like a glow lamp in a thunderstorm. It hit me harder than any punch thrown by an enemy, in this life or the last.

   “I found this on the top of the set of drawers.”

   It was a simple punched tram ticket. A return.

   “Why is this so special?” I asked, bewildered.

   “When you leave the tram, the conductor rips your ticket in half. She got a return and went both ways, hence the punched ticket. She then got the ticket back from the conductor. Why? She bought it home and put it in a place she would see it every day. Why? Because it meant something to her. It was special.”

   I checked the ticket again. It was a ticket to Finch Green. That was the north part of the city, it was supposed to be beautiful up there.

   “This was in a drawer,” she said and showed me what looked like a silver collar.

   “Search some more. I think you are getting somewhere.”

   She stared at me, shrugged her shoulders and carried on searching.

   I started to get an idea of this woman whose house we were intruding so rudely upon. She would not mind. She had gone to the ground.

   I heard a cry of triumph and the lady in pink was brandishing another stake made of silver.

   “Try the wardrobe. You’re looking for a larger item.”

   “You do something. Don’t just stand there looking like a paca scanning for worms.”

   “I am doing something.”

   I picked up the silver collar. I slid my hand into my coat and pulled out what looked like a tiny glow globe.

   I swept this over the collar. The globe glowed but so did the whole room.

   “Out!” I cried out to her, slipping on my coat. “Now! Tucus!”

   “Don’t you call me names!”

   “Crushers will be coming. This place is magically alarmed. Go to the Murky Café. Do not let Tucus close up until I get there.”

   It was still morning but you never knew when the Crushers came a-calling. The collar and the tiny globe went into a normal pocket in my coat. I had to give this delectable creature time to get away.

   I ran down the stairs and into the living room. I jumped right through the bay window there. Glass smashed to smithereens around my exit, yanking at the wooden surrounds of the window too. A Crusher was running towards the house and saw me.

   I ran the other way, fast as my legs could take me but the Crusher’s long legs were making a difference. I saw an alleyway and dodged into it, only to find a footpad in waiting.

   “Crusher!” I shouted and he lost his nerve and was now running beside me.

   It was easy for a person to lose their nerve against Crushers. They were seven foot tall and built like houses. Massive muscular frames with fists that could punch through walls.

   The Crusher was gaining on us so I tripped the footpad and then kept on running. It didn’t work. The Crusher had not seen the footpad do anything wrong so just hurdled the prone body and kept on running at me.

   He would gain on me and hit me with his truncheon, there was no doubt of that now. There was no other choice. It was a time for action.

   I turned, waving my cane around. The Crusher tried to slow, tried to stop but could not. That huge bulk was in motion and it was coming at me like a train. When he was almost on me, I did not hit him with the cane. Instead, I extended my right arm and a silver skewer slid out the sleeve and smashed into the chest of the Crusher.

   The Crusher fell on top of me. He was still breathing. The skewer had smashed through the ribs but had not hit the heart. He was hurt but not too badly, not for a Crusher.

   He was heavy, I could hardly move. It seemed he was stunned as he did not attack me. Or was simply using his weight as a device to hold me down prior to beating me up for committing a crime.

   I had no wish to go to a wellbeing clinic after this Crusher kicked seven bells of out of me. They were expensive places. Those places were not for the poor. It was said they charged five shillings just for something to give you pain relief, let alone set a broken bone.

   I was wearing my trench coat so had weapons everywhere but this was of little use when you had something that felt like thirty stone on top of you. I moved my hands slightly and found what I was looking for, a knife. It was not big, only a couple of inches long. It was used for snipping window sashes or sometimes for building inventions. It was razor sharp.

   He grunted once as I slid it into his side. He grunted again as I twisted it and then his weight started to lift. He was getting up, slowly but up all the same.

   I must have put magic into the holster because the handgun drew so fast and I shot him. The area where the bullet went sparked with little flashes of lightning. It became green tinged and smelt rotten.

   The bullet had entered in his chest and now there was a six-inch-wide hole . . . and he was still alive. He was tottering but alive. My silver topped cane whipped up and caught him right in the groin and he fell back.

   I lumbered to my feet, cane in one hand, gun in the other. Waiting ready for action. Nothing!

   He was dead.

   Did I care I had killed a Crusher? Someone who was there to keep order. Not in the slightest. They were brutes, almost animals.

   I frisked him. His truncheon that was so heavy I could barely lift it. Pipe and smoke-weed. A bag of sovereigns, penknife, kerchief, which I think for him was a handkerchief.

   I took the bag of sovereigns. That was why I had frisked him. His bribe money. All Crushers had bribe money. They carried it on them. If left in their rooms it could be robbed, so they carried it on them.

   I gasped and staggered back. He was shrinking. Now six-six, now six foot, now five eight, now five-five, now five foot two inches tall.

   I heard that when they retired, they shrank to normal human size but had not truly believed it.

   This was not the time to think about that though. I walked, not ran, down the road and put my hand out to summon a cab.

   It was not just trams that used the roads in The Smoke. There were all sorts of horses and carriages too. The most common were the hansom cabs. A small cabriolet carriage where the driver sat high up on the back and the seating part of the cab for passengers was below him. His reins went over the top of the cab to control the horses.

   Why did the fast-moving trams not hit them? Firstly, the trams had set paths and secondly it was the magic buffer. The magic buffer on a tram stopped it hitting anything of size. When something large was in the way of the tram the magic buffer affected the steam engine of the tram and it ground to a halt. From a hansom cab up, was the size to stop a tram. A man, woman or child in the road would not stop a tram at all. It would hit them smashing them to bits and rolling over them as if nothing had happened.

   People in The Smoke grew up knowing this and were well aware. There was no-one to complain to about it anyway. The city was massively overpopulated and it was just seen as a way of getting rid of fools. Not the nicest way of thinking but the people of The Smoke, especially the poor folk, grew up hard.

   A cab drew up.

   “Where to?” the driver asked surlily.

   They were never polite unless it was to someone who looked like a gentleman. Even then, it was only to get a better tip.

   “Train station in Whitechapter,” I told him getting in, not giving the full address of the place where I was going.

   He whipped the horses up and we were almost flying through the streets. Not as fast as a tram but not far off.

© COPYRIGHT Michael Sheppard 2024

reblog for next chapter

[jeanjauthor]

What can I do to show a country with an inspired time period of Western and southern European renaissance/Tudor times but without guns, gunpowder or corsets? I do have theatre coming and religion but nothing

A country with a time period inspired by Western & Southern European renaissance / Tudor... no buns, gunpowder, or corsets...

Architecture and furniture, for one. A lot of people know what the iconic Tudor style is like: beam-and-plaster. Big thick heavy timbers (some light, some dark) with plaster in between, the beams can be straight, curved, or angular. But they also have a lot of brick in some of those buildings, too, such as in Germany (not sure if that's far enough West for you, but it's pretty architecture).

You can look up furniture as well. Most of it will still be hard wooden (not quite sure when upholstry techniques were discovered), but it will definitely be decorated with cushions, a lot of carvings, and some curvature to the seats & backs have started to develop.

Walls will definitely be painted, and there might be tapestries. NOT just embroidered ones! Painted wall hangings became quite popular...and were considerably cheaper for modestly prosperous farmers & artisans to afford, plus they cut down on drafts in winter.

Glassware has started to join pottery as a thing more people can afford. Mirrors are becoming popular, too, especially silver-backed Venetian glass mirrors...though if this isn't set in our world, or at least in an alternate-history Earth, you'll want to come up with a name & a place for such luxury goods to come from.

Without gunpowder, etc, the bow & crossbow will still be the top tier ranged weaponry (not counting magic, etc) for personal combat, but they'll also probably have the arbalest & ballista. Catapults are not as good as Hollywood pretends they are; their max weight at launch isn't very much, maaaaaybe 40 pounds-ish? Trebuchets are where it's all at, those effers can hurl whole cows. (Not advocating the flinging of live livestock, but also flinging dead livestock is kind of a "biological weapon of terror" thing, so it's not all that nice, either.)

Roads are slowly getting better, but they'll still be rutted and awful when it rains. Mostly it'll be roads inside the towns that will be graded and cobbled, and even the villages will start getting some decent streets. Shoes will still be problematic, though: hobnails are for mud and grass and slippery terrain that the nails can dig into, but they will slip on the hard stones of settlement streets, so your townies will want non-nailed shoes that won't slip quite so much.

Oxen will still be in some of the fields, but horses will gradually be taking over the pulling of the plows. Same for pulling wagons. The advent of the iron horseshoe goes a long way toward helping them, but they'll have the same slipping issue on cobbled roads. Donkeys and mules are still very much a part of everyday work & transportation for small carts & itinerant worker's & trader's loads.

Harvest time will still have very significant cultural importance, because although farming will have had a few innovations to help things along (mostly in terms of crop rotation, compost & manuring the fields, etc), it's still going to be close to 90% of your population devoting their lives to growing & preserving the food that everyone needs to eat the rest of the year...and most foods will be seasonal, because there's only so much you can dehydrate, smoke, salt-pack, salt-brine, or fermentation-pickle.

But in colder climates (think the Alps & Pyrinees) where the mountains get freezing cold, you can have ice houses, packed with straw and carefully ventilated & drained, with plenty of sawdust.

Also, industry will start to use water-powered "engines" for doing things. Not just turning the mill wheel to grind grain into flour, but to pump the bellows for a blast furnace, to smelt iron. ...This does lead to other problems, however, and that is the deforestation of the area around a smelting foundry. So your people will either have to figure out how to do forestry management, or they will need to discover other burnables, such as coal deposits (which cause their own problems) or natural gas (which China had discovered & started using well over a thousand years ago, piped via bamboo sealed with clay from the gas fields to the furnaces for pottery, etc).

...With all that said, one of the things you can do to look up inspiration is the BBC's Life on a Tudor Monastic Farm series. They did an outstanding job of re-creating daily life in England (which counts as Western Europe even if it's not Southern Europe) in the Tudor time period. You even get to see them going to other locations, which means seeing what the buildings looked like, as well as showcasing daily life.

[ttrpg-smash-pass-vs]

On the left, Siege Ogres! About 10 ft (3 m) tall, ain't the sharpest tool in the shed, and they basically only care about 3 things: Eating, smashing (destruction), and smashing (fuckin). While most ogres are notoriously dumb, THESE are smart and patient enough to build tools and work well with others! Armor, chains, rides for their friends, battering rams, or giant crossbows! Some even strap small catapults on their back to launch goblins at people!

On the right is the Orthon, also known as the "rage devil". Basically 8-9 ft (2.4-2.7 m) devil-demon hybrid mercenaries that live to fight. They can restrain, paralyze, temporarily blind, and turn invisible! Just note, the armor stays on. That's not an option, it's literally bolted into thier flesh, it's what suppresses their demonic mindless bloodlust. Also why they're always looking to get their blood pumping, the adrenaline of battle keeps their mind off their pain, giving them childlike glee. That said, they're fairly reasonable and known for trying to give their foe a fighting chance before battle.

[evil-warlord]

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE FANTASY SEIGE WEAPON