10-23-2007, 01:09 AM
Lords of the Earth II
MARTIN HELSDON returns, to continue his saga ...
WE LAST LEFT the Norsktrad, the Merchant House I play in game 1 of Lords of the Earth, settling into its new home in the city of St Georges in Morocco. Since then, the world has kept turning: a new religion has swept out of north west Afriqa and into the Middle East, and invaders from Mars have landed in South Amerika, Australia and north Afriqa. As if this were not enough, the Company has been embroiled in a battle to prevent another asteroid impact...
One thing that can never be said about Lords is that things are quiet. Friction arises from ancient enmities (some of the players have been in the game since it began - that's two hundred and eighteen turns), the struggle of nation against nation, the insidious spread of the cults of the Secret Empires, natural and unnatural disasters, and the gradual improvement of technology. This campaign has reached the year 1766; for the industrial nations of the world the available technologies roughly correspond to the late Nineteenth Century. Some nations are still mired in the Renaissance and can but stare jealously at the wonders of steam power. And now we have invaders from Mars with Heat Rays, Black Smoke and other horrors.
Not all LotE games aspire to the same epic qualities of this, the first campaign. It has been running for so long there are numerous plot strands and arcs. The newsfax, the means by which turn results are published, needs a careful study, to discern the threads reading between the misinformation and dis-information introduced by players.
As LotE01 is the testbed campaign (though not the most advanced technologically, there is one game set in the Twentieth Century but with wildly divergent back history) rules changes usually impact it first. The old Renaissance Supplement and the Industrial Rules have been amalgamated into the Modern Age rulebook. Whenever the rules get updated, in addition to new technologies, things change...
Being the testbed, the campaign is subject to changes to fix the basic game mechanics. Recently a proposal to cap trade earnings threatened to wreck Merchant House positions (a Merchant House gains its revenues primarily through trade - 'it's about money really' as the Modern Age rules say) causing a great deal of angst. Another Merchant House player posted his declaration to drop to the Yahoo e-group. It would have been disheartening to see ten turns effort removed by a 'fix'. The MAXTRADE bodge to the game mechanics has not been applied, but we do not yet know what might be put in place instead.
To the game, then...
Norsktrad had settled into the Swedish-Russian city of St Georges following the Great Lisbon Earthquake. Most of my yards (the means by which hi-tech units such as steamships and airships are built) had been destroyed, so the next few turns concentrated on rebuilding the Company. Many of my engineers had died, and the loss of 'homeland' damaged the Bureaucracy and Infra levels, as well as the University. There is still discussion amongst the players about the cause of the earthquake: was it a natural event, or caused by the hideous Elder Race the Cthonians in the unfortunately not lost city of G'harne, down in west Afriqa?
In the wider world, a Company mercenary was kidnapped by a previously unknown secret society, and a hideous fungal plague was unleashed in the capital of the Swedish-Russian Empire, Rome and at a site in central Asia. The Stronghold of a powerful Secret Empire, worshippers of the elder god Hastur, had been destroyed and now the cult unleashed its revenge - a plague known as the Contagion.
With the government decimated, the Swedish-Russian Empire fragmented into the militants supporting the heir to the Tsar and the Parliamentarians. Agreeing to the demands of his senior officers the young Tsar launched an attack into Hussite Poland, whilst the capital of the old Tsar was hit by another outbreak of the Contagion. Amidst all this a mysterious crate arrived at my Home Office, from the fallen Stronghold where Swedish scientists and others had been studying the mysteries of the Hastur worshippers.
Given that plague attacks were wiping out cities - the Pope died when the Contagion roared through Rome - any present from the Stronghold of the enemy was a very clear danger. I toyed with casting it into the ocean, but decided to open it at sea to prevent any outbreak. Just as it was opened, a tattered Swedish-Russian officer arrived at St. Georges, desperate to regain his notes from the crate.
The information inside was horrifying. The Hastur worshippers had been in contact with the Mi-Go, extraterrestrial servants of Nyarlathotep, who had previously bombarded us with asteroids at the behest of the Daemon Sultan prior to his defeat. The Mi-Go had agreed to bring another asteroid to Earth to devastate their enemies as well as supplying them with a number of plague canisters to aid in the pacification of the 'native tribes'. The Mi-Go had abandoned the asteroid and fled into deep space, and it was now on an uncontrolled trajectory for Earth, with impact in two or three years. Given that the agricultural production is already reduced by the impacts on the Danish Empire's capital of Venice, the South China Sea (the Mi-Go were aiming for Japan) and northern Canada (to settle an inter-cultic dispute with the Ice Lords), one more and we might well be reduced to cannibalism...
The officer wanted transport to the New World, to seek out the owners of the flying ship Uraeus. An urgent rendezvous was arranged, and in league with Swedish-Russia and others a desperate plan was hatched. Past newsfaxes were read again to gain clues - from the description of the impact on Venice and a strange epilogue in one newsfax when something hit a Mi-Go asteroid it was likely that the rock would be tunnelled, possibly with an interior command system. If we could reach that... From the after-effects of the other impacts - strange unearthly monsters littering the devastation - it was likely the asteroid would still have inhabitants. If we could get there, we would have to fight our way in. But how to control the alien devices that might exist? When the Hasturite stronghold had been taken, the living brain of a captured Danish officer had been found in a Mi-Go brain canister. Perhaps he could interface with any alien controls...
The Uraeus was readied for space flight. The Swedish-Russian officer had brought a few vials of space-mead with him - enough to get to the asteroid we were now calling Nemesis. By this time about five players were involved, and complete secrecy was required to prevent news of our endeavour reaching any hostile. As the junior partner in this gathering of players, most of whom had been in the game for hundreds of turns, I decided to obey the restrictions. It was left in my hands, however, to finalise the details of the mission.
As Nemesis began to glow red in the outer atmosphere the Uraeus was launched. As the ship climbed into orbit dozens of strange objects were seen - Martian landing cylinders. War had already begun in South Amerika.
The ship reached Nemesis, discovering that it had massive solar sails. We fought our way in, and a control centre was found. The brain canister was engaged - we had control of Nemesis! But the Danish officer, more than a little mad from his confinement, declared he would finish the mission his dead Empress had set him to: the destruction of the Hasturites. He knew where their new Stronghold was. Killing my character who was trying to deactivate him, he sent Nemesis towards Earth, only then noticing the small santo my character had dropped in the final struggle, a picture of his Empress, now revered as a Saint...
So ended the newsfax. From information therein, if left alone Nemesis would have hit before the end of the turn. Despite the intent to bring it down on Earth, no impact had occurred.
Naturally, as my characters had been aboard the Uraeus, an awful lot of players blamed me for the dramatic (and inconclusive) ending and for keeping the threat secret. My mailbox was fairly lively. My associates kept a low profile. The owners of the Uraeus informed me that despite our security precautions there had been attempts to stop us. If the information had been more widely disseminated, then potentially all the Secret Empire cults who would like a dark freezing world (and there are quite a few, remnants of the war with the Ice Lords and others) would have tried to hinder the mission. It was a no-win situation.
On top of this, certain parties had already been circulating a fake e-mail purportedly between the Martian players and myself. Apparently I had agreed to help the invaders.
In the next turn, Nemesis did not fall. The asteroid had vanished into the outer darkness.
The fake e-mail caused me more difficulty than the mission.
Sadly, there is a very small minority of players who take things too far. Some try to play multiple positions in the same game to give themselves an edge. Probably as a symptom of e-mail, there have been occasional spats on the e-groups where personalities collide, and outbreaks of people hiding behind pseudonyms and in one bizarre instance, a false gender.
In this case, although the majority of LotE players are American, the perpetrators of what, in my view is poor game play, were not American. One is actually a GM of another LotE campaign, although their game has been stalled for a year. (LotE operates on a franchise system - you can buy the right to run a campaign; this leads to a significant number of players having access to the GM rules and the GM discussion e-group, thus having a better view of the game mechanics than the other players.) In-game shenanigans are one thing, but when it leads to the attempted character assassination of the player, a line has been crossed.
Most LotE players do not encounter this sort of behaviour. Indeed, of the two or three meltdowns on the LotE01 e-group I am aware of, the same small minority is usually involved. It is an unfortunate dimension to online gaming.
Elsewhere in the game, the kidnappers of my mercenary captain were found to be an organisation naming themselves the Black Watch, apparently part of a new Merchant House, the Polytechnic League, that had abruptly appeared in Athens. This Merchant House was selling very fast airships, and others discovered its true origin: the Assassins, the servants of the Daemon Sultan who had reinvented themselves after the fall of their dark master. Someone purchased and then took one of these advanced airships apart - it was powered not by technology but by the magics of the worshippers of Ithaqua! Even as a Jesuit priest exorcised the airship, the Danish Empire closed down the Polytechnic League, and the Stronghold of the Assassins in Egypt was located and destroyed.
And Spain had collapsed again. The battle between the Spanish and the Secret Empire named the Golden Dawn had gone disastrously wrong. The Shawnee had sent an army to help the Spanish clean their house. Someone caused the Shawnee leaders to rebel, and they initiated their own crusade against the Spanish as they were now convinced that the Spanish government was in league with the Golden Dawn. Mayhem resulted. The powerful North Amerikan army wiped the floor with the Spanish. In the next turn the Shawnee rebels became a player position and continued to throw the wrong-footed Spanish about, taking their new capital and reducing them to fewer regions and cities than you can count on one hand. And a volcano erupted just to the north.
The battles between Great France and the Martians in South Amerika resulted in the humans being pushed back. Against the onslaught of Tripods, Heat Rays, Black Smoke and other unearthly weaponry, cannon, cavalry and muskets could not hold. Gradually a widespread effort began to aid the beleaguered humans with armies arriving from south Afriqa and elsewhere. And still the invaders came on...
Elsewhere a nomad army fled a portion of the Sahara in fear of 'that which walks the sand'. Strange disappearances occurred in Australia, scouting units vanished. Then a combined Swedish-Russian Carthaginian force encountered the invaders on the Upper Nile and was destroyed.
It has become a War of the Worlds in the closing years of the Eighteenth Century...
The earlier Ice Wars derived in part from the Cthulhu Mythos, with the worshippers of Ithaqua destroying the religious Anchors that preserve Earth from the return of the Great Old Ones. This new War has numerous sources. So far the classic by H G Wells, the 1953 film version by George Pal, the Barsoom of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the Tripods by John Christopher seem to feed into this new threat. It remains to be seen if human armies, armed with relatively low tech can successfully hold off, let alone defeat the Martians.
Playing the game
All of the above gives some indication of the flavour of the LotE01 campaign. The game is played on a number of different levels.
Players communicate with each other by telephone or e-mail, or by being members of Yahoo e-groups, in addition to the primary e-group. I belong to five e-groups, based on in-game religion, geographical location, position type and other interests. Much of the time expended in playing LotE01 is in exchanging messages with other players, be they diplomacy, ideas, strategies and general chat.
Players communicate with the GM, mainly by turnsheets. The turnsheet includes all the information about unit and Project builds and costs, as well as espionage and religious actions, and Leader actions. The Bureaucracy Level determines the number of Leaders and Princes a player has at their disposal and these are the prime way players have their plans and actions carried out. A Leader has a set number of Action Points according to the Leader's abilities and the types of units they are commanding, to spend during the course of a turn (in LotE01 turns presently cover two years) and the player has to allocate these points to actions. The most simple action is movement, but there are dozens of others, some specific to the position type, be it Open Nation, Religious Primacy, Religious Order, Merchant House or Secret Empire. Leaders can command armies, invade enemies, lay siege to cities, support or indulge in espionage, investigate locations looking for evil cultists and so on.
Despite the size of the two rulebooks, amounting to some 160 pages, plus the campaign specific note and clarifications it does not take too long to understand the basics. After fourteen turns, I believe I understand most of the rules, and had a reasonable grasp after two or three. LotE is time consuming to play, very engrossing and usually a rewarding gaming experience.
[Martin's diary of Game 1 ran in issues 97-100.]
Lords of the Earth at a glance
A commercial PbeM powergame that exists in several separate games covering different historical periods. Game 1 is run by LotE's designer, Thomas Harlan.
For available places in all LotE games check:
http://www.throneworld.com/lords
MARTIN HELSDON returns, to continue his saga ...
WE LAST LEFT the Norsktrad, the Merchant House I play in game 1 of Lords of the Earth, settling into its new home in the city of St Georges in Morocco. Since then, the world has kept turning: a new religion has swept out of north west Afriqa and into the Middle East, and invaders from Mars have landed in South Amerika, Australia and north Afriqa. As if this were not enough, the Company has been embroiled in a battle to prevent another asteroid impact...
One thing that can never be said about Lords is that things are quiet. Friction arises from ancient enmities (some of the players have been in the game since it began - that's two hundred and eighteen turns), the struggle of nation against nation, the insidious spread of the cults of the Secret Empires, natural and unnatural disasters, and the gradual improvement of technology. This campaign has reached the year 1766; for the industrial nations of the world the available technologies roughly correspond to the late Nineteenth Century. Some nations are still mired in the Renaissance and can but stare jealously at the wonders of steam power. And now we have invaders from Mars with Heat Rays, Black Smoke and other horrors.
Not all LotE games aspire to the same epic qualities of this, the first campaign. It has been running for so long there are numerous plot strands and arcs. The newsfax, the means by which turn results are published, needs a careful study, to discern the threads reading between the misinformation and dis-information introduced by players.
As LotE01 is the testbed campaign (though not the most advanced technologically, there is one game set in the Twentieth Century but with wildly divergent back history) rules changes usually impact it first. The old Renaissance Supplement and the Industrial Rules have been amalgamated into the Modern Age rulebook. Whenever the rules get updated, in addition to new technologies, things change...
Being the testbed, the campaign is subject to changes to fix the basic game mechanics. Recently a proposal to cap trade earnings threatened to wreck Merchant House positions (a Merchant House gains its revenues primarily through trade - 'it's about money really' as the Modern Age rules say) causing a great deal of angst. Another Merchant House player posted his declaration to drop to the Yahoo e-group. It would have been disheartening to see ten turns effort removed by a 'fix'. The MAXTRADE bodge to the game mechanics has not been applied, but we do not yet know what might be put in place instead.
To the game, then...
Norsktrad had settled into the Swedish-Russian city of St Georges following the Great Lisbon Earthquake. Most of my yards (the means by which hi-tech units such as steamships and airships are built) had been destroyed, so the next few turns concentrated on rebuilding the Company. Many of my engineers had died, and the loss of 'homeland' damaged the Bureaucracy and Infra levels, as well as the University. There is still discussion amongst the players about the cause of the earthquake: was it a natural event, or caused by the hideous Elder Race the Cthonians in the unfortunately not lost city of G'harne, down in west Afriqa?
In the wider world, a Company mercenary was kidnapped by a previously unknown secret society, and a hideous fungal plague was unleashed in the capital of the Swedish-Russian Empire, Rome and at a site in central Asia. The Stronghold of a powerful Secret Empire, worshippers of the elder god Hastur, had been destroyed and now the cult unleashed its revenge - a plague known as the Contagion.
With the government decimated, the Swedish-Russian Empire fragmented into the militants supporting the heir to the Tsar and the Parliamentarians. Agreeing to the demands of his senior officers the young Tsar launched an attack into Hussite Poland, whilst the capital of the old Tsar was hit by another outbreak of the Contagion. Amidst all this a mysterious crate arrived at my Home Office, from the fallen Stronghold where Swedish scientists and others had been studying the mysteries of the Hastur worshippers.
Given that plague attacks were wiping out cities - the Pope died when the Contagion roared through Rome - any present from the Stronghold of the enemy was a very clear danger. I toyed with casting it into the ocean, but decided to open it at sea to prevent any outbreak. Just as it was opened, a tattered Swedish-Russian officer arrived at St. Georges, desperate to regain his notes from the crate.
The information inside was horrifying. The Hastur worshippers had been in contact with the Mi-Go, extraterrestrial servants of Nyarlathotep, who had previously bombarded us with asteroids at the behest of the Daemon Sultan prior to his defeat. The Mi-Go had agreed to bring another asteroid to Earth to devastate their enemies as well as supplying them with a number of plague canisters to aid in the pacification of the 'native tribes'. The Mi-Go had abandoned the asteroid and fled into deep space, and it was now on an uncontrolled trajectory for Earth, with impact in two or three years. Given that the agricultural production is already reduced by the impacts on the Danish Empire's capital of Venice, the South China Sea (the Mi-Go were aiming for Japan) and northern Canada (to settle an inter-cultic dispute with the Ice Lords), one more and we might well be reduced to cannibalism...
The officer wanted transport to the New World, to seek out the owners of the flying ship Uraeus. An urgent rendezvous was arranged, and in league with Swedish-Russia and others a desperate plan was hatched. Past newsfaxes were read again to gain clues - from the description of the impact on Venice and a strange epilogue in one newsfax when something hit a Mi-Go asteroid it was likely that the rock would be tunnelled, possibly with an interior command system. If we could reach that... From the after-effects of the other impacts - strange unearthly monsters littering the devastation - it was likely the asteroid would still have inhabitants. If we could get there, we would have to fight our way in. But how to control the alien devices that might exist? When the Hasturite stronghold had been taken, the living brain of a captured Danish officer had been found in a Mi-Go brain canister. Perhaps he could interface with any alien controls...
The Uraeus was readied for space flight. The Swedish-Russian officer had brought a few vials of space-mead with him - enough to get to the asteroid we were now calling Nemesis. By this time about five players were involved, and complete secrecy was required to prevent news of our endeavour reaching any hostile. As the junior partner in this gathering of players, most of whom had been in the game for hundreds of turns, I decided to obey the restrictions. It was left in my hands, however, to finalise the details of the mission.
As Nemesis began to glow red in the outer atmosphere the Uraeus was launched. As the ship climbed into orbit dozens of strange objects were seen - Martian landing cylinders. War had already begun in South Amerika.
The ship reached Nemesis, discovering that it had massive solar sails. We fought our way in, and a control centre was found. The brain canister was engaged - we had control of Nemesis! But the Danish officer, more than a little mad from his confinement, declared he would finish the mission his dead Empress had set him to: the destruction of the Hasturites. He knew where their new Stronghold was. Killing my character who was trying to deactivate him, he sent Nemesis towards Earth, only then noticing the small santo my character had dropped in the final struggle, a picture of his Empress, now revered as a Saint...
So ended the newsfax. From information therein, if left alone Nemesis would have hit before the end of the turn. Despite the intent to bring it down on Earth, no impact had occurred.
Naturally, as my characters had been aboard the Uraeus, an awful lot of players blamed me for the dramatic (and inconclusive) ending and for keeping the threat secret. My mailbox was fairly lively. My associates kept a low profile. The owners of the Uraeus informed me that despite our security precautions there had been attempts to stop us. If the information had been more widely disseminated, then potentially all the Secret Empire cults who would like a dark freezing world (and there are quite a few, remnants of the war with the Ice Lords and others) would have tried to hinder the mission. It was a no-win situation.
On top of this, certain parties had already been circulating a fake e-mail purportedly between the Martian players and myself. Apparently I had agreed to help the invaders.
In the next turn, Nemesis did not fall. The asteroid had vanished into the outer darkness.
The fake e-mail caused me more difficulty than the mission.
Sadly, there is a very small minority of players who take things too far. Some try to play multiple positions in the same game to give themselves an edge. Probably as a symptom of e-mail, there have been occasional spats on the e-groups where personalities collide, and outbreaks of people hiding behind pseudonyms and in one bizarre instance, a false gender.
In this case, although the majority of LotE players are American, the perpetrators of what, in my view is poor game play, were not American. One is actually a GM of another LotE campaign, although their game has been stalled for a year. (LotE operates on a franchise system - you can buy the right to run a campaign; this leads to a significant number of players having access to the GM rules and the GM discussion e-group, thus having a better view of the game mechanics than the other players.) In-game shenanigans are one thing, but when it leads to the attempted character assassination of the player, a line has been crossed.
Most LotE players do not encounter this sort of behaviour. Indeed, of the two or three meltdowns on the LotE01 e-group I am aware of, the same small minority is usually involved. It is an unfortunate dimension to online gaming.
Elsewhere in the game, the kidnappers of my mercenary captain were found to be an organisation naming themselves the Black Watch, apparently part of a new Merchant House, the Polytechnic League, that had abruptly appeared in Athens. This Merchant House was selling very fast airships, and others discovered its true origin: the Assassins, the servants of the Daemon Sultan who had reinvented themselves after the fall of their dark master. Someone purchased and then took one of these advanced airships apart - it was powered not by technology but by the magics of the worshippers of Ithaqua! Even as a Jesuit priest exorcised the airship, the Danish Empire closed down the Polytechnic League, and the Stronghold of the Assassins in Egypt was located and destroyed.
And Spain had collapsed again. The battle between the Spanish and the Secret Empire named the Golden Dawn had gone disastrously wrong. The Shawnee had sent an army to help the Spanish clean their house. Someone caused the Shawnee leaders to rebel, and they initiated their own crusade against the Spanish as they were now convinced that the Spanish government was in league with the Golden Dawn. Mayhem resulted. The powerful North Amerikan army wiped the floor with the Spanish. In the next turn the Shawnee rebels became a player position and continued to throw the wrong-footed Spanish about, taking their new capital and reducing them to fewer regions and cities than you can count on one hand. And a volcano erupted just to the north.
The battles between Great France and the Martians in South Amerika resulted in the humans being pushed back. Against the onslaught of Tripods, Heat Rays, Black Smoke and other unearthly weaponry, cannon, cavalry and muskets could not hold. Gradually a widespread effort began to aid the beleaguered humans with armies arriving from south Afriqa and elsewhere. And still the invaders came on...
Elsewhere a nomad army fled a portion of the Sahara in fear of 'that which walks the sand'. Strange disappearances occurred in Australia, scouting units vanished. Then a combined Swedish-Russian Carthaginian force encountered the invaders on the Upper Nile and was destroyed.
It has become a War of the Worlds in the closing years of the Eighteenth Century...
The earlier Ice Wars derived in part from the Cthulhu Mythos, with the worshippers of Ithaqua destroying the religious Anchors that preserve Earth from the return of the Great Old Ones. This new War has numerous sources. So far the classic by H G Wells, the 1953 film version by George Pal, the Barsoom of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the Tripods by John Christopher seem to feed into this new threat. It remains to be seen if human armies, armed with relatively low tech can successfully hold off, let alone defeat the Martians.
Playing the game
All of the above gives some indication of the flavour of the LotE01 campaign. The game is played on a number of different levels.
Players communicate with each other by telephone or e-mail, or by being members of Yahoo e-groups, in addition to the primary e-group. I belong to five e-groups, based on in-game religion, geographical location, position type and other interests. Much of the time expended in playing LotE01 is in exchanging messages with other players, be they diplomacy, ideas, strategies and general chat.
Players communicate with the GM, mainly by turnsheets. The turnsheet includes all the information about unit and Project builds and costs, as well as espionage and religious actions, and Leader actions. The Bureaucracy Level determines the number of Leaders and Princes a player has at their disposal and these are the prime way players have their plans and actions carried out. A Leader has a set number of Action Points according to the Leader's abilities and the types of units they are commanding, to spend during the course of a turn (in LotE01 turns presently cover two years) and the player has to allocate these points to actions. The most simple action is movement, but there are dozens of others, some specific to the position type, be it Open Nation, Religious Primacy, Religious Order, Merchant House or Secret Empire. Leaders can command armies, invade enemies, lay siege to cities, support or indulge in espionage, investigate locations looking for evil cultists and so on.
Despite the size of the two rulebooks, amounting to some 160 pages, plus the campaign specific note and clarifications it does not take too long to understand the basics. After fourteen turns, I believe I understand most of the rules, and had a reasonable grasp after two or three. LotE is time consuming to play, very engrossing and usually a rewarding gaming experience.
[Martin's diary of Game 1 ran in issues 97-100.]
Lords of the Earth at a glance
A commercial PbeM powergame that exists in several separate games covering different historical periods. Game 1 is run by LotE's designer, Thomas Harlan.
For available places in all LotE games check:
http://www.throneworld.com/lords