Notable Folk for a Notable Land

Ultimately I think DBA is likely the best foundation for rules, and was a big DBA 2.2+ and WADBAG fan.....though something happened in the last year that seems to have killed both.  While this makes me sad, the show goes on.  I would note, that while wargaming focuses on the most static of times, basing games in our shared history, miniatures and rules seem so much like mayflies.  Sad, but onward.

For clarity I'm building a world leaning on Tolkien with a smidgen more magic.  Armies may be based on DBA but I expect we'll see some magic in the mix.

Rules based, the bigger issue is not the rules for the battle, but the rules for the world.  I will be rolling out the hexmap soon for the armies I have, but that part is easy.  What is not easy is the idea of solo proper.  There's two schools of thought for solo gaming:

• I'm building a world and I don't care who wins each battle I'm sold on both sides equally.  Sadly while this likely builds a better narrative in the log term, I'm curious to see what will happen to my little state of Noremgaarm. 
• You can figure out a system for programming the world and the foes, with random options for the foe based on their expected range of behavior.  This is a much more difficult way to build a legitimate foe, but likely the only option.  

So with this in mind I've created my core cast - six characters who shall serve as the basis for this first generation of events.  Each was generated randomly, with at most one stat swap each for narrative cohesion.  Each of them have a set of stats: 

• Health
• Combat
• Command (to avoid another C with Command) 
• Administration 
• Loyalty (to the current leader)
• Age - Only stat in reverse.  Higher score is older
• Diplomacy
• Skill - Riding, reading, anything not otherwise covered. 
• Magic - X is susceptable to it, while ✶✶✶ or ✶✶✶✶ may be able to cast. 

Each of these stats have a rating from X (zero, or incompetent) to ✶✶✶✶ (exceptional).  Of all stats 20% are X, 40% are ✶, 20% are ✶✶, with, for dramatic purposes, 10% are at ✶✶✶ and ✶✶✶✶.  I was slightly concerned when the first character I rolled up came up with only four total stars, but I chalked that up to him being the predecessor.

 And with no further ado-

Teos DornAthan -  Regent Captain of the Northern March - Unmarried, no heir

• Health -  ✶
• Combat - X
• Command - ✶✶ 
• Administration - ✶ 
• Loyalty - N/A 
• Age - ✶
• Diplomacy - ✶✶✶✶
• Skill - ✶✶
• Magic -X

 Vost PraeVist - Childhood friend of the Captain Regent and Commandant of the West

• Health - ✶✶✶ 
• Combat - ✶✶✶✶
• Command -  ✶
• Administration - X 
• Loyalty - ✶✶
• Age - ✶
• Diplomacy - ✶
• Skill - ✶✶✶
• Magic - ✶

Paraht DornAthan - Uncle to the Captain Regent, Commandant of the Center

• Health - ✶
• Combat - ✶
• Command - X 
• Administration - ✶ 
• Loyalty - X
• Age - ✶✶
• Diplomacy - X
• Skill - ✶
• Magic - ✶✶✶✶

Hegran Sworn - Leader of the Freesteads thrust in to leadership too young, Second to the Commandant of the East. 

• Health - ✶
• Combat - X
• Command - ✶✶  
• Administration - ✶  
• Loyalty -  ✶✶
• Age - X
• Diplomacy - X
• Skill - ✶
• Magic - X

Paet Dornborn - Adopted child of Paraht DornAthan, legal cousin of the Captain Regent

• Health - ✶
• Combat - X
• Command - ✶✶✶ 
• Administration -  ✶✶
• Loyalty - ✶
• Age - X
• Diplomacy - ✶✶
• Skill - X
• Magic - ✶✶

The Fourteenth Noremgaarmi Raeedmas - Independent religious judge of the faith, no name save his title. 

• Health - ✶
• Combat - X
• Command - X 
• Administration - ✶ 
• Loyalty - ✶✶
• Age - ✶✶
• Diplomacy - ✶✶✶
• Skill - ✶✶
• Magic - ✶

And while we're at it, let's bump into the neighbors, who we'll see in our first outing, the three of Firdyoc, neighboring barbarians with a curse of the Trohkborn.

  

Pyoroc the Sixth Firdyoc - Last upright earl of the Firdyoc, shares name and destiny with his people. 

• Health - ✶✶✶
• Combat - ✶
• Command -  X
• Administration - ✶✶ 
• Loyalty -N/A
• Age - ✶✶✶
• Diplomacy - ✶
• Skill - ✶
• Magic - ✶✶

Roakh Firdyoc Trohkmarked - Misshapen and short tempered heir

• Health - ✶✶✶
• Combat - ✶✶✶✶
• Command -  ✶
• Administration - ✶ 
• Loyalty - ✶✶✶✶
• Age - ✶
• Diplomacy - ✶
• Skill - X
• Magic - X

Dinaik the Hunt, semi-sacred killer of the crossroads

• Health - ✶ 
• Combat - ✶
• Command - ✶ 
• Administration - ✶ 
• Loyalty - X
• Age - X
• Diplomacy - ✶
• Skill - ✶✶✶
• Magic - ✶

Somewhere North...

It had been sixty years, give or take, since the barbarians cut the last of the roads to the empire.  The sea remained open, the unwashed hordes stayed fearful even of ocean fishing due to remonstrances of their blood marked priests and bleached wood effigies. The sea should have been a lifeline, and for a time it was, but before long, as the problems spread south, all that came were fat emissaries demanding obedience and gold, often from competing claimants to the Onyx Scepter and Torc.  So Norengaarm survived, limping from  border raids from the East each summer and the newest Resplendent Torc's Voice every winter coming to the Westharbor.  But Norengaarm did survive.

In the 804th year since the Paohlain first broke the Altar and replaced it with the Podium, Teos DornAthan sent his sigil ring, the ring that had in this form or another served as symbol of the First Marker of of the North.  He promised to send back emissaries' heads, and was forced to.  Now Regent Captain of the North, he claimed he would make his own king, and find a way for Noremgaarm to do more than survive.

*  *  *

Well, you can imagine my surprise when I discovered I'd last updated this in October 2015.  Well, mark it up to kids, commutes, and that thing called life.  That said, let me see what we can do to inject a little life into this.

It's been a while since I last had a game, but the mind keeps wandering.  So I look at my favorite of my DBA forces, my Patrician Romans and see if I can get a game in with them, if only with myself in a world of my own creation.  So let's see if I can create my own little polygot Dark Age Hyboria.