Tuesday, 29 July 2025

Chagrinspire: Building a new Frontier Kingdom




































So we had some players down and an old one return.

The New Kingdom was growing well.

Arsh the Dog Man returned with a tribe of dog folk and settled them in the same hex as the adventurers' guild who had only been exploring dungeons and killing humanoids. It turned out there was a secret druidic wildfolk tribe living secretly in part of a huge ruined section of the aqueduct. They even had vegetation on top and inhabited the structure secure and safe from others. Arsh who was a druid for a while now made friends easily and then took his tribe to another ruined aqueduct pylon, intending to copy the druidic village but for dog folk. The dog folk had lots of dogs to. Some over time became dog abhumans.

The party-controlled fortress where farmers and scavengers, and ex slaves lived was now Turnipton due to the now 3 story high turnip. Arsh went to visit Bogrump the turnip god, and was not impressed by the petty god's vegetable supremacy and his breeding wildly with worshipers. This was the kingdom's administrative and trade centre. 

Niel the Bishop was busy with his new church and followers and doing some diplomacy. Flatspur was to be the bishop's seat where a cathedral had been marked out. 

The Man With no Name was interested in the rival scavengers guild of Shankheim and newer greater enemies: The Northern mining town run by slavers, miners, alchemists and bankers guilds was a target he wanted.

His Wife, Thuvia the star maiden, and her revenant brother were working in the party controlled gatehouse. She really wants to explore to get access to the top Chagrinspire rocket launch pad. The party let their dwarf follower of the Bishop run the place and they have built an inn and a market place for the plateau peoples.

Nebos the Giant, just voted king had been building warehouses, walls and wharves, building up the river crossing into a real river trade village. It was a surprise to being king but he accepted. Maybe he needs a new fancy house.

Slavers had been rumoured to want revenge and their legion of sale soldiers was sent to the guild mining town. The alchemists said "Don't send troops through our land go the otherway around Chagrinpire clockwise".

So they left 100 troops in case they needed to secure the mining town and marched on the developing roadway. They passed the reptilians, the Knights of Mordnar and when they passed the swamp heading south undead templars attacked. Hundreds of men died from this and it even added to the enemy numbers. Then the mutant chaos hordes came and skirmished with the reduced army until it arrived at their southern outpost. Over 300 men died on the way leaving 600 left. More than enough to win in theory. The next day they annexed the village of Shankheim, sending it's guildmaster and his aids with treasure to their good friend the man with no name for shelter. 

A day of preparation 500 men marched the road to the Rivercrossing of King Nebos. 100 men were sent by train to attack the outpost of the Party in Turnipton through their underground train station. They arrived to find a bricked-up station. They left the station and were never seen alive again.

500 men camped by the river and struggled to build rafts or a structure to cross. It went poorly and overnight, frogfolk marines in the river released thousands of ration-eating giant larvae. In the morning hundreds of barbarian allies of the party arrived to support the handful of local militia. Dogmen and wild druid folk brought by harsh came. The slaver army still had the numbers but now had no food and dangerous bugs in their camp. Slaver moral was weak and their morale was very low.    

The party had always evaded the mechanised golem traction engine artilery that roamed that side of the river and had never had a run in with it or seen it fire before. It began shellin the slavers camp. Their forces were scattered and retreated. The allies under the Party used thei ferry and their golem riverboat to facilitate a river crossing so troops could pursue the slavers. About 200 slavers made it back to their fort overlooking Shankheim.

The party sent their squad of followers to clear out the train lines to link their bases from the Gatehouse to their barbarian allies. Others gathered to investigate the foreign mercenaries guild and the Bulwark of unsavoury characters nearby.
 Nebos and his jester. Arsh and The Man With No Name brought his swashbuckling rat sidekick Rat Sonya. They had invited a frog prince to the planning and he was very keen for frog folk to occupy the swamp on behalf of the party. The frogs did want the humans to visit local swamp humans to tell them the area belongs to frogs first rather than hear it from frogs. As they planned a gnome appeared wearing a grey cloak covering his entire body but a black sphere logo on hid cloak's clasp.

The party knew the gnomes were watching them and previously they had backed down from annoying the black sphere so their assigned gnome monitors were sure this was the time to get the party working for them. The gnome said he is a moderate and just using the Black Sphere to eliminate slavers so wants to help the party. But also, he explained the foreign mercenary guild was here to research gun technology of the apocalypse they could use to conquer their homeland and unbalance the world. He handed them 5k of platinum ingots to destroy their labs, remove any blueprints and formula and kill their 3 research alchemists. the gnome offered more money and promised future help.

Arsh thought the gnome should not be followed. The Man With No Name thought the guild should be stopped and was willing to get to work. He made an illusion he was a mercenary grunt in uniform and scouted the Outpost. He found the lab, one in a tower and one in secret part of the dungeon. He brought in others in rat form through the sewers and they managed to blow the place up, stole the blueprints for a repeating carbine and .38 round cartridges but the wizards escaped for now.

The party in rat form also visited the Bullwark to spy on them also. Frog forces began to arrive and built a camp in the swamp. The party went into the swamp seeking contact with the swamp folks. The frogs would rather the humans saw for themselves what the local humans were like. Arsh the dog man druid did aerial recon as a bird. Saw a ruin with some well organised bandits, a shack and a huge tree stump house in a creekbed and the swap folk village.  The first shack was drug dealers trying to make refined marsh weed resin and oil and were from the Alchemist guild. The party told them they were in charge now and left the confused men. The Giant treestump was home to an old woman who liked Nebos the giant and wanted them to meet her son, a troll. Turned out she was a swamp hag and wanted he party to be her son's friends. She offered them magic items. They had some wrestles with the troll but Nebos at 10 foot tall was stronger. They were not thrilled but hung around for a while, then went to the village.

Swamp folk welcomed them to their community area under cover. They were very friendly and had a bard and lots of mutants. Their obese leader Papa welcomed them and offered the party his daughters to marry and houses. The party were not keen, and it became apparent Papa didn't want them to leave so a fight started. Papa was a devil swine and used his charm powers on Nebos which tied up other characters and the jester with his condition. The party were hastened and most had multiple actions so they slaughtered the guards' mutants. The man with no name slaughtered their bard in a gory mess, and every time they managed to free Nebos but the Devil swine charmed him again and again. Hordes of cultists were taken out with sleep and entangled and the lycanthrope hellish boar was killed. 

The village had pits and underground diggings of serpent folk ruins of chaos and demonology. The party had eliminated the likely charmed leaders of the village and brought in druids to run the place and stamp out chaos cults. The lawful devil swine had hijacked the chaos cult of some local evil spirits and slime gods imprisoned in a nearby mountain ruin. There were more swamp weierdos in the area, but the party were happy to have the frogs dominate the area.

The map of party territory has grown again.
There are wizards to hunt and kill.
New allies and new villages to get to know.
Lots of people now want the party dead.

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