Atlantis Times v1.1 v03n06 From: JJC%MP068@MPA15AB.mv-oc.Unisys.COM Date: Tue, 02 Aug 1994 01:04:41 +0000 ######################################################################## =-=-= Atlantis Times v1.1 Volume 3 Number 6 =-=-= =-= August 1, 1994 =-= ######################################################################## Words from The Big Guy: Next turn changes: - Guard Flag reset when a unit moves/sails. - Guard Flag reset when a unit loses a battle. Coming soon: - Tax Flag boolean. Send Times to: jjc@mpa15ab.mv-oc.unisys.com Send Orders to: JJC@MP068.MV-OC.UNISYS.COM Send problems/comments/bug reports/questions to me personally at: jjc@mpa15c.mv-oc.unisys.com I read the mail at the times address once a week, when I'm setting up the Times. I NEVER read mail where the orders go to, so don't send anything but orders there. Good luck, and enjoy. - TBG ######################################################################## An Extract from Emily's Book of Atlantis Etiquette: Rule 57: Never name factions or individual units in capitals. Consideration: CAPITALIZED words CREATE clutter ON your NEIGHbor's repORTS, MAKing tHEM hARD to REad. Pragmatics: If you capitalize your units, they STAND OUT on your neighbor's reports, making them OBVIOUS targets when your neighbor is considering who to hit next. ######################################################################## Le petit peuble des Gloutons Farceurs et moi meme, leur chef, saluons bien les autres tribus de ce monde. Malheureusement nous ne comprenons pas le dialecte utilisi localement, y-a-t-il quelqu'un qui nous comprenne ? Liopold chef des Gloutons Farceurs ######################################################################## The Lost Continent Chapter 3 Nothing had changed by morning, so Tamara picked up her bag and started walking to the south. After two days of walking at dawn and dusk and hiding the remainder of the day she saw a horse. With the horse she could reach the coast in half the time. Two weeks later she finally arrived at the coast. The whole time she had seen no one. When she looked out across the beach, she was startled to notice that the ocean was not there. All that was there was a sign. WARNING: YOU ARE NOW LEAVING VASHCORT AND ARE ENTERING THE STRAIT OF AIRUMEL. IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIFE, THIS IS THE WRONG PLACE TO BE. Tamara did not take kindly to threats, especially threats coming from signs. Losing her temper she muttered a few syllables in an ancient language causing sparks to fly from her fingers which engulfed the sign in flame. She brought the horse up to a gallop and plunged into the now dry ocean valley. Oddly, the ocean looked like an ocean from the inside. There were fish and other creatures. However, Tamara was able to breath and was not encumbered by the force of water. It was like an ocean of air. Could this be what happened to Zamora? The little man said that the University would sink into the ocean. But what kind of ocean is this? ######################################################################## Aeolius gazed at the stars reflected in the poolof water before him. Filling his waterskin he noticed that the ripples disturbed the image. "just like the ripples of change travelling through Atlantis" he laughed to himself. Grabbing his pack he set off again into the cool night air. Things were proceding as planned. This part of Atlantis was young, almost uninhabited by organized factions. That situation would not last forever, however, since new factions were popping up everywhere. Aeolius recalled his vow to organize the local factions. Could twelve new factions stand up against the old alliances? He decided to meditate on the teachings of Sun Tzu as he walked to explore that question. ######################################################################## The U.S. Mines Foreman surveyed the mountain and the busily scurrying workers. Soon the newest branch of the Knights of Avalon would be equipped with swords, and the new continent claimed. ######################################################################## The small stone building nestled inobtrusively behind a small grove of pines. It contained one fortified iron door, and one small, barred window. Jailhouse C. The Innkeeper crept up to the window. "Cauliflower?", he whispered, peering throught the bars. The window admitted precious little light and the Innkeepers eyes, accustomed to the daylight, could make out no details at all. "Wha...who..what - who's there?" came the bleary response. "A friend", replied the Innkeeper. "Who are you?" "Me? um, Lord Pickle, er no, that's him, um, oh dammit Zucchini if you must know, and that's Cucumber." Presumably, the speaker was referring to some second party in the cell. The Innkeeper paused. Cucumber? It _was_ a vegetable, and the Mist said that it was not sure of the name. Well, time would tell. "Hey then, how would like to walk free again, feel the sun on your skin and sow some wild oats?" he called into the gloom. "Did you say hay? Did you say oats?" came a hoarse voice. "Lemme out of here!" "And who are you?" inquired the Innkeeper of the Voice in the Darkness. "Just a Voice in the Darkness", replied the voice. "How are you going to get us out?". "Leave that to me", replied the Innkeeper. "Just try to stay out of the way". With that, he disappeared from the window. Zucchini looked about the small cell. It was completely bare. He wondered exactly how he was going to "stay out of the way". As he did so, half of the cell collapsed, crushed beneath the ball of a giant Foot that had just descended through the ceiling. By sheer fluke, the three occupants managed to avoid the collapsing debris, and the Foot itself. "Strewth - leave it out!" exclaimed Cucumber who was, to say the least, surprised by the event. The Innkeeper reappeared from behind the rubble. "Shall we go?", he said. "There may be Gnomes nearby, and I think that we've done an excellent job of advertising ourselves. Fine looking horse", he said, a little surprised to see the animal in the cell with the other two. "Bring him along, he'll be useful - is he yours?" "Um, yeah, he's mine", lied Cucumber fixing the horse with a warning look. By mutual consent, the three men headed for the pine grove. Contented, the horse trotted behind. ######################################################################## Lord Vox fumed. As he strode across the compound, he carried a large dripping heart in his hand, one claw hooked through the aorta. Every so often, he raised it to his toothy maw and tore off a piece, munching loudly and snarling about "Stupid, incompetent Raptor, why I ever tried to train these bird- brains..." Vox was clearly *not* in a good mood, but the advisor seemed to think it necessary to interrupt anyway. "Lord Vox, I just thought I should verify, we confirmed that the Tinkerbell did, indeed, escape with no losses. Also, we've been unable to find Dances On Oceans." The advisor ended with a squeak, as Lord Vox grabbed him by the neck, twisted off his head, tossed the body twenty or so feet behind him, and screamed at the rather shocked- looking skull, "I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT!!" Dropping the advisor-remnant, he continued his journey, barely missing a stride. Last month's clerical disaster had led to an aborted attack on the Tinkerbell, the failure of numerous taxation attempts, some unfortunate shipboard incidents, and several weeks of unmitigated laziness on the part of otherwise efficient cannibals. The clerk responsible for the substitution of an older scroll for Vox's carefully prepared orders had now found better and more useful employment as an hors d'oevre. And the Raptor coordinating the attack on the Lost Boys had been plucked, basted, stuffed and broasted; a trained beast like that was supposed to have better field judgement. Still, the whole thing left a very bad taste in Vox's mouth, rather like a vegetable. Advisor Two also misread the situation. "My Lord, condolences on the attack. Boy, you sure have a knack for letting that last enemy longboat escape, don't you, first the Padishahs and now..." *MUNCH*. Burp. Advisor Three: "Lord Vox, status report on the shipbuilding operations. Seems there's been a bit of a delay in..." *MUNCH*. Burp. Advisor Four was more to the point. "My Lord, would you like to have someone nearby to kill?" *MUNCH*. Burp. It was a bad day to be an advisor to Lord Vox. ######################################################################## Anatomy of a Sea Monster The Niskby Theoretical Institute, after examining several reports and conducting numerous interviews has the following insights into the behavior of sea monsters. Sea monsters are truely nasty beasts that reproduce at a modest rate of approximately 10%. They are semi-pack oriented animals in that seem to enjoy each other's company. They will not attack each other but are very territorial and will attack other intruders. Sea monsters have been known to raid coastal areas killing peasants or other men in the region. They will despoil whatever they can until they receive damage equal to 50% of the total strength of the raiding force before retreating into the ocean. They are vicious and attack as an equal to 50 level three swordsman. The monster's attacks will be concentrated on one unit picked based upon a random percentage of the total men in the region. The only known way to kill a sea monster is to pursue it into the ocean with a large force of men on ships. Our analysis, based upon the above, yields the following strategies for defense against the monsters: - end ship movement in coastal regions rather than open sea - divide resources (esp. $$$) amoung all units on a ship or on land - sail longboats at your own risk This plague upon all coastal areas will continue to intensify until brave men set sail to hunt these beasts down and kill them. [Note: a land bound cousin, the dragon, has been rumored to favor mountainous regions. No data has been gathered on this particular form of faunae as yet.] ######################################################################## V'lusk raised his hands to the sky. 'X'kleush!' he screamed- 'ricar! Shicum dulf!' A bolt of fire leapt from his hands - completely obliterating the straw figure that had been set up as a target. 'Very good,' J'llek said - looking over the younger mage's shoulder. He had discovered the secret to the spell some time ago - and was now teaching it to all of his apprentices. Patting the youngster on the shoulder - he walked along the road. There - by the graveyard - R'kesh was sitting cross-legged - chanting over several open graves. Slowly- a score of fresh corpses rose out of the earth. Groaning eerily - they picked up the weapons that had been lying next to their tombstones and stepped into formation. 'Excellent,' J'llek praised him. 'With this magic- our army will grow even as it takes losses. To think- we now have power over even death itself!' 'Indeed,' said King Greagrian - coming up to him. His crossbow - with which he was an expert shot - was slung over his shoulder. 'Are you magi now ready to sail? For the galleons are finnished, and the troops are ready. Each has studied warfare for 6 months or more. Each swords- man is prepared to train and ride a mount when we arrive, and our shadow scouts move with near invisibility. The plate armor is all prepared, the swords abd bows constructed, and the army is ready to move.' 'My king,' J'llek said, 'is it wise to bring armor? After all, there is so much weight the galleons can carry. If we leave the armor, we can bring more soldiers.' 'This is true,' the King agreed - 'but a soldier with armor weighs only a little more than one without, and is much mighter. It is - I think - worth it. And it is not as if we have but one galleon. Rather no less than ten await us. With you mages - the tactics of myself and my officers - and the great skill of the army - we will be a force to be reckoned with.' 'Surely we will,' agreed J'llek. 'The one known as Vox has boasted much and loudly. Let us see if he is as strong as he would have us believe.' 'So we shall!' the King cried. 'The ships depart in the morrow. In a few months, we shall have war!' ######################################################################## Boldmarine sat in her barrel of green sticky vegetation and considered the events of the last few months. It had been a surprise attack and most of the lumberjacks had been destroyed, only those sensible of couardly enough to avoid the fight had survived and most of them had since been picked off. It was only her extreme stealth that had enabeled her to survive for so long, but her money was low and she needed the $50 this article provided to continue her studies of stealth and thus evade detection, she needed to stay here and keep an eye on these barbarians, to leave was tempting but there would be no warning of further invasion. If only the wood had been saved then defences could have been build further to the west. Hearing a noise she frose and slowly turned her eyes to look to her left. There they were, a hunting party out looking for survivors like herself, fortunately they looked inexperienced and she doubted they would find her in her hiding place buty jusdt to be sure she let off an arror straight into the rear end of a dear some 100 feet away, as expected it made a lot of noise as it fled and boldmarine slipped from her hiding place and moved silently away towards annother. ######################################################################## Dances on Oceans shook with terror as Dr. Vox leaned straight into his face, razor sharp fangs mere inches from his throat, and hissed "They did WHAT?!" "Umm, they sent you 500 pints of horse blood as a peace offering, Sir." "And just what do they think I was going to do with horse blood?" "Err, they seem to think you would like to drink it." "And HOW did they come to that conclusion! Do I look like I'd drink the blood of a HORSE?? HOW DARE THEY. THEY'LL PAY FOR THIS WITH THEIR OWN BLOOD!! THIS TIME THE WORLD OF ATLANTIS WILL TRULY SEE MY ANGER AT THIS PITIFUL INSULT AND TREMBLE IN FEAR!!!!" At the end of this outburst, Dances was feeling a little weak at the knees. After all, not only was he facing the most fearsome sight on all of Atlantis, but the man had the worst case of halitosis ever, apparently to add insult to injury. Hmmm, if only we could get him to eat healthy food, like cucumbers, bananas, and zucchini's. A powerful slap on the shoulder brought Dances back to the moment. "Come" beckoned Dr. Vox, "Share a glass of wine with me, I've a bottle of finest Reynolds in the tent." Dances cringed inwardly and marched off with his glorious leader. ######################################################################## ANNOUNCING THE NAMING OF THE ISLAND OF LEMURIA When in the course of human events, it becomes necesarry for one people, or several peoples, to choose a name for the land on which they live, a fitting respect for the opinons of mankind requires that they should announce this name and the reasons for its selection. The factions of the island in the south western part of Atlantis herebye delcare in unison that their island shall hence forth be known by the name Lemuria, and request that it shall be shown as such on all maps and correspondences. It is not unknown amongst the wise that the name of our world was taken from the name of a great continent that, long ago, sunk beneath the sea of another world. But, known only to the wises of the wise, to the most learned of the learned (of whom several live in Lemuria) is the fact that Atlantis was not the only, nor indeed the first, continent that sunk beneath the seas of that other world. Before the sinking of Atlantis, the continent of Lemuria sank beneath the waves, never to be seen again by man. Lemuria, like Atlantis, was a great continent, and the people who called it their home were known to be far more advanced than their contempories on other islands. Thus, in honor of them, do we take the name for our own sacred home. Lemuria stretches from the Nimbus Plains in the west (2,15) to the Cotugno Sea in the east (8,16), to the unknown lands in the north (5,11). It is the site of the epic battles, and even more epic peace, between the Ballindine Alliance and the forces of General William and Lord Falken. The factions of Lemuria would also like to make it known that, though they may squabble, they will be as one in the face of foreign aggresion. The words of the renowned General William in this paper should be remem- bered. Traders and friends will be greeted, uninvited ships will not be welcome. Signed, Lord Falken, TBoNW General William, Leader of Larson's Adventurers Lame Duck, President Lame Duck's Trading Company Sark de Sombreval Chancellor Ash, Gurkacre University Archmage Hobi Black Billy, Bluest Wizard Herrod, Founder of Black Strap Enterprises Kane Etienne, Saddletramp Foundation ######################################################################## From the Chrnonicles of The Brotherhood of Northern Warriors May, Year 3 - Oloron Lord Falken cast his heavy pack to the ground and wiped the sweat off of his forehead. It had been a long, forced march, and he guessed that it had been in vain. It seemed highely unlikely that the Doom forces were still here in this worthless swamp, but it was possible. And there was nothing they could do but pursue them and hope that, event- ually, they would catch up. Feeling the sword at his side, he hoped that he would soon have a chance to use it against enemy necks. Just then, one of the members of his personal guard came forward. "My Lord," he said, "I bring news." "What is it?" Falken asked. "Our scouts have spotted the enemy. They are still here, in Oloron. And they seem to have convinced a number of the peasants to join them." "That is unfourtanate," Falken said, "I had hoped to recruit many of the locals myself. And still do. How many joined them?" "Two hundred, my Lord. But they have not been armed yet." Falken nodded. "Excellent. Two hundred unarmed men will not make a difference. If they join the Doom army in the battle, so be it. Their lives will be all the shorter for the foolishness. The region was rather overpopulated anyway, I believe." Falken's words betrayed the great sadness he fealt at being forced to order his well trained, well equipped soldiers to butcher peasants. But there was no way around it. And who joined the Dooms, and fought with them, would have to die. They could allow no survivors, who might go on to cause trouble later. Falken looked about. It was a large camp, boasting several hundred soldiers. Most were followers of General William, but many of the most skilled were his own warriors. The two factions, long sworn allies, were now standing together in what might prove to be their greatest test. Most of the soldiers were resting but some, already having heard the news, were preparing for battle. Soon all would be donning their armor, sharpening their weapons, and mounting their horses. It would fall on Lord Falken to command the host, arranging the ranks of troops and issuing orders as to when, where, and who to attack. He silently swore to himself that there would be no repeat of the Second Battle of Lorthalm here today. Sir Aubec had commanded the Ballindine forces well then, and his tactical genius had allowed (though he fell in the process) many of the enemy troops to escape the battle and drive further into the territroy controlled by the Brother- hood and Larson. This time, however, their would be no avoiders. Any who tried to escape the battle would be wiped out after it was over. Falken would make sure of this. And with no tactician of signifigance to oppose him, he knew that this was a fight which they could not lose. In fact, he did not expect that they would take any casualties at all. With the awesome power of the skilled archers and bowmen there, as well as the swordsmen that would sweep down on the enemy without warning, he anticpated that the Doom army would break even before any resistence was offered. The enemies would be crushed, and would attempt to flee. And they would be picked off even as they ran. There would be no deaths on the winning side, and this was important. Because casualties would do much to slow their ability to return to Lorthalm. And it was beginging to look very much like the Third Battle of Lorthalm, which would likely be the largest battle yet fought on the continent, would occur in a very few weeks. ######################################################################## "Hobi's war" status In my last report, I reported the end of the war of Ballandine Aggression. While the war did end, Hobi (formerly Paladins on Ballandine) now leading faction "Larson's Doom" has chosen to resume the war withoiut the support of his two previous allies. Last turn, I lost a few lumberjacks in a border province, this turn we should have some major skirmishes in the provinces north and south of Lorthalm. South of Lorthalm, his army that smashed my lumberjacks stayed put and is now facing my main field army. I had incorrectly thought that this was his main force, and could be easily dealt with (as I had just fought it to a standstill when he was still backed up by his 2 allies), but Hobi has an even bigger army that just showed up north of Lorthalm. This force of 900 armed men and 500 fodder should easily the defeat the ~250 armed men I have there. I am now regretting the movement of my field army from Lorthalm to deal with Hobi's southern threat, but I think I will still prevail and that my army will conquer Hobi's empire and not the reverse. Next week: Battle reports from "Hobi's war" The above report generated by the scribes of faction 59, "Larson's Adventurers", formed in Gurkacre (9,14) on Jan 01 reachable at "Bill_Larson@ncsu.edu" ######################################################################## =-=-= END TIMES 306 =-=-= ######################################################################## Up