Faction Leaders

The Empire
Emperor Locke Nosc Rohan
Lvl 10 Vampire Fighter (Ranger) perpetually Age 29 (chronologically 53)
Better known as Emperor Rohan, the fearsome former adventurer is relegated often to his palace because of his vampirism. Nevertheless, he still stalks prey and has lost not a whit of his killer instinct. This gives him a fearsome aura which adds intimidation to his skills as a master manipulator in diplomacy.
In MetaWarGame, Emperor Rohan can be used to grant a bonus to Rep

The Explorers' Corps
General Michael Cunningham
Lvl 8 Human Fighter Age 53
Appointed by Rohan to lead his explorers, the former knight of Dale was given by Vessa a loyal black feldragon, which makes him a fearsome sight on the battlefield.
In MetaWarGame, General Cunningham can grant a bonus to Mgt

The Halfhill Regime
Lord Ferdinand
Lvl 9 Human Paladin (Vessa) Age 51
The paladin of Vessa has an evil vision: he sees many possibilities of what could be. Of mercenaries, he saw an army, of the halflings, a workforce, of Halfhill, an industrial city-state. Ferdinand has nearly enslaved the halfling city, and brought forth untold wonders of industry, many of his own ingenious design.
In MetaWarGame, Lord Ferinand can grant a bonus to Res

The Halfhill Resistance
Commander Abram Burrowdale
Lvl 10 Halfling Fighter Age 48
The guerilla captain of the Halfhill resistance grew up a poor bandit in Marsheville. Taken in by the military, he served in the early days of the Empire before defecting due to disagreements with the imperial zeitgeist. Thinking to remove himself from Rohan’s Empire, he retired to Halfhill, only to find a cause that dearly needed his experience. He has taken his training home and carefully gathered a rebellion as the walls have risen around Halfhill and now leads covert bands to bring down Ferdinand.

In MetaWarGame, Commander Burrowdale can grant a bonus to Rec

The Diebenstadt

Guildmaster Bertram Geiger
 Lvl 10 Human Thief Age 45
The master of the city of thieves had a vision as a young man: to draw together all Riverstadt’s myriad gangs under one roof for the benefit of all whose ambitions were held back by the law. A master diplomat, Geiger tentatively attained this vision, and though the trials have been many, this day he sits atop the Throne of the Undercity, above a counsel of crime family Godfathers and psychotic gang leaders, and with his silver tongue directs them all.

In MetaWarGame, Guildmaster Geiger can grant a bonus to Rep

The Hexenshard

Archmage Kedra Shultz
Lvl 11 Human Magic User Age 30
The daughter of the previous archmage, Kedra was a child prodigy of the Hexenshard. By her late teens, she had acquired skills many would not achieve until late in their lives. Now, though half the age of most members, the young genius leads the Hexenshard from her fathers’ manse outside Sudenport, scrying on the goings-on in the faraway Empire and waiting patiently to achieve her ends.

In MetaWarGame, Archmage Shultz can grant a bonus to Res

The Adventurers' Guild

Guildmaster Aaron Maas
Lvl 11 Human Fighter Age 41
As a young man, Aaron Maas ventured deep into the Great Forest and did not return for nearly a decade. It is said a different man returned from that forest than entered it, some believe he was taken by spirits, others that he fought so ruthlessly for survival as to have become something less than human. His gaunt features and sunken dead eyes certainly do not contradict this. Nonetheless, he returned to save the Adventurers’ Guild, which had floundered under the weight of Imperial restrictions. An avid freedom fighter, even in the middle of his life, Maas can be a cold strategist or a berserk warrior, and this combination makes him one of the most effective hands-on leaders in Hommund

In MetaWarGame, Guildmaster Maas can grant a bonus to Rec

The Weisekirk

Archbishop Marissa Leon
Lvl 10 Human Cleric Age 56
An orphan raised by the church, Marissa joined the Order of Clerics and quickly ascended the ranks, vetted by countless field missions, and spent years training new Clerics. By the time the Archbishop died, she had proven herself his most trusted aide, and her fellow clergymen knew that Weirdunn wished her to lead them. Though aged, Marissa’s roots have not left her, and she is still a warrior at heart. Restrictions of the church keep her from frequent military engagement, but as a general, she has a fearsome fire that inspires troops.

In MetaWarGame, Archbishop Marissa can grant a bonus to Mgt

For MetaWarGame, all leaders will begin the game in the faction's headquarters.

MetaWarGame Player Map

Just a utility post, folks.

For those involved in the MetaWarGame, here is your map:

I recommend printing it out so you can mark it up, since some of you know information about locations and bases, etc, and others may learn more. Also, those that choose to send out exploration bands will want to fill in blank hexes.

Hommund 99 - Session 2

                The day is the Eighth of Winter, the year 99 PB (Post Bellum)

                Having packed the requisite supplies and convinced their companions Leia and Inigo to join them, the intrepid party bids farewell to Mesa. Goodbyes are said to parents, and Alvaro gives his son Inigo his Guards’ Shortsword, in exchange for the promise that he will be safe.

                The group descends into the cold winter desert: Clause, Inigo, Leia, Adam, Roderick, and Leia’s hanger-on Eko. The meet the exiled cleric Ulrich on the lift and agree to travel together. By the end of the first day they reach the snowy mountains to the north of the desert and set up camp.

                Unprepared for the bitter cold, members of the party begin to succumb to illness, which only worsens in the three day journey through the mountains. The group manages to avoid confrontation with a small pack of wolves, and they scrape by on the meager rations they have. Out of the mountains, they are forced to camp through a snowstorm until morning when they can see the trade post town of Hanbei.

                The group, short on cash, spends what they can afford on warm beds for Adam, Roderick, and Ulrich, those most shaken by illness, and the rest of the party sleeps on the floor. Since their thief is too sick to steal more coin, they buy a few winter coats where they can.

                Ulrich, once up and moving, spots a group of prostitutes in the town, and takes it upon himself to shame them on behalf of the church. Finding their counter-argument surprisingly convincing, he turns to soliciting services, but doesn’t have enough money. Ashamed and discouraged, before leaving he reaches out for a full two-hand grope and finds, after the initial shock, a knife slipped between his ribs. In shocked anger, he draws his halberd as the courtesan shouts for her companions. As the other girls round the corner, Ulrich’s polearm falls and slices halfway through the woman’s neck. She falls, gasping, to the snow and dies. Her backup stands, shocked, before the priest frantically brandishing his weapon. Ulrich fails to notices the soft steps behind him, and when the garrote seizes his neck he falls, choked, and is dragged into the wagon.

                Inigo sees Ulrich dragged into the cart and rushes to see the courtesans, who deny knowledge. But Inigo clearly knows what happened. “Look, can I at least get a finger or something?”. The girl disappears for a moment into the wagon and returns to drop something into Inigo’s open palm. The Halfling quickly pulls back and kicks snow over Ulrich’s severed member. Eyes wide, he turns and tells the party that they have lost Ulrich. Later Clause, who has been hiding out in the inn, goes out into the cold to intimidate the prostitutes into returning Ulrich’s belonging to the party. Inigo leaves some coin behind as a sort of karmic recompense.

                Looking for work to be able to afford to leave, the group encounters a small band of gang members. Anti-imperials, they plan to attack the caravan that has just arrived for supplies, and which is headed out to the Border Fort with a load of rations. The party, though some are still recovering from illness, decides to help, and they formulate a plan. The robbery is to occur on the third day the party has been in town.

                The party and thieves station three groups of archers along the street, one for each group of three guards around the caravan (the thieves have assessed that there are twelve guards total, so more are likely on break). Another thief waits to give the signal to the thieves’ wagon, which will circle and pick up the group in the event that things take a turn for the worse. An unfortunate situation complicates this, though: with heavy snow, some archers have been forced to remain behind to dig out the cart and part of a path, and help will surely come slowly when it does.

                Inigo volunteers to sneak into the midst of the carts once the guards are distracted, to set fire to them and then run. The archers are meant to shoot to provoke the guards into giving chase. In their heavy armor, the caravan guards will be unable to pursue.

                As an alternate plan, the group first sends the prostitutes to solicit the guards, but the imperial men are steadfast, and the women walk away unsuccessful. The archers share their cue, and open fire.

                As planned, the guards rush to attack the bowmen, and Inigo, waiting for them to run further, launches his own arrows.

                When the guards gain ground, the thieves turn to flee as per the plan, but the adventurers decide to hold their ground and fight. Inigo, realizing he may have less time than he thought, runs at full speed into the midst of the caravan.

                The guards take their first swings, and the adventurers too. Some thieves continue to flee, but most, seeing their companions in trouble, stop to continue shooting. Inigo, arriving swiftly among the wagons, realizes the mistake of his speed: the other three guards are sitting in one of the wagons, and he has run nearly straight into them. They draw their weapons and step down into the snow.

                Things are clearly taking a turn for the worse. Guards knock down Eko and Adam quickly. Clause follows after felling a pair of guards. A valiant thief holds off an imperial man long enough for Leia to stabilize Adam. In the midst of the melee, Inigo takes a blow to the leg and falls to his knees, the next swing cleaves his jaw off into the snow. Grasping his mangled face, Inigo gasps as blood runs over his open hand. Everything begins to go dim as he falls for the last time.

                Eko’s dogs rush to save Inigo, unaware that they are dragging a corpse. One of the band of thieves rushes in to grab Inigo’s torch and lights a wagon, dodging the swords of the other guards.

                Soon Leia too falls, and the thieves’ cart is arriving in the distance. Arrows and blades have by this time slain numerous guards and thieves alike. Roderick makes a run for the bandits’ wagon. The thief in the center manages to set all four wagons ablaze before he is slain.

                When the wagon arrives, it is only in time to drop off men to give aid to the fallen. By the time the conflict ends, Inigo, four thieves, and ten guards are dead, and the imperial wagons all ablaze. The dead are gathered and the wagon quickly leaves town. All the adventurers besides Roderick (who avoided the bulk of combat) are unconscious with grave wounds.

                Over the next ten days, the party regains consciousness one-by-one, and find that they have been nursed to health in a gang hideout in Riverstadt, and that their companion and brother is dead.

                The day is the 25^th of Winter, 99PB.

RIP

MetaWarGame Draft 2

Faction Attributes:
Following (Fol) - Abstract number of units and amount of resources available for actions.
Speed (Spd) - Initiative Order

Might (Mgt) - Multiplier die for military efforts
Recon (Rec) - Multiplier die for covert tasks
Resourcefulness (Res) - Multiplier die for research and innovation
Reputation (Rep) - Multiplier for diplomatic endeavors



Faction Actions:
Contested rolls are written as attacker vs defender.
Fol represents the resources assigned to a particular task.
Actions marked with a * need not be completed in a single attempt. If an attempt to recruit yields a number less than 1 (a decimal), you may keep this number and add it to a later attempt to recruit. Research bonuses may be added together and used at once, so that decimals may likewise be added.

Move - Transport units up to 4 hexes (24 miles) per day. For each day of travel without stopping at a base, troops incur a cumulative -1 penalty to combat rolls.
Attack - Fol x Mgt vs. Fol x Might (+Fort)
Spy - Fol x Rec vs Fol x Rec (+Fort) where the defender's Fol is the number of units in a base.
Spying takes travel times+1d4 days.
A failure by 5 or less indicates that the spies have been spotted, and fled without finding information.
Failure by more than 5 indicates that 1d4 quarters of the Fol has been lost, and defender can make a roll (Fol x Rec vs Fol x Rec; where your following is what remains after loss) to interrogate the spy and gain information as a normal spying attempt, without risk of loss.
Research* - Assign a number of Fol and an area of research (Mgt, Rec, Res, Rep, Spd)
Assigned Fol is occupied for Res/Fol x1d10 days.
When complete, research grants a Res x Fol/10 bonus that can be applied to a roll in the chosen area at any time.
Once a research bonus is used, all factions who are aware of its use roll Res and subtract from 10. This is the number of days for which the bonus may be used against them. Factions who learn of an unused research bonus through spying may make this roll as soon as they learn of the bonus.
Recruit* - Gain Fol x Rep/20 points of Rep
Build Base - Assign Fol for 1d10 days to build a base. The number of Fol you assigned is the Base's Fortification (Fort). You may fortify an existing base in this same way in 1d6 days.
Lie in Wait - Factions that take no action in a day go first in the next day. Multiple factions winning initiative this way go in order according to their initiative.

Secret Actions - Roll Rec and add as many points as you want. Subtract the number of points added to the Rec roll from your roll for the action you are trying to do secretly. The adjusted Rec roll will be subtracted from any Spy rolls to try to learn of your actions.

War
Thanks go to Noisms for bonuses and the general idea.
Bonuses to combat rolls.
+1 to troops stationed on higher ground
+1 if the battleground has been fortified (stakes, ditches, etc.)
+2 if the battleground has been strongly fortified (walls, towers, etc have been constructed)
+2 if surprising or ambushing
+1 for each battle won without disbanding, rearranging, reassigning this army (e.g.: the name of the Tenth Legion carries weight as long as it is the Tenth Legion, and not a different group of the same name)
The winner of a military conflict loses 1/4 the assigned Fol.
The loser of a military conflict loses 3/4 the assigned Fol.
The same goes for the Fort score of any bases involved.

Bases
A faction's Fol is distributed among its bases.
It is not necessary to have more than one base in a city.
Building a base is rather noticeable, and other factions with bases in the city are likely to know if a new base is being built.
If you do not have a base in an area where you are trying to act, you must move Fol to that location, taking travel time. The same goes if you do not have enough Fol to complete a given action.
An empty base (one where all Fol has been assigned to actions and moved elsewhere), if known to another faction, may be claimed while its occupants are away.
If all a faction's bases are destroyed, that faction loses half of its Fol (calculated after any losses from combat or any such attempts.

Faction Leaders
Some factions already have leaders, others have councils or generals who are unknown. I will post the known leaders here, and tell the rest of you in secret who leads your factions.
Leaders will each have an area of specialty. A leader is assumed most often to be overseeing the workings of the faction as a whole. Thus, a leader assigned to a specific task grants a +1 bonus to rolls with that task, at the cost of -1 to all the faction's other actions during the time of the chosen task. A leader assigned to assist in a task which is his/her area of expertise grants a +3 bonus to rolls, and the same penalty to other actions.
You must always know where your faction's leader is located. This location is often secret, but may be discovered by spies.
If a faction's leader is killed, the faction incurs a penalty of -5 to all rolls for 1d6 days until a new leader can be found, whereupon the penalty decreases by 1 point each day until it is 0.

Known Leaders:
Empire - Emperor Locke Nosc Rohan
Explorers' Corps - Captain Michael Cunningham
Weisekirk - Archbishop Marissa Leon
Halfhill Regime - Lord Ferdinand

MetaWarGame First Draft Rules

Large-scale faction war game, inspired by Slow War, taking place in the background of my campaign world. Here is my first draft of the rules, subject to change.

Each faction's ability to act is determined by the size of its Following (Fol). This encompasses the number of followers a faction has, as well as the resources available to it.

Factions take turns in order of Speed (Spd).

The other attributes of a faction are measured in dice. A faction with an average ability rolls 1d8 for a stat. The weakest stat is 1d4 and the strongest 1d12. The attributes are:

Might (Mgt) The military power of a faction.

Recon (Rec) The efficacy of covert units such as spies and code breakers who can bring in information.

Resourcefulness (Res) The quality of scientific/magical intelligences within a faction, in order to invent new technologies and strategies.

Reputation (Rep) The diplomatic face of a faction; how it is seen by the public.


Each day, the following options are available to players:

Move: Units may move 4 hexes (24 miles) each day. For each day of travel without rest at a base, the troops suffer a 1 point penalty to any combats they encounter.

Attack: Here's the first use of the core mechanic: Multiply the Following you have assigned to a combat by your faction's Might. The opponent also does this. If one army is in a base, that base's Fortification (detailed below) is subtracted from the roll of the army which is not in a base.
The winner of a military conflict loses 1/4 of the following spent in the attack; the loser loses 3/4 of spent following. The same goes for the Fortification score of any base involved.
Summary: Fol x Mgt (- Fort) vs. Fol x Mgt

Spy: Fol x Rec vs Fol x Fort. The defending Fol score is that of the Following present at the location where the spy is investigating. Spying may instead cover an area, requiring 1 Fol per observed hex. Finding specific information takes travel times plus 1d4 days.

Research: A faction may attempt to research new strategies and technologies. Choose the area (Might, Recon, Resourcefulness, Reputation) that you wish to research and allocate Fol. That following is occupied for Res/Fol x1d4 days in research. When research is complete, that faction receives a counter for Res x Fol/10 points to be added to a roll of that attribute at any time.

Recruit: Gain Fol x Rep/20 points of Fol

Build Base: Occupy a number of Fol for 1d10 days to build a base. The base has that number of Fol for Fortification (Fort). You may fortify an existing base this same way in 1d6 days.
If all a factions bases are destroyed, the faction loses half of its Following (after losses for battles, etc.)


This is how most actions will be resolved. Ask me if you want to do something not stated here. For instance if you wanted to attempt to move troops in secret:
Roll Rec and add as many points as you want to the roll. The number of points will be subtracted from combat rolls with that force (you are shrinking your army to try to not be noticed). The Rec number will be subtracted from Spying rolls to observe your movements.

Following is distributed among your bases. If you need more Fol in an area, you must move them at the normal rates. Followings in different locations being counted as one for purposes of a roll take 4x as long to accomplish a task.


I think that's everything. Please comment with questions, recommendations, critiques, etc. I expect to revise this.