admiralvorkraft

My submission is up! Questions, comments, and critiques are welcome as always. http://wyrd-games.net/community/topic/104606-iron-quill-time-and-lies-almost-over/

Iron Quill - Time and Lies Ingredients; The Lovers, the Guild Quarter, a Broken Clock Words 1748 Almost Over She sits at the edge of the water watching small lizards dance. They send ripples across the pond. She think’s that they’re beautiful, shimmering iridescent in the emerald night. Here, alone in all of Malifaux, she feels safe. The lizards, imported from Earthside are harmless, no wide grinning mouths with rows of teeth, no subtle whispers pressing on her mind. Father would throw a fit, she thinks, but she feels more at home among the reeds than she ever has in his high towers, behind his walls of alien stone. She doesn’t jump at the rustling behind her. “Anne...” The man’s voice is husky, but he pitches it high as though he’s calming a nervous animal. “You’re late,” she says, trailing a hand through the murky water. In the depths eldritch minnows flash and flee like frightened stars. The lizards won’t eat them, or anything else, and replacements must be imported monthly at great personal expense. “I’m sorry, Shields…” “Your sergeant held you late for some reason, of course he did.” Anne still doesn’t look at him, “It has nothing to do with the flask in your coat, or the broken watch that you won’t let me have fixed.” “I’ll have the money soon. I’ll fix it, and we were pulling extra patrols thank you very much. Shields says there’s no room in the budget to hire more guards ‘till spring.” He sits beside her, and pulls off his heavy boots. His feet are long and hairy, much like the rest of him, and Anne can’t help but smile as he flexes his toes with a sigh of satisfaction. “He’s full of it. Da wouldn’t let the guards go wanting.” He’s much too paranoid for one thing… Anne relaxes, leaning into the finely spun wool of her lover’s uniform. “You should tell him to give you a rest Char.” Charles watches their reflection in the water. He looks a fine enough figure, in his long blue coat and red britches, he’s tall enough for an honor guard but his hair is too dark and wild. Anne is curled up next to him in a dress like Oxford in the summertime, floral explosions of vibrant blue and yellow, and around her neck is a brooch with two stones, one jet black, the other like bone burning with some inner light. That stone had activated the night her mother was dragged from her carriage during the winter riots when Anne was still a little girl and the winds of December brought bloodshed and cannibalism to holly decked streets. “I need the money, we need the money,” Charles says. “I have all the money we could possibly need,” Anne says, “As I’ve told you time and again…” “But…” “But nothing, so father doesn’t want me marrying some sweaty guardsman, so what?” “We’re not running away together, not in Malifaux.” It’s an argument Charles is tired of having, he tosses a stone into the pond, and the lizards begin to sing with voices like candle flames. “They don’t do that at home,” Anne says. “Sing?” Charles says. “No, their voices are silent until the cross the Breach. It’s magic, their song, it comes from somewhere far away or deep inside.” “It’s a pretty sort of magic,” Charles says, “If that’s what it is.” He kisses her on top of her head. “Most magic is,” Anne says, and she nestles back, into the crook of his arm. “Careful who hears you saying that.” “Who’s going to tell that I like magic? The lizards? You?” She laughs and tilts her head back, the moonlight nestles in the hollow of her throat and her lips are blush red. “Of course I’m not,” Charles runs his fingers through her hair and she shivers, inching closer to him, “Anne, I need… I’m serious. I save enough to buy a commission and we’re getting married, like we planned.” “But what if we didn’t have to wait? Sooner would be better, right?” Anne says. She’s staring up at him with wide, glassy eyes. “Sure.” “Tonight would be better.” “Anne, what…?” He tries to pull away but she’s wrapped tight around one of his arms. “Tonight would be better, right? Because you love me, you do, you love me no matter what.” her fingers are digging into his arm and he can feel her nails even through his heavy coat. “Of course I do, what’s going on?” “Just promise me, whatever happens…” “Whatever happens,” Charles says, “Mind, body, and soul. Like when we were kids.” There’s a moment of silence, even the lizards are still, and then Anne laughs. “Remember,” she says, “I would steal meat-pies from the kitchens?” “And we’d eat them together on the roof,” Charles finishes her thought. “I said you were too skinny to be a proper bodyguard.” “I was thirteen, I took it very hard.” He grins at her. “Now look at you, all filled out and handsome,” she knocks his cap off and musses his hair, “In your grown-up’s uniform.” “It’s what made you fall in love with me,” he says with a wry smile. “It’s not.” It’s Anne’s turn to pull away, and she looks out over the pond, distracted. “Anne, love… I was joking.” “It wasn’t funny.” Her voice is hollow, “I hate it, you know.” “The uniform?” “What the uniform means. I hate you walking the streets at night, I hate your long patrols. It’s dangerous.” “Five days out of six Shields has me walking the heart Guild quarter, because of my mom, because I grew up around you rich folk and can be trusted not to offend any potential donors… I’m probably the least at-risk Guard on the force.” Charles finishes talking and turns his head to spit into the reeds. His mother brought the family to Malifaux on a personal protection contract, now she runs a private security firm that provides specialized services to the Guild’s wealthiest paranoides. She hasn’t talked to him since he pinned on the badge, something about competing with the family business. “No one is safe,” Anne says, “There’s a storm coming that doesn’t care about walls, or guards, or guns. A storm carried on the wind like breath, seeping through the smallest cracks to freeze you in your sleep. You can’t fight it, I can’t… The only way is to run, and soon.” Her voice sounds as though it’s coming from a long ways off, hollow, echoing from the mountains. “Anne, what are you saying?” Charles feels his hairs stand on end. “We don’t have time for you to buy a commission, or save away money. It’s coming, we need to run.” “What’s coming, what are you talking about?” He wrenches himself free and stands upright. “Don’t you see, they’re already here.” “Who’s already here? Where? What do they want?” He swallows back the panic that threatens to engulf him, “Tell me what you’re talking about and I can tell Shields. Or, hell, mother. I can make it to a station in seven minutes, I can have a hundred men mobilized in ten.” Anne crumples to the ground as he’s talking, and he stoops to pick her up, “Just tell me, please, where they need to go.” “It’s too late.” Anne says, weeping, “It’s already done.” “How, what…?” “They found me months ago, riding on a breath of ice. Everything they needed I gave to them, keys, code words, the timing of the guard rotations.” “Why?” “You. They promised me, they promised they would pass you by.” “And you believed them?” Anne doesn’t answer, she’s shaking so hard he fears she’ll fall apart. “That’s why it doesn’t matter,” she says, “About the money. It just matters that you…” Her head snaps up and she fixes him with blackly burning eyes, “You said, you promised, no matter what happens...” “I did.” The voice comes from somewhere deep inside him. “And do you…” “I do.” His mouth is dry as he gathers her into his arms. The first explosions light up the night like a fireworks show. He doesn’t even bother putting his boots back on. Charles tracks the blasts, it’s reflex, trying to guess the homes being hit. It’s no one too high up, no one in the Guild inner circle. It’s all the second ring homes, the successful merchants, the bankers. The sorts of people that hire his mother. He closes his eyes and he can see blasts tearing through tiled roofs, obliterating courtyards in showers of stained glass. Now the screams are starting. Not the authoritative shouts of Guards organizing an evacuation or bucket brigade, but cries of pain and panic. Battlefield cries. He tries not to imagine how many of his brothers are out there, freezing to black on bloodsoaked cobblestones. “What happens now?” Charles says. “We wait. They won’t come here. Once it’s done we’ll be able to leave, start a new life. Together.” Anne won’t look at him. “How do you know they won’t… They promised. Whoever they are you told them you would be here and they promised not to…” He pulls away, drawing his sword. The lizards start up again, singing the only funeral dirge these people will ever get. Their song gets slower as the air gets colder, and the sound of the last explosions rolls away. Charles stands at the ready, with his back to the water, eyes probing the darkness. His fingers are already growing numb around the cold hilt of his sword. After long minutes no one comes, but the air is freezing, hoarfrost creeps along the blade of his sword and his breath clouds in front of his face, catching on his beard and mustache and freezing in splintered tendrils. At last Anne stands up. Her skin glows pink in light of the distant fires, even barefoot she doesn’t seem to mind the cold. As she walks toward him Charles tries to move, but he’s rooted to the spot, he can feel his eyes grow wide. He concentrates on his left hand, moving by inches. She knocks the sword from his unfeeling hand and wraps her arms around his neck. “It’s done,” she whispers, as the second stone on her necklace flares to life, “I’m sorry about all this, let’s go.” His vision is fading at the edges as he whispers, “Me too,” and wills his fist to close. He doesn’t hear the pistol shot, but there’s something warm drenching his arms, his front, as the two lovers sink to the ground. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for reading! Questions, comments, critiques are more than welcome.

Seems like a four player pile-up might not be the best place to test drive a new master, especially one as odd as Colette. It sounds fun though, and it sounds like you managed to take away lessons from the game that will absolutely apply to a regular match. I hope you let us know how it goes.

I'll be submitting something. I have no idea what yet, but there will be something.

I actually ordered the rulebook from Tempest, apparently the community there died out around the edition change. I always forget that Critical Hit exists, I'll give them a shot! And if I ever find myself in Des Moines, you bet I'll stop in. Mayhem Comics, is it?

That is what I figured.

True, and that's the reading that I had been going with. I just wanted to make sure that the original target still takes that damage, even though it's no longer "within the blast."

Apologies for the threadomancy, but this seemed like the place to ask. Lets say that Sonnia wants to throw out some damage from behind her favorite wall. She does the natural thing and has her totem poke Burning onto a Witchling Stalker and the sacrificial Witchling runs forward. Sonnia targets the Witchling and scores severe damage, and uses pyrokinesis to place the blasts so that none of them are in base contact with the Witchling. The way I've been playing it, the Witchling still takes the 5 damage, but I realized today that the wording of the blasts section in the rulebook states that models touched by the blast markers take damage, which could be read to imply that the Witchling wouldn't take damage from the action. Have I been playing this wrong? Or am I going mad with power now?

Eh, I can definitely tell where I had to finish up before running to rehearsal, but if you can't then I'm happy! Glad you enjoyed it

Agreed with the Brewmaster, next round I'll have to make the time to do this thing properly!

Nikko Andass, First off, I love your language. You walk that fine line between poetic and purple and I ate it up. If your story had ended with the Wastrel going down and then a short denouement I think I would have liked it more. Having him hook up with the whole McCabe crew seemed rushed and unnecessary, and it gave me a kind of, "yeah, right" moment. That's the only critique I can muster though, and I only mention it because I loved the first three quarters of this piece so much. Thanks for sharing!

Glad you liked the line, sorry it went downhill from there Between work and (finally) finishing my Bachelors my personal writing has been stuck on the back burner.

Best guess, at this point, 3 Oxfordian Mages. That's based on the Warding Runes upgrade being Henchman or Ironsides, but they also have straight up excellent synergy.

I toyed around a bit more with Lucius and had all of my minions massacred over and over again. So I switched to Ironsides for a game and got tabled by Pandora, but at least I made her work for it. Yesterday I played a game with Lucas McCabe and it was great, I lost 8-9 but that was off of bad scheme selection and one missed move. I've got an old McMourning kicking around so I'm probably going to give his Guild incarnation a shot next, and then maybe come back to Lucius when I have patience for him again. Proxying some new masters is a really great way to force me to change how I think about the game, and remember why I love it. It is frustrating to have to keep referring to the cards, but on balance it's totally worth it.

...And it's up. Maybe subject to changes depending on my levels of time and energy. Comments, critiques, etc. are always welcome.

Factory Girls By: AdmiralVorkraft Ingredients: All - more or less 1728 words “Thank god!” The guard snapped to attention as she saw the exorcist coming around the corner. “God is dead,” the exorcist said, knocking ash from the end of his cigarette, “Thank the Judge.” He was a man made to walk out of a bloody sun in the opening pages of some pulp novel. His symbol of office was a formality, his look told her everything that she needed to know. The exorcist’s long coat was dusk blue and bloodstained, with charms and wards hanging from the polished brass buttons. He carried his sanctified cross-bow slung across his broad shoulders and the weapon gleamed, purest ebony inlaid with silver. “What have we got?” His voice was mountainous and the guard could do nothing but stare at him for a long beat. He waited, he was used to the effect he had on people. “Uh, spirits. I think. Ghost.” The guard closed her eyes and stood up straight, by god I can be a professional too. “Routine patrols early this morning made contact with what they thought was an arcanist spy scoping out the factory. These were private guards, but Guild sanctioned. They sent a runner to the dispatch station across the river to keep us apprised of the situation. He was the lucky one. “The other three gave chase. Their bodies were discovered in the coal yard as the second shift came on duty. We were called in to retrieve them. Dr. McMourning conducted the autopsies just over an hour ago.” “I saw the results, drowned.” The exorcist said, “What did you see?” “Well the bodies weren’t wet or anything, looked more peaceful than any victim I’ve ever seen, thought they were sleeping. Sergeant went first, Maston, serial…” “I don’t care.” He cut her off, “Tell me what happened.” “When he got up near the first body he started talking to something that we couldn’t see. ‘I want to help you,’ he was saying, ‘It will be okay.’ He started to take off his jacket and offer it to…” She couldn’t bring herself to describe the way he held it out, or how it felt to watch slim shoulders fill out the jacket only to have it drop to the ground as soon as Maston let go. “And then he started convulsing,” She did her best to keep her tone neutral, “and clawing at his throat. And then he looked up, tender, like someone lifted his chin, to kiss him maybe, and then he collapsed completely.” “What kind of factory is this?” The exorcist asked. The guard fingered the sleeve of her uniform jacket, “Wool, spinning and dyeing the raw yarn. Big, automated looms. They’ve had more accidents lately, soulstone blow-out, incomplete or mis-ordered card stacks, there were rumors of a haunting even before today.” “They aren’t rumors.” The exorcist said. “I guess not.” The guard said, “Do you know what this is?” “Did a worker die recently? They would have been a woman, most likely with child.” “Yes, well, I don’t know that she was pregnant, but that was one of the first things we asked the foreman. She was a programmer, trying to retrieve a stuck data card on loom 17, somehow the machine came on. She bled out in less than a minute.” The guard shuddered, “They’ve been calling that the ghost’s first kill.” “Idiots.” The exorcist said, “The spirit can drown men on dry land, why would she need to use a loom?” “I don’t know…” “Of course you don’t. The programmer is the ghost. Ten gets you a hundred that there’s scrap from loom 17 in the coal yard.” “You’ve seen this before?” Maybe I’ll get out of this alive after all. The guard thought. “Of course.” “So what do we do?” She asked. “Kill it.” The exorcist swung his massive crossbow into both hands and drew back the clockwork firing mechanism. “We can sanctify bullets, but any exorcist worth their salt uses a crossbow, do you know why?” “No.” “With a gun there’s margin for error, with a gun there’s another bullet, another chamber. You know that. It makes you sloppy. With a crossbow you have to hit the first time and make it count, so you do.” He slid a bolt into place. It was black and silver, the same as the bow, inscribed with prayers for guidance and grace. “Lets go.” “Where to?” “To meet our destiny’s.” The exorcist said, “The coal yard.” He added after a beat. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the sickly dimming of the Malifaux evening the guard led the exorcist through the abandoned factory. Even though she’d ordered the evacuation herself it felt wrong somehow, the machines had been built to run constantly and now there wasn’t a tick or hum to be heard. The buzz of creation had stopped. The high windows allowed only faint streaks of light into the factory, shadowing the cavernous looms and catching eerie halos of dust motes. Somewhere in the dimness they heard a weeping. The exorcist shot out a hand and grabbed her shoulder. “Freeze.” He hissed. She didn’t need the warning. “You didn’t tell me she was a walker.” “I didn’t know.” She can barely whisper. “What do we do now?” “Same plan. Only now we can let her come to us.” Turning to the nearest loom he grabbed a lever and pulled it. The soulstone begins to glow faintly white and a stack of thousands of data cards begin to feed themselves into the machine. “What are you doing?” “I’m making her angry.” The exorcist was on the balls of his feet, his eyes probed the darkness, bow ready. The guard drew her refurbished pistol and held it in both hands, pointed at the ground but cocked and ready to fire. When the ghost appeared she forgot about the gun. She was naked from the waist up, skinny and translucent, her legs and right arm faded away into red mist and everything near her seemed drawn in by it. She was weeping openly and searching, under the machines, up in the rafters, behind specks of dust. “Help me, help me find them.” She repeated, and repeated, and repeated. “Do you see her?” The exorcist asked the guard. “Yes.” “Where.” The guard pointed. The exorcist smiled grimly and raised his crossbow, “By the power invested in me by the Governor-General of Malifaux, the Judge, and Lady Justice, by the flames of the pit and the fire in my throat be BANISHED!” He stepped back as he raised the crossbow, widening his firing stance. His coat flared out behind him and he fired. Three feet to the left of the spirit. “No,” the guard said, “There!” Pointing again at the weeping woman. The exorcist blinked and dropped his aim, reaching for another bolt. A ripping sound cuts the air, and the exorcist jerks back, his coat caught in the machine. “No, no, no…” The spirit screamed, diving towards the exorcist. The exorcist dropped his bow, struggling to free himself before being drawn into the flashing blades and needles, the crushing gears of the machine. The spirit lashed out at him with her good arm and tried to tear his coat free. “Back spirit!” He cried, and reached for his symbol of office, the heavy lead baton that hung at his side. The spirit ignored him, tugging on the coat, but she only could interact loosely with the world and her half-strength was no match for the hungry machine. The exorcist got his hand on the baton as he started to choke, and he began his swing. The guard’s pistol was old and worn, smooth bored, with a long barrel. It barked once and the bullet bit into the exorcist’s shoulder. The spirit darted back with a cry of fear and despair and the exorcist, bleeding and in pain, couldn’t stop himself being broken by the machine. “Why?” The spirit asked the guard. “He was going to kill you.” She replied. “Then I would have died.” “But you were trying to help him.” The guard said. “Yes.” The spirit’s voice filled the dead factory. “And that’s not fair, that he would kill you…” The guard said, “Unless, do you want to die?” “No,” the spirit said, “But very few things are fair in life. Or death.” “You can’t stay here.” The guard said. “I know. I don’t know where to go.” “Anywhere you want.” The guard said, “There’s nothing holding you here, is there?” “No…” She shook her head, her hair was short and neatly kept, but one rogue curl bounced free and she brushed it away from her face, “I feel like a loom with a short stack of cards, I’ve run out of things to do and I’m just running, gears grinding, destroying myself and everything around me.” “But you’re not a loom, are you? You’re a… you. And you can choose what to do with your life now.” “Such as it is. I can’t help anyone, I can’t even touch them. And my codes… I can’t punch cards or program anymore. I can’t shovel coal to warm the building, I can’t set or clear the looms… No, no, no, no, no…” The guard began to walk towards her, biting back the tears that she feels beginning to well up, threatening to spill and drown her. “You’re going to die, I’m going to kill you.” The spirit protested. “If that’s your choice, then I’ll die.” The guard said. It already felt harder to breath, her limbs felt heavy and cold. “Please, don’t…” “Then let me live.” The words took the last of the guards breath, she could feel herself dragging down. She closed her eyes and pushed forward, and felt her arms wrap around the small shoulders of the spirit-woman. She is warmer than I expected. The guard felt tears on the back of her neck, and air rushing into her lungs. She opened her eyes in time to see the spirit mouth the words, “Thank you.” As she faded away. High in the darkness of the rafters of the factory a metallic bird perched, its one eye blinking redly. It had seen many things in its years of service, but never something like this. It would have to report back to its masters. It would be nice, they would tell it how everything made sense and nothing ever changed.

If I write a sequel, I'm sure things won't go as smoothly... I'm glad you liked it!

Hmm... I could see it either way. And either way I've been running it wrong, just one of many abilities I've forgotten sub-clauses of. Ah well, it's still a great way to make a single threat just go away.

I'll second 4thstringer. Show ya the door might be my favorite push in the game for it's sheer flexibility. Throw two models six inches with no ill effects? Run a doppleganger half way across the board late game? Drag Izamu into a corner where he can spend the rest of the game mucking about in severe terrain? Fantastic. That being said, he will probably kill nothing and die relatively quickly. He reliably scores me 2-3 points when FFM is in the scheme pool though... I've not used Tannen effectively with Lucius though, how do you get him to work?

Ten Thunderer Brothers become absolute beasts with Lynch. Hang onto an ace of rams and you can discard it to gain defensive, cheat it for dance of heavens to draw a card, then discard the ace and it comes back to your hand. Nothing like a bunch of SS 5 models rocking DF 7 and frontloading your hand, plus providing buffer activations, to annoy the hell out of your opponent.

Duly noted. "Make sure your opponent is playing by the rules." Is probably a decent tactic as well...

I'm honestly not sure, 10 Thunderers as a faction haven't really caught my eye, so I just took it on faith that there was some upgrade that allowed it. I'll glance through the book. The upgrade is Smoke and Shadows, the action is Shadow Stride. He wasn't flipping any cards for it though, so that might have been part of my problem. Just reread it, and it specifies minions. This is what we get for playing too much proxy-faux.

I'm pumped! Great ingredients across the board.

In a completely unrelated side-note; the Guardian is Relentless, does that mean that any time Lucius walks within 18" of it I can Commanding Presence it for free? Or does it mean that it can't be targeted because it can't take the horror duel?

I played another game with my core Lucius list today; 50ss Lucius - 7ss Surprisingly Loyal Secret Objectives Mr. Graves Doppleganger - Useless Duplications 2x Guild Rifleman Guard Sergeant Guild Lawyer Performer I was up against a Misaki list that basically buried everything turn one and popped up engaged with me at the bottom of the turn. The strategy was Reconnoiter, both my opponent and I took Assassinate and Frame for Murder. On my first turn I spread out, took defensive stances with a handful of things, threw down some Scheme markers for Lucius to play with, and killed the one enemy model my Rifleman could draw a bead on - a poorly deployed Hans (though not before he killed my other rifleman, and knocked a few wounds off the performer). Misaki covered the whole board in the last activation of the turn and everything unburied off of her. Turn 2 I cheated a 10 for initiative, he spent the stone and flipped an 11. Yamaziko had unburied right next to Lucius, hit him with Master Tactician (even though I discarded for Highest Authority), and proceeded to drain my hand, then she attacked once and braced her Yari. I activated Graves to stop Ototo getting involved with Lucius, Ototo killed Graves scoring me full points for FFM, I tried to pull my remaining Rifleman out of combat with my Performer, Mizaki charged Lucius and offed him to score Assassinate in full. I ran my Doppleganger off into a corner to score Reconnoiter. The rest of the game was a shuffle in the center as his Oiran slowly overwhelmed my Lawyer, Sgt. and Rifleman. He scored twice for the strat on 4 and 5 ending the game at 5-4. I was well set-up to receive a charge, but the charge never came. If I'd gotten luckier with the initiative I could have gotten something to happen, since my control hand was quite good. Spreading out definitely helped me to keep from getting locked down quite so easily, and having FFM in the scheme pool helped keep me from getting completely behind on points. The doppleganger can be quite survivable so long as your opponent doesn't go for a mixed arms approach, and Graves is a fantastic candidate for FFM. Comments? Critiques? I know the list I was up against wasn't technically a slingshot, but it had a similar sort of fast engagement plan. Also, thank you Omenbringer for confirming that the problems I've been running into around countering the move aren't mine alone. Putting more defensive buffs into play will definitely be a Thing. Hopefully when the guild constructs come out in plastic they look less awful (I'm looking at you Guardian, Warden).